“Sherlock” isn’t going to end, but it’s also not going to air for another two years. Co-creator Mark Gatiss has confirmed the fear of the fans of the Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer TV series: the fourth season will be back in 2016.

It’s not like Sherlocked viewers aren’t used to long hiatus between seasons of the show. If anyone knows how to wait for their favourite show to air on television, it’s the “Sherlock” fandom.

In fact, the first season, which aired in 2010, was followed also two years later in 2012. Then the second season was followed by a third one in 2014. So really, the two-year season gap isn’t a new thing.

That’s not all. All three seasons only have three episodes each, so basically, the fans were waiting for two years just to watch for three short weeks.

The episodes aren’t just typical series episodes, though. They run for 90 minutes each, and are called “films.” If fans are asked, waiting for another episode of the show is worth it no matter how long.

And it’s going to be a long wait.

During a Q&A portion in Brazil, Gatiss, who also stars in the show as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, admitted that fans will have to wait yet again for the series to restart.

“Writing three films is quite a lot of work and then getting everyone together... [it’s] increasingly difficult to get everyone’s diaries to align, so we couldn’t really do more than three every couple of years I’m afraid.”

He continued, “We’d certainly like to reduce the time, but by the time we’ve finished and then everyone starts gearing up again, it roughly takes that long.”

As for the length of each episode, Gatiss said that that was unintentional.

“We ended up doing 90-minute episodes by accident. We made a 60-minute pilot and that was gong to be the format of the series. We were going to have six, hour-long episodes,” he said.

“I think if we’d done that everything would be very different. We would do one where it was mostly Dr Watson or Mrs Hudson investigates or something like that.”

The show’s stars, Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, have both starred in “The Hobbit” during their free time from “Sherlock.” They have also done other projects, appeared in one major film after another, and have picked up award nominations along the way.