Waiting for a new season of Sherlock is already hard enough as it is, so waiting for two years for new episodes makes it that much harder. But developing these episodes isn’t easy, for Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are essentially working on three movies in the span of a year. And with the actors both in high demand, scheduling to work on a new season has been difficult.

Freeman was conducting a few interviews earlier this week, and spoke about a Sherlock Christmas Special. It wasn’t the new season we were all hoping for, but getting one episode of Sherlock, a Christmas-themed episode no less, would be more than enough to satisfy our fix. But as it turns out, there is more to it than that. It has been confirmed that the Christmas Special will also be followed by season four of the series. Hit the jump for more.

We learned last month that the U.S. start date for Season 3 of Sherlock would be January 19, 2014 on PBS Masterpiece, but there was still no word at that time what the UK premiere date on BBC One would be.

Now, the BBC announced that Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman will return as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson for the third season on January 1, 2014 in the UK, and they had an interesting way of making the announcement – they’re driving a hearse with #SherlockLives on it through the streets of London!

While audiences are gearing up for The Day Of The Doctor, Doctor Who fans can also expect another great special coming from the BBC called An Adventure In Space And Time – telling the story of how Doctor Who came to be in real life, 50 years ago on November 23 – an valuable depiction of the beginning of what would become a cultural phenomenon and the longest-running sci-fi series in history.

Mark Gatiss, of Doctor Who and Sherlock fame, writes and produces the special, which features David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) as William Hartnell – the first Doctor – in a piece of casting that sees Bradley look just like Hartnell. The similarities are eerie.

An Adventure In Space And Time tells of how the television show came into being, the importance of first showrunner Verity Lambert (played by Jessica Raine), and the world-shattering approach in the impossible task of trying to tell stories on poor budgeting and how much of a phenomenon the series quickly became.

Classic Doctor Who villains, THE ICE WARRIORS, make a triumphant return in Cold War this week, as the 7th Series of modern Doctor Who continues. In the story written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Douglas Mackinnon, the Doctor (Matt Smith) and companion Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman) take a wrong turn in the TARDIS on the way to Las Vegas, and end up materializing on a sinking Soviet Submarine at the height of Cold War tensions in 1983.

While the materialization would ordinarily be an immediate threat to the Russian sailors, our heroes arrive in the middle of a crisis, with equipment damaged on the boat causing it to sink. Professor Grisenko (David Warner), attached to the command of Captain Zhukov (Liam Cunningham) for scientific drilling in the Arctic, has discovered a surviving Ice Warrior, who begins waging bloody war with the occupants of the submarine.

During TARDISblend 61, we celebrate a brilliant return of the fantastic Ice Warriors, their first appearance in 39 years. We also commend the performances by the spectacular guest stars on this episode, and look into the possibilities for the return of these characters, and perhaps more Ice Warriors adventures in the future…

As usual, we make some Classic Who recommendations too… All this and more on the latest TARDISblend!

Doctor Who
Series 7, Episode 9 – “Cold War”
Directed by Douglas Mackinnon
Written by Mark Gatiss
Starring: Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Charlie Anson, Nicholas Briggs, Liam Cunningham, Tobias Menzies, James Norton, Josh O’Connor, David Warner, and Spencer Wilding.
BBC America
Air date: April 13, 2013

“It never rains, but it pours.”

It’s funny how that simple phrase so fittingly ties into the theme for “Cold War,” the latest episode of Doctor Who. Once The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) materialize on the Soviet submarine, chaos has already ensued and things continue to progress and get worse.

And then the bottom really falls out.

Written by Mark Gatiss (whose past Doctor Who episodes have been rather hit or miss), “Cold War” certainly plays into the themes and fears of the time and makes them a tangible threat that seeps through the episode like the drops of water that constantly drip through the nuclear submarine. The threat is real. And it’s here.