BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / These "series 4 is the last" rumours

**Posted by besleybean** October 17, 2016 7:18 pm

Sounds good to me.

**Posted by Liberty** October 17, 2016 7:23 pm

I was thinking more of them jumping way ahead at the end of S4.

In my fuzzy memories of old Moftiss interviews, I feel sure they said something about "Sherlock" being about the development of the character, the process of becoming the type of Sherlock Holmes portrayed by Basil Rathbone. So it's interesting that they're now saying that S4Ep3 draws on the Rathbone films. And Benedict is now in his 40s, so a lot closer to Rathbone in age, and hardly an ingenue Sherlock. I feel they've maybe moved beyond "how Sherlock became Sherlock Holmes". So where are they going to go from there? I suppose one option would be miss out the middle bit which has been filmed so many times, and jump ahead to what happened after he was "Sherlock Holmes". And it did occur to me last time we were talking about this, that one of the things that would feel like an ending would be if Sherlock retired to the cottage at the end of S4. There would still be plenty of scope for him to come back for S5, but it would feel like it was over.

Obviously, I think it will be something much more dramatic than retiring! But maybe the passage of time is going to play a part in some way.

I still wonder if the television history part is going to be something outside of the show - tying it in to real life events, something happening in Sherlock being mentioned in the news, or something set up in real life, or perhaps the internet - some sort of blurring between real life and their fantasy world.

**Posted by Vhanja** October 17, 2016 7:29 pm

Hm, yes, having them move seven or ten years in the future, that would actually do it. Hm, very interesting. (Although if they leave us with a cliffhanger that we have to wait seven years for, I will kill them!)

**Posted by besleybean** October 17, 2016 7:35 pm

May happen!

**Posted by tonnaree** October 17, 2016 7:53 pm

Vhanja wrote:
Hm, yes, having them move seven or ten years in the future, that would actually do it. Hm, very interesting. (Although if they leave us with a cliffhanger that we have to wait seven years for, I will kill them!)

I'll gladly help you.

**Posted by This Is The Phantom Lady** October 17, 2016 7:54 pm

Well, I'm happy he got to put the record straight...

But yeah, I'm a bit worried what he does mean actually. But I'll try to cross that bridge when I come to it.

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 7:55 pm

SolarSystem wrote:
Liberty wrote:
It could be something like jumping quite far ahead in time, for example, to when Sherlock is in his 50s or 60s
My thought exactly. They all have said in the past that they would like to continue doing the show for as long as possible, to see Sherlock and John grow old together. Well, the only really believable way of doing this is to have Benedict and Martin grow old. This would be so much better than make-up. I have no idea if casual viewers would be on board with this... then again, Mofftiss never really gave a f*** about the casual viewer.
And I'm sure we can all agree that this would indeed be groundbreaking.

I would not call that groundbreaking, tbh. It already happened a long time ago when Peter Cushing portrayed Sherlock Holmes. He was at first cast as a movie Sherlock Holmes while still young, then he acted as Sherlock Holmes in a regular series and in his very old age he once again portrayed Sherlock Holmes being involved in a very devilish case.

And same thing happened when Christopher Lee potrayed Holmes, if I remember correctly. So nothing groundbreaking there, really. Has been done at least twice in the past.

Also, how realistic it is to plan your series so far ahead? Shit happens, you know. It may happen that for some reason or another, your star won´t be able to act ten years from now on. Or something will happen to you and incapaciate you and prevent you from writing or producing the series fifteen years from now on. And then where would your series be? In the dust, I´m afraid....

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 7:56 pm

tonnaree wrote:
Vhanja wrote:
Hm, yes, having them move seven or ten years in the future, that would actually do it. Hm, very interesting. (Although if they leave us with a cliffhanger that we have to wait seven years for, I will kill them!)
I'll gladly help you.

Count me in!

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 8:00 pm

mrshouse wrote:
I know, but what COULD it be??

Only thing I can think of is that somebody may be sent to jail/put into an institution for ten years and the series will only continue when that person comes out... but it´s not very exciting or interesting plot, so I´m not very much convinced about that.

**Posted by SusiGo** October 17, 2016 8:13 pm

Interesting idea. For me Benedict's words are so vague that they can mean everything and nothing. There could be a longer pause because of a prison sentence, end of important narrative arcs (Mary(/Moriarty/Sherlock's past/Johnlock) etc. But what does he mean by regularity? Longer pauses? Only single episodes? At the moment I tend to take his words as positive, maybe announcing some new format, but not the end as such.

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 8:29 pm

New format could be possible, yes.

Wouldn´t it be nice if that meant shorter, but more frequent episodes.... ?

**Posted by besleybean** October 17, 2016 8:31 pm

I can't see it ever being more frequent.

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 8:58 pm

At the end of an interview, Benedict mentions:

The question is: with attitude like that, would he casually spoil it that they are doing a change of the format or longer hiatuses? Wasn´t his mention of "different regularity" just an innocent remark, not really meant like that... or?

**Posted by besleybean** October 17, 2016 9:00 pm

I don't really think he is denying the end, then...

**Posted by nakahara** October 17, 2016 9:03 pm

Oh, he did deny that:

**Posted by besleybean** October 18, 2016 5:29 am

Poor Kitty!

**Posted by This Is The Phantom Lady** October 18, 2016 6:17 am

I thought about it while trying to sleep last night... I keep hearing the regularity thing as 'less frequent making of series'

But then again what's regular about their airing schedule now?

I'm so confused... and yeah as a non-native speaker I might be missing some finer details

**Posted by besleybean** October 18, 2016 6:19 am

We've always had to wait a long tome. So why do they make new comments on this?
To me it implies we will be waiting even longer.

**Posted by Liberty** October 18, 2016 6:30 am

Good point about prison, Nakahara. No, it's not at all exciting on its own, but I suppose it depends what they make of it - but maybe some sort of incarceration or exile which is impossible to get out of might mean there's a natural gap.

**Posted by tonnaree** October 18, 2016 12:24 pm

But in the end all we can do is hold on for the ride and see what happens.