Sherlock season 4 release date: Martin Freeman confirms return with Benedict Cumberbatch 'around Christmas'
Sherlock usually premieres on New Year's Day but could land slightly earlier this year
![The last new Sherlock episode - bar the Victorian special - aired two years ago](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/09/30/15/sherlock-rex.jpg)
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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Martin Freeman has confirmed that Sherlock series four will reach fans “around Christmas”.
The John Watson actor is busy shooting the next run of the BBC detective drama but stopped briefly to share an update on The Graham Norton Show.
“We are back filming now and the three shows will, I imagine, be out around Christmas,” he said, with the full programme scheduled to air on Friday night.
It has been two whole years since the last new episode of Sherlock, with one-off Victorian special The Abominable Bride helping to satiate fans’ appetites last Christmas.
Freeman’s co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the lead as Holmes, said recently that the wait for series four will be “worth it” while creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt have hinted that fans can expect “ghosts of the past bringing adventure, romance and terror”.
Watson and his wife Mary will become parents for the first time amid a “clear shift in tone” to the dark side, with “tragedy as well as adventure” and “a sense of things coming back to bite you”.
Here’s everything we know so far to get you even more excited.
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