‘Sherlock’ Season 4 Starter Dips Slightly After Three-Year Series Hiatus

After a nearly three-year wait — not including last year’s one-off special The Abominable Bride — Sherlock’s New Year’s Day return to PBS clocked 3.7 million viewers. That’s a slight slip from Season 3’s opening crowd of 4M, which had set a franchise record – way back in January 2014. PBS, however, drew reporters’ attention to the S4 opening’s 7% ratings gain compared to The Abominable Bride that aired on January 1, 2016.

That’s a departure from the ratings pattern in the UK, where 8.1M watched return of Benedict Cumberbatch for Season 4’s 90-minute starter, but The Six Thatchers, came in down a tick compared with last January’s special and the Season 3 opener.

In the U.S., The Six Thatchers, also garnered more than 500,000 streams inThat’s  its first two days – 118% more than the Emmy-winning Abominable Bride during the same time period in 2016. PBS boasted that the broadcast also was the No. 3 most social program across Facebook and Twitter on New Year’s Day, excluding sports and sports-related programming.

The three-episode Season 4 continues with The Lying Detective on at 9 PM Sunday, January 8, and wraps with The Final Problem at 7 PM Sunday, January 15, leading into the series premiere of Victoria at 9 PM.

Sherlock is written and created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and inspired by the Sherlock Holmes works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.