Doctor Who and Sherlock are currently two of the most popular British TV shows in the world, and both are run by the same guy: Steven Moffat. Because they’re under the same leadership, fans have wondered for years about a way to join the two shows in a crossover. Unfortunately, the man in charge has confirmed that The Doctor and Sherlock Holmes won’t ever be teaming up together for an epic adventure.
Moffat told Entertainment Weekly that although he is keen to see the Time Lord and the high-functioning sociopath detective together, his fellow writers and actors aren’t keen on the idea. Said Moffat:
My instinct—and this is probably from years of doing Doctor Who—is I’m just such a tart. If people want it, we should give it to them. But I got persuaded by Mark, Benedict, Sue and Martin who said, ‘Look, it will never be as good as [fans] think it’s going to be.’ And then I say, ‘Yes but we’ll just bang it out and make it as good.’ Yeah, but you can’t give everybody everything they want all the time. But I’m in the camp of giving them everything they want! But I think they’re sane and right, and I’m just a tart.
As much as it pains me to say it, he's probably right. Doctor Who, which currently stars Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, is about an alien who travels through time and space in a blue box that’s bigger on the inside, while Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (at this point everyone knows who he is) is about a a consulting detective with excellent observational skills who solves mysteries in London. With their unique personalities, the repartee between these two would be amazing to watch, but there’s really no feasible way to join those two universes effectively from a narrative standpoint. It would strictly be fan service, and with the way many have built it in their heads, the real deal wouldn’t meet their expectations. So we’ll just have to leave stories featuring these two British icons joining forces to fan-fiction writers.
If you really are desperate for the Doctor and Sherlock team up, the closest you’re going to get is the fan-made video above of Sherlock interacting with the Twelfth Doctor’s predecessor, played by Matt Smith. For those of you who are especially big fans of Doctor Who, Moffat also confirmed that there are no plans to give the titular character another feature-length film (the first canon one aired on Fox in 1996), with the main issues being its budget and having more than one Doctor at the same time.
Doctor Who will return with new episodes this fall, while the Sherlock special is expected to air in 2015.
