Speaking at last weekend’s BAFTA Craft Awards, the writer revealed that he and Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss have already planned how Series 3 will end: “We’ve had our meeting, we’ve decided what we’re doing and how we’re going to approach it, and I think we’ve got a climax to the next series that will have people just as frustrated as they ever were.”

The Doctor Who showrunner also expressed pride at the method behind Sherlock’s faked death in The Reichenbach Fall: “We know what we’re doing. If Sherlock Holmes is going to fake his own death, it better be the best faked death of all time. I think it’s pretty good.”

Earlier this month Mark Gatiss hinted at Watson’s reaction to discovering that Sherlock Holmes is still alive: “I always found it a little unlikely that Dr Watson’s only reaction was to faint for instance – as supposed to possibly a stream of terrible swear words.”

Executive producer Beryl Vertue has stated that filming on the third series will begin in “early 2013”.

Are you looking forward to Series 3? Let us know below…

> Order the BBC’s new official book, Sherlock: The Casebook, on Amazon.

> Buy the Series 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

Watch a clip from the Series 2 finale…