What would you expect of Red Dwarf XIII?

Could it look less blue, please? I’ll let them sort the rest out themselves.

I would actually like to see Rimmer get his end away for once.

I would expect it to be broadcast on television.

• There will be exactly one Rimmer-focused episode and one Kryten-focused episode.
• The current status of Kochanski will either be the basis of an entire episode, or be mentioned 0 times.
• Snacky will make an appearance.
• The episodes will continue to go up on UKTV Play a week early, half-ruining the experience of their release.
• Either Starbug or Red Dwarf will be exploded.
• Holly will become a regular character again.

At least 3 of the episodes will be OK. 1 will be terrible. 1 will be divisive. 1 will be really good.

Snacky as Holly

I had remembered there was a good discussion over the Hattie/Norm returning as Holly thing previously :)

However, I would presume Norman far more likely, as didn’t he ask to be in XI/XII but it was too late to write him in, hence just the Skipper appearance?

I suppose Hattie might have had Series V in mind when she was asked that question, and could consider the idea more if the scripts actually gave her things to do.

At least, one can dream.

Someone should ask her again at Dimension Jump this year, and by “someone” I mean Doug Naylor.

> Ideally a bit more heart. X had a pretty good balance of character stuff and plot for the most part, but the sympathetic sides of the characters were seen far less in XI and XII.

Doug doesn’t seem to mind writing Rimmer as a proper bastard these days, worse than ever, when there’s a decent laugh to be gotten out of it. I loved him in Officer Rimmer, but also can’t help feeling it flew in the face of the way his character has changed over the years, and the revelation in The Beginning. I’m thinking of “I bet your gran would be proud” in Mechocracy as well, and of course Howard’s death in Trojan. That really was beyond the pale imo, and not funny. I wasn’t bothered by Rimmer’s reasons for coming back in Skipper, but I think there should have been more of a reason for him wanting to leave in the first place, and his goodbye “speech” was jarring.

XI and XII have their moments, though. Siliconia I think has a lot of heart, in Rimmer’s fish speech and the Lister/Kryten bits. I even think Lister is quite sweet in the Cat’s dream at the end of CoW, even though it’s undercut by the revelation that it’s a dream, and the lady cats.

No-one ever seems to consider Hattie and I’ve no idea if she even has any appetite for it.

I think at this point even if Hattie wanted too it doesn’t seem like Doug is all that interested in bringing Hattie back.

Quote from Ed Moore from twitter

“I didn’t shoot series X. I wanted to make it look like series IV/V/VI which were much darker.”

I didn’t shoot series X. I wanted to make it look like series IV/V/VI which were much darker. https://t.co/aOhFIU5XSj

— Ed Moore BSC (@edmoore) October 27, 2016

I was going to mention Krysis. It’s an odd one because Kryten’s “love” speech kind of comes out of nowhere, like he’s had this big epiphany off screen.

You’ve hit the nail on the head with the warmth thing. It’s why I’ll always have a soft spot for Back To Earth (Part Three) – the only time Red Dwarf has ever moved me to tears. (Insert joke about Timewave here.)

I was going to mention Krysis. It’s an odd one because Kryten’s “love” speech kind of comes out of nowhere, like he’s had this big epiphany off screen.

He could have easily have had a realization right there and then.

Personally i ain’t sure whether the love speech is as smart as Doug thought it was or whether he just needed some speech that sounded smart.

Perhaps its because it comes out of no where that it feels abit disconnected

Honestly, I think it boils down to taking the characters seriously and treating them sincerely. And as much as that stems from the writing, I think the performances are a big part of it too. The broadness of X-XII in terms of the way the characters are performed makes it harder to really care about them, I think.

It would be lovely to see more sincere character work, but I’m not sure it fits with the current version of the show, sadly.

I’m almost tempted to say I’d like to see more CGI than models in XIII, given how iffy the models have often been in XI/XII and how fantastic the CG has been.

I would like to see something original.

also maybe some sense of purpose again? in I-V they’re trying to get back to Earth, in VI-VII they’re trying to get back to Red Dwarf, in VIII i don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to do, in X they’re looking for Kochanski. but what are they trying to do in XI-XII? their motive isn’t really clear at any point, and it’s like “well what are they even trying to accomplish anymore”

The only time Lister mentions getting back to Earth in Series IV is in White Hole. And the only mention of Earth in Series V is in reference to sealife.

The aim of getting back to Earth got shelved in VI, and the sense of purpose went out the window in Nanarchy, when they idly gave up the search for Red Dwarf to get Lister a new arm by. (Sure, that worked out but they weren’t to know that).

Final episode: “The End Again”. Lister reaches the end of 60 and starts to confront the worrying possibility that he won’t see Earth, or if he does, he’ll be too old to truly enjoy it. He starts to weigh up the options of going into Stasis and being awoken when they finally get there…or accepting that he’ll die on Red Dwarf. Eventually, he decides to take the Stasis route, with the unhappy realisation that he may never be woken up if Earth has been described. Rimmer and Lister say an emotional farewelll to each other as they realise what tbey’ve meant to each other, and how they’ve kept each going, even where they weren’t actually going anywhere.. Episode ends on Lister frozen in Stasis booth, waving goodbye with, a tear paused as it rolls down his cheek.

Radio Times describes it as a “laugh riot”.

>You say “in I-V they’re trying to get back to Earth”, but are they? Past Series 2 I’m not sure they do any work to achieve this goal, and even in Series 1 and 2 it’s maybe only half the episodes that make any kind of focus out of it.
In Series III-V, getting back to Earth is barely mentioned, and their goal seems to pretty much be just to carry on with their lives.

oh sure, but throughout I-V it always feels like they’re on some sort of continuous journey, at least for me. through I-III they only encounter one derelict, and so when IV-V comes around the various ships they come across feels like they’re sort of beginning to wander through the ruins of the long-dead human race and you at least get the feeling they’re heading towards something. XI-XII doesn’t give off this same feeling for some reason, i don’t know why.

Doug takes to the stage later this year at DJ ‘Today I’m not going to announce two new series of Red Dwarf….I’m going to announce we’ve been cancelled….’ – mic drop, exit stage left.

i’d quite like to see some episodes with actual endings

A new bunk room and another tweak to the outfits for Kryten and Rimmer. Those bloody swollen hand gloves on Robert look awful, and we’ve had 3 series in a row with Rimmer in blue. Try a new colour. The show got a huge redesign every few years, I think it’s time for that now. Perhaps get rid of the medi-bay and have an all purpose drive room again. And of course, a tweak to the cockpit of Starbug and an open door into a mid-section which gets used and isn’t a corridor redressed with boxes and green lighting.

The blue is what highlights that Rimmer is a hard light Hologram.

Admittedly the show has kinda forgotten the days when a Hologram couldn’t touch anything as most of the time every Hologram is either hard light now or the not being able to touch aspect is just forgotten about all together.

I like the blue costume personally.

I don’t buy the whole colour coded soft/hard light thing. Other than being a convenient visual indication that something about him had changed, I don’t see any reason why he’s tied to that colour.

He’s always worn all manner of different outfits and uniforms when the occasional demands it, you can’t tell me that he can never wear red or green again.