It’s been a decade since Sherlock took the world by storm and to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary, creators, Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss recently spoke to the Radio Times about the project.
No word was specifically made on whether there would be a Series 5 – personally, I highly doubt it: Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch is currently portraying Stephen Strange – Sorcerer Supreme in Doctor Strange, while his Watson, Martin Freeman is involved in the Captain America and Black Panther franchises as Everett K. Ross, and both seem quite happy to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the time being.
However, Moffat and Gatiss both said that if the show were ‘revived’, there were a number of stories that they would still like to tell. They mentioned a number of elements from Sherlock Holmes short-stories including The Red-Haired League and The Speckled Band, though neither of these ideas would really have anywhere to go, they reflected.
Where Moffat and Gatiss seemed to get really excited about were a few Holmes stories which had great set ups and poor payoffs.
“There’s a genre of Sherlock Holmes stories that starts brilliantly and obviously someone comes to the door and suggests to Sir Arthur that a game of golf is in the offing, and he just dashes an ending rather quickly. Five Orange Pips and The Engineers Thumb both fall foul of that. But they’ve got great beginnings!”
The pair commented that a lot of future adaptations, like those in the audiobooks, worked the endings out better, not making them quite as lacklustre as the original text.
Gatiss spoke about a story he would like to adapt, The Adventure of the Priory School:
“[T]here is a big climax in a set of caves, which is really good, but it gives the story an epic feel that he didn’t really have to begin with.”
The pair reiterated that there were no immediate plans to resurrect the show, but they both seemed happy to talk about the subject and it seems the pair have plans for the show to continue should people to be interested. Given how big Sherlock was, I don’t think it’ll be lacking the viewership; the two lead actors need to get involved now.
Until then, we’ll have to keep ourselves happy with their recent adaptation of Dracula, the first two episodes of which were some of the best horror television I’ve seen and as an avid-horror fan, that’s really saying something. And it seems this isn’t the last of the Moffat-Gatiss team-ups with the pair rumoured to be adapting another horror classic for television – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde.
