Holmes and Watson get back to detetecting as 'Sherlock' returns to PBS' 'Masterpiece'

Life has been busy for the stars of "Sherlock" since the series premiered in 2010, with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss applying new London style and contemporary quirks to Arthur Conan Doyle's famous consulting detective. Its fourth season -- there have been breaks -- begins Sunday on PBS' "Masterpiece: Mystery!" Martin Freeman, the series' Dr. John Watson, has gone from a guy you might have seen on the British version of "The Office" or in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to playing Bilbo Baggins in three "Hobbit" movies and the hapless Lester Nygaard in the first season of FX's "Fargo," and hosting "Saturday Night Live." Benedict Cumberbatch, its Sherlock (also in the "Hobbit" movies, as the voice of Smaug) has, among other things, played Khan in "Star Trek Into Darkness," the title role in "Doctor Strange," codebreaker Alan Turing in "The Imitation Game" and Richard III in BBC's "The Hollow Crown" Shakespeare cycle; sung "Comfortably Numb" with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall; and has become something of an international, official hot guy. Conan Doyle wrote 60 Holmes stories, but the world has deemed that insufficient, and many other hands have filled out the tale. Holmes is a useful mix of specific qualities and scant details -- an attitude, occupation and method as much as a full-fleshed, full-fledged character, and so familiar that even some characters not called Sherlock Holmes, like Hugh Laurie's Dr. House on "House," are recognizably him.