DwarfCast 178 – Re-Disc-overy: Series VIII

DwarfCasts

Posted by on 9th January 2026, 11:49

DwarfCast 178 - Re-Disc-overy: Series VIII featured image
Subscribe to DwarfCasts:  RSS  •  iTunes

“Birds don’t have balls”

We may not be fast, but we get there in the end. Just shy of a year later, our voyage of Re-Disc-overy continues as we reach the mammoth collection that is the Series VIII DVD. And there is much to discuss, such as the inter-cast beef evident in the commentary track, the brilliance of the guest stars’ contributions to the documentary, a reappraisal of Chris Veale’s work on the series, the beginnings of the show’s web presence, the moment that secured this fledgling fansite’s future, and buffet car food. Oh, and there’s always time to discuss the merits of the series itself, because we haven’t done that enough over the last twenty-six years. All this, plus not one but two commentaries, on the Children In Need sketch and the collection of PBS idents. You lucky people.

DwarfCast 178 – Re-Disc-overy: Series VIII (132 MB)

Show notes

129 comments on “DwarfCast 178 – Re-Disc-overy: Series VIII”

Scroll to bottom

  • Rimmer on the cover seems to be looking apologetically at the buyer, like “yes, it’s those ones.”

  • I wish I had checked this post before committing “Terry Wogan erection on Points of View” to my search history. 

  • I loved the cast commentaries (for my sins) on the earlier series, and watched with them multiple times.

    As you’ve pointed out, the ones on VIII were such a bloated, fractious mess, I only managed them once. 

    I’ve therefore almost laughed myself sick at the Norm quotes you dished out. 

  • Also, having put the disc in to watch the Children in Need thing, I can’t remember if the painstakingly crafted, but long transitions between DVD menus had already become tedious by the VIII release. 

  •  but long transitions between DVD menus had already become tedious by the VIII release.

    I appreciate the amount of work that went into the transitions. Even more since its unlikely such a thing would happen nowadays. Everything now is thrown together as cheaply as possible.

  • I appreciate the amount of work that went into the transitions. Even more since its unlikely such a thing would happen nowadays. Everything now is thrown together as cheaply as possible.

    I didn’t want to seem unappreciative, they are works of art. It’s probably more a comment on my own impatience. 

  • If the PBS idents in Blue Midget were filmed during production of VIII, presumably they put Chris in his VII costume complete with forehead H, to make it less jarring if someone saw it just before watching an older episode, and/or hadn’t seen VIII yet? 

  • For a long, long time I only had VIII on bootleg DVD.

    It was my own form of peaceful protest.

    I was curious about the extras, but my distaste for VII and VIII by that point meant I wasn’t interested in buying them at all. I just watched some of the extras on YouTube eventually. I’ve only watched the actual episodes once or twice since that time anyway, Cassandra a bit more.

  • I’ve only watched the actual episodes once or twice since that time anyway, Cassandra a bit more.

    Petitioning G&T to host a stream for Warbo watches VIII in one sitting while you all play the Series VIII Drinking Game, whose rules we all implicitly understand.

  • I’ve only watched the actual episodes once or twice since that time anyway, Cassandra a bit more.

    Petitioning G&T to host a stream for Warbo watches VIII in one sitting while you all play the Series VIII Drinking Game, whose rules we all implicitly understand.

  • My main memory of the VIII DVD is seeing the smeg ups for the first time, as I never had the official VHS tapes, just my own taped-off-the-telly version, and finding them far funnier than the episodes. 

    Cracking Dwarfcast. Lost it at the plummy-voiced BBC announcers’ episode intros.

  • If the PBS idents in Blue Midget were filmed during production of VIII, presumably they put Chris in his VII costume complete with forehead H, to make it less jarring if someone saw it just before watching an older episode, and/or hadn’t seen VIII yet?

    I think that was definitely the case for the Children in Need sketch which aired before series aired. There’s other marketing material (I’m thinking of that poster that resurfaced recently) where it’s the same. Put Chris in his VII costume, and even Chloe in part of her Red outfit, as to not give the game away (especially Rimmer not being dead)

    Speaking of the Children in Need sketch.  “Charity begins at home. And we don’t have one. Until we do I recommend we all behave like complete bastards!”. Probably the funniest line Doug has ever written

  • I guess there was plenty to discuss on the discs themselves but one thing not mentioned on the DwarfCast is the gift set edition that came with a pull-back Skutter toy. Not as good as the Corgi Starbug the special edition of Series V was packaged with, but still a cool thing to have, and I don’t think it was ever sold separately. I’ve still got mine on a bookcase. 

  • Lovely pod, as ever. Hugely looking forward your takes on Smegazine Vol. 2. Get back on the rack!

  • How have people’s corgi figures fared, out of curiosity?

    I’ve had to replace my Starbug 3 times because a leg has broken and I can’t bare to not have a complete one because it’s so good. So I now have an unopened one in a series V boxset and a broken one on display (duff leg facing away).

  • How have people’s corgi figures fared, out of curiosity?

    I’ve had to replace my Starbug 3 times because a leg has broken and I can’t bare to not have a complete one because it’s so good. So I now have an unopened one in a series V boxset and a broken one on display (duff leg facing away).

    Yep, another 3-legged Starbug on display here (missing appendage facing away from view).

  • How have people’s corgi figures fared, out of curiosity?

    I’ve had to replace my Starbug 3 times because a leg has broken and I can’t bare to not have a complete one because it’s so good. So I now have an unopened one in a series V boxset and a broken one on display (duff leg facing away).

    Mine has 3 legs, which isn’t bad going considering its age. 

    Cracking listen, thanks team. Never made it through the cast commentaries due to sheer length, but might have to go back and listen out of grotesque curiosity.

    Maybe we can collectively agree as fans that the Children in Need Sketches and the PBS idents are Series VIII, and the following 8 episodes never happened. 

    Nice little tribute to Bill Pearson in the middle – very fond memories of him just randomly allowing me to tour his workshop at Shepperton about 15 years ago – absolute top bloke. It’s been posted before, but there’s lots of nice shots of his Red Dwarf work here, preserved for posterity: https://www.bookofthedead.ws/bill_pearson/ – along with high res photos of basically everything he ever worked on, as far back as Blakes 7. 

  • Maybe we can collectively agree as fans that the Children in Need Sketches and the PBS idents are Series VIII, and the following 8 episodes never happened.

  • Maybe we can collectively agree as fans that the Children in Need Sketches and the PBS idents are Series VIII, and the following 8 episodes never happened.

  • This Dwarfcast came at a good time, as I’d just finished up a re-listen to the 1-VII re-disc-overy Dwarfcasts over the past few weeks.

    It’s interesting to track the trajectory of these DVDs as an entire set, and see how the production values of the discs and the extras got better and better even as the quality of the episodes themselves tailed off at the end, and some of these Dwarfcasts have highlighted features which I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched before – certainly I’ve never slogged through all of the commentaries, especially for VII and VIII, but I also don’t think I’ve seen stuff like the PBS sketches included here.

    Glad to hear that more Dwarfcasts are on the way too, including covering the second volume of the Smegazine – I’m looking forward to that.

  • Maybe we can collectively agree as fans that the Children in Need Sketches and the PBS idents are Series VIII, and the following 8 episodes never happened.  

  • Great work as always lads! Can’t wait to hear your Bodysnatcher episode(s)!

    I’ve still got the copy you sent me for winning that contest. In fact, Red Dwarf DVDs are pretty much the only ones left on my shelves at this point. I don’t actually own anything you can play DVDs on anymore…

  • Another aspect that has really come across over listening to all eight of these re-disco-overy Dwarfcasts is how the DVD releases really kept the flame alive during a barren period for Red Dwarf.

    The release of Series 1 in 2002 was just a few years after VIII was broadcast, and the release of VIII in 2006 took us within three years of Back to Earth appearing afterwards. 

    Without the DVDs, that decade might have felt like a wasteland for Red Dwarf and I think you can make the argument that the sustained interest evident from these releases created the necessary sense of momentum to get more Red Dwarf made that might not have existed otherwise. 

  • I don’t actually own anything you can play DVDs on anymore…

    I know this is an irrational thought in 2026, but every time I read a sentence like this my brain instantly thinks “Then what the hell are you watching?”

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to buy more movies I love on Blu-ray and then not watch them for several years.

  • Sad to hear your reluctance to covering the Dave era on Re-Disc-overy – we as a community need to hear a G&T audio commentary for the HD TV setup guide on the Back to Earth Blu-ray!

    It was great to hear the origin story for the formation of the Capps/Symes fansite supergroup, but it did make me wonder how it was decided which site would be the one to continue.

  • It’s a good thing the Dave era didn’t exist then, because every time they get something wrong it’s about one of those episodes. They’re otherwise infullible trivia machines.

  • Mine still has all 4 legs, apparently making it something of a rarity.

    The has reminded me that I have all these items still in their boxes but the packaging is so dark it’s hard to tell how many legs the Starbug has. I think it’s still 4… Generally I am of the opinion that buying things and then not actually opening and enjoying them is a bit silly but I never opened these for some reason.

    Looking back at them now though I do think perhaps the scale of the various figures is just slightly inconsistent.

  • On the briefly-mentioned Channel 5, you couldn’t get it where I lived, but my mum could a couple of miles away. 

    We were one of the last areas scheduled to have the transmitter upgraded, until the government announced the digital switchover in 2005, which made it redundant.

    We were then the last area to get digital, so we didn’t get Channel 5 as standard until late 2012, 15 years after it launched. 

    Ironically(?), I think I’ve actually watched less of it since 2012 than I did in the first 15 years, between staying at my mums and eventually getting it through at NTL box that was restricted to a cold, spare room that got limited use. 


    The release of Series 1 in 2002 was just a few years after VIII was broadcast, and the release of VIII in 2006 took us within three years of Back to Earth appearing afterwards. 

    Bodysnatcher in 2007 also gave us Identity Within, and the Dad excerpt as some form of new material, which felt like a lovely bonus to go out on at the time.

  • Bodysnatcher in 2007 also gave us Identity Within, and the Dad excerpt as some form of new material, which felt like a lovely bonus to go out on at the time.

    No, I’m pretty sure Identity Within wasn’t the name of the new episode in The Bodysnatcher Collection. The actual name escapes me but I think it began with a B.

  • Oh, of course it is. Totally blanked on Identity being on VII, and managed to presume all those storyboard bits were on Bodysnatcher. 

  • I got the Skutter model, mostly because it was (for some reason) cheaper to get that at my local Asda than it was to get it without. No idea why. This was, I think, the week the DVD dropped, so I suspect it was a hilarious pricing error in my favor.

    I still have the Skutter – it came with me to the US, where I gave it to my dad for him to add to his collection of desk nonsense when he worked at Disney. When he died, it ended up back in my collection. It’s currently on a shelf in a cabinet alongside a ton of Doctor Who action figures.

  • Anyone else notice that in Holly’s SOS call for PBS, he forgets to mention Kryten when listing the crew?

  • How have people’s corgi figures fared, out of curiosity?

    I’ve had to replace my Starbug 3 times because a leg has broken and I can’t bare to not have a complete one because it’s so good. So I now have an unopened one in a series V boxset and a broken one on display (duff leg facing away).

    Same. Leg broke off and I glued it back on. Have that one on display and another still in the box.

  • Great podcast as always. Laughed when you gave Danny a hard time about the whole Cassandra situation. I’m on Danny’s side on this one. For many years I thought Geraldine McEwan and Zoë Wanamaker were the same person. Even as a stretched out piece of skin I immediately thought it was the same actress who played Cassandra in Red Dwarf.

  • For many years I thought Geraldine McEwan and Zoë Wanamaker were the same person.

    You’re not alone here.

  • My brother thought that Kryten referring to Kochanski as “Princess Leia” in Duct Soup was a wink to the audience about them being the same actress. We had the Star Wars Trilogy on video and he would have been at least 10 when he said that.

  • As a child I thought Kelsey Grammer and John Lithgow were the same person.

    By which I mean that I thought that the guy from Santa Claus: The Movie and Third Rock from the Sun voiced Sideshow Bob, because I hadn’t seen Cheers/Frasier at that point. 

  • For a long time I would always mix up the movies of Brad Pitt and the movies of Leonardo DiCaprio.

    Which was kind of harsh on DiCaprio, considering he’s over a decade younger and as far as I’m aware has never been accused of domestic abuse.

  • If I actually watched more of their films it wouldn’t have been as much of a problem in the first place.

    Obviously I felt no need to watch OUATIH, because Django Unchained was already the peak Tarantino movie performance by Brad Pitt.

  • Steve Martin & Leslie Nielsen for me back in the day. White haired comedy actors so clearly the same person.

    Funnily enough, I was speaking to someone about Naked Gun last month and they started talking about Steve Martin so not just young me.

  • There was a time during my single digits that Craig Charles and Gary Wilmot would get muddled in my tiny little brain. 

    Probably just me (and you).

    I’m quite clear whose wedding breakfast was superior, though.

  • I get Reg Varney’s name right but I almost always say Reg Varney when I mean Jim Varney as well. Also I can never remember Mike Yarwood’s name without first thinking “not Stanley Baxter, the other one”. 

  • Steve Martin & Leslie Nielsen for me back in the day. White haired comedy actors so clearly the same person.

    Leslie Nielson was the one with a brother who was the Member of Parliament for Yukon. There, sorted.

  • “Public Access,” like Wayne’s World, is different from “Public Television.” 

    Public Television is its own sort-of-network; it has a lot of nationally-seen shows like Sesame Street or Masterpiece Theatre, and locally-produced public-interest shows, that will often be shared to other Public TV stations.

    Public Access has largely disappeared since the internet. With Public Access, anyone from the public could sign up, take a two-hour class, and put a show on the air. They could either produce it themselves (borrowing equipment from the station) and bring in a tape, or broadcast live from the studio. 

    As an aside, I had a show on Public Access, and we did more than one episode about Red Dwarf.  Even got a very special guest star for one: https://youtu.be/kcvdVP88tmw

  • For a long time I would always mix up the movies of Brad Pitt and the movies of Leonardo DiCaprio.

    Which was kind of harsh on DiCaprio, considering he’s over a decade younger and as far as I’m aware has never been accused of domestic abuse.

    With DiCaprio, it’s more the fact that he’s like 50 and has never had a girlfriend over 30.

  • Public Access TV was a world of hopeful amateurs and maniacs, sometimes both at the same time. It’s the best shit ever.

  • Thanks for clarifying, King Zilch, and I demand your Red Dwarf episodes are uploaded in full to YouTube post haste.

  • Thanks for clarifying, King Zilch, and I demand your Red Dwarf episodes are uploaded in full to YouTube post haste.

    Does the Internet Archive work?

    https://archive.org/details/the-movie-geek-show-Season02/TheMovieGeekShow_30_Smegfest97-1.mp4

    https://archive.org/details/the-movie-geek-show-Season04/TheMovieGeekShow_76_Smegfest99.mp4

    And here’s the complete video of my Danny John-Jules encounter: https://youtu.be/ALL8GqC6GF0

    KCTS Channel 9, the PBS station that produced Swirly Thing Alert and others, was one of the first stations to show Red Dwarf in the US, starting in 1989.  This was at their merch store.  Through the 90s the Red Dwarf marathons were a regular event on channel 9, with their own Red Dwarf t-shirt for those who pledged.  Having the stars of RD was a big event – usually pledge breaks just had some station personnel who may or may not know about the show.  Even Joel McHale was higher-profile, known in the area for a locally-produced sketch comedy show called Almost Live!, that was also where Bill Nye The Science Guy made his reputation.

  • As I mentioned in the other thread, those KCTS pledge drives were my parents introduction to Red Dwarf, and off airs of same are where I watched Series I and III.

  • As I mentioned in the other thread, those KCTS pledge drives were my parents introduction to Red Dwarf, and off airs of same are where I watched Series I and III.

    Oh yeah, I had my tape of the first two seasons practically memorized. I tried to pause recording during the pledge breaks but I would go and pee and get a snack and end up missing the end of the break, so a couple of season one episodes were missing the opening.

    Did you have the famous KCTS Red Dwarf t-shirt? 

  •  Did you have the famous KCTS Red Dwarf t-shirt?

    Alas no, those tapes were a few years old by the time I was watching as a child and my parents caught them from north of the border.

  • Great podcast as always. Laughed when you gave Danny a hard time about the whole Cassandra situation. I’m on Danny’s side on this one. For many years I thought Geraldine McEwan and Zoë Wanamaker were the same person. Even as a stretched out piece of skin I immediately thought it was the same actress who played Cassandra in Red Dwarf.

    Also, a bodyless face in a frame is a similar visual to a bodyless head on a screen.  In fact, given that the Doctor Who Cassandra wasn’t any kind of seer or fortune teller, I’d hazard a guess that Russell T Davies named the character after the Red Dwarf Cassandra.

  • Doug, RTD, John Sullivan and Mike Myers all independently named their respective Cassandras after their hot water bottles. 

  • That was a popular period for pop cultural Cassandras:

    * Cassandra (Red Dwarf) – broadcast 1999

    * Cassandra Cain (Batman) – 1999

    * Cassandra Nova (X-Men) – 2001

    * Cassandra (Soul Calibur 2) – playable debut 2002

    * Cassandra (Doctor Who) – broadcast 2005

    Is it reading too much into this to wonder if the name was unusually common because prophesies of disaster, and looking to the future more generally, were on people’s minds around the turn of the millennium?

  • Great Episode as always, i too really laughed at the bbc 80’s continuity announcemer impressions!

    i could be in the minority here, but in terms of Smeg Ups, i wanted the versions from the VHS, although identical but split in half over the two ‘Byte’ VHS’s, they started with the Series VIII titles sped up to like double speed which i enjoyed, i know they would have not matched every other Smeg Ups or anything on the DvD with not having the silver logo on space background, but i enjoyed the silly sped up titles and theme tune, 

    am i in the minority? 

  • I never had the VIII VHS tapes but those two smeg up compilations were included on the Just the Smegs DVD. 

  • I never had the VIII VHS tapes but those two smeg up compilations were included on the Just the Smegs DVD.

    Completely forgot about Just The Smegs!! 

    Cheers Clem 

  • Hi, I’m catching up with these and haven’t listened to this yet so apologies if you’ve already answered this question:

    Will you be covering The Bodysnatcher Collection next?

    It’s my favourite DVD release. Bear in mind, I am prepared to stoop to the lowest levels of depravity in order to make this happen (but hopefully that won’t be necessary).

  • We’re intending to do the lot eventually, and Bodysnatcher will definitely be the next rediscovery episode, but it could be a while. Our blocker is getting a Rob Grant episode we’re all happy with over the line and then after that we do tend to enjoy the Smegazine Racks the most so they might get favourable treatment in the future.

  • I look forward to the Bodysnatcher Dwarfcast whenever it happens, but I will look forward to the others, too.

    You guys have done a great job of keeping this site alive.

  • It’s also about 7 weeks until everything’s coming up Titan. Not that you need to comprehensively cover it immediately, books hang around.

  • we do tend to enjoy the Smegazine Racks the most so they might get favourable treatment in the future.

  • This is a late reply because I listened to some of this Dwarfcast again.

    Paul Alexander actually co-wrote both parts of Pete, but he could only be credited for the second one. He was only contracted to write two episodes of the series (with Krytie TV his other credit).

    And while I’m no fan of either VII or VIII, I think he is sometimes criticized unfairly as the tone for VIII was clearly set by Doug.

  • We’re intending to do the lot eventually, and Bodysnatcher will definitely be the next rediscovery episode, but it could be a while. Our blocker is getting a Rob Grant episode we’re all happy with over the line and then after that we do tend to enjoy the Smegazine Racks the most so they might get favourable treatment in the future.

    Glad to hear it’s on the list, I’m looking forward to it. I know he’s long since left, but it’d be cool if John Hoare made a guest appearance in that one given his mammoth review and passion for the set, if he felt he wanted to of course.

    In the meantime, I have no doubt you’ll do Rob Grant extremely proud. 🥹 

  • And while I’m no fan of either VII or VIII, I think he is sometimes criticized unfairly as the tone for VIII was clearly set by Doug.

    Stoke and Epideme at least indicate that’s not all he does, yes. Unless Lister of Smeg was entirely his idea…

    I did think it unlikely he only worked on half of Pete. I assume he started when it was still just Captain’s Office.

  • He wrote the unmade episode Phwoaarr which sounds like it was Cassandra but instead of a future predicting computer it was some thing that made all the prisoners have sex with eachother. That was one that didnt work for Doug apparently. So i guess he wrote Krytie TV instead.

  • And while I’m no fan of either VII or VIII, I think he is sometimes criticized unfairly as the tone for VIII was clearly set by Doug.

    Stoke and Epideme at least indicate that’s not all he does, yes. Unless Lister of Smeg was entirely his idea…
    I did think it unlikely he only worked on half of Pete. I assume he started when it was still just Captain’s Office.

    And I think Stoke and Epideme are two of the better scripts for VII.

    He has said it was Doug and Ed’s idea to have a dinosaur because Chris Veale could make one.

    It was Paul Alexander’s idea to use the time wand. He also said he would have preferred his name to be on part one as it was superior.

    And apparently Doug really liked the performance of Andrew Alston (the “temporal storage unit” guy) and wrote an extra line for him.

  • I know he’s long since left, but it’d be cool if John Hoare made a guest appearance in that one given his mammoth review and passion for the set, if he felt he wanted to of course.

    Or if we felt we wanted him to.

  • He wrote the unmade episode Phwoaarr which sounds like it was Cassandra but instead of a future predicting computer it was some thing that made all the prisoners have sex with eachother. That was one that didnt work for Doug apparently. So i guess he wrote Krytie TV instead.

    Paul Alexander said there were multiple scripts for that episode before Doug combined several of the ideas together to make Krytie TV.

    It’s interesting that he also said that he thought of Krytie TV as a bottle episode. As BITR 3 and Pete 2 were also money savers, it shows just how badly they wasted the budget on the rest.

  • I don’t know how you could call BITR3 and Pete 2 money savers, as they were 2 episodes that featured heavy CGI.

  • Pete Part Two happened in part because they could get back some of the money they’d spent on the CGI dinosaur by making another episode that used it.

    The Back in the Red reshoot material to pad it out to 90 minutes is the cheap-and-cheerful stuff. The Blue Midget Dance was already there in the originally planned version.

  • I don’t know how you could call BITR3 and Pete 2 money savers, as they were 2 episodes that featured heavy CGI.

    I think it’s fairly well documented that they were “money savers”, but people might want to use other expressions.

    It’s true that they both had CGI in, but had plenty of cheap bunkroom scenes, too.

  • With regard to the Blue Midget Dance sequence, Editor Mark Wybourn make a tongue in cheek comment that many fans will probably agree with:

    “I do still think we should have kept the thing I did for the studio audience, which was a caption which said ‘Cat does fantastic dance routine with Blue Midget’ and that was it…”

    :)

  • They had to save money to make up for how much they blew on Cassandra. For some reason Doug insisted that Geraldine McEwan had to have her head safely severed for real in order to play the part authentically.

  • Pete Part Two happened in part because they could get back some of the money they’d spent on the CGI dinosaur by making another episode that used it. 

    Doesn’t CGI cost for every second it’s on screen, though? If I remember right, it was 30 seconds of Dino CGI for £2000 in 1999. 

    Pete: Part 2 looks like the most expensive money saver episode.

  • Pete Part Two happened in part because they could get back some of the money they’d spent on the CGI dinosaur by making another episode that used it. 

    Doesn’t CGI cost for every second it’s on screen, though? If I remember right, it was 30 seconds of Dino CGI for £2000 in 1999. 
    Pete: Part 2 looks like the most expensive money saver episode.

    Well, they pushed some of the stuff that should have been in Part 1 back to Part 2.

    Some of the stuff original shot for Cassandra (eg. Ackerman admitting the characters to the prison) was slotted into Part 1.

  • If I remember right, it was 30 seconds of Dino CGI for £2000 in 1999. 
    Pete: Part 2 looks like the most expensive money saver episode.

    Also, there isn’t even that much dino CG anyway. Some of it’s models and most of the episode is them hiding from it or being in a different part of the ship where Hollister describes what happened and says the same things over and over.

  • It’s interesting to me that the recording dates according to the official site were:

    Back in the Red 1 & 2: 28/09/1998

    Cassandra: 05/10/1998

    Pete Part 1: 12/10/1998

    Only the Good: 09/11/1998

    Krytie TV: 16/11/1998

    Pete Part 2: 23/11/1998

    Back in the Red 3: 30/11/1998

    Are there any archived comments online from people who attended? It must have been weird to attend the last couple of episodes when I guess they were filming some random scenes to slot in here and there. 

    And if the Blue Midget dance wasn’t completed by this point as the editor seemed to indicate, was it ever shown to an audience to get laughs?

  • The Back in the Red Part Three shoot had recaps of material from the first session so the audience got the whole story. The Blue Midget dance had been completed by that point, presumably if they hadn’t had to turn BITR from 1×60 into 3×30 they would have shown it at another recording.

    AFAIK there’s no account of what happened at the audience session for Pete Part Two, but presumably it was similar.

  • It’s interesting to me that the recording dates according to the official site were:

    Back in the Red 1 & 2: 28/09/1998
    Cassandra: 05/10/1998
    Pete Part 1: 12/10/1998
    Only the Good: 09/11/1998
    Krytie TV: 16/11/1998
    Pete Part 2: 23/11/1998
    Back in the Red 3: 30/11/1998
    Are there any archived comments online from people who attended? It must have been weird to attend the last couple of episodes when I guess they were filming some random scenes to slot in here and there. 
    And if the Blue Midget dance wasn’t completed by this point as the editor seemed to indicate, was it ever shown to an audience to get laughs?

    The gap in recording dates I think is where Dimension Jump 98 slotted in.

  • And if the Blue Midget dance wasn’t completed by this point as the editor seemed to indicate, was it ever shown to an audience to get laughs?

    That’s assuming anyone laughed.

  • “People laughed when I said I wanted to put a CG Blue Midget dance in an episode of Red Dwarf. They’re not laughing now.”

    — Doug Monkhouse

  • I was looking back over the Red Dwarf VIII script book (a great book for not a great series) and I’d forgotten that Doug said Geraldine McEwan was one of his favorite ever guest stars alongside Timothy Spall and Jake Wood as Kill Crazy.

    The first two I can’t argue with and while Kill Crazy is probably not the most popular of characters, I think Jake Wood was fine within the context of VIII.

    I guess that means Kill Crazy would have been a part of the variations of the movie scripts that Doug wrote?

     

  • I think kill crazy worked best in Cassandra. After that, there really wasn’t much to the character.

  • As far as I’m concerned Kill Crazy only needed to exist up to the point that he knocked himself out. I’m a simple woman and I like when people get hit on the head or trousers fall down.

  • I was looking back over the Red Dwarf VIII script book (a great book for not a great series) and I’d forgotten that Doug said Geraldine McEwan was one of his favorite ever guest stars alongside Timothy Spall and Jake Wood as Kill Crazy.

    The first two I can’t argue with and while Kill Crazy is probably not the most popular of characters, I think Jake Wood was fine within the context of VIII.
    I guess that means Kill Crazy would have been a part of the variations of the movie scripts that Doug wrote?

    If he says favourite guest stars, rather than characters, but he just really got on well with Jake

Scroll to top  •  Scroll to 'Recent Comments'

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.