Ok, so this is where our spoiler policy gets a little complicated. Asking fans not to reveal plot details is one thing, but when the cast blab stuff in public interviews… well, we’d be remiss not to the quote the whole thing. And that’s what we’re about to do. The spoiler in question centres around a gag and the loose plot of an episode. You have been warned.
So, during an interview with Triangulation–some American video podcast or other hosted by some nice American men with American names advertising American companies–Robert covers a number of topics including, obviously, Red Dwarf. It basically goes like this: awkward introduction where the host gets the name of Scrapheap Challenge wrong … *spin on* … News from Gardenia … *spin on* … general Red Dwarf chat … *spin on* … electric cars … *spin on* … Carpool … *spin on* … ah, here’s the good stuff, 37:56 in:
ROBERT: There is a wonderful, and I’m not going to give away the plot… there’s a moment that really stands out… there’s some time travel in Red Dwarf, where the time travelling machine is of a Swedish design and we have to put it together ourselves and we do it so badly, of course, it goes wrong and there’s a fabulous episode where we’re basically searching for a way to get back to our own time. But we’ve gone back in time quite a long way and we’re on Earth and we meet a very significant figure and it’s buried into the dialogue very beautifully and it doesn’t sort of reveal itself until this moment when the very famous historic figure turns around and introduces himself. And when you’re rehearsing this you’re not sure this is going to work, it looks a bit half baked and you’re not quite convinced and when that moment happened in front of the audience the actor playing the significant historical figure couldn’t even say his line, they all got it immediately, the laugh was deafening. And that was a really wonderful moment and quite a complex… you know, Red Dwarf storylines are not simple, they’re dealing with some very complicated concepts and time, space and… you know, tears in the fabric of spacetime and all that sort of thing and for the audience to get it that clearly, they knew where we were, why we were there and who this person was before we even said what we thought was the joke line.
I remember the gag about the ‘time machine’ being of Swedish design being a good one and it’s saved from being a bit hackneyed by being played very well. His recounting of the scene with the ‘significant historical figure’ sounds slightly exaggerated but I do remember a big a laugh before the proper reveal. It’s definitely a great moment.
Of course, we can’t actually contribute to any proper speculation based on this because we know who the historical figure is and have seen the episode recorded. You can probably guess the episode he’s talking about based on our set reports, but obviously we’ll have to ask that anyone who is aware of what he’s referring to refrain from revealing anything in the comments.
Amusingly, earlier in the interview Robert mentions his strict NDA and then, half an hour later, he’s saying something that almost certainly breaks it in a number of interesting ways. Ultimately, though, I think these spoilers are pretty harmless (much like his little GELF slip up) and should only serve to keep everyone’s anticipation levels high.
si / March 5, 2012 at 11:43 am / #
*goes back to read set reports*
NitroChrisUK / March 5, 2012 at 11:49 am / #
Time Travel in Dwarf = Yay
Pete Part Three / March 5, 2012 at 12:33 pm / #
I read that as “Bobby Llew once again tests the limits of his DNA”.
Kris Carter / March 5, 2012 at 2:06 pm / #
Aaaand that’s all I can read it as now.