35 comments on “I see no ships

Scroll to bottom

  • HOW DARE YOU FUCKING KNOCK MY ENTRY FROM THE TOP YOU BIG FOOL!

    But, yes, I agree. Damn The Grim Reaper and his bollocks.

  • Actually, I think I’d probably prefer the ending we got, just with the whlole Death/Bollocks/THE SMEG IT IS nonsense cut out. It would have been sad, touching and effective.

  • The only problem I have with the “no ships” ending – which would at least have been funny, and restored the status quo – is that from then on (erm, assuming the show continued) you’d have a situation where the crew knew that there were a thousand people out there – some of whom were good friends – stranded in space with little or no chance of survival.

    Which would put a bit of a dampener on things.

    But if it was to be the last episode of the series full stop, I don’t think it would be as bad, and would still be funneh.

    But *anything* is better than THE SMEG IT IS. And, judging by the number of promo shots that exist of it, that ending was shot, so I can’t wait to see on the DVD how it comes out…

  • Who cares about the smegging crew!! I’m sure when they lumped for the ending we got, Doug probably thought it would have been resolved by now. But it seems ten times worse because it’s probably the last Dwarf we’re ever going to get. That’s pessimistic maybe, but with more than a hint of realism…

  • I really can’t see this being the last Dwarf we’ll get. If the movie doesn’t come off (and I still think it will…), I’m sure there will be at least one TV special, as Chris Barrie has hoped.

    And no, I personally don’t care about the crew – but it would be extremely out-of-character for Lister or Kochanski not to care. And if we’re all going to moan about the characters being out of character in VIII, it seems silly to wish for something which would make that worse!

    (Still would have been better than the current ending, though…)

  • Am I the only one who actually likes the ending to series VIII?

    Okay, I don’t like it as an ending to the entire Red Dwarf saga, but I do like it as an ending to VIII. I find it funny, anyway.

    The final captions are useless, and I’d trim those in a heartbeat, but Rimmer’s demise and consequent assault on Death is, I think, a good enough note to end VIII on.

    Granted, it brings no closure whatsoever to the story of the Dwarfers, which is probably why it’s judged so harshly. But, like John, I expect we’ll get that closure at some point.

  • I think “THE SMEG IT IS” tends to disproportionately colour some people’s view of it. That’s certainly the case with me, anyway.

    And, even without the caption, it’s such a lame, cheap and obvious ending. When you consider the other ideas they had, it seems like they went for such a lazy option.

  • I think the captions *do* colour peoples reactions a lot, yes – along with not having any Dwarf since then. As for the Death bit, it’s such a WHAT THE FUCK moment that I can’t decide whether I like it or not in its own right.

    I do like the idea of Ace coming to save them – I do with they’d shot that. Yes, it would be absolutely awful and lazy… if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s *our* Rimmer, meeting the newly-constructed self. This brings a whole new light on things, and could have been very interesting indeed.

    Mind you, you’ve only got 30 seconds in which to do anything with it…

  • You know, I think the current ending could have been JUST suitable if they’d lost the captions. Those captions PROMISE more and it’s fucking annoying.

    Presuming that the Grim Reaper moment was just Rimmer having a final death vision, then it could have been a satisfying enough conclusion, I think.

  • It was certainly a “what the fuck?” moment for me as well when I first saw the episode. And probably for quite a bit after that, as well. But at some point I must have just decided to judge it for what it was, and not try to make it fit what I might have been hoping for.

    As it stands, I think it’s rather good. Sans captions, anyway.

    Which isn’t to say that I wouldn’t have preferred “I see no ships.” We’ll have to wait and see.

    Though, John, I’m sorry, but one more Ace Rimmer appearance, especially as a series-ender, would have had me clawing my eye-balls out. No no no no no no no no no.

  • I thought that for ages. Until someone pointed out the whole old Rimmer/new Rimmer thing.

    Whether it actually would have worked or not is a different question…

  • Of course, how do we even know that *our* Rimmer would have been a success as Ace? He might come back and have been a complete failure. This would make it less of “another Ace appearance” and more “the reappearance of our Rimmer”…

  • The current ending’s not that bad (all right, the captions are a bit lame) as long as you keep in mind that it’s a hallucination. But “I see no ships” would’ve been much much better.

    I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t like cliffhangers much. Especially ones with no payoff, like this one. Torturous.

    > The only problem I have with the “no ships” ending – which would at
    > least have been funny, and restored the status quo – is that from then on
    > (erm, assuming the show continued) you’d have a situation where the
    > crew knew that there were a thousand people out there – some of
    > whom were good friends – stranded in space with little or no
    > chance of survival.

    What the fuck? They had a FLEET OF SHIPS. And I’m guessing they didn’t just take their overnight bags: they had food and fuel, and the means to get at least to a nearby S3 planet, if not Earth. Remember, they thought they were leaving Red Dwarf forever. They’d’ve been prepared.

    [Incidentally, is “they’d’ve” a proper contraction? I don’t think it is. Well, it should be.]

  • As for Ace Rimmer miraculously showing up: it’d be cheap. Not good at all. The current ending is way better than that one.

  • But the fact remains that there would be friends of Lister and Kochanski out there that they would want with them. It would be totally out of character for them to leave them, even if they did survive.

    (Mind you, I suppose this is what they tried to do in BITR3. Hmmm.)

  • I’m really not to the fussed about this. By the time that caption flashed upon my screen, this series had meandered through eight tedious (and disheartening) half-hours, and I’d long since given up hope. To me, ‘The smeg it is’ is a perfect conclusion to Red Dwarf VIII.

    This is Red Dwarf VIII? The smeg it is.

    I have a feeling that the ‘I see no ships’ ending will be extremely embarrassing and no more satisfying than kneeing Death in the ghoulies.

  • Admittedly, some people who were at the recording say that it didn’t work properly. And they wouldn’t have done a reshoot of the end (which took place some weeks after the final shoot, as the VIII scriptbook reveals – so it was a big deal) unless they *really* didn’t think it worked.

    Still, it’ll be great to see, anyhow. Remember, you don’t just judge deleted scenes for their artistic merit – they’re interesting in their own right.

  • Completely right, but the difference with VIII as opposed to the other series’ is that there are many, many scenes that should have been deleted but weren’t.

    I have a feeling that I’lll see a lot of the scenes, remark “yeah,I completely agree with the justification for deleting this scene; it wasn’t funny and would have slowed the episode down”….and then I’d remember that the scenes that made the cut are little better.

    It’s worth remembering that a lot of the “scenes” (because it’s more the odd couple of lines) from the earlier series’ were cut due to time constraints rather than simply because they were shite.

  • Lister and Kochanski wouldnt be told by Rimmer about the ships. Rimmer would have probably kept it from them, and ordered Kryten to keep quiet as well.
    But how would they be able to get off Red Dwarf? there were no Starbugs or Blue Midgets left, unless the virus rebuilt them as well.

  • Come to think of it, I’m amazed Hollister would have left his navigation officer to die. Lister and Rimmer? Well, that’s kind of rude too, but I can see it happening. Also, he has no allegience to either the Cat or Kryten (or Archie), so fine leaving them behind…

    But what on Io is he thinking leaving behind Kochanski?

  • The thing about Captain Hollister… the thing you’ve got to remember about Captain Hollister… Captain Hollister… Captain Hollister was a git.

  • What I meant was that Rimmer wouldnt tell them that the ships were outside and wanting to dock.

  • “But what on Io is he thinking leaving behind Kochanski?”

    That she’s a convicted fellon who’s long since been replaced?

    There’s a bigger ‘characters still alive’ problem, though, which I think might eventually have been spotted – that R, L, C, K and KK aren’t the only people remaining on Red Dwarf, despite what the first-filmed ending imples. At the very least, many of the prisoners on Floor 13 were left behind during the evac…

  • The problem with series VIII was there weren’t enough people with their foreheads pressed against the wall until they became flat. They had about four people whose eyebrows came in but that was about it.

  • “But what on Io is he thinking leaving behind Kochanski?”

    Well, there’s also the possibility that there’s another Kochanski (resurrected by the nanobots) on one of those ships. Oddly, I think she may look like Clare Grogan.

  • > There’s a bigger ‘characters still alive’ problem,
    > though, which I think might eventually have been
    > spotted – that R, L, C, K and KK aren’t the only
    > people remaining on Red Dwarf, despite what the
    > first-filmed ending imples. At the very least, many of
    > the prisoners on Floor 13 were left behind during
    >the evac…

    I assumed that they all died. The ship was breaking apart, so they were all exposed to the vacuum of space and… well, bang.

Scroll to top  •  Scroll to 'Recent Comments'

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.