Sherlock fans will have to wait quite a few years before seeing any new episodes, according to the show's co-creator.

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Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss spoke about filming the fourth season of the series at a Q&A session in Brazil recently. The creator noted that the 90-minute episodes are essentially their own films in and of themselves, which makes things tough.

"Writing three films is quite a lot of work and then getting everyone together... [it's] increasingly difficult to get everyone's diaries to align, so we couldn't really do more than three every couple of years I'm afraid," Gatiss admitted.

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"I mean, we'd certainly like to reduce the time, but by the time we've finished and then everyone starts gearing up again, it roughly takes that long."

The creator noted: "We ended up doing 90 minute episodes by accident. We made a 60 minute pilot and that was going to be the format of the series. We were going to have six, hour-long episodes."

He also admitted that things would be "very different" if they had gone with a 60-minute pilot and those six-hour long episodes.

"We would do one where it was mostly Dr Watson, or Mrs Hudson investigates or something like that," he said, speculating.

Things haven't been looking good for season 4 of Sherlock, considering both of its stars have been positive about when it will even be filmed. Martin Freeman, who plays Watson, said that filming has been delayed even more while Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the titular character, said he didn't even know if there was going to be a season 4.

Tags: Sherlock television PBS