Rec: Sherlock on DVD

I mentioned before how much I loved Sherlock. After I got home from visiting lakeeffectgirl, I *cough*acquired*cough* all three eps so I could watch them through again. Then I bought them on DVD, largely for two reasons:

1. In a capitalist society, the best way to show your appreciation/approval of something like this is to vote with your dollars, so I wanted to throw some money at them.


2. I kept seeing stuff in fic that didn't seem to come from anywhere, and I wanted to see if some of it came from the special features.

There are four special features: commentary by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffit, and Sue Vertue on "A Study in Pink"; commentary by Mark Gatiss, Martin Freeman, and Benedict Cumberbatch on "The Great Game"; the unaired pilot; and a featurette about the origins/making of the show. With a few exceptions where they point out something about the location or the camerawork (and it does have amazing camerawork, which I didn't consciously notice until they were pointing it out to me), the commentaries, especially for "A Study in Pink" don't have a lot to do with what's going on on the screen and can just be listened to. I'm not good at just sitting and listening, but I did a lot of cooking and washing dishes this weekend, which gave me the perfect time to listen while doing something else with my hands.

The majority of the commentary on "A Study in Pink" is basically Gatiss and Moffit being really excited about getting to write Sherlock Holmes fan fic. (Let's face it: Sherlock is basically a modern-day AU.) One of the things they do is take us through a lot of trivia "for the fanboys," largely around things they've incorporated from other Holmes stories than the main one they're telling. It's adorable, and it's a good listen. It's also where we learn that they made the sixty-minute pilot and the BBC liked it so much that they asked them to rework it as a ninety-minute show.

"The Great Game" commentary isn't quite as great to just listen to, although it has a lot of entertaining bits, particularly about clothing. It's the first time Martin and Benedict got to watch the ep, so they're a little more involved in seeing how it's been put together than in commenting on it, although there is some of that. The best moment is when Martin has to leave (I don't know if they couldn't schedule it for a time when they could both be there for the whole thing or if something came up in the middle of it). Gatiss suggests that Benedict could do Martin, to which Martin says, "He can probably do me. Or if not, do Rickman," and then Benedict does a creditable Alan Rickman impression.

Both sets of commentary make it clear that while the cases are interesting, the center of the story is the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

The featurette mostly repeats things from the "A Study in Pink" commentary, although it does have some bits of Martin and Benedict as themselves, and someone talking about how the two of them actually became friends.

What's most interesting in terms of things that have crept into fic without being in the main run of the show is the unaired pilot. ( Spoilers. )

The thing that shows up in fic all the time that doesn't seem to come from anywhere is ( Spoilers. )

And then there's the thing in the commentary that I can't believe hasn't made it into fic (or at least I haven't seen it): ( Spoilers. )

Ten Awesome Things About My Weekend

1. Sleep! I got enough sleep last week for the first time in months. This weekend, I felt like myself for the first time in a long time, and it meant I could do things other than just stare at my computer screen. I even, after being exhausted from cooking and the heat, went to bed early yesterday.


2. Writing! Because I was with it in the morning, I met my writing goals first thing in the morning, which let me then go on with my day without feeling anxious about them. I didn't do much other writing, although I did poke at my cupcakes and space station threesome before I got distracted by a recipe not being where I thought it was.


3. Environmental management! I'm being mindful of the fact that I melt down in the summer and trying to manage the part of that that might be linked to being too hot. I had the fans on all weekend, and I reset the programming on my thermostat to 79 degrees instead of 80.


4. norwich36! We had dinner on Saturday, which is always delightful. I'm glad she was willing to indulge my craving for a sandwich! (We have a local place that makes vegan, gluten free sandwiches. I'm currently obsessed with the pesto tofu one.)


5. Lunch with Brad and stevie_roch! When we go to the movies, we usually eat before or after - and if we eat before, we stand around the movie theater lobby talking for a while after the movie. Last weekend, they were out of town and drove very fast to meet me at the theater for the 6:30 X-Men showing. That meant we got out of the movie late and didn't stand around talking as usual. So when we had lunch this weekend, we had a chance to do further chatting about the movie. We remain baffled that we're the only people we know who didn't like it.


6. Sherlock on DVD! See the previous post for more detail, raving, and spoilers.


7. Errands! I did errands this weekend, some of which I'd been putting off for months. I also broke them into manageable bits, even though it meant I headed to the other end of town (a whole two freeway exits away) twice. At no point did I say, "This is not worth my time," out loud and leave a store in disgust. (You may laugh, but I have actually done this before.)


8. Pier One! Approximately five or six years ago, I bought these cool drinking glasses from Pier One. They're colorless glass with a spiral around them of color - some of them red and some blue. I've broken a few over the years, and I've recently become an orange juice drinker and wanted to own more than one juice glass. I actually went to Pier One just to see what they have, thinking that of course they wouldn't still carry these. Much to my surprise and delight, they still have them and my cabinet is restocked.


9. Cooking! Because I felt more like myself, I did a lot of cooking. My cupcakes came out vinegary, my bread was too wet, and my frosting separated, but I'm still glad I got to do some cooking. My roasted apples came out perfectly. We'll see how they do in the final product: the apple-cinnamon toastie from the first Babycakes cookbook.


10. Fiction! I did not actually read anything from bandombigbang, but I did read some Sherlock fic and about a third of the third book in Morgan Howell's The Shadowed Path trilogy. (I will probably have more to say about this once I finish it.)

Takeaways from this list:

1. I should get enough sleep all the time. I'm a lot happier and I get more done when I do.


2. Friends: yay!


3. Everyday things can be a source of pleasure, joy, and awesome.