The Hollywood Reporter made public this week that a new 90 minute holiday special of BBC’s hit show, Sherlock, might be coming to the big screen in China this December. It will be part of a global event to complement the UK televised broadcast. If the show receives the necessary regulatory approval, and falls within the quota of foreign films allotted for the year, then it will be screened in cinemas around the country.

Since the show first aired in 2010, it has gained a massive following in China, with upwards of 98 million views of last season’s episodes, leading to countless gay Sherlock fan fiction from Chinese female fans hoping the two crime fighters, Curly Fu (Sherlock) and Peanut (John Watson), settle down together one day.

The special, set to air around Christmas, will see Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his trusted confidant John Watson back in Victorian England in 1895. About the shift in time writer, Steven Moffat explained that: “The special is its own thing. We wouldn’t have done the story we’re doing, and the way we’re doing it, if we didn’t have this special. It’s not part of the run of three episodes. So we had this to do it … It’s kind of in its own little bubble.”

Photo: static.independent.co.uk