It’s Been 6 Days… News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 13th January 2012, 12:40 …since Red Dwarf had a studio audience recording and we’re going to have to think of a different “joke” for next week, aren’t we? And so, in the blink of an eye, we’re up to episode 4. Assuming broadcast order will be the same, today’s episode will be joining an exclusive club alongside great episodes such as Waiting for God (shut up, it’s brilliant), Stasis Leak, Bodyswap, White Hole, Quarantine, Emohawk and, erm, Duct Soup and Cassandra. It’s the culmination of what seems to have been an unusual week for the production. For a start, Robert tweeted about having an unexpected day off on Monday, followed by Ed ‘B Camera’ Moore Tweeting about Tuesday’s call time being pushed back to mid-day. This must’ve lead to quite the hectic week of rehearsals and pre-records which unsurprisingly seems to be true for yesterday at least. Meanwhile, in the world of TOS, ruthless careerist Seb Patrick has taken time out from rolling around naked in a pile of unsold Red Dwarf merchandise to a) inform us of a Facebook competition to win tickets to the last two recordings and b) actually be good at foreshadowing upcoming teasers. Turns out we might want to be keeping an eye on the hilariously bad Dave website for a new video due up at 1pm today (I would’ve waited until it was published before writing this, but, you know…), but for the moment I’m content with that lovely costume rack picture. However, this picture here… …is used to tease the video, and it’s clearly a bit of some set or other, but for what? We may find out in the video, but to be honest I’ll just be happy if we get to hear the way Jim the floor manager says “aaaand, AAAaction” again. Ian and Danny will form the G&T contingent for this recording and a set report from the latter should be turning up at some point tomorrow.
Two things: 1. If you don’t like that costume teaser pic YOU ARE DEAD TO ME. 2. I’m fairly certain I’m not going to be able to watch any of RDX without imagining Jim’s voice saying “AAAaction!” at the start of every scene.
> and, erm, Duct Soup and Cassandra. Still the best of their respective series as far as I’m concerned. So I’m excited!
Still can’t find the new Dave video. :/ Did people see that ‘camera set-up’ video that Ed Moore posted the other day? We very cleverly saw absolutely no more of the set than we’ve already seen (no, really – very well done, completely spoiler-free). The Tweet he posted linking to it has since been removed, but I saved the address and…oh. It’s gone now. Sorry. :/ Oh, and, for the record, Cassandra is the best episode of series VIII by a country mile.
That’s excellent! Really nice way to show a tiny amount of the set while actually focusing the video on something else entirely.
Looks like the Series 1 drive room. Heh, I like how they had to blur some spoilery text on the camera.
Ok, so that was the video I saw before. On a small screen, though, so I didn’t really notice before that it was a different set, so, you know. Looking forward to ‘It’s Been 7 more Days’ next week, BTW. Oh, and ‘It’s Been Another 7 Days’ the week after, obviously.
Any guesses to what the next name tag is? Looks as though Rimmer has got his Series 3 jacket on at some point. Steadi Ed great video! I’m disappointed by some of the YouTube comments, why is there an instant need to correct or deflower his knowledge of his working equipment?
> Any guesses to what the next name tag is? Looks like it’s been deliberately blurred out, so possible one of the guest characters.
Obviously the next title should be ‘It’s Been 7 Days… Remastered’ and should come with new CGI and whooshy sound effects.
It seems the recording is over now. Should start seeing reactions on twitter in the next half an hour.
Had to laugh at the Lost In TV email I received tonight which started- “We have a handful of last-minute tickets for Red Dwarf at Shepperton Studios recording TONIGHT – doors close at 6.00pm.” Sent to me 24 minutes AFTER the doors closed….I’m just glad there was no way I could have got there. That would have really upset me…..especially if I hadn’t have had the chance to see a recording :) I feel for those who haven’t had the chance and are too far away to get there, but received that message. Talk about salt in the wound…
If his own Twittering counts as official announcement, then I think it’s ok to say he was there tonight after the recording ended and was presented to the audience as the final cast took there bows and goodbyes etc. Was a nice surprise to see him brought out. His undisclosed character had been shown earlier during a VT pre-record scene.
Ori. At 6pm we were all still in the waiting area, there was a mention by Ray the warm up man of a small area of seating that had been previously marked not to use, that they decided to fill at a late stage, so not sure if it’s something related to that, what you are saying about late emails.
Oh god I can’t tell… The recording experience was great fun, Ray Peacock did a brilliant job, the cast were on great form…. And yet my gut SCREAMS at me that I’ve just watched the ninth episode of series VIII. I… Just don’t know.
I had no clue as to who Steven Wickham is, so I Googled him. It’s already posted on his Wikipedia page he’s been a guest star on Red Dwarf. Go figure.
> And yet my gut SCREAMS at me that I’ve just watched the ninth episode of series VIII. I was afraid of this. The reviews so far, while generally positive, have had a few cases of “It’s not very Red Dwarf-ish, but…” and “It was funny, but I felt bad for laughing at it.” Maybe it’s true that being part of the audience experience makes you laugh at the comedy more. Who knows, maybe we’d have pissed ourselves laughing if we saw “See ya in ten minutes…” live. Or maybe it’s a lot better than VIII and I should relax.
I can only speak for myself, but I saw the first ep and didn’t get a Series 8 vibe at all. More like 5 or 6.
It really will be interesting to see how it turns out. I know I laughed a hell of a lot at the episode I saw filmed, but I’m not sure I would have laughed so much if it hadn’t been for Ray Peacock’s between takes entertainment….
I would say that the two eps I’ve seen don’t feel like VIII. At all. Even the one bit of Ep 2 that you could potentially say that of, it’s just equating VIII with “broad humour”, which is a bit simplistic. (And that bit of Ep 2 was by far my favourite thing I’ve seen at any of the recordings.) Having said that, I wasn’t at last night’s, so I don’t know about that episode…
Everything I’ve seen so far has felt like a mashup of the atmospheres and styles of various prior series. Most prominently, I’ve felt V, VI and VII in there. VIII? Not in the slightest.
Some responses. 1. > Steven Wickham just mentioned on twitter that he has a part in the new series. Oh ffs. 2. > VIII? Not in the slightest. Worth noting that Series VIII at the recording stage, didn’t feel very Series VIII. However to reign back any cynicism, from what was seen and heard at the first recording this categorically isn’t ‘the ninth episode of series VIII’. It’s a mash-up AND it’s new. How much it needs to be either is perhaps the real issue. VI WAS Red Dwarf, it also got a bit formulaic. VII often felt like nothing that had gone before, but so did III. My point? Haven’t really got one, but until it airs it’s all guesswork and probably for Doug, Andrew and the cast too. For the record, I’d pitch somewhere between 1-6 and 7-8. I think it was noted in Cappsy’s review that their was some absolute woofers and yet some elements that he didn’t like at all. I suspect it’s all going to be a very decisive series for a lot of us, and yet I can’t help thinking with or without a lot of us it’s going to be quite the success.
I do see that some people think that I posted a spoiler going by the official website. I do apologise if I shouldn’t have posted it (and please do say if I shouldn’t have so I know for the future) but I thought that since he posted it on his twitter page then it was okay to post here as well as the fact that it has nothing to do with the plot of the episode.
Karl’s right – this is a series which will be a success regardless of any talk from the hardcore fandom. Just look at the viewing figures of Back To Earth – there’s a huge audience out there which is nothing to do with us. You could point to that with VIII too, of course… And I’d also pitch the quality between 1-VI and VII-VIII. It really did feel at the two recordings I was at the best Dwarf had been since VI, and I’ve heard that repeated from people time and time again. (Obviously, everyone won’t feel like that.) It’s *how* close it is to the quality of VI that’s up for debate. (And that’s already split G&T.)
I assumed that this didn’t break the spoiler policy simply because it didn’t come from the live audience. Now, if a member of the live audience posted “He’s playing a fruit vendor” or “He’s playing the same role as he did before”. That would be a spoiler. We can speculate about what he’s playing, provided somebody who definitively knows doesn’t use their inside knowledge and ruin the speculation… Thats how I understand it to be….
I do see that some people think that I posted a spoiler going by the official website. I do apologise if I shouldn’t have posted it (and please do say if I shouldn’t have so I know for the future) but I thought that since he posted it on his twitter page then it was okay to post here as well as the fact that it has nothing to do with the plot of the episode. Yeah, I saw that, but at the end of the day a known Red Dwarf guest star tweeted that he’s appearing in the show again, and that’s now been retweeted around. He’s very publicly put out some information and it it would be just plain weird if we ignored that, or have a long infuriating conversation where the actor isn’t named.
>And yet my gut SCREAMS at me that I’ve just watched the ninth episode of series VIII. I… Just don’t know. i really hope not if this new series is anything like 8 i might end up hoping this is the last series i always have this fear that doug wont leave the past shows alone and will keep going back to re-use gags and characters because he thinks it will please fans when really in the end it doesnt but will just have to see and hope im wrong :)
>And I’d also pitch the quality between 1-VI and VII-VIII. It really did feel at >the two recordings I was at the best Dwarf had been since VI, and I’ve heard >that repeated from people time and time again. (Obviously, everyone won’t feel >like that.) It’s *how* close it is to the quality of VI that’s up for debate. I agree with this. There are bits that echo lots of previous series for me, in what I saw last night, as well as feelings that this Dwarf series once again has unique variation to set it slightly apart again from what’s gone before. But i’d say 7th episode of series 6 is closer to my feeling if you had to say it so shortly to a fan. Beyond that I’d give much long comparissons.
>I always have this fear that Doug wont leave the past shows alone and will keep >going back to re-use gags and characters because he thinks it will please fans >when really in the end it doesnt I think it pleases some though in a broader TV audience. It’s perhaps inevitable for a show/shows that’s been around so long to repeat or think of variations on characters/theme’s, and be so heavily compared and analised. When Back to earth aired, I had a few ups and downs, but mostly loved it, and have played it on repeat happily loads since. But I can play the game of “that scene is like a scene in that other episode” quite easily with Back to Earth. Last nights recording I found there was a lot of that too for me. Doug writing variations. But I think I’m happy also with two theme’s in last nights episode being the kind of unique science concepts I like Dwarf to tackle. One of them used a couple of times within the episode, and One of them I’d like to have seen more of, than it being just in dialouge, but there’s a ? on how it pans out, due to us not seeing a full episode last night.
Just read Bobby’s episode 4 blog and getting very excited. Gonna be sitting in front of Dave in September with my Red Dwarf flag in a Homer Simpson stylee. I’m of the general opinion that series 2-5 was the absolute best of Dwarf but everytime a new episode comes on I still get tingles and I always laugh. Gutted I couldn’t get tickets for this series and thanks again for not spoiling anything!
Superb experience. No question of that. And Ray was superb!!! Funny-meter? – It definitely felt more like 5. But really – It’s not the same as 5, 6 or 8! It’s different again.. Its 10. It’s sifted into another gear. The humour wasn’t the thing that REALLY worried me last night… :S
Let me try and clarify a little bit what I meant earlier about my ‘VIII gut’ comment… I was lucky enough to attend the studio recordings for Back In The Red (I was at the first studio date, and the last studio date so I saw the whole three eps-worth, the rehoots, all that jazz.). Now, the experience of being in the studio, watching the whole thing happen, was amazing. Seeing the cast in action, seeing the return of Rimmer, the return of the old bunk room, seeing the series I-II uniforms and cast back… it was amazing, and when you’re in a room with hundreds of people laughing, every gag is amplified. When I saw the final product edited together into a fairly amusing if confusing mish-mash, that was when my disappoint started seeping in. And by the time the credits rolled on ‘Only the Good…’, I was very disheartened by that entire series. So zip forward 13 years to last night, and here’s my state of mind. Back To Earth was not perfect, but a definite improvement – the lack of a laugh track really hurting the atmos on the show. So knowing the laughs are back for X immediately steps it up. But after seeing how VIII turned out after the delight of the recordings, I was undeniably wary about last night. Now, the actual experience of being there last night, seeing the new sets, seeing the new costumes etc was again absolutely brilliant. And I laughed heartily at the gags, just as I did with VIII. But the whole time I was mentally piecing together the episode in my head, trying to visualise how it would edit together, gauging the performances and the script against my past RD studio audience experiences… and it all felt very similar to the VIII recordings to me. Some of the gags had that VIII level of pantomimery to them… some of the performance felt more VIII than V or VI, and I was very aware that what I was laughing at was not comedy being generated BY the characters, but the characters spouting comedy lines, which is not the same thing. That’s not to say there wasn’t ANY character comedy – there were some very good, very funny character based comedy there last night, it’s just the balance felt tipped far more toward one liner gaggery. I came out of there having loved the night, a great experience, and one I’m happy to repeat next week. Maybe after seeing another recording I’ll have more perspective to gauge X so far in my mind. And it goes without saying, do not take my nitpickery naysaying as gospel. I went with three friends, one of whom loves Red Dwarf but evidently not enough to have watched it since series VI, (or indeed, to turn his phone off during a take, the tit) and he LOVED it, absolutely LOVED it – and the other two I went with were equally enamoured with it, and can’t wait to see it on TV (not least to see how the bloody episode ends!!). I just have a bit of a nagging doubt about it – even then, maybe it’s just this episode. Maybe this is the Rimmerworld, or the Meltdown, or the Waiting For God of it’s particular run… Or maybe it’s just me. Okay, rant over. Either way – roll on September.
About the mixed reactions to the new episodes… no change there then. :) I’m gonna enjoy reading these threads again in 2013 or whenever Series X makes it to my local PBS station. (Or zone-whatever-it-is DVD.) btw..Anybody record an audioboo this time around?
Oh very much it’s hard to guage Kris. Your well made point about audience live vs TV audience, is one often made, and yes I felt that too. I’ve no doubt that I’ll like the TV version less, even though it’ll have editing skill, music probably, and titles and FX etc. Comedy going through the screen loses something and reaches you in a different setting and mood. There were moments last night when I thought very VIII to myself. But it doesnt shape my over all feel of the entire night which felt more VI. This was my first audience for dwarf I’d been in too.
To be honest – I don’t wanna be the first to say. I’d rather hear some other people making the same comments first.
> That’s not to say there wasn’t ANY character comedy – there were some very good, very funny character based comedy there last night, it’s just the balance felt tipped far more toward one liner gaggery. Funnily enough that was one of my big problems with VIII. I loved the recording, I enjoyed the broadcasts, but on re-watching it all seemed a bit panto and one-dimensional. So I sort of share your fears that could happen, simply because unlike a lot of who have been to these recordings you and I have both been there, and perhaps been burned before. Of course, we could both be cynical old hacks, perhaps when it airs it’ll reverse. Those bits we hated will be re-shot, on the cutting room floor or somehow not be as bad as we first thought. Legacy is an odd thing. As the years have gone by I’ve found myself coming to the defence of VII more than I ever expected whereas VIII is firmly my worst series. Personally I’ve had two firmly negative reactions to RDIX so far. One was a short scene in Episode 1 which I didn’t like at all (it skirted too close to a scene/character from VIII) and the other was the mention above of Wickham. That itself is partly because I don’t think throwbacks to past episodes (if that’s what it is) benefit RD, but it’s more because he was a bit of arse at DJ ;-)
> To be honest – I don’t wanna be the first to say. I’d rather hear some other people making the same comments first. Are you suggesting one of us is a ***** *? (too much?)
Back In The Red part one is very funny indeed and the edited together hour long special on the dvd is one of my favourite episodes. Also there is a vastly improved version of Only The Good on youtube called Mirror Rorrim which takes out the really bad jokes (all that rock) and the Talia stuff. Sometimes these things live or die in the edit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZroR5DdKRI
Oh, and all that talk from previous set reports about Kryten’s mask looking odd this series? Looked absolutely fine to me (and great on the monitors), but the design has obviously been tweaked. The nose seems very reminiscent of the series II mask, bizarrely… the only other odd thing about the mask is how much of the neck is on display, much more than previous series. But otherwise the look of the mask and the costume is great.
Any smeg-ups due to gloriously malfunctioning or exploding props? What about choruses of “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaextraordinary!” ? (And wouldn’t it be great if the warm-up guy could get the entire studio audience to do that!)
Yeah I agree with Kris on the mask. I dont know if it’s the same as the previous episodes when mentioned, or tweaked since, but the mouth thing differs a bit on line design, but I guess we went in imagining something worse.
> Sometimes these things live or die in the edit. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZroR5DdKRI Can someone do a version that’s just the titles and the credits?
Yeah, defending series viii is never easy! Probably because of the massive obvious flaws but… I like the shit bits.
could it be we will be expecting the humour of series 8 with the feel of 5 and 6 and the gloss of BTE?
I had reservations about seeing the new mask, as I’d heard a few horror stories and scoured the Dave teaser footage for those little glimpses but after last night I was pleasantly surprised. The mask looks good, seems somewhat more rounded, sleeker in person but on the monitors it looks much more angular. The mouth and eyes tied in quite well and didn’t look anything like I saw in the Dave footage, where it seemed they’d run out of spirit glue or something… In fact the new Kryten suit – while obviously more lightweight and manouverable for bobbyllew – looks a thousand fold better than i’d expected. /twopenneth
>could it be we will be expecting the humour of series 8 with the feel of 5 and 6 and the gloss of BTE? Please…anything but that. Are any of us pining to see a pube-trimming scene or runaway penis in glorious HD?
>Are any of us pining to see a pube-trimming scene or runaway penis in glorious HD? If they could release Series VIII in HD on Blu-Ray it would be a day 1 purchase. I do find it a little funny, people scurrying around scared of it being compared to Series VIII when I loved Series VIII so a comparison to it would in general be a good thing for me. Of course the mentions that it is more attune to Series V-VII are more inspiring as those series had the best tone (they had varying balances of comedy against Sci-Fi but where in general in the right direction to perfect Dwarf for me). Series VI comparisons being made, such as the one by Andrew Ellard on twitter a few hours ago, are particularly encouraging.
Without wishing to be a miserable bastard or put too much of a dampener on things – my problem with the two episodes I saw was that I didn’t find them funny enough full stop, rather than any problems with the type of comedy. Hoping that will change in the edit… or maybe that I went into them with the wrong attitude. We’ll see. (Very, very few people coming out of the recordings have agreed with me on this – at least, anecdotally.) Mind you, it’s always tempting to try and separate out the humour from all other aspects of the show – and I used to do it all the time. But it’s nonsense. The comedy is intrinsically linked with characterisation, which is linked with plot, which is linked to everything else – right down to the quality of a model shot affecting the comedy! Incidentally, the problem I have with VIII isn’t that it’s broad humour – it’s that a lot of it is broad humour not done particularly well.
>could it be we will be expecting the humour of series 8 with the feel of 5 and 6 and the gloss of BTE? Could it be that you’re ignoring the multiple posters who’ve said how far off the mark they think that is?
>didn’t find them funny enough full stop, rather than any problems with the type of comedy. I find that almost encouraging. I’d rather have a VII type scenario where it’s not relying on lowbrow humour but is a bit weak comedy-wise, than a VIII situation where it’s using using pubes, periods and runaway penises to generate humour. One of them is disappointing, the other’s not something I’m ever likely to rewatch because I find it, well, awful. If Andrew is correct with the VI comparison, that’ll be fine, really. It certainly sounds like this is 6 standalone episodes which is one box ticked on stuff I wanted. New ideas was another deal-breaker, and it sounds like there’s a lot of new stuff in there too. As for the Steve Wickham thing. There’s no guarantee he’s reprising his original role, especially since he was unrecognisable. If Tony Hawks tweeted he was in the new series would people be concerned? That’s another prediction that’s gonna bite me on the balls, of course.
Noel Edmonds is 50000% funnier than Red Dwarf VIII. Although that says more about my opinion of Edmonds than VIII.
Noel Edmunds was called cock during the recording last night. The warm up man was fired from Deal or No Deal.
Noel Edmunds was called cock during the recording last night. The warm up man was fired from Deal or No Deal. Every bloody week. Every bloody week.
I like Ray Peacock, but is he REALLY just doing the same material every week? That’s a shame, if so. It’s like he was at The IT Crowd recordings – starts off with the same material, but rapidly goes off-script and adapts. Though there are a few chunks he keeps reusing throughout.
Last night’s warm up was comedically lead by an audience comment that span on for quite a while, to much intrigue and comedic riffing, as well as him trying to do the competition with the fans again that I believe he does each week, to lesser amount of his time than planned. he did stuff on fans who were dressed up as hologrammes in the front row, and borrowed a Flibble off an audience member too, so I doubt much of his stuff was his usual set of stuff.
I don’t think he can be doing the same stuff week, in week out. At the second recording, it was all very much reactionary to the audience members. With Ian’s rap, Jake’s carolling…and my needing to go for a piss. You’ll probably find he often slips into the same anecdotes or excerpts from his stand-up routines until he finds his next tangent…
I like Ray Peacock, but is he REALLY just doing the same material every week? That’s a shame, if so. To be fair, if you were a warmup comedian, would you bother making new material for every recording? Especially for the same show.
>the ‘My Family’ warm-up guy was piss poor compared to Ray. I suspect the My Family warm-up guy was purposely chosen to be piss-poor so he wouldn’t show up the shittiness of the scripts.
Pete you could be on to something there. What was interesting was ‘My Family’ tried to do every other seen on VT – one live, vt while reset, another live, another vt while reset and so on. I thought that was a lazy use of having an audience live to be honest.
Robert’s latest Tweet has a comment from someone who attended last night saying they can’t believe that someone Tweeted a pic this morning. Maybe it’s already been taken down, but I thought I’d better mention it.