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Cumberbatch: I can see why Sherlock is sexy
00:37 - Source: CNN

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The new season trailer was released at Comic Con

Exec producer doesn't know how long the show will continue

CNN  — 

It’s no mystery that fans really go for the BBC series “Sherlock.”

The trailer for season 4 was released Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con and it already has fans panting like Sherlock’s new bloodhound sidekick. Oh how we have missed Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson.

Viewers are going to have to slow their roll, however, as the show does not return until 2017.

Here’s what we do know so far:

Return from the dead?

The trailer opens with actor Andrew Scott as the late criminal Jim Moriarty asking “Did you miss me?”

We did – so please, oh please, oh please let him be back.

It’s going to be real dark

“Something’s coming.”

So we hear in the voice-over of the new trailer, which seems to be setting the stage for all types of good versus evil.

“The roads we walk have demons beneath, and yours have been waiting for a very long time,” Holmes is reminded in the trailer. There are gun battles and explosions to look forward to which all sounds dangerous and delicious.

Toby Jones is going to kill it as the new villain

If the new trailer is any indication folks are going to love Jones as the new bad guy. His evil laugh is everything.

Holmes is kind of scruffy

It’s a more disheveled-looking Sherlock Holmes this time around and he is sporting facial hair. That’s interesting given the hard time he gave Watson over his mustache last season.

Mrs. Hudson vs. Mycroft Holmes

Not that there has ever been major love between Holmes’ landlady and his big brother, but in the trailer we see Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs) tell Mycroft (Mark Gatiss), “Get out of my house, you reptile.”

Burn!

Season 4 may be our last with Cumberbatch

Critics also love “Sherlock Holmes” and it’s gotten a few Emmy nominations including outstanding actor in a limited series or movie for Cumberbatch this year.

But Cumberbatch is also a major movie star and there is no guarantee that he will stick around for his small screen gig much longer. Executive producer and co-creator Steven Moffat told The Telegraph he can hardly believe his show was able to land such film stars as Cumberbatch and Freeman.

“I don’t know how long we can keep it going,” Moffat said. “I’m personally willing but I’m hardly the main draw.”

If the current stars’ run does end, Moffat said, he is not ruling out a return somewhere down the line.

“That’s why I think it’s unlikely that we’ve completely finished it,” he said. “There would be nothing strange in stopping for a while. It could go on forever, coming back now and again.”