‘Sherlock’ Season 4 Drops New Photograph Featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman; Showrunner Addresses Rumors of Series Ending

‘Sherlock’ season 4 recently revealed a new photograph featuring Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Watson together with the rest of the main characters of the series. Meanwhile, showrunner Steven Moffat finally addressed rumors that the series was ending.

According to Comicbook.com, a new promotional photograph for the upcoming season 4 of Sherlock has recently been released. It showed Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Dr. John Watson sitting across each other in what looks to be 221B Baker Street’s living area. Interestingly enough, Watson is holding his newborn baby with wife Mary.

Joining Cumberbatch and Freeman in the dark photograph are fellow cast mates Rupert Graves as Detective Lestrade, Amanda Abbington as Mary Morstan-Watson, Una Stubbs as Mrs. Hudson, Mark Gatiss as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, and Louise Brealey as Molly Hopper. The photograph was captioned “A time for friends, family and those you miss the most.”

It was speculated that the caption held a double-meaning and referenced the return a familiar villainous character. Andrew Scott’s evil Moriarty is rumored to make a comeback and take on Sherlock in season 4’s finale episode, entitled “The Final Problem.” The finale’s title may have been taken from one of Moriarty’s lines from the episode “The Reichenbach Fall,” where Sherlock was forced to commit suicide to save his loved ones.

Meanwhile, showrunner Steven Moffat addressed speculations of the series ending on season 4 during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Cumberbatch seemingly hinted that the series was coming to a close during a previous interview but Moffat was quick to explain that the lead actor’s words had just been misinterpreted.

Moffat clarified, “This is really worth saying because it’s getting exhausting for us all… That’s not what Benedict said. That’s what someone edited his words into the meaning of. It seems to be impossible these days not to be misquoted.”

He continued, “He was quite specific about being keen to carry on. He went on to say he’s hard to get us all together. We want to keep the quality up. We haven’t even seen this [season air] yet. We don’t know. We haven’t sat down with the intent to anything yet. But we’re always aware that it could be over. But the fact is Benedict did not say that.”

 ‘Sherlock’ season 4 is scheduled to premiere on January 1, 2017 in both the United States and the United Kingdom.