But he also revealed that this one has a supernatural element we havent seen in Sherlock before.

Ghost stories work better in a Victorian setting, Moffat said.

Other than that, its remarkably similar.

The setting did present one notable problem, though.

Suddenly, Moffat said, we realized…the women dont speak.

Mrs. Hudson, I think has got one line of direct speak in the whole bunch of stories.

And we sort of got to the point where we thought she was always like Una Stubbs.

She is nothing like that at all.

They found a rather obvious solution, from the sound of it.

Mrs. Hudson doesnt speak, so we brought the Una Stubbs version, as it were.

As for the other female characters?

And of course…there is no Molly Hooper in the original, a tragic omission on that part.

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Afterwards, I joined a few reporters in approaching Moffat for follow-up questions…

When you deal with Sherlock stories, is the mystery the relatively easy part?

Does that just come from Doyle?

Actually, the mystery isnt usually what we start with.

Its usually what happens to them.

Its usually an emotional crisis disguised as a detective show.

I never really think of the originals as mystery stories.

I think of them as adventures and thats what Doyle got right.

Its not a puzzle that you unravel.

Its an adventure with creepy bits and hero moments.

Thats whats different about Sherlock Holmes.

And thats what the American versions with Downey went for.

Yeah, I like those ones.

I think theyre great.

I think that was a really good way of remodeling Sherlock Holmes as a Hollywood blockbuster.

Does a ghost story involve more special effects than your usualSherlockdoes?

Not so much the ghost story aspect as making it Victorian.

It was like doingDoctor Whoin a way because we had to make a CGI London, really.

What big fanboy moments did you have as a Holmes-ian doing the period?

I cant tell you.

I cant tell you!

Are you a Sherlock Holmes fanboy?

I cant tell you, but there are.

Fan service is going on.

How did the actors like doing period costume?

I think both really liked it.

He was saying halfway through, Lets always do this.

I quite like it.

The long wait was for scheduling, but how long do you see this going?

Mark [Gatiss] and I would keep going.

I dont think it will be us that switch it off.

I imagine itll be down to Benedict and Martin.

This happened to us too.

We had a great hit.

We were very happy about it.

Its five years old now.

This was an exciting moment in all our lives so its nice to be able to revisit it.

Remember, for us its not like doingDoctor Whoin a way that is like the day job.

I could see it going on for a long while.

Id like to see them age.

Theyre much younger than the normal version.

Watching those actors blow up, did you ever worry youd never be able to get them again?

We all lived through it together in great excitement.

We were just as excited as youd expect people to be about how successful it was.

Our immediate impulse was, Lets go and do it again immediately and have more of that fun.

Because we make it in such concentrated bursts every so often, its never going to destroy anybodys schedule.

So well always have time to do it.

The question is at some point will they just want to stop doing it?

Benedict really likes being Sherlock Holmes though so I think hell be in it for a while.

Is there pressure to do more?

Always, but we cant do more.

Were happy doing the show how we want to do it.

Is everything Sherlock Holmes related public domain at this point?

Thats a good question to which Im not absolutely sure of the answer.

Go and look it up.

But anything youve wanted to do, characters like Irene Adler and Moriarty, have been?

We havent had a problem but I think there can be problems.

I think it should be public domain by now.

Just because we can, really.

Gosh, what a surprise.

And then we just thought could we ever just do maybe one scene or some dream sequel or something?

And then we just thought, you know, why dont we just do it?

Why dont we just do a Victorian one?

We never bothered to explain what we were doing in modern day London.

So its a mistake weve been a long time rectified.

Is that Martin Freemans moustache?

Normally he has to cover it up.

We have a special, its out, which is great.

As I say, its remarkable how it was easy to update in the first place.

Its not that long ago.

Sherlock Holmes has the manners of the Victorian gentleman, which he doesnt have in the modern version.

So he is a lot less brattish when hes back then and Dr. Watson is a bit more upright.

Did you co-write this one with Mark Gatiss?

Its the first time weve actually.

I mean, weve sort of cowritten before on the fly.

I remember we actually wrote together the last scene of The Reichenbach Fall sitting at Moriartys trial.

We sat in the corner and were writing the last scene.

Thats deadline hell for you.

Were you and Mark physically together writingSherlock?

I mean, what we would do is wed pass the draft backwards and forwards.

We did different parts.

I think Mark started, then I was overwriting him.

Then, I got ahead of him and he overwrote me, and just that way.

I cant honestly remember.

I remember having frantically to write an extra scene on at some point.

Its safe to say you’re able to probably expect it around Christmas…