Sherlock TV Series Has New Streaming Home in America and It Will Be for A While

BBC’s Sherlock TV series has found a new streaming home in America, and fans will be able to catch the series there for a while! Crackle has reportedly acquired the exclusive US streaming rights to Sherlock and will be streaming the Sherlock Holmes reboot series on the Crackle Plus service for the next three years. It will be the only official place that US fans will be able to stream Sherlock, making it an effective “get” for Crackle. 

“Our audiences have come to expect top-shelf original and exclusive programming from Crackle, which attracts new viewers while also keeping loyal fans entertained,” said Crackle president Philippe Guelton. “Given Benedict Cumberbatch’s ongoing success, the interest in Sherlock remains very high. We are happy that our streaming services are the only destination for viewers to have access to such an in-demand series for years to come.”

“Sherlock is a quintessential British story beloved by fans, so it’s great news that Crackle Plus will be its new home in the U.S. BBC Studios is proud to have completed this deal so fans can relive the spellbinding adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” added BBC Studios’ Dina Vangelisti. 

The BBC’s Sherlock was the show that helped catapult actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman to superstardom. The pair played a modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson (respectively), who run their signature detective agency, assisting London police with confounding cases. Sherlock debuted in 2010 and ran until 2017, with four “series” (or seasons) each consisting of three feature-length cases. A “special” was released between series 3 and 4, as well as a Christmas “mini-episode” released after series 2.

Fans of Sherlock have been patiently waiting ever since 2017 for creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat to bring back the show for a fifth series. Of course, that task has grown into a feat: Benedict Cumberbatch became an international superstar thanks to Marvel’s Doctor Strange franchise and the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame movies; Cumberbatch is now set to headline the summer movie season in Doctor Strange 2 – he also happens to be up for a Best Actor Oscar this year, for his performance in The Power of the Dog. At this point, coming back for more Sherlock seems below Cumberbatch’s pay grade. 

Martin Freeman similarly blew up in the years during Sherlock’s run: he starred in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy; also joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Everett K. Ross in films like Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther, and he’s even scored a string of TV hits like FX’s Breeders or the Crackle series StartUp. Freeman isn’t getting any less busy: he has the Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever and the Marvel TV series Secret Invasion which have both been in production during the last year. 

That’s all to say: the thought of getting Cumberbatch and Freeman together again seems way more likely to happen in a Marvel project than it does in some kind of Sherlock revival. 

“Oh look, I still say never say never,” Cumberbatch recently said about returning to Sherlock. “You know, I really like that character… it’s just, the circumstances need to be right and I think maybe it’s too soon now to see it have another life. I think, wonderful as it is, it’s had its moment for now. But that’s not to say it wouldn’t have another iteration in the future.”