See behind the scenes on the Sherlock Victorian special: The Abominable Bride

Benedict Cumberbatch attends the “Black Mass” Virgin Atlantic Gala screening during the BFI London Film Festival, at Odeon Leicester Square on October 11, 2015 in London, England. This latest episode, written by show co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, works as a stand-alone (so don’t expect Andrew Scott’s Moriarty to pop up and ask us again if we’ve missed him, unless they go even more meta than this show sometimes dares), and plunges our heroes into a seemingly supernatural case that requires their skills to be at full power.

“I’m still enjoying it. We’ll see how the next series goes, but I’d love to keep ageing with him”. “I don’t think this is a phenomenon tied in with our success”.

When the idea for the upcoming feature length special “The Abominable Bride”, which comes an agonising two years following the last episode of season 3, to be set in 1895 was first pitched to Cumberbatch, he confessed that he was anxious about the direction the writers were taking and whether or not the fans would be accepting of this new turn of events.

Freeman, who also plays Bilbo Baggins in the “Hobbit” trilogy, was also unsure about the Victorian special because he needed to sport a mustache.

“Great fun to play, and I mean, great, great fun”, he said.

But have no fear, the modern day Sherlock will return and Benedict said he’s still “pretty determined” to make time in his packed schedule for the show. In an interview with Radio Times, Moffat said, “It’s a new story, but if you know the original stories, you’ll see that it’s fashioned out of quite a few others”. As ever with us, we have chosen several & there are a awesome deal of references. “One of them you have to be able to speak Chinese to get”.

The Abominable Bride will screen on January 1 on BBC One.