'Sherlock' Season Three Begins In January On PBS

Just what happened to Sherlock Holmes between the roof and the ground, and why is he being all shady about life after Moriarty? We'll start to find out on January 19 when the BBC show Sherlock returns for its third season on PBS. The show will run back to back with Downton Abbey. While the US premiere date is being revealed before the UK date, Sherlock's home territory will likely see the show first.

Want all three episode titles, so that you can work on which original Sherlock Holmes stories might be the source for each? They're after the break.

Why has the wait been so long? Well, as you may have noticed, stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have been ever more busy in movies, including that one set of films that employs them both, The Hobbit.

PBS Masterpiece producer Rebecca Eaton says "The first holdup was the boys, of course, and getting all of them together — not just Benedict and Martin but also [creators] Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. They had to break up the production to accommodate all the movies they wanted to make." And with the post-production work necessary, "This is about as quickly as we could have possibly got them on the air once they were made," Eaton says.

And the episode titles, of which we've known a couple: the first is 'The Empty Hearse,' the second episode is 'The Sign of Three,' and the third episode is 'The Last Vow,' which airs Feb. 2. [EW]