All the Sherlock News and Gossip You Need to Know

Sherlock has only been off the air for 4 months, but still, rumours and gossip have been filling the television columns. Some suggest that it will return as a feature-length film, and others say it will be back on our screens in 2015.

But what is the truth? We take you through all the latest Sherlock news out there, as well as a few bits of gossip, so you can get the most reliable stories, all in one place.

Sherlock will return as a regular series

After the end of series 3 in January, Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat said the BBC hadn’t formally commissioned a fourth series. That, of course, drew Sherlock superfans into a frenzy, and the silence from BBC heads just made the news all the more shocking and worrying.

Now, however, Mark Gatiss – the other creator of the series – has confirmed that they have been given the green light for a fourth series. Not too surprising, given the immense international popularity of the series.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that it will be a full series. Gatiss confirmed that doing another television series was “the plan”, adding “There was talk [of a single film, but] amongst people who have nothing to do with Sherlock, I’m afraid.”

The delay in shooting is because of jam-packed schedules

So we know that Sherlock will be back on TV, but how long will it take? Well, Moffat has confirmed that the fourth series plot has been planned. Moreover, they’ve worked out the plot points for a fifth series as well. So what’s the hold up?

Well, it’s everyone’s schedules. Benedict Cumberbatch is an international sex symbol and a hot property in Hollywood, so he is getting film after film offer. Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins in the epic Hobbit series, so he is committed to filming and promoting those films for the foreseeable future. And of course Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat have never worked on Sherlock alone. Gatiss continues to act in and write for other series, including working in his comedy troupe The League of Gentlemen. Moffat meanwhile keeps one hand on the keel of the Dr Who revival he has been responsible for.

Essentially, all four key people are keen to get together and finish what they started, but the success of the show has left them all too popular to be able to find time to film together. And if the past series are anything to go by, we may have to wait until 2016 for series four and 2018 for series five. After all, the other series have all come two years apart.

Benedict Cumberbatch was nearly not cast because he wasn’t sexy enough

Given the sheer amount of fan hysteria that surrounds Benedict Cumberbatch these days, it may seem hard to imagine that casting him in the lead role was a bit risky. At the time, he didn’t look like the traditional leading man, and that nearly put those in charge of programming off him.

Moffat admitted at the Hay Festival yesterday that Cumberbatch was not considered sexy enough to lead the hit show. But Moffat stood by his selection for Sherlock, and now, everyone agrees he is leading man material. That is one of the main reasons they haven’t been able to film series four, after all.

It’s not the first time Moffat has been asked to justify an unusual choice, he admitted. He compared fighting for Cumberbatch to his fight to cast David Tennant as Casanova. Then too he was asked to find someone more traditionally good looking. But when Moffat stood by his choice, he was soon justified when people saw the actor’s – both Tennant’s and Cumberbatch’s – charismatic portrayals.

Sherlock put ‘ship’ in the dictionary

If you’re like us, you probably associate the word ‘ship’ with the sea. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it can also mean the desire to see two people fall in love. And this definition has entered the dictionary because of Sherlock.

The Sherlock fans online generally have some opinion on who Sherlock should have a romantic relationship with. They express this by saying they “ship” Sherlock and whoever. It is an abbreviation of “relationship” which has been converted from a noun to a verb. The size of the Sherlock fandom means that this definition maintained widespread use very quickly, so the OED decided to include it in the dictionary in May – presumably to help all us old geezers figure out what the young ones are on about.

And how does the OED use “ship” in a sentence? In the most appropriate way imaginable, as it turns out. In the blog post announcing the inclusion, they use this sentence: ” I will always ship Sherlock and Molly.”