DwarfCast 155 – Red Dwarf USA Pilots – Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 5th October 2022, 15:01 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes In my own personal and humble opinion, Red Dwarf fans are very lucky to have something like the US pilots. The mystery and excitement of them during the 90s and the black market in increasingly terrible copies are a defining part of many of our fandoms. Despite the fact we’ve still been unable to source a decent quality copy of either pilots, the time has come for Ian, Danny and Cappsy to commentate on these pilots 30 years after they were ill-conceived. DwarfCast 155 – Red Dwarf USA Pilots – Commentary (120MB) If you want to watch along (which I recommend) then links to the pilots can be found in the show notes below. After our summer hiatus we should be getting back into a more regular cadence now, but I am unable to tell you what our next episode will be as it’s either another Smegazine Rack or something else entirely. Stay tuned. Show notes Pilot #1. Pilot #2. With thanks to the G&T Malcolm in the Middle correspondent Stephen Hegarty for his… contribution. Craig Bierko’s 30th anniversary message for Dimension Jump XX. Red Dwarf USA clips featured in ABC’s The Best TV Shows That Never Were. The early edit. A full and mostly clean version of the RD USA theme tune. Todd Rundgren’s Wikipedia entry. Rob Grant’s buttski to return to America?
Just to be arsey – in the second pilot, the Camille clip that was excised was before ‘Shutdown’. The clip that was cut before the Cat’s introduction was from Terrorform. Just saying. Christ, I’m a pedantic twat, aren’t I?
American sci-fi comedy. Mork and Mindy and Third Rock from the Sun. Theme-wise, the first X Files episode is the pilot and had a bland, unmemorable theme, unlike the iconic one that appeared later. I love the idea that American comedy can’t work because of the lack of a class system, when one of the 90s US sitcoms that did the best over here was Fresh Prince. If they do an American one now, once again I think a single camera, slightly dramatic comedy based on the novels would be the way to go. They could even use a British cast. The US cast really should have appeared in Skipper. The Stalybridge listed buildings made my day, thank you.
I already alluded to this in the memes thread, but if they ever did mount a new US Dwarf then I think Kyle Soller, the actor who is playing Syril Karn in the new Star Wars Andor TV show, would be a great shout as he’s playing a very Rimmerish character in that series and doing it very well.
Terrific stuff as always. And it was a cool surprise to learn about the hidden in plain sight Cappsy/Red Dwarf USA lore. I actually hadn’t properly watched the US pilots until you revealed that there would be an upcoming DwarfCast commentary for them, so I did my first viewing in preparation for this… some months ago. And I was shocked to discover that the first US pilot is actually pretty good??? Not amazing or anything, but solidly entertaining. Craig Bierko and Hinton Battle are great in their roles, and I even found Rimmer and Holly to be decent, albeit in a “accept that they’re different” kind of way. Jokes were a mixed bag, and hearing so many lines taken wholesale from The End actively took me out of it a bit, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be ironed out in a broadcast version or subsequent episodes. Though rewatching today I was reminded about how unconvincing that time travel bit at the end was. Like clearly none of the future crew are actually acting with any urgency whatsoever, with them having this full 8 person conversation where everyone gets at least 2 lines. “Please, sir, we’re running out of time. You must tell him.” Well then you say it, Kryten, if you’re so against wasting time. Prick.
HA, you forgot to edit in your Waffle Men sting. Idiots. Haha, so the experiment of me helping with the editing went well. We’ll keep this version up because we’re LAZY.
Well, I finally listened to it and I greatly enjoyed this latest LeapCast. (By the way, the “evil leaper” in Quantum Leap was a woman; and in the Lee Harvey Oswald episode, it turned out that Sam was there to save Jackie, which he did by at the last moment leaping out of Oswald and into a bodyguard near the president’s car. Yes I watched too much Quantum Leap as a kid.)
“I already alluded to this in the memes thread, but if they ever did mount a new US Dwarf then I think Kyle Soller, the actor who is playing Syril Karn in the new Star Wars Andor TV show, would be a great shout as he’s playing a very Rimmerish character in that series and doing it very well.” That was my first thought when I saw him on screen. Then it was followed up with the response to superior officer asking him if he’d modified his uniform which had me reaching for the “Lines from something else that sound like they’re from Red Dwarf” thread like Patrick Stewart getting the phone to call his lawyer.
Enjoyable as always. I would say that Jane Leeves certainly was a very fine comedy actress during Frasier’s peak (she may well still be), and it was quite cool of her to regularly speak positively of the Dwarf pilot in interviews even at the absolute peak of her fame.
Rob and Doug must have been fond of that Harry Johnson/Jan Vogels gag. It’s in one of the storyboarded script extracts on the Bodysnatcher Collection as well. In that version it’s the Infinity Patrol asking Rimmer if he knows Bill from the 22nd Century, but he’s still a short guy with red hair as per the Dave Hollins sketch and RDUSA (early edit only). I like the pilots and think it deserved a chance, but the guys are probably right about it spelling the end of the UK show if it had taken off, so hey, y’know, whatever. Cosby Meldrew. Amazing.
