DwarfCast 19 – Back to Earth Part 1 Instant Reaction DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 10th April 2009, 22:40 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes Well, fuck us sideways Well, fuck us sideways. After years of waiting and months of fevered speculations new Red Dwarf has actually arrived. It’s here. And, surprise surprise we have OPINIONS and we want to force them on you. DwarfCast 19 – Back to Earth Part 1 Instant Reaction (55.9MB) In attendance are the full G&T team, including the lovely Jo Sharples, Tom Pyott and the excellently named Karl Eisenhauer. We’ll let the rest of the cast speak for itself (although bear in mind these are our instant, un-refined opinions), but be sure to keep an eye out for more instant reactions tomorrow and Sunday. Now, fuck off.
Good one guys, some interesting points too. Will be tuning in for tomorrow night’s DwarfCast for sure.
A couple of minutes in: “We don’t care about Kochanski, but we care about Lister.” I liked Kochanski(!) and would have preferred for her to have been written out by returning to her own reality, but that’s a very good point. I hope that the emotion of that scene worked for Kochanski-haters for that reason.
Listening as I’m writing but as far as I can tell the entire commentators carry a very nice overwhelmed aura as you gradually get into the praise and criticism of the show. I think the opinions so far are well attuned to every little detail that is apparent upon first viewing. Well rounded comments. Ian’s point upon the Lister throwing tentacle at Rimmer is very well noticed and something that I hadn’t paid attention too. I really like this concept of the venom hitting him and the rest of the Dwarfers first. Raising the idea that Katerina is in turn with with the leviathan .
By the way I’ve just heard the part questioning Goodall’s inclusion in BtE, and when emailing him a few months back he told me that he wasn’t involved and that production music was more than likely used. Thought you’d like that confirming.
About 20 minutes in… You say that the pace is very fast. The story was, but I don’t think the joke pacing was very fast. I got the same feeling when I first watched Shaun of the Dead in the cinema – the jokes seemed much more, er, spaced out than in Spaced. That’s another reason I’m thinking of this as more of a TV movie rather than three episodes. I agree that cut to the ad break was very jarring. It went Red Dwarf > Mitchell and Webb > Dave logo. I only got a Freeview box capable of receiving Dave a few days ago, so I haven’t watched the channel much, but I doubt whether that’s their standard way of transitioning into adverts.
I liked ‘Beyond a Joke’, I would say ‘Back to Earth’ part 1 and ‘Beyond a Joke’ are on par. It is easily better than ‘Pete’ part 2.
Cheers guys. I can go to bed now. Definitely need a commentary on this at some point. Would like to know the bits everyone laughs at.
Cheers guys. A great listen. I laughed more out loud at Ian’s comment about how badly the team were sticking to the next episodes non-speculation rule, than I did when laughing at Red Dwarf earlier, so dwarfcasts are officially funnier than the episodes they commment on now. From hearing this and reading the threads it seems there is a lot more exceptance of series VII style comedy drama around now, perhaps because of modern Television and how much better this looked than previous shows. A friend of mine who used to watch Red Dwarf with me a decade ago when we were students, texted me to say “That’s the preview then” and I think we really are only just getting going…
Well, having listened to that, I feel I must give John a hug – he sounds almost on the verge of tears. I may steal the laptop tomorrow and try and post comments during the ad break.
Thanks for the mention, guys. Don’t think I have the strength the tackle that cover issue of Minger Monthly, though… ;-)
Very constructive review there. I think John needs to watch it again, it’s been a long time without Red Dwarf it takes a while to get back into it, it’s unique by it’s own virtue. Lister isn’t George, although Rimmer could be Mildred. It’s nice to hear a full spectrum of views, but comparison played a big part in what you said. I don’t think the Episode does stand well it’s own, it can’t, I don’t think Doug’s intention was to have it be split up. The ad break was awful, no indication! There should have been a passage of time shot, we had enough of them but in the wrong place. Great! Well done G&T, Not forgetting Jo!
Are ad break bumpers a channel decision? or a GNP decision, or a colabaration area? It really felt like mitchell and web were commenting red dwarf for a few seconds. It was pathetic presentation.
I think it was written as a film. To be shown in one piece. That’s how he wanted it, of course impossible done on a advert driven digital channel! That’s just the way it feels to me.
I think Andrew has said that it was intended to be shorter than it is now but it became obvious that more time was needed to tell the story and so it went from 2 eps to 3. Doug obviously intended a filmic style but I don`t think he ever thought it could be broadcast as one. Therefore I think that it has to be judged as 3 episodes just like Back in the Red was because that`s how it`s been broadcast.
Whilst I agree with folk that I think it’s got a filmic quality and that we shouldn’t judge it until with seen the whole, if the shows go out as individual chunks then it’s perfectly legitimate to judge them as individual episodes. If they don’t stand up to criticism then perhaps they should never have been shown as individual episodes and we should instead of been given a one-off RD TV movie.
I would have been chuffed with a movie that looked/felt like that. Therefore, could the movie not have bene made on a lot smaller budget than anticipated? Pay the cast/crew as much as you can muster up, and make up the difference later on with the profits (percentages or what-have-you). If they’ve produced more or less 70mins of Red Dwarf on a tiny budget that looks as fantastic as THAT, then a movie would only be another half hour or so on top.
Back to Earth has had as good a publicity trail as any movie I’ve ever followed from the early stages, on a Dave TV special budget.
A show with this kind of fan base sells itself in a lot of ways (re: publicity, promotion et al) But remember you then have to take a chance and get lots of film prints made (although we could argue that RD should be available as digital only via the BFI initiative) you have to have some publicity, there are lots of boring things between distributors and exhibitors that go on, and people would want to be paid more for a film than TV. And how do you know that GNP haven’t said “work on this, and if we get a film, you’re in”. That might persuade people even more.
> And how do you know that GNP haven?t said ?work on this, and if we get a film, you?re in?. I don’t. In fact, I pondered the exact same scenario on here a few days ago.
I can listen to a 3 hour special if the chat is getting that indepth :-). I think they might have been sucked into a fictional world.
We apologise for the delay. For complicated technical reasons that I don’t understand, it’s harder to edit than usual. We’ll stick it up as soon as it’s ready.
You won’t be waiting until the morning (well, aside from the fact that it’s technically morning now, but you know what I mean). It’ll be up “tonight”. It’s not that much longer than usual, but I think it’s worth the wait. I don’t think our opinions have ever been quite this disparate…
I listened to last nights at about 4 AM so I’m not going anywhere for now! Must be getting it up soon though??
I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. I’m on my 6th cup of tea and I’ve nearly finished a pack of 20 Silk Cut. Come on guys, we geeks need our fix!!!
> Well, cut the fags for a start, they ain?t good for yer. Well I don’t drink (anymore) and I don’t do drugs (anymore). Haven’t done since I left uni 3 years ago. So fags are my only vice other than a nice cuppa :) Don’t think I’m going to manage to stay up…will be on first thing in the morning to listen though while I eat me Rice Krispies :P Night x
…I’ve made a cup of tea and cheese on toast and still no sign! SCREW YOU LOT I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR BLOODY OPINIONS ANYWAY! ;-) At least I had a good old innuendo to come back to. Nice one Monkey lol.
Listening now… Edit: Wow! I really enjoyed listening to that. Some great insight and it was fascinating to know what worked for you guys and what didn’t. Dl’ing part two now and will listen after I watch episode 2. Plan to do the same with part three. Looks like that massive bundle of work I brought home with me will be conveniently forgotten about… So naughty.
I’ve finally gotten around to listening to this and imagine my surprise to find out you’d read out one of my comments. Now that the dust has settled, I think I may have enjoyed the Dwarfcast more than the episode.
