Things that cast members have said to you by way of refusing an interview News Posted by Ian Symes on 26th March 2006, 21:46 #1, Mac McDonald, Memorabilia, 2006: “Nah, I don’t know anything about comic books. I can talk about cereals, though.”
I was genuinely interested, as well. Actually I should have mentioned this on the proposed future extras thread, but I’ve always found the evolution of Kryten’s costume (and especially head) really fascinating, more so than the other costume variations (although the width, patterns and font of Rimmer’s “H” used to intrigue me as well for some reason) and I’d like to see a feature specifically about the stages of Robert into Kryten and the different perspectives from his point of view of each series. There’s loads of little things they could talk about, the levels of (dis)comfort over the years and time in make-up, but also things like whether the “balaclava” head of series IV (which explains its kind of wrinkliness) stopped being used from V onwards. They mention painting the mask so that the angles could be more defined, and reworking the costume so that it wouldn’t become undone as easily and Rob could sit down. A feature on this isn’t needed, is it? God I’m sad. I think Robert was justified in his response, come to think of it.
I think it’s weird how Kryten’s head kind of took a step back in VIII from what it was in VII. It looks more like the head from series V, even though the V one is better – IMO the best of them all (apart from the series 2 one, of course). Obviously this was a conscious decision, but this time I think it was wrong one. They should have kept the VII head style, it had more character. Incidentally James, what do you think is the best Rimmer ‘H’?
I agree with you about Kryten’s head – I remember disliking the series VII head (at the time) for its obvious dark and light parts and feeling the VIII one was a step back for the better. Colouring-wise, rather than shape. The VIII shape is more like VII than V, and it’s possibly got something to do with the new materials and glue but I don’t know much about what they are, hence my desire for a little feature (not “featurette”). I’m sure Robert would say the difference was just his change in weight and girth. I agree that the best shape and colour is in V I think. Robert says so in the V documentary, too. Although if you watch series IV for long enough the V head for a brief while looks odd, somehow. The III head always freaked me out because it has a waxy quality and the mask doesn’t always line up properly (or is peeling off?) so Robert seems to be slipping around inside it at times. The Rimmer ‘H’ appears to come in batches of two series at a time, one for series 1-2, another for III-IV and certainly one for V-VI, though that might extend through to VIII, I’ve not looked that closely. I have a soft spot for the fat silver ‘H’ of 1-2 simply because I didn’t see those until the 1994 repeats and I’d taken the ‘H’ so much for granted until then I hardly noticed it. The silver ‘H’ brought my attention back to it again, and although I found it a little distracting at times (as do the cast in the commentaries but since they’re wittering just as much about hair it probably doesn’t count for anything) it evokes within me today the same feelings that are attributed to seeing the grey sets and bunk room of that era. The ‘H’ of III-IV is just the same basic size and shape with a moving hologram pattern that was exactly the same as a badge I had at the same time that I was fixated with. Probably that’s why, for functional reasons, I prefer the ‘H’ that came after that simply because the hologram effect was slightly more subtle and it didn’t constantly demand my attention.
Oh of course Rimmer wasn’t a hologram in series VIII, and didn’t have an ‘H’. So it’s the same one for series V-VII. But the Rimmer for series VII is just the one from VI anyway. His costume isn’t re-designed at all.
