This story contains potential Sherlock spoilers.
Following the US broadcast of its season 2 finale on PBS, series creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss took to their keyboards to natter with US fans about all things Sherlock. Try as their interrogators might, neither would be drawn on an explanation for that ending, though a number of other interesting (and fun) nuggets did come up in the web-chat, which we’ve collected for you below.
On their favourite Conan Doyle stories
Qualifying his answer with “Today!”, Mark Gatiss named The Adventure of the Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans as his favourites (note that only the second of those has been used by the BBC series so far, in episode 1.3 The Great Game…), and Steven Moffat named The Adventure of the Speckled Band, to which we’ve only had a gag reference so far (“The Speckled Blonde”) in one of Watson’s blog titles.
On their favourite Conan Doyle antagonists
Gatiss named Dr Grimesby Roylott as his (which gives The Adventure of the Speckled Band two ticks so far in the ‘potential appearance in series 3’ column by our count), though added tantalisingly “Time for a Spider Woman, I think!”.
On their favourite nods to the Conan Doyle canon in Sherlock
Steven Moffat picked a Gatiss-scripted episode, naming “the dogging scene” in The Hounds of Baskverville as his favourite cheeky Conan Doyle reference in the series so far, while Gatiss opted for A Scandal in Belgravia’s, “I’m lost without my blogger” (a nod to Conan Doyle’s “I’m lost without my Boswell” line in the Conan Doyle story on which the episode is based), as his fondest reference to canon.
On their favourite comic moments from Sherlock so far
Moffat went for “Power complex from Scandal. But actually, that was Mark’s idea” referencing the line about Mycroft’s power complex as Watson’s car pulls up to Battersea Power station in A Scandal in Belgravia, while Gatiss went for a moment in The Reichenbach Fall, “I really love the bit in ‘Reichenbach’ when the judge warns Sherlock to keep his mouth shut and Benedict just takes a deep breath and there’s a hard cut to him going to the cells!”
On the funniest thing to happen on the Sherlock set
Moffat remembered, “Benedict fell over in that sheet. What was funny is that he went down, trapped arms, flat on his face. And everybody just laughed!”. For Gatiss, it was more of a bestial matter, “Probably the monkey in the Baskerville lab erm… pleasuring himself”.
On their plans for Sherlock series 3
Both were characteristically reserved on the topic of series 3 spoilers, with Moffat confirming, “Well yes, we have our idea, and our structure, and some of our surprises. But hush now, that’s for later. Very excited though.”
Mark Gatiss though, may have given slightly more away when asked if it was likely we’d meet Colonel Sebastian Moran in series 3, to which he replied, “We’ll see. Obviously. The Empty House is a good starting point…”. The Adventure of the Empty House, for anyone yet to place it, is the story in which Holmes reveals himself to Watson after years in hiding post-Reichenbach Falls, and an odds-on favourite for appearing in episode 3.1.
Other bits and pieces
Moffat told US fans he was “Killing [himself] on Christmas Who RIGHT NOW!!” when asked about writers’ block, and the showrunners’ favourite TV programmes of the last ten years were revealed as Doctor Who (well, obviously) for both, The West Wing and Breaking Bad for Moffat, and 30 Rock for Gatiss.
Cheekily, Moffat slipped in a line about Billy Wilder’s 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes being “the only genius Sherlock Holmes film”. Let’s hope Guy Ritchie’s feelings weren’t too hurt by that.
Our favourite moment though, was Mark Gatiss getting in on Moffat’s teasing game by signing off his end of the conversation with the following two messages: “As a nice surprise for our US fans, I can exclusively reveal that Sherlock faked his death by” […] “Oh God! We’re out of time!”.
You can read the full web-chat, here.
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