THE EMPTY HEARSE, the first episode of the upcoming third series of SHERLOCK, will be based around the London Underground, writer Mark Gatiss has revealed.

Speaking at a press conference about the newly unearthed classic DOCTOR WHO episodes, Gatiss was asked whether WHO is due a return to the capital’s subterranean tunnels, the setting of found Patrick Troughton story THE WEB OF FEAR. Gatiss replied:

“We are due a return to the London underground; in fact, the first episode of Sherlock is – because I am obsessed with the Tube and I think it all comes from that story from when I was a kid – is explicitly about the London underground for exactly that reason, because I love The Web of Fear.

But Doctor Who, yes I’m sure, why not?”

Interesting… We know so far that The Empty Hearse, based on Conan Doyle’s The Empty House, will see Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes re-united with a newly moustached Watson (Martin Freeman) and will finally reveal just how he survived that fall. What will he be up to in the Underground? He may be hiding out from Moriarty’s remaining henchmen, similarly to Colonel Sebastian Moran’s hunt of Holmes in the original story. Or maybe there’ll be a new case to solve which will bring the sleuth down into the shadows…

If you’ve not worked it all out yet, all the clues will come together when Sherlock series 3 begins in January.

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