Steven Moffat has suggested that Sherlock would suffer if more episodes were produced.
PBS exec Rebecca Eaton recently insisted that the Benedict Cumberbatch detective drama will always be comprised of three-part series.
"[The format has] worked for us," agreed Moffat, in an interview with The Huffington Post. "That will always be the case.
"It will probably extend the life of the show, because everybody gets to do other things. It's not like Doctor Who, which is 24-hour-a-day slavery as long as you're involved in it. That's why people have to escape [that show]."
Moffat argued that a shorter run of episodes gives Sherlock "its pace and intensity".
"If we now went to a Doctor Who-style series [of 13 episodes] - which we could have done - those episodes would be a bit pale compared to the ones we do now," he suggested.
"I don't think we could go the other route now. It didn't go that [three-episode] route because of my commitment to Doctor Who - it was Ben Stephenson of the BBC, the head of drama. He suggested Sherlock should be an event-status television programme."
The series would lose its "event status" if the quantity of episodes was increased, Moffat added.
"Sherlock arrives back like a rock star into the amphitheatre [but] it can't do that every week," he said. "It can do that three times every 18 months."
A third series of Sherlock is expected to begin filming in early 2013.
