No S*** – Sherlock’s Coming Soon

The latest season of Sherlock will screen shortly on TVNZ 1.

The network’s confirmation that it is “coming soon” follows season four’s top-rating premiere in the UK over the weekend.

The New Year’s Day launch drew 8.1 million viewers overnight, making it the day’s most-watched programme.

The sleuth’s return was viewed by 300,000 fewer viewers than last year’s one-off special, The Abominable Bride, and was down about 1.3 million viewers on the season-three premiere three years ago.

It’s surprising TVNZ 1 didn’t try to capitalise on the global publicity heralding Sherlock’s return in not only the UK but also the US and Australia (where it streams the same day on Stan).

With wire stories about the new season and its star, Benedict Cumberbatch, being run prominently here in print and online, now would have been the ideal time to use Sherlock as a platform to promote new-season fare.

TVNZ 1’s even being half-hearted about another esteemed Cumberbatch vehicle, 2015 Oscar-winner The Imitation Game.

Despite excellent reviews and eight Oscar nominations, including for best picture and Cumberbatch’s turn as a gay mathematician who helped to break the Nazis’ Enigma code, TVNZ 1 has elected to premiere it 10.30 on January 14.

The good news is at least the free-to-air debut will be in HD.

Meanwhile, Sherlock garnered lavish praise for the first of its three new mysteries, The Six Thatchers [spoiler alert].

The Daily Telegraph hailed the adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Six Napoleons “a dizzying triumph of complex plotting”, The Guardian declared “Cumberbatch channels Bond in the most explosive outing yet” and the Sydney Morning Herald Season said it “delivers plenty of laughs but ultimately takes Holmes and Watson to some very dark places” — most of which, by the time it screens here, will have been exhaustively debated on the Internet.