The Last Twenty Three Days News Posted by Ian Symes on 14th July 2020, 12:01 A brief but happy news story for you – we now have a TX date for Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, the three-part documentary series produced by North One for UKTV. Having heard the first rumblings of the publicity juggernaut a few weeks back, Dave has tweeted this morning to confirm that it will air on Thursday 6th August. That’s presumably just the first episode, like – no word yet on whether it will be weekly, daily or some other schedule, or indeed whether all or any of it will be available on UKTV Play in advance of broadcast. We’ll figure out the plans for our coverage of this coverage of the show when we have those details. Also tucked away in that tweet is a new, much much improved title card for the series. When we joked in our previous article that they had time for another crack at the logo, we didn’t expect they actually would, so fair play. This is very much based on the look for The Promised Land, with its weather-beaten aesthetic and same sub-heading font, and it makes sense for Red Dwarf to have a consistent branding style. The powers that be clearly agree, given that both Dave and UKTV Play liked our tweet of the above meme… UPDATE (17/07/20): Today’s TOS update answers pretty much everything that was as yet unanswered about these docs. The three episodes will air weekly on subsequent Thursdays from the 6th-20th August, and will appear on UKTV Play after broadcast. For the avoidance of doubt, all the interviews are brand new, and we’re promised “newly dug-up archive material”, which is implied to go beyond what’s featured on the DVDs. Exciting! We also have titles for all three episodes: The Boys from the Dwarf, In Studio Space No-One Can Hear You Scream and Playing Pool With Planets. Weird to dedicate a third of the series to one brief scene from White Hole, but hey.
That is sooo much better. Presumably the original was a place holder, so why they was used to rush out marketing earlier is a bit of a mystery.
Nice. It’s good to know that peaceful protests can result in important and much-needed social change like this.
Do we know for sure this is all brand new interview material, and not the previous DVD docs all mushed together into one glorious whole? I don’t even mind hearing the same stories again, cause there’s always a bit of a different spin on them. I also hope there’s at least SOME new footage for us to feast our eyes upon, e.g. unearthed rushes. Any kind of celebration of Dwarfdom is, indeed, worth celebrating.
Do we know for sure this is all brand new interview material, and not the previous DVD docs all mushed together into one glorious whole? Yeah, they filmed loads before lockdown, and then Doug filmed himself from home.
Wee bit of extra info within this piece on the Beyond A Joke (no connection, to the best of my knowledge) website. Episode one, The Boys From The Dwarf, will be broadcast on Dave on Thursday 6th August, 9pm. https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/9072/red-dwarf-documentary
Do we know for sure this is all brand new interview material, and not the previous DVD docs all mushed together into one glorious whole? Yeah, they filmed loads before lockdown, and then Doug filmed himself from home. Fantastic! I’m wondering if, Doctor Who aside (duh), Dwarf holds the record for the most extensive behind-the-scenes material of any TV show ever produced?
Another minor note, an article on Chortle said that “Many of the interviews took place on the set of The Promised Land”.
For the avoidance of doubt, all the interviews are brand new Has this detail come from somewhere else? I couldn’t see it in the linked article.
Not in so many words, but “fresh eyes”, “all the major cast members interviewed” (among others), and “fresh insight and analysis” all imply it to me. We know from Doug’s tweets that he’s done a new interview, and from Chortle that they shot interviews on the set of The Promised Land, and I know of fans who were interviewed too, who were told who some of the other interviewees were. I’m not ruling out that there might be some archive stuff in there too, but there seems to be an irrational fear that this has all just been cobbled together from old material, and there’s no suggestion of that whatsoever.
Hmm I wonder how we’d be able to get hold of this outside of broadcast/OD? We’re getting to that stage where a physical release of things are becoming more and more unlikely.
Hmm I wonder how we’d be able to get hold of this outside of broadcast/OD? We’re getting to that stage where a physical release of things are becoming more and more unlikely. It is a shame that they didn’t wait and bundle this with the Promised Land BR. I don’t think it’s completely out of the question to suggest that there could be a physical home release. Let’s face it, we’re the kind of fandom that’d certainly buy it, so they’d definitrly make some money from it.
I hope people are ready with their video recorders, just in case. You can sell copies in the back alley outside the next Dimension Jump.
Given that I saw an advert for all the Star Trek Short Trek’s recently, which you’d have assumed would have been bundled with their respective series DVD, I’d assume there’s plans (from Doug/GNP at least) to release this 3hours of material as DVD at some point. It does seem completely weird that it wasn’t included (or completed in time for airing) with The Promised Land, but perhaps they’re seeing this as a way of making a bit of extra cash. They know there’s a few thousand people that’ll pay for a second DVD of new material covering stuff they’ve already largely heard about as extra material on previous DVDs the comes out of the budget of production made on the budget of one series (TPL + Docs = 1 series budget). That’s a little cynical I know but that’s largely all the bean counters care about is the dosh.
