Mini Newsround – 01/10/24 News Posted by Ian Symes on 1st October 2024, 15:06 Ah, it’s October. The month where the new Red Dwarf special(s) go into production. After all, it was reported extensively online back in May, and none of the publications that giddily jumped on the bandwagon have since issued any updates or corrections, so we assume it’s all going ahead. We should be getting the official announcement any moment. Here it comes. Any moment. Aaaaaany moment. Any moment… NOW. It hasn’t worked. It’s almost as if you should take what the cast say about any new projects with a pinch of salt, as even if the details are correct to the best of their knowledge at the time, plans change, and nothing is official until it’s announced by the appropriate channels. This is a lesson that desperately needs to be learned by the entire population of comments sections everywhere else that Red Dwarf is discussed online. Nevertheless, the latest unconfirmed whisper is in, and this time it comes from Chris Barrie, via ITV Anglia: We hope next year to, in 2025, to shoot a special. That’s the plan I’ve heard. The others might throw more light on it, I don’t know, but yeah, that’s the plan. I think all four of us are up for it, yeah. “The five of us!”, wails Norman Lovett, probably. Furthermore, according to Stephen Abootman in our comments, Doug denied the rumours whilst doing a massive winking face at a different convention over the weekend. The complete radio silence after Robert abruptly stopped doing live streams was of course understandable, but it is reassuring that plans do definitely appear to still be afoot, even if they have slipped back by at least a few months. One thing, though – if they don’t already have studio dates booked, the production might have to look for a new home. Deadline reports that Pinewood are closing down their TV studios in 2025, in a further blow for an industry that’s simultaneously struggling to find facilities for high end drama and comedy, whilst its broadcasters are steadfastly refusing to commission any. Pinewood has hosted Red Dwarf since Series XI, and served both production and audiences well, with it being marginally easier to get to than the show’s former home, Shepperton. And finally, even if we have to wait a little longer for new Red Dwarf to hit our screens, there will at least be some old Red Dwarf on the telly this year. Following 2023’s repeats of Series 1 and 2 on Friday nights, the run continues a little under a year after it paused. Backwards is being repeated on BBC Two at 10pm on Thursday 3rd October, with Marooned set for an airing at the same time the following week. I think there’s a pattern emerging. There is much excitement to be had here, and so many mysteries to be solved. Will this just be Series III, or will they double it up with Series IV like they did last year? Or will this be a complete run through, which possibly might include the Dave era too? And will they accidentally air the Re-Mastered version of Marooned like their pals over at UKTV keep doing? It’s going to be a lot of fun finding out.
The Dave era disappearing from iPlayer perhaps indicates it’s unlikely the BBC Two broadcasts will get to it, although I’d have fun working out how to include them on the BBC Broadcasts Guide if they did.
Since I got a mention, I’d better provide the link for Doug’s interview. Fans of less than clear audio should get a kick out of it (3:08:20 in case the direct link doesn’t work) https://youtu.be/-CEtoYBWdHo?t=11299
“Are we doing a special? Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Ask Robert.” Pretty accurate, to be fair
Host: “Red Dwarf is still continuing. This is a fantastic thing, and…” Doug: “Those are the rumours, yes! I understand these rumours, and obviously I would deny them, seriously, if they were true. I would have to do that, I’d say nothing.” Host: “I tried, I tried.” Doug: “You can work that out, I’m sure.” Host: “Yeah, I’m sure. Being online, I mean, Robert Llewellyn was quite…” Doug: “Dead correct.” Host: “Have you had words with them?” Doug: “Well, you say ‘keep this a secret guys’ – ‘oh, absolutely!’ – then it’s guaranteed to be…” Host: “It’s like a whole cast of Tom Hollands, just leaking everything, isn’t it?” Doug: “Yeah.”
TV guide are listing it as HD, so are they showing the remastered versions for the blu-ray I wonder…?
Cheers for the round up fellas, fingers crossed we don’t have to face many more years without anything confirmed!
Host: “Red Dwarf is still continuing. This is a fantastic thing, and…” Doug: “Those are the rumours, yes! I understand these rumours, and obviously I would deny them, seriously, if they were true. I would have to do that, I’d say nothing.” Host: “I tried, I tried.” Doug: “You can work that out, I’m sure.” Host: “Yeah, I’m sure. Being online, I mean, Robert Llewellyn was quite…” Doug: “Dead correct.” Host: “Have you had words with them?” Doug: “Well, you say ‘keep this a secret guys’ – ‘oh, absolutely!’ – then it’s guaranteed to be…” Host: “It’s like a whole cast of Tom Hollands, just leaking everything, isn’t it?” Doug: “Yeah.” Cheers matey!
They could follow in the footsteps of scifi behemoth Jupiter Moon and move the production to Czechia, the Czechs love Red Dwarf and it’d have some nice locations, probably easier to get to than Shepperton too haha Seriously though, what a shit time to be in any way creative. Seeing mutuals just completely defeated is one of the worst things about going on twitter these days and that’s saying something.
True, we just love Red Dwarf, that’s why I flew from the Czech Republic to the UK to see the cast. And I can say that nothing’s new. Craig just said at Comic-Con Scotland that the new Red Dwarf will be a 90-minute special like The Promised Land and that filming will be next year. And also that RD shouldn’t have a final episode cuz they’re always shit.
How the hell has Dave or whatever lost the streaming rights to a series they commissioned?? Rights can change hands like that regardless of where the material originated. There was a transfer from Netflix to Disney+ recently of a bunch of Marvel series that were originally made by Netflix, for example.
How the hell has Dave or whatever lost the streaming rights to a series they commissioned?? Rights can change hands like that regardless of where the material originated. There was a transfer from Netflix to Disney+ recently of a bunch of Marvel series that were originally made by Netflix, for example. I do get that. In that case Disney will have bought the rights to get all of Marvel in house. But you’d think for something like this Dave would retain the original streaming rights to Red Dwarf. Especially as they’re not currently available anywhere else atm
How the hell has Dave or whatever lost the streaming rights to a series they commissioned?? Rights can change hands like that regardless of where the material originated. There was a transfer from Netflix to Disney+ recently of a bunch of Marvel series that were originally made by Netflix, for example. I do get that. In that case Disney will have bought the rights to get all of Marvel in house. But you’d think for something like this Dave would retain the original streaming rights to Red Dwarf. Especially as they’re not currently available anywhere else atm It’s probably down to the migration of contracts when they rebranded and changed to U.
The broadcaster will have had exclusive rights to do what they liked with it for a fixed amount of time following the initial broadcast, after which the distribution rights revert to the production company. No broadcaster ever has the rights to something that they didn’t make themselves indefinitely. I would imagine it’d just be a formality for them to get them back; in practice, UKTV make everything that they broadcast available on demand, so they must just not have repeated XI and XII for a while.
