Please let it not be off-screen. That would be disappoining. I hope for a very dramatic version of 2. (Sounds mean, now that I wrote it down, but I think that would do the character most justice.) I want to cry when it happens.

I find option 1 and 3 very unlikely. 

Because everybody expects Mary to die, I've thought, what about her and John falling apart over something (I mean, they obviously have had a hard time already). Mary would live, but somewhere else far away, and be out of the story. John could then move back in with Sherlock, or not. And the child... well, I won't like it one bit, but in the above scenario, Mary could just take the little girl with her, and John would go there on weekend trips... and that's it. It's not elegant, but less predictable than killing of the child first thing in the new series.

Really, of all things, I don't get the baby. From the reactions here on the forum, nobody is keen on having Marys child around for the next series, also it wasn't exactly necessary to have a pregnant Mary for this series (I do think John would have cared about her alone just as much). So why have a pregnant Mary at all? It adds nothing to the story, imo, and therefore I just don't understand it.

I hope they do not go with the Mary ran off with the baby in order to protect it plot. It was done as the season 7 cliffhanger on the series Bones. I hope they come up with something original. With only 3 episodes per series, I do not wish to watch Sherlock and John running around to find them. Hasn't John already suffered enough angst? John would never give up looking for his child. I don't want my favorite show to take on soap opera styled tones.

I think Mary will redeem herself for shooting Sherlock by giving up her own life to save John.  Baby will be raised in the country by Sherlock's parents. John will visit when he isn't working or on a case.

I don't agree swanpride. In germany there are lots of soapy operas shown during afternoons dealing exactly with this, family stuff.
can stay at home for that.

Hera wrote:

I actually think it would be very interesting, although I have to admit that I can't see it working on the long run. But if anyone can do, it's Moffat and Gatiss. 

I agree, it might be interesting to see how Moffat and Gatiss could pull this off.
That said, I'm nevertheless very sceptical when it comes to that pregnancy and a baby and I'm not all that keen on seeing too much of that in S4. "Sherlock" just isn't what I would call a show about family stuff, at least not that kind of family stuff.
Sherlock and Mycroft are a completely different matter to me. Sherlock's parents, well, that was a nice, short interlude, but I would be totally fine if we didn't see them again in S4.
 

this is getting off topic, isn't it?
there are other threads discussing on who or what we would love to see in s4.
i'm torn: not too sure, if marys death will come at all. they built her up too much, amanda sitting in various interviews like a new lead, just doesn't feel likely for me to do so just to kill her off in the first 5 minutes. And listening to the cast interviews i don't have a feeling that amanda is too keen to step back again.
If she dies I also hope it will be in some heroic way. Dread the impact on john though...
Maybe tiny toddler watson will be called mary after his dead mother, so there will still be a mary and a sherlock looking after john for the rest of his life!
I'm not even into parentlock...

Swanpride wrote:

If they want to make the rest of the season about avanging Mary, they might..

No. I am prepared to wager folding money that Moftiss would jump off Tower Bridge together in preference to writing a season about avenging Mary. This is not 'The Mentalist' and they have no intention of destroying the show with something which looks like a worked over version of another show. Ditto Mary following them around shooting people she thinks might threaten them; Moftiss have completely ruled out that one, again because it would destroy the show.

I recognise that there is wonderful ensemble acting but in the end I come back to what Moffat said a while back; the amazing thing about this Sherlock is that they are young guys who have just met and do not realise that it's the start of a life long partnership with all those adventures ahead of them. A bit like Kirk and Spock but with no Warp Drive 

I love that, and I want to watch those adventures, but Mary isn't part of them. I think Moftiss know they have to get rid of her, and it's either death or she disappears into something like a witness protection scheme which Mycroft could arrange, though he might not want to...