Just a quick one to bring you a bit of news that for the majority of the last two decades we’d leave to TOS and/or @RedDwarfHQ to cover, but now that Red Dwarf‘s sole official news outlet is apparently Doug’s Twitter feed, here’s something he’s unlikely to report on. The British Film Institute are having a season on time travel, and they’ve got the old Quarantine Commentaries team of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye back together for a screening of Backwards followed by a Q&A. Robert Llewellyn is joining the gang too, and it’s a double bill with an episode of Timewasters. The event takes place on Sunday 5th November (so remember remember that date), and tickets go on sale in… ooh, just under an hour and a half.

DwarfCast 165 - Father of Dwarf: Son of Cliché at 40 featured image
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"Doctor Fitzwilliam: Village Rectologist"

At 6:30pm on Tuesday 23rd August 1983, unsuspecting Radio 4 listeners were ambushed by the very first episode of a seminal new sketch show. Featuring a hugely talented cast, performing the work of two writers who were on the fast track to greatness, it was notable not only for its inherent quality, but for what it would eventually spawn. The programme was, of course, Son of Cliché, without which this podcast would not exist. So in a break from the usual format, we present our fortieth anniversary tribute in the form of a documentary, showcasing some highlights from the series, analysing what made it so great, and of course focusing on the moments that had the biggest influence on Red Dwarf. Think it was just Dave Hollins: Space Cadet that Rob and Doug drew upon? Think again.

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Hot on the tails of Red Dwarf returning to its mother channel’s bosom via iPlayer, today’s weekly release of the television schedules sees the news that The End is to be repeated on BBC Two at 10pm on Friday 25th August. It’s not yet clear whether this is a one-off, or the start of a full repeat run of at least the first series – BBC Two has been giving classic comedies both of these treatments recently. We’ll find out this time next week whether Future Echoes will follow. Either way, it’s nice to see the show getting this treatment in its 35th anniversary year. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we get a full 1994-style run though, including the Dave era?

Thanks to cwickham for drawing our attention to this. He’s going to have to update his BBC broadcast guide now.

DwarfCast 164 - The Smegazine Rack - Issue #9 featured image
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"The Manly Adventures of Buff Squidward"

Rejoice, for our journey through the Smegazine archives continues with quite possibly the best issue yet. The first ever Duane Dibbley comeback! Tonnes of dirt on Red Dwarf USA! Loads of exciting news, some of which actually ended up happening! Some tedious prose pieces to keep us all grounded! Plus, we think we've uncovered the first published work of an acclaimed comics writer and Red Dwarf fan. All this and more, in far too much detail even by our standards.

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As discussed in our recent Channel Hopping article, there was a brief period in early 1997 when Craig Charles had three different programmes on air, across three different channels, every Friday night. I'd assume we're all familiar with BBC2's Red Dwarf VII, while Channel 4's Captain Butler is still inexplicably available in full on demand. But what of the other, much more obscure offering, late night ITV's Funky Bunker? Usually starting so late at night it would conclude in the early hours of the following morning, it was a chat show/variety show hybrid in the short-lived genre of post-pub television, ie disposal entertainment, designed to be consumed exclusively whilst drunkenly picking through a kebab, to fill the silence and distract from the growing sense of existential dread.

But was it any good? Well, here's a random full episode on YouTube (no way of knowing the date, for some reason I can't find any comprehensive episode guides online), so let's see what the show's got to offer. Brace yourself.

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Thumbnail Wars featured image

Here at Ganymede & Titan, we're never afraid to tackle the big issues surrounding Red Dwarf. Over the last twenty years we've dealt with accusations of racism, homophobia and sexism within the show, gone through the trauma of seeing our beloved co-creators waging war through the courts, and hosted endless debates about which of Series VII and VIII was the shittest. This week, almost the entirety of Red Dwarf was published on BBC iPlayer, including all but three episodes of the Dave era. It's all still available on UKTV Play of course, meaning Mummy Beeb and Daddy Dave have joint custody of all their kids and step-kids. And so there's now a new question to settle. A question that will tax our collective IQs to their very limits. Which platform has the best thumbnails?

Let's go through series by series, awarding points to each streaming service based on which image we prefer for each episode. The iPlayer thumbnails are on the left and can be distinguished by the black background, while UKTV Play is on the right against blue. (If you're on mobile, you'll probably want to tap to expand.) While we're here, we might as well also cover any oddities or discrepancies in the metadata. Honestly, this is going to be pretty niche. Strap in.

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Yesterday, Doug Naylor updated his Twitter to say that an announcement was coming, and sure enough, at one minute past midnight, the BBC published a press release to say that all twelve series of Red Dwarf, plus The Promised Land, are coming to BBC iPlayer. This is great news for the show, with the exposure that comes from having your boxset front and centre on one of the UK's biggest streaming platforms, free to access and free from ads. And it's really significant that the Dave era is included too; it's not entirely unprecedented, and not surprising given the links between UKTV and the BBC, but it's a rare treat to see shows that originated on other channels appearing on iPlayer.

However, now that the episodes have turned up, there's a problem.

Updated with a quote from the BBC below

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The new Beta version of Adobe Photoshop has an interesting feature called Generative Fill. You highlight a section of a canvas, and it uses AI to figure out what should be there, based on the rest of the image. Immediately, people started using it to extend famous artworks, album covers and the like. My immediate thought - what happens when you put Red Dwarf images through it?

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Channel Hopping featured image

It cannot have escaped anyone's attention that Red Dwarf turned 35 years old this year. It's easy to underestimate just how long ago that was in terms of television as a medium. The BBC Television Service was launched on 2nd November 1936. That was only 86 and a half years ago - the lifespan of Red Dwarf to date covers around 40% of the entire history of scheduled broadcasting. And so it goes without saying that British telly in 1988 looked very different to the landscape of today, but just how different? What else was on BBC Two when each series of Red Dwarf first aired, and what was the competition on the other channels?

Using a combination of the amazing BBC Programme Index and newspaper archives, we're going to answer those exact questions for the first episode of each BBC series in detail, along with an overview of how the rest of the run panned out. For some readers, this will be a nostalgic reminder of the television of their childhood, adolescence or young adulthood. For those that are too young or too foreign to have lived through it, it's a window into a bygone age. Either way, the power of hindsight allows us to spot the subtle clues that television was changing before our eyes, as we piece together the transition from one era to another, through a Dwarfy prism.

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