A few months ago, Steven Moffat terrified fans by suggesting that Sherlock‘s upcoming fourth series could be the last ever. “I don’t know how long we can keep it going,” he said at the time. “I would be moderately surprised if this was the time we ever made this show. But it absolutely could be.”

Well, brace yourselves, Sherlockians – now Benedict Cumberbatch has said something similar.

Chatting to GQ Magazine, the actor had this to say:

“It might be the end of an era. It feels like the end of an era, to be honest. It goes to a place where it will be pretty hard to follow on immediately.

“We never say never on the show. I’d love to revisit it, I’d love to keep revisiting it, I stand by that, but in the immediate future we all have things that we want to crack on with and we’ve made something very complete as it is, so I think we’ll just wait and see.”

There’s no way around it. This isn’t good news. Either this really is it or – due to other commitments for Benedict, Martin and the rest of the cast – another series won’t be made for a long stretch of time. Even longer than usual.

By the sounds of it, though, Series Four will pull out all the stops to be one hell of a dramatic, thrilling, shocking final run. At least we can console ourselves with that, right?

Right?

Do you think Sherlock is coming to an end? Have your say in the poll below: