Sherlock's Steven Moffat has insisted that he has no plans to end the show.
Moffat and series co-creator Mark Gatiss confirmed last night (January 15) that the BBC detective drama will return for a third run.
"We love doing this, this is brilliant fun so [we'll keep going] as long as we can keep Benedict [Cumberbatch] and Martin [Freeman] coming back," he told CultBox.
The writer added that he is keen to eventually explore the later lives of Sherlock (Cumberbatch) and John (Freeman).
"I fondly imagine it'd be nice to stop it for a while and come back and see what they're like in their 40s or 50s," he suggested. "Because normally these two characters are portrayed in their 50s.
"So we're actually at the beginning. It might be interesting in a couple of decades when they come back and [we] see what they're like."
Moffat previously told Digital Spy that future episodes of Sherlock might see John married and living apart from his partner Holmes.
"He and Holmes don't always live together and I think that's become a lazy way of doing Sherlock Holmes - they always live together," he explained.
"They didn't actually and why would they? Nobody flat-shares forever, so there's loads of details we can get in there."
The second series of Sherlock concluded last night, pulling in 7.9m for BBC One.
