'Sherlock': Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue Preview the 'Scary,' Old-School Special

After three seasons of modern-day sleuthing, why are Sherlock producers sending their famous detective back in time to Victorian-era England? “Just because we can, really.”

That’s Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat, talking about the inspiration behind “The Abominable Bride,” the all-new Sherlock special airing this Friday on PBS’s Masterpiece. “Bride” trades the tech gadgets of the modern Sherlock for the horse-drawn carriages of 1890s London — the era of the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories — as Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a mustached Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) try to crack a mystery wrapped in a good old-fashioned ghost story.

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Moffat and his wife, Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, sat down with Yahoo TV to preview this new Sherlock special for us, explaining why the Victorian setting lends itself so well to a ghost story and promising “porn levels” of inside references for Sherlock fans. Oh, and by the way, Moffat’s also the showrunner of a little show called Doctor Who, so we asked him whether we’ll ever see a Sherlock-Doctor Who crossover coming from his pen.

Steven, you’ve said you wanted to do a Victorian-era Sherlock special simply because you can. How long have you had this idea in the back of your mind?
Steven: It was when we were shooting the little mini prequel, “Many Happy Returns,” for Season 3. [Co-creator] Mark [Gatiss] was directing second unit on it, and I was hanging out with Mark. And that’s when we started talking about it. I can remember the actual day, when we shot the monks with all the candles. We were just like, “Hey, we could just do it.”

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And this special doesn’t tie into the other episodes, continuity-wise, right?
Steven: No, it’s in a bubble on its own. That’s why, when we went and pitched it to Sue, we said it can’t be part of the series. We have to have a special. And if we hadn’t gotten that extra special, we wouldn’t have done it. It had to be on its own. So this is genuinely an extra episode. We had already been commissioned for the three, and then we said, “Let’s go epic and do four."

Steven Moffat (right) and Mark Gatiss on the set of the Sherlock special (PBS)

Based on the trailer, there are some cheeky, self-aware references in there. So it’s not just a simple mystery. You’re also playing to the fans.
Steven: But that’s sort of unfair to Doyle: He does those jokes! He does the jokes about how Sherlock doesn’t like Dr. Watson’s versions of his adventures, and he negatively reviews them in the actual text. So that self-aware gag, the fact that Sherlock Holmes is a celebrity in his own world who actually reads the stories we’re reading — that comes from the original. You have to do that. There’s a brilliant version of that kind of scene at the beginning of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: Billy Wilder’s film, which is lovely. In fact, we just reversed one of the jokes from it, which is, "You saddled me with this improbable costume, which the public now expects me to wear.” We did it about the mustache instead. But you know, the whole show isn’t like that. That’s really near the top of the show, and we’re just sort of easing you into, “This is where we are now.”

Sue: But I think there’s also so many treats there, which…

Steven: Yes. We can’t tell people. But if you’re a Sherlock Holmes fanboy, it’s — [Laughs.] — porn levels of intelligence.

So how much work went into producing this special? Obviously, it’s on another level with the costuming and set design.
Sue: Well, it was. Yes, costume, but also the set. Everything. It was trying to find the equivalent of our wallpaper in Victorian wallpaper. And they had great fun, didn’t they? Kind of getting the alternatives of what we had on the walls. So it still looks very much our show, but in the Victorian era. We did shoot in London, and quite a lot in Bristol. And it’s hard. The clip that you saw, it takes six weeks to close a road down now.

I talked to Rupert Graves at Comic-Con, and he told me he wore big mutton chops for this special.
Sue: Oh, he has got huge mounds of hair! [Laughs.] The costumes are fantastic. They really are.

And it’s great to see Benedict in that classic deerstalker cap.
Steven: People sort of forget we actually do have the deerstalker in the modern version, too. He does wear it. But he’s got the full regalia. And the silly pipe, and all that.

We don’t know much about the central mystery yet. You alluded to it being a ghost story, maybe a little creepier than the standard Sherlock.
Steven: There’s something about ghost stories that suggests Victoriana, isn’t there? It’s the one element of Sherlock that faded a bit when it became modern-day. Even when we did “[The Hounds of] Baskerville,” it was a conspiracy theory rather than a curse. That’s the modern equivalent. So when we looked at what we were going to do, we thought going scary was what to do with a Victorian Sherlock. Because that’s the thing that we don’t really get to do much in the modern one.

How difficult is it to get everyone together to film these days, with Benedict and Martin and their busy schedules?
Steven: Pretty hellish.

Sue: It’s pretty hellish, yeah. And it’s a major thing when you actually manage to carve out Series 4 — about four months.

Steven: Everyone’s willing to make the time, but they’re not necessarily willing to make the same time. [Laughs.] We can’t shoot them separately!

Sue: We did actually have one, when somebody was suddenly available when he wasn’t going to be, and he said: “I’m free!” Well, we haven’t got the script, or anybody else. [Laughs.]

But you did manage to carve out that time for Season 4?
Steven: It’s happening. April.

Oh, okay. So it’ll be quite some time before we actually see that.
Steven: Well, you’ll enjoy it all the more for waiting a bit longer. [Laughs.]

Do you like playing with that anticipation?
Steven: Well, I don’t have a lot of choice!

You’ve been working with Benedict and Martin for a while now. Have their personalities and performances informed the way you write the characters?
Steven: Well, they’d be slightly offended if you said that, because their job is to become somebody else. [Laughs.] But I think, you know… there isn’t much in common with Benedict and Sherlock, and Martin and John. But there’s bits. The acerbic quality that Martin has, and he’s so clearly an intelligent and funny man, you just see it in him. And you have to sort of unleash that.

Sue: And he’s really thought through, hasn’t he, the fact that he was an Army doctor, and so everything in him — the gait, the way he walks — everything is slightly military.

Steven: He holds himself like a military man. And he’s very precise. And you know, he’s got comic timing from heaven. If he’s got a little funny bit to do, and we have four or five takes to get it, we never know: How the hell do they choose? He does it differently every time, and every one’s a poem.

Sue: And Benedict’s incredibly intelligent. He’s very clever. He can see why you’re doing something, or even how you’re shooting something. If you’re putting it all together, it’s a really complicated thing, but he gets it. Technically brilliant, I think.

Have you seen the “Wholock” mash-up of Sherlock and Doctor Who?
Steven: The one with the TARDIS? The beautiful one, with the special effects. I know the guy who did that. He’s actually a friend of Rachel Talalay, who’s currently directing Doctor Who. It’s a beautiful piece of work. Astounding. My God, he’s clever, that guy. And so young! There’s also a hilarious musical, a “Sherlock Meets Doctor Who” musical. Look it up. It’s really funny.

Do you ever, in your wildest fantasies, think about doing an actual crossover of those two?
Steven: It’s not gonna happen. I can tell you that right now. Can you imagine the negotiation over the order of the names?

Sue: [Laughs.] It wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t make sense.

Steven: The thing is, it doesn’t adversely affect Doctor Who. It’s fine. Doctor Who can meet anybody. But what would happen to Sherlock if we suddenly see Sherlock lives in Doctor Who’s universe? So time travel is possible? So there’s a man who can dematerialize in one room and then end up in another? He’d have to factor that into all of his mysteries! It would change the way he thought about the world. I don’t believe our Sherlock lives in a world where the Daleks invaded a few times. I think he might’ve mentioned it by now. But having said that, I’m the tart who would do it, just for the sheer hell of it. Everybody else is more sensible.

Do you ever get the itch to do something original again, since you’re locked into these huge, established franchises?
Steven: Uh, yes. The next thing I’ll do — because people are always saying, “What are you going to do? James Bond?” — I said I’m going to do something that I invented. Because I’ve certainly had the pleasure of Baker Street and the TARDIS; since 2009, I’ve done nothing other than those two shows. Which I love. I love them to bits. And they’re the most creatively demanding shows there could be. So I don’t feel it’s cheating that I’m basically working with somebody else’s character. I think they’re so demanding that it feels like a full, creative life, as it were. But yes, I’d like to do something that was just… more about me. God, that’s an ambition, isn’t it? The world needs more me!

This is the ultimate in first-world problems. This is it. I’ve actually got it. I’ve actually said this out loud to human beings who, to their credit, didn’t cut my throat: “It’d be nice to write some television that isn’t a bloody national event!” [Laughs.] Jesus Christ. I think that was the time when I was shuffling between “Day of the Doctor” and “The Empty Hearse,” which we made at the same time.

Sue: You were a bit tired then, darling.

Steven: I was knackered. I was barely functioning. And I was thinking, “Everything I do, everybody’s bloody talking about it. Could you all shut up? I want to write a failure!” So top me for first-world problems. I’ve got it.

The Sherlock special “The Abominable Bride” premieres Friday, Jan. 1 at 9 p.m. on Masterpiece on PBS.