An in-depth At Speed about In Depth, at speed News Posted by Seb Patrick on 5th February 2009, 23:18 We’re pleased to see that a massive influx of visitors has hit G&T recently, thanks to some news or other that may or may not have been going on (is the nonchalance schtick wearing off yet? Oh good). And indeed, over the last two-and-a-bit years since our major relaunch, we’ve seen the rebuilding of a strong and vibrant community around here, which is great. In that time, however, the focus has shifted somewhat onto community discussion and our ever popular news bits. I wonder, therefore, whether many of our current readers are aware of just how much in the way of longer articles and features actually exists here on G&T. I mean, there’s loads. Really loads. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly much of it there is. Er, sorry. But yes. G&T first launched in 1999, with John joining founder Ian in 2003 – and for the next couple of years they worked like bastards to become the internet’s foremost storage house for original, inventive, witty and even occasionally relevant extended analytical writing about Red Dwarf. When Cappsy, Austin and myself merged our sites into the fold in late 2006, meanwhile, we each brought with us literally several articles of our own. And while, admittedly, the sheer volume of new lengthy content has dipped since we all stopped being fucking students and got proper jobs, we’re still striving to provide reviews, analysis and opinion wherever we can – as well as the occasional Dwarfcast series. But while we dumped all of that content onto the site in its raw unexpurgated form way back when, we never really got around to providing a decent and easy-to-use navigation system in order to help people find their way around. Ask anyone who first discovered the original G&T back in the “glory days” of 03/04, myself included, and you’ll probably hear the same story – that upon chancing upon one particular article on the site, they were hooked by something (with me it was this, as it happens) and ended up sitting up all night reading every single sodding article on the site. But since 2006, despite there being all this (well… some) extra content, it’s not been easy for new visitors to do that. Until now. Feast your eyes, if you will, on the new “In Depth” Archive. A handy set of categorised pages – split into Features, Reviews, Interviews and Dwarfcasts – neatly sorted with helpful descriptive blurbs, that will enable you to gorge on self-aggrandising obscenity-filled polemic to your heart’s content. In future, you’ll be able to access this archive from the “Read more In Depth” link on the front page – and we’ll be re-jigging our top-of-the-page navbar to include it at some point soon as well. So from 2002’s Future Extras to the most recent Dwarfcast, it’s all here. We have enough features and reviews and cultured fungus for you to scrum yourselves stupid until the day you die. Oh, and yes, if you’ve spotted the “Coming Soon” section of the page – pretty soon we’ll be relaunching one of the old G&T’s most popular features – pages and pages of lists of obsessive trivia! We’ll have some old G&T lists, some new ones, and even some classic material from the pre-G&T generation of web fandom…
Good stuff. I’ve often ambled by this website over the years, but since joining the forums a few months ago (and of course all the recent news) I’ve been a daily visitor. I have scoured through some of the articles, but as you acknowledge, its not exactly user-friendly for just general browsing… more like you just pick a month and chance it. So this is excellent news! You should make more noise about your forums on the main page, though… 100x easier on the eye (and brain) than The Official Site, and the reason I stuck around! (And I mean that not in a cocky “you’re honoured!” kind of way, but in a “if it worked for me, it’ll work for others too” kind of way.) Kudos on a tremendous website, peeps.
This is fantastic. I have tapes of Red Dwarf which were taped of the TV and in the Series IV one it had ‘Dimension Jump’ first and I have always wondered what is up with the odd order, a few minutes of just browsing and I come across this – http://www.ganymede.tv/indepth/episode-orders – it explains that the 94 repeats had a different order, it was taped in 1994!
And I still have yet to implement At Speed/In Depth on my own site. It’s still a concept I like*. Does that mean everything is in Drupal now and we can search way back to the beginning? *Said purely to help whoever had a bet on me saying that somewhere in the comments of this page
> http://www.ganymede.tv/indepth/episode-orders – it explains that the 94 repeats had a different order, it was taped in 1994! That piece by John is bloody helpful! I too had the ’94 repeats taped. It was the first time I’d seen any of IV or V, VI being the first series I actually watched on broadcast. I still feel slightly, nonsensically pissed off with the IV and V DVDs because they don’t have the episodes in the order I’d always watched them in up until that point!! The ’94 repeat order of V still doesn’t make total sense. OK, Back To Reality is the most famous and loved (by most) episode of V so put it on first, fair enough, but why they end the series with Quarantine I don’t know… As for IV, the ONLY change I would have made for the DVDs would have been to have the originally planned order. OK, they (who are ‘they’??) were going for the 100% ‘as broadcast’ approach, but an exception could have been made here. It would have been a great selling point as well! “Series IV – in the order they never wanted you to see it in!” Fucking Gulf War! (apologies to anyone who may have been affected by the Gulf War, e.g. family member actually IN it)
Hmmm… something I have noticed during my last 90 mins of browsing around the Features: This revamp of the In Depth section is an excellent suggestion, Seb, with just one minor drawback… None of the bloody links work in any of the articles anymore.
I’m also aggreived at the placement of Back to Reality in anything but the series closer position… upon watching it the first time round, you really got taken on a ride before the big swerve, as a new fan at the time (I’d only been watching RD since Holoship) I thought I was witnessing the last ever episode of this new show I’d only just discovered. Of course, it loses its initial impact once you’ve seen it and once you know that there are subsequent seasons, but for a first-time viewer on a repeat run, you know for a FACT a swerve is coming because there are 5 more episodes in the run. (You could argue that you may still have the ‘swerve’ factor, because it could just be a major overhaul for the format, but that is highly unlikely considering it would render 4 previous series’ worth of development null and void).
All moot now, of course, but frustrating at the time… Fairly sure Back to Reality was the opener the very first time Series V was repeated.
> None of the bloody links work in any of the articles anymore. Ah, yes. This is because when we moved to Drupal and the new URL all those old links broke. We’ve fixed some of them, but not all of them as there are LOADS and we are LAZY.
>We?re pleased to see that a massive influx of visitors has hit G&T recently The slime’s comin’ home!
Is the alt. running order in Series V possibly due to Tennis or Snooker or such? It wouldn’t suprise me if the Beeb dumped one episode due to sports coverage running late and then rather than shove everything back a week simply stuck the non-aired ep on the end of the series run. By the way… *throws grenade* …what was the conclusion on the _nugget / McNugget debate? *legs it*
http://www.ganymede.tv/indepth/pete-part-ii Just wanted to flag this up as it’s just made me shit myself laughing. Literally, it’s a bloody mess.
>http://www.ganymede.tv/indepth/pete-part-ii Yeah, I don’t remember seeing that one before. Funny, and kinda confusing.
>Proper jobs my arse. Well, three of us now work in telly, and one of us for one of the world’s biggest news agencies. And Cappsy sleeps in a lot.
I was just perusing the interviews in your lovingly revamped archive, and the thought occurred that this would be a good time to speak to some RD people about he specials. Maybe after they’ve finished filming? They must be keen for the show to be plugged ‘n’all. Or are you lovely people already on to it?
> Or are you lovely people already on to it? They’re probably too busy tickling each other’s Skene’s glands.
