DwarfCast 157 - Re-Disc-overy: Series 1 featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

The first Red Dwarf DVD was released twenty years ago today. Yes, we regret to inform you that you're old. The fourth of November 2002 is a date indelibly printed on the brains of fans who spent months being teased and tantalised into a frenzy. Kids today with your YouTubes and your Netflixes and your Ministry of Sound may not appreciate just how big of a deal it was for Dwarf to join the digital revolution in such a wholehearted way, so gather round and listen to your Uncles Cappsy, Danny and Ian as we kick off a new series of DwarfCast retrospectives.

For each edition of Re-Disc-overy, we're going to be sharing our memories of each DVD release, looking back on the media and fandom landscapes of the time, and of course revisiting and reassessing the many, many special features. Plus, we've picked out one extra per series to receive the commentary treatment, and this time it could only be Launching Red Dwarf. So get that lovely red box off your shelf, remove the dust from your ageing DVD player and join us as we discuss Red Dwarf's greatest unsung hero, unicycling jugglers, embarrassing Dimension Jump memories, the glory of Woolworths and much much more.

Read more →

DwarfCast 156 - The Smegazine Rack - Issue #6 featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

Hello hello and welcome back onto the rack. In a shock twist that even we didn't expect, we've actually come good on our promise to start up our regular DwarfCasting routine again. This time Cappsy, Danny and Ian are going page by page through Issue 6 of the Smegazine, which gives them plenty of opportunity to be all smug and self regarding about those early 90s idiots and their casual ableism and homophobia. Hurrah!

Read more →

Revisions Timetable featured image

In the latest example of our readers being better than us at writing articles these days, we're proud to present an extremely niche but very important missive from Flap Jack. Ever since recording the Book Club, we've wanted to catalogue all the changes made within the various releases of the Red Dwarf novels. In a beautiful piece of synchronicity, old Flappo Jacko got in touch a few weeks ago having done exactly that. This is the first of two articles investigating the amendments to those sacred texts.

Red Dwarf is no stranger to having its episodes tweaked with over time. From smaller changes like the word “week’s” being omitted from the opening of Polymorph on VHS, to the huge reworks made for the controversial Red Dwarf Remastered project, you can never be absolutely sure that your favourite moments will be unaltered whenever the show is released onto a new format.

But there’s one corner of the Dwarf canon where this phenomenon has so far only experienced surface-level scrutiny: the novels. If you’ve ever read Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers on paperback and then later re-experienced it on audiobook -  or in the Omnibus edition with its sequel, Better Than Life - you’ll probably have noticed that a few things here and there aren’t quite the same. How many details were changed from version to version, exactly, and what were they? Today, let’s find the answers, piece by piece.

Read more →

DwarfCast 155 - Red Dwarf USA Pilots - Commentary featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

In my own personal and humble opinion, Red Dwarf fans are very lucky to have something like the US pilots. The mystery and excitement of them during the 90s and the black market in increasingly terrible copies are a defining part of many of our fandoms. Despite the fact we've still been unable to source a decent quality copy of either pilots, the time has come for Ian, Danny and Cappsy to commentate on these pilots 30 years after they were ill-conceived.

Read more →

Ganymede & Titan: 20 Years in 20 Articles featured image

2002. Tony Blair is Prime Minister. The Fellowship of the Ring wins four Oscars. Atomic Kitten's cover of The Tide Is High is Britain's best selling single. And on a free web-hosting provider, a brand new website starts. A website that features Red Dwarf, but is regularly updated. A website full of opinions, but with no justifications. A website that has already been started and abandoned three times by its teenage creator, and then almost scuppered by a part time job, but which finally hits the internet on the 14th September 2002, the date on which pedantry goes beyond the final frontier. The website is Ganymede & Titan, and tonight we salute the inexplicably still active site and its tedious crew.

Read more →

DwarfCast 154 - The Smegazine Rack - Issue #5 featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

Surprise! We didn't plan to have a summer break, but a summer break we indeed have had in order to recharge our batteries and hide from the dreaded Burnout Monster. We've got a bit of editing catchup to do, though, so we're breaking with tradition and giving you another Smegazine Rack today while editing on the Red Dwarf USA episode is finished (well, started).

Grab your complementary copy of the mag here.

Read more →

I’m sorry everyone, but this is a bad one. Over the last week we have lost Phil Reed, our friend and former writer on Noise to Signal, Observation Dome and here on G&T.

Nintendo Life, a former writing haunt for Phil, tweeted the news originally and the gaming channel for which he worked, Triple Jump, are running charity streams in his memory and in aid of an organisation that was close to his heart – The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth charity and something that is increasingly vital in this awful, garbage fire of a world. If you feel moved to do so you can donate either through their campaign or in your own way.

For any G&T geriatrics among you Phil will need no introduction, but over the last 20 or so years he has been a friend and colleague to many in our community. Personally, I first got know Phil during the old Observation Dome and Noise to Signal days and he’s been a constant if sporadic presence here on the site since. He was a warm and talented writer and an exceptionally funny person. For those wanting to sample his work over the years, the best place for his more recent writing is Noiseless Chatter (fair content warning: Phil says goodbye personally in his last post so click with caution if you are understandably not up to reading it) and there’s more besides that, but I’ll use the comments section to point you to some of my favourites from back in the day.

We are sorry to once again be the bearers of awful news. G&T is a community of great people and we’ve lost a huge amount recently. Remember, if any of you need help then please seek it out – either professionally with a service such as The Samaritans or amongst your friends here. Take care, everyone.

This Guy's Pure Class featured image

It's a rare, nay freak occurrence for us to publish guest articles, but when Dave Wallace got in touch with this effort, we made an exception for three reasons. 1) Dave is a long-standing and very funny member of the community, and it's the community that continues to make G&T worth visiting; 2) We're in one of our shit phases for written content at the moment; 3) It's really bloody good. Enjoy Dave's musings on one of  Red Dwarf's most important but lesser documented themes.

Red Dwarf is a sitcom about a lot of things – space, science, weird cosmic phenomena, and the consequences of having a three-million-year old bum, a creature evolved from a cat and a hologram simulation of a long-dead jobsworth as the only sentient beings left in existence.

But strip away its sci-fi trappings, and at the heart of the show is a concept that’s as universal as it is timeless: class.

Read more →

DwarfCast 153 - The Smegazine Rack - Issue #4 featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

It seems a lot has happened since our last episode of The Smegazine Rack. We've launched and re-launched our incredibly original game Smegle and... well, that's about all that has happened, hasn't it? Yes, yes, definitely. Anyway please join your incompetent (by design) hosts, Ian, Danny and Cappsy as they climb up into the cab, fire up the slumbering beast and crack on... with the job of reading through every episode of the Smegazine.

Read more →