We’ve been seeing a lot of photos for the upcoming Sherlock special that features Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Dr.Watson back in the Victorian era. And today, the BBC released the airdate for the special:

Get ready to meet The Abominable Bride - @BBCOne - 1st January 2016 #221Back #Sherlock pic.twitter.com/Xy4lGJt5ry

— BBC One (@BBCOne) October 24, 2015

If you’ll notice, that tweet indicates that the special will be airing on the same day in the US and the UK, so us United Statesians won’t have to wait around for our Sherlock fix. The special, though, will not be connected to the rest of season four of Sherlock (it seemed unlikely that season four would involve time travel, but I guess Moffat knows a bit about that so it was possible). The good news is that they will allegedly begin shooting season four shortly after the special airs:

Series 4 of #Sherlock will start shooting next spring. Steven Moffat and @Markgatiss are busy writing away right now.

— BBC One (@BBCOne) October 24, 2015

Go ahead and speculate what “busy writing” means right now. My guess is it’s Moffat going back through interviews to see what he promised fans he definitely would or would not do, laughing heartily, and then writing exactly those things all into one episode. Here’s the trailer for the “Abominable Bride” special again to take out the sting of that.

Genevieve Burgess is a Features Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow Genevieve Burgess on Twitter.

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