Sherlock season 4 trailer: Detective is distressed in teaser for ‘darkest’ series yet

'Did you miss me?'

The BBC has used San Diego’s Comic-Con to release the first trailer for Sherlock series 4, which teases the return of Moriarty and introduces Toby Jones’ new villain.

Holmes is seen in both fist and gun fights in the one-and-a-half-minute teaser, and looks uncharacteristically shaken at one point.

It opens with a shot of Andrew Scott’s much-loved villain Moriarty, with Sherlock saying of the new threat: "Something's coming. Maybe it’s Moriarty. Maybe it’s not.”

Amid all the blasts and tension, however, the show keeps its trademark humour, with the trailer ending with some sharp dialogue between Sherlock and his brother Mycroft ("Keep me informed", "Of what?", "Absolutely no idea").

The teaser follows the first image from the new episodes that was released earlier in the month.

“It’s really dark,” co-star Amanda Abbington told the Comic-Con audience of the new series. “It’s the darkest Steven and Mark have written.”

It may also be the last.

“I don’t know how long we can keep it going," creator Steven Moffat previously told The Telegraph.

“We do have two film stars in the programme. They haven’t needed to do these jobs for a very long time; they’re coming back because they want to.

“I would be moderately surprised if this was the last time we ever made this show. But it absolutely could be.”

Sherlock series 4 will arrive on the BBC in the UK and PBS in the US sometime in 2017.