Oh Boy, Were We Suckered! Features Posted by Ian Symes on 21st April 2009, 16:14 Here at G&T, we like to talk a lot. We also like to pretend we know what we’re talking about. Often, we don’t. Here at G&T, we like to talk a lot. We also like to pretend we know what we’re talking about. Often, we don’t, particularly when it comes to predicting details of future Red Dwarf ventures, extrapolated from very sketchy information. Nevertheless, we attempt it often, and with this in mind, we present some of the finest prediction-based fails from the months leading up to Back To Earth‘s broadcast. It’s not going to be pretty… Seb Patrick, 2nd February: [Carbug] could just be an incredibly cheap way of “doing” Starbug on Dave’s budget (like… I don’t know, they get to earth and suddenly the ship transmogrifies into that thing somehow) HAHA, SEB, YOU IDIOT. Didn’t you even know that it’d be a real car belonging to a fictionalised version of James Bull? He’s such a child, that boy. Although, to be fair, Seb did also point out that Carbug and Corrie probably wouldn’t be a major part of the specials, given that it was only a day’s filming – a lot of people were worried that the whole thing would be a massive Corrie crossover. So, we’re still better than YOU. Jonathan Capps, 4th February: the smart money (i.e. MY money) suggests that this is indeed the Rimmer we last saw kneeing an imaginary death in the bony balls who has, obviously, died at some point in the last ten years. While it’s never explicitly stated in Back To Earth, the implication seems to be that it was the original Rimmer all along, what with his Despair Squid knowledge and ink tolerance. But I guess we’re still waiting (possibly indefinitely) for a Word of God clarification on this… Ian Symes, 23rd February is [the Dwarf merchandise] just there to publicise the shooting, or is it part of the set dressing? I can’t tell – the fact that it’s only in one window (the smaller one at that) could suggest that it won’t be on camera […] that “Back To Red Dwarf Earth” poster at the very front of the shop display definitely looks like it’s an unofficial quick-and-dirty-Photoshop-job. My money is tentatively placed on the bit of the table that reads “we’re reading too much into this”. Take note – the best way to avoid a prediction fail is to sit on the fence to such an extent that you don’t actually commit to an opinion either way. Except, that doesn’t quite work, as you end up just looking like even more of a twat than normal. See also: the punditry of Alan Shearer. Ian Symes, 25th February: It looks very serious – my first thought was that he was at a funeral, but the white tie would put paid to that. Must be a wedding, or some sort of formal occasion anyway. It was, of course, none of those things – just Lister spending some time at Kochanski’s grave. It’s terribly amusing to look back at just how much we tried to read into things that turned out to be relatively straightforward… Ian Symes, 27th February: Is that… is that a simulant? It looks like an old Series IV style simulant, being apprehended by Cat and Lister in a blue-tinted laboratory. Well, the blue-tinted laboratory was right, but it was in fact a small Chinese man wearing bits of a Simulant costume. I still insist that someone (Ellard) chose to put that frame on TOS deliberately to mislead us all, though. And it worked, dammit. We were even speculating over the course of the weekend that this scene would be part of a montage of clips from the fake Series IX… Ian Symes, 4th March: (Hmm, there’s a thought – maybe Holly’s not around because he’s had to switch himself off in order to save enough power for an extra hologram?) Haha! No. John Hoare, 30th March: Thanks to our ever-helpful forum-goers for pointing out that whilst Part 1 of Back To Earth has a 30 minute slot, Part 2 and Part 3 have 40 bloody minutes! Surely up-and-coming broadcast engineer John Hoare should know better than to take EPG listings seriously? As it turned out, the running times for Parts 2 and 3 were a couple of minutes longer than Part 1, but nothing like the twenty minutes predicted here… Seb Patrick, 1st April: If they’ve gone to the trouble of creating this Mars backdrop, and filming on/in front of it, is this going to be plot-relevant? Or simply something we’re to mentally slot in between their heading home and getting there? Or is it neither? YOU DECIDE. Clue: it’s neither. Seb Patrick, 3rd April: Note that not only does Lister look bruised and bloodied, but Rimmer appears to have a massive cut on his forehead. Despite being a hologram. INTERESTING. No, you impudent FOOL, it’s squid ink, clearly. And this actually turns out to be pretty vital – if Lister hadn’t have thrown the tentacle at Rimmer, he wouldn’t have been inked, and he wouldn’t have joined in the hallucination… Obviously, we’ve saved the biggest and most embarrassing fuck-up until last… Ian Symes, 4th April: IT’S NOT KOCHANSKI’S FUNERAL, IT’S RIMMER’S! […] he’s mourning for Rimmer, not Kochanski Shame mode. I… I… I… sorry. To be fair, he doesn’t explicitly say that he’s mourning Kochanski, he could equally be mourning George McIntyre or Mel Bibby… Oh, alright. Fuck off. So, there you have it. G&T may be the best place to go for all the latest unofficial Red Dwarf news, just don’t pay the blindest bit of notice to anything we’ve got to say.
[Carbug] could just be an incredibly cheap way of ?doing? Starbug on Dave?s budget (like? I don?t know, they get to earth and suddenly the ship transmogrifies into that thing somehow) I prefer my other suggestion, which was that it was what the “real” Craig Charles uses to get to work on Corrie, but… yes. Wrong all over.
When all we knew was that we’d get a “clip show with a difference,” I fucking predicted the EXACT CONCEPT of Red Dwarf: Unplugged. Which, I think you will all agree, turned out to be a gut-busting twenty minutes of television.
This is what I said when The Sun first reported that the specials would be on Dave: They?re just making it up now.
And now we get to turn ourselves inside out trying to figure out how to interpret Bobby’s hint! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!
> And now we get to turn ourselves inside out trying to figure out how to interpret Bobby?s hint! And the Dave site: “… if it came to another full-length series – is Red Dwarf actually Red Dwarf without Holly?” – present tense. Not ‘was Red Dwarf actually Red Dwarf without Holly?’, and not ‘ if it came to another 3 part special’. Yeah, I know I’m reading everything into virtually nothing … but Bobby, Chris, and now Dave all seem very optimistic.
> I still insist that someone (Ellard) chose to put that frame on TOS deliberately to mislead us all, though. Well ‘to cause speculation’ anyway… The best bit for me was when Richard Woo was assumed to be Sophie Winkleman.
>The best bit for me was when Richard Woo was assumed to be Sophie Winkleman. Ha, ha! (“Let yerself go, aintcha darlin’?” etc etc.) That sort of crossed my mind. I thought she might be an agent for an outside force of invading simulants but probably not actually that ‘simulant’ though. I did think she was probably a hallucination though, just one guided from outside to manipulate the crew. I was partly right anyway. Simulants using the squid seemed way too complex though, but the simulant had to fit in there somewhere right? Heh. Wrong. I love it that it that the presence of the squid was just as simple an explanation as the Cat was thinking about his stomach and brought it aboard. It added a good comic spin on a predictable (but satisfying) ending.
Phil / Mon, 2009-02-02 10:43 / # >I have to say that I was a bit concerned when I first saw the reports this morning. But the more I look at the pics the less I care, Red Dwarf is going to be back on our screens and I have faith in Doug and the rest of the team. My feelings match every word of this. Wow. What a difference a day makes.
performingmonkey / Mon, 2009-02-16 16:16 I wonder what set they?re on. The only thing that?s definite, I?d say, is that they?ll be using the Starbug cockpit set at some point (maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but surely it will feature). Well lick my frenulem and send me to Sainsbury’s, I got that wrong.
Well, my confident prediction of the crew using an LHC machine to get home proved ill-founded, as did my prediction of a big swerve appearance from Norm. I was right about Chloe being in it though… and I still think it could emerge that Kochanski is still on board Red Dwarf, living on the other side of the ship, bringing up Lister’s baby.
Speculating is the best part regardless of how wild and far off the mark the guessing turns out to be in the end. I personally hope Mark Williamson will show up for a series X cameo. Hopefully he won’t be too busy in a film.
>I was right about Chloe being in it though? and I still think it could emerge that Kochanski is still on board Red Dwarf, living on the other side of the ship, bringing up Lister?s baby. That does make a lot more sense than tearing off into infinity alone with no one to talk to. > I personally hope Mark Williamson will show up for a series X cameo. This. Or else, Holly dries out, the only face he can find in the database other than our heroes is Petersen.
>I was right about Chloe being in it though? and I still think it could emerge that Kochanski is still on board Red Dwarf, living on the other side of the ship, bringing up Lister?s baby. thats what i thought also . seems a bit daft going off in alone in a blue midget when theres absolutely nowhere to go
>living on the other side of the ship, bringing up Lister?s baby. You mean Lister’s baby that’s actually Lister the baby? He got dropped off in the Aigburth Arms over 8 years earlier.
No, I mean a new one they spawned (by the traditional method) in the months before Kochanski decided to ‘leave’, not wanting to bring up a baby around a drunken, “daft” Lister. Of course, technically Lister’s baby would be his brother AND son, but he IS a scouser.
In fact, don’t you think its a little unnerving that Lister’s long standing (and ongoing) love interest in Red Dwarf is his mum?
>Not any worse than Rimmer, if you?ve read the books? This is a recurring theme I’ve not thought about before, but it’s starting to cause me concerns.
> Does this say something about Lister/Rimmer or about Grant/Naylor? I think we should be told. I think speculation will lead us to much more accurate conclusions that any confirmation ever could.
