Sherlock is back on our screens on News Years Day (well, New Years Night to be specific) after a long hiatus and as fans of the hit series practically hang off the edge of their seats in anticipation, the BBC have treated us to a short behind-the-scenes glimpse of what we might expect when the show returns.

Benedict Cumberbatch MArtin Freeman
The boys are back in town!

The show returns to BBC 1 at 9pm with the episode The Empty Hearse in which Sherlock’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) shock 'death' in The Reichenbach Fall is explained and he is reunited with Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman), with the events of the rest of the season kicking off from there. Of course, the reunion between the two central characters is an emotional affair and one that had to be approached in a delicate and particular way. According to series co-creator and writer Steven Moffat, speaking in the new clip, this is exactly what he and co-creator Mark Gatiss have achieved.

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“[I want to] sit with the audience in the BFI or somewhere and watch the sequence where John and Sherlock meet again, it goes on for a long time and I have watched it many, many times and I absolutely love it,” Moffat says in the video. His sentiment is shared with Gatiss, who added, “it makes my hair stand on end.”

The clip also features the show's star Benedict Cumberbatch, who explains, "Sherlock's journey in the third series is reassimilation. It's very much from a point of view of learning and adjusting to being brilliant, to having to confront something which points out that he is frail."

Sherlock
From left to right: Louise Brealey, Amanda Abbington, Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Graves and Una Stubbs