After two years without any episodes, "Sherlock" is finally set to return with a special Victorian Era offering. On top of that, fans of the BBC series will get to watch this special play out in selected movie theaters in the United States, Steven Moffat, the showrunner, revealed to the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday.
Moffat said that the special is expected to air later this year in Britain, around Christmas time, according to Time Magazine, while it will be in American theaters by December, too.
The cult favorite's special will bring Sherlock and Watson back in time, in the 1800s, instead of its usual contemporary setting. The show's producers also released a photo of its two main stars, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, garbed in Victorian costumes.
Shut up everybody, shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. A new #Sherlock Special image has landed... pic.twitter.com/ZoCX8P4S9S
— BBC One (@BBCOne) July 8, 2015
"We discovered there was some precedent for doing Sherlock in the Victorian era," said Moffat via Entertainment Weekly. "When we first did Sherlock, press asked how can Sherlock possibly survive in world with an iPhone? And when doing the Victorian, the press came in and said how can he do this without his iPhone? [...] It's very much the show you know. It's the Sherlock as you know it, but in the correct era. It's one of the best ones we've made. I think it's really terrific."
The team behind "Sherlock" are thrilled about this special, particularly because it's set in the proper era of the original "Sherlock" stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. "It's one of the best ones we've made," Moffat said to the Comic-Con audience. The producer then unveiled a 90-minute teaser to "Sherlock," much to the delight of the crowd.
The clip, which you can watch below, features Holmes returning to his house on 221B Baker St. with his buddy Watson. He tells his landlady, "I hardly knew myself [when I would come home], Mrs. Watson. That's the trouble with dismembered country squires, they are notoriously difficult to schedule," after the woman remarks why he didn't tell her in advance that he was coming home.
Meanwhile, Sherlock's much-awaited fourth season still doesn't have a definitive schedule. But it is Moffat's hope that it will be enjoyed by fans sometime next year, according to Time Magazine. As always, three episodes are expected from season four. He is also mum about the possibility of Irene Adler, Sherlock's love interest, returning to the show. But he promised the upcoming season will be a "shattering emotionally draining you'll-never-be-the-same-again cliffhangers" and it will "sucker punch you into emotional devastation."
Watch the clip to the "Sherlock" special below.
