Sherlock sniffs out 8.4m viewers for Christmas special

“I think Victorian London and all the sort of trappings of that era are endlessly fascinating”, says Cumberbatch in a behind-the-scenes video, which can be viewed below. “Then we’ve got to get on with the story”, Moffat said. But it was set in Victorian London, the 19th-century setting of the original detective series written by Arthur Conan Doyle. At last! It’s always special to return to Sherlock but this time it’s even more special as we’re doing… a Special! Let us know your take in the comments section below! We haven’t disappointed fans in the past it seems, so hopefully this won’t. “That’s all I think about everything I’ve ever done”. A lot more to come.

One viewer wrote: “At first I thought it was Sherlock gloriously free of the accumulated baggage”. We’ve run our spyglass over the evidence (and extrapolated a few theories from our personal mind palace) to draw the following conclusions…

It featured a drugged Sherlock trying to solve a mystery by fantasising about an investigation in the 1800s that left fans taking to Twitter to voice their frustration about not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.

The show kicked off with Holmes and John Watson (Martin Freeman) investigating the case of a bride who seemingly shot herself but returned from the dead to murder her husband. Also, it has given the world television’s most loved bromance between a brattishly arrogant yet undoubtedly brilliant Sherlock Holmes and the endearingly bumbling John Watson. “I’m very interested in both of those, but I’d rather not be sewing people up on a battlefield – hence becoming an actor”.

I won’t go into details on the episode, but I will share my opinion.

I will quite happily fight anyone who didn’t like that. For evidence of that, you really do not have to look any further than some of the ratings this weekend.

Well, great news – Benedict Cumberbatch has hinted that Sherlock will be hanging around for a long time yet.

Sherlock series 4 is expected to air in the next 18 months and we can’t wait.

“This is a man who’s an outsider, who’s intelligent, who doesn’t tolerate mediocrity, who is incredibly efficient, but also has his weaknesses and comeuppances”.

But a new special, “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride”, takes Cumberbatch and Freeman back in time to play Holmes and Watson in their native time period, late Victorian England.