Sherlock One-Off Special in the Works? Martin Freeman Is Such a Tease!

Benedict Cumberbatch's costar says the series' creators have a "such a good idea" for a special episode in between seasons!

By Natalie Finn Apr 25, 2014 2:09 AMTags
Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, SherlockBBC

You know how we're going to have to wait positively forever for a fourth season of Sherlock?

Well, maybe the powers that be are going to do something to take the edge off.

Martin Freeman sparked a bit of Internet frenzy during his appearance on the Alan Carr-hosted Chatty Man, airing Friday, when he said, according to reports, that the series' creators were kicking around an idea for a one-off special to premiere sometime before the years-in-the-making fourth season hits BBC One, let alone PBS' Masterpiece Mystery.

"Mark Gatiss may beat me up, but there is an idea for this one-off special that's such a good idea, and as I was listening to it I thought, ‘We've just got to do this,'" Freeman told Carr. "And I don't know when we are going to be able to do it, unfortunately."

In addition to starring in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, Freeman is currently schmucking it up on FX's super-dark dramedy Fargo, playing a mousy husband who gets mixed up in all sorts of sordid business after a chance run-in with a sociopath played by Billy Bob Thornton.

But how we prefer Freeman as the jelly to Benedict Cumberbatch's peanut butter on Sherlock!

The lauded series' third season definitely ended on a cliff-hanger, at least putting to rest most worries that the show would never come back. But Gatiss and cocreator Steven Moffat have said that the wheels are spinning for season four.

While shooting season three, Cumberbatch told Radio Times, "We've agreed to two more [seasons] but I could get into trouble for saying that. All I know at the moment is we're doing these three [episodes] and another three. I just don't know what there is beyond that."

Speaking of not being able to find the time, after being ubiquitous on the big screen in 2013 Cumberbatch is in the based-on-a-true-WWII-story drama The Imitation Game and has already signed on to star in Hamlet onstage in London next year. Plus, he's lending his voice to two animated films, Magik and The Penguins of Madagascar.