Sherlock Season 3 Starts Filming

It’s been a long wait, but it’s almost over: The third season of Sherlock starts filming soon. Like, really soon. Next Monday, to be exact.

Producer Sue Vertue confirmed the Monday, March 18th start date to Sherlockology; she also noted that principal photography would be done in two sections, with episodes one and two being shot first and episode three sometime this summer.

Said Vertue:

“We could never have fitted all three films into one long go because of everyone’s availability. It’s being flexible like this which allows us to keep making them.” This news meshes with what we’ve heard previously, that the busy schedules of Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch required the start of production to be pushed back to March, with a possible debut in late 2013.

So we’re on schedule. It’s a later schedule than we wanted, but we’re still on schedule. Man, this hiatus has been rough. I got lucky with the first one: I started watching season one a week before season two started, so my total wait time was maybe five days. And now it’s been over a year since the last episode aired. We may still have some months to wait, Sherlock fans, but… well, I’m happy.

And because happiness is not a natural state for Sherlockians, let me remind you (and myself): When season three premieres we’ll have three short weeks of new episodes before embarking on another hiatus of indeterminate length.