Holmestice Reveals, Pt 2; Whitehead Holmes DVDs

[sanguinity]

There were TWO Whitehead Holmes stories in Holmestice this round! I am so excited!
The Case of the Deceased Marmalade Thief by
scfrankles for
sanguinity
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (TV 1980)
Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, & Mrs. Hudson
Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply
3,000 words

There is a dead body in Watson’s room. Can Holmes, Watson and Lestrade remove it before Mrs. Hudson gets home? A vignette of everyday life at 221B, Baker Street.
The Case of the Six Marmalades by
sanguinity for
Small_Hobbit
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (TV 1980)
Holmes & Watson
Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply
3,300 words

Holmes likes both Watson and marmalade. Perhaps even in that order.


scfrankles's story is, as I previously stated, an utter delight. I asked about Mrs. Hudson's reaction to the murder under her roof during the Harry Rigby case; SCFrankles' answer is far better than any thoughts I had on the subject. :-)

My own story was a treat for
smallhobbit, who regularly volunteers to beta, Britpick, and pinch-hit for
holmestice. Right when assignments went out, she posted a fic wishlist, so I did some quick research and wrote a fill while I was on vacation. (It turns out that a compact 5+1 meshes very nicely with the rhythms of visiting in-laws!)

Two things I learned while writing it:

First, there are many more kinds of marmalade in the world than I've ever been privileged to know. It was a bittersweet discovery, but I live in hope that one day I'll get to sample all these wondrous concoctions.

Second, Marmalade Tea was apparently a thing:
Victorian Marmalade Tea

• 5 cups boiling water
  
• 5 tea bags - better if you use a loose black tea
  
• 1/2 cup good quality orange marmalade
  
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  
• Sugar and milk optional

Place tea bag into a saucepan.
Pour boiling water over tea bag; cover and let steep for 5 minutes.
Remove tea bag.
Add in marmalade, sugar, and lemon; stir to combine.
Strain mixture if you want or serve as is.
Speaking for myself, I haven't gone so far as to follow the recipe; I just stir a spoonful of marmalade into my mug and call it good. Because it is. Honestly, I have no idea what Watson was complaining about, marmalade tea is very nice!

~ ~ ~

In related news, the Whitehead Holmes series was released on DVD in Germany this spring ( amazon.de). For those of us who are attached to the series but have only seen it via terribly degraded VHS rips, this is very exciting. Happy birthday to meeeee!

Unfortunately, the combined powers of my high-school German and Amazon.de's and Google's translations left me with questions about what exactly I'd be receiving when I placed the order. Here are the answers, in case anyone else wants to know:

• The DVDs are Region-free and PAL-encoded. For this American, it means they play on my Region-1 DVD player, but my TV can't display the DVD player's output. Happily, I could and did rip them into PAL-encoded mp4s, which for whatever mysterious reason do play on my TV. (I assume it's an interlaced-vs.-progressive thing, but beyond my initial annoyance about it, I don't actually care all that much.)
  
  
• There's a hefty booklet with production notes and articles about the individual actors, but it's all in German and I haven't attempted translating it yet.
  
  
• The menus and titles are exclusively in German.
  
  
• For the episodes proper, there are no subtitles, but you can choose between the original English and the German dub...
  
  
• ...except during the never-aired-in-English "deleted scenes," where the English audio track uses the German dub, with optional English subtitles available for those bits only. These "deleted scenes" are an integral part of the episodes themselves, btw, not something you access via a separate menu. I haven't watched all the episodes yet, but so far, the "deleted scenes" are mostly just slight extensions of existing material: the characters entering at the beginning of a scene, or everyone leaving the room at the end of the scene, or Holmes asking one more question during a consultation, etc. Basically, it looks like the English episodes were edited to be just a skoosh shorter than the German, which means that the English soundtrack is just a bit shorter than the German video; thus, this workaround of filling in with the German audio for those extra seconds. Because the German dub is in better shape than the original English, the viewing experience is that everyone is having a mild, well-mannered discussion of the fine points of the case, when they abruptly all start shouting Auf Wiedersehen! Auf Wiedersehen! Auf Wiedersehen! at each other. Most of these trimmed-off bits don't add much to the episodes, but there are a few nice-if-insignificant character moments here and there. In "Deadly Prophecy," for example, Holmes and Watson are stampeded by a pack of schoolboys in a corridor; Watson successfully dodges them, but one child caroms full tilt into Holmes. Holmes doesn't mind a bit, though: it's his fault, really, for being so thoughtless as to stroll about in corridors that boys want to run in. :-)
  
  
• The episodes are in no way a re-master. There's white noise in the audio track; the high notes of the theme song waver; sometimes the dialog is a bit muffled. Similarly, there are occasional minor defects in the image; the color is muddier than contemporary standards; etc. I've found at least one scene where the video and audio are slightly out of sync. However, when compared to the quality of the VHS rips that are floating around the 'net, these are clean and pretty and bring me much joy. (The aspect ratio is correct! The image never skips or wobbles! I can hear all the dialog! I can see every twitch of Pickering's impeccably-groomed eyebrows! Wheeeee!)
  
  
• For whatever mysterious reasons, the episode order is scrambled on the DVDs. The original order gave us a subtle arc to Holmes' and Watson's relationship, with Watson gradually becoming wise to Holmes' teasing and better able to follow or anticipate Holmes' deductions. Sadly, the order on these DVDs completely mess up that arc.
  
  For example, "The Speckled Band" opens with Watson wanting to know how Holmes knew that the client upstairs was female; in answer, Holmes pointedly glances at the parasol by the hall coat-tree. When this exchange is the opening of the second episode (which is where "Speckled Band" sits in the original sequence), Watson overlooking something so straightforward is simply him being new to the gig, but when it's positioned at episode eight, after we've seen Holmes and Watson working as a tight team, Watson anticipating Holmes' actions, it reflects badly on Watson that he suddenly needs to ask how Holmes knew such a simple thing.
  
  (Another example is the running joke about Holmes describing a client he's seen out the window: I've just seen the final installment of that joke, but have not yet seen the two episodes that set it up. That is, this episode has a world-weary Watson who has seen this joke too many times and knows the punchline; at some point down the line Watson will have never heard this joke before.) Basically: I recommend not watching them in DVD order, but in this order.
  
  
• The title sequences are slightly different, but not in a way that should matter much to anyone. Anthony Burgess isn't credited as script consultant, and there's an odd freeze-frame-plus-jump-cut while Holmes lights his pipe, such that Watson spontaneously appears behind Holmes instead of walking into the frame. (Can German Watson teleport, but is trying to keep it a secret from Holmes?)
  

If anyone wants screencaps, I'm happy to provide. :-)

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