Let’s Talk About Siliconia (on Dave) News Posted by Ian Symes on 19th October 2017, 09:00 Hello there, both Dave viewers. We’re going to give this one last try; given that the majority of discussion on the last thread was about whether there should even be a discussion thread, let’s give it another week and see if it serves any meaningful purpose this time. If not, we shall have to concede defeat in our half-hearted mission to make the Dave broadcasts a thing on here, in the face of a readership who are too busy refreshing UKTV Play on a Thursday night. But anyway, while you’re here, why not have a little chat about The One Where Everyone’s Kryten while you wait for it to air at 9pm on Dave. You have much to look forward to thereafter, namely catching up on the UKTV Play-paced discussion thread, our Live Instant Reaction DwarfCast, and our full in-depth written review. Meanwhile, the rest of us are gearing up to watch The One With The Pink Policemen on UKTV Play, and in lieu of any information to the contrary, we’re going to assume that it’ll be taking place *after* The One Where Everyone’s Kryten airs on TV. Consequently, our UKTV Play-paced discussion thread for that will be along at 9:40pm, or the instant the episode is released, whichever comes first.
I’ve seen it five times so far. Will probably watch it again and see if my opinion has changed much. You never know what the broadcast effect can do…
Getting a series V vibe from the *look* but a VIII vibe from the concept of this one. And you can all read that knowing just how right or how wrong, wrong and brimming over with wrongability I am. Out of interest, given there’s significantly more of y’all in the UKTV camp this time around, what are the main reasons for those who have changed their viewing? Did the wait prove too much? Is this segmented fandom thing just too much? Is the UKTV player finally better quality, better equipped, just better?
I had an 8-year-old computer last year that long needed replacing and was prone to spontaneously crashing if it tried streaming video of any kind, and UKTV Play wasn’t available on the telly through Virgin Media. I have since replaced my computer and moved to a new house with Sky, so I’m sorted on both fronts.
Fun fact: Siliconia was released on UKTV Play just one day after the fifth anniversary of “Fathers and Suns”. It really was almost to the day.
Less fun fact: I’ve been fortunate enough to have attended two Red Dwarf recordings in my life. Those tapings were… Fathers & Suns and it’s kind-of-sequel Siliconia. The recordings were 5 years apart, almost to the day. Alright, give or take two weeks….
I don’t FEEL like the gulf in quality on UKTV Play is that bad. I’m sure it is, but I don’t feel like it is. Also I don’t have any of the issues with buffering or failing to load or anything, it’s a very workable service for me. I don’t watch broadcast TV, at all anymore. I used to keep up with Doctor Who as it went out live, but iPlayer is high quality enough for me to just watch it online (my sky subscription only does SD anyway) I’m just too impatient to wait an entire week knowing there’s unwatched Dwarf.
Watching it again on Dave tonight I feel compelled to say that in my opinion Chris Barrie has been the standout performer of XII so far, he seems to have really recaptured the essence of Rimmer, more so than XI (which doesn’t seem to make much sense considering they were filmed back-to-back, but I’m standing by it!)
I watch it on UKPlay demand on telly through SkyQ. It’s SD, but I don’t have Dave HD anyway (I refuse to pay Sky for HD when I’m already paying them for 4K), so no difference in picture quality to watching it the following Thursday.
I’ll admit it, I actually find it more disappointing on my second viewing. Stuff that other folks have pointed out during the week have been a bit more noticeable. The somewhat rushed ending, the Rimmer story just being largely forgotten, the upgrades not being immediately understandable… no. While I never thought it was the classic I hoped it would be, I think it only just scrapes a 7 out of 10. That was only my second viewing, maybe it’ll come good in further viewings. I think I (we?) maybe had unrealistic expectations. Only average instead of amazing.
Yep, it took just one week of UKTV Play releasing the new episode *just* late enough in the evening to be awkward for me to go “Screw it, I’ll just watch at Dave pace. Yeesh.” Hope it’s not too lonely down here… Anyway, this episode was great! Excellent world and character-building premise, solidly funny throughout, impressive mechanoid designs, great performances, and the beginning properly set up the main story for the second week running. I’m struggling to think of much of real substance to complain about, honestly. Points That Have Probably Been Made On This Site Dozens Of Times Before Now And I Bet Everyone’s Already Moved On To Discussing Timewave And It’s Slowly Killing Me ™: – Rimmer’s mechanoid voice was a bit too perfect, wasn’t it? The Cat’s and Lister’s brief turns doing the faux Canadian Kryten voice sounded believably like the characters still, but Rimmer just sounded like Chris Barrie’s (admittedly awesome) Kryten impression. There was a moment where he seemed to be doing more of a transitional half-Arnie/half-Kryters voice, and I think it might have been better to stick with that. – Observation Dome music??? YES. – James Buckley got strangely little to do for how much he was in the marketing. He was mostly just there for exposition, and I’m sure I heard his character described as a rebel at some point in promotional material, but I really don’t think he did much rebelling. In fact, Kryten did more of it in his very first appearance! – Bit of a continuity error with Cured where Lister very explicitly had his guitar (or believed it to be back on the ship, at least), but here he doesn’t. Ah well. – Lister’s mechanoid look was fine, if a bit generic compared to the others. Felt a bit weird how Cat got a noticeably darker flesh tone while Lister got virtually the same colour as Kryten, though. – This only occurred to me afterwards, but it’s maybe a missed opportunity that Rimmer doesn’t have any opinions about getting a body. I know that a robot body isn’t necessarily a definite improvement on hardlight, but I figure it might be at least somewhat more tangible, right? In fact: it’s now my headcanon that this factored into Rimmer’s willingness to submit. – I disagree that the ending was rushed. If anything the middle was the rushed part – Kryten went from converted to back to normal very quickly, as did the others go from doing chores to escaping. Not a huge problem by any stretch, but it could have used an extra beat or two. – It was a nice touch how Kryten stood out against all of the other robots due to the lighter shade of grey of his metal, but not jarringly so. – Is MILF the name of the organisation, or the name of an individual member? THIS IS IMPORTANT. – OK, this has nothing to do with the episode itself, but I’m just assuming that Kochanski is definitely dead by this point. Prove me wrong, rest of Series XII!
– Bit of a continuity error with Cured where Lister very explicitly had his guitar (or believed it to be back on the ship, at least), but here he doesn’t. Ah well. This is weird, because I’ve watched Cured several times and I was sure that Lister said that his guitar was back on the ship, so finding his guitar again in TWOEK was a continuity error. But when I rewatched Cured yesterday with my Mum, Lister just says “I haven’t got my guitar”, nothing about it being on the ship. Mandela effect? An edit?
Yeah, but what I was getting at is that I thought in Cured Lister says his guitar is back on the ship, Flap Jack says the same thing, but when I rewatched it yesterday Lister *doesn’t* say that. He just says “I haven’t got my guitar”. I’ve just watched that part again and doesn’t look like it’s had part of a line cut after “I haven’t got my guitar”, so probably not an edit. I think it’s because earlier he says “I play guitar”, present tense, not that he used to play, so when he later says he doesn’t have his guitar you assume that he does have a guitar but it’s somewhere else, back on Red Dwarf. But he never actually says that. So there’s no continuity error. Huh. Weird.
Maybe you were conflating it with Kryten’s line about the bazookoids. Doesn’t he say they’re all “back on Red Dwarf”?
Regardless of what I thought of the episode, I fancy a trip to Sunbury to visit the Kempton steam museum. I’d always assumed it wasn’t open to the public for some daft reason.
This is weird, because I’ve watched Cured several times and I was sure that Lister said that his guitar was back on the ship, so finding his guitar again in TWOEK was a continuity error. But when I rewatched Cured yesterday with my Mum, Lister just says “I haven’t got my guitar”, nothing about it being on the ship. Mandela effect? An edit? Oh, well that’s fair enough then! I obviously just misremembered the “back on the ship” line, but the continuity issue is kind of still there a bit. Because the implication from “I haven’t got my guitar” is supposed to be that Lister’s lying so he doesn’t have to say “No, I don’t want to jam with you, Hitler.” So the retrospective revelation that he genuinely didn’t have his guitar confuses that. Yes, of course filming order is the real world reason, but the unspoken assumption in TV fiction is that – unless made clear otherwise – events are being shown in chronological order.
Because the implication from “I haven’t got my guitar” is supposed to be that Lister’s lying so he doesn’t have to say “No, I don’t want to jam with you, Hitler.” So the retrospective revelation that he genuinely didn’t have his guitar confuses that. No, I think the implication is only there to make Hitler (and the viewer) initially *think* he’s using it as a pretext to avoid flat-out refusing because he’s Hitler. But it turns out that Lister isn’t opposed to the idea, he just genuinely thinks he can’t jam with him because he hasn’t got a guitar.
Yes, the implication I got from”I haven’t got my guitar” was that he genuinely didn’t have his guitar
Interesting.I viewed it as: 1) He genuinely doesn’t have his guitar, so it’s a convenient polite excuse (he doesn’t have the means) 2) He’s uncomfortable about jamming with Hitler (the actual reason; he doesn’t have the motivation) To save Hitler’s feelings, he jumps on 1) as an excuse (which happens to be true). As Hitler has a spare, he’s out of excuses.
I think Pete’s got it! I guess whether Lister genuinely had access to his guitar didn’t really make a difference in Cured, but Siliconia brings it into question. But hey, working out small details in a comedy that often plays loose with continuity is what G&T does best.
