Red Dwarf: Just The Franks Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 30th January 2024, 11:01 What is it about that name?
RPG Free Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 13th November 2023, 09:47 As you may have gathered, we’ve currently got a bit of a bee in our bonnet about media going missing. Ever since being described by the official site as the “potty-mouth archivists” of Red Dwarf, we’ve taken the epithet to heart, to the extent that this description is now backed up in a complete rebuild of said official site. We’ve come a long way since the 50s, 60s and 70s, when master tapes of major TV shows would be reused or binned as a matter of course, and any current releases of significant media are backed up by fans almost immediately. But there does seem to be a bit of a blind spot at around the turn of the century and a few years either side, things that were released recently enough to be documented online, but before decent upload speeds and significant storage space were available to all. Which brings us on to the Red Dwarf RPG, released in February 2003 by Deep 7 – then a fledgling and relatively new indie, now going strong for nearly twenty-five years, with games such as Arrowflight, Santa’s Soldiers and Grimmworld released to much acclaim. It was only ever officially released in the US, although it was easily accessible for purchase at conventions and online within the UK, and it spawned a couple of further additions, the A.I. Screen accessory (complete with the Extra Bits expansion pack), and the Series Sourcebook, which ambitiously converted each episode to a playable format. All of which is long since out of print, and incredibly difficult to get hold of. Well, you can currently buy a copy of the main RPG book, if you’re willing to part with £1,774.05 for it. Furthermore, digital copies are very hard to find too, particularly in the case of the expansion packs. The licensing rights to produce such a Red Dwarf game have long since expired, which makes official reprints or digital releases extremely unlikely. So unless someone happens to, I don’t know, upload high-res PDFs of absolutely every piece of material that Deep 7 produced for Red Dwarf, it’s likely to be lost forever. Oh, look at this! G&T regular Ben Paddon (they of Jump Leads fame), has sent us a link to archive.org, where someone has uploaded high-res PDFs of absolutely every piece of material that Deep 7 produced for Red Dwarf. What a coincidence! A huge thank you to all involved.
Red Dwarf: Just The Episode Titles Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 11th September 2023, 09:35 Most people would have written this video off as a bad idea as soon as they remembered what the seventh episode is called. Not us.
G&TV: Funky Bunker Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 12th July 2023, 09:11 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. Read more →
AI Art College Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 7th June 2023, 09:35 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? Read more →
Coral Canvass Closed! Anniversary Adventures Announced! Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 1st February 2023, 00:01 My dearest friends, I hereby declare that voting for the Coral Canvass, our mega 35th anniversary poll, is now OVER. A huge thank you to everyone who took part and indeed helped us spread the word. Submission numbers were way beyond our expectations - more than double the amount of responses we got for the Pearl Poll five years ago. And let me tell you, the results are very interesting indeed. You think certain episodes' positions are set in stone? Think again. All will be revealed at 9am on Wednesday 15th February, right here on ganymede.tv. But that's not all! For the previous two milestone anniversaries, we've accompanied the results with a little anniversary party in the form of a Live DwarfCast. This year is no exception, other than the small detail that it will be a Live Video DwarfCast instead! That's right, not only will you have to put up with irritating voices, you also have to see our repugnant faces too. So make a note in your diary to be online at 9pm on Wednesday 15th February over on our Youtube channel (though the video will be embedded here too). We'll be discussing the poll results in full, as well as dealing with your live waffles and also playing a little game... Read more →
G&TV: Chute! (13/12/07) Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 18th January 2023, 09:37 We must admit, all our efforts are currently focused on preparing for our epic 35th anniversary spectacular, details of which will be revealed when the Coral Canvass closes on 1st February. (Have you voted yet? Go and vote!) So it's time to dust off an old favourite strand in order to ensure there's at least one update in January. What do you mean it's been nearly a year since the last G&TV? Can't be, it says here it's a regular look at Red Dwarf related archival treats. Ahem. Anyway, this "month's" curiosity is a programme that I've only recently become aware of, but would no doubt have been one of my all time favourites had it aired ten or fifteen years earlier. Running for just thirteen episodes in 2007, Chute! was a CBBC show set in a rubbish tip at Television Centre, in which presenter Ross Lee is trapped with only thousands of discarded video tapes for company. Although despite Ross being apparently unable to escape, he's frequently joined by other characters and personalities from the CBBC stable, including on one occasion Lenny Bicknall from MI High, as played by one Daniel Jonathan-Julians. Read more →
Introducing the G&T Coral Canvass Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 19th December 2022, 09:04 It will hardly have escaped anyone’s attention that 2023 is Red Dwarf‘s 35th anniversary year. And as tradition dictates, every five years we gather as many fans as possible, from every corner of the internet, to construct the ultimate ranking of each and every episode, and determine once and for all that the winner is Back To Reality again. 2013 was the Silver Survey. 2018 was the Pearl Poll. And now, 2023 is the year of the Coral Canvass. But hold your horses, G&T regulars, because we're doing things a little differently this time... Read more →
Reintroducing Smegle! Quickies Posted by Jonathan Capps on 17th April 2022, 11:33 Well, since we’re all in the mood for rebirths, Smegle’s having a little bit of relaunch today. The original version was all well and good but it was guilty of being a tad on the easy side, and so we’ve had our finest minds working hard to firstly work out how to make guessing harder and secondly steal all the mechanics from Wordle so its daily mode will work. We’ve also changed where’s it’s hosted. Please, contain your excitement… Get your New Smegle here! It should all be self explanatory. The original version is preserved as ‘Casual Continuous’ mode, but be sure to complete your ‘Difficult Daily’ every day to maintain your streak and share it to Twitter so everyone can not give a fuck about your achievements. Have fun!
OFFICIAL: Big Finish to produce Red Dwarf audio adventures Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 1st April 2022, 07:29 Rob Grant's buttski has finally borne fruit. It was announced this morning via a long-awaited TOS update and a tweet from Big Finish themselves that a deal has been struck for the company famed for their audio revivals of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Blake's 7, The Avengers and more to add Red Dwarf to their stable. They will produce three full-cast audio dramas per month on both CD and download, featuring dynamic sound design, original music and specially commissioned artwork. Due to the ongoing legal situation currently engulfing the show, the rights to produce original new material featuring the characters of Rimmer, Lister, Cat and Kryten are not available to Big Finish, so instead they'll be focussing on stories from Red Dwarf's expanded universe, building new worlds and concepts based on those in the background of the show itself. Read more →
