Steven Moffat on Sherlock: “Maybe the time for a longer gap is upon us”
Series creators Moffat and Mark Gatiss explain why we’ll be waiting a long time for more adventures with the super-sleuth
While it’s been over a year since the last episode of smash-hit BBC drama Sherlock, it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any more adventures for the super-sleuth and his sidekick Doctor Watson (played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman) any time soon, with everyone involved suggesting that any sort of return is likely to be a long time in the future.
And now, series co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have given us a more specific idea of how long we might have to wait – and the bad news is, it sounds like a VERY long time.
“Nobody has ever closed the door on Sherlock – we just say the same thing all the time and it gets quoted different ways,” Moffat told us at the Radio Times Covers Party, where he and members of the cast (including Louise Brealey and Sian Brooke) collected souvenir covers of Sherlock’s episodes from 2017.
“We haven’t got an immediate plan, but I would remain surprised, given the collective enthusiasm we have for it, if we didn’t do it again.
“When, I don’t know,” he continued. “I think maybe the time for a longer gap is upon us, I don’t know. A longer gap? They’re always long gaps!”
“We’re doing Dracula, which is going to take two years at least,” Gatiss added, explaining that the pair’s new upcoming project was one of many reasons for the series break.
“We’re not going to do Sherlock whilst we’re doing Dracula. So it’s not going to happen in the immediate future. Never say never, but no – we don’t have an idea [right now].”
“I could see us making more Sherlocks,” Moffat concluded. “I could see us making Sherlocks way in the future.
“It’s not the kind of show that has to come back all the time. It can revisit. Every time Sherlock comes back it’s a reunion show.”
So you never know – it’s just possible that before the heat death of the universe, we’ll see Benedict Cumberbatch don that Belstaff coat one more time.
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
