Some of them involving strange men (and women) with large teeth, and all of them look GREAT.
So, now, if you enjoy someone who wasn’t at any of the recordings blindly fumble his way through explaining things he doesn’t understand, then please do read on.
When TOS updates on any day other than Friday, it’s either extremely good news or extremely bad news. Thankfully, today was the former, with the announcement that the triple act of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye are broadcasting a live commentary on Future Echoes followed by a Q&A, this Sunday 29th March at 2pm BST. It will take place via Zoom, but places on the call are extremely limited, so fill in the form on the TOS page right this second if you don’t want to miss out.
Anyone who saw the trio give The End this treatment at the last Dimension Jump will be very excited to see them reprise the act, and hope that at least another 34 episodes will follow if this is a success. At a time when content creators from across the world of entertainment are pulling out the stops with innovative ways to provide a glimmer of distraction from the shitty situation we find ourselves in, this is a much welcome venture right now.
We’re all very sad to hear the news that Bill Pearson, one of the all-time greats of the British visual effects industry, has passed away.
As part of a long career in film and TV, which took in such classics and cult favourites as Alien, Flash Gordon, Space Precinct, Casino Royale and Moon, his contribution to Red Dwarf was the stuff of legend. He first joined the team for Series IV, working on set dressing and handheld props up to and including Series VI. He returned for Series VIII as the visual effects designer, with perhaps his finest and most memorable triumph being the Starbug crash and explosion from Back In The Red (Part One). His ability to work to a limited time and budget was also in evidence; he famously agreed to knock up an escape pod for Only The Good for the cost of a bottle of wine, only to be presented with a full crate as a token of Doug’s appreciation.
Ah, here were are again. You’ll all have seen the full 40 second trailer for Red Dwarf: The Promised Land by now, and made your minds up about the jokes within. Personally, I like them, my favourite being the way Kryten, Cat and Rimmer all confirm that Lister is a nobody in slightly different and expertly timed ways. But let’s face it, we always get into a bit of a tizz ahead of a new Dwarf broadcast by over-analysing the handful of gags we’ve seen, when deep down we know that only a certain type of quick-fire joke works in a trailer, and they’re not necessarily representative of the humour of the whole show.
So we’re going to ignore the actual dialogue for now, and instead do what we do best – painstakingly and pointlessly analysing every single shot, pointing out both the big talking points and the little things you may have missed. Well, we say “every shot”, we’ve not bothered doing screengrabs every time it cuts back to a similar shot within the same scene, because the tiny snippets you see in the montages are much more interesting anyway. Here we go…
First thing’s first, The Promised Land will be airing on Dave on Thursday 9th April, helping you kick off what will sure to be your perfectly normal Easter weekend that will be just like any other previous Easter, definitely.
Second thing’s second, we’ve got our first full trailer and pardon me for saying that it’s a good ‘un.
Cats in deerstalkers! Essentially the same (but good) joke made in the space of seconds! Great CG! Even greater music! RIMMER COSTUMES.
Anyway, have a chew on that and no doubt someone will be along later armed with nothing but a snipping tool and a head full of dreams.
On a day when half the country is either in lockdown or preparing to go into lockdown, and we’re debating whether or not meeting up to watch the Red Dwarf Special go out counts as “non-essential travel”, Dave and Red Dwarf HQ have provided a much welcome distraction, in the form of this lovely big poster:
Well then, today’s TOS update has certainly given us something to talk about, despite having already had a teaser trailer and title reveal this week. It’s hard for us to say too much, having attended the recording, but for those of you who didn’t, get a load of this:
As TOS points out, there’s still a lot of things to speculate about with this special. Fill your boots.
You know how there’s a long and ignoble history of things like synopses, titles and even whole episodes of new Red Dwarf accidentally getting released before they’re supposed to? Well, we’d been reliably informed that the title of the upcoming Special would be revealed on Monday March 16th, presumably with some degree of fanfare attached, and yet for some reason it’s already out there online through official sources. And while none of the proper PR channels have drawn attention to it, it’s pretty easy to stumble across completely accidentally, as evidenced in the comments on today’s teaser article.
This presents us with somewhat of a dilemma – we don’t want to scupper anyone’s plans, but it’s not our fault it’s out there, and Red Dwarf fans are already talking about it, even on this very website. We’re also aware that not everyone will want to know the title in advance for fear of spoilers, so we’re hiding it behind the jump. [EDIT: You’re free to mention it in the comments on this post, but nowhere else on the site until there’s been a proper announcement, if you’d be so kind. Dave have now tweeted the title, so it’s all official now and any comment restrictions are now lifted.] So if you don’t want to know the score, look away now.
Well, this has certainly given me a rod-on.
A twenty second teaser for the as-yet-untitled Red Dwarf Special has been released. And when teasers and trailers for new Red Dwarf get released, we like to go through them shot-by-shot in far more detail than is strictly necessary. This time we have but six proper shots to be getting on with, in a trailer that’s effects-heavy and somewhat serious and dramatic in tone, hinting that the Special will have high stakes and grand scale. And lots of BIG SPACESHIPS.
You all know the feeling. You finally decide to act like an adult and get that breakdown cover and then you go months and months without any cause to use it. Well, thankfully Starbug’s finally carked it again after eight months of smooth running and so the AA are back to get it back on the SPACE ROAD and give us all another little tranche of Dwarf to enjoy.
Most of Ian’s excellent breakdown of Stellar Rescue could be copied and pasted here without changing much, and that’s not particularly surprising. This was shot at the same time as the first advert and it follows pretty much the same structure, but it’s still really fun to have new(ish) Red Dwarf gags while we wait for the Special later in the Spring.
