Let’s Talk About The Promised Land

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Posted by on 9th April 2020, 09:00

Despite the last few weeks having seemingly lasted an eternity for obvious reasons, it still feels like the big day has crept up on us. Nevertheless, it’s finally here – Red Dwarf: The Promised Land airs tonight at 9pm on Dave. No caveats required – for the first time since 2012’s Series X, all the Red Dwarf fans in the country will sit down at the exact same time to watch a brand new episode in the exact same place (even if you don’t have linear TV any more, you can watch live online in the UK). And this post right here is the best place to discuss it.

In terms of episodes that had audience recordings, this is by far the shortest gap between said recording and broadcast in the Dave era, and in fact it’s the quickest turnaround since Series V in 1992. But to pass the time until this evening, you can re-read parts one and two of our set report, if you like. But what you’re all really looking forward to isn’t the episode itself, but our Live Instant Reaction DwarfCast, which will be taking place on Friday at 8pm. Join us (from a distance of at least two metres) on Spreaker to listen and chat live; we’ll post the link on here and on Twitter about twenty minutes before the start.

424 comments on “Let’s Talk About The Promised Land”

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  • Can’t wait for this! It’s great that it’s a proper simultaneous viewing experience this time rather than everyone accessing it through the app like XI and XII. Makes it much more of an event.

  • If I get spoilers before I’m able to…acquire…this I’m gonna kill whoever does it.

  • If I get spoilers before I’m able to…acquire…this I’m gonna kill whoever does it.

    In which case this is probably not the best thread to hang around in.

  • That clip was awful. its clear Kryten just erased his memory so why is rimmer doing something so dumb? comedy i guess. might have to leave my brain at the door tonight.

  • its clear Kryten just erased his memory so why is rimmer doing something so dumb?

    I guess Dax here has _never_ in his life accidentally let something slip out that he didn’t mean to say and only realized it too late.

  • its clear Kryten just erased his memory so why is rimmer doing something so dumb?

    I guess Dax here has _never_ in his life accidentally let something slip out that he didn’t mean to say and only realized it too late.

    Its just plain dumb. dunno about Holly. but the crew are definitely getting senile in their old age.

  • There’s plenty of dumb jokes in the original six that were saved with good delivery, this is no different, I’m well up for the special.

  • its clear Kryten just erased his memory so why is rimmer doing something so dumb?

    I guess Dax here has _never_ in his life accidentally let something slip out that he didn’t mean to say and only realized it too late.
    Its just plain dumb. dunno about Holly. but the crew are definitely getting senile in their old age.

    And Chris Barrie is somehow forgetting how to underplay the role as well.

    The biggest issue I had with series XI and XII was how they played gags into the ground. Felt like they were just padding. Really hope this won’t be the case tonight.

  • Bobby and Chris have been ramping up the acting since Series VII but I sense it’s a combination of script and feeling like the character is an old pair of slippers so they just pitch it at 8 and stay there.

  • No ‘alright dudes?’ :(

    Oh I see why now.

    I did like the costume memory lane..

    But ‘First Technician?!?’

  • I’m enjoying it but so far it does feel like the plots of three or four different episodes smooshed together. Hopefully it’ll all come together nicely by the end.

    Effects and CGI are very good though, it’s a great-looking version of Red Dwarf.

  • Well I wasn’t sure about the change of format, but at half time I have to admit to laughing quite a bit.

  • Cor, this is getting a bit exciting isn’t it? I’m enjoying the bigger scope of this story.

    Apeshit mode might be my favourite bit so far though.

  • Is it me, or is this getting better and better as it goes along? Lovely little Rimmer & Lister scene there.

  • Loving it so far! Not much of the cat story, but this is as good a character piece as any, for the main cast. Also, actual laughs!! And the show has rarely/never looked this good.

  • been a low profile member for a long time but always wanted to ask what made the difference having Rob and ‘just’ Doug but been countless times and my god does it fly and now more so Doug is 100% classic Red Dwarf and more. I grew up in classic the best series 4 and 5 and since series 10 it has really came around. This new thing hits home in urgency in the current climate, everything we need to wake up to as individuals and as a species and face up to what it is to be human The thing I love most about Red Dwarf is what it taught me about the aspects of the mind,of what our species is capable of, too much for this one post but it helped me grow and now I keep questioning my choices and our choices in this more urgent time. I met |Rob once but I really hope to meet Doug one day and thank him for my dad watching his creation and for me to feel recognition and wellbeing just riding the wave of his incredible fun waves!

  • Fuck me that Holly scene on Starbug might be the funniest four minutes of Red Dwarf writing in twenty five odd years!

  • Danny is absolutely stealing every single scene he’s in here. I genuinely don’t think he’s ever been this good, and that’s a high mark for someone who’s never been less than great.

  • Also, actual laughs!!

    Kryten standing still and doing absolutely nothing might be the comedic high point of the episode for me.

    Holly has felt more like his old self than he has for a long time too.

  • Didn’t the cat priest say that Cat was born AFTER all the other cats left?
    It doesn’t make much sense that they had seemingly ancient texts describing the two arks leaving Red Dwarf if Cat was alive when it actually happened.

  • Fantastic. I did notice that it felt very XII episode 7. I really do hope we get another series so that the debate on whether or not this was RDXIII only last 3 years rather than until we’re all dead.

  • I think that was maybe one bit at the end away from perfection. Seems a bit odd that the last we see of Holly is when he’s still counting the bomb down.

    Thoroughly enjoyed it though. Maybe more feature-length stories are the way to go.

  • Right, things should be stable now. Just commenting to make sure the database hasn’t melted and to tell you all that I hate you.

  • Well, I certainly wouldn’t have pred

    ADVERTS

    dicted that there’d be a scene where Lister has to convince Rimmer not

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    to kill himself.

    Could have done without the throwaway one-two of Cat’s secret origin story and brother reveal but yes, I’ll take that episode of Red Dwarf, thank you.

  • I have a sudden urge to buy a Dacia car.

    Enjoyed the special, a lot to take in after one viewing. Thought the special had obvious links to Waiting for God and some parallels with The Beginning but obviously a lot bigger and better scale. Thought the show got better though had its usual dave era dodgy scene at the start. This will prbably the nearest to the film that was never made and overall I thought it was a good effort with the right mix of gags and plot.

  • Loved it didn’t want it to end. Superman crossed with Red Dwarf. Superhero meets comedy but that’s fine to make it movie mixed with sitcom because it’s a feature length. It’s nice to see Rimmer get a happy finish for a change but dont let this be the end nooooooooo

  • To be honest I was thinking it was going to be a more Cat feature length but ended up more Lister and Rimmer feature length than Cat

  • I need a sleep to digest what i’ve seen. But having said after ‘Back to Earth’ that i don’t think Dwarf fits in a feature length special format, and having said after XII that although i enjoyed it i think Dwarf should probably end now, i now want more feature length Red Dwarfs. Doug’s writing, the production values, The cast performances, all were utterly fantastic. (with a special shoutout to Norm who was I think the best he has ever been)

  • Many different thoughts during the first watch of this special and I need another watch to give my full thoughts (like anyone would actually read them). Some personal things unfortunately getting in the way during the watch but there were some really satisfying character moments that still got to me then. A good mix of funny and actually quite touching moments in the second half too. I think it’s fair to say Doug Naylor is really getting better and better in his solo-Dwarf work as writer and director in the Dave era.

    Red Dwarf with heart has always been my favourite version of the show and I’m glad that Doug has finally found that good mix of heart and humour without either one being overdone. I can think of two specific moments that felt like something I could imagine reading in the novels.

  • I couldn’t possibly comment on all of that. But I loved every minute. Story, jokes, the pacing, the room the episode has to explore things. It was all 100% right. It really feels like Doug’s best work since 6. And I enjoy a large portion of the Dave era.

    There’s some minor quibbles, but I instantly forgive and forget them because the next bit and the episode as a whole is so good.

    Can’t wait to unpack all this over the next few days.

  • I did not hate it. i did not love it. it was decent.

    My negatives first

    *Holly’s role kinda hurt it. Norman was fine. even though at times it looked like he was struggling with his lines for some reason. but the whole using the personallity backup thing 50% into the episode bothered me because why didn’t they just do that earlier? abit contrived.

    *Had pacing issues. it felt like it was padded

    *An overload of ideas. the villain being the cats brother really added nothing. and Kryten needing to be saved really needed to be set up in a better way

    *The beginning scenes on Red Dwarf were abit sketchy and paddy. which i think i worked out that when Doug keeps his stories following i enjoy it far more. but when he stops to do a padded sketch i started to get abit irritaded by its pacing

    Positives

    *The pathos was good. the stuff with Rimmer i thought was well done.

    *it felt epic. which was kinda exciting.

    *I like the Rimmer superhero stuff and alot of the stuff that surrounded that plot. perhaps more so then the cat stuff really.

    *I like the threat level. which i feel has been missing from alot of the Dave Era.

    *Glad we did not get a joke villain. the actor did a good job.

    *Nice easter eggs.

    *Good special effects

    *Craig, Chris, Danny and Robert all did a good job.

  • Ok, let’s start with the bad…because that’s exactly how this started. The first scene which they revealed the other day, I thought, was bloody awful. And then that was followed by the bunkroom scene which just seemed tone deaf for 2020 and made me feel uncomfortable I don’t think it ended up being offensive, but just the fact that it was veering close to being offensive and wasn’t funny, just seemed really off.

    But then, with that out the way, it just hit a stride and never really looked back. Sure the “Follow-me” gag was silly, but Bobby made it work. The memory gag is well-worn Red Dwarf material, but I’ll let them off that one as I like Kryten’s surprise at being transported to the screen room.

    i have mixed feelings about Holly being back. I have huge problems about what Doug will do with him after writing him the character out twice before. It seemed odd that Norm was back and wasn’t given any jokes until the end. It brought to mind Norm moaning about wanting to play Holly as the character was in White Hole.

    BUT…that 2001 scene was wonderful. This is how you do a spoof. Not by hitting you over the head with it (*cough* Back to Earth) but by doing a scene that doesn’t rely on a knowledge of the source material to make it funny.

    The Rimmer “Mighty light stuff”. This was SO weird to me on the recording night. It works a lot better with a score behind it, and I was glad that it paid off at the end, even if it was a bit odd how Lister plucked the idea about what the Anubis stone was out of thin air. I loved the stuff with the extension cables. That’s a joke that only Red Dwarf (Ok, maybe Futurama too) could do. For it then to lead into Rimmer having existential doubts (and going monochrome) was just…stunning.. Such an interesting idea to explore. Obviously touching the Saunders stuff in Infinity, but this actually made me genuinely sorry for Rimmer for the first time in about 25 years. The moonlight chat was wonderful and they managed to actually wrap this up properly.

    Kryten’s rusty suit baffled me on the recording night. I assumed there was a scene that weren’t shown that would address this, but other than the mentions that he needed a service, it seemed a bit strange. When Kryten was lying “dead”, I assumed the Anubis stone would revive him and he’d be all shiny again. (To be honesst, I thought the cats would give them all medials and clap like the end of Star Wars, so shows what I know).

    The bits that didn’t really work for me after those clunky first scenes were…well, pretty much anything with the cats to be honest. I can’t say I was too fond of any of the guest cast (Tom Bennet pissed me off no end with his mugging in the godawful David Brent movie, and I found him similarly irritating here).. I’ve never been so glad that they found a door to close off Stabug’s cockpit, because I much preferred this when it was the four regulars. The bit about Rodan being Cat’s brother seemed utterly pointless. Why was that there?

    But…to conclude…I really enjoyed it. It made me laugh and it actually made me feel something for these characters. Not quite top draw Dwarf, but pretty fucking stunning for a show in its thirties.

  • NAYLOR DOUGLAS NAYLOR NAYLY NAYLY NAYLY NAYLY

    Loved it. Brilliant. Spent the first 10 minutes not finding a huge amount to laugh at and quite worried that I was in for a crushing disappointment. 10 minutes later and I was really loving it and it just got better and better and better. This is the best Dwarf in decades as far as I’m concerned. Lots of great laughs and some great character moments.

    Just a couple of negatives. I think there were a couple of longer scenes with people standing around talking which could have done with better staging and more interesting camera work/better cinematography. Watching Balance of Power with Rob/Paul/Ed earlier I was again struck by how well directed one of the most pedestrian Red Dwarf shows (in terms of plot) was. I can easily forget that the guys are standing on a set in front of an audience when the show is shot and staged in the right way and there were some moments, particularly at the beginning of this, where I could really feel the rest of the studio being there.

    Other negative is that there were a couple of moments, particularly the corridor scene on the Dwarf with Rodon, where I thought it would have been great to have that darker, more cinematic lighting from XI/XII. Again, that lighting with some better composed shots could have made this feel a lot more high budget at no extra cost.

    Those are really only niggles though. There was so much that I loved about this.

  • Well, I certainly wouldn’t have pred

    ADVERTS
    dicted that there’d be a scene where Lister has to convince Rimmer not
    ADVERTS
    to kill himself.
    Could have done without the throwaway one-two of Cat’s secret origin story and brother reveal but yes, I’ll take that episode of Red Dwarf, thank you.

    As someone who doesn’t watch live TV I felt like I caught up on 10 years of adverts during this. Still, if all those ads justify more Dwarf I can’t complain!

  • I think the whole set up and production went up a notch in tonight’s showing. XI and XII were good as well, I think getting Baby Cow on board must have helped after BTE which had no money and X’s much discussed production problems. I was entertained and gave me a good few belly laughs in the best dwarfey way, which is much needed in the current climate.

  • I really enjoyed that! There was a bit at the end that I wasn’t keen on, (and a rewatch might sort that out. Maybe I just missed something.) but aside from that was pretty good!

  • That was very good!

    I was concerned about the direction that the sex change joke might go at the start (potential for Timewave deja vu…), but it turned out fine.

    The cat flaps and the floppy disk were both great gags.

    Danny had lots of great Cat moments. The return of the cat species made a satisfying conclusion to a 32-year-old plot thread. Now we can all pretend Can of Worms doesn’t exist and call *this* the real “Cat Episode” of Red Dwarf.

    What were the cat characters’ names… Sol and Luna? Sun and Moon… oooh, SYMBOLISM!

    Today I belatedly watched Rob Grant, Ed Bye and Paul Jackson’s Future Echoes commentary. Coincidentally, the old plan to have Rimmer in black and white was mentioned there.

    I’m not sure if it’s just a side-effect of this being the first time we’ve had feature-length Red Dwarf, but structurally, it felt weird. The adventure seemed very clearly split up into episodic sections, but at the same time, the sections blended together a lot more smoothly than Back in the Red and Back to Earth.

    The cats’ speech at the end seemed like it was going in a slighly Thor Ragnarok direction; I half-expected them to say: “Fuchal isn’t a place, it’s a people!”

    I’ve just watched the Smeg Ups compilation they put online – they are some very good smeg ups! I won’t spoil who gets my favourite line.

  • I agree that the first ten minutes or so were dross, but other than that only a few niggles, and I can’t remember what they are because I enjoyed it so much. I even liked the Cat backstory. It didn’t need explaining but it was better character development than Can of Worms. It’s not easy for me to say this, but I loved it. I really, really loved it.

  • >but structurally, it felt weird. The adventure seemed very clearly split up into episodic sections, but at the same time, the sections blended together a lot more smoothly than Back in the Red and Back to Earth.

    I agree. it felt like 2 episodes and an extended 3rd episode. there was a whole beginning section on Red Dwarf. then there was a portion of it on that space station place. then we went to the moon portion of it.

    >The cats’ speech at the end seemed like it was going in a slighly Thor Ragnarok direction; I half-expected them to say: “Fuchal isn’t a place, it’s a people!”

    I have to admit. i was sorta disappointed they did not find a promise land. i am glad it wasn’t too much like Siliconia… but the Cat race probably deserved it more.

  • That was brilliant. It flagged a little in the second segment since it was so much setup, and there were one or two jokes which were recycled, but apart from that I loved it.

    They managed to talk about trans stuff and veganism without being massively offensive, which honestly, coming from Doug Naylor, I was almost shocked they pulled off, lol.

  • After a slightly wobbly start that turned out to be there for no real reason other than to pad out the opening ten minutes (baffling that all that stuff about continuing the human race and a device that can perform sex-change operations came to nothing), I thought this got better and better as it went along.

    The main four all did pretty well with their material, Norman was good once the plot let him be his old self again, and the dramatic moments worked well too – not just the big explosive chase-sequence stuff but also quieter scenes like the moonlight moment.

    Pulling at the thread of Rimmer’s sentience seemed like it could unravel the whole thing, but actually I liked the fact that it called back to something that’s been established from the beginning (“I’m a computer simulation of me”) and really should have come up more prominently before now.

    All this and a decent villain; great stuff.

    Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch.

  • My only significant criticism is the compositing on that first shot of Rodan was fucking awful.

    So not much of a criticism, more pointless nerdism.

    It was funny and dramatic throughout. Good stuff

  • I loved the conclusion with them believing Rimmer was their God. I think it was the right ending and for a change it gave Rimmer a satisfying conclusion rather than being the loser all the time

  • I also liked the fact that the ad breaks pretty much all resumed where they had left off, so this should feel pretty seamless when watched as a full uninterrupted movie.

  • I dunno if i feel that Doug handled the cat stuff very well. i mean as a story that was set up in series 1. he didn’t really go on what was set up. he took a few elements and just kinda set up his own thing. which is fine. but its a shame he didn’t mention the arcs, the cats, the wars over them. i ain’t sure where half that stuff stood with what Doug set up.

  • Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch.

    Absolutely, this was bizarre. I think they should have just embraced this as it was a real movie and done something a bit different. I guess the urge to open with the rock guitar open was just too great.

  • Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch.

    Absolutely, this was bizarre. I think they should have just embraced this as it was a real movie and done something a bit different. I guess the urge to open with the rock guitar open was just too great.

    Aye. They could’ve done a S1/2 intro. Cast credits over shots of the ship. Would’ve fit with the style of the cold open as well.

  • Holly missing the shot could perhaps have been better as a visual gag, methunks.

    Now we can all pretend Can of Worms doesn’t exist and call *this* the real “Cat Episode” of Red Dwarf.

    The real Cat episode is the friends we made along the way.

    What were the cat characters’ names… Sol and Luna? Sun and Moon… oooh, SYMBOLISM!

    Didn’t notice that. Neat. As was Rimmer’s moonlight.

  • HECK. YES.

    Not being able to easily nail down particular things to comment on because I loved the whole thing is a pretty nice problem to have, right? I don’t even agree that the opening was bad.

    Just to choose a random aspect: Holly’s return was handled more or less perfectly. Having him initially at factory settings showed great restraint and was better choice for the story, and when he was finally returned to normal he was the properly funny, well written Holly again – not a “it’s the theory you only tell your relatives” or “become a dog” clunker in sight! And he was used sparingly enough not to steal too much attention away from the main four or to compete with Kryten to deliver exposition.

    A small part of me still wishes it was Hattie though. ;)

  • Pulling at the thread of Rimmer’s sentience seemed like it could unravel the whole thing, but actually I liked the fact that it called back to something that’s been established from the beginning (“I’m a computer simulation of me”) and really should have come up more prominently before now.

    I had *just* this afternoon said in the Discord that I wished they’d done more with Rimmer’s existentialism around his death. And then they did.

    And Rimmer is right to quote Descartes “I think therefore I am”. The point of “cogito ergo sum” is that the only thing you can truly be positive about in life is that you exist. “I am a thinking thing, therefore I exist”. Rimmer *is* a thinking thing. It might be a computer simulation, but he is self aware, its as close to any definition of a person as you can get without a physical body.

  • “Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch.”

    Before seeing it, I wished they’d avoided the montage sequence too, although I guessed they wouldn’t, it being intrinsic to Red Dwarf since series 3. Totheir credit the clip montage didn’t really spoil anything for me.

    For one thing, I thought that energy bolt ball thing glimpsed in the montage might be a bazookoid bolt, as the effect looked similar to the heatseeker bolts fired in Polymorph. It turned out to be something/one very different…

  • Pulling at the thread of Rimmer’s sentience seemed like it could unravel the whole thing, but actually I liked the fact that it called back to something that’s been established from the beginning (“I’m a computer simulation of me”) and really should have come up more prominently before now.

    I didn’t really buy the idea that after all those years as a hologram (including, possibly, all those years alone on Rimmerworld!), this was the very first time he’d ever been struck by the nature of his thoughts. But it led to some good scenes, so I was willing to go with it.

    Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch.

    Well if the Mission: Impossible films get away with it…

  • Wasn’t it abit contrived that they restored Holly. but only later do they realize they can just restore his former personality? Why didn’t they just do it before? i was a little put off by Holly being a kinda threat early on. i don’t think we needed that just to get the crew to that space station.

  • Aye. They could’ve done a S1/2 intro. Cast credits over shots of the ship. Would’ve fit with the style of the cold open as well.

    Could have just had the ship shot without the sequence after just the title over it but I liked the pre-credits teaser. Didn’t watch preview. It’s not like they need cast credits at the front though.

  • I really, *really* loved that. Best Red Dwarf since series 6, hands down.

    What I particularly enjoyed was how they managed to do things that felt fresh and new, particularly with Holly (who I think almost stole the episode, Norman was SO good) and Rimmer. There was a moment at the end there where I genuinely thought Rimmer was being killed off (within the confines of this special at least) but then I had the ending of ‘Last Human’ in mind.

    Only gripe is I did find that opening sex-change scene a little offensive (entirely because of the line that Lister spoke, “that is anatomically impossible”) but I’ll give it another watch.

    Besides that, it looked and sounded absolutely fantastic and I laughed outloud plenty (the cat-flap joke probably being my favourite running gag). Felt like a real leap in quality from what was already a decent run of recent series.

  • Although I do question the wisdom of having an opening sequence for a single feature-length episode that shows you a montage of climactic moments from what you’re about to watch

    I had wanted a series 1-2 opening sequence. And I still do. But I see the rationale, especially as on UKTV play they have it in two parts, so its treated as two episodes with two sets of opening and closing credits.

    Presumably if they repeat it, they have the option to do so in two parts now too.

  • I liked it, but didn’t love it. The whole section on the desert moon in Starbug was excellent, especially Holly and the Lister/Rimmer interaction. The Rimmer plotline was really strong and had a good resolution, which probably lends credence to the idea that Rimmer is the main charatcer of TV Red Dwarf. I wasn’t as keen on some of the stuff with the cats (although The Cat himself was very good throughout) and I particularly didn’t like the way they dealt with Rodon. I know they set up the laser pointer idea earlier, but there wasn’t really an explanation as to why the ship would then crash and it just felt a bit too easy. Overall, it was an enjoyable episode and I would definitely welcome another special in future.

  • was a little put off by Holly being a kinda threat early on. .

    One of my favourite parts of the episode in honesty, because it was so unexpected and made perfect sense. I enjoyed that element a lot.

  • >and I particularly didn’t like the way they dealt with Rodon. I know they set up the laser pointer idea earlier, but there wasn’t really an explanation as to why the ship would then crash and it just felt a bit too easy.

    It was a comedic payoff. Doug does alot of those with the Dave era. the villain can’t just be taken down without some comedy.

  • One of my favourite parts of the episode in honesty, because it was so unexpected and made perfect sense. I enjoyed that element a lot.

    Did it make sense though? i have to admit i was abit confused by the logic. its very much a oh either none of you are part of the ship or are doing anything useful so i must destroy the ship and the hologram with it.

  • Liked that a lot, even in ways I didn’t expect that I would. Many highlights though I was especially tickled by Kryten passing on the news that the sandstorm had passed then casually dropping in that they’d been buried alive.

    Seen some amusing criticisms on twitter; ‘why are they using this annoying laugh track’, ‘Chris Barrie’s hair transplant is terrible’, ‘couldn’t Lister just say he liked Rimmer’. Also saw a couple of mentions saying they should have just brought Ace back but I think it’d be hard to make the case that that would have been better than the end result for anything other than a cheap cheer.

  • I am glad the super rimmer wasn’t an impression of Ace. i was abit worried that would be the case.

    As for Lister saying he liked Rimmer. that might have been a nice way to top off the scene. could still have made it funny. problem is that the story needed Rimmer to still feel like crap for the end pay off.

  • A little bit of me was hoping they’d do the same thing with Holly that they did with Rimmer, by first pixellating him on a dodgy blue screen, then morphing him into Hattie for a bit, then into later-day Norman.

  • Did it make sense though? i have to admit i was abit confused by the logic. its very much a oh either none of you are part of the ship or are doing anything useful so i must destroy the ship and the hologram with it.

    Made enough sense to me. If you’re minded to pick nits then you can say, why didn’t Holly do this 3 million years ago while Lister was in stasis, or why didn’t Pree do it in Fathers & Suns? But I’m happy to accept that v1.0 Holly just happened to have access to the exact amount of information/rules he needed to make a bad decision.

    It was a comedic payoff. Doug does alot of those with the Dave era. the villain can’t just be taken down without some comedy.

    Given Mighty Light’s extraordinary powers, he probably could have just Captain Marveled Rodon’s ship and been done with it. But that would have been boring and required no cleverness from any of the characters.

    Plus, there are of course a number of non-comedic villain takedowns in the Dave era.

  • Given Mighty Light’s extraordinary powers, he probably could have just Captain Marveled Rodon’s ship and been done with it. But that would have been boring and required no cleverness from any of the characters.
    Plus, there are of course a number of non-comedic villain takedowns in the Dave era.

    I actually think that would have been a nice pay off for the special. sounds pretty epic and i don’t think anyone would have complained for abit of epic.

  • Trust me, in the parallel universe where they did that as the ending, Xad010 has already posted a comment saying that Mighty Light just using his powers again to directly destroy Rodon’s ship was a cheap and obvious resolution.

  • I’m guessing a few things were changed with Kryten’s storyline (maybe due to Robert being ill)? Unless I missed it, there was no reason for his bashed-up state; unless they just wanted to show how he ‘needed a service’? and then the ending with him being out of action seemed way out of the blue. You could tell Bobby wasn’t 100% well during earlier parts of this, and then later he was much perkier. I really hope we see him back in the suit again!

    To me, this special felt like the first time in a LONG time that Doug really nailed…well…Red Dwarf. It’s like he’s gone back and rediscovered what the show was. Maybe he did go back and rewatch stuff? The cast have always known their characters; especially Danny, of late, who threatened to steal the entire show once more; but I honestly thought Doug was losing track of what the show was. Until now!

    Okay, everything up to the first break WAS some of the dodgier parts of X-XII coming back again. I thought they had fucked up Holly’s return so badly, with the whole situation being such a rehash of Pree kicking Lister off the ship in ‘Fathers & Suns’.

    Then things started getting really good. Not a surprise that this coincides with giving Chris some actual material, allowing him to shine (kind of following on from ‘Skipper’ in that regard). It’s SO easy to have Rimmer just annoying or antagonistic and not much else. Giving him more than that has often, in the past, been some of Red Dwarf’s finest moments. I say that, even though I’m really not a fan of what Doug did with him in The Beginning (‘Arnold, I’m NOT your father’ is such bullshit that I hate…).

    Chris did damn excellent work! People have slated him, in the most recent series’, for overplaying the character. Well it’s been written that way for quite some time…so not all Chris’ fault, by any means!

  • If you’re minded to pick nits then you can say, why didn’t Holly do this 3 million years ago while Lister was in stasis, or why didn’t Pree do it in Fathers & Suns?

    Isn’t that pretty much along the lines of exactly what Pree did do in Fathers & Suns? With no crew members left, set the ship on a course to self destruct.

  • Trust me, in the parallel universe where they did that as the ending, Xad010 has already posted a comment saying that Mighty Light just using his powers again to directly destroy Rodon’s ship was a cheap and obvious resolution.

    In that same universe i imagine the Dave era would be much better…

  • Did anyone else think when Kryten attached an eye to his hand it was going to go wandering off like in Terrorform? ????

    I was at the first half of the recording and loved seeing how it all came together, also after seeing some of the deleted scenes which were shown on the night the show really benefited from leaving those weaker segments out.

    Should have long given up on complaining about Red Dwarf’s continuity by now but something bugging me… If Rodon is supposed to be Cat’s brother then this doesn’t fit with the crew having spent over 200 years in deep sleep between series V and VI, and I’m sure there’s been other times since when they’ve been in unspecified long term stasis, Nanarchy and Krysis spring to mind?

  • I can’t say I was too fond of any of the guest cast (Tom Bennet pissed me off no end with his mugging in the godawful David Brent movie, and I found him similarly irritating here)..

    I’ve seen the Brent film a few times, willing and praying for it to be good. It’s utterly pointless. Interesting how both he and Mandeep Dhillon were in that film and now cast here. Well not ‘interesting’ at all, just…factual.

    All the guest cast needed a little bit more to work with. I would maybe have had one of Cloister’s disciples be Rodon’s partner, and so it’s more personal when they leave. Thankfully there was that one (potentially offensive…? xD) detail with Lucy Pearman’s character not being able to speak, otherwise there would essentially have been nothing to all three of them.

  • Holly missing the shot could perhaps have been better as a visual gag, methunks.

    Rewatched the scene while looking up the moonlight stuff and take that back. Think there was too long a pause in the delivery that didn’t quite make it like Holly looking out of wrong window.

  • Staying on Norman’s face for that gag felt like series 1 & 2, so that’ll do me! Perfect.

    Also,

    ‘What’s our flight path?’
    ‘Down, sir.’
    ‘Be more specific.’
    ‘Straight down, sir.’

    Is so basic yet AMAZING. It’s maybe over 25 years since such joy!

  • Admittedly, I had a little wobble at the start, but I otherwise thoroughly enjoyed that.

    I’ve always appreciated Red Dwarf’s ability to combine light and dark, silliness with science, all the while taking a moment to pack an emotional punch. And, oh, how TPL punched. ????

    A very special night indeed. ????

  • Wasn’t the point of updating/reverting Holly to his bonkers old self that nobody thought of it until Rimmer made the connection between his own computer-generated thoughts and Holly’s computer generated thoughts?

    I might be just fan-conning this – but it felt to me like it had to be specifically Rimmer’s idea, as a result of his depressed state

  • Felt padded. Felt like a bunch of set pieces. A Beautifully executed romp. Loads to love. Expected a bit more depth to the cat stuff given the set up and lenght. Not sure it managed to be an area worthy of hanging 90 minutes on. More 60 perhaps. Remember when some early series episodes benefited expansion In the novels. I’m not sure the waiting for God back story managed this kind of feel, nice though it was to see it tried. Absolutely adored all the different rimmer modes, black and white the highlight of these then topping even terrorform for the pathos.

  • I think some good stuff lost to the deleted scenes with weaker stuff left In. Especially Holly’s appeal.

  • I’ve just watched the Smeg Ups compilation they put online – they are some very good smeg ups! I won’t spoil who gets my favourite line.

    Some of the funniest smeg-ups I’ve ever seen there. I’ve just been told off for laughing too loud.

  • Best Red Dwarf of the Dave era? I think so!
    A few niggles, some of which a rewatch might iron out. Not clear on how what Rimmer did with the laser pointer made Rodon’s ship crash.
    The smart cutlery fight was a funny idea that didn’t really work.
    I didn’t much like the cats. The baddies were a bit better than Cloister’s disciples but nothing special.
    Cheering for Holly again ughh.
    Cat’s conversion was great but I found it odd that he didn’t behave differently towards Lister after that. Seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity. Also the brother revelation was wasted.

    Other than that and a few other minor quibbles, I liked it very much. None of it felt like padding to me. Rimmer was better written and performed than he has been for a fuck of a long time. The moonlight scene was great, as was the extension cables gag. Genuine tension in the scene where Lister and Kryten are telling Cat to lay off Rimmer.
    I liked the stuff on Red Dwarf early on, including the bunkroom scene. Lister enthusing about the load of crap he’s collected was a nice little callback to walrus-polishing kit etc. I loved “How cool is this?”

    It had heart, this. Not just those moments that were obviously meant to be affecting, either. Those moments worked, and without being soppy, but just in general there was emotional depth in this. And not too many jostling ideas. I’d say those are the two main things that set this apart from the rest of the Dave era.

    Oh, and the floppy disc was brilliant.

  • Oh, and the “it feeling like two or three episodes” is possibly intentional, should they wish to split it into 40 minute shows for repeats etc.

    The Promised Land: The Director’s Uncut

  • >Not clear on how what Rimmer did with the laser pointer made Rodon’s ship crash.
    I just assume that the people who were piloting the ship, stopped piloting the ship and instead focused on the laser, and if you aren’t piloting a ship, it’s likely to crash, innit.

  • I REALLY liked this, easily the best Red Dwarf in 20 years. It was well paced, it was funny, it visually looked really good, the cast’s performances were great, and it was also genuinely moving. I actually ended up crying at the “sunlight/moonlight” speech from Lister, that was just beautiful. It’s been a really long time since we’ve had any genuine pathos in the show, and it was done so well. Also Rimmer cycling through all his old costumes before he turns into Superimmer was a throwback done right, I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed everything about it tbh, this feels like Doug’s finally figured out how to write Red Dwarf and have it actually feel like Red Dwarf again. I’d give it a 10/10 overall, genuinely the best Red Dwarf in a long long long time.

    Also- not sure why people have a problem with the “become a woman” bit at the beginning. I’m trans and I didn’t think it was offensive at all, I thought it was funny (Cat asking “where does the folding come in?” got a giggle out of me) I don’t see why people are bothered by it, it’s not like it’s making fun of trans people or anything.

  • Also- not sure why people have a problem with the “become a woman” bit at the beginning. I’m trans and I didn’t think it was offensive at all, I thought it was funny (Cat asking “where does the folding come in?” got a giggle out of me) I don’t see why people are bothered by it, it’s not like it’s making fun of trans people or anything.

    It was entirely Lister’s “that’s anatomically impossible” line when referring to a male-to-female sex change that, to me, felt like (intentional or not) negative commentary on trans issues. But I have only watched it once and I thought the rest of that scene was fine so I’m reserving judgement until I’ve seen it again but that was just the reason for my initial “.. ugh” reaction.

    Thought to be honest, I’d say disappointed was more accurate a word to use than offended.

  • It was entirely Lister’s “that’s anatomically impossible” line when referring to a male-to-female sex change

    That line immediately makes clearly though, that Lister couldn’t get a hard on for Cat, no matter what sex he was. Anatomically impossible is referring to Lister not being able to get it up.

    It was a funny scene. It felt like it was flying too close to being an issue, but I think they played with it just the right amount without over stepping any marks, and then turning it around as so it didn’t turn out gratuitously misplaced humour.

  • Did anyone else think when Kryten attached an eye to his hand it was going to go wandering off like in Terrorform?

    Yes, that’s exactly what I thought would happen.

    Should have long given up on complaining about Red Dwarf’s continuity by now but something bugging me… If Rodon is supposed to be Cat’s brother then this doesn’t fit with the crew having spent over 200 years in deep sleep between series V and VI, and I’m sure there’s been other times since when they’ve been in unspecified long term stasis, Nanarchy and Krysis spring to mind?

    I think we have to handwave this stuff away for the sake of a good story. Maybe the cats had a few spells in stasis too, who knows.

  • It was entirely Lister’s “that’s anatomically impossible” line when referring to a male-to-female sex change

    That line immediately makes clearly though, that Lister couldn’t get a hard on for Cat, no matter what sex he was. Anatomically impossible is referring to Lister not being able to get it up.
    It was a funny scene. It felt like it was flying too close to being an issue, but I think they played with it just the right amount without over stepping any marks, and then turning it around as so it didn’t turn out gratuitously misplaced humour.

    Yes, it ultimately wasn’t offensive to me but I did think it was a bit pointless, aimless really. I was convinced that whole thing had to pay off at the end but we never returned to it. It was as though the script came up 10 minutes short and they needed to bung an extra sketch in at the beginning to bring it up to time.

  • As my wife pointed out, I guess we just ignore the fact that in Psirens they were asleep for 200 years if we are to accept Cat has a brother that’s still alive?

    As for the show itself, about a 6/10. Was okay, had a few good moments (Cat’s conversion, Holly’s proper return), but in general the story was lacking and it suffered from ‘too many cooks spoil the plot’. Gags outstayed their welcome, some parts were completely redundant. But generally it was far better than 8 and 9. Maybe a re-watch is needed to make a more concrete judgement.

  • It was entirely Lister’s “that’s anatomically impossible” line when referring to a male-to-female sex change

    That line immediately makes clearly though, that Lister couldn’t get a hard on for Cat, no matter what sex he was. Anatomically impossible is referring to Lister not being able to get it up.
    It was a funny scene. It felt like it was flying too close to being an issue, but I think they played with it just the right amount without over stepping any marks, and then turning it around as so it didn’t turn out gratuitously misplaced humour.

    And that’s why I said I’d reserve judgement until I’ve watched it again. ;)

  • Enjoyed the episode – definitely one of the strongest of the Dave era. Most of what I’d say has already been said,but I do have a couple of nuggets to add re: Smeg Ups/Deleted Scenes.

    Was surprised to see the entire Deleted Scenes package was stuff we saw on night #1 – I’m guessing nothing of real note was cut from night #2? Having said that, I do recall one scene not included here – when the gang head out of the Iron Star’s hologram suite after Rimmer’s been plugged in for the first time, there was a long sequence of Rimmer failing to keep up, getting lost and having to wind out/wind back his extension canles to try different routes. From what I recall it didn’t get many laughs – I felt like it went on a little too long even on the night, so wasn’t surprised it was cut from the finished show. I am surprised they seem to have thought it was so weak that they dropped it from the Deleted Scenes, though!

    Re: Smeg Ups, there’s a great selection – some really funny stuff. Sad to see one ofmy favourites from night #1 disn’t make it though! The first take of Rimmer’s line “I refuse to enter that toxic cesspit of filth”, Chris Barrir dlubbed it massively and ended up saying “I refuse to enter that pit of bollocks”. Got a huge laugh from the audience – from memory, second only to Robert’s “relative straight fuck”, though I may just be remembering my own reaction there, haha.

  • was as though the script came up 10 minutes short and they needed to bung an extra sketch in at the beginning to bring it up to time.

    For me, it was balance the rather dramatic opening scene. It was to give a second intro to the episode, of our crew, in the same studio sitcom format we like and are used to. And it gave a nice “life on board ship” moment before all the heavy plot and character stuff starts up. If we’d dived straight into the SOS distress call it would have felt a little awkward I think. Nice to just get some time with the characters for a few moments, being funny, before moving into the episode proper.

  • Apologies for all the typos in the above – typing on a crappy phone keypad, but should have proofread more. Doesn’t seem to be an edit function anymore from what I can see, otherwise I’d go back and fix it up for better readability.

  • Also just to add, I avoided the preview that came out so I was one of the people seeing that opening scene for the first time and I really enjoyed it. Thought, tonally, it was spot on and had some great and very Dwarfy gags to balance the drama.

  • Should have long given up on complaining about Red Dwarf’s continuity by now but something bugging me… If Rodon is supposed to be Cat’s brother then this doesn’t fit with the crew having spent over 200 years in deep sleep between series V and VI, and I’m sure there’s been other times since when they’ve been in unspecified long term stasis, Nanarchy and Krysis spring to mind?
    I think we have to handwave this stuff away for the sake of a good story. Maybe the cats had a few spells in stasis too, who knows.

    I guess the cats having spells in stasis too could actually explain Rodon being younger than Cat even though he’s his older brother? Head cannon intact ????????

  • One other thing from me re: memories of night #1 – I was happy to see they dropped in some cutaways of the guest cast in the Starbug midsection into some of the crashing scenes we saw on night #1. I did wonder if they’d do that as from our perspective on the night the guest cast just disappeared once they all left the Iron Star – the additions really helped it feel like they were there and in peril along with the Red Dwarf posse. I’m presuming the cutaways must have been pre-filmed prior to night #2 rather than shot live, as they’re on the midsection set which was built specifically for night #2.

  • I’m presuming the cutaways must have been pre-filmed prior to night #2 rather than shot live, as they’re on the midsection set which was built specifically for night #2.

    Just realised thatmales no sense the way I worded it – what I meant was that although it likely wasn’t shot live, it must have at least been pre-filmed just before night #2 (as opposed to being part of any earlier pre-filming) as according to Matthew Clark’s Twitter the Starbug midsection set was only constructed specifically for that night’s shoot.

    (Is there really not an edit button anymore, or is this a side effect of me viewing the site on mobile?)

  • I didn’t like Cat saying that Rimmer isn’t real and that everything he does isn’t him it’s his light bee. I’ve always thought of holograms as being a body for a person’s actual mind. Personality backups are made throughout a person’s life, and as we’ve seen many times it is possible to download a person’s mind and transfer it, so it sits better with me that part of a dead person’s mind actually lives on when they are resurrected as a hologram as opposed to them being completely machine.

  • Have to say I hadn’t looked forward to this in the way I had previous Red Dwarf returns. I think because it was just one episode I didn’t want to get too excited because of the disappointment that would come with it being crap. So happy it was good.

    Still can’t get over how much I enjoyed this overall. I actually woke up this morning thinking “was there really a great episode of Red Dwarf on last night!?”

  • I think the show forgets every time they go into stasis for a long period. They done it several times since series 6 onwards, it’s a tool that helps jump ahead when needed, but often it gets forgotten about when it comes to how it effects every putting around it.

    was as though the script came up 10 minutes short and they needed to bung an extra sketch in at the beginning to bring it up to time.

    For me, it was balance the rather dramatic opening scene. It was to give a second intro to the episode, of our crew, in the same studio sitcom format we like and are used to. And it gave a nice “life on board ship” moment before all the heavy plot and character stuff starts up. If we’d dived straight into the SOS distress call it would have felt a little awkward I think. Nice to just get some time with the characters for a few moments, being funny, before moving into the episode proper.

    Thing is that it takes a while to actually pick up with the cat stuff again, heck it takes a while to get to that Rimmer superhero stuff and that comes before the Cat stuff is picked back up on.

    I dunno if we needed the Lister hoarding sketch, the sex change sketch, the corridor sketch, the mind wipe sketch, then we bring in Holly for the 2001 stuff. Then it feels like we start to actually get going.

  • I refuse to watch. Want to keep it for the DVD as usual

    I’ve started a forum thread for these bonus features, so that people can talk about them without spoiling bits for those who want to wait for the DVD/BR release.

    @Ian – Is there any plan for how the bonus extras will be handled in tonight’s Spreaker chat? Talk about them in a dedicated section that can be skipped by people waiting for the disc, or (probably more practical) just let them come up in general discussion of the special?

  • The Cat fleet went through a wormhole like in Rimmerworld which contracted space-time for the cats. A few minutes for the Cat fleet was many years for Red Dwarf. Problem solved.

  • Isn’t that pretty much along the lines of exactly what Pree did do in Fathers & Suns? With no crew members left, set the ship on a course to self destruct.

    Pree did something similar, but she only revoked Lister’s oxygen privileges after he resigned as a crew member, not because of his cat smuggling. So Pree and Holly were doing different things.

    On another topic, I liked the sex change conversation too. It was threatening to go onto dodgy ground at times (I braced myself after the “anatomically impossible” line and was pleased when he immediately followed up with the arousal clarification), but Kryten’s repeated “let me finish” interjections were perfect, and the back and forth about who would make a hotter woman was pretty funny too.

    You would think that Lister and Cat being different species would be an additional barrier. Cat couldn’t even donate a kidney without Asclepius tech! But maybe the med-tech they found would sort that out too. Or Snacky could give it a go.

    #BringBackSnacky #JusticeForSnacky #WhereTheFuckIsSnacky

  • Pree did something similar, but she only revoked Lister’s oxygen privileges after he resigned as a crew member, not because of his cat smuggling. So Pree and Holly were doing different things

    Yeah they were taking slightly different actions but essentially both were decommissioning the ship on the basis of no active crew members/mission, so the precedent was already there. And Pree would not have known about the cat smuggling presumably, to explain that one away.

  • @Ian – Is there any plan for how the bonus extras will be handled in tonight’s Spreaker chat? Talk about them in a dedicated section that can be skipped by people waiting for the disc, or (probably more practical) just let them come up in general discussion of the special?

    I’m flattered that you think there’d be a plan. I think they’re bound to crop up, but the best bet will be just to try and keep it broad so we’re not giving too much away about the specifics of the content.

  • Well, it was alright.

    I think to be honest it was too long by about 10 minutes, but there was plenty to like. Certainly more good than bad.

    The ship based special effects were very good, some of the compositing and on monitors stuff was a bit squiffy, and needed a bit more polish.

    A few too many stupid gags but that’s par for the course with Dave Dwarf. Giant floppy disc should have been shot down immediately, that’s just not Red Dwarf. It’s my one major gripe since Rob left, the integrity of the universe just doesn’t matter to Doug.

    Every other sci-fi franchise has gone all in to establishing universes, Red Dwarf goes completely the opposite way, forcing mental gymnastics to explain away quite major plot elements, even ones that get glossed over like Rodon and Cat. We’re assuming that there’s been some stasis going on, because since series 1, the Cat has been in suspended animation for a few hundred years in various episodes. Anyway…

    Thought Bobby was great in this, and Danny. Really top notch.

    Better than Back to Earth by a long shot in the Red Dwarf feature standings.

  • Saw the G&T tweet about the ratings, had thought it might be about 1m overnight so that’s all good. Hard to know exactly what good numbers are in this day and age (some people insist that Doctor Who’s massively promoted, prime time series finale getting under 4m viewers was still very good so who knows) but seems like it’s fair to call it a big success all round.

  • “Giant floppy disc should have been shot down immediately”

    Many people were citing that as their highlight of the episode so………

    Should have called it the Holly Flop Drive though.

  • Rimmer was better written and performed than he has been for a fuck of a long time.

    I’ve moaned for a little while about how The Cat and Rimmer (the former, especially) have become far too broad, and perhaps overplayed, but I think last night was the best we’ve seen them for a good while.

  • The thing about Cat having been in suspended animation is just not a problem for me.

    The cat race evolved on a ship with stasis pods and so it’s logical to assume the ships they built had them, too. If they could master space travel then it’s no stretch.

  • The reviews seem to be mixed to poor which I am a bit surprised tbh. Mind you probably a lot of the reviewers probably are not regular RD viewers as several of them seem to be inaccurate such as returning back to Dave in 2012 (was 2009) and endless comments about wobbly scenery which has/is always a total nonsense. This sort of snobbery was probably always one of the reasons that Dough never managed to get the film to be made as people in the industry still don’t really understand sci-fi comedy. Oh well.

    Reading further comments I do agree that they could have done away with the usual opening montage and just went straight to the action. They could have scrapped the weird first scence on RD and could have spent more time examining Rodon and Cat being brothers which seemed a bit random to put in at the end.

    But overall I thought it was good and different to see the boys in a different format in a 90 minute show. Sometimes Doug has been criticised for having too many plots in a 30 minute show and now he has been criticised for padding a 90 min show out! He can’t win or maybe next time do two 60 shows? Only Fools and Horses certainly went longer as the show progressed so it can be successful for a sitcom.

    So looking forward to the blu-ray and hopefully some more special in the future.

  • “Giant floppy disc should have been shot down immediately”

    Many people were citing that as their highlight of the episode so………
    Should have called it the Holly Flop Drive though.

    One moment tipped it over from a crap gag to a good one, in my mind and that was when they turned around and we saw the writing.

    If any part of the joke didn’t work for me, I’m not entirely sure why the reveal of the disc slot got a round of applause.

  • 5 star review in the Daily Mail. Maybe something about a man complaining of running things by the bureaucrats of the European Space Agency and wanting to do things himself instead to later be worshipped as a God struck a chord with them.

  • “Giant floppy disc should have been shot down immediately”

    Many people were citing that as their highlight of the episode so………
    Should have called it the Holly Flop Drive though.

    It’s a contrast between early and Dave era dwarf really. The early stuff did not really do that because it wanted to show it was futuristic. The Dave era wants to step backwards in technology at times. Presumably because technology wise there isn’t a lot that would surprise people these days.

  • The reviews seem to be mixed to poor which I am a bit surprised tbh.

    Really? I’ve not seen one. I’ve read the one you mentioned, with the ‘2012’ comeback and wibbley sets, but you could argue that the series proper returned in 2012, after a 2009 one-off. And the wobbley sets comment… Well, it pads a paragraph out, doesn’t it? It also bigs up the FX by saying that it’s even better than some of the practical stuff.

  • Echoing a lot of people’s sentiments when I say that it started a bit naff and got really really good as it went on. Holly’s scene on Starbug genuinely might be the funniest he’s been, and I hope that’s not just recency bias talking. Check back with me in a year or so.

    I REALLY wasn’t feeling it in the first half hour, probably up until a little after they went on-board the Iron Star, then it just took off like a rocket (err…Apollo 13). I wonder where I’m gonna put this come next G&T survey, gonna need to watch it a few more times first but definitely above a good chunk of the Dave era.

    The moonlight scene! Everything about that was beautiful, the pathos, the composition. THIS is what I wanna see from Red Dwarf going forward. Basically Back to Earth but with an actual budget, and without half of it being a Blade Runner parody. Maybe pre-record and show it to an audience, allowing for cinematography that’s not confined to an audience sitcom setup (not that they don’t do well with what they got because THEY DO WELL Y’ALL). VII but done right you’d hope. More of that and less of the broad over-playing that took up parts of the first 10-15 minutes.

    I just really liked how most set-ups had good pay-offs (okay some didn’t go anywhere but definitely in the minority).

    Other thoughts may follow but in the meantime, congratulations to Mr. Naylor and Mr. Naylor Jr. and Co. for what they’ve achieved here today. Gold stickers for all!

  • It’s fair to say there are a lot of people who did not like back to Earth and pretty much just kinda moved away from the show, so any confusion over revival dates is probably more due to the lack of being impressed by it.

  • It’s a contrast between early and Dave era dwarf really. The early stuff did not really do that because it wanted to show it was futuristic. The Dave era wants to step backwards in technology at times. Presumably because technology wise there isn’t a lot that would surprise people these days.

    Yes but the early stuff was showing a future that (space ships aside) now looks old fashioned with the everyday tech we have at our disposal. You say the modern stuff wants to take a step backward, but I see it more as it keeping consistent with what we have seen before on the show and poking a little fun at what we thought the future would look like, back then.

    Hence one of my favourite exchanges in Back To Earth when Kryten explains a DVD to Lister before saying that people eventually went back to VHS tapes. That was a fun nod to how out-dated the “future” stuff looked at that point and the same applies with the backup disc.

  • The thing about Cat having been in suspended animation is just not a problem for me.

    The cat race evolved on a ship with stasis pods and so it’s logical to assume the ships they built had them, too. If they could master space travel then it’s no stretch.

    I’ve no issue with them having stasis, that’s obvious if they’ve looted from derelicts, it’s the possibility of it lining up, having no contact the Cat since before The End, there’d have to be close to zero possibility of them being alive at the same time now. Psirens and Nanarchy put paid to that.

    These are things that are thought about by fans of sci-fi shows, and are worth considering.

    The giant floppy, the tray was amusing enough, but the actual giant floppy disc was pony. A giant disc would have been fine, it’s the Borrowers aesthetic that’s crap. A ginormous CD would have been less egregious because that makes physical sense, a larger disc would have more capacity, but a floppy disc is a low density format where 90% of the mass has no capacity to store data.

    Red Dwarf used to be funny and not daft, it can be done. Things like that nibble at the lustre of a decent show for me.

  • I would have liked to have seen Norman’s name in the opening credits but he hadn’t been revealed yet at that point which I guess is why.

  • Anyone else noticed that the version of the poster that they’re using for thumbnails and such on UKTV Play has Norman’s face removed? First SFX and now this. The guy can’t catch a break.

  • From https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/1/19/10-words-transgender-people-want-you-know-not-say:

    [The term “sex change” is] not the worst of the bunch but it’s far from accurate. It’s also not a preferred term, and to many in the trans community, it’s insulting.

    To those looking in from the outside, “sex change” seems to be the perfect description: one day you’re a woman, now you’re a man. You changed your sex.

    Well, not really. To understand why “sex change” is a terrible thing to say, understand that “sex” is a stand-in for the word “gender.” Gender doesn’t really change when someone undergoes an operation that for decades was commonly called a “sex change,” or more recently, “sexual reassignment surgery.” Someone who identifies as female — regardless of their sex assigned at birth — doesn’t change, so much as work to align their physical appearance and anatomy with the gender they know themselves to be.

    Arguably Cat would genuinely be changing his “sex” and not his “gender”, but throwing in a loaded term like that isn’t the way to get your trans audience on side.

    Bonus points because the article then goes on to say an alternative term “raised heckles”.

    Now I’m off back to the mythical realm I get summoned from every time people try to decide whether a joke in Red Dwarf was transphobic.

  • A floppy disc is there because it’s supposed to be naff and more old-fashioned than just a big CD.
    Like the dial-up tone and loading boxes on screen as opposed to a simple *blip!*

  • It’s a contrast between early and Dave era dwarf really. The early stuff did not really do that because it wanted to show it was futuristic. The Dave era wants to step backwards in technology at times. Presumably because technology wise there isn’t a lot that would surprise people these days.

    Yes but the early stuff was showing a future that (space ships aside) now looks old fashioned with the everyday tech we have at our disposal. You say the modern stuff wants to take a step backward, but I see it more as it keeping consistent with what we have seen before on the show and poking a little fun at what we thought the future would look like, back then.

    I dunno about that. the first 2 series really tried to be futuristic. you had the mirror that would become a monitor. alot of voice-activated stuff. better than life was just a helmet that plugged into your brain or whatever.

    They did also use Disks to store information on, which for 1988 must have been quite ahead of its time.

    3,4,5 and 6 were fairly basic in technology. they did not try to be too modern and they did not try to be too futuristic. it very much feels like a compromise.

    The Dave era is more like wanting to show old fashion printers that smudge in Officer Rimmer. VHS tapes. old fashion disks. and just alot of nostalgic technology.

  • Arguably Cat would genuinely be changing his “sex” and not his “gender”, but throwing in a loaded term like that isn’t the way to get your trans audience on side.
    Bonus points because the article then goes on to say an alternative term “raised heckles”.
    Now I’m off back to the mythical realm I get summoned from every time people try to decide whether a joke in Red Dwarf was transphobic.

    Every trans Red Dwarf fan I’m aware of weren’t even slightly fazed by the gag.

  • I would have liked to have seen Norman’s name in the opening credits but he hadn’t been revealed yet at that point which I guess is why.

    Maybe they wanted him to be a surprise.

    I will bring this up again. in the Starbug scene with Holly did it look like Norman was struggling with his lines at some point? or was it meant to look like Holly was reading something?

  • A lot of Norman’s line readings were a bit faltering and off, particularly before he returned to being ‘our’ Holly, but I gather from set reports that he was a bit under the weather at the first recording which might explain that.

  • I’ve no issue with them having stasis, that’s obvious if they’ve looted from derelicts, it’s the possibility of it lining up, having no contact the Cat since before The End, there’d have to be close to zero possibility of them being alive at the same time now. Psirens and Nanarchy put paid to that.

    These are things that are thought about by fans of sci-fi shows, and are worth considering.

    The giant floppy, the tray was amusing enough, but the actual giant floppy disc was pony. A giant disc would have been fine, it’s the Borrowers aesthetic that’s crap. A ginormous CD would have been less egregious because that makes physical sense, a larger disc would have more capacity, but a floppy disc is a low density format where 90% of the mass has no capacity to store data.

    Red Dwarf used to be funny and not daft, it can be done. Things like that nibble at the lustre of a decent show for me.

    I know that fans love to get into nitty gritty details and think about whether all of those details fully line up with one another, and I count myself among those fans, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter that much, and prioritising continuity being completely perfect would hurt the show a lot. You’ve got to go with what is better entertainment or makes a better story, in general. As long as it doesn’t break willing suspension of disbelief, minor continuity changes or inconsistences do not matter.

    E.g. the chances of Rodon and Cat being alive at the same time given all the time spent in stasis are astronomically small! But the chances of the Red Dwarf crew encountering literally anything or anyone in deep space are astronomically small, and the chances of Red Dwarf having exactly 2 cat people on it when Lister was awoken from stasis are astronomically small, but this is fiction. The stories we tell are the ones where the big coincidences happen, otherwise there is no story to tell. Everyone sort of innately understands this when we watch movies and TV shows overall, but it’s an easy thing to notice if you’re actively looking for things to criticise.

    As for the giant floppy disk being too daft, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Red Dwarf has always been daft, and the giant floppy disk was funny. It’s not like Red Dwarf having outdated technology is even a new thing. They were using polaroid cameras and developing fluid in 90s episodes, when commercial digital cameras already existed and were a pretty safe bet for being standard in the future.

  • A lot of Norman’s line readings were a bit faltering and off, particularly before he returned to being ‘our’ Holly, but I gather from set reports that he was a bit under the weather at the first recording which might explain that.

    That might explain it then.

  • It’s a contrast between early and Dave era dwarf really. The early stuff did not really do that because it wanted to show it was futuristic. The Dave era wants to step backwards in technology at times. Presumably because technology wise there isn’t a lot that would surprise people these days.

    Yes but the early stuff was showing a future that (space ships aside) now looks old fashioned with the everyday tech we have at our disposal. You say the modern stuff wants to take a step backward, but I see it more as it keeping consistent with what we have seen before on the show and poking a little fun at what we thought the future would look like, back then.

    I dunno about that. the first 2 series really tried to be futuristic. you had the mirror that would become a monitor. alot of voice-activated stuff. better than life was just a helmet that plugged into your brain or whatever.
    They did also use Disks to store information on, which for 1988 must have been quite ahead of its time.
    3,4,5 and 6 were fairly basic in technology. they did not try to be too modern and they did not try to be too futuristic. it very much feels like a compromise.
    The Dave era is more like wanting to show old fashion printers that smudge in Officer Rimmer. VHS tapes. old fashion disks. and just alot of nostalgic technology.

    Gone from triangular VHS tapes, computer slugs, hologram data platters, and CDs to giant floppy discs and a load of TV’s from the 1970’s on a table in a space ship that operated in the 2170’s.

    I like the sort of cyberpunk vibe myself, a few CRTs, scanlines, cassettes, grunge.

    Any kind of floppy would lose the data after 3 million years anyway, comically large or otherwise.

    I’ve no issue with them having stasis, that’s obvious if they’ve looted from derelicts, it’s the possibility of it lining up, having no contact the Cat since before The End, there’d have to be close to zero possibility of them being alive at the same time now. Psirens and Nanarchy put paid to that.

    These are things that are thought about by fans of sci-fi shows, and are worth considering.
    The giant floppy, the tray was amusing enough, but the actual giant floppy disc was pony. A giant disc would have been fine, it’s the Borrowers aesthetic that’s crap. A ginormous CD would have been less egregious because that makes physical sense, a larger disc would have more capacity, but a floppy disc is a low density format where 90% of the mass has no capacity to store data.
    Red Dwarf used to be funny and not daft, it can be done. Things like that nibble at the lustre of a decent show for me.
    I know that fans love to get into nitty gritty details and think about whether all of those details fully line up with one another, and I count myself among those fans, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter that much, and prioritising continuity being completely perfect would hurt the show a lot. You’ve got to go with what is better entertainment or makes a better story, in general. As long as it doesn’t break willing suspension of disbelief, minor continuity changes or inconsistences do not matter.
    E.g. the chances of Rodon and Cat being alive at the same time given all the time spent in stasis are astronomically small! But the chances of the Red Dwarf crew encountering literally anything or anyone in deep space are astronomically small, and the chances of Red Dwarf having exactly 2 cat people on it when Lister was awoken from stasis are astronomically small, but this is fiction. The stories we tell are the ones where the big coincidences happen, otherwise there is no story to tell. Everyone sort of innately understands this when we watch movies and TV shows overall, but it’s an easy thing to notice if you’re actively looking for things to criticise.
    As for the giant floppy disk being too daft, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Red Dwarf has always been daft, and the giant floppy disk was funny. It’s not like Red Dwarf having outdated technology is even a new thing. They were using polaroid cameras and developing fluid in 90s episodes, when commercial digital cameras already existed and were a pretty safe bet for being standard in the future.

    My issue is it doesn’t take much thought to bypass the issues on the front end, like not making them brothers, serves no purpose anyway and then there’s no chonological problems. Just a little, tiny, weeny hint that continuity matters, even just a token gesture and I’d be happy enough.

    I don’t think Red Dwarf has always been daft. I can’t seem to think of any “Giant Floppy Disc” standard things in 1 to VII to be honest. There are probably some in VIII, Kryten’s inflatable hand farting off his arm?

    It’s always been funny, always been a comedy obviously just not a daft one.

    If there are some daft sight gags I’ve bypassed, apologies.

    I still enjoyed it, but yeah. Annoying to someone who likes a bit of lore.

  • I loved every single moment of it. I’ve not enjoyed Red Dwarf that much for years.

    Bunch of miserable bastards here, you get 90 minutes of top notch action, drama and comedy, and you still find things to moan about.

  • I would have liked to have seen Norman’s name in the opening credits but he hadn’t been revealed yet at that point which I guess is why.

    Maybe they wanted him to be a surprise.

    He’s in the opening titles anyway..?

    It doesn’t do much to dissuade the peeps who think Holly is redundant when Kryten’s around by having both characters have scenes where they wait around for a missile to blow everyone up.

    The quick Brodon/not cool reveal for Cat feels like a late attempt to keep Cat involved for a plot you’d assume would have at the front and not back but, y’know, just flesh out the conversation that “I am home” stuff or summat.

  • The quick Brodon/not cool reveal for Cat feels like a late attempt to keep Cat involved for a plot you’d assume would have at the front and not back but, y’know, just flesh out the conversation that “I am home” stuff or summat.

    “and the”

    Where edit button?!

  • I’m still on the fence whether I’m Happy of that reasoning to get Holly back. I know RD has never been good with continuity. It’s a cheesy RD joke which I expected but I would find it strange that ‘restoring him from a back up’ or ‘finding a backup disc’ had never crossed their mind before .

    Also, anyone explain to me the ‘First Technician’ ? Was Rimmer trying to big himself up to Holly?

  • Also, anyone explain to me the ‘First Technician’ ? Was Rimmer trying to big himself up to Holly?

    I thought the same, too, but nobody corrects or even glances at him funny when he says it so I don’t think so (unless I’m misremembering).

    The Promised Land to me felt very Last Human all around, including Rimmer’s fakeout sacrifice and the world being pretty well-populated by the end. I find it fitting Rimmer is ‘First Technician’ here as he was in Last Human, too.

  • Wasn’t he 1st technician in the novels?

    He was but the series has always had its own continuity

    Although I would love if Doug ever decides to write a finale that he could do a rewrite version of Last Human

  • Gone from triangular VHS tapes, computer slugs, hologram data platters, and CDs to giant floppy discs and a load of TV’s from the 1970’s on a table in a space ship that operated in the 2170’s.

    I like the sort of cyberpunk vibe myself, a few CRTs, scanlines, cassettes, grunge.

    Any kind of floppy would lose the data after 3 million years anyway, comically large or otherwise.

    Not sure of the mindset where “a VHS tape, but triangle” is fair game, but “a floppy disk, but big” is beyond the pale. I understand the latter was explicitly played for laughs while the former was more of an incidental detail, but either way it doesn’t make sense to be using that technology hundreds of years in the future.

    Plus, it’s obvious that it must not work literally exactly like a floppy drive. It just looks like one.

  • you get 90 minutes of top notch action, drama and comedy, and you still find things to moan about.

    …and welcome to Club G&T.

  • I adored this episode. Funny, exciting, genuine peril. And I love it so much when sitcoms pull off pathos. This was fantastic.

  • Think I might rewatch this afternoon so that I’ve got stuff fresh in my memory to discuss (yeah, right!) tonight.
    One thing I will say is that I thought the placing of the first ad break was really awkward. The audience reaction from before the break was still dying down when it returned.

  • Far, far too much for me to process straight away as I’ve literally just finished watching this. I’ll leave that for listening to the DwarfCast tonight. But some early thoughts:

    I loved everything that was done with Rimmer. I thought the diamond light was a fascinating idea and it was lovely to go through all of the costumes. Loved the black and white Rimmer, too. So wonderful to see it finally done and now in an age where the technology matches the idea.

    A smart way to reintroduce Holly and the Starbug scene is honestly the best performance that Norman Lovett has given since Series 2. Bravo. I wasn’t fussed about his return, initially, but I think it was terrific. “I’ll be alright, I’m miles away” was probably my favourite gag in the whole thing.

    Danny John-Jules was absolutely pitch-perfect as Cat, Robert was as brilliant as always and Craig Charles and Chris Barrie were particularly brilliant in their “moonlight” conversation.

    I thought the villain was decent and I liked (didn’t love) the other Cats.

    The music was tremendously good. Paul Farrer created a suitably Murray Gold-esque score. Only slight complaint here is that I wish it had opened with a title sequence and music similar to the first two series and decided against the traditional title sequence; I think it would have helped the cinematic feel.

    All in all, the closest expression that Doug Naylor has got to a Red Dwarf movie. Bravo, all.

  • One thing I will say

    *Another* thing I will say…
    Other than it making for a fun visual gag, why didn’t Cat and Lister shave for three months, when they manage to go and immediately have a quick trim before they reach the ship?

  • For the continuity could we assume in Psirens when Kryten says Lister has been in deep sleep for over 200 years he just said that as a joke and it was actually only say a couple of years? And that all other times in stasis were just for a few months? Is there anything else that’s happened to contradict that?

  • It would be stretching to say Kryten is Joking when he clearly isn’t.

    Thing is yeah they were in stasis 200 years. then they went back into stasis in nanarchy to get back to Red Dwarf. so who knows how long that was. then they went into stasis again in Krysis for who knows how long. its just not worth thinking about.

    If Lister ever finds kochanski it will be treated like it was the next day after she left. its just how it is.

  • *Another* thing I will say…
    Other than it making for a fun visual gag, why didn’t Cat and Lister shave for three months, when they manage to go and immediately have a quick trim before they reach the ship?

    That doesn’t bother me too bad, as it helps express the passage of time.

    What does bother me though, is Cat wearing the same outfit he did exactly three months ago.

    I also don’t like how Kryten is absolutely fucked right from the start. I get he’s in need of a “service”, but surely it’d have been better to have Kryten look normal at the beginning, and then have him look the way he does following the fastforward.

    Obviously, wearing the same outfits would help with continuity incase of reshoots, but I’m won’t be excusing this as I know Red Dwarf could do better than that.

  • Can anyone picture the giant flobby disc being in the early 1-7 series? i kinda don’t think Rob and Doug would ever have done a joke like that back then.

  • Can anyone picture the giant floppy disc being in the early 1-7 series? i kinda don’t think Rob and Doug would ever have done a joke like that back then.

    Honestly, yes, yes I can. Though obviously the comedy of it is heightened now due to how much more obsolete the floppy disk has become.

    In a show where Mr Rat exists, I think a giant floppy disc barely merits a footnote.

    OK, this is off-topic, but I love how we’ve just collectively taken Kryten’s formal, subservient way of addressing everyone to mean that “Mr. Rat” is genuinely the character’s full name, and therefore that’s what we all call him.

  • Honestly, yes, yes I can. Though obviously the comedy of it is heightened now due to how much more obsolete the floppy disk has become.

    Yeah but thats because back in 1988-1997 a floppy disk would have been fairly modern still. i suppose you would have to look at say 1997 and crack a joke about still using vinyl for example.

    They come out with a huge record player because thats they play music in the future ect ect.

  • Why didn’t they just plug in Rimmer when they got back to the science room? That’s what kinda took the peril out of it for me. They’re in a room with loads of monitors, lights, electronic equipment; and Rimmer’s still worrying about his battery dying.
    Instead they went for the deus ex machina route of smashing open the MacGuffin do discover it to be some ultra powerful source of power, and just press a couple of wires onto it.
    Yeah, the ending really did feel rather rushed.

  • The real world context would make it a different joke, but still a valid one to do, is what I’m saying.

    Though given that, it sounds like your criticism is “this joke would not have worked (as well) if the audience watching it were in 1988-1997”, which is bizarre.

  • Why didn’t they just plug in Rimmer when they got back to the science room? That’s what kinda took the peril out of it for me. They’re in a room with loads of monitors, lights, electronic equipment; and Rimmer’s still worrying about his battery dying.

    Instead they went for the deus ex machina route of smashing open the MacGuffin do discover it to be some ultra powerful source of power, and just press a couple of wires onto it.
    Yeah, the ending really did feel rather rushed.

    I mean, the ship was about the explode. The science room wouldn’t have given him diamondlight-level power, so spending 30 secs or whatever finding a plug would have been pointless.

  • Though given that, it sounds like your criticism is “this joke would not have worked (as well) if the audience watching it were in 1988-1997”, which is bizarre.

    No my criticism, if you wanna call it that, is more would Rob and Doug have made a retro joke like that back then. for example Lister goes to the disko and there is a huge record player and Kryten walks up to it and puts the huge niddle on it to play music for him… the joke being that technology has got smaller to cds and tapes. would they have done a joke poking fun at retro technology? personally i ain’t sure if they would have. it doesn’t seem like the type of mockery they would have gone for back then.

    The type of retro mockery feels more like Doug remembering his youth now he is at a certain age and how they had to use all these retro means at some point.

  • Though given that, it sounds like your criticism is “this joke would not have worked (as well) if the audience watching it were in 1988-1997”, which is bizarre.

    No my criticism, if you wanna call it that, is more would Rob and Doug have made a retro joke like that back then. for example Lister goes to the disko and there is a huge record player and Kryten walks up to it and puts the huge niddle on it to play music for him… the joke being that technology has got smaller to cds and tapes. would they have done a joke poking fun at retro technology? personally i ain’t sure if they would have. it doesn’t seem like the type of mockery they would have gone for back then.

    The type of retro mockery feels more like Doug remembering his youth now he is at a certain age and how they had to use all these retro means at some point.

    OK, I understand, and I do think it would not have been a stretch for a Series 1-VI episode to contain a joke about incredibly outdated, somewhat naff technology still being used in the future. You don’t need to be of a certain age to come up with that sort of thing.

  • Also, anyone explain to me the ‘First Technician’ ? Was Rimmer trying to big himself up to Holly?

    I think it was just a mistake, unfortunately. When we see his Series 1 uniform later, the breast patch clearly reads SECOND TECHNICIAN.

  • Can anyone picture the giant floppy disc being in the early 1-7 series? i kinda don’t think Rob and Doug would ever have done a joke like that back then.

    Honestly, yes, yes I can. Though obviously the comedy of it is heightened now due to how much more obsolete the floppy disk has become.
    In a show where Mr Rat exists, I think a giant floppy disc barely merits a footnote.
    OK, this is off-topic, but I love how we’ve just collectively taken Kryten’s formal, subservient way of addressing everyone to mean that “Mr. Rat” is genuinely the character’s full name, and therefore that’s what we all call him.

    I don’t see how it would fit. The closest thing on the daft scale sight gag wise is Miranda, and that’s an NPC created from the Cat’s imagination in a videogame. You could say the micro cassette in Bodyswap, as it was small, implying Lister’s mind didn’t need a lot of storage but it was true to the universe. They had cassettes as the primary method of saving stuff and it had real world believability because, well, it’s a real thing. Whereas the giant floppy, don’t think they’ve ever used floppy discs in Red Dwarf, and they’ve never implied or shown it’s a universe where media becomes comically big rather than more data dense.

    Personally can’t think of any episode that’d fit in until you get to Dave Dwarf, it’s so out of universe. It’s the same postcode as the giant human shaped cut outs for the bioprinter in Officer Rimmer.

    Again, I enjoyed it as a whole, more good than bad, but that floppy disc is more Chuckle Brothers than Red Dwarf. It’s part of Red Dwarf now, but I don’t like that kind of humour and I think it’s markedly different tonally, if you like the character humour and the daft humour then bonus, if you don’t, like me, it takes you out of it.

    If you can’t nitpick on G&T, where can you?

  • Maybe I’m OK with the floppy disc thing because what it called to mind, for me, was how gigantic Holly is when he first appears in Infinity Welcomes… so it made perfect sense he’d have a massive disc like that. But I accept there’s a lot of head-canon in play there.

    I also don’t like how Kryten is absolutely fucked right from the start. I get he’s in need of a “service”, but surely it’d have been better to have Kryten look normal at the beginning, and then have him look the way he does following the fastforward.

    The point was Kryters was already over-due a service though, so it makes sense to have him look that way at the start, doesn’t it? Especially when paired with the state of Lister’s hoarding room, I sort of got the vibe that neglect and decay was a theme from the off.

  • Also, anyone explain to me the ‘First Technician’ ? Was Rimmer trying to big himself up to Holly?

    I think it was just a mistake, unfortunately. When we see his Series 1 uniform later, the breast patch clearly reads SECOND TECHNICIAN.

    Did a similar mistake not occur in one of the recent series? I seem to recall a line having to be dubbed after it was called to their attention post-recording.

  • Wouldn’t it have been more interested had Kryten been messed up due to the threat that was taking place? then the steaks really would have been interesting when Kryten was being battled damaged. sadly no he was just like that anyway :/

  • In with the all the nit-picking, I feel the need to say again…

    THIS WAS A REALLY FANTASTIC SPECIAL!

  • Wouldn’t it have been more interested had Kryten been messed up due to the threat that was taking place? then the steaks really would have been interesting when Kryten was being battled damaged. sadly no he was just like that anyway :/

    I think the thing you’re interested in is just having something to complain about, honestly.

  • I think the thing you’re interested in is just having something to complain about, honestly.

    No i just think alot about how it could have been improved.

  • The point was Kryters was already over-due a service though, so it makes sense to have him look that way at the start, doesn’t it?

    No, cause he lasts an additional three months longer even in that state of disrepair.

    Had Doug made him look like that AFTER the fastforward you’d not only go, “Haha, look at the funny beards,” you’d go, “Jesus Christ, look at the state of Kryten!”

  • I think the thing you’re interested in is just having something to complain about, honestly.

    No I agree with Dax. Kryten looking fucked up from the get go takes away the urgency of him needing a service, since he’s managed to last this long in that state anyway.

  • I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main cast and Ray Fearon did a great job. I loved the ‘knocking things off tables’ bit.
    The Lister/Rimmer moonlight bit was beautifully done and will remembered as a classic moment for a long time to come.
    It wasn’t perfect, but it was immensely entertaining.

  • also, anyone explain to me the ‘First Technician’ ? Was Rimmer trying to big himself up to Holly?

    I think it was just a mistake, unfortunately. When we see his Series 1 uniform later, the breast patch clearly reads SECOND TECHNICIAN.

    No, I’d go with the ‘bigging himself up’ thing. As he carries on, you can see the others rolling their eyes – they know what to expect from Rimmer.
    It’s only surprising that he didn’t introduce himself as a Flight Lieutenant, First Class or something.

    I think he was just

  • If Holly was out of commission due to water damage, how was a disk supposed to bring him back online?

  • If Holly was out of commission due to water damage, how was a disk supposed to bring him back online?

    It’s a back-up of his installation. That’s why he was restored to factory settings. It was a fresh install.

  • I think the thing you’re interested in is just having something to complain about, honestly.

    No I agree with Dax. Kryten looking fucked up from the get go takes away the urgency of him needing a service, since he’s managed to last this long in that state anyway.

    Isn’t the point that it isn’t SUPPOSED to feel urgent, though, otherwise they’d have been more motivated do it as opposed to one of those jobs that you keep putting off and then, whoops, you dropped the ball?

  • On the floppy disk thing I’m sure Doug’s aware of the strange mish-mash of technology in Red Dwarf, and the discrepancies between the future as presented in the early series and the way technology has advanced since. The entire premise of the show hinges on Lister taking his photos to the chemists, and see Ian’s Past Echoes article for lots more examples. I dunno whether the giant floppy was meant partly as a kind of meta joke about that à la the videotapes explanation in BTE but I like it even if it wasn’t. And yet I do find the bio-printer in OR being that much like an actual printer too silly. And the baby skutters in PU for that matter. I think I just immediately reasoned it isn’t actually a giant floppy disk, it just looks like one for some reason. I guess it’s the old story of making excuses for something implausible in a daft joke you like and picking fault with one you don’t like. Lister’s camera exploding in Tikka, for another example of a, imo, shit one.

  • Isn’t the point that it isn’t SUPPOSED to feel urgent, though, otherwise they’d have been more motivated do it as opposed to one of those jobs that you keep putting off and then, whoops, you dropped the ball?

    No, I doubt Doug had that intention when he was writing that. I rather think Doug wrote that so as to necessitate the need for Rimmer to lose his superpowers, so come other specials you wouldn’t go, “Just use your superpowers.” Otherwise, Rimmer could’ve been upgraded to Diamond Light following Kryten’s shutdown anyways, no need for Kryten to shutdown. Really Kryten needing a service only becomes relevant in the last 10 minutes.

  • I loved it, laughed out loud a lot and felt emotional for the characters, so I’d rank it higher than XI and XII.

    I really like the reveal that Cat was left behind because he wasn’t cool enough. Not only does that give his whole persona a tragic new dimension, but it also gives new meaning to that line from Waiting For God about “the sick and the lame” being left behind.

  • The Cat wasn’t left behind, he hadn’t been born when the arks left.

    Yeah, I was going to say. Weren’t his parents, the cripple and the idiot, the ones left behind? I liked the scene, but it shit all over continuity, which Red Dwarf doesn’t have apparently even though we’ll reference prior episodes when the story calls for it.

  • Really alot of the cats you see did not come across as cool. the only one that did was obviously the villain. alot of the other cats were fairly basic.

  • They weren’t trying to be cool. The followers of Lister were obeying the “slobbiness” doctrine (it is a sin to be cool).

    Since the Feral cats were rejecting that doctrine, it doesn’t automatically follow that they would do the opposite of that. They’re atheists, not blasphemous.

  • I dunno it just gets complicated to think about. really none of them, not even the followers of the ferals, including the 2nd in command character could not outcool danny as the cat

  • Isn’t the point that it isn’t SUPPOSED to feel urgent, though, otherwise they’d have been more motivated do it as opposed to one of those jobs that you keep putting off and then, whoops, you dropped the ball?

    No, I doubt Doug had that intention when he was writing that. I rather think Doug wrote that so as to necessitate the need for Rimmer to lose his superpowers, so come other specials you wouldn’t go, “Just use your superpowers.” Otherwise, Rimmer could’ve been upgraded to Diamond Light following Kryten’s shutdown anyways, no need for Kryten to shutdown. Really Kryten needing a service only becomes relevant in the last 10 minutes.

    We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, I’m afraid.

  • Can I just please point out that there is no such thing as a “floppy disc”.

    The original 8″ discs were actually floppy.

    3½” ones would be more accurately called ‘quite rigid diskettes’.

  • I dunno it just gets complicated to think about. really none of them, not even the followers of the ferals, including the 2nd in command character could not outcool danny as the cat

    Are they trying to? They’re worshipping Rodon under threat of death.

  • Can I just please point out that there is no such thing as a “floppy disc”.

    The original 8″ discs were actually floppy.
    3½” ones would be more accurately called ‘quite rigid diskettes’.

    He’s objecting to the C for Kryten, I believe.

  • The Cat wasn’t left behind, he hadn’t been born when the arks left.

    The Cat Ark erm… arc has always been a bit oblique in the show’s history. The Cat Priest in ‘Waiting for God’ was aware of Cat’s birth so I’m not sure when the Ark left in terms of the ship’s timeline. That’d be an interesting thing to follow up. How long after the Ark’s all left before Lister emerged from stasis?

  • Can I just please point out that there is no such thing as a “floppy disc”.

    The original 8″ discs were actually floppy.
    3½” ones would be more accurately called ‘quite rigid diskettes’.
    He’s objecting to the C for Kryten, I believe.

    Ah, fair play.

  • The Cat Ark erm… arc has always been a bit oblique in the show’s history. The Cat Priest in ‘Waiting for God’ was aware of Cat’s birth so I’m not sure when the Ark left in terms of the ship’s timeline. That’d be an interesting thing to follow up. How long after the Ark’s all left before Lister emerged from stasis?

    Given Danny was about 27 during Red Dwarf, I would say that it’s implied that they must have left at least around 30 years before Lister emerged, possibly a tiny bit longer – but not much.

    PRIEST: They left us behind. The sick and the lame. Left us to die. But then the boy was born to the cripple and the idiot.
    CAT: What idiot?
    PRIEST: Your father, boy.
    CAT: My father was a jelly-brain?
    PRIEST: Yes, that’s why he ate his own feet.
    CAT: I did wonder.
    PRIEST: But, as one by one we died, my faith died also.

  • Wasn’t he 1st technician in the novels?

    He was but the series has always had its own continuity
    Although I would love if Doug ever decides to write a finale that he could do a rewrite version of Last Human

    So Richard Naylor replied to my question about the First Tech issue and it was meant to be a blag.

    That’s solved that mystery

  • Ok, just watching that brother reveal again, and yeah…it contradicts that bit from Waiting For God and implies that Rodan is trying to be “cool”.

    So, yeah, they really should have cut that but.

  • You folks had talked me out of being bothered by the sex-change scene but the G&T reaction show has talked me back into it… XD

  • I don’t think it’s too major a continuity change for the arks to have left later (or for more of the cats to have been initially left behind, with Rodon leaving in a later ship), compared to the other major retcons in the series.

    And even though it feels thrown in, I like that detail being added to Cat’s back story, the origin of his obsession with coolness. I wouldn’t want it cut.

  • Re the large 3 and a quarter gag- it silly and stupid and I thought it worked really well. They needed to make a big point to bring back Holly as part of the gag for the first time in nearly 20 years. Dwarf has done visual gags for years- Lister being a midget Robocop in DNA for example.

  • I’m surprised nobody has moaned about the Anubis Stone being literally magic…not that I mind that or anything, I actually think it’s awesome that Red Dwarf now has a magic stone in it, but I expected people would complain

  • Of course the big floppy disk was a knowing nod to how they used to have VHS tapes and CRT monitors in the old shows – I thought that was The Joke.

  • No query

    When did RD get Planet destroying missile capabilities ? Lol

    The missiles escaped from the AR machine.

  • I’m surprised nobody has moaned about the Anubis Stone being literally magic…not that I mind that or anything, I actually think it’s awesome that Red Dwarf now has a magic stone in it, but I expected people would complain

    I saw it as more of just a limitless power source, especially with the interference it caused with Holly’s monitor. Given that the technology that brings Rimmer to life in hard-light form could be equally be described as magic, it didn’t seem a stretch.

    Given that it is now inside Kryten and giving him charge, I think of it as a glorified battery.

  • No query

    When did RD get Planet destroying missile capabilities ? Lol

    Well, we know RD is a mining ship and Holly referenced them being mining torpedos. Plus it was a moon, not a planet (though in fairness they did make it clear it was a big moon)

  • The original 8″ discs were actually floppy.

    If they are going to do a giant floppy disk it should have been an 8″ and not a 3½” disk. More in keeping with the time when the show first aired.

    When Lister said that anything could have been embalmed in the Anubis stone, was I the only one thinking it might have been Frankenstein’s remains? Not sure how that would charge batteries though.

  • Obviously, wearing the same outfits would help with continuity incase of reshoots, but I’m won’t be excusing this as I know Red Dwarf could do better than that.

    Changing Robert’s costume is a bit more involved than putting on a different jacket to be fair.

  • There’s something poetic about everyone getting hung up on a stupid giant prop in an episode that’s effectively a sequel to the one with the giant golden sausage and donut hat.

  • There’s something poetic about everyone getting hung up on a stupid giant prop in an episode that’s effectively a sequel to the one with the giant golden sausage and donut hat.

    Completely different though isn’t it. One is religious room decor (which the writers thought was crap according to documentaries) and the other is meant to be an actual thing that gets used for something in a show that’s normally technologically grounded.

  • Since the Feral cats were rejecting that doctrine, it doesn’t automatically follow that they would do the opposite of that. They’re atheists, not blasphemous.

    I think Rodon is more of a deist than an atheist. It is not that he does not believe in Cloister, he just does not wish to follow him.

    The whole scene with Lister admitting he is not a god in front of Rodon is rather Galaxy Quest isn’t it?

    I’m surprised nobody has moaned about the Anubis Stone being literally magic…not that I mind that or anything, I actually think it’s awesome that Red Dwarf now has a magic stone in it, but I expected people would complain

    It is not magic, it must be that precious mineral Kryten mentioned. I guess.

  • Thanks to all that joined us for the Live DwarfCast, really lovely to feel that connection once more. We’ll keep that rather attractive Spreaker player embedded on the front page until we publish the regular podcast feed version tomorrow.

  • I can’t believe that Dax asked if we could imagine a thing like the giant floppy disk being in series 1-7, and only now am I remembering that series 1-7 had a scene where Ace Rimmer skyboarded a crocodile.

  • Huh. A different Spreaker commenter has done the “How do you turn this off” gag for the past three Dwarfcasts.

    I can’t believe that Dax asked if we could imagine a thing like the giant floppy disk being in series 1-7, and only now am I remembering that series 1-7 had a scene where Ace Rimmer skyboarded a crocodile.

    That was to scale.

  • I don’t think it’s too major a continuity change for the arks to have left later (or for more of the cats to have been initially left behind, with Rodon leaving in a later ship), compared to the other major retcons in the series.

    And even though it feels thrown in, I like that detail being added to Cat’s back story, the origin of his obsession with coolness. I wouldn’t want it cut.

    Or the whole ark thing is just part of the Cat society’s creation myth. We’re worrying about the historical accuracy of a holy book satire. ‘No one believes that stuff.’

  • The backstory doesn’t fit – but this is Red Dwarf, folks. Nothing fits!

    Also the idea that people would complain about the logic of the floppy disk gag is actually extremely depressing to me. Lighten up

  • My headcanon is that Rimmer’s reality-hopping in Skipper caused dimensional anomalies which expanded the floppy disk by 2,212%. They should ascertain that the new structure is stable.

  • The backstory doesn’t fit – but this is Red Dwarf, folks. Nothing fits!

    Also the idea that people would complain about the logic of the floppy disk gag is actually extremely depressing to me. Lighten up

    The Red Dwarf fandom complains about references to eBay and selfies for being too modern, then they complain about floppy disk gags for being too retro. They complain about rubbish CGI and beg for the return of models, then they complain about the models and want CGI back.

    Eh, still not as bad as Doctor Who fans who declare every new episode by Chibnall the Worst Ever.

  • I found myself mostly not even thinking about which parts were models and which were CGI, which probably means they were both pretty good.

  • When did RD get Planet destroying missile capabilities ? Lol

    “We haven’t got a bomb, I got rid of that years ago”

    Yeah yeah I know they’re very different things. Just that line immediately sprang to mind.

    One is a ship self destruct bomb – which in itself seems a silly concept, if you *did* need to destroy the ship for any reason, just cause a meltdown in the nuclear reactor and Chernobyl it – and the other is mining equipment. Though why you’d use nuclear is also questionable. Now all your newly mined minerals are covered in deadly radiation surely.

  • I found myself mostly not even thinking about which parts were models and which were CGI, which probably means they were both pretty good.

    Yeah this. Other than the re-used model shots, all the effects are nearly indistinguishable from each other. It’s the best the show has looked, the best use of CGI the show has ever managed, and both work really well together.

  • Having just spent an hour catching up with all the comments, I can’t believe there is so much discussion re the floppy disk, when it was just a fun visual gag. True its a bit daft and may possibly veer into VIII territory. But I think we have to accept daft is in the DNA of Red Dwarf now and has been for over 20 years. And Mr Rat is as daft as it gets. I think it sort of shows you can be daft if its done well and is genuinely funny. Kryten’s hand inflating is daft but not all that funny a gag so it gets a groan. Giant floppy disk is daft but hilarious to think Holly is on there. And the reveal is brilliant, completely subverting the expectation that the disk will be a small computer chip or a CD or something

  • I’m going to re-iterate what I said much further up after it aired. I found everything about this episode brilliant. All the elements I thought were weak (to which there are few) were immediately paid of by a better gag so are worth it. It’s funny, it sad, it’s a great story that explores an area of the show we’ve spent no time with since series 1. It gives us backstory to Cat. The pacing really allowed for moments and gags to get the time they needed rather than being quickly covered and whisked away.

    I genuinely only have praise for it. It’s easily the best thing since 1993 (thought I rather like most of the Dave era anyway and think some episodes are on par with the classic era) and possible the best the show has ever been.

    It a shame we couldn’t get a cinema viewing for this like we did with premiers of other series. I know they’re basically limited to a few of us in London, but to be given the opportunity to head over to the Prince Charles Cinema to watch this on Thursday night would have been an incredible experience.

  • The backstory doesn’t fit – but this is Red Dwarf, folks. Nothing fits!

    Also the idea that people would complain about the logic of the floppy disk gag is actually extremely depressing to me. Lighten up

    I suppose Ouroborous means that every series could be a new crew, as Lister is going round in time.

    This could be a reality where VHS tapes are as big as football pitches.

  • <

    I suppose Ouroborous means that every series could be a new crew

    You’re running dangerously close to the ridiculous theory that every time the sets change it’s a different universe. Series 1-2 different to 3-5 different to 6 etc.

    It’s used to write of continuity and retcon stuff. Fuck that. Red Dwarf has a lose continuity and it changes when needed. It doesn’t matter. It’s a comedy. It’s much more egregious in dramatic sci-fi shows, but in comedy write a good story and worry about continuity later.

    Also, the backstory can fit. We know cats left in search of Fushal. It doesn’t take a great leap of logic to suppose that not everyone left at the same time. It is possible cats had been leaving the ship for millennia before that. But either way, most the cat race is gone, Cat and Rodon are born, Rodon himself leaves as a baby with someone – an uncle smuggling him out or something, they find the other cats, he grows up and takes over. There, all sorted.

  • I think pacing helps too, I mean if you keep the jokes running fluently then even if you ain’t impressed by a particular joke, you can just move on to the next fairly quickly. But some jokes are treated like a comedy highlights and a lot of time is focused on it, and if you don’t find it that funny… Then It becomes abit of a uncomfortable watch.

    The giant disk was a whole sketch in itself really.

  • One thing I didn’t notice until the making of doc: when Kryten is shutdown near the end and lying on the table the Midsection says 20 . :)

  • I can’t believe that Dax asked if we could imagine a thing like the giant floppy disk being in series 1-7, and only now am I remembering that series 1-7 had a scene where Ace Rimmer skyboarded a crocodile.

    Ein Plastikkrokodil.

  • Another strange nit pick I know but did I hear right that Lister said the drive plate was irreparable. Why Rimmer never questioned the questioned the order to fix an irreparable drive plate?

  • I think the intention with that was to say it would be irreparable for Rimmer, specifically, since that was well outside of his area of expertise.

  • If there is more after this, they really should give it a new look. We’ve had the same sets, mostly the same costumes etc. for the past 4 iterations of the show, so I think a new bunk room, drive/science room and/or tweaked Starbug are required, with midsection. It was great to see them moving in and out of the cockpit into the midsection and it even had a table, smaller but the same design as the VI/VII table.

  • here’s the thing that annoyed me most

    as an ancient egypt nerd, i get annoyed when people in telly/movies muck about with that whole culture. for instance, anubis is very much definitely a dog-headed god. of all the gods to suddenly change into a cat god, why the dog-headed one? as if there aren’t about twenty cat-headed gods in the ancient egyptian pantheon anyway? why not even just make up your own cat god, instead of picking the name of the one dog-god?

    alright i’m done now

  • I agree entirely with the previous poster, why must they keep mucking about with everything?

  • I think the intention with that was to say it would be irreparable for Rimmer, specifically, since that was well outside of his area of expertise.

    Ahhh thank you that makes better sense

  • here’s the thing that annoyed me most

    as an ancient egypt nerd, i get annoyed when people in telly/movies muck about with that whole culture. for instance, anubis is very much definitely a dog-headed god. of all the gods to suddenly change into a cat god, why the dog-headed one? as if there aren’t about twenty cat-headed gods in the ancient egyptian pantheon anyway? why not even just make up your own cat god, instead of picking the name of the one dog-god?
    alright i’m done now

    They could have got away with it if the fact that cats probably haven’t seen dogs before so thought it was a cat. So went with it But since it came from Kryten too…

  • If there is more after this, they really should give it a new look. We’ve had the same sets, mostly the same costumes etc. for the past 4 iterations of the show, so I think a new bunk room, drive/science room and/or tweaked Starbug are required, with midsection. It was great to see them moving in and out of the cockpit into the midsection and it even had a table, smaller but the same design as the VI/VII table.

    I like the latest Starbug, I like the idea that they are kind of running out of Starbugs and so limited to what’s left.

    Maybe they’ve decided not to move around the ship anymore :)

  • Another strange nit pick I know but did I hear right that Lister said the drive plate was irreparable. Why Rimmer never questioned the questioned the order to fix an irreparable drive plate?

    This raised questions for me too, but I like the explanation. Although it sort of adds the the Justice question about why Rimmer was ever given responsibility to carry out such an important job in the first place.

  • Finally got around to watching this today. On the whole, I felt the first half was a bit underwhelming, quite sketch-y, some very broad and over-the-top silly gags, a few too many back-references. Reminded me of the worst aspects of the Dave era. Some good gags and a decent plot, but on the whole it reminded me more of Last Human, in that the plot was far superior to the humour.
    And then as it got into the second half it shifted gears dramatically and became really funny, as well as having a great plot and all the much-needed pathos that the last two series lacked. The character stuff was far less on the nose than Back to Earth and felt completely natural. Lister sat there doing everything he could not to say “I like you” was really touching, and “this is my home” was a beautiful Cat moment, for possibly the first time ever. All the characters got a chance to really shine, both in terms of humour and drama. Favourite gags were Kryten’s response to being asked if he likes Rimmer, and Holly’s missile sequence, but there were plenty enough in the second half for me to get several watches before I can remember most of them.

    Biggest issue I had was the guest cast. Other than Cat’s brother, I don’t think any of the guest cats were particularly great. I didn’t really believe any of their performances. I didn’t like the floppy disk gag, but as others have said, it’s tonally consistent with the Dave era so it didn’t surprise me or disappoint me, I just chalked it up to mine and Doug’s senses of humour diverging at a certain point.

    On the whole, I think if it had been maybe an hour long, with the first half tightened up a lot, it would be straight up there as my favourite episode since Rob left and my second favourite since V. As it is, there’s a lot to love there and I’m looking forward to revisiting it when the BluRay comes out.

  • word. there’s a great hour-length special in there somewhere. the first three skits on board the dwarf were pretty weak, obvious padding

  • I for one think Bastet Stone sounds cooler anyway. It would also fit with my original thought about it being the preserved remains of the Holy Mother.

  • Ancient Egyptian mythology got all muddled up by the time Kryten was programmed, and/or, you know, he needs a service. He’s also been known to be ignorant on various things in the past, and would have no reason to keep his Ancient Egypt folder up to date, nor would he have any reason not to delete specific files from it to make room for others, again as we’ve seen in the past.

    Also I think it’s been said before now that the drive plate was irreparable, or at least it was a fool’s errand, but I’m not sure.

  • Why at the end was Holly reading the bomb timer? that part puzzled me. was it hooked up to Red Dwarf? and if so why couldn’t Holly just stop it then?

  • Ancient Egyptian mythology got all muddled up by the time Kryten was programmed, and/or, you know, he needs a service. He’s also been known to be ignorant on various things in the past, and would have no reason to keep his Ancient Egypt folder up to date, nor would he have any reason not to delete specific files from it to make room for others, again as we’ve seen in the past.

    Also I think it’s been said before now that the drive plate was irreparable, or at least it was a fool’s errand, but I’m not sure.

    but surely the point was the cat folks worshipped the stone cos it was supposed to be a cat god, right? i know kryten done the info-dump but it was their beleif. i mean sure, in the fiction of the thing they coulda forgotten too. but maybe just name it after one of the numerous actual cat gods

  • Well, it would be easy to explain away if the Cats got ancient Egyptian mythology wrong – why would you expect them to get it right? When it’s Kryten saying it, as in the special, it takes a bit more headcanoning

  • If there is more after this, they really should give it a new look. We’ve had the same sets, mostly the same costumes etc. for the past 4 iterations of the show, so I think a new bunk room, drive/science room and/or tweaked Starbug are required, with midsection. It was great to see them moving in and out of the cockpit into the midsection and it even had a table, smaller but the same design as the VI/VII table.

    Will sir be writing out a cheque for this or merely depositing some cash?

  • Enjoying a rewatch. I didn’t get the symmetry of the ship gags first time. Now I see the opening cat face – minus rodon’s ship – ending as a H to new god Rimmer.

    The lines. “Have you finished?” – “Said no woman, ever, to you.” Gets a round of applause for good punchy delivery. But I find it rather clunky written logic as a sex insult.

    What comedy show had a desk toy in it, a long neck bird thing that tips and drinks water? I saw one in the iron star set. Wondering if the props a homage.

    Rodon’s sicophantic second assistant, looks very Dracula like I’m wondering if that’s a design choice to exentuate that final feral moment mesmerised to attack by the laser pointer.

    I like Holly’s duck at the end of the bomb count.

    The moonlight scene is definitely the end of Terrorform redone, but it’s still hugely satisfying how differently they treat each other years on it’s a hugely brilliant bit.

    I agree with the idea that the stone is pure power. Think Doug has been watching Marvel movies to be honest a lot in this. Kryten is vision, the Anubis is the mind stone etc. I like how it causes interference on the monitors showing its immense electrical charge.

  • Are you thinking of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer deliberately puts on a lot of weight so he can work from home? When he realises his job consists of just pressing Y for Yes over and over again, he sets up his keyboard and that bird toy so that the toy presses Y for him.

  • “Have you finished?” – “Said no woman, ever, to you.”

    Is fooking terrible.

    Yeah a pretty basic joke made awful by the terrible wording. Actually had to spend a moment trying to work out if it even technically worked as a joke because the wording was so awkward.

  • Sometimes with jokes like that I think Doug has invited some of those American TV executives to read the script and give him notes, whereas what he actually needs is the wave to give it a thorough going over.

  • It’s a spiritual sequel to spitonawrist.

    Oh, it isn’t. This one can at least raise a bit of a smile. The Spitonawrist joke is just…”eh? What the fuck was that?”

  • If there is more after this, they really should give it a new look. We’ve had the same sets, mostly the same costumes etc. for the past 4 iterations of the show, so I think a new bunk room, drive/science room and/or tweaked Starbug are required, with midsection. It was great to see them moving in and out of the cockpit into the midsection and it even had a table, smaller but the same design as the VI/VII table.

    This episode represents the current Dave era Red Dwarf sets becoming the longest serving designs in the show’s history I think?

    The original bunk room was only around for 12 episodes…. 14 if you count its reappearance in VIII and XII.

    The cream officers quarters bunk room was only around for 3 seasons, so 18 episodes although there were episodes set entirely off ship during that run (Marooned and Back to Reality spring immediately to mind).

    Then you had the expanded Starbug sets for VI and VII (14 episodes), the prison set for VIII (8 episodes) and the BTE design (3 episodes). I know the current set is basically the BTE set repainted but in its current iteration it has now been around for 3 seasons and a special (19 episodes).

    For some reason I doubt they would redesign it to any major departure at this point. Think this will take us through to the end.

  • It’s a spiritual sequel to spitonawrist.

    Oh, it isn’t. This one can at least raise a bit of a smile. The Spitonawrist joke is just…”eh? What the fuck was that?”

    Yeah I was being overly harsh there. This one at least works as a joke.

  • If the bunk room set is going to play as small a part in any future specials as it did in The Promised Land, I’d agree that it seems pointless to create a new set for it. As others have said, doing so costs money that is probably better spent elsewhere. I wouldn’t be disappointed in a new set though! As a cheaper alternative, I’d also be quite happy for them to just do a bit of a redress or even just change the colour scheme of the existing one to change things up a bit at low cost.

  • #MakeStarbugGrimyAgain

    As above, I’d prefer money went elsewhere outside of the necessary redresses and repairs to existing sets, but that Starbug cockpit needs someone to go at it with a bucket of slop.

  • It’s like that sitcom in The Simpsons. “Maybe they’d feel more at home in bedroom, Al!”

    That sitcom in The Simpsons is specifically a pastiche of “Married…with Children” which, yes, sums up this joke.

    I think the only reason it gets a laugh is because of Danny’s delivery. The studio audience assumes its funny because of the cadence of his voice.

    I don’t understand it, anyway. Is the joke that Lister’s orgasms are so obvious that women don’t need to ask him if he’s finished?

  • It’s like that sitcom in The Simpsons. “Maybe they’d feel more at home in bedroom, Al!”

    That sitcom in The Simpsons is specifically a pastiche of “Married…with Children” which, yes, sums up this joke.
    I think the only reason it gets a laugh is because of Danny’s delivery. The studio audience assumes its funny because of the cadence of his voice.
    I don’t understand it, anyway. Is the joke that Lister’s orgasms are so obvious that women don’t need to ask him if he’s finished?

    I think the implication is that he never lasts so long that a partner would say “are you done yet? (because I am)”. That he’s always done too early/before his partner.

    And yeah, had to spend a minute thinking about it to get to that conclusion.

  • As others have said, doing so costs money that is probably better spent elsewhere

    Is it anymore expensive than putting it in storage for years to come out for a couple of days filming every once in a while.

    I’m on board with them keeping the sets they have, but cost seems like a silly argument against new ones as what they have is costing them money each day they don’t use them.

  • Me: I wonder what’s going on over at G&T today.
    G&T: One of the funniest gags in the entire special is actually almost as bad as “spitonawrist” from Timewave.
    Me: Right. Carry on.

  • “Have you finished?” – “Said no woman, ever, to you.”

    Yeah a pretty basic joke made awful by the terrible wording. Actually had to spend a moment trying to work out if it even technically worked as a joke because the wording was so awkward.

    I did have to think about that joke for like a minute after. i couldn’t work out if i was missing something there. glad i wasn’t.

    When the audience claps you do think oh that must be a clever gag… but then sometimes it leaves you trying to figure out why thats clever…

  • One of the funniest gags in the entire special

    You crazy

    That’s nothing, I saw someone on Twatter say the floppy disc gag was the one of the best jokes in Red Dwarf’s entire history.

  • Me: I wonder what’s going on over at G&T today.

    G&T: One of the funniest gags in the entire special is actually almost as bad as “spitonawrist” from Timewave.
    Me: Right. Carry on.

    Why is the website talking to you, Ben? I don’t understand. Can you explain this?

  • Me: I wonder if Ben thinks The Promised Land is better or worse than The Last Jedi.
    G&T: Nooooooo!

    Then again, I’m the guy who thinks Cat’s “me, him and him” line in Entangled is awful and apparently that is a good one. My biggest laugh in the special is Rimmer’s strut after he disposes of the bomb.

  • I rewatched it again today and the odd dubbing/edit of Holly in his opening scene saying they have seven days to vacate the ship really stood out (and also later on when he shortens the deadline). I wonder what changed there.

  • The problem is it is just a “That’s what she said!” joke only backwards. So it throws you off.

  • > Then again, I’m the guy who thinks Cat’s “me, him and him” line in Entangled is awful and apparently that is a good one.

    That is probably the only funny Rimmer dis from the Cat in the entire Dave era to be honest. By the end of XII especially you just want the prick to shut up.

  • I’m a big fan of his “let’s get out of here before they bring him back!” I think that’s one of the best lines in the entire show, along with Rimmer’s “…people I…met.” Just realised they’re from the same episode while typing them out.

  • I do like “No, I’d sacrifice your life for the good of the crew!” but that is because Cat would say the same for Lister or Kryten as well as Rimmer. That is just being a cat.

  • It does seem strange that Cat showed no interest at all in the women of his own species.

    Cat shows zero interest in his own species at all. You can chalk that up to him feeling Red Dwarf is his home, but I line it two or dialogue earlier to make that more apparent would have been nice.

  • Having owned multiple cats in the past that didn’t seem to give a toss about each other any more than they did anything else, that kind of indifference towards other cats works fine for me.

  • Well cat sure seemed happy to see a female Cat in Can of worms.

    Maybe he was in heat for that one.

  • Well cat sure seemed happy to see a female Cat in Can of worms.

    The whole of Can of Worms was a dream that Cat had.

  • It does seem strange that Cat showed no interest at all in the women of his own species.

    Maybe the Lister cosplay was a turn off.

    Or OR maybe in a broader sense the Lister cosplay and their general behaviour clearly marked them as being devoutly religious, and therefore sexually unavailable (like the cat equivalent of nuns) and also deeply uncool / definitely not Cat’s type.

  • Watched it again tonight and man, I’m really happy with this. Enjoyed it even more this time. Everything on Starbug in the sandstorm is very strong indeed. The guest cast are fine really. I know people bemoan Cat not being cool anymore but I love the naffness of the matching jacket and mittens. I agree about the “Have you finished?” gag, though. Shite.

    I still don’t think the way they defeat Rodon quite works. Just a shot of the members of his crew who get discracted by the laser actually piloting the ship would have sold it, although I’m not convinced by them actually attacking Rodon either, or Lister knowing that’s what will happen. I think Rodon himself also being distracted by the laser might have been funnier.

    The clerics converting Cat is funny, but there needed to be more to it than just joining in with the chanting. When the clerics find out who Lister really is and Luna asks “And these aren’t your disciples?”, Cat even says “Hell, no!” so it’s like he’s had this epiphany about Lister but doesn’t think of him any differently.

    The whole Kryten needing a service/running out of charge/dying thing is just terribly sketchy. How long can he go without charging up? They were on Earth for about 6 months in Lemons with no way of recharging him. I do like that scene in the science room though, with Rimmer about to die and asking Lister for help. And Lister doesn’t need a best guess from Kryten – he figures it out all by himself.

  • > The clerics converting Cat is funny, but there needed to be more to it than just joining in with the chanting. When the clerics find out who Lister really is and Luna asks “And these aren’t your disciples?”, Cat even says “Hell, no!” so it’s like he’s had this epiphany about Lister but doesn’t think of him any differently.

    Pretty sure he was just swept up in the moment.

  • Watched it again tonight and man, I’m really happy with this. Enjoyed it even more this time. Everything on Starbug in the sandstorm is very strong indeed. The guest cast are fine really. I know people bemoan Cat not being cool anymore but I love the naffness of the matching jacket and mittens. I agree about the “Have you finished?” gag, though. Shite.

    I still don’t think the way they defeat Rodon quite works. Just a shot of the members of his crew who get discracted by the laser actually piloting the ship would have sold it, although I’m not convinced by them actually attacking Rodon either, or Lister knowing that’s what will happen. I think Rodon himself also being distracted by the laser might have been funnier.
    The clerics converting Cat is funny, but there needed to be more to it than just joining in with the chanting. When the clerics find out who Lister really is and Luna asks “And these aren’t your disciples?”, Cat even says “Hell, no!” so it’s like he’s had this epiphany about Lister but doesn’t think of him any differently.
    The whole Kryten needing a service/running out of charge/dying thing is just terribly sketchy. How long can he go without charging up? They were on Earth for about 6 months in Lemons with no way of recharging him. I do like that scene in the science room though, with Rimmer about to die and asking Lister for help. And Lister doesn’t need a best guess from Kryten – he figures it out all by himself.

    I found it strange when they said if a mech loses all power it can’t power up again. Yet they powered up Kryten using Starbugs jump leads after the EMP in Twentica

  • You could maybe argue that an EMP doesn’t have the same effect as draining all power from a battery. An EMP is a violent switch-off that necessitates a hard ‘jump start’ reboot, but doesn’t drain away all of Kryten’s battery power.

  • Talking of EMPs, on a rewatch I really enjoyed all of the plotting to stop Holly early on and the conversation around that, the am/pm confusion and “tonight’s the night”. The whole scene is a great little comedy setpiece and Norman’s fairly straight reactions to hearing their conversation really add to it too.

  • Had a lot of fun with this one, Red Dwarf translates surprisingly well to a feature length format, that plus some really nice scenes like the moonlight bit and the finale was really enjoyable.

    Personally, my own complaints are nitpicks and kinda petty ones at that. The amount of ad breaks was kinda annoying on the night, though it did allow for time to let the gags sink in and build excitement for the next part. I also kinda wished there was more model effects rather than the extensive use of CG, though again I can see the benefits of using CG to create the sand planet and that chase scene with the cat craft. More just the practical effects fan in me screaming for models and explosions, heheh.

    I’d definitely love to see a new series or special with the five Dwarfers, Norman was great to have back and it’d be fantastic to have him around for at least a few episodes or specials.

  • Is there actually good logic behind the whole rebooted Holly going to destroy Red Dwarf because the 4 members don’t match some guideline or whatever? i know its similar to Pree, but i struggle to figure out whether its a logical thing or abit forced just for the plot? you would almost question why Holly even bothered to keep going for 3 million years if his first reaction is to destroy it.

  • Is there actually good logic behind the whole rebooted Holly going to destroy Red Dwarf because the 4 members don’t match some guideline or whatever?

    No, but that’s bureaucracy in Red Dwarf for you.

  • you would almost question why Holly even bothered to keep going for 3 million years if his first reaction is to destroy it.

    Because that Holly had evolved past his initial install (Presumably he’s been online a while) and came to recognise Lister didn’t deserve to just die.

  • Is there actually good logic behind the whole rebooted Holly going to destroy Red Dwarf because the 4 members don’t match some guideline or whatever? i know its similar to Pree, but i struggle to figure out whether its a logical thing or abit forced just for the plot? you would almost question why Holly even bothered to keep going for 3 million years if his first reaction is to destroy it.

    Lister forfeited habitation privileges, but at that point (just after the accident and while Holly was still relatively sane) there would have been no safe way of letting him out to find alternative lodgings, due to the high radiation levels. By the time that died down to safe levels, three million years later, Holly had gone computer-senile enough not to care any more.

  • I wondered why, longer than 3 months on, Holly hasn’t already destroyed the ship. I guess he’s still heading for the nearest black hole, but what actually was going to happen after the 7 day/minute “leaving period”? I agree that whole airlock scene is a cracker, mind you.

  • I wondered why, longer than 3 months on, Holly hasn’t already destroyed the ship. I guess he’s still heading for the nearest black hole, but what actually was going to happen after the 7 day/minute “leaving period”? I agree that whole airlock scene is a cracker, mind you.

    At a guess, after the 7 day period was up, all life-essential services would be deactivated: the air, gravity, food-dispensing machines etc., and probably Rimmer’s hologram too. But the ship would still be flying.

    This relates to a nitpick I had, which is: why is Rimmer so confident that Red Dwarf would be both non-destroyed and within contact range? Anything’s worth a shot I guess, but he seemed quite sure it would work. Maybe he had a vague awareness of where the nearest black hole was, and knew that it was both really far away and in the general same direction they had been travelling in.

  • Is it anymore expensive than putting it in storage for years to come out for a couple of days filming every once in a while.

    Yes.

    #MakeStarbugGrimyAgain

    As above, I’d prefer money went elsewhere outside of the necessary redresses and repairs to existing sets, but that Starbug cockpit needs someone to go at it with a bucket of slop.

    The vast majority of the inner surface area of that set is hired / rented dressing, which minimises how heavy you can go with the grime, which is a pain.

  • I wondered why, longer than 3 months on, Holly hasn’t already destroyed the ship. I guess he’s still heading for the nearest black hole, but what actually was going to happen after the 7 day/minute “leaving period”? I agree that whole airlock scene is a cracker, mind you.

    At a guess, after the 7 day period was up, all life-essential services would be deactivated: the air, gravity, food-dispensing machines etc., and probably Rimmer’s hologram too. But the ship would still be flying.
    This relates to a nitpick I had, which is: why is Rimmer so confident that Red Dwarf would be both non-destroyed and within contact range? Anything’s worth a shot I guess, but he seemed quite sure it would work. Maybe he had a vague awareness of where the nearest black hole was, and knew that it was both really far away and in the general same direction they had been travelling in.

    Yeah that makes sense. And after he frees them from the moon it seems like Holly doesn’t take long at all to get Red Dwarf to where Starbug is, so I guess they just weren’t that far away from each other.

  • He didn’t say destroy did he? He said decommission, which is different.

    If Holly decommissions Red Dwarf, he disposes of anything harmful, shuts the engines down (which are technically costing money to run, despite the JMC not existing anymore) and park it up either for eternity or until an incredibly unlikely recommissioning order from the great grandchild*10^48 of the owner of the JMC.

    Compared to Pree who wanted to actually destroy it and kill everyone.

    If he didn’t say decommission then I look foolish. I’ve only watched it the once.

  • He didn’t say destroy did he? He said decommission, which is different.

    If Holly decommissions Red Dwarf, he disposes of anything harmful, shuts the engines down (which are technically costing money to run, despite the JMC not existing anymore)

    Thats one hell of a bill after 3 million years.

  • He did say decommission, and that Red Dwarf would be “retired from active service” I think. But then he said the ship’s nuclear reactors and its hologram, for some reason, would be dumped in the nearest black hole, which I took to mean he was gonna fly the whole ship into the black hole.

  • He did say decommission, and that Red Dwarf would be “retired from active service” I think. But then he said the ship’s nuclear reactors and its hologram, for some reason, would be dumped in the nearest black hole, which I took to mean he was gonna fly the whole ship into the black hole.

    That’s the harmful stuff being disposed of, as for Rimmer, lightbees are radioactive I suppose but that’s a bit cold from Holly.

  • He didn’t say destroy did he? He said decommission, which is different.

    If Holly decommissions Red Dwarf, he disposes of anything harmful, shuts the engines down (which are technically costing money to run, despite the JMC not existing anymore)

    Thats one hell of a bill after 3 million years.

    You can’t escape the Norweb Federation.

  • I interpreted the combination of Holly’s comments as him planning to destroy the ship entirely. I guess it’s possible he was just planning to completely shut down the ship and let it drift around in space, but that actually makes it weirder, because that means there’s no reason that wouldn’t have already happened in the 3 month gap, which surely would have prevented any communication between Kryten and Red Dwarf.

    Another note: it’s incredibly messed up that Holly would use Lister’s cat infraction as justification for killing him. The guy was fully punished for it 6 million times.

  • It definitely came across to me as Holly tanking the entire ship into a black hole.

    It is messed up that Lister is using the cat infraction against him, but it is the absolute base version of Holly. A computer program adhering to the rules without any thought of how to apply them. Like the JMC computer in X really. Which sort of makes less sense as the JMC computer didn’t try to kill them.

  • Broadcast are reporting that The Promised Land broke records for Dave/UKTV, but you need to have an account to read the article to find out how it broke them.

  • I had no issue with the giant floppy disc gag. It may be a bit silly, but in 100 years it will still be the ‘save’ icon.
    They’ve had silly tech in the show before to create a laugh like the holly hop drive.
    That drew the laugh by looking like a 6 year old had painted a box red.
    Kryten’s groinal socket, because it’s phallic.
    The microwave in polymorph.
    Talking toasters and toilets.
    The disc drew the laugh because it was instantly recognisable but ridiculously huge.

  • I had no issue with the giant floppy disc gag. It may be a bit silly, but in 100 years it will still be the ‘save’ icon.

    They’ve had silly tech in the show before to create a laugh like the holly hop drive.
    That drew the laugh by looking like a 6 year old had painted a box red.
    Kryten’s groinal socket, because it’s phallic.
    The microwave in polymorph.
    Talking toasters and toilets.
    The disc drew the laugh because it was instantly recognisable but ridiculously huge.

    None of those things are comparable to a giant polystyrene floppy disk though.

    It got a disproportionately large reaction because of the heady environment of a studio recording where people will laugh at almost anything.

    If Rimmer said “Bums” in a funny voice it’d get a five minute round of applause because people are just happy to be there.

  • If Rimmer said “Bums” in a funny voice it’d get a five minute round of applause because people are just happy to be there.

    But that isn’t comparable to a giant floppy disk either.

    I do think that the Holly Hop drive and the giant floppy disk are comparable in terms of “ridiculous prop”, and while the deliberate anachronism of the latter wouldn’t have fitted in necessarily in the earlier series, it is still a good gag and other shows such as Futurama have done similar good gags (like vinyl hologram players etc.).

    I know we love the earlier series but if all Red Dwarf does is gags similar to gags it did thirty years ago, I think we would also be seeing people whine about its lack of progression and its “staleness”…

  • I think of the Holly Hop Drive as being in the same vein as Rob and Doug taking the piss out of the sets with Ocean/Military grey. It probably would’ve looked much more high-tech if not for the no-frills design of the first two series, instead of being a deliberately crap comedy prop, so I’d argue that, like the giant floppy disk, it’s a technology-based meta joke.

  • The thing about the disk joke also is that there was so much focus on it in the scene that you get too much time to think about it. the disk is brought out to a huge audience reaction, which they likely knew was gonna happen. then Kryten and Rimmer question its ridiculousness also, bringing even more light to it. then you get the ok now where does this giant disk go joke to top it off.

    The microwave joke was fairly blink and miss it. the Holly hop drive being a box with stop and start did not overstay its welcome. and Krytens groinal attachment also did not drag out.

  • I’ve noticed that Robert delivers most of his lines with both his arms waving about when he speaks which he must thinks emphasises what he says. Can someone remind him that he doesn’t need to do that almost every time a line has to be delivered. It isn’t helped by his ridiculously oversized gloves either.

  • The thing about the disk joke also is that there was so much focus on it in the scene that you get too much time to think about it.

    Yeah I would probably concede that even if the type of gag is the same, it is given far more airtime than it perhaps would have been in the first two series. This does kind of go with Ian’s comment in the Dwarfcast that a number of the jokes in this special are given plenty of breathing space and the chance to outstay their welcome and then become funny again – and that’s probably happened in the Dave era more than previously, such as Rimmer’s “calculations” in Lemons, the “Meeeeeeergh” in Krysis, the MILF gag in Siliconia – which is welcome if you like the gag and, I guess, makes it more painful if you do not.

    Not everything got hammed up in the special though, and I thought for example that the Space Corps directive gag was handled perfectly: Rimmer gives a number, Kryten simply states that directive without any shock or confusion, Rimmer “corrects” the directive. Bish bash bosh. It could easily have had extra flab on it, outstayed its welcome, become a to-and-fro with “are you sure, sir”, and dragged out for minutes – but instead it was just beautifully done.

  • The Holly Hop Drive being crap has meaning though, its a reflection on Holly, an 10th generation AI holographic computer with an IQ of 6000 who once would have been able to do and produce fantastic things, but after many years of going senile produces a large birdhouse which doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. It also subverts the scifi gizmo trope.

    The giant floppy says nothing about any of the characters, adds nothing real to the story, it’s just a stupid gag.

    Lee Mack could walk into a cupboard and go “bloody hell, I’ve found all my old videogames/homework/porn” or whatever on Not Going Out and come out with the same prop and it’d work the same way, which is why I don’t feel like it fits in Red Dwarf.

    I know Red Dwarf is a sitcom, but that com doesn’t fit the sit.

  • It’s part of the whole ‘the wider universe is silly’ thing which has largely been part of the Dave era. There ARE jokes like that in 1-VI, but they’re throwaway gags rather than centre-stage, whereas the giant floppy disk feels like a sketch and, narratively, is suggesting that five foot floppy disks were the format of choice for hugely intelligent AIs.

    It would maybe fit something like Futurama, in which the show’s universe is ultimately daft, but Holly, pre-accident, was played straight and, even after the computer senility, is still generally seen to be intelligent, if a bit slow.

    Doug’s clearly happy for the show to exist in a much dafter universe, and to re-write both Hollister and Holly (possibly, at least, by what we see in Skipper) as incompetent, pre-accident. I wonder where the split between people who are happy and unhappy with that change lies.

  • > Lee Mack could walk into a cupboard and go “bloody hell, I’ve found all my old videogames/homework/porn” or whatever on Not Going Out and come out with the same prop and it’d work the same way, which is why I don’t feel like it fits in Red Dwarf.

    There’s no reason Red Dwarf shouldn’t contain jokes that would also work in a more traditional sitcom. It always has done. And anyway I don’t agree that the giant floppy would work in quite the same way because, as has already been discussed in these comments and Ian goes into on the Dwarfcast, it works nicely as a meta joke about the technological inconsistencies throughout all of Red Dwarf. Granted, a lot of casual viewers won’t have appreciated it on that level, and maybe we’re giving that interpretation too much credence and it is “just a stupid gag” but *shrugs* if that’s the case then it’s a stupid gag I laughed at, so I’m fine with that too. Of course you’re right that it “says nothing about any of the characters” and I guess that’s another reason I’m fine with it, whereas I do have a problem with stuff like the retconning of Hollister’s character since VIII that International Debris is on about.

  • Can we all at least agree that the giant floppy disk is better than the “floppy titties” line in Timewave?

    Yes.

    That was genuinely unpleasant. The floppy disk is just a bit naff.

    The point I find myself trying to make often with Dave Dwarf is that there are plenty of comedy seams to mine that offer humour, character insight/moments, and plot development but there seem to be an awful lot of gags that could be transplanted into other/more traditional sitcoms, and with something as rare as Red Dwarf it’s just a shame that the run time is used for those kinds of moments, 38 hours of Dwarf by my count in 32 years.

    Nothing against Not Going Out, I’ve not really watched it, it was just an example. The “who’d make a better woman” could have come straight from Men Behaving Badly for another example.

  • The floppy disk gag is the equivalent of the (shit) Dave Spikey episodes of Bullseye, done in the 2000s, where they’re taking the piss out of the prizes and laughing at the ‘naffness’ of it all. In the original Jim Bowen series, those prizes and money were good, for the time! Just like ‘classic’ era Dwarf, that’s how things were. It wasn’t like ‘oh look at us with tape reels and CRT screens, how naff’ etc.

  • Holly is on a giant floppy disc and yet hologram installations are on cd?

    That’s what bugs me, I’m fine with the conclusion that The Ship had a back up in old storage all this time. But on a floppy disc?

  • Holly is on a giant floppy disc and yet hologram installations are on cd?

    The *entire* consciousness of a hologram is on that CD. The giant floppy disk is just the front facing UI that has access to all the information in the ships computers.

    It’s a basic code that just hold a basic AI algorithm.

    There, the problem that is really a non-problem is solved.

    I bloody love that floppy disk gag. I can’t believe the amount of negative discussion, (and discussion in general out of the entire episode) it has fostered.

  • Doug talks about exploring the idea of what happened to the crew after series 8. honestly, i could not care less about the resurrected crew. yeah it would allow them to bring back all the series 8 actors. but really that should just be explained away rather than writing a whole story around it.

  • Well cat sure seemed happy to see a female Cat in Can of worms.

    Maybe the polymorph appeared as his ideal woman.

    Or maybe the two priestesses’ fashion sense turned him off.

  • Doug talks about exploring the idea of what happened to the crew after series 8. honestly, i could not care less about the resurrected crew. yeah it would allow them to bring back all the series 8 actors. but really that should just be explained away rather than writing a whole story around it.

    Yeah, I am not interested in this at all … unless it was like 1 or 2 characters that have survived something and everyone else is dead. And the story isn’t really about what happened to them, but just involved them in some way.

  • Holograms aren’t on CDs, the discs have bearings in the middle, they either actually are or are supposed to be platters, as in from a hard disk drive, which would make them more roomy for a human personality simulation.

  • > Yeah, I am not interested in this at all … unless it was like 1 or 2 characters that have survived something and everyone else is dead. And the story isn’t really about what happened to them, but just involved them in some way.

    I remember before The Beginning broadcast they released an image of Hogey which caused a lot of people around here to speculate that it might be Mac McDonald under all that make up. This, along with the hints that the VIII cliffhanger would be addressed in the series finale, made me think that the Simulant Death Ship had hunted down and captured all of the resurrected VIII crew. A grim end, but a very tidy one which would have also added a great deal more menace to the episode.

  • I bloody love that floppy disk gag. I can’t believe the amount of negative discussion, (and discussion in general out of the entire episode) it has fostered.

    The saddest part of the special is that the parts that deserve the least attention (the floppy gag, the sex change exchange) have garnered the most comment. It is interesting how all the consternation about Rimmer’s Mighty Light costume evaporated upon broadcast though.

  • Moaning about that stuff was weeks ago. We’re far more concerned at the moment about the quite hideous things we’ve seen in the full special.

  • Or how the much slagged off Puffa jacket was crafted neatly by Doug into a minor plot point.

    That was quite clever, especially as it wasn’t necessary. They could have just pulled the parachute, but to turn it into a gag about Cat fashioning a shitty puffer jacket out of it was cool.

    I said this before. There’s plenty in this episode that had it stood on its own in a normal 30min outing, I’d be complaining about it, but in nearly every case those little niggles are made up for by having the extra time to explore them further, and something a bit urgh turns into something great. I was moaning about how the cats had been pushed to one side after they’d crashed on the moon and were being treated like companions in a Chibnall script, when all of a sudden Cat is being converted by them. That gag by far then made up for the fact they’d felt like they’d been forgotten about.

  • Doug talks about exploring the idea of what happened to the crew after series 8

    Let’s be fair to him, the interview makes it look like he was asked about that as a possible plot and he discussed the idea briefly. I’m sure he’s imagined it, but I’d be surprised if it was an idea he’s considering taking seriously, otherwise he’d have done it way earlier than now.

  • I don’t mind the big floppy. I hate the big catflap.

    I will personally hunt down any journalist who brings up loose ends from series VIII. We don’t need Doug to be encouraged to explore that shite.

  • The catflap was funny the first time, amusing the second, a little tiresome after that.

    Yeah it was a funny idea that then got driven into the ground the more we saw cats struggling to climb through it time and again.

  • I’m not sure what I made of the catflap, scratching pole, knocking things off tables, etc. jokes. Cat, particularly early on, displayed a lot of ‘cat’-like behaviours – territory, games, regular napping – but these are basically the cats taking on aspects of domestic cats that only exist because of their life with humans, which doesn’t really work as well for me. It’s less of “what if some of the aspects of a cat’s nature were personified in humanoid form” and more “let’s get them to do things cats do”. I did like the catflap gag first time, but knocking things off tables really felt like Doug was browsing YouTube to write ‘contemporary’ gags.

    I’m trying to pinpoint what it is, and it’s not even necessarily nuance (“woah, crease!” is hardly a subtle comedy moment), but more lacking imagination, maybe.

  • I did not mind the knocking things off the table joke. It was more behavior-based than prop-based. Reminds me abit of the cat playing with his food in series 1.

  • Doug talks about exploring the idea of what happened to the crew after series 8

    Let’s be fair to him, the interview makes it look like he was asked about that as a possible plot and he discussed the idea briefly. I’m sure he’s imagined it, but I’d be surprised if it was an idea he’s considering taking seriously, otherwise he’d have done it way earlier than now.

    Having listened to it, Naylor’s asked what happened to the crew and he says he couldn’t possibly answer that question – in the sense that he hasn’t given it consideration – then throws out the possibility of them establishing a civilisation before bringing it back around to his earlier comments that the cats developed from a need for an antagonist not to answer what happened to them.

    He’s also spit-balled ideas for the series ending, which Richard Naylor likes, but has no interest in executing one and talk about how a novel may serve that better.

    Seems he’s forgotten Jim and Bexley were already written out unless I’m misinterpreting.

    Plus there’s a folder of 960 or so ‘spare’ scenes at his disposal to drop into episodes.

  • I do think that the Holly Hop drive and the giant floppy disk are comparable in terms of “ridiculous prop”, and while the deliberate anachronism of the latter wouldn’t have fitted in necessarily in the earlier series, it is still a good gag and other shows such as Futurama have done similar good gags (like vinyl hologram players etc.).

    What would Red Dwarf be like if Kryten had invented the Fing-Longer?

    A man can dream. A man can dream.

  • How the hell was that lettuce supposed to help in the fight? Feel like I missed something there both times I watched it.

    Also, I love that Doug’s signature action direction technique is to just have people jabbing things at a camera.

  • How the hell was that lettuce supposed to help in the fight? Feel like I missed something there both times I watched it.

    Stabbing through the lettuce with the vegan cutlery, I believe.

  • But I didn’t understand how that was a threat to the enemy.

    I feel like I’m being really dense here.

  • But I didn’t understand how that was a threat to the enemy.

    I feel like I’m being really dense here.

    I think the idea is that because the vegan fork doesn’t stab meat, it had to go through some lettuce to stab properly? That’s how I interpreted it.

  • Yes, the gag is that because the cat people are made of meat the vegan cutlery won’t stab them. So they have to trick the cutlery by making them stab the cats through lettuce leaves.

    It is quite a convoluted and elaborate setup for such a throwaway gag. Like the sex-change scene it made me expect there was going to be some greater payoff later.

  • It is quite a convoluted and elaborate setup for such a throwaway gag. Like the sex-change scene it made me expect there was going to be some greater payoff later.

    Chekov’s fork.

  • Pretty late but I just got to watch it today and it’s almost certainly my favorite Dave-era Dwarf. Lots of genuinely interesting character stuff and good laughs. Very happy with it!

  • So you can still technically eat meat with it as long as you have some lettuce on top.

    Well, no. It didn’t work.

  • Pretty late but I just got to watch it today and it’s almost certainly my favorite Dave-era Dwarf. Lots of genuinely interesting character stuff and good laughs. Very happy with it!

    I was curious to hear your thoughts on it. Glad to hear you enjoyed it, and you had the correct opinions on it.

  • Saw TPL for the first time last weekend. Didn’t even know it existed before then. It’s been a busy, pandemicky year.

    Agree with most (as far as I can tell) on here that it was really [quite] unexpectedly brilliant overall. [i]Easily[/i] the best Red Dwarf since 1993. Pretty much everything they did with Rimmer, in particular, was perfect. The extension leads gag was fantastic.

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