THE BEST ARTICLE EVER PUBLISHED ON TOS EVER News Posted by John Hoare on 29th June 2007, 11:38 Hooray! Loads of fantastic stuff, then. And top of the list has to go to something we never thought we’d see: Robert’s first day! Unfortunately, however, “the rushes don’t show the infamous moment where Robert was electrocuted by the FX team’s trick lighter apparatus” – and this is rather at odds with what Robert says in his famous (amongst Dwarf fans, anyway) telling of the incident in The Man In The Rubber Mask, which specifically says the electrocutions happened during actual takes, rather than rehearsals. It’s amazing how these DVDs continually break down received knowledge when it comes to this kind of thing. The rest of this article does, however, run the risk of just turning into the following: Want to see them setting up and detonating Confidence and the Mayor of Warsaw? Yes. Want to hear the cast complaining while buried up to their necks in sand? Yes. Or Danny and Doug’s accidentally-recorded ‘Have a word with Ed, man’ conversation in the Stasis Leak hotel? Yes. Want to see skutters, erm, wander into the wall? Yes! However, special mention must be made of the inclusion of the unused reshoot of Gordon from Better Than Life Remastered. I can’t put it better than how Seb puts it below – but since when was Gordon Salkilld’s performance anything less than great in the original? And since when did that early part of Better Than Life need gagging up? (If anything, it’s once they get into the game itself that the episode loses it slightly.) Yes, in the end it wasn’t used, so it’s slightly unfair to draw conclusions about the Remastered series from it – but it does point to some odd decision-making processes during its production. And yet how marvellous that something like this is included on the Bodysnatcher release… As for the five extra Holly gags recorded for inclusion in the Remastered episodes – I am expecting something similar to the quality of the Holly gags that went unused for Red Dwarf III. But we’ll see. The Paradise Beach scene, meanwhile – it’s just incredible that this is seeing the light of day. An abandonded scene, from a 1988 BBC sitcom? We really don’t realise how lucky we are sometimes, when so many sitcoms don’t even get any kind of deleted scenes treatment whatsoever. It’s just such a shame that so few other releases have either the budget, or the people who care enough, to actually find and get this stuff out there. And the longer it’s left, the less chance there is that we’ll ever see them, and the more chance there is that the material will be deliberately junked, or just accidentally lost. We can only hope that TEH DIGITAL REVOLUTIONS, and the associated reduction in costs, opens up the possibility of this kind of stuff being dug up for more shows. I mean, who knows what still exists from Brittas? It’s an important thing to remember – because, at this point it’s easy to get jaded about gems from the archive being dug up for Dwarf. Let’s not forget that this kind of thing is incredibly rare for a 1988 sitcom. Take the fact that Tony Hawks did the warm-up for Series 1 – a fascinating little snippet of information I read years ago… that suddenly, we’ll actually be able to watch, come October. Truly amazing.
I mean, Christ, who would have ever thought we’d see footage of Tony Hawks warm-up? Or the hotel footage from Bodyswap? Ever? And that’s even before we think about the scenes that we had NO IDEA EVEN EXISTED IN ANY FORM. This is fucking epic.
Chris in 2007 dubbing a scene from 1989…amazing! I continue to be totally flabbergasted at the quality of this release. Did anyone else know they brought the guy who played Gordon in to do extra Re-mastered jokes? How mad is that? I’m sorry if that was common knowledge but it passed me by somehow.
> Did anyone else know they brought the guy who played Gordon in to do extra Re-mastered jokes? How mad is that? I?m sorry if that was common knowledge but it passed me by somehow. Even more bizzarely, it seems they were going to replace Gordon Salkilld with Phil Philmar (excellent name, by the way)*. I certainly wasn’t aware that this was the case. I think is the first anyone’s heard about it. * It has to be said, if this had actually gone ahead, I wouldn’t have been pleased, at all…
The fact that they were contemplating replacing Gordon demonstrates just how deeply flawed pretty much every single step of the decision-making process was during the making of Remastered. The fact that all the stuff that’s in that article is going to be on the DVD demonstrates just how utterly perfect pretty much every single step of the decision-making process has been during the preparation of this release.
Red Dwarf: The Body Snatcher Collection 18 remastered episodes, 3 complete series Special Features: 3 feature lenght indepth making of documentaries with extensive cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes archive footage. 1 reconstructed episode alternative edit 2 versions of an unused 1st series epsiode script storyboarded and performed by Chris Barrie 4 unused script extracts storyboarded and performed by Chris Barrie 6 Writer/Director commentarys 5 Five writer commentarys on unused script and script extracts Bonus Deleted Scenes Possibly rare photo gallery —– The Young ones: Series one 6 Complete episodes (certain edits have been made for contractual reasons) Specials Features: Scene Selection
Although the rumours are that this – due in August – may have some pretty spectacular extras on it… But your point still stands. We are ridiculously lucky that Dwarf is getting such treatment. I wish all my favourite comedy shows were treated as well as this…
Heh. But are we done yet? :-) > 3 feature lenght indepth making of documentaries Well, actually two ‘feature-length’ docs. The remastering one is shorter. You may now commence guessing at doc titles…
Heh. But are we done yet? :-) And I nearly posted my “What extra are you most looking forward to?” poll yesterday… Fucking hell.
There’s more? wow. You’ve included Scene Selection as well :-) Hmm Doco titles? Are you calling I – Ocean Grey and II – Millitary Grey (or is it the other way around)
Wow. Cool didnt know they were doing another Young ones dvd set. (Otherwise I would have probably chosen Not the nine oclock news best of volume one, running time 95 minutes to better make my point about dvd value.) I’ve got the BBC america young ones set, which has a couple of making of bit culled from bbc doco shows about best sitcoms etc, and bonus episodes of bottom and FRACF. But even thats cut. Would be great to hear rik do commentary. And deleted scenes etc, like this I just noticed in which you can hear Ed bye. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXnYJmFW6SY I’ve got some dodgy vhs from ntsc footage of Neil presenting MTV, that I would like to get a better quality copy of, but I guess that might be difficult for the bbc to get the rights for, even if they were trying. But there might be more live stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQhgkdgFowg
>> Are you calling I – Ocean Grey and II – Millitary Grey >FUCK – we should have done that! Yeah, I have to admit, that would have been a pretty great set of titles. Not that I have any idea what GNP actually went with…but I do like those.
>Although the rumours are that this – due in August – may have some pretty spectacular extras on it? FUCKING YES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wouldn’t get your hopes up too much on a revised Young Ones DVD having anything like the comprehensive coverage of the RD sets. For a start, as an independent production company, GNP are able to keep hold of rushes tapes and the like. For the BBC to keep all the session tapes of in-house productions would just be too much logistically. With regards to the Young Ones stuff, I don’t think the BBC have much more than the episodes and a few cast appearances/interviews on other programmes. So appeals are having to be put out into the fan community to get hold of decent extras. Specially shot trailers were made for both Series 1 and Series 2, and there was a big fat outtakes tape in existance which was unfortunately destroyed, although it’s believed bootleg copies made it out. The production company responsible are very interested in any suitable material. If anyone has got any info they feel might be useful, contact the guy at the sire below, who is in direct contact with the producers of the DVD. It isn’t due out until October so there is still time for additions to the set. http://out-on-blue-six.blogspot.com/2007/04/no-we-havent-got-video.html
W O W ! ! ! ! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this had damn well better come out in Region 4. I know I could order it from overseas, but I’d prefer the convenience of just buying it from JB Hi-Fi. About Kryten’s “very different accent” in the sauna scene: am I right in thinking this is the accent he has in that cargo decks scene in “Polymorph” (where he says “It’s here”, and Cat asks “Where?”, and he replies “Somewhere…”)? I was kinda puzzled with Kryten’s one-scene accent shift when I first saw that episode.
> For a start, as an independent production company, GNP are able to keep hold of rushes tapes and the like. Only from Series IV onwards. Before then it was all BBC – and everything (well, almost) remains in storage with the Beeb. > About Kryten?s ?very different accent? in the sauna scene: am I right in thinking this is the accent he has in that cargo decks scene in ?Polymorph? Interestingly Doug mentions this in his commentary. And yeah, it’s very different. Very ‘generic English butler’ – much closer to Ross’ version, really.
I wonder if Robert Llewellyn has got any stuff on the Young Ones? We know what he’s like at archiving stuff, he’s a big mate of Nigel Planer, appeared in an episode and made a lot of experimental stuff with Nigel… just a thought..
>About Kryten?s ?very different accent? in the sauna scene: am I right in thinking this is the accent he has in that cargo decks scene in ?Polymorph? (where he says ?It?s here?, and Cat asks ?Where??, and he replies ?Somewhere??)? I was kinda puzzled with Kryten?s one-scene accent shift when I first saw that episode. His delivery of “The Blue Midget is loaded” (Marooned) always jars with me too.
> His delivery of ?The Blue Midget is loaded? (Marooned) always jars with me too. Also “food and medical supplies”.
Those two lines aren’t just a weird accent – they’re bona fide bad acting. It’s a pity they didn’t get a chance to go back and retake them later on, when he’d got the character a bit more. Not that it really affects the episodes that much, mind you. Let’s face it, though all of Kryten in Series III is pretty different to IV onwards. Even The Last Day.
In the latest SFX, on the Who release Timelash: DVD Extras: The usual stuff: a commentary by Baker, Bryant and Darrow, a look-back Making Of (25 minutes), fact-stuffed text commentary, gallery, PDFs of Radio Times listings. “The usual stuff”? I’d *kill* for something like that on the Brittas releases! I hate it when great extras are just dismissed like that. It happened too much with the Dwarf releases too (and not just in SFX). Mind you, they also complain that Timelash is terrible (not seen it, but most people do seem to agree with that one) – and they shouldn’t have released it when there are 22 Tom Baker stories left to release on DVD. Erm, do you really *want* to get into the same situation with the VHS releases, where all the generally-considered bad stories were all released last? It’s not a great way to end a range, is it? If you’re going to release every Who serial on DVD – then you need a *mix* of releases. Not all the great ones released first.
I admit when I saw this BEST ARTICLE EVER PUBLISHED ON TOS EVER headline I thought it’d be either the movie or series IX. (I was pulling for the latter, to be honest.) Having read the TOS update I agree with your headline…but what are you going to write when the next series or film of all-new Dwarf is announced?
BEST ARTICLE EVER PUBLISHED ON TOS EVER II: THE REVENGE OF THE BEST ARTICLE EVER PUBLISHED ON TOS…. Works for the Greatest Album in the world EVER: MCMXCIX!!!!!!
John- while I can understand you being upset, what it implies is an “*of course* they will be on the DVD box set- did you expect less?” attitude; which is the way to go; just how in the Simpsons box sets, there is a commentary on every episode, with almost all with Matt Groening on them (he has missed a couple due to being busy), and they are ‘well, there’s the usual commentaries’; despite them being absolutely fantastic.
Speaking of ?as usual?? [since this is no longer blurb-worthy on the front page :p] Hey, I only said “later”… Reason foe the delay is that I needed to get someone to scan in some stuff from The Man In The Rubber Mask for reference.
Article expanded, then. Not that much of interest compared to, you know, the ACTUAL TOS ARTICLE, mind.
> It?s amazing how these DVDs continually break down received knowledge when it comes to this kind of thing. Clare Grogan’s non-appearance in the final scene of Stasis Leak will be another example of this – ‘sent home early’? Try ‘never available for the studio shoot in the first place’! I love Dona DiStefano. Come October, you will too. :-) Those TMITRM book scans are interesting, because when you check out the details, it’s actually quite vague. First shock, no question, is just on a rehearsal. After that…hard to say. It’s suggested the shocks were one of several reasons for blown takes, but stays unspecific. (Hey, there are line-fluffs that may be caused BY the shock, it’s just not obviously caused by a shock. Coulda been, I guess. But they seem pretty average stumbles to me.) With the Dwarf docs, I’ve learnt, we spend SO much time flighting a decades worth of…exaggeration. So many stories have turned into anecdotes. 15 foot high flames on the lake? Almost toppling the boat over? Well, you’ve all seen the clip. There’s a great one on the new DVD where Craig and Paul Jackson discuss a certain…confrontation. Just the two of them there, we’re CERTAIN of that fact. But in his interview, Danny told the whole tale like HE was there, too! We’ve cut around this now, to keep it accurate. But the event became a story became an anecdote. It’s like that Buffy gag from Spike: “If every vampire who claimed he attended the crucifixion was actually there it would have been like Woodstock.”
