British-Russian relations, which have always been frosty, suffered another blow this weekend with the leak of the latest Sherlock finale. According to Mashable, a Russian-language version of the season four capper, “The Final Problem,” popped up online on Saturday. Sherlock producers caught wind of the leaked version, and advised fans to avoid watching or sharing it.
Aside from the dubbing, another indication that the leak was Russian in origin was “a short continuity announcement that identified it as broadcast by Russian state-owned Channel One,” which is rather like autographing the walls of the apartment you just broke into, we suppose. In a statement obtained by Mashable, BBC Worldwide says it “takes breaches of our stringent content security protocols very seriously and we have initiated a full investigation into how this leak has occurred.”
Naturally, there’s all kinds of speculation that the leak was politically motivated, following a British bank’s attempts to freeze a Russian publication’s bank account. After making similar threats over BBC assets in Moscow, a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said “Our stance is straightforward: we will stick up for our own. They [Britain] will get as good as they give.” BBC Worldwide is currently in contact with Russia’s Channel One over the situation.