'Sherlock' Season 4 Gets a Release Date

The wait has been very, very long, but at last fans of Sherlock have some definite answers about the series' fourth season. This week, producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss announced that the long-delayed season will debut at the beginning of next year, ending worries that the new episodes might never come.

The first of three new episodes will premiere on January 1, 2017, both in the UK and the United States. The series will air on the BBC in the UK and on PBS in the US, and this will be the first time that the American season debut happens on the same day as the UK premiere. In the past, American viewers have had to wait until well after their British counterparts got to see new episodes.

The season had been very slow in production - the series' third season ended in February 2014 - because of the busy schedules of its stars, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Cumberbatch plays the title role in Marvel's Doctor Strange, a sure-to-be-blockbuster that debuts next week, and Freeman most recently appeared in another Marvel movie, Captain America: Civil War.

Sherlock's showrunners have hinted that the upcoming season could be the "climax" of the series, a suggestion that some have interpreted to mean that the next three episodes will likely be the last.