DwarfCast 69 – Epideme & Nanarchy Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 25th March 2016, 15:50 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes You heard. It’s two for the price of one, although double nothing is still nothing. Danny Stephenson and Ian Symes continue their odyssey to watch the shit bits so that the rest of the team don’t have to, with occasional interjections from guests Jo Sharples of TORDFC, and Tom Pyott. We tackle the loose two-parter of Epideme and Nanarchy, discussing such diverse topics as the merits of Gary Martin, the practical applications of nanotechnology and recently proposed changes to disability benefits, as well as revealing the fate of the Epideme communicator prop, and proposing a new animated spin-off. We also get a lot of basic facts wrong, get confused about what’s happening on-screen and go quiet for a few moments at a time fairly frequently. So it’s not very good, but at least it gets another quarter of Series VII out the way. DwarfCast 69 – Epideme & Nanarchy Commentary (114MB)
I’ve been a fan of Epideme ever since it first aired. It was refreshing to see a decent plot a week after the baffling Beyond A Joke. The thing about Lister’s arm calling back to Future Echoes didn’t occour to me at the time. I can remember being taken aback by Kryten’s ‘last week on Red Dwarf’.
There are loads of elements of those two episodes which are brilliant – the ‘progressive folk duo’ line in Nanarchy is probably one of my favourite moments in the whole show, and Norman’s return, particularly with an “alright dudes”, is heartwarmingly great – but overall I think most of what’s said is spot on. Overall there’s probably a decent 45 minute sci-fi plot there, but it’s not a sitcom. Also between that and the BitR commentary, I don’t think anybody mentioned the fact that Kochanski’s hair grows considerably, changes colour, and she changes costume. In the space of a few seconds. As a kid that really annoyed me.
It wasn’t known at all that the crew would find Red Dwarf. I’d actually completely forgotten about the search for the Dwarf by the time Nanarchy aired. The only tease in the Radio Times was something like ‘the crew catch up with an old friend.’
vii is one of the better series and it does work not having rimmer – rimmer becomes a huge creepy character in his own absence and it’s cool the story of how he leaves. it’s got a different look and vibe and i like it.
ok so it’s not one of the better ones but one of the middlest, the best being ii-v and series hate being the worst by far. it’s cool that the show has gone thru all this stuff like a huge story arc, a comedy drama series without rimmer, an experimental crap series, meta mini-series and now back to normal for three series
Nice to hear The Detectives getting a mention. My favourite episode of Red Dwarf series 7 is the one where Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell try to watch the football in a house. Or that one where Jasper Carrott is in Rear Window. I listened to this commentary thinking you’d previously liked Epideme, and thinking I thought it was the second or third best episode of 7. And now I don’t know who I am or what my name is… Perhaps I should try them again – as you say, there are good bits hidden. Actually nah.
How influential is Nanarchy really? Steven Moffat may have been watching. He uses Nanogenes in the Doctor Who episode ‘The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances’. Where they try to help but end up causing chaos. Malfunctioning tech. Which is kind of what they do here. Hmm…
