Steven Moffat describes 'Sherlock' Series 4 as emotional and 'bloody frightening'

We still have at least a year to go until the fourth series of Sherlock premieres, but showrunner Steven Moffat is now offering us a few hints towards what the new episodes will be like.

Showrunner Steven Moffat discussed the fourth season of Sherlock with Entertainment Weekly, and it sounds like the new episodes will be darker than ever before. He described the first series as the beginning of the friendship, the second as being about the formative stages, and the third as being the golden days of "me, my pal and my pal's wife." But Moffat said the fourth season will be about consequences, and the idea that this dangerous sort of lifestlye might come back to bite you. "It’s hilarious and exhilarating some days, but some days it’s going to be bloody frightening," he said.

He went on to say that the fourth series will be intense and tough at times, calling it an "emotional upheaval." He stressed it will still be enjoyable and fun like the rest of the series has been, but that it will definitely be a more dark and emotional series than we've seen before.

Moffat also said that the new season will provide answers to some questions that nobody's really asking. He said that there's one little thing that they've set up that no one has really brought up, and that he's actually kind of surprised fans haven't realized something that "we think is standing right in front of you." What on Earth could he be talking about here? Time to head back to series three and analyze it frame by frame, everyone.

Sherlock is notorious for its long breaks between episodes, and the fourth series is expected to premiere in 2016, two years after the previous series. However, for now fans can look forward to a Sherlock Christmas special set to air this December which will take place in Victorian London. It's expected to be its own thing and not really connected with the canon of the show, presumably a look at Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman playing Sherlock and Watson in the original time period rather than modern London.

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