It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for, with this here discussion thread. More than two and half years after Doug Naylor announced that twelve new episodes had been commissioned, we’ve reached the twelfth. For the last time this year, and possibly ever, at 10:20pm it will be time to frantically refresh UKTV Play until we see the word “Skipper“. Unless you’re in the dimension where it’s already been released, in which case the link is below.

IT’S THE FINAL LINK.

Don’t be sad when it’s all over, because there’s still one more LIVE Instant Reaction DwarfCast to come, and it should be rather a good one. Not only will we have a series-high amount of G&Ters in the same room at the same time, we’ve also got an exciting extra surprise that’s so exciting and surprising that we can’t tell you about it until after you’ve watched the episode – head to the comments if you want to know what it is. Don’t miss all of this and more at 9pm on Friday – as usual, the link will appear on here, on our Twitter feed and our Spreaker page at 8:40pm.

320 comments on “Let’s Talk About Skipper (on UKTV Play)

Scroll to bottom

  • I’ve still got that bottle of Leopard Lager in the cupboard. Wondering whether to down it when I watch Skipper on telly next week.

  • First half OK but, boy, did they really need to show Kryten and Rimmer and then Lister and Cat both doing their experiments? We basically got the same explanation twice in a very long series of scenes and the same joke repeated multiple times.

  • Hooray, my internet connection’s decided to act like a cunt and now it’s pausing every thirty seconds, hooraaaay I’m going to kill the entire population of Earth

  • Well that episode might be the one i have enjoyed most out of all series 11 and 12 if honest.

    My only issues with it are that the Everyone is Alive Holly joke was kinda cringe-worthy.

    Oh and Mac was abit Series 8 in performance. apart from that i for the most part enjoyed it

    Surprised by the early Dwarf Model shot being thrown in, not totally sure why they threw that in there but it was nice.

  • Wow!

    That would have been even better if the N***** L***** thing wasn’t spoiled and the trailer didn’t give away M M would be back!

  • That felt like such a season two episode, and the sets were fantastic. The ending could have been better, but I liked that a lot. Very strong byte two as a whole IMO.

  • I actually have years in my eyes from laughing so much at that. The Rat was brilliantly ridiculous. Holly’s ‘Everybody’s Alive’ speech and that recreation of the old ship – so much better than those in series VIII. Even the old model shots! Absolutely marvellous.

  • That was fan-smegging-tastic. I have some quibbles but generally loved every minute. Definitely one of the funniest episodes of recent years that’s for sure.

    Those old model shots were odd. I wonder whether it was to give it a series 1 feel or whether it was to hint st the continuity of the ship having been rebuilt by the nano bots.

    Loved seeing Mac, genuine little surprise there. Though he could have been used better. He definitely wasn’t playing series 1&2 Holister.

    The set were amazing. Great attention to detail, even had a little Red Dwarf in a dome on the Captain’s desk. Though a bit miffed corridor 159 leads to the current science room. I’d always head cannoned the different sets through the series as being different sections to the ship they move to as they exhaust resources in a section.

    Not too keen on Mr Rat. Why did he have to be a dude in a Rat costume and not, ya know, more like Cat but with some ratty features?

    Opening half was probably the best character comedy the show had done Seine series 6.

    Second half was brilliant, but felt it kind of went no-where story wise other than Rimmer wanting to stay in our universe

    Slightly annoyed the tech Kryten used to build the Quantuum Skipper came from an unseen station they found “last month” and not from Trojan.

    And did they completely forget Dimension Jump and Ace Rimmer when talking about finding a universe where Rimmer is a success?

    Also, did anyone else notice some weird ADR on a couple of Rimmer’s Lines?

  • Absolutely amazing. Best Dave era episode alongside Fathers and Suns. Possibly better depending on how it stands to rewatches.

    I’ve never laughed so much out of astonishment in Red Dwarf as when I saw Mr Rat. I’ve never been so surprised in Red Dwarf as when it switched to old Dwarf.

    Also Timewave reference alert.

  • Well that was a huge let down.

    As mentioned, they spent far too long explaining the phenomenon to us twice over in the first half and there were way too many repetitions of the “doing the opposite of what they wanted” gag. The ‘rat’ character would have been more interesting had they had DJJ simply play the role as a humanoid and see the differences in his costume and mannerisms etc, rather than it nonsensically looking the way it did (though they could have gotten away with that had they only shown him on the entrance reveal). Holly had a few decent lines but I feel I would have laughed at the whole “everybody’s alive, Arnold” scene had we not just had a recreation from ‘The End’. That worked because it was a new kind of gag for the show whereas this time I found myself thinking “oh, they’re doing this again?”

    I’m being very down on this episode and I think that’s because it just felt like wasted potential. They didn’t really do anything interesting with the whole Skipper concept and I didn’t laugh much throughout, which would have helped.

    Good points:

    – Another surprise return that I didn’t see coming (and I don’t mean Holly), so that’s always a plus
    – I really liked “posh” Lister as it’s not a twist on the character that we’ve seen before
    – Rimmer as Holly was a funny visual

  • Wow, seems I’m way off from the consensus! I’ll be giving it another watch tomorrow so maybe I’ll enjoy it more second time around.

  • Really Enjoyed Quantum Leap: The Red Dwarf Sketch Show. A nice selection box to end on. Can we have a Blue Dwarf banner please Danny.

    Came back home, ultimately truncated trip, but during the whole set up, and then more alternate realities I was just gripped at what the were going to jump to next. Its not parallel universe sure, but neither is it only the good.

    Nobodys dead dave got a round of applause from me sitting at home, just like the toaster, a call back when its subverted is a new joke. Mac was spoiled by reading too much of this site, but it turns out it was an escape pod not stasis, he’s lost weight hasnt he. Or is he so big now he get through the door? ha ha.

    We end with the truth that our Rimmer cant do as good a job, as ace did when he first dimension jumped, and this probably explains why our rimmer is a returned series VII, its a similar story to what might have already occurred told now.

    Thank you Red Dwarf XII. Really enjoyed it. Not as good, as XI for me, but i dont mind the experimentation, and different approaches to episode. I will definitely enjoy the DVD when its out soon.

  • >Though a bit miffed corridor 159 leads to the current science room. I’d always head cannoned the different sets through the series as being different sections to the ship they move to as they exhaust resources in a section.

    Different dimension, innit.

  • Well that was a huge let down.

    As mentioned, they spent far too long explaining the phenomenon to us twice over in the first half and there were way too many repetitions of the “doing the opposite of what they wanted” gag. The ‘rat’ character would have been more interesting had they had DJJ simply play the role as a humanoid and see the differences in his costume and mannerisms etc, rather than it nonsensically looking the way it did (though they could have gotten away with that had they only shown him on the entrance reveal). Holly had a few decent lines but I feel I would have laughed at the whole “everybody’s alive, Arnold” scene had we not just had a recreation from ‘The End’. That worked because it was a new kind of gag for the show whereas this time I found myself thinking “oh, they’re doing this again?”
    I’m being very down on this episode and I think that’s because it just felt like wasted potential. They didn’t really do anything interesting with the whole Skipper concept and I didn’t laugh much throughout, which would have helped.
    Good points:
    – Another surprise return that I didn’t see coming (and I don’t mean Holly), so that’s always a plus
    – I really liked “posh” Lister as it’s not a twist on the character that we’ve seen before
    – Rimmer as Holly was a funny visual

    I’m really sorry but pretty much everything you listed there as a negative was what made me love it. i thought it was all hugely funny

  • Was it bollocks a waste of time having the concept explained twice. Kryten and Rimmer explain it simply and concisely to get the audience on board to then have Lister and Cat dish out the funnies.

    The sequence with Cat repeatedly wanting to use the elevator instead of the stairs was stupendous. All the stuff with them failing to second guess their own decisions was great.

    Oh I just loved this entire fucking episode.

  • I’m going to need to watch that again, but I think it was another Goodbye episode. I hope it wasn’t, but if it was, it was a fan-pleasing dollop of nostalgia. Mr Rat wasn’t a highlight…

  • No need to apologise – I’d rather the show be successful than appeal to me, personally, so I’m very much relieved everyone seems to love it!

  • Looks like the rat was divisive, but the episode most definitely not. It was The Farnsworth Parabox Keeps On Slipping, told incredible well with some lovely back-references and some nice blasts from the past. “Everybody’s Alive, Arnold” was great, I’m ashamed to say I don’t have the original script memorised well enough to know how much of a direct parody that sequence was but I’m guessing it was largely word-for-word the same.

    If that was the last episode we ever saw of Red Dwarf, I don’t think we can complain about it as a finale. It was brilliant. But based on the quality of two-thirds of Series XII and XI, I will be genuinely sad if we don’t see even more Dwarf.

  • Another great episode. I think I’d like to have spent more time with Rimmer skipping and less time with the set-up… and also think we should have met the smokin’ hot Mrs Rimmer to add even more self-spite to his return home…. but another one hits the mark for me so that’s 5 out of 6 in series XII and I’m probably placing it above XI right now in spite of Timewave.

  • – I really liked “posh” Lister as it’s not a twist on the character that we’ve seen before

    I found two of the alternate listers a bit like the deleted one from only the good. One being posh, and the other one having the moustache look. Neither an exact copy.

  • Was it bollocks a waste of time having the concept explained twice. Kryten and Rimmer explain it simply and concisely to get the audience on board to then have Lister and Cat dish out the funnies.

    But you’re talking about the gags – I’m talking about the moments when Lister literally repeats what Kryten said in the previous scene, meaning we as the audience get a fairly simple concept explained to us twice over.

  • Wellllll this was an interesting one indeed! It’s feeling like an immediate second viewing… though it was pretty good the first time. :)

    The Rat thing I honestly don’t know… I wish the performance of it was a bit different. :p Lister as captain though is priceless. The fact that Rimmer is willing to give up a wife and 4 kids (all boys…now people are gonna be talking about THAT line for sure xD) just because he can’t stand being in a universe where Lister is more successful than him is THE most Rimmer-like behaviour since series 2!! :D This episode easily could have sat alongside series 1 & 2 in terms of ideas and execution.

    Great to see Norman and Mac here! I hope people don’t read the comments and have Mac spoiled before they watch the episode, cause I haven’t seen his inclusion mentioned anywhere! Granted, I haven’t been searching for spoilers, so I guess it was out there.

    The ending is a bit naff. Something should have happened that meant Rimmer was still in an alt-universe (maybe Holly onscreen?). OR there was a revelation that Lister, Cat and Kryten had played a massive trick on Rimmer and all the universes he visited were created by them? Would have loved that.

    M-Corp is still the series winner!!! :o

  • The feeling of Lister and Rimmer trapped together in multiple universes, in varied bunk rooms from the end of this episode, made a very simultaneous warm feeling and an “oh my god, what hell” feeling at the same time.

  • The audience need to understand that Lister understands the concept in order for the gags to work with him manipulating Cat to do his bidding.

  • Oddly for an episode that was fairly nostalgic it didn’t feel as on the nose as previous episodes with call backs.

    “Everybody’s Alive, Arnold” is probably the only one that i was like Ok i get it move on!

  • For an episode that appears to be the definition of fan service, it certainly appears to have hit the spot judging by the comments here.

  • This episode just didn’t really work for me. It felt like a retread of the concept of Dimension Jump, but one that substituted that episode’s genuinely interesting character work and compelling plot for endless fanservice and nostalgic nods. Plus, the sketch-show approach made it feel pretty incoherent and one-dimensional as a story.

    I can understand it giving fans warm fuzzy feelings, but it all leant far too much on callbacks to the past for it to really stand on its own as a solid new Red Dwarf story, for me. It’s been a bit of a running theme of this series but here it felt more blatant than ever. I just wish this had been more funny and interesting in its own right.

  • I would have liked to have seen a universe where Rimmer finds a Lister that he actually really likes and becomes great friends with, but then realises that his neurosis don’t allow him to have a genuine friendship with someone and so that’s why he returns to ours.

  • The audience need to understand that Lister understands the concept in order for the gags to work with him manipulating Cat to do his bidding.

    Which they could have easily done (and have done countless times before) without repeating the same dialogue.

  • The sequence with Cat repeatedly wanting to use the elevator instead of the stairs was stupendous. All the stuff with them failing to second guess their own decisions was great.

    Too true. Like white hole’s “somebody punch him out” done physically. Cats like THE worst person to be trapped with playing the Yes/No game when you future depends upon it.

  • Wonder how those old model shots were done. Watching the HD download version on Sky they looked half decent, scanned from film or upscale, if upscaled from DVD not bad at all.

    I quite enjoyed that. Veered a bit towards VIII with the giant rat and continues to crib from old shows as has a lot of XII but it was good overall I think. Did anyone else think the skipper would end up being the Holly Hop Drive?

    Top notch work on the sets too.

    Negatives, the blue Dwarf was crap, beginning was a bit slow.

    Don’t think it’ll be the last because Dave made another series of Zapped, but I think Doug wanted to do something that could serve as the last episode should it be so, and I think it’s a far far better last episode than Only the Good…

  • Why was Rimmer a hologram (and FUCK was that old-style H bloody enormous) before the radiation leak in the Holly/Hollister universe? And a hard light hologram, more to the point, with his keyboard-bashing and skipper pressing and so on?

    Why did the skipper need time to recharge between skips except when Rimmer was about to be sacrificed or in universes where one cursory glance at something he didn’t like was enough to prompt an immediate retreat?

    I liked it but I think the advance hysteria for this one flattened it a bit.

  • The audience need to understand that Lister understands the concept in order for the gags to work with him manipulating Cat to do his bidding.

    Maybe the stuff with Kryten should have been taken out then.

  • I enjoyed it but I think M-Corp was a stronger episode. The ending was a little bit rushed but it was nice that it bookended Cured with them all sat round playing a game.
    The lack of mention of Ace Rimmer was a bit puzzling, there few a few too many scenes of Rimmer just saying “no” before skipping out and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see Rimmer’s wife. All the different Listers were brilliant and I liked the idea of the rat but found it hard to hear what he was saying. Norman and Mac were good and it all looked great. I think it will grow on me.

  • also think we should have met the smokin’ hot Mrs Rimmer to add even more self-spite to his return home…

    I was expecting and dreading Lister in Drag at that point!! Deleted scene? was there a mrs rimmer of any kind filmed?

  • The rat I think is one of those things that sounded good on paper but didn’t quite work. You could see Danny struggling to keep the damn thing on his head and putting up his hand to steady it multiple times.

  • Was it bollocks a waste of time having the concept explained twice. Kryten and Rimmer explain it simply and concisely to get the audience on board to then have Lister and Cat dish out the funnies.

    The sequence with Cat repeatedly wanting to use the elevator instead of the stairs was stupendous. All the stuff with them failing to second guess their own decisions was great.
    Oh I just loved this entire fucking episode.

    On this subject, and over thinking it slightly and being generally nit picky. By making s decision, knowing you want the opposite to happen, you’re ultimately making the decision you want to happen, and therefore it shouldn’t work. Saying, “I’m going to take the stairs”, when you know you want the lift, should just lead your to the stairs.

    On a different note …
    Wish they could have got Clarw Grogan back too, jus to be the woman the Rimmer meets in the corridor, would have been the icing on the cake though for making this episode even more bloody brilliant.

  • The rat I think is one of those things that sounded good on paper but didn’t quite work. You could see Danny struggling to keep the damn thing on his head and putting up his hand to steady it multiple times.

    The Rat probably should have been on screen a little more minimal.

  • My problem with the repetition is that we had a scene with Lister and Cat where we’re shown that the opposite stuff is happening, then we have a scene with Kryten and Rimmer where they realise opposite stuff is happening, then the scene with Kryten suggesting an experiment where he explains what is happening to the audience, then a scene with Lister and Cat where they explain the same thing again with a very similar experiment, then multiple scenes of the opposite stuff happening with Lister and Cat very much like the initial scene. I can’t see how at least half of that couldn’t have been cut out.

    Perhaps my problem is more the format of the ‘opposite stuff happening’ gag, because as soon as the setup begins, you know what the punchline is going to be and thus boredom ensued.

  • Felt a lot like that Simpsons Halloween segment with toaster, but it was enjoyable.
    Didn’t like the rat, or Norman’s ridiculously heavy makeup, but apart from those it was a nice episode. Would be satisfied if that was the last one ever.
    Considering how great the old model shot looked alongside new footage, I don’t get why they didn’t just reuse all those old model shots for series X,XI, and XII. It would suit the III-V vibe these last three having been going for, and it would’ve saved them a lot of money they could’ve spent elsewhere. Oh well.

  • Stil gatering my thoughts on this one, far too much good stuff i fesr i may miss some out, really enjoyed it! Very good sets etc.

    My main thought while i gather my thoughts…. the Starbug speeding over a moon shot from the titles must be a deleted scene?

  • Enjoyed that. The set up was brilliantly funny but did take up half the episode! Liked all the sketch elements apart from Mr Rat. Concept is fine but like others I felt like Danny in some make up would have been infinitely funnier and much more visually interesting. Mr Rat just looked like a guy in a costume… in my head that will be a quirk of the alternative universe. This was good though. Maybe my third favourite of the series.

    The old bunk room was wonderful. Much like the one in VIII it felt underused!

  • Normans performance as holly was actually abit better then he was in Series 8.

    For series 8 something about him just seemed abit too happy while you get a slightly more deadpan holly here.

  • Normans performance as holly was actually abit better then he was in Series 8.

    You’re right. Though that could possibly be attributed to series 8, on the whole, having a more ‘panto’ feel. But either way he was underplayed, for the most part, which is definitely more akin to early Holly.

    Even if it’s not the last RD, kinda sad to think it probably is the last time we’ll see Norm as Holly though.

    EDIT: I realise “panto” was a terrible term to use but you know what I mean.

  • Why was Rimmer a hologram (and FUCK was that old-style H bloody enormous) before the radiation leak in the Holly/Hollister universe?

    I did wonder that myself. Then thought, ‘fuck it, who cares?’ and carried on enjoying it all.

  • > Why was Rimmer a hologram (and FUCK was that old-style H bloody enormous) before the radiation leak in the Holly/Hollister universe? And a hard light hologram, more to the point, with his keyboard-bashing and skipper pressing and so on?

    Alternate universe.

  • Siliconia

    Cured
    Mechocracy
    Skipper
    Time wave
    Mcorp

    Mine would be:

    M-corp
    Cured
    Siliconia
    Mechocracy
    Skipper
    Timewave

    Personally I feel like 12 had a bit of a drop in quality after 11, but they did a very good job of differentiating the two in how they feel.

  • I wish I liked that a bit more. It was pretty amusing. But it was also, as I feared, incredibly fan-wanky and didn’t actually tell a particularly engaging story.

    It was *very* similar to The Simpsons Halloween Special “Time and Punishment”. That was about 7 minutes long, and pretty much did all the beats of this 25+ years ago.

    So we’re left with a bunch of silly sketches, really. I was kind of relieved that Norman was only a back for a bit. His performance was not nearly as sharp as it once was. And unfortunately, we had Mac back as Dennis the Doughbut boy, rather than the Hollister of Series 1 and 2. A bit of a waste.

    Never quite liked Craig’s “luvvie” voice, so wasn’t too keen on that. The Rat costume was daft, and should have worked as glimpse rather than trying to squeeze 1 minute of further laughs out of it. it’s a funny costume. We’ve seen it. Next.

    And then we get to the end and Rmmer realising that ‘there’s no place like home’. Unfortunately, that was signposted so it was a bit of a wait for the show to catch up with the realisation that Rimmer wouldn’t be able to bear living in a reality where Lister’s clearly in a better position.

    A bit of a shame, as I really liked the first half. But I didn’t want a bunch of vignettes and Only the Good style broadness; I wanted a story.

    It’s better than Siliconia and Timewave. i’d put it on an even footing with Cured, maybe slightly better. I’m sure a lot of people will absolutely LOVE it, but I’ve found that to be quite the disappointment after M-Corp.

  • Loved:
    • Cat’s struggles with opposites.
    • Mr Rat. The ridiculousness of the costume and character was a hilarious contrast to the set-up of chummy Lister. “Cheese sauce on your cheese, Sir?”
    • Rimmer choosing to give it all up for petty jealousy.
    • Anomaly/Weird thing/Continuum. Felt they could have done more of this squabble with words.
    • Kryten showing how he’d mop the heck out of the floor.

    Disliked:
    • Everybody’s alive, Arnold going on for the entire length. Would have worked as a wonderful short callback.
    • Hollister’s whole scene. The urgency of the leak was gone while they simply made the point of “I’m fat and selfish” without wit.
    • Rimmer being a hologram and Holly being senile before the leak seemed to serve no point, making it look like a mistake.

  • For now:
    M-Corp > Mechocracy > Skipper >> Cured >>> Siliconia >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Timewave

    Overall very happy with this series.

    Cannot wait for the Blu Ray. I’ve been stuck with UKTV Play so watching them on Blu Ray is going to be like seeing them for the first time again. The XI Blu Ray was worlds better than even the Sky HD broadcast.

  • Oh, a couple of other things I did like – Lister beaming about his Captain’s appraisal and DJJ’s perfect comic timing with the mirror gag.

  • I wish I liked that a bit more. It was pretty amusing. But it was also, as I feared, incredibly fan-wanky and didn’t actually tell a particularly engaging story.

    It was *very* similar to The Simpsons Halloween Special “Time and Punishment”. That was about 7 minutes long, and pretty much did all the beats of this 25+ years ago.
    So we’re left with a bunch of silly sketches, really. I was kind of relieved that Norman was only a back for a bit. His performance was not nearly as sharp as it once was. And unfortunately, we had Mac back as Dennis the Doughbut boy, rather than the Hollister of Series 1 and 2. A bit of a waste.
    Never quite liked Craig’s “luvvie” voice, so wasn’t too keen on that. The Rat costume was daft, and should have worked as glimpse rather than trying to squeeze 1 minute of further laughs out of it. it’s a funny costume. We’ve seen it. Next.
    And then we get to the end and Rmmer realising that ‘there’s no place like home’. Unfortunately, that was signposted so it was a bit of a wait for the show to catch up with the realisation that Rimmer wouldn’t be able to bear living in a reality where Lister’s clearly in a better position.
    A bit of a shame, as I really liked the first half. But I didn’t want a bunch of vignettes and Only the Good style broadness; I wanted a story.
    It’s better than Siliconia and Timewave. i’d put it on an even footing with Cured, maybe slightly better. I’m sure a lot of people will absolutely LOVE it, but I’ve found that to be quite the disappointment after M-Corp.

    Completely agree with all of this.

  • A great end to the series and very very funny.

    An episode of two halves. First half, a brilliantly funny concept of reserve decisions, and second half, a jaunt for Rimmer and one long nostalgia trip for us.

    Holly was like proper Holly, I laughed out loud more than I have done all series. We really do miss Holly. I was sure there would be other surprises along the way and we got them.

    I’ve been looking forward to this episode since the new run of episodes began last year and I was not disappointed.

    Series XII has been a bit of a rollercoaster, but there’s no doubt in my mind they saved the best three episodes ’til last.

  • I did kinda like it, like the silliness of it all and some of the throwbacks, but it wasn’t really that engaging. Take out all of the references to the earlier series and you’re left with little else. It had so many promises that it would be fantastic, but for me felt underwhelming. It’s a shame since it was the one I was most looking forwards to.

    I’ll sleep on it and watch it again tomorrow. This series has been often like that, as I’ve rewatched most of the episodes again to see if they were any good.

  • Irking me:
    i) Original(ish) uniform and a big H means Universe B has Rimmer as a soft-light hologram, yet he operates a keyboard.
    ii) Inconsistent recharge periods.
    iii) Mr Rat. Looks great, barely-legal performance?
    iv) Rimmer is a misogynist, but the ‘are they boys? Yes!’ line is a bit much for my tastes.
    v) Final joke not really strong enough, but nothing above is fatal to my enjoyment.

    Loving:
    i) Posh Lister.
    ii) Captain Lister. That moustache. That cravat.
    iii) Many Listers Universe.
    iv) Ship’s Computer Universe (but Kryton wouldn’t call eRimmer Sir)
    v) All the old props and fake S1/2 sets.

    On balance, a goodie. I preferred M-Corp and Mach’ from this run I think, but that was a solid (eg. no Can of Worms) one to end on.

  • How did we feel about the Michael Jackson gags?

    They were only OK, to me, but they did feel very Dwarfy.

  • Irking me:

    i) Original(ish) uniform and a big H means Universe B has Rimmer as a soft-light hologram, yet he operates a keyboard

    Ah darn it Doug!

  • Well that was… Unexpected.

    Loved the fan service quite a bit (though I’d have liked to have seen Kochanski or Todhunter. But the highlight was, without a doubt, Mr Rat. So funny.

    As a season closer though it didn’t quite top The Beginning. Could have done with more of a character arc for Rimmer.

    All in all, though. A nice celebration of classic Dwarf.

    Now I want XIII to ditch the fan service and just go off in a totally unexpected direction.

    One niggle though. In all this talk of parallel dimensions and the road not taken, why did none of the guys seem to remember Ace Rimmer?

  • How did we feel about the Michael Jackson gags?

    They were only OK, to me, but they did feel very Dwarfy.

    Probably my favourite bit.

  • My favourite episode since VI, definitely, and very easily beats some of the original 36. Everybody’s Alive, Arnold was a touch too long, VIII Hollister instead of I Hollister was a disappointment, and for such a fan-service episode, it’s a shame we didn’t get an Ace reference in the first half, but everything else about that worked. The first half felt the closest to the classic series any of the post-Rob era has done for me, not a single off gag or iffy performance. The second half was fan-service, definitely, but done utterly brilliantly. Most of the humour was related to the characters, with some broader stuff thrown in for good measure. And it was just utterly crammed with brilliant jokes, start to finish. But most of all, I just enjoyed the intriguing sci-fi concept played out in an interesting and amusing way. I love ‘something weird is going on’ episodes.

    XII, then…
    Skipper
    M-Corp
    Siliconia
    Mechocracy
    Cured
    Timewave

    I’ll have to see if I’ve changed my mind on Cured when the DVD comes around, and Timewave is obviously… Timewave. The other four, however, I either really liked or loved. My favourite series since VI, and, other than Timewave, it bodes well for XII, particularly if we get more strange stuff like M-Corp and Skipper.

    That’s made my week, that has.

  • I would have been nice (though I’m sure those annoyed at tooo many call backs throughout the series would disagree) if the Captain’s appraisals had been the same as the ones Rimmer is havingHolly read him in … is it Balance of Power?

  • Michael Jackson gags were great. The first one was quite funny but the follow up made for a very funny and very satisfying joke. I didn’t expect the first line to be anything more than a throwaway gag so I was very happy to be surprised there.

  • I actually thought Rimmer might pop up in the series 8 cliffhanger at one point, though that was just because they bothered to put the line of “.. the ORIGINAL crew?” in the “everybody’s alive, Arnold” scene. I think that might actually have been the only conceivable scenario in which I’d have been happy with them directly addressing it with a solution!

    Maybe he could have rescued “our” crew from the decaying ship and put them on an empty Red Dwarf in another universe which is where “our” story from Back To Earth onwards resumes from.

    In fact, fuck it, that’s my head cannon explanation from now on ;p

  • If they’d made this in 2009 instead of a 3 part Back to Earth, I wouldn’t have spent the last 8 years grumbling about it. This is a far better celebration of the show than that, and the incessant fankwankery would have been perfect and completely excusable. As a series finale though; I need something a bit more engaging and doesn’t just bank on the fact that the hardcore fans will like all the references.

  • If they’d made this in 2009 instead of a 3 part Back to Earth, I wouldn’t have spent the last 8 years grumbling about it. This is a far better celebration of the show than that, and the incessant fankwankery would have been perfect and completely excusable. As a series finale though; I need something a bit more engaging and doesn’t just bank on the fact that the hardcore fans will like all the references.

    I was thinking that I probably would have preferred M-Corp as the finale.

  • The first half felt the closest to the classic series any of the post-Rob era has done for me, not a single off gag or iffy performance.

    Actually, I want to expand on this and say that I don’t mean this in a “that was very V”/”that felt right out of III” way which seems to be the way a lot of the Dave era is being judged. It genuinely felt new, exciting, fast-paced, funny, and without a single moment of “argh I’ll get past this shit joke or off performance because it’s Red Dwarf”. There wasn’t a touch of “it’s not quite as good as” about it for me at all.

    If Doug can keep up the quality of that and M-Corp, XIII will be the first post-Rob series where I don’t feel I have to make any excuses or exceptions in praising it.

  • Why does everyone hate the rat? The rat was great!

    The Rat was so ridiculous and incongruous with its surroundings and the show in general, that it was brilliant.

    Only the good….. But good

    Seconded wholeheartedly.

  • Skipper > Mechocracy > M-Corp > Siliconia > Cured >>>>>> Timewave

    How the hell did this series end up so back heavy?

    Also:
    VI > V > III > IV > XII > XI > X > VIII > VII > II > I > BTE

  • Ah man, I loved that. Totally love letter to Red Dwarf, from Red Dwarf. The first half was so on point – Lister and Cat failing to get the lift was properly good! Excellent commercial break split, even if it was mid-scene. The story such as it was was very light, but enabled a pacey second half and a decent, non-rushed ending. Sets and effects – spot on. Old model shots – lush. Lovett putting in a proper, non-VIII performance, while Mac was wasted in a very VIII performance. But overall – an absolute cracker.

    So my rankings, for what it’s worth?

    1 – Skipper
    2 – M-Corp
    3 – Mechocracy
    4 – Cured
    5 – Siliconia

  • Skipper > Mechocracy > M-Corp > Siliconia > Cured >>>>>> Timewave

    How the hell did this series end up so back heavy?
    Also:
    VI > V > III > IV > XII > XI > X > VIII > VII > II > I > BTE

    You genuinely place XII and XI above X? and all three of those above I and II?? *mind blown*

    If anything I’d say…

    V > II > III > IV > VI > I > X > XI > XII > BtE > VII > VIII

  • Sadly rimmers farewell joke in this episode shows the difference between new and classic dwarf because thats always how id picture Rimmers farewell being if Holoship was made today because its very much the formula Rimmer is written as these days.

  • That didn’t do it for me. As a few people have said, we didn’t need two explanations of the opposites game.

    I also didn’t really get the multiverse stuff. What’s happening to the existing Rimmers from each respective universe? Did I miss something? And the rat was embarrassing, frankly.

    I think I’d have preferred a story where all four characters skipped around searching for a better universe rather than just Rimmer. As it is it felt a bit repetitive, and seeing what led the other three to reject different realities might’ve provided more variety. Surely the “everybody’s alive” scene would’ve worked better with Lister?

    So yeah, disappointed. But glad that I seem to be in a minority.

  • Sadly rimmers farewell joke in this episode shows the difference between new and classic dwarf because thats always how id picture Rimmers farewell being if Holoship was made today because its very much the formula Rimmer is written as these days.

    I like how the crew basically give shit zero when he goes. They know full well he’ll be back! :p

    Personally I don’t believe for a second that Rimmer would get on with the ‘posh’ Lister. This is more like something that would go on in Rimmer’s head. He THINKS he’d get on with a Lister who had collections of vintage wiring etc. but in the end he would fucking despise that Lister, just as much as his ‘cloned’ self in Me2. The Lister he’s got is exactly the Lister he needs. Him expressing that fact would have been a better way to end the episode tbh. What the hell with the endings…XD it’s like Doug thinks ‘it’s the end, who cares?’ well I think we all care! :p No-one’s expecting the quality of ‘Souper!’ or Gunmen’s ending, but…just…anything other than ‘meh, that’s yer lot’. It really affects your whole view on the last half hour.

  • I still think Give & Take and Twentica are better than anything from this series, and Krysis and Officer Rimmer are better than Cured, Siliconia and Timewave; so I just can’t rate XII above XI. If Skipper had been up there with Twentica in quality I would have been swayed.

  • Was the Captain Lister scene deliberately grainy to look like it came from the 80s, or is that just UKTV Play acting up?

  • That was brilliant. I didn’t want it to end. 3 great Dave era episodes in a row! Never thought I’d see the day!

    I was half expecting the quantum skipper to suddenly stop working when Rimmer wanted out of the Captain Lister Universe. Would have made for an interesting cliffhanger…

    Amazing that Dwarf had gone through 30 years, 12 series and many a cringeworthy moment without ever resorting to an obvious Michael Jackson gag – they were so close to maintaining that record! Ah well – that aside, I laughed a lot at ‘Skipper’ and would have no issues if it proved to be the finale.

  • Also must mention that seeing scenes in the old Captain’s office and bunk room in HD was a beautiful sight. Not as a fangasm thing, but just to get away from the blue tint that’s plagued XI and XII!

  • Not too keen on Mr Rat. Why did he have to be a dude in a Rat costume and not, ya know, more like Cat but with some ratty features?

    The reason I loved Mr Rat wasn’t because it was a different animal. The reason I found that universe so funny is that it was Red Dwarf Done Wrong. I think, deliberately so. It’s the series poking at itself and saying “Hey, imagine if we’d done this back in 1988, wouldn’t it have been terrible?”

    With that in mind, I think the stupid rat costume is perfect. Just changing Danny’s makeup wouldn’t be the right joke. It’s too sensible. The universe had to be off, entirely.

  • For the laughs, this tied with Mechocracy for me. I laughed out loud and even found myself clapping when the ‘nobody’s dead’ bit reared its head. It was a fan pleaser (and as a fan) I was pleased aplenty. Did I have a few quibbles? Then yes: that’s my own yearning, though, because I do prefer the earlier series where the emphasis is more on the characters growing somewhat rather than a quick joke that results in ‘see ya!’

    But, this did tickle my funny bone and I think (for now) I’ll rank it in third place.

    One small point, though: when reading Hollister’s file… as Rimmer reads out that all three of his brothers did well and ranked high within the space core – so what does this mean for ‘Trojan’s’ Howard?

  • There’s certain things I wanted Skipper to do that it didn’t, but it made me laugh more than any other XII episode and very genuinely surprised me with a few reveals. Particularly the old ship, that’s something I probably expected to see again even less than Holly (at least before N*rm*n L*v*tt spoiled it).

    The Rat is fucking fantastic in its deliberate incongruity and cartoonish performance because it’s _entirely_ self-aware of what it’s doing and how out of place it is. The problem with similarly silly moments in Series VIII is that the show’s entire universe was no longer grounded in reality and such cartoonish nonsense could be the driving force of an entire plot.

    Guys, new headcanon: Series VIII is a gag universe from this episode that was cut for being too silly and uninteresting.

    Rimmer better be a new color in Series XIII. I’m getting burned out on the same blue tunic, he’s been wearing it for 18 episodes. That’s far and away the longest Rimmer has consistently worn the same costume (and it replaced a LIGHTER blue tunic that he wore in BtE). There’s no reason we can’t change the color even if hardlight has traditionally been designated by blue. We’re like 26 years past the point where a further color change would confuse people about Rimmer’s tangibility. He’s been solid for half the show’s run by now.

  • I’m choosing to take the Rat costume as a deliberate reference to the US book club cover.

    Also: Danny, who was in Little Shop of Horrors, doing a Levi Stubbs impression.

  • 18 months or so on from the recording, my feelings now are more or less the same as they were on the night.

    ‘Skipper’ is possibly the most gratuitous piece of fan-wankery I’ve ever seen. But fuck it, I enjoyed it enormously.

    The attention to detail in recreating the old sets, Norm’s nicely deadpan performance, Mac’s cameo, the old ship, Cat’s inability to grasp a relatively simple concept, all lovely stuff. I even enjoyed the bloody rat.

    Being there on the night, I can tell you the atmosphere was crazy. They must have severely edited down the audience reaction to Holly’s reveal – I’m pretty sure it went on for about 5 minutes. The buzz is reflected in the performances, you can see the guys are clearly having a great time.

    In conclusion, ridiculous but good.

  • I really, *really* liked this, but it feels like it’s just one line at the end away from being perfect. Maybe Rimmer realises it’s wrong for Lister not to be with Kochanski. Or something about settling for this universe. That’s all it needed.

    But if that ended up being the last one ever, I don’t think it’d be a bad note to finish on at all.

    I presume everything with Rimmer in a Series I-style uniform was VT? The audience’s reaction to the original bunkroom set is quite interesting…

  • Although I’ve just rewatched it and already I find myself thinking that actually the ending works fine.

  • > The audience’s reaction to the original bunkroom set is quite interesting…

    When I watched the episode, my wife was half paying attention in the background, but said she could clearly hear my voice in that bit. And yeah, it was on VT, hence the gradual realisation as we took it all in!

    Sidenote, I’m happy to see the 1989/1993 Michael Jackson joke getting some love. My favourite line of the series.

  • Oh, but the Holly stuff was live on the night – and as such, so was the first time we saw Rimmer in that costume. But it was in the corridors, so only seen on screens.

  • Think the hype ruined this one slightly. It’s not bad and I’d imagine the studio audience lapped it up, but it felt more like an “end of term revue”, than a series finale. The problem with Rimmer skipping around from dimension to dimension, is that it was utterly devoid of any dramatic stakes. Compare that to M-Corp, where things *mattered* and you’re invested in a story, and it’s found wanting.

    I smiled a bit in the second half, but I far preferred the ingenuity of the first. I’m guessing a lot of people watch that bit and want it to get to the dimension skipping stuff as soon as possible. Frankly, I thought 12 minutes of silly skits, callbacks and broad performances was more than enough.

    It’s not a disaster, and I enjoyed it. i’m just a little alarmed that “Only the Good” actually had a more dramatic throughline as it told a similar kind of story.

    I think I’d just give it the nod over Twentica and Cured in the streamlined Series XI.

    Office Rimmer
    Krysis
    Skipper
    Give and Take
    Mechocracy
    M-Corp

    Everyone’s mileage may vary, but there are 6 pretty solid episodes of Red Dward. The others range between OK, give it another couple of drafts, and “throw it in a burning bin”.

    Either way, when it comes to announcing more episodes. I think Doug should stick to 6. 12 was spreading himself too thin.

  • > The audience’s reaction to the original bunkroom set is quite interesting…

    When I watched the episode, my wife was half paying attention in the background, but said she could clearly hear my voice in that bit.

    So you’re audible in the audience reaction to The Beginning *and* Skipper? Is this going to be a thing Doug has to stick in every potentially-final-ever episode from now on?

  • Oh, but the Holly stuff was live on the night – and as such, so was the first time we saw Rimmer in that costume. But it was in the corridors, so only seen on screens.

    So there was a costume change between Rimmer’s departure scene and arriving in the first parallel universe? Was Mac McDonald live on set as well?

  • Mister Rat is clearly the best thing in the entire Dave era.

    I think XII Byte Two might just pip XI Byte Two as the best tape of the four non-existent VHS releases of this block of episodes.

    To me, the Mrs Rimmer line seemed like it was setting up a cameo from Chloe that fell through, especially with the further gag about “Krissy”.

    Hattie is now the only BBC regular not to have appeared in the Dave era. This must be rectified, sharpish.

  • I agree that 12 episodes stretched the ideas pool a little too thin, but not by much – maybe enough solid foundation there for 8 or 9? As for a “dream series” I’d go for Cured, Mechocracy, Give & Take, Can of Worms, Officer Rimmer, M-Corp

    Honestly, I’m baffled by the love for the Rat scene (possibly because I’d have rather seen DJJ playing it as a humanoid) but I did say that I probably would have liked it had it only been a quick reveal. I think the dialogue he was given was what ultimately turned me off. ;)

    While Doug is throwing in all these references to Dwarf’s origins, it would have been nice to see Rimmer skip to the Smegazine dimension where holograms are black and white, as per Grant Naylor’s original intention.

  • Well, it’s all very nostalgic, but what did it do?

    I honestly don’t feel like we were given a cohesive narrative in “Skipper”, there didn’t seem to be a particularly interesting story being told and there was little to no character development to speak of.

    Did it have some good scenes? Yes! Did it have some good jokes? Yes! But the episode as a whole felt more like a sketch show set in the Red Dwarf universe as opposed to an episode of Red Dwarf.

    I’m glad so many people enjoyed it and that nobody seems to have outright hated it but I was disappointed with this one. Perhaps repeat viewings will warm me up to it and maybe the hype left me expecting something other than what we got. I did enjoy the nostalgia, particularly getting to see the old bunk room set recreated so beautifully, but it didn’t serve a greater purpose within the story and ultimately I would’ve preferred to see some developments in Rimmer’s character as a result of his multiverse skipping.

  • I’m glad so many people enjoyed it and that nobody seems to have outright hated it

    I’ll have to see how a second viewing goes but it’s definitely in my “bottom of the Dave era” list.

    Looking back, I think my main problem is that I knew what the punchlines were going to be for at least half of the jokes in the episode, as a result of how they’re set up. i.e: every single “whatever we do, the opposite happens” joke after the concept is explained, having the concept explained twice over, almost the entirety of the “everybody’s alive, Arnold” speech (which is long bit of dialogue) after realising what was happening and finally that Lister would be captain in the final universe and that it would cause Rimmer to leave.

    As I said, I’m REALLY glad people seem to love this ep because I want new RD to be seen as successful, but if I’m sitting there and I can tell what the majority of the punchlines or plot points are going to be 10 seconds before they get to it then I’m not going to enjoy it.

  • That was good! Although it fizzled out a little at the end. Watched on the train and some of my guffaws made people look over the tops of their Metros and eye-ball me, which must be a good sign.

    The ‘I didn’t turn the page over’ gag might be the funniest Dave-Era gag for me – and of course, having it come out of Holly’s mouth was an absolute joy! Hearing him say genuinely funny things again! Helps me forget the whole era of tired ‘rat-arsed’-type jokes.

    Speaking of rats: I loved the character – but what ruined it for me was the fact that it was so obviously a big solid model head. If they could have cg’d a bit of mouth movement, I would have preferred it. Christ when did I become such a picky fucker…?

    I made the decision early on to watch each show only once. Now I can watch the whole series again one show after the other. That’s the weekend sorted… :-)

  • Bit odd to see so much criticism of the dancing puppeteer from Labyrinth and Little Shop Of Horrors being assigned the role of dancing in a giant puppet.

  • Helps me forget the whole era of tired ‘rat-arsed’-type jokes.
    Speaking of rats …

    Yeah, speaking of rats. The fact the nanobots resurrected a rat means there must have been rats on board before the radiation leak right?

    Which suggests they either died in the radiation leak, or survived and evolved along with the cats to a certain extent. It’d be a nice bit of Cat history to learn that they wiped out the Rat race, in some sort of war before eventually turning in on themselves and fighting their religious war

  • The ‘I didn’t turn the page over’ gag might be the funniest Dave-Era gag for me – and of course, having it come out of Holly’s mouth was an absolute joy!

    That gag didn’t work for me, because my immediate thought was “how would Holly turn over a piece of paper?”

  • the only part of the episode that seemed “off” to me was Lister’s line about having a stasis booth installed in the office. it just felt like it was there to explain why he suddenly pulled a burger out his arse

  • Bit odd to see so much criticism of the dancing puppeteer from Labyrinth and Little Shop Of Horrors being assigned the role of dancing in a giant puppet.

    It’s true, if someone once did something that worked well then it’s impossible for them to subsequently do something vaguely similar that doesn’t work well.

  • Performance highlights:
    “I got that off my mum. She’s a huge blamer” – Lovely line but Chris really sells it.
    “Quite bright!” and then the pointing at each other – Obviously so close to corpsing, but a joyous little exchange.
    “Weird” – Love Danny’s expression at the end of ‘Biscuits?’
    “No!” – Just a moment’s silliness, but I liked the image. Really enjoyed the direction in the last couple of series; Doug’s good.
    More editing than performance, but the way Cat arrives back in the bunkroom a moment after the others really boosts the gag.
    “Oh yeah? Oh yeah?” – Robert’s having fun with this little outburst and the performance shines.
    Ditto “I may have ripped a hole in space-time” – Robert’s guilty look and finger-work is pure Stan Laurel. Lovely.
    Norm. He may look knackered, but he’s still got it where it counts.
    Mac’s “Ah nuts.” Maybe it’s the flame effect, but that’s actually a dark comic moment. He’s a bit broad (not a fat gag) but I liked his performance.
    Posh Lister. Craig looks great, sounds great and really sells that character with his performance. What a guy :)
    Mr Rat’s “Mmmmmm. Yeah!” almost saves it. I don’t like Mr Rat (and it’s clear the costume is hard work) but I liked that moment.
    Chris’s alt universe experience expressions. His face does wonderful things.

    Freshly picked-up on (watch number 3):
    Rimmer sorting through his cable collection as Kryten arrives with the fruit. Nice.
    Blue Dwarf. I took that to be RD passing a blue star, but no, that’s a parallel universe ship. Cool.

    As ever, there’s stuff I’d like to have seen and a couple of jokes/points that didn’t work for me, but I’m warming to that. Yes it’s fan-frotage, but it’d still work for a casual watcher and the jokes don’t rely on familiarity. They’re only enhanced by it. Except Everybody’s Alive Arnold, which I happily forgive.

  • The ‘I didn’t turn the page over’ gag might be the funniest Dave-Era gag for me – and of course, having it come out of Holly’s mouth was an absolute joy!

    That gag didn’t work for me, because my immediate thought was “how would Holly turn over a piece of paper?”

    He is able to hold a book in Queeg. Maybe he has hands that we just never see.

  • I loved it. One of my favourite of the Dave era.
    Controversial opinion, but Mr Rat had me in stitches, and I know it looked a bit shit but that just added to the comedy for me.

  • Isn’t the “Holly has hands we can’t see” theory slightly hurt by Rimmer having to use his nose to press a button later on?

    (though that line about him not turning the paper over didn’t bother me, just to add)

  • Maybe it’s a real piece of paper and he would have to use a skutter to turn it over. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it’s Maybelline.

  • >the only part of the episode that seemed “off” to me was Lister’s line about having a stasis booth installed in the office. it just felt like it was there to explain why he suddenly pulled a burger out his arse

    That seems like a really inventive way for Lister to be incredibly lazy in a dimension where there is no Kryten around to make a burger or other hot food for him. Get somebody to cook all his food and then waste massive amounts of resources by freezing it in time.

    I’m surprised Series VIII Hollister didn’t do it.

  • Well, I really liked that, with a handful of provisos:

    Negative observations.

    1. The decision-prompted dimension jumps stop immediately after they stop being central to the plot. Even one line from Kryten “I absolutely will not fix this faulty device!” / “Right, all fixed, sir!” would’ve explained it and been a good punchline to the joke… but once Lister and Cat got to the Science Room, it all just fizzled out.
    2. Kryten explicitly tells Rimmer that the device has a recharge time and that creates peril for Rimmer in his first jump, but five minutes later we see him merrily skipping in and out of universes with just a few seconds in each one.
    3. What happens to Rimmer Prime in each universe when our Rimmer jumps in? Or does our Rimmer *become* Rimmer Prime when he skips (consistent with the uniform changes, and the fact that sometimes he’s dead, sometimes he’s a Hologram, sometimes he’s Holly – but inconsistent in that every time he skips, he remembers who he is and how he got there.)
    4. Bloody hell, that “H” is big.
    5. “Nobody’s dead, Arnold!” – would’ve been funny as a throwaway, but was over-egged slightly.
    6. Nobody is surprised to see Rimmer again when he returns, but the odds of him going back to that universe were almost nil… but everyone’s like “Oh, you’re back, wanna play cards?”
    7. The dimension-skipping device is a time machine as well?
    8. The first skip didn’t appear to take Rimmer to a substantially different dimension – basically he went back in time to five minutes before the radiation leak that killed the crew.

    All that said, loved it.

    Lister/Cat and Kryten/Rimmer both arriving an explanations of what was happening was both necessary and very funny. Kryten understands it following a scientific experiment. Lister understands it after tricking Cat into being his slave, and once he realises what’s happening, exploits it shamelessly.

    I’d be happy for RD to go on forever, but if it turns out that this is the end, I could live with that.

  • I enjoyed that a lot. Second half of XII has been very strong. If we’re making a dream XI/XII combo well, it’s a (rather neat in terms of broadcast) half and half for me.

    Twentica
    Samsara
    Give and Take
    Mechocracy
    M-Corp
    Skipper

    As for how XII stacks up with the other series. I’m another who doesn’t seem to have the ‘First 36’ and ‘Next 37’ divide, thanks to XII it seems…

    V > VI > II > III > XII > IV > I > X > XI > VII > BTE > VIII

  • The reason I loved Mr Rat wasn’t because it was a different animal. The reason I found that universe so funny is that it was Red Dwarf Done Wrong. I think, deliberately so. It’s the series poking at itself and saying “Hey, imagine if we’d done this back in 1988, wouldn’t it have been terrible?”
    With that in mind, I think the stupid rat costume is perfect. Just changing Danny’s makeup wouldn’t be the right joke. It’s too sensible. The universe had to be off, entirely.

    This exactly. It was so stupid, ridiculous and unexpected, and that just made it funnier. I was expecting Danny to come in, looking scruffy with Ratty teeth. Then he talked, and it was wonderful.

  • >7. The dimension-skipping device is a time machine as well?

    I thought that too at first but then I figured that in some universes things just happen 3 million years later than in others. Infinite possibilities and all that.

  • The reason I found that universe so funny is that it was Red Dwarf Done Wrong. I think, deliberately so. It’s the series poking at itself and saying “Hey, imagine if we’d done this back in 1988, wouldn’t it have been terrible?”
    With that in mind, I think the stupid rat costume is perfect. Just changing Danny’s makeup wouldn’t be the right joke. It’s too sensible. The universe had to be off, entirely.

    Oh my god. This whole episode is a Jawscvmcdia thread.

    I loved this. LOVED this. The stairs/lift sequence felt like utterly classic Red Dwarf. Mr. Rat was fucking fantastic. Pre-accident Dwarf ended up better than I hoped it would be!

    As soon as I heard the Captain mentioned in the last universe, I hoped it was Lister and I was so glad I was right! Long story short, years ago I came up with this alternate timeline where the crew never got wiped out and Lister rapidly rose in the ranks, much faster than Rimmer, to the point where he is Captain alongside Rimmer as Officer. It’s like Doug reached inside my brain and wrapped it up in some delicious fan-service.

    Twentica
    Samsara
    Give & Take
    Mechocracy
    M-Corp
    Skipper

    Now that’s a great smegging series right there. Hell, pretty much every episode these last two series has been a good fun romp. Except Timewave. Fuck Timewave.

    II > V > VI > IV > III > XII > XI > I > X > VII > BTE > VIII

  • Preferred XI to XII, although there’s not much in it. Give and Take and M-Corp both easily in the top 30.

    V > III> II > IV > VI > I > XI > XII > VII > X > BTE > VIII

  • I’m really looking forward to the G&T pearl survey now – I assume there will be one in the run up to February? There have been some absolute classics now in the Dave era IMO, plus some obvious stinkers of course.

  • Great episode. Nice to see Freddie Mercury is still remembered in the long distance future. See? Doug loves the gay bisexuals!

    + nice Eddie Murphy cameo channeling Donkey!

    XI & XII best of :

    1) Give and Take
    2) Krysis
    3) Cured
    4) Officer Rimmer
    5) Siliconia
    6) Skipper
    7) Twentica

    Hopes for future series?

    A proper non squashed Starbug set with a proper mid section…..just put the audience in the car park! Oh and Hattie as Holly, Norman has had a nice send off….now it’s Hattie’s turn! The ship seems so dead without a Holly…..

  • I’m choosing to take the Rat costume as a deliberate reference to the US book club cover.

    It’s what it reminded me of. I wasn’t sure about the Rat at first, but now I get that it’s supposed to be ridiculous, I’m fine with it.

  • That gag didn’t work for me, because my immediate thought was “how would Holly turn over a piece of paper?”

    With his hands. Seen in parallel universe.

    Oh wait a minute cat dreamed that.

    Erm with an eye focus mouse on a virtual document.

  • I don’t hate the stuff with Mr Rat but perhaps it should have been on screen a little less, maybe take out the joke about the rats sleeping with him some nights because Dannys line delivery about lister being warm and snuggly started to breach the line of way too silly.

  • Also, if a printer/scanner/copier can scan double-sided in 2017, then Holly can turn over a piece of paper in the 23rd century.

  • And if we’re doing this…

    EXHIBIT A:

    M-Corp
    Cured
    Skipper
    Mechocracy
    Timewave
    Siliconia

    EXHIBIT B:

    II > I > III > X > VII > IV > V > XII > BTE > VI > VIII > XI

    EXHIBIT C:

    M-Corp
    Krysis
    Cured
    Skipper
    Officer Rimmer
    Can Of Worms
    Give & Take
    Mechocracy
    Timewave
    Samsara
    Siliconia
    Twentica

    Your mileage may vary. xx

  • The first half is pure magic. The second half is a lot of fun, if a bit inconsequential. The Rat is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time – an utterly hellish walking nightmare. My favourite RD stories are the ones that dig a bit deeper but I really enjoyed Skipper.

  • It’s making me itchy how none of them seem to remember that they’ve met Ace Rimmer doing exactly the same thing.

  • I did. I put kisses at the end of all texts and emails to my friends, specifically including my male ones. You all should be flattered I involved you in my fight against the toxicity of gender stereotyping.

    Come on, pucker up, I’ll snog the whole bastard lot of you. You first.

  • It’s making me itchy how none of them seem to remember that they’ve met Ace Rimmer doing exactly the same thing.

    Considering how deeply Doug ploughed series one for gags in this episode it seems bizarre to me how the Captain’s crew records have been redone without reference to Rimmer reading them before. Or indeed why they’ve changed since the first time.

  • The Beginning > Skipper

    V > IV > VI > III > II > I > X > XI > XII > BTE > VII > VIII

    Give and Take
    Samsara
    Officer Rimmer
    M-Corp
    Mechocracy
    Skipper

    Hattie > Norman
    Blackadder III > II > IV > I
    Mum > Dad

  • .

    It’s making me itchy how none of them seem to remember that they’ve met Ace Rimmer doing exactly the same thing.

    Considering how deeply Doug ploughed series one for gags in this episode it seems bizarre to me how the Captain’s crew records have been redone without reference to Rimmer reading them before. Or indeed why they’ve changed since the first time.

    Yeah, that as well. In other news, Norman Lovett looks old these days.

  • >It’s making me itchy how none of them seem to remember that they’ve met Ace Rimmer doing exactly the same thing.

    It’s not exactly the same, though. Ace Rimmer is going from universe to universe meeting different versions of himself with the aim of having adventures. Rimmer is going from universe to universe becoming different versions of himself (people comparing it to Quantum Leap have, I think, pretty much hit the nail on the head) with the aim of finding one he’s happy with.

  • >Or indeed why they’ve changed since the first time.

    Companies are well known for only keeping one set of appraisal records for their staff and never updating them.

  • Earlier today, this happened:

    Tune in to the LIVE DwarfCast tonight at 9pm to see what Mac had to say!

    (NB. Our previously announced special guest has had to pull out due to illness. Sorry about that there.)

  • Great episode. Nice to see Freddie Mercury is still remembered in the long distance future. See? Doug loves the gay bisexuals!

    + nice Eddie Murphy cameo channeling Donkey!
    XI & XII best of :
    1) Give and Take
    2) Krysis
    3) Cured
    4) Officer Rimmer
    5) Siliconia
    6) Skipper
    7) Twentica
    Hopes for future series?
    A proper non squashed Starbug set with a proper mid section…..just put the audience in the car park! Oh and Hattie as Holly, Norman has had a nice send off….now it’s Hattie’s turn! The ship seems so dead without a Holly…..

    That episode was fabulous. Needed more time to explore the Holly/Hollister & Captain Lister dimension though, which comes back to the biggest frustration for me of the modern show, runtime.

    I still think it would’ve been better to take, say, the best six scripts from both series & expand those to two parts each. Giving you an hour(ish) for each story. You’d still have two series over two years but with 3 stories per series.

  • Going to give it another watch shortly, but not sure there’s much between this and The Beginning when comparing it to the “finale” episodes (Back to Reality, Out of Time, Nanarchy and Only the Good being the other prominent ones). I have a list of problems with The Beginning (it looks cheap, Hoguey, the jokes are a bit crap, Rimmer’s backstory is screwed up etc) but I appreciated the ambition at trying to tell something epic.

    Skipper seems to settle for “silly”. I don’t have a huge problem with that…but I just wanted something a bit involving than a bit of throwaway fun; especially after M-Corp reminded me that the show can do drama, scares and laughs extremely well. Just a teensy bit of tension would be nice rather a series of wacky sketches. It’s clear that it’s made with love and attention to detail, but I’d hope for something a bit more substantial in an episode that brings back two old characters.

  • I’m going to go out on a limb and say that M-Corp should have been the series finale and Skipper done as an earlier episode.

    The pathos of the prospect of Lister losing his crewmates and ageing into oblivion would have made for a nicely unsettling final episode storyline (à la Back To Reality) and that closing callback scene would have made for a classier (and briefer) tribute to the show’s origins than the overstuffed fanservice of Skipper.

    My favourite ‘finale’ episodes (Back To Reality and Out Of Time) have both had that undercurrent of serious drama and the prospect of the show’s overarching storyline coming to a dark and sinister end. I felt like M-Corp had that in a way that Skipper didn’t.

  • Overall, I absolutely loved this episode. Took me back to the old times and nostalgic Red Dwarf.
    The first part reminded me of White Hole where they almost repeated some of the jokes. I liked the idea of having to make the reverse decisions in order to do what you actually want to do, but this storyline abruptly ended without resolution. I was expecting them to all say something like “So we’re all NOT in agreement to repair the lesion”.
    The next part with the dimension hopping was brilliant especially when Holly and captain Hollister appeared in it. I really wish they spent more time in this universe!
    The only scene I hated was the rat dimension. It was just an enlarged rat that looked too much like a costume than an evolved species like that cat (or dog from parallel universe).
    I was hoping this episode (knowing Holly would appear in it) would give us closure on what really happened after series 8, but maybe we will never know for sure!

  • Mac will get more to do in the Dwarfcast than the episode.

    A shame that they brought him back as the VIII version. Mac is brilliant at deadpan (his interviews in the DVD documentaries were often the funniest) but Series VIII and Skipper just decide to use a heavily flawed character. Haha, he’s fat, secretly stupid and a snake in the grass! LOLZ.

    Actually, Hollister in the escape pod also felt Simpsons-esque to me.

    Smithers: For the love of God, sir! There are two seats!
    Mr. Burns: I like to put my feet up.

  • Best Of XI & XII

    Skipper
    Siliconia
    Officer Rimmer
    Mechocracy
    Can Of Worms

    Others Worth Mentioning In The Dave Era:

    The Beginning
    Trojan
    Krysis
    M-Corp
    Cured

    Favorite Series In Order:

    III, VI, V, IV, XII, XI, X, II, I, IX, VII, VIII

  • I’m happy to see the 1989/1993 Michael Jackson joke getting some love. My favourite line of the series.

    I wasn’t sure about the first iteration. Then the second iteration sold it.

    Haha, he’s fat, secretly stupid and a snake in the grass! LOLZ.

    I’ll defend him saying he takes up four seats as being a self-deprecating excuse more than the show making a fat joke. And Rimmer’s a hologram here, so I can’t imagine Hollister is overly concerned to save the computer simulation of a chicken soup machine repairman.

    But that does, again, raise the question of WHY Rimmer would be a hologram here. We can headcanon a million reasons (i.e. here he died before the accident and was the only dead crewmember), but that still doesn’t explain why he’s solid. They really should’ve just made him human here, it would’ve also given a greater sense of peril when he escapes at the last minute. Presumably hard light Rimmer would be immune to fire and radiation sickness.

    So yeah, I didn’t excuse anything. As you were.

  • Rimmer was human in that dimension but he was going to a fancy dress party that evening and had a shit costume which he had put no effort into.

  • In that universe, Red Dwarf is a holoship, but Rimmer has an H on his head because he’s a fan of heavy metal.

  • Fail-safe built into the skipper device. If a hard light hologram is skipping dimensions and skips into a dimension where he doesn’t have a physical presence (ie. soft light hologram or, somehow, a computer…) he needs to be able to get home or skip onwards.

    Therefore Kryten created the function for Rimmer’s dimension skipper to power his light bee remotely or be available under any circumstances, or some shit or some shit. Fuck knows how.

    That explanation kind of deteriorated there.

  • That explanation kind of deteriorated there.

    That’s ok, the episode’s explanation of how the Quantum Skipper needs to recharge kind of deteriorated in a similar way.

  • I love how the repeating theme of XII is to reference past stuff and this culminates into an amazing last episode, which rounds it all off nicely. Siliconia and Skipper are two of my top episodes ever, and I really don’t get the hate for Siliconia. One thing I’ve noticed is that Lister doesn’t eat or talk about curry anymore. What was the Star Knot? Does it reference something relegated to a deleted scene? I wasn’t a big fan of Cured but it got better after I watched it a few times. Timewave is awful but there are some laughs to be had so it’s not a write-off. I don’t love M-Corp as much as everyone else seems to, it was really good until Lister was buying stuff with time, which I thought was stupid really, it’s like charging someone with self harm because health is a valuable commodity. I liked Mechocracy, possibly the best bottle episode ever, or at least since Marooned. Officer Rimmer and Samsara were probably my favourites from XI and I love that although the main sets and costumes are almost identical, the style in writing is completely different. Doug should have put more thought into ending episodes well, I think, but besides that he did a great job. I’m glad he made Timewave even though I don’t like it because, although I don’t like it, I think it’s one that a modern casual viewer would love, unlike most of VIII which was a shambolic and embarrassing mess throughout.

  • Note: Both The Beginning and Skipper are Rimmer-centric episodes. As, indeed, is Only the Good… meaning that if you don’t count Back to Earth, then all of the potential final episodes ever in the last 23 years have been Rimmer-centric episodes.

    Presuming we get more Red Dwarf after this, will the next potentially final ever episode try another angle?

  • .
    But that does, again, raise the question of WHY Rimmer would be a hologram here. We can headcanon a million reasons (i.e. here he died before the accident and was the only dead crewmember), but that still doesn’t explain why he’s solid. They really should’ve just made him human here, it would’ve also given a greater sense of peril when he escapes at the last minute. Presumably hard light Rimmer would be immune to fire and radiation sickness.

    Yeah that is weird, maybe it was just an excuse to get the huge H on Rimmer since he didn’t have it on the second time he was in his series 1 wear.

    Although oddly didn’t Rimmer have the H on in that promo picture they released where he looks like he is in the captains office?

  • Presuming we get more Red Dwarf after this, will the next potentially final ever episode try another angle?

    Depends if Doug ever decides to write a final FINAL episode.

  • .Although oddly didn’t Rimmer have the H on in that promo picture they released where he looks like he is in the captains office?

    Wearing the costume from the dimension where he was a living Astro-Navigation Officer, yes. Probably just put together for the promo photo since he only ever wears the H as a second tech. Perhaps they were shooting the later segment and wanted a promo photo, but figured including the old style H would be a lot more striking.

  • I like to think that this episode is kind of like something that just goes on when we’re between episodes and not watching them.
    Like Doctor Who’s Love & Monsters, but much, much better.

  • I presume the Star Knot is something to do with the tear in reality that causes the skipping in the first place. Perhaps there was some dialogue about how Kryten creates the quantum skipper by creating a ‘star knot’ from the tear.

  • I enjoyed it MUCH more on second viewing. I still think they wasted too much time in explaining the phenomena twice, but I caught a few things I missed last night and a few of the things that I had problems with were not so much of an issue.

  • Mr Rat is brilliant because we’re expecting DJJ in rat make-up and then get something altogether more freaky. If this dimension was just ours-with-a-rat-instead-of-a-cat then Rimmer would likely have stayed. Thousands of weird aggressive rat monsters makes it somewhere he has to flee from.

    Yeah – it looks like a daft costume but who’s to say what a 7 foot anthropomorphic rat would look like in a universe with different rules to ours! It’s a very funny scene indeed.

  • On my third rewatch, I wanted to know what was written on Rimmer’s box of cables. Can’t quite make it out word for word, but it goes something like this: Unauthorised opening of this box and removal of it’s contents are a violation of space corps directive… can’t make out the actual number as it’s too blurry.

  • I was no more bothered by the rat costume than I was by the animal heads in Out of Time. Suspension of disbelief and it was funny.

  • I will admit my dislike of the Rat has all but disappeared on second viewing. I think if I have any criticism, it’s that I didn’t find the voice that DJJ gave the character to be all that clear. But can’t fault his physical performance and it was a funny visual.

  • Little funnest facto:

    The DVD releases of Dave-era Red Dwarf completely cut out the Dave idents that occur in the middle of these episodes. In the version of the latest episode we’ve all watched, we currently have the audience reaction to the Lovett, who glances momentarily to one side and rides the laugh as he would if he was waiting to deliver a line. We then get the Dave Red Dwarf IIII XII ident. Then we have the ident repeated, and when we cut back, it’s a silent audience starting up again from nothing going “waaaaay!” before Lovett communicates with Rimmer.

    That isn’t going to happen on the DVD release. It will be a seamless transition between shots, so we will presumably see Lovett riding the laugh naturally before delivering the line, but crucially, dubbed-audience-response-fans, we will not get a strange edit where “waaaaaay!” occurs just before Lovett communicates with Rimmer, when that clearly never happened in real life.

    Interesting, isn’t it?

    (Yes, it is. Very interesting!!)

  • I was hoping Rimmer would discover a really really weird reality where Lister wouldn’t immediately recognise Chloe Annett as Kochanski.

  • Just rewatched. Did anyone else notice what it said on the bottom of Rimmer’s box of wires? Something about unauthorised handling of this box and the removal of it’s contents is a violation of space corps directive… the rest is too blurry to make it all out. I like it – it’s a fun little touch.

  • In an alternate reality Craig Bierko was played by Craig Ferguson. Red Dwarf USA was the sequel to Confidence and Paranoia, instead of Me2.

  • I found this to be a fun little addition. When Rimmer is fiddling with his box of wires, I can just about make out this written on the side: Unauthorised openings of this box and removal of it’s contents is a violation of space corps directive – the rest is blurred, but it’s clearly a number.

  • I was hoping for Craig Bierko to turn up, to be honest.

    Wow, that would have been just a little TOO niche for the casual viewer! :p would have been epic for us though.

    For me, one of if not THE best feeling I had this entire series (not including when I was thinking about the waitress in Timewave…) was the Rimmer/Holly scene, specifically when Rimmer walks back out of the science room and is asking Holly about the radiation leak. The way Chris does it and with Norman answering in the background, watching it is like I’m having flashbacks to series 1 and 2, it just sent a thrill right through me. This IS Red Dwarf to me. Lister’s scenes with Holly from the old days were also brilliant, and it’s a shame Craig didn’t get a scene with him here. Ah well.

  • Also I noticed on 2nd viewing there’s a line Hollister says that SHOULD get a laugh but doesn’t, cause maybe the audience doesn’t hear it so well? ‘I thought I was pressing the “get me outta this thing, I wanna die nobly with my crew” button only it turned out to be the “get me home fast” switch.’ Just thought it deserved a laugh. :p

  • > (not including when I was thinking about the waitress in Timewave…)

    What a peculiar episode to have a memory of.

  • When Rimmer is fiddling with his box of wires, I can just about make out this written on the side: Unauthorised openings of this box and removal of it’s contents is a violation of space corps directive – the rest is blurred, but it’s clearly a number. I really love these little extra details.

  • Also I noticed on 2nd viewing there’s a line Hollister says that SHOULD get a laugh but doesn’t, cause maybe the audience doesn’t hear it so well? ‘I thought I was pressing the “get me outta this thing, I wanna die nobly with my crew” button only it turned out to be the “get me home fast” switch.’ Just thought it deserved a laugh. :p

    Would have been funnier if hollisters story was actually trying to be more convincing rather than the die nobly with crew “button”.

  • Would have been funnier if hollisters story was actually trying to be more convincing rather than the die nobly with crew “button”.

    Hollister was definitely the weakest part of the episode for me. Far too Series VIII. The saving grace is that *this* radiation leak happens 30 after the one in ‘our’ dimension (everyone is much older than in The End). I can still believe ‘our’ Hollister died with dignity.

  • I can’t say I’ve seen anyone mention the fact that Captain Lister got his money through a Helium 7 planet, presumably Planet Rimmer from Timewave.

  • It can’t be the Planet Rimmer because that should be millions of years away.

    Unless Red Dwarf is actually closer to earth then expected.

  • As much as I love Rimmer centric final episodes, I think Lister deserves one now. Would be a different tone of course, probably more like BTE or M-Corp.

    And since we’re doing this…

    Samsara
    Officer Rimmer
    Twentica
    M-Corp
    Cured
    Skipper

    I > V > IV > II > X > III > BTE > VI > XI > XII > VII > VIII

  • Twentica
    Give and Take
    Officer Rimmer
    Cured
    M-Corp
    Skipper

    Would like to get Mechocracy in there somehow, but not sure at which ep’s expense…

  • I will say though that Listers excuse of not being able to leave because he is the last human being and has responsibilities isn’t really convincing because what exactly is he gonna do with those responsibilities? ;p

  • I will say though that Listers excuse of not being able to leave because he is the last human being and has responsibilities isn’t really convincing because what exactly is he gonna do with those responsibilities? ;p

    exist

  • I will say though that Listers excuse of not being able to leave because he is the last human being and has responsibilities isn’t really convincing because what exactly is he gonna do with those responsibilities? ;p

    And how can he be so sure that he’s not going to randomly run into another living human being like he does almost every week?

  • Everybody else seems to be doing this, so:

    Twentica
    Samsara
    Give & Take
    Officer Rimmer
    Krysis
    Can of Worms
    Cured
    Siliconia
    Timewave
    Mechocracy
    M-Corp
    Skipper

  • I enjoyed this a little better a second time around. I still feel curiously unmoved by all the fanservice stuff (possibly because there’s already been so much of it this series), but I embraced the silliness a little more this time.

  • Another problem of the running order is that the three XII episodes with the most blatant fanservice – Talkie Toaster, recreation of the first scene of The End and all the stuff this ep does – end up being back-to-back. And the only thing quite as overt in XI are the return of the Polymorph and, at a push, the Nova ship.

  • Bandura
    Skippon
    Umpita
    Mechochistrant
    MCumpitrock
    Siloconicha
    OtherPeople’sListsAreBoringToRead
    Pinewabe
    Can a Worbs
    Oppicon RImmon
    Gibbon Tape
    Krysips
    Cubed

  • When Rimmer arrives in Lister-Is-Captain-World, why does he say “I’m human here” instead of “I’m alive here”? A deleted scene, perhaps?

  • Well he took ages to realise he had a physical form and could feel things in Timeslides, and you’d think being hard light would mean it would take him longer to realise, so maybe.

    Edit: In fact he had to be TOLD in Timeslides

  • But why doesn’t he say that’s he’s alive, or not dead? I can’t remember any previous occasion where the hologrammatic Rimmer was referred to as not being human. He is a human, albeit a dead one.

  • Interesting to see people saying Rat should have just been DJJ sans consume when the funniest part of pretty much the entire episode for me was seeing a giant rat walk into the sleeping quarters when you were expecting the Cat. That was the comical climax of the rat stuff, for me, honestly.

  • Mr Rat just looked like a guy in a costume… in my head that will be a quirk of the alternative universe.!

    Worth mentioning maybe that the unreality bubble that gives them all animal heads in VI also looked like actors wearing costumes, but was still incredibly funny. But then that could also be a quirk of the unreality. So if you forgive one you have to forgive the other, I’d think

  • Well.
    For an episode that depended so much on nostalgia for old episodes, it sure pissed on a lot of them, especially the Ace ones.

  • Skipper was alright. I really liked the first half of the episode with the decision and consequence gags. I felt like the skipping in the second half of the episode was maybe a bit underwhelming and could have been weirder if anything, although I think it may grow on me on rewatching. Holly had some good lines, although the return of Hollister was probably more enjoyable because it was a surprise. My main problem with the episode is the John Hoare-y old chestnut of Red Dwarf doing things it’s done before but not as well. The captain’s remarks and Rimmer’s goodbye felt so similar to older series counterparts that their inferiority was glaring. It also felt weird that Dimension Jump was never referenced and the Dwarfers acted as if the concept of alternative universes was new to them. However, Skipper was funny and had a good sci-fi concept at the heart of it, so it was a decent episode of Red Dwarf.

  • 7. The dimension-skipping device is a time machine as well?

    The first dimension jump we see in, uh, Dimension Jump, also shoots Ace forwards 3,000,000 years. Then the teleporter in Series VI acts as a time machine for no apparent reason. Then the Time Drive (which itself is redundant because they now have a teleporter that travels through time, which is immediately ignored as the Dwarfers lament the fact that they have a Time Drive but cannot teleport) acts as a teleporter in Series VII, for no apparent reason. Then Ace once more dimension-jumps through time in Stoke Me A Clipper. And now this. Fucking hell.

    Stupid fan theory: It could be a case of, it isn’t a time machine, but the evolution of the human race just occurred 3,000,000 years later in the universe where the original crew are alive, or something, hence it’s actually still the same time, everything’s just three million years behind

  • I don’t know what this Star Knot people are referring to is. I wasn’t aware of any such thing mentioned in the episode.
    Anyway, I think this is my favourite episode of the series. I loved the rat, precisely because it was so silly and its voice was so utterly inappropriate. Norman wS spot on as Holly, Mac was great, and I found the gags in the first half to be very funny.
    There were a couple of things that bothered me… as others have mentioned, the complete erasure of Ace from a story where it would have been sensible to acknowledge his existence, and one other section which was funny but made NO SENSE.
    I’m talking about the section with Captain Lister. Why did he want to see Rimmer in his office? Maybe this is glossed over when he realises it’s not the same Rimmer, except he doesn’t seem to realise that, hence the multiverse strip club jokes. Then he takes him to “the old bunk room “… why? Why hasn’t it been used? Why did they go there? Why does Lister refer to Rimmer being a living human when he had no knowledge of him having been a dead hologram? I sort of forgive this for the nostalgia value, but really it was gibberish.

  • I didn’t mind the time-travel aspect, I can happily imagine it was tied to Rimmer’s age or something. It seemed more forgivable than the time machine in Lemons also being an interstellar teleporter.

    (And *nobody’s* dead? Not even McIntyre?)

  • In a universe in which this episode was better written, Posh Lister’s smuggled animal wasn’t a rat (hardly a posh person’s animal), but a skulk* of foxes that he’d brought on board in order to have illicit hunts through the diesel decks. They evolved into a race of sentient, cultured, peaceful humanoids who worked out their differences and stayed on the ship. The horrifying thing that puts Rimmer off this universe is that every Saturday this Lister and Kryten get blotto, mount their space bikes and tear through the Vulpes sapiens’ territory slaughtering them with bazookoids.

    * I looked it up

  • Listening to your wonderful last instant reaction of XII podcast, has made me chuckle that in some ways, Norman Lovett has returned and been most welcomed, Mac is Back and we are cheering that, and both have been gloriously upstaged by the love for a massive rat in red dwarf. This is something that no one would have thought possible back when series 8 was airing.

  • Considering how deeply Doug ploughed series one for gags in this episode it seems bizarre to me how the Captain’s crew records have been redone without reference to Rimmer reading them before. Or indeed why they’ve changed since the first time.

    Cus since series III weve been in an alternate universe ;-)

  • Thoroughly enjoyed this episode, was a good Day of the Doctor feel, if no specials/series appear in 2018.
    The returnees were both welcome and only make you think of scenarios where both could appear occasionally in the future.
    Say we find Capt. Hollister (instead of Kochanski) and after the quartet being in control of the ship for so long, it now recognises them as the default command crew and Hollister and a version of Holly, live in other sections of the ship and occasionally meet the team for advice, as they have the expertise of the new world.
    On the other hand, they ignore both and never bring either back and it remains the VI-VII, 4 member crew and a wining formula, with only guest appearances for past crew where applicable.
    The transition from Dave RD to Been RD highlights the difference in appearance, sure the Dave current is better than the CG BTE version but it now begs the question, can they not use the previous footage and upscale or if filmed on 35mm use that?
    It was like going from Enterprise from ST:TOS to the Enterprise (refit) ST:TMP in dry dock.
    Would there be a fee using the footage of the old model, like the archive footage used in the campaign videos?
    Overall I’d say XII has been stronger than XI, the team seem to groove back, especially Chris, where we get a Rimmer akin to I-vI.

  • It was just an enlarged rat that looked too much like a costume than an evolved species like that cat

    Yeah they should have got a really impressive animatronic rat from the really impressive animatronic rats are us shop, or got Chris Veal back to CGI 2,000 hours of work on a two minute character on a dave budget, to make the crazy dimension seem real, or gene spliced danny with an actual rat until he mutated.

  • Doug should have travelled forward in time to when space exploration is a reality, smuggled a pregnant rat onboard a mining ship, caused a radiation leak to wipe out the crew, put himself into stasis, emerge three million years later, find one of the surviving evolved rat people, travelled back in time to the present and got them to sign a contract etc so that they could appear in an episode of a TV show for 2 minutes.

  • How long then before someone fan edits the montage of Rimmer skipping and saying “no”, inserting some brief cutaways from Timewave, Pete part 2, and a prince among men?

  • Another problem of the running order is that the three XII episodes with the most blatant fanservice – Talkie Toaster, recreation of the first scene of The End and all the stuff this ep does – end up being back-to-back. And the only thing quite as overt in XI are the return of the Polymorph and, at a push, the Nova ship.

    And multiple rimmers, and a mention of this not going well before.

  • Danny adjusts his rat head down at least three times with his hand during this.

    This is fine.

    I suggest the Rat haters use this to head cannon that its the cat dressed up in a rat suit fucking with rimmer, in a dimension where they have a machine that notices in coming rimmers.

  • I don’t know what this Star Knot people are referring to is. I wasn’t aware of any such thing mentioned in the episode

    The XI steelbook had the XII titles printed on the back in error. At the time “Cured” was called “Here No Evil” and “Skipper” was called “Star Knot”.

  • That was enjoyable. Not bad at all.

    The handful of shortcomings, however, boggle the mind. So much could have been fixed or avoided with just a little more foresight and attention. I’m starting to think that’s true of XII in general. All of these B- episodes could so easily be As. It’s not that these episodes fall short that’s the problem is how and where they fall short. That’s what hurts!

  • I think it’s a far far better last episode than Only the Good…

    For all reservations about this episode, that’s an extremely good point! It’s night and day really.

    Lest we forget that there was a Series 1-era sleeping quarters recreated by the BBC for VIII and it just didn’t feel right. The fine art of screen-accurate historic recreation must have evolved in leaps and bounds between 1998 and 2016.

    I like how the crew basically give shit zero when he goes. They know full well he’ll be back!

    Yes, a little more emotional resonance would have helped here. As in when he’s leaving for the Holoship. Or when he’s off to pick up the Ace baton. Bizarre really.

  • Just done my re-watch. It’s pretty splendid really so any dwelling on negatives is sheer (not entirely unpleasurable!) nit-pickery.

    Listen to how Craig delivers his line on “you miscounted your aints and your nots” (just after Cat polishes his boots). That straight, sincere delivery? That’s how I want Lister to act at all times.

    Also, when Holly says “Morning Arnold” and Rimmer replies “Morning Holly.” I could listen to dialogue like that all night. The script (and I’m thinking of Holly lines especially) don’t need to be wacky – in fact, I’d prefer that they weren’t. Doug doesn’t like writing Holly dialogue he says, but simply having him (or her) as part of the ship’s infrastructure is enough. I wish we just have Holly instead of so much vending machine rubbish and things like “the chick with the really calm voice.”

  • Lest we forget that there was a Series 1-era sleeping quarters recreated by the BBC for VIII and it just didn’t feel right.

    This one felt similarly ‘off’ to me, to be honest. I think it’s always going to be hard to not make the sleeping quarters look a bit too shiny and new when you’re recreating them for a single scene like this.

  • 7. The dimension-skipping device is a time machine as well?

    I struggled to get my head around this too, but it’s actually fine. Rimmer becomes the Rimmer from each dimension he visits, occupying their space temporarily. In a universe where the crew weren’t wiped out, the Rimmer of that universe wouldn’t be stranded three-million years into deep space, he’d be (from our perspective) back in time. That is pretty bloody brilliant. i.e. Rimmer doesn’t simply slip into the same space his currently occupies in another dimension, he goes to wherever or whenever his counterpart is/was/will be. This isn’t headcanon – this is (commendably understated) plot. Utterly wonderful.

    By the way, I really appreciate how Captain Lister keeps hot snacks in a stasis booth. Such a brilliantly idle use of a miraculous gift! Like using a particle accelerator as a paperweight. Brings to mind how the guy in Robert SIlverberg’s Dying Inside uses his psychic powers to read the newspaper through his dad’s eyes.

    Initially surprised that Doug didn’t plump for a “not our Red Dwarf after all” punchline after Rimmer destroys the skipper. Glad he didn’t though, really, or it would have become an annoying “what happened about the Mirror Universe” loose end that would smeg us all off for the rest of our days.

    What an episode! Well done, Doug, and everyone else.

    I’ve said enough.

  • This one felt similarly ‘off’ to me, to be honest. I think it’s always going to be hard to not make the sleeping quarters look a bit too shiny and new when you’re recreating them for a single scene like this.

    Well, we can’t help knowing it’s not the same one and there’s not much we can do about that. But it’s so much better IMO than the one in VIII. This one to me feels like the sort of thing some fans would lovingly make using Kickstarter money. Something like the amazing sets of Star Trek: Continues. And if you’re gonna do fan service, this is the way to do it.

  • Cus since series III weve been in an alternate universe ;-)

    We have? What’s that about? I’m a newb to fan theories.

  • people think Series I and II are set in a different universe to all the others, basically. i personally disagree with it cus it’s a bit silly and kind of negates all the stuff they go through in I-II.

  • Lest we forget that there was a Series 1-era sleeping quarters recreated by the BBC for VIII and it just didn’t feel right.

    This one felt similarly ‘off’ to me, to be honest. I think it’s always going to be hard to not make the sleeping quarters look a bit too shiny and new when you’re recreating them for a single scene like this.

    It was too dark. But I think the one in VIII was. Series I used a rather bright, rather shite shade of gray, the newer ones look “better” but not the same.

  • Cus since series III weve been in an alternate universe ;-)

    We have? What’s that about? I’m a newb to fan theories.

    The backstory for the entire show completely changes in III/IV – the century Lister is from is changed, Lister and Kochanski are given a brief relationship rather than the very few words they’re stated to have spoken to each other, and other changes I don’t remember. They pretty much expanded the story for the novels, and then brought the novel continuity into the show. Without the opening text crawl referencing the end of Series II, III could be a reboot for all we know.

  • It was too dark. But I think the one in VIII was. Series I used a rather bright, rather shite shade of gray, the newer ones look “better” but not the same.

    But do you prefer Ocean Grey or Military Grey?

  • A couple more notes:
    – Am I right in thinking that the shot in the opening titles of Starbug flying towards the camera doesn’t appear in any episode?
    – The second half of this series is a Starbug-free zone. The same cannot be said for VIII or X, which is quite remarkable given those series didn’t have a Starbug set and this one did. Starbug was the dominant craft for three-quarters of this massive recording block, to the point that the first shot of the XI opening titles was of it and not the rouge one, and we got an unprecedented episode with no Dwarfbound scenes at all (Timewave). Probably just a quirk of episode scheduling… but still.
    – It’s quite nice how XII ends exactly how it began: with the Dwarfers sitting down to play cards until the next adventure kicks off.

  • Am I right in thinking the multiple Lister’s part is in fact a deleted scene from Officer Rimmer?

  • The second half of this series is a Starbug-free zone. The same cannot be said for VIII or X, which is quite remarkable given those series didn’t have a Starbug set and this one did. Starbug was the dominant craft for three-quarters of this massive recording block, to the point that the first shot of the XI opening titles was of it and not the rouge one, and we got an unprecedented episode with no Dwarfbound scenes at all (Timewave). Probably just a quirk of episode scheduling… but still.

    I think that’s a good thing. Something like Starbug should come into play when it facilitates the plot, not when it’s just Starbug’s turn for screen time.

    On the other hand, you may be onto something with the quirk-of-scheduling theory. I does look like the running order was shuffled. Largely for good reasons, but with the occasional unfortunate clash like the young Lister/he’s back thing slightly dampening the S1 nostalgia festival of Skipper. And indeed your Starbug-free-zone observation.

  • If the order given on the XI steelbook is true, then at one point Doug was contemplating the following order:
    Cured – Starbug
    M-Corp
    Siliconia
    Timewave
    Mechocracy
    Skipper

    This would have necessitated altering the scene with Lister’s invisible guitar in M-Corp somehow, and I’d have swapped Timewave and Mechocracy, but otherwise that works pretty well.

  • Going back to the title: I wonder if Doug decided to change the title of the ep before or after the material that justified calling it ‘star knot’ was cut (presuming that’s what happened).

    If it was after, meaning he had to change the title as the original one no longer made sense… maybe he then realised that every title was one word long except for “Here No Evil” and decided they were crying out to be made uniform?

  • >Am I right in thinking the multiple Lister’s part is in fact a deleted scene from Officer Rimmer?

    No.

  • Rimmer asking if “krissie” means Kochanski was the first time she’s been mentioned since Dear Dave, wasn’t it? did Lister stop caring about finding her?

    not that i mind that- Lister in XI and XII feels like he’s finally slipped away from being “guy pining over kochanski and eating curries and poppadoms all the time lolololol”, which can only be a good thing. in fact, Lister in XI and XII feels more like the slightly dimwitted and lazy, but ultimately nice guy he was in I.

  • I imagine there is only so many times Doug can have lister talk about kochanski as if she is still out there and not show her.

  • It was appropriate Kochanski was mentioned in the context of the scene. But it feels like Doug’s definitely abandoned the “find Kochanski” idea now.

  • Okay, here’s a thing: THE VERSION OF THIS EPISODE ON UKTV PLAY HAS CHANGED SINCE IT WAS FIRST PUT UP.

    The version I viewed at about 6:30am on Friday morning had the same “UKTV original” thing as the other five XII episodes, with notebooks and computers and whatnot with an upbeat little jingle at the start, and at the end there’s a similar endboard with the Baby Cow and Grant Naylor logos alongside ‘UKTV Original’.

    The version up now is the same as XI – a silent blue screen with the words ‘A UKTV original production’ and the UKTV logo, and at the end there’s another blue screen with logos saying ‘for Dave’.

  • all of the XII episodes have the silent blue screen with “A UKTV original production” now, it’s not just Skipper.

  • people think Series I and II are set in a different universe to all the others, basically. i personally disagree with it cus it’s a bit silly and kind of negates all the stuff they go through in I-II.

    The biggest justification for the theory is that the text crawl at the beginning of Backwards says “THE SAME GENERATION… NEARLY”, which is taken as an implication that it is a slightly shifted universe.

    (to say nothing of 169 becoming 1,169, Lister having dated Kochanski, etc)

    I don’t think it does necessarily negate the events of I and II, though – it’s clear from references made later on that they have happened, it’s just that they might have happened slightly differently at times. It’s not there to rewrite the show’s entire history so much as it’s there to account for inconsistencies.

    I like the alternate universes explanation. It’s neat. I’m happy to assume that we’ve watched a few slightly different versions of the characters (but who are fundamentally the same people at their core) and events over the years, and I find it no harder to reconcile than the fact that the books are another universe.

  • Again, good, because I never liked that other intro, it’s too bright and loud. Feels like an overly cheery advert with copious amounts of ukulele and sleigh bells you’d get before a YouTube video

  • The backstory for the entire show completely changes in III/IV – the century Lister is from is changed, Lister and Kochanski are given a brief relationship rather than the very few words they’re stated to have spoken to each other, and other changes I don’t remember. They pretty much expanded the story for the novels, and then brought the novel continuity into the show. Without the opening text crawl referencing the end of Series II, III could be a reboot for all we know.

    Ooooh OK, thanks. Guess that covers all matter of things like Lister’s appendix coming out twice. Sounds entirely reasonable.

    I really must read the novels. Think I’ll make that my ‘waiting for xiii project’.

  • i always thought the continuity discrepancies from III onwards were because of the timeline changing around in TimeSlides, to be honest. after all, none of the stuff about kochanski and lister dating appeared until after that.

    i guess that still amounts to I and II happening in a slightly different universe though, doesn’t it?

  • Ooooh OK, thanks. Guess that covers all matter of things like Lister’s appendix coming out twice. Sounds entirely reasonable.
    I really must read the novels. Think I’ll make that my ‘waiting for xiii project’.

    If you don’t fancy reading then try the audiobooks, especially the first 2 read by Chris Barrie.

  • I plan to read them and listen to the audiobook simultaneously, although I hear Backwards and Last Human are abridged so that might not go well?

  • Oh I do read, it’s just that I’ve always had the prejudice that TV spin-off novels would be a bit shit.

    The first 2 RD novels are the equivalent and every bit the equal quality-wise of the first 2 Hitchhikers books which they share a lot in common with. The others are also excellent but in slightly more idiosyncratic ways (a bit like the other Hitchhikers books are, actually).

  • i enjoyed the first 2 Red Dwarf Novels, and Backwards was great too. i could never get through Last Human though tbh, it just didn’t feel like any of the other novels and just seemed to copy large chunks of dialogue from the TV shows.

    also the universe was WAY too populated and full of bizarre creatures in Last Human, which doesn’t gel well with the previous 2 novels at all imo

  • Never got that criticism of Last Human – there’s probably less from the series in there than any of the other three, Backwards particularly, which is virtually a Target novel of Dimension Jump and Gunmen for a lot of its length.

  • Last Human is the most original of the four novels. Though the lurches into a page of dialogue from the TV show are strange. In particular the Legion opening being used wholesale just seems lazy. Particularly since he doesn’t use the crunchy king prawn gag.

  • The novels are set in an alternative universe to the show really but it’s still enjoyable.

    Chris Barries impressions really does help the first 2 novels come to life though so it’s like watching the show.

    As for Last Human I think would fit better in something like Star Wars or Star Trek because it’s very busy and populated while not really connecting to the previous novels all that much.

  • Never got that criticism of Last Human – there’s probably less from the series in there than any of the other three, Backwards particularly, which is virtually a Target novel of Dimension Jump and Gunmen for a lot of its length.

    i suppose so, but Backwards reuses ideas and doesn’t reuse that much dialogue, wheras Last Human doesn’t reuse ideas but does reuse a lot of dialogue (to the point where some pages are just entirely dialogue scenes from the show)

    personally, i prefer Backwards in that regard. it feels more like a direct sequel to what came before, reusing ideas from the show but expanding and analyzing them (the Backwards Universe feels a lot more fleshed out, for example) feels very similar to what Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life did. in comparison, Last Human feels like a very standalone novel that’s not really in the same style of the other books

  • >As for Last Human I think would fit better in something like Star Wars or Star Trek because it’s very busy and populated while not really connecting to the previous novels all that much.

    It is a very specific group of GELF and simulants who are sent to populate a distant planet by humans after the government of Earth accidentally kill the Sun but are then caught up in the Omnizone. The entire universe isn’t populated any more than the Series VI universe is with the Kinitawowi.

    It connects to the previous novel as much as Backwards does. They get lost on their way back from rescuing Lister and Kochanski from the Backwards Earth and end up in another alternative universe. I don’t see how it could have connected more with Better Than Life without being a retread.

  • >They get lost on their way back from rescuing Lister and Kochanski from the Backwards Earth and end up in another alternative universe. I don’t see how it could have connected more with Better Than Life without being a retread.

    Well I don’t remember if holly is mentioned at all in the novel but i know there is no conclusion to Hollys part in the story, he is just forgotten about.

    And it ends Red Dwarf-less, they don’t get back to Red Dwarf, infact i can’t remember how much Red Dwarf is even mentioned in the book.

    Backwards feels like it picks up more after BTL, does feature holly briefly and Red Dwarf is slightly more of a presence in the story.

    Last Human feels like its own thing in many ways, it time jumps, changes a few things and tells a stand alone story like Doug was writing an episode of the show.

  • As for Last Human I think would fit better in something like Star Wars or Star Trek

    One thing about Last Human that always jarred for me was that there’s lots of references to the Star Fleet rather than the Space Corps.

  • yeah, who the fuck were the Star Fleet? they were never mentioned in any of the other novels, yet in Last Human pretty much everyone somehow knows who they are

    oh and also Rimmer is somehow a Third Technician in Last Human

  • >Well I don’t remember if holly is mentioned at all in the novel but i know there is no conclusion to Hollys part in the story, he is just forgotten about.

    He “dies” in Better Than Life. No reason for him to appear. There is no story to conclude.

  • He is running out of life in BTL. Rimmer turns him on for his last few seconds when he is informed of Lister’s death and comes up with a plan. He has less than one second of life left when he switches himself off. It is confirmed earlier in the novel that it is this running out of life because of the plan by Talkie Toaster to increase his intelligence that causes his death (Part 1, Chapter 8).

    Backwards then contradicts this by saying it is Agonoids which kill him.

  • Just rewatched Skipper and had a couple more thoughts:

    1. I laughed the most at the Holly lines and it really reminded me why RD1 is still my favourite season. Norman really should be in every episode.

    2. Who promoted Rimmer to Officer in the final universe? If we assume it’s Lister then maybe Rimmer is actually more liked – when it comes to the crunch – than Lister lets on.

  • just realised, when we see Earth out the window towards the end of the episode- that’s actually the first time we’ve ever seen Earth on the show, isn’t it? i mean, there are plenty of episodes set ON Earth, but we’ve never actually seen the planet until now. isn’t that bizarre?

    EDIT- oh bollocks we see it in Twentica, nevermind

  • I think the end of the episode could have done with a bit more emotional heart. The XI-XII block seems to have been curiously free of sentiment – Series X had Lister’s despondency over being the last human alive in “Dear Dave” and Rimmer’s daddy issues in “The Beginning”, and Back to Earth had Kochanski’s surprise appearance at the end and the graveyard scene.

    The only thing we’ve really had in these two series that comes to mind is Rimmer’s fish speech in “Siliconia”, and that is rather undercut by the fact that Rimmer’s arc in that episode is abruptly discarded immediately afterwards.

  • I think the end of the episode could have done with a bit more emotional heart. The XI-XII block seems to have been curiously free of sentiment – Series X had Lister’s despondency over being the last human alive in “Dear Dave” and Rimmer’s daddy issues in “The Beginning”, and Back to Earth had Kochanski’s surprise appearance at the end and the graveyard scene.

    The only thing we’ve really had in these two series that comes to mind is Rimmer’s fish speech in “Siliconia”, and that is rather undercut by the fact that Rimmer’s arc in that episode is abruptly discarded immediately afterwards.

    there are little things here and there, like Lister telling the Cat that being a virgin doesn’t make him any less cool in Can Of Worms, and Lister reminding Kryten in Siliconia that he’s not their slave- he’s one of the “boys from the Dwarf”

    come to think of it, Lister’s been much more of a likable guy in XI and XII than he has been for AGES. even in X he was still a bit annoying and curry-obsessed (and frighteningly uncaring about killing Irene) wheras throughout the XI/XII block he’s generally been behaving quite nice and caring.

  • I do think though that there’s a general lack of sincerity in terms of the tone of the show in the Dave era (probably from VIII onwards really).

    Partly I think that’s down to the scripts – there seems to be less room for the kind of character moments that exist for their own sake in the early days of the show, but become increasingly rare as things get more plot-driven – and partly I think it’s the direction/performances, which feel a lot more broad and heightened and caricatured.

    Rimmer’s talk of wishing he was a fish is a nice return to the kind of thing we saw regularly in the old days (Lister wishing he was a squirrel is an obvious parallel, but there used to be all sorts of semi-serious character work in the early days) and I wish we saw more of it today.

  • what’s weird about Rimmer’s “i wish i was a fish” talk is it clashes completely with his behaviour throughout the rest of XI/XII. in most of the XI and XII episodes, he’s basically behaved like an absolute bastard without pause- i think it’s genuinely the cruelest he’s ever been.

    it makes me miss the kind of character Rimmer was in Series I-II, like in Stasis Leak where he’s very clearly upset over Lister leaving but can’t bring himself to say anything about it, before lamenting that everyone leaves him behind in the end- he genuinely cares about Lister.

    i feel like you wouldn’t see that kind of thing in XI or XII at all. case in point, Skipper- he just straight up leaves the crew he’s been with for over 30 years without any sense of remorse or sadness. yes it’s for the purpose of the “See ya!” joke, but it still feels horrible, even for Rimmer.

  • he genuinely cares about Lister.
    i feel like you wouldn’t see that kind of thing in XI or XII at all. case in point, Skipper- he just straight up leaves the crew he’s been with for over 30 years without any sense of remorse or sadness. yes it’s for the purpose of the “See ya!” joke, but it still feels horrible, even for Rimmer.

    But this is also the same Rimmer that would happily have ejected those people into deep space in Demons and Angels, or indeed left them to die in a simulant’s ship in Rimmerworld. Then shortly after, he was all “better dead than smeg” and heroically attempting to undo the deaths of his crewmates. Rimmer’s feelings towards the rest of the Dwarfers essentially depends on what is the most story-forwarding or comedic option at the time, which is not great character development but does usually lead to funnier moments than otherwise.

  • A few thoughts on some points that have been discussed…

    Ace not being mentioned was brought up on the night of the recording to Ray by an audience member to which people agreed it should have been acknowledged.

    I don’t recall there being any mention of a ‘Star Knot’ at the recording just like there was no mention of a ‘Twentica’ at that one.

    Rimmer being a hologram in the first dimension he skipped to was just for fan service to use the old blocky H. He obviously died before the radiation leak in that universe, within which Red Dwarf can produce hardlight holograms which he must have been because he was ordered to get on with his work which a softlight hologram would not be able to do.

    The quantum skipper can travel time if necessary so that Rimmer occupies that version of himself in whichever dimension he travels to, it just so happens in some of the universes he exists 3 million years into the past.

    I got the impression after finding out Rimmer was from a different dimension Captain Lister took him to their old bunk room for a bit of reminiscing before he would have shown him to his actual officer’s quarters if Rimmer hadn’t skipped away?

    I also always thought the events of Timeslides where Rimmer becomes alive change the past in ways we don’t know. This can explain many inconsistencies such as Lister and Kochanski’s past relationship, Lister’s appendix, the number of crew members, Lister not going on to marry Kochanski as shown in Stasis Leak etc… But we can assume the events of I and II did still happen first and that the crew all still have memories of these as the radiation leak amongst other things have since been referenced.

    Skipper
    Mechocracy
    M-Corp
    Cured
    Siliconia
    Timewave

    VI > V > IV > II > III > XII > XI > I > X > VII > BtE > VIII

  • You can also assume that the events of The Inquisitor may have changed the past massively, if series I-IV take place in a timeline in which the Inquisitor existed and replaced people with alternate versions, while everything after that episode took place in a timeline in which all his work was undone.

    (Yes, I did just rewatch The Inquisitor last night.)

    It works the same for any episode in which the past is changed significantly – Tikka and Twentica spring to mind.

  • You can also assume that the events of The Inquisitor may have changed the past massively, if series I-IV take place in a timeline in which the Inquisitor existed and replaced people with alternate versions, while everything after that episode took place in a timeline in which all his work was undone.

    I like to think the new timeline with the Inquisitor’s work being undone is an explanation for the change from Clare Grogan Kochanski to Chloe Annett Kochanski.

  • The Inquisitor replacing Kochanski is basically canon at this point. In my mind. Also her being from an alternate universe can also account for personality differences.

  • Ace not being mentioned was brought up on the night of the recording to Ray by an audience member to which people agreed it should have been acknowledged.

    Ace in Skipper? It would have turned it into a kid’s TV series about a boy and his bush kangaroo!

  • to be fair, all the other Aces were dead by the time of Stoke Me A Clipper, weren’t they? that sort of explains why Ace wasn’t in it.

    there isn’t a dimension with a Rimmer that’s less of a loser because all of those less-losery Rimmers died as Ace

  • I am actually glad that Ace didn’t appear and that they didn’t reference Ace in the episode because personally i don’t think its a good idea to start comparing stories to other stories within the episode because it starts to feel like Dougs going back to old ideas or that he can’t come up with new ones so has to do the same idea but in a different way.

    And i know many want to see Ace back but i feel there isn’t any good reason to bring him back, at least the real Ace Rimmer, i dunno if i count Rimmer being Ace but even then i have no interest in seeing that either because thats not Ace Rimmer.

  • there isn’t a dimension with a Rimmer that’s less of a loser because all of those less-losery Rimmers died as Ace

    With an infinite number of universes is this even possible though?

    personally i don’t think its a good idea to start comparing stories to other stories within the episode because it starts to feel like Dougs going back to old ideas or that he can’t come up with new ones so has to do the same idea but in a different way.

    Gee Dax, it is not like you have ever mentioned this before…

  • Gee Dax, it is not like you have ever mentioned this before…

    I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice!

  • They could have had Ace appear during the montage: Rimmer drops into a dimension in full Ace get up, looks down, sees what he is wearing and says “hmm… not again” in his Ace voice.

  • If our original Rimmer came back to Red Dwarf after either failing as Ace or just wanting to come back, does that mean he broke the chain, and there are no other Aces, or did he pass on the torch himself?

  • If our original Rimmer came back to Red Dwarf after either failing as Ace or just wanting to come back, does that mean he broke the chain, and there are no other Aces, or did he pass on the torch himself?

    Which of those would be more funny?

    It would probably be more funny if Rimmer was just terrible as ace and came home with his tail between his legs… although i ain’t fond of that idea because it feels like a caricature that Rimmer can’t escape from.

  • So, one thing I haven’t seen discussed – and it’s definitely a Small Point, so it may have been on the Dwarfcast – is Lister staying behind because he’s the last human being in the universe. Now, I don’t expect the Kochanski plot to keep coming back, and this is the same episode in which they all conveniently forget about Ace, but it does seem a bit odd that he seems to have actually forgotten about her existence now. Especially as she was still planned for X.

  • Wait, a joke in A Prince Among Men is that he accidentally hanged his dog?

    …good Christ, no wonder everybody hated that show. I don’t even _like_ dogs and I feel horrible watching that.

  • Was waiting to see what deleted scenes were on the DVD but then forgot to post this until now. Some missing bits from Skipper:

    -Holly reveals that he failed the test and is on trial. Rimmer asks if it’s a trial to see if he’s OK? “More a trial for gross incompetence”

    – In the rat reality, Kryten puts a wine glass on the table andd posh Lister moves it and says “Kryten, have you heard the expression ‘it’s grosser if you dont use a coaster?’

    -Lister & ‘Chrissy’ have two sons, Jim & Bexley. One is ‘in prison’. Rimmer stated that it’s inevitable with the genes, “you mate a blobfish with a blobfish and you’ll get something a bit blobby”. He’s actually the prison psychiatrist though and his other son is a scientist.

Scroll to top  •  Scroll to 'Recent Comments'

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.