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The wait will be over soon. Almost three years since we saw the third season of "Sherlock", PBS has finally announced a premiere date for the fourth installment of the Emmy-winning series. The first episode titled "The Six Thatchers" will air January 1, 2017 on PBS Masterpiece, the same date it airs across the pond.

As with previous seasons, the fourth season will consist of three episodes with Benedict Cumberbatch returning as the titular eccentric detective, Martin Freeman as his sidekick Dr. John Watson and Amanda Abbington as Watson's wife Mary Morstan.

Sherlock will return in "The Six Thatchers" on January 1, 2017 on MASTERPIECE on @PBS. #SherlockPBS pic.twitter.com/BsQKF8n4eW

— PBS (@PBS) October 26, 2016

Plot details are still kept under wraps, but the network has previously promised that it would bring "laughter, tears, shocks, surprises and extraordinary cases." Toby Jones joins the cast to play a villain, and there has been rumor that Sherlock's presumed dead nemesis Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) will make a return.

Co-creators and executive producers Steven Moffat Moffat and Mark Gatiss once teased, " 'Sherlock' series four - here we go again! Whatever else we do, wherever we all go, all roads lead back to Baker Street - and it always feels like coming home. Ghosts of the past are rising in the lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson bringing adventure, romance and terror in their wake. This is the story we've been telling from the beginning. A story about to reach its climax..."