Steven Moffat has been chatting to the French press about Sherlock, Moriarty, and what he and Mark Gatiss have planned for series three…
This story contains a spoiler for the Sherlock series two finale.
Like formerly-mistreated pets who cringe when approached, we’ve learnt to keep our guard up around remarks by Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat. Notorious for stirring up intrigue with enigmatic announcements about his two BBC shows, Moffat has for once been fairly unambiguous on series three of the superlative Sherlock: Moriarty is (almost definitely) not to return.
That shouldn’t really come as a surprise to those who took the shooting-gun-in-own-mouth move he pulled in the series two finale at face value, but rumours that Moriarty’s suicide was a masterfully wrought illusion have persisted since the episode aired.
Speaking to French website reviewer.fr, Moffat had this to say:
“Moriarty’s a one-shot deal in the original. I don’t want it to turn into a show that’s about one villain and one hero […] Moriarty was great because he was a surprise. Every time you bring him back he won’t be as big a surprise.
“There are other great villains in Doyle that we want to visit, we have to keep the show growing otherwise it won’t surprise you. Once you get the measure of it you’ll just get critical. If we keep surprising you and keeping you off balance you won’t.”
After that burst of relative straightforwardness, Moffat returned to characteristic form telling audiences that,
“Mark [Gatiss] and I are so in love with the original it will never stray very far from it, but it has to be its own thing, and the audience has to think they’re never safe with us because we might do something completely different from the original.”
So it won’t stray too far from the original unless they do something completely different. Got it.
More news on Sherlock series 3 as soon as we have it.
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