My assurance of Johnlock goes up and down like a roller coaster, but I’m never more sure of it then when I picture Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat on that train to Cardiff all those years ago chatting about doing a modern Sherlock adaptation. I can just…
HELL YES to all of this. I will also add that after seeing ASiP, I along with many other viewers thought the romance narrative was clearly going to be canonical, only for it to be revealed slowly that it wasn’t. I mean there was a “date”; there was flirting; I thought it was explicit and as clear as day.
(I think afa the Doyle estate is concerned, while they might get hugely pissed off, I don’t think they have legal standing to sue anymore since its out of copyright. But still, a thorny issue.)
No, the copyright case against the Doyle estate is in the US. It doesn’t apply to UK copyright even if the decision is left to stand as-is. Also, the estate is trying to appeal, so the question is not yet permanently settled even in the US—although things do look good for it being left to stand.
Still, it remains a point of hot contention in the UK.