A thought occurred last night about Series VIII and its sets

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The number of sets and different locations on board Red Dwarf that are visited / seen in series VIII really gives the ship a massive sense of scale that we haven’t really seen before or since I don’t think.

There’s a number of different cargo bays (the one starbug crashes in, the one the dinosaur is in, the one the potatoes are in, launch pads, old bunk rooms, various different offices, bathrooms, showers, captains office, Ackerman’s quarters, the Captain’s quarters, a number of different medical rooms (the one Kryten has is nuts removed, the one Rimmer gets the numbing agent from, the one Lister and Rimmer have their stomach pumped in). There’s the psychiatrist office, Lister’s holding cell and then later on the hold. The room Kryten is re-programmed in, in VR suites, the storage cupboard/room they get Dibbly costumes in. Plus all the different Tank sets, from bunks, to the communal area where Holister/Ackerman addresses inmates, the mess, the basketball court, the cinema.

Usually we see 3, maybe 4 areas of the ship in a series, showing the crew contain themselves to one small area of the vast vessel. Series VIII really opens that up for the first time and we get to see so much more of the ship, making it feel like a huge, old, working, vessel.

Topic

[Dollar Pound]

series viii would be amazing if it wasnt so terrible

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Haha yeah, it’s a shame really … if it wasn’t for that one thing it’d have been great.

[bloodteller]

all the sets are lit weirdly though so you never feel like they’re actually on a spaceship

[Warbodog]

They sold it well enough in the earlier series through minimal sets and off-screen mentions/intimations.

Rimmer’s off-screen days-long ramble through the diesel decks, the torturously long Xpress Lift journey, the cobwebbed corridors on the way to the Cat Priest and all the establishing shots/flyovers of Red Dwarf were more effective for me than VIII’s forgettable redressed sets that didn’t feel like they were part of anything.

The only thing I remember feeling this way about in VIII was seeing the train in the trailer, because it was a thing from the books.

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

another reason to be fucked off with the bbc for not wanting the show back as dave could never compete in terms of budget, scale and of course publicity

to me it looks like they blew a large chunk of xii’s budget on siliconia and it shows, shame it wasn’t a two parter – i feel the story needed it!

[bloodteller]

honestly XI and XII do a pretty decent job at showing some scale to the ship. we get to see places like the diesel decks, the garbage hold, the officer’s club, the debate room in mechocracy.

it does feel like the ship finally has some scale to it again, unlike X where it was entirely limited to 2 rooms and a corridor

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

i just want a proper fuller starbug set……..

[bloodteller]

they already did that, it had a midsection and stairs and everything in XII

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

not really

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

the cockpit is squashed and not connected to the mid section where in III to VII you had classic moments going between the two parts of starbug – obviously space is the issue which is why i’d shrink the science room…..though it’s probably not as simple as that

bloody studio audience :/

[International Debris]

If they can push XIII’s budget into making more ship sets, I’d be very happy. I do like the scale of VIII, it generally gives the feeling of a working ship, even if the lighting is a bit dodgy. Obviously the bunk room, science room and Starbug take up most of the stage, but I’m sure there’s a way they could use the space to show more of the ship, even if it’s a case of redressing things. There’s a lot of redressing done in I and II, and frankly, it works really well. To me, the ship feels biggest in those series than in the other non-VIII series.

[cwickham]

I suppose after TARDIStarbug in VII, it would have been a little odd if the mothership felt smaller when it returned.

[Me Own Stunts]

Series XII makes the ship feel more spacious than Series VIII. In Series VIII you get things like the warehouse where the dinosaur walks around, but it doesn’t feel like the inside of the ship, it feels like somewhere else entirely. There’s less coherence there. Series XII feels very coherent and it’s brilliant at subtle things like reusing corridors in a way that you don’t notice.

[bloodteller]

the “cargo bay” where the dinosaur wanders around was REALLY poor. it’s clearly just a regular warehouse, except all the boxes have A4 sheets of paper with the Red Dwarf logo stuck onto them.

compare it to Polymorph and Demons & Angels, where 10 boxes and a staircase/lift makes for a convincing storage bay on a spaceship.

[si]

The recreation of the sI/II sets in Skipper were great, but I’d like to see some of the III/IV/V sets again. The old science room with it’s TARDISesque console… That’d be lovely.

[Author]

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