There still hasn’t been any progress on getting fifth season of the BBC’s Sherlock made, but series co-creator Steven Moffat just gave the fandom another shot of hope, at least. In an interview with SFX, Moffat addressed recent comments by producer Sue Vertue, and his general hope that the show would be back one day. He even shared some idea of what it might look like.
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“I’d love to do it again,” Moffat said. “Look, it’s not a format that wears out. It’s over a hundred years old and going strong, so why aren’t we making more? Sue only said that because she was asked and suddenly it becomes an announcement about a film. There is no news here. We’re just fending off that question, as ever. We would happily do it again and I hope someday that we do. It seems perverse not to.”
Moffat was referring to Deadline‘s recent interview with Vertue, where she said: “We love that show and there is a future for it. One day. Maybe. If everyone wants to do it. I’ve still got the set in storage somewhere, which is probably rotten, to be honest with you. It’s just getting everybody aligned, it’s getting the actors to want to do it.”
As for Moffat, he reasoned that audience enthusiasm would eventually lead to a fifth season. He said: “You make enough shows in your lifetime that no one gives a flying one about, so it’s nice to have one that people are passionate about. It’s almost presumptuous, almost arrogant, not to do it again. But there are no hard plans, none at all.”
What would Sherlock Season 5 be About?
As for the actual content of a Sherlock revival, Moffat teased: “[We] actually do have an idea. The idea is basically go back and do it again — but slightly more specific than that… It would be nice to see them just a little bit older, because it was always very foregrounded in our version that they were younger, let alone the fact that they were updated. It’d be quite nice to see them at more of a Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke age, a bit more Rathbone and Bruce. I think that would be lovely. Now we can see the more famously middle-aged version.”
“There’s an audience waiting for it. It seems madness not to do it,” he concluded.”
Moffat co-created Sherlock with Mark Gatiss for the BBC. It premiered in 2010, and Season 4 aired in 2017. It starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. The show was set in a modern-day London, but other than that many of the important aspects of the Sherlock Holmes mythos were kept intact.
With so many more stories and novels to draw from, the show could go on for years. However, as Vertue pointed out, both Cumberbatch and Freeman have become A-list stars now, not to mention the other actors on the show. Getting them all back together for a production like this could be challenging.
For now, you can stream Sherlock in the U.S. on Hulu or Britbox. It is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.
