RIMINI, ITALY – You may not recognize the name, but Mark Gatiss has appeared in and created some of your favorite British television shows. He co-created, wrote, and starred in the seminal BBC comedy “The League of Gentlemen,” had roles in “The Favourite” and the last two “Mission: Impossible” movies, among others, and has written episodes and starred as numerous characters in “Doctor Who.” What he may be best known to global audiences, however, is for his work as the co-creator, writer, and role of Mycroft Holmes on the BBC and PBS’ contemporary version of “Sherlock.”

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Now available on Disney+ or Hulu in America, the series’ fourth and seemingly final season aired in 2017. At one point, it was reported that stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were down to return for a follow-up movie. That no longer seems to be the case.

“We pitched a film in lockdown, which they both liked the idea of, but it’s not what happened. I mean, they are just both impossibly busy,” Gatiss says. “Also, do you know genuinely I think about this more and more, I think it’s important to acknowledge when a time is a time. Sometimes it’s there, and then it stops, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And also,o going back is often very difficult. You know, we did some ‘League Gentlemen’ specials in 2017. We did three of them, and we had a brilliant time that went out really well. But the third question is always: When will ‘The League of Gentlemen’ come back? And I don’t want to go back. I want to want to carry on. I’m like a shark. I need to keep moving forward. But it’s nothing to take away from any of these things and how brilliant they were for me and for lots of people, but I don’t want to live in the past, and I think sometimes it’s very important to acknowledge that, really. And I think that was a lovely time, it was. We did four seasons during a very good, very pleased to see that, I’m going to watch it. But I think sometimes you know it’s better just to go forward.”

Gatiss was speaking during an hour-long masterclass at the inaugural Italian Global Series Festival. The Q&A featured clips from some of his more famous roles and creations. As a childhood fan, he recounted his excitement of first being asked to appear in an episode of “Doctor Who.”

“It was the best day of my life to be asked to be in ‘Dr. Who.’ I was in the back of a taxi. My agent rang and she was a very, was like a proper old-fashioned agent, said ‘Darling, do you want to go to Cardiff to do ‘Dr. Who’?’ I went, ‘What?’ And when I got the script, it literally said ‘Professor Lazarus emerges from the machine, a blonde.’ And I accepted the parts. And when I got the next draft, it said, ‘Professor Lazarus emerges from the machine.’ It’s true. It’s a very cruel business.”

After two seasons co-produced by the BBC and Disney+, “Doctor Who” is currently in limbo. Gatiss was involved in the program, scripting nine episodes between 2007 and 2017. And his “Sherlock” collaborator, Stephen Moffat, was the showrunner between 2010 and 2017, so he certainly hears things. He confirmed this show is not in production (“It’s all about the Disney deal”) and as for ever returning to write or it, he jokes, “I dunno, I’m two doctors down. I think once you’re two doctors down, you can come back.”

As someone long involved in the franchise on multiple levels, including penning a depiction of the origins of the series in the 1960s, “An Adventure in Space and Time.” So, he understands the appeal somewhat more than the average fan. Especially for youngsters watching in the U.K.

“It just gets you from a very early age,” Gatiss says. “It’s ‘your’ program. Still is my program. I was watching it the other night, and on Saturday nights, I still have that feeling of like, ‘Oh, my program’s on, and now there’s no one to stop me watching it.’ And I think it’s a brilliant idea. I tell you one interesting thing, Philip Hinchcliffe, who used to produce the show, said to me once, and I don’t know anyone who ever made this point before, ‘The doctor is a TV original, although its roots are in HG Wells and a bit of Sherlock Holmes and all sorts, but it’s an original television character, not from literature.” And I think that’s really interesting. That’s why I think it’s come back and continued because it’s a great idea, really at its simplest.”

Gatiss adds, “One of the most amazing things is when you talk to people throughout the history of the program, it was always at its best when they were eight. And I think that’s probably how it’s supposed to be.”

The multiphyphenate’s latest project is “Bookish,” a new mystery series he created and stars in. The first two episodes screened at the festival and the 1946-set drama shows promise, especially in its post-war depiction of the main character’s sexual orientation and a slew of secrets interwoven into the first few episodes.

“I play an antiquarian book dealer called Gabriel Book, and I solve crimes on the side with the aid of my pet policeman, Inspector Bliss [Elliott Levy],” Gatiss reveals. “And the first episode is about a murder, a poisoning in the streets. The second one is about a film, a British film crew comes to make a movie in the lane. And it’s all about the British film ministry in the forties. And then the third one is set in a grand hotel in London when there’s all poisonings this year it’s accidentally all about poisonings, but I’m very pleased with it and I’ve always wanted to be play detective and I’ve had this idea for a long time and it’s informed, as I say by my love about postwar world and the films of Powell and Pressburger and that kind of sensibility. It’s fun, but it’s also quite dark, and Book is gay and in what’s called a lavender marriage with Trottie [Polly Walker], my wife, we have an arrangement, and I wanted to make it about the post-war world and how dangerous it was, as well as exciting. So, we are very excited, as they say in the States. We’re very excited.”

“Bookish” is set to premiere in the UK sometime in July. There is no American distributor at present.