The Last Twenty Three Days News Posted by Ian Symes on 14th July 2020, 12:01 A brief but happy news story for you – we now have a TX date for Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, the three-part documentary series produced by North One for UKTV. Having heard the first rumblings of the publicity juggernaut a few weeks back, Dave has tweeted this morning to confirm that it will air on Thursday 6th August. That’s presumably just the first episode, like – no word yet on whether it will be weekly, daily or some other schedule, or indeed whether all or any of it will be available on UKTV Play in advance of broadcast. We’ll figure out the plans for our coverage of this coverage of the show when we have those details. Also tucked away in that tweet is a new, much much improved title card for the series. When we joked in our previous article that they had time for another crack at the logo, we didn’t expect they actually would, so fair play. This is very much based on the look for The Promised Land, with its weather-beaten aesthetic and same sub-heading font, and it makes sense for Red Dwarf to have a consistent branding style. The powers that be clearly agree, given that both Dave and UKTV Play liked our tweet of the above meme…
DwarfCast 111 – Book Club #1: IWCD (Part One) DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 9th July 2020, 15:38 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes Hello, and welcome to the inaugural edition of the DC/BC. For those who are about to re-read the Red Dwarf novels at a set pace and discuss each part with the community, we salute you. Join Ian Symes, Jonathan Capps and Danny Stephenson as they embark on what has already turned out to be a bigger undertaking than first thought, as they pick the bones out of Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers Part One: Your Own Death, and How to Cope With It. Was McIntyre literally carrying his nose in a Mimas Hilton Coffee Lounge napkin? Was Bliss this book's Chekhov's false water pistol? How many times can we make obvious Hitchhiker's comparisons? All these questions, and more, not actually answered in any meaningful way. Read more →
DwarfCast 110 – Marooned Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 2nd July 2020, 12:02 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes IT. IS. DONE. Almost 14 years after Jonathan Capps and treachery's Seb Patrick spoke over Thanks for the Memory from their little flat above an excellent curry house in London's fashionable London, G&T's three remaining survivors have ticked off the 52nd and final episode commentary of the BBC era. And we've saved a quite good one for last. So, join Ian Symes, Jonathan Capps and Danny Stephenson as they discuss Marooned, arguably the best episode from the slightly creaky but very beloved series III before offering their thoughts on the series as a whole before serving up a giant pile of waffles (men, Waffle Men). Read more →
G&TV: Lovett Goes to Town (1990) Quickies Posted by Jonathan Capps on 30th June 2020, 14:00 It's a tricky thing trying to launch a new TV vehicle around a particular actor or comic. Sometimes you have bags of acting and comedic talent wasted on a dreadful script and sometimes the talent have an on-screen personality akin to sand paper being rubbed violently all over your brain, and make jokes so terrible by today's standards that fan sites 20+ years later have to quickly change their article plans because they don't have the brain power to handle it correctly. No risk of that with our Norman, however, as this month we take a look at his I, Lovett-esque contribution to BSB Galaxy's The Last Laugh series, information on which is quite thin on the ground but we can definitely assume the channel offered rehearsal facilities in Edinburgh. Read more →
Introducing the DwarfCast Book Club Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 27th June 2020, 12:12 It’s only taken us fourteen years, but today is the day that we record our final episode commentary from the original BBC run of Red Dwarf. With the bit between our teeth and Broadcunting House having been moved online, we want to carry on this out-of-character run of recording on a weekly-ish basis while we can, so what next for DwarfCasts? Well, we’ve still got thirteen episodes from the Dave era to tick off, plus a whole host of spin-offs, extras and rarities to jabber over if we get stuck. But we’ll be alternating those with something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Welcome to The DwarfCast Book Club. Every fortnight or so, we’ll be re-reading one part of one Red Dwarf novel to then discuss in great detail, and we’d love it if you joined us along the way. First up, naturally, it’s Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers Part One: Your Own Death, and How to Cope With It, and if you can squeeze in those 94 pages before we record on the weekend of 4th/5th July, we’d love to hear from you so that we can include your comments, reviews and observations in our discussion. Whether you’re just jogging your memory or experiencing the novels for the first time, please leave your comments in this thread. To help us out, please indicate whether each point you make is a general one about the part as a whole, or relating to a specific sub-chapter, so that we can collate everything more easily. We’re really looking forward to revisiting the novels and finally discussing them with the level of depth that they so clearly deserve, and we hope that as many of you as possible find the time to join our virtual book group.
DwarfCast 109 – Blue Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 25th June 2020, 13:01 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes One sleepy Sunday morning the Ganymede & Titan team gathered on a call, turned on their webcams and Blue themselves. We now present to you, in full, the audio presentation of this event. Join Ian Symes, Jonathan Capps, Danny Stephenson, Frank Waffleman, Muffin and the occasional rustling of Cappsy's beard as they discuss what could be the stealth best episode of series VII. This is, of course, the final commentary we needed to do for this series so there's also some general VII chat, as well as some lovely waffles. Read more →
Just what the documentary ordered News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 19th June 2020, 12:14 As Doug Naylor teased this morning, there has been some NEWS coming out of GNP towers today, in the form of more details about the previously teased TV documentary, now titled Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years. It will be airing exclusively on Dave (obvs) this August, which gives them plenty of time to have a bit of an extra crack at that logo. Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years is THE definitive celebration of the most successful sci-fi sitcom of all time. Over three hour-long episodes we go on an epic journey through space and time to chart the history of Lister the lonely space-bum, Rimmer the failed hero, Kryten the spaceship-cleaning mechanoid and Cat, the vainest non-human ever to be trapped in space, through the eyes of co-creator, writer and director Doug Naylor, the cast, the crew, and celebrity fans. I’ll not lie… at the moment, this sounds like it could very easily be a collection of all the best bits from the DVD extras, re-told and re-packaged. The mention of Doug seems to sadly exclude the inclusion Rob Grant (which would be odd given how visible he is in the Dwarf world these days) but I guess he could be categorised as ‘crew’? North One certainly have a good track record and I’m sure these docs will be well put together and worthwhile, but I’m left wondering what they will offer for the likes of people reading this. We shall see, and I’m very prepared to be pleasantly surprised. Having said that I’m certainly delighted that the show is getting such a sizable and prominent series of docs, and three hours of extra Dwarf is something I’ll never sniff at. This is the first time a documentary has been made about Red Dwarf for television since the BBC’s Comedy Connections episode in 2004; and before that, the Red Dwarf Night documentaries of 1998. *The Making of Back to Earth has left the chat* In other, meta, news; G&T’s server will be undergoing some maintenance at some point Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd June, so if during this time you see an error then please don’t panic.
DwarfCast 108 – Cassandra Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 18th June 2020, 11:58 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes In what is quickly becoming something close to a nasty habit, we're back once again with another episode commentary. And today is a day for both joy and joy, as we finally put Series VIII to bed with the long, long overdue commentary for Cassandra. Danny Stephenson, Jonathan Capps and Ian Symes once again convene to discuss this episode's title of 'the good one in series viii', the nature of predeterminism, and to offer a surprisingly generous appraisal of series VIII's position in Red Dwarf history. As if all that wasn't *quite* enough for your poor ears to handle, we've also got an especially waffly edition of Waffle Men in which we get far more self reflective than is entirely necessary. Read more →
DwarfCast 107 – Duct Soup Xtended Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 11th June 2020, 14:37 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes If we have to watch the shit bits, then you do too. In the first of a two part series of taking another stab at an abandoned commentary from years ago, Danny Stephenson, Ian Symes and Jonathan Capps dig into a tepid bowl of Duct Soup. So, put on your best bed sheet, grab a tin of pineapple chunks and ensure there are at least two opposing players between you and the goal at the moment the ball is played forward as we discuss the only time in Dwarf history that the crew gave a shit about what Kochanski thinks, Lister's various phobias and more. Read more →
DwarfCast 106 – Parallel Universe Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 5th June 2020, 13:33 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes As if your podcast queue wasn't full enough! Yes, after squandering a good few months of lockdown (to be fair, one of us has been fairly busy with being a new parent) the G&T commentaries are making a return! Join Ian Symes, Danny Stephenson and Jonathan Capps as we gather remotely to talk over Parallel Universe, a sometimes controversial episode that always seems to hover towards the bottom of episode polls. We discuss the approach to gender politics the episode takes (yey) as well as tackling lighter questions such as: what can't Cheggers be? Read more →
