Karie

I got my shipment notification e-mail earlier today! Yay! I'm looking forward to a series 3 re-watch this week!

If I'm remember correctly, the US dvds will be released day after tomorrow. Hopefully they won't take too long to get here. I've been keeping myself from watching any of season 3 again since a few days after HLV aired, because I want to do a full season re-watch when the dvds get here, and I didn't want to be burned out on them by then. Of course, I woke up this morning and my tv (which is less than 2 years old) decided it was a good day to die (on Walking Dead day? Oh, h*ll no!!!) So I had to make a trip to Best Buy to get a new one. Got it all hooked up so I'm all set for tonight and the arrival of my new dvds. I'm really interested to see how my perspective on the season changes now that a.) I have seen it in its entirety, and b.) I've distanced myself from the episodes for several weeks.

I agree, at least about the Molly bit. However, there are quite a few people out there who see something deeper there as far as Sherlock is concerned (I know, because I was recently attacked by a couple of them on tumblr. ). To each his own, I guess. (That was in lieu of a shrugging smiley, since I couldn't find one.)

T.o.b.y, I agree 100%!!

Wanted to express my thoughts on Moffat's recent comments regarding Sherlock and Molly... This is how I am interpreting that: Molly has decided that, while she will always have a soft spot in her heart for Sherlock, she's not interested in winding up with him anymore. She's realized that he's not really the type of man she wants to settle down with. I think the reason she broke up with Tom was not because she wanted Sherlock more, but because she finally saw what everyone else did in TEH... that Tom was a stand-in for Sherlock. When she let go of Sherlock, she realized that she needed to let go of the stand-in, too, and go another way entirely. I think finally realizing she didn't want to be with Sherlock is what made her comfortable enough with him to slap him and be so blunt with him in HLV. If this turns out to be true, then good for her! Here's hoping that new direction leads her to a certain Silver Fox detective we all know and love.

One thing that really gets me about that whole "surgery" bit... Mary's shot was in a very, very dangerous location. To not cause serious (even fatal) harm, would have been a very, very lucky break. But the thing is... no matter how precise she was, or what knowledge she may have had about anatomy, she still couldn't have known that she wouldn't kill him. I've had my hands inside enough chest and abdominal cavities to tell you that no one's anatomy is identical to anyone else's. Organs are smaller or larger in different people, things are off a bit in their location. I've been standing over patients in the OR where the surgeon outright admitted that he was having a slow time finding his way around, because the anatomy was far from "text book". So no matter how "precise" she tried to be, and no matter how much knowledge she had, she had to have known that there was always a chance that he would die. And she still pulled the trigger, even knowing that. She took that big of a risk with Sherlock's life. I still can't forgive her for that. I haven't watched the episode in a couple of weeks. I didn't want to burn out on it before my dvds came. Maybe I'll have a fresh perspective when I finally get to watch it on the big screen, but I'm not holding out any hope that Mary's character will be salvaged for me. As it stands, I still want her gone as soon as possible. I'm also feeling very wary about watching The Empty Hearse and The Sign of Three again. I loved Mary in the first two episodes, and particularly in TSoT (and I just loved that episode so much by itself), and I'm afraid my enjoyment will be compromised now that I've seen His Last Vow. Kind of like how my enjoyment of TRF is not the same after having seen TEH. Funny, I never got the impression that John's main source of anger was Mary shooting Sherlock. It seemed to me that he was mostly upset that she had lied to him about who she was and gone so far as to even marry him under an assumed name. That and finding out she was not, as he had thought, finally a "nice, normal" person for him to love. Speaking of which... someone brought up a good point on tumblr the other day. Because Mary married John under false pretenses and while she was committing identity fraud, their marriage is not actually valid. I wonder if that will ever be brought up? I doubt it. I guess the whole "Is Mary Watson good enough for you?" bit underlined the fact that John doesn't seem to care that Mary Watson is not Mary Watson and not his wife.

I read a very interesting article someone on tumblr wrote about the use of Sherlock's Mind Palace in this episode, and some things I didn't even notice regarding wardrobe whenever it's being utilized. Give it a read if you like! http://lizthirose.tumblr.com/post/74722283769/the-one-who-belongs-john-in-sherlocks-mind-palace

Maybe you just "misspoke" -- there are three mini-documentaries listed on the DVDs, but there are no audio commentaries. Near as I can tell, the Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs have (in the past) had the same content. The special goodies that we're getting here in the US are shorter min-documentaries that are being run following the PBS broadcasts of Series 3. They are apparently unique to PBS, and are not the same mini-docs that are on the DVDs. Are we all sufficiently confused yet? Yes, I meant to say commentaries, not documentaries! I should have checked into this before I bought them, but I'm hoping the season 1 dvds that I added to the cart with season 3 are the full cut and not the shortened PBS versions. If they're shortened, I'm going to be super upset!

Mangopony, I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know when I get them, but I doubt we'll get anything special that the UK didn't get.

I'm really disappointed that there will be no documentaries. I'm still waiting for my dvds to be released in the US. You know what would be really great? Some deleted scenes and gag reels, but something tells me there won't ever be anything like that.

Ooh, neat how they created that message by having the top poster start to peel off a bit, revealing one word on an older layer underneath. I should know this (I mean, how often do we see John with a car?), but what scene is that from? When John and Mary drive up to the crack den, and John goes and gets the tire lever out of the trunk.

Yeah, I basically have to not pay any attention to the medical failures in television shows. I work in the OR, so it's especially difficult for me to watch OR-themed shows and see how horribly wrong they get it. Grey's Anatomy is the closest I've seen to doing it right, and even they do things that make me want to throw a shoe at the screen. I've learned to just look the other way on that stuff most of the time. Sometimes it's harder than others, though. I recently started re-watching Nip/Tuck on Netflix, which I watched originally as it was airing and before I got into health care. Every single time they scrub and then walk into the OR with their masks down, only to reach up and tie them on after they've been gowned and gloved... let's just say it's an effort not to write a strongly worded letter to someone. Like you said, it's best to just put all that aside and suspend disbelief. Maybe one reason that John doesn't generally behave that way is that Sherlock does it for him -- though to such excess that John has the "Are you kidding me?" reaction. Then too, we don't often see John awakened at the crack of dawn -- and come to think of it, that's a bit odd, because in the original stories, Holmes was forever waking Watson at all hours. Speaking of which, I always assumed Sherlock slept little and was probably up hours before John, but when Mrs. Hudson brings him his morning tea in TSoT, she mentions that he's usually not up yet whenever she brings it in, indicating that he often sleeps in. Perhaps he's up at all hours when he's working a case, and then in the between-times he crashes and sleeps like a teenager. I think you've probably hit the nail on the head for the reasoning behind John's seeming distance in that scene, and it's pretty much what I was thinking as I was watching it. When it comes to Sherlock Holmes, I think John has probably reached his lifetime limit on heartbreak and has just had to shut a part of himself down in order to say goodbye again. Speaking of which, what do you guys think will happen in regards to Sherlock's exile in season 4? Do you think he will get an immediate pardon when the plane lands and he agrees to help deal with Moriarty, or do you think they'll keep the threat of exile hanging over his head all season if he doesn't solve the problem (or maybe even the threat of "You still have a plane waiting for you, this is just a stay of execution")? I think Sherlock needs to have a heart to heart with Mycroft and tell him straight up,"You know what, if you want to keep coming to me to help you stop these super genius villains, you're going to have to accept whatever methods I use to do it. If you are going to hold me to the every-man's set of laws, then don't come to me for help anymore."

Part of that is probably the doctor thing. When you're a doctor, you only get so long to speak to each patient and you don't have time to let them talk all around the houses when you need to find out what the specific problem is with them so John will be used to having to get to the point of something, cutting a potentially long ramble down to the essential and relevant factors. He's probably more polite about it usually, though. That's certainly true. I work with doctors and I see a lot of them behaving that way (and worse) on a daily basis. It's just that John has never come off that way before. He was always the one to give Sherlock the "Are you kidding me??" looks whenever he would be particularly blunt with a client. I suppose it could just be age and the experience of the last couple of years that have hardened him. Or he could have been channeling Sherlock subconsciously because he missed him. I found it particularly telling when he said,"I haven't seen him in ages!" and Mary pointed out that it had only been a month. Clearly, in John's mind, that's about 25 days too long.

Well, he did say it wasn't "agreeing" with him, and Sherlock mentioned that he needed low tar and still smoked "like a beginner". If he only smokes very rarely, it would make sense that his tolerance is much lower.

I have never seen the unaired pilot! Where do I find it? Check your inbox.