Almost XIII news

[International Debris]

Doug just tweeted this:

Scientists have spotted repeating radio signals 1.5 billion light years into deep space directed at Earth. According to SETEE the signal is in an algorithmic rhythmic communication system which appears to translate as: ’13 – when? 13 -when? Don’t make us invade.’ #RedDwarf.

Scientists have spotted repeating radio signals 1.5 billion light years into deep space directed at Earth. According to SETEE the signal is in an algorithmic rhythmic communication system which appears to translate as: ‘13 – when? 13 -when? Don’t make us invade.’ #RedDwarf.

— Doug Naylor (@DougRDNaylor) January 9, 2019

Topic

[(deleted)]

Ah, this will be why every factual CBeebies show lately seems to be made in the house style of Discovery Kids.

[GlenTokyo]

Dave generally seems to be moving away from “scripted” comedy, and going for things scripted to appear that they don’t have a script. Taskmaster was a massive success and now it seems like everyone that’s ever been on Taskmaster has been given a show on Dave. Hypothetical (?) being the latest with Josh Widdicombe (ugh) and James Acaster. Probably costs about 20 quid outside of talent and has a broad appeal with the ‘Would I Lie To You, ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘Taskmaster’ crowd, compared to Red Dwarf which employs people like The Model Unit and Millennium Effects and doesn’t have the mass market appeal, though it is very popular.

Financially it’s no surprise it’s yet to return. I’d love it to go somewhere else to be honest, Dave’s great and all but I feel like it forces Dwarf to be something slightly different because it’s ‘the comedy channel’. The dream would be Netflix but I can’t see it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Panel shows will always be cheap to make. And you can come up with a million and one different formats that are really just vehicles for comedians to be funny.

I would largely agree with what your saying about Dave spending its money there as its cheaper, but Red Dwarf has constantly been the highest ratings show on Dave. Taskmaster has come close, only to be surpassed by Red Dwarf again.

And for how Doug etc tells it, they’re always making Red Dwarf on a shoe string. It might be more than a panel show, but I wouldn’t mind betting it isn’t that much more. Especially when they only have to make 6 episodes a year for it, production is just a couple of months etc, and Taskmaster films and broadcasts 16 in a year, pretty much making it all year round at this point.

Red Dwarf also has the ability to generate DVD sales and such, which panel shows don’t really do. They just get repeated ad infinitum on Dave. Which is something Dave could do more with the Red Dwarf it owns if it wanted to, the way it used to with classic Dwarf back in the day which lead it to making the damn show in the first place.

[Ian Symes]

I think Taskmaster is ahead of Dwarf now, ratings-wise, isn’t it?

[RickLee84]

I said it before, but I’ll say it again, it would be interesting if Red Dwarf actually ended up back on BBC 2.

It’s not as if BBC 2 couldn’t use some decent programming…

[NoFro]

Red Dwarf back on BBC Two is hardly the most far fetched thing. The BBC have been known to dust off some old comedy shows and bring them back and Dwarf remains one of their most popular. As much as I appreciate all that Dave has done for Dwarf, new Dwarf would certainly get a viewing figures bump if it were to be shown on the BBC rather than Dave.

[GlenTokyo]

Maybe when Doctor Who gets put on hiatus/cancelled they’ll re-revive Dwarf and give Doug all the budget.

Doug will then do a series with an improved budget that looks nice and then stop making it so he can work on the movie again.

In 2030 digital channel Phil will commission a new special with all the cast being digitally de-aged.

[JamesTC]

>I think Taskmaster is ahead of Dwarf now, ratings-wise, isn’t it?

I’d seen this mentioned before and just accepted it but now I’ve had a look at the BARB.

All 7-day viewing:

Cured: 1.2m
Taskmaster S05E05: 0.635m

Siliconia: 1.179m
Taskmaster S05E06: 0.652m

Timewave: 1.189m
Taskmaster S05E07: 0.593m

Mechocracy: 0.973m
Taskmaster S05E08: 0.875m (the finale)

M-Corp: 0.901m
Skipper: 0.846m

Red Dwarf also does a little better in 28-day viewing and repeats (marginal but noticeable).

Taskmaster Series 6 and 7 have upped a little on that. A few of the episodes go above 1m in 7-day viewing:
Taskmaster S06E01: 1.238m
Taskmaster S06E10: 1.109m
Taskmaster S07E01: 1.131m

I’d say they are roughly at the same level of success now. Which is great as they are both two of the best shows on TV.

[(deleted)]

Taskmaster is easy and quick to make too. Alex Horne and Tim Key write it, they do all the task inserts in mini blocks with a skeleton crew, edit the packages, shoot the live nights very close together, cut those and they’ve got ten hours of television which can be ready for TX very soon after the recordings.

Red Dwarf is a mixture of being genuinely more complicated to make than a regular sitcom and just being a deceptively ordinary sitcom to make that’s terminally prone to having its production overcomplicated by a kamikaze, self-sabotaging showrunner with a chronic resistance to the creative assistance of outsiders bordering on absolute madness and less of an aptitude for writing last minute script pages on the fly than he thinks he has.

[Taiwan Tony]

Any figures on how much they cost to make?

[(deleted)]

Taskmaster is probably deceptively expensive as it has 7 name leads at a time, and Avalon are notorious for playing financial hardball. But then again they don’t need any of their people for anywhere near as long and they get triple the finished screentime as Dwarf gets.

[Ben Saunders]

It would be interesting if the BBC were once again interested in the type of audience Red Dwarf used to attract

[International Debris]

Even if Taskmaster is more ‘successful’ now, Red Dwarf is still the channel’s second most successful show, and one which really opened up the channel to original programming. It’s the closest to a classic / legacy show the channel has, and I’d be really, really surprised if they turned down the chance for another series.

[Ian Symes]

My bad on the Taskmaster ratings comparison, I may have just been thinking of overnights.

[RickLee84]

Red Dwarf also gave Dave it’s highest ever rating and also holds the record for the most watched TV show on a non-terrestrial UK channel ever.

[(deleted)]

10 years ago though. Not a lot in real terms but I’d be amazed if there’s a single person at Dave or UKTV now who was there when that happened. And again, that wouldn’t be relevant were it not telly, where everyone wants to come in with a new broom because they’re all paranoid. BBC Two were callously uninterested by VIII’s ratings record what, 7 years later?

[Stephen Abootman]

Chris has done a news update on his site and there’s no reference to the small rouge one whatsoever. More on this story as it develops.

[(deleted)]

The full BBC Studios takeover of UKTV has gone ahead. Though awful news for television (it’s pretty much the final push for the BBC’s now irreversible journey of going fully privatised) it’s theoretically good news for Red Dwarf as it takes one finger out of the pie. If Worldwide judge Red Dwarf to be beneficially profitable out of the box then in theory there’s not a lot in the way of them commissioning more. In reality though there’s Doug Naylor and his being afflicted with an ancient curse which turns every advantage into a problem.

[RealBigOleDummy]

Well, personally I’ve given up all hope for a series XIII. I’m across the pond and so slightly more out of
the loop than most of you, but I have heard not a single word that gave me hope for more episodes.
Reading through these comments hasn’t brightened my outlook either to be honest. What with the
BBC/Dave buyout/take over news (of which I’ve been entirely unaware) and the complete absence of
even a peep from Mr. John-Jules (only dwarfer I follow on Twitter) my original optimism is now
completely gone. Very very sad about that but….. what can you do? I still have all my DVD’s of the show and actually watched some of series 1 again this morning so the Boys from the Dwarf will always be making me laugh regardless. To me its all the more sad because I thought XI and XII were very good entries in the canon. Hell, I even think Timewave is better than most seem to think. (to me the absolute worst part of that episode involved the damn costumes! The guest star was brilliant imho)

Anyway, while you British MAY have an opportunity for some kind of “live show” involving the Dwarf and its crew, its completely out of the question for me and the rest of its American fans. So, in the last few months after lurking here to look for any good news, I have finally and completely given up even a shred of hope. Red Dwarf will never completely die, the shows we have are just too damn good for that to happen but as far as any new stuff goes……….. I’ve already paid my respects and cherish the memories.

[(deleted)]

I kind of agree, but look at the first third of 2009. Death of hope to televised Red Dwarf within the space of about ten weeks.

[Pete Part Three]

Red Dwarf XII aired less than two years ago. A sense of perspective wouldn’t go amiss.

[(deleted)]

To be fair it was filmed over three years ago, and announced four years ago, two and a half years before it aired. It *is* very much a past tense thing and all momentum is definitely gone. That’s not a defeatist attitude, it’s just factual observation. TV might have got to a point recently where popular shows may not necessary air new series annually anymore, but they’re certainly not dormant for FOUR YEARS.

It’s also worth noting that we are now as far away from the XI/XII announcement as that was from the X announcement. If we’re heading into yet another potential announcement as speculated, I feel like the tour – which pre-dates XI as a project – is more likely. And perhaps more vital as a next step than ‘they’re back, again, again, again, again!’

It certainly shouldn’t be viewed as negativity or hyperbole for someone to agree that XIII is starting to stretch credibility as a plausible going concern. Because it obviously is, particularly in light of GNP’s consistently lax attitude towards organisational competency of late. To *believe*, not hope, otherwise might be borderline masochism.

[Pete Part Three]

I’m dubious on the importance of “momentum”, especially in UK Telly, where incredibly well-received shows regularly take long gaps. British TV has *never* got to the point where new series have had to air annually. That’s a US thing, and more and more of them are taking extended breaks.

When well-loved shows return, they will find their audience. Let’s use, um, Red Dwarf as an example. It was dormant for 10 years.

It’s produced just 12 series in 31 years, so I wouldn’t be tapping my watch and tutting. I seriously doubt we’ve seen the last of it on telly.

[(deleted)]

During the 10 year hiatus, Red Dwarf was nurtured very well – in addition to the movie hype there were five years of high profile DVD releases with huge sales and high profiles. It was only really 2001 and 2008 where the brand wasn’t being aggressively pushed in some way, and they were mostly down to the movie stalling and merch fatigue, legitimate post-activity rests. When current TV shows take 9 or 18 months out, they’re still making sure all their plates are spinning. Even Fawlty Towers had high profile repeats, books and records in its gap.

Compare that to 2018, the brand-vital thirtieth anniversary year – where literally nothing happened at all. All that happened in 2017 was that XII aired and the DVD appeared in shops – it was all completed and signed off the year before. It wasn’t like 2018 was a rest year, because they’d technically already had one they could have strategically utilised. Regardless of anything that was happening behind the scenes, that’s a definite slipup in brand momentum, and one worryingly complacent about the ever-present nature of an aging fanbase. I don’t think Red Dwarf has infinite stamina, nor infinite luck, nor infinite charity from its fans, and it’s perhaps over-reliant on the continued existence of all three.

Since XII, nothing has happened. Nothing. I’m not counting the box set because its belated release was low-key to an almost homeopathic degree and even the most recent of its contents was 11 years old, and so that’s an incredibly long period of dormancy considering when XII would have been completed and picture-locked. We’re already back to the main news articles for any month being ‘Norman Lovett to headline anti-dandruff benefit gig in Colchester’ and ‘this week’s Radio Times features Red Dwarf at number 17 in its list of Top 20 Sci-Fi Sitcoms That Used To Be On BBC Two’. That’s not what happens when you’re waiting to go into pre-production on your next series. Your online shop doesn’t usually shut either.

[International Debris]

It’s hard not to feel deflated at the absurdly long gap we’re well into at the minute, but I don’t actually see anything that suggests it’s not going to happen. If Doug and the cast are up for it, there’s no way Dave are going to turn it down (as I said a couple of months ago, it’s one of their two most successful shows).
If anything, the gap is making it more likely that the next series (or two) will be the last. If this gap is to be expected, then Rob will be into his 70s if another block comes along after XIII. So we could be on for a final series next. But I’m still confident we’ll get more, whatever happens.

[Dave]

I think there’s a danger of getting a bit too worked-up over all of this. All indications have been that Doug is keen to make XIII happen and that the cast seem to be open to more, it just seems to be a case of things having to align internally to make it happen – and with all the recent upheaval at Dave it probably hasn’t been easy to get it to that stage yet.

It’s easy to sit back and complain that all the people involved in Red Dwarf aren’t doing anything to make a new series happen, but do we really think that’s true? Let’s give them some credit and assume that they are actually doing what they can, within the limitations that they’re working within, and we’ll just have to wait and see.

I can see how some fans would be disappointed by the quietness of the last year or two, but maybe we should be mindful that there’s probably more going on than we have knowledge of.

Personally, I feel less angry that there’s no confirmation of Series XIII and more grateful that we got Dave-era Red Dwarf at all. I’ve enjoyed the last few series, but as I said upthread, I won’t be desperately sad if there isn’t any more.

A lot of ageing franchises get bogged down by endless fan moaning and entitlement, let’s not let it happen to Red Dwarf.

[Dax101]

Doug seems incredibly motivated to get new Red Dwarf out there, so either way i think there will be new Red Dwarf at some point, even if Doug has to turn a clip show budget into another 3 part special.

But that said i don’t even think Doug has given up on the movie idea yet.

[Shoes Have Soles]

Personally I would be quite surprised if we get another Series. In 20 years Doug has managed one special and one 6 series (which nearly fell apart when making it) without Baby Cow helping out.

Visionary genius writer and all round good bloke? Yes. Realistic and efficient tv producer? Probably not.

I am in the camp of being very grateful of the post Dave tv shows and treated those as a hugely welcome bonus to one of my favourite tv shows ever. But everything has its time and I think RD might well have past it. Sorry.

[(deleted)]

To be fair, I’m neither moaning here not acting in an entitled way, and I have already said in this thread that I’d be perfectly happy with XII and Skipper as an endpoint. I also fully acknowledged that more may have been going on behind the scenes than it appears. But the *brand* has definitely been neglected and all the clues are there that XIII is unlikely to happen, which I went through one by one. That’s all I said!

The whole Dave era has been a lovely, impossible extra life for Red Dwarf. But that *was* our bonus go, our flash of lightning, our get-out-of-jail-free card. We cashed it in and spent it already.

[Ben Saunders]

“I’m not counting the box set” is fucking absurd, it’s a thing that happened and it was a fairly big undertaking regardless of if you liked it or not, when you define your own arbitrary rules of what “counts” and what doesn’t your whole argument falls apart. The sense of entitlement certain people seem to have about -demanding- that Series XIII be made NOW is astonishing to see, really. Why don’t you go tweet Doug to just try harder at getting it made? I’m sure he would appreciate the advice.

[Dax101]

Doug spent 6-7 years trying to get a movie off the ground. He won’t give up that easy when it comes to getting new Red Dwarf off the ground.

Personally i don’t know whether i want a new series. i wasn’t that impressed by most of the Dave era and it gets depressing the more the show goes on and the more the show becomes a shadow of its glory days.

Even a stage show which Doug also wants to do i feel doesn’t suit the shows format. especially the idea of it being a new story but with old scenes redone by the cast. But Doug seems to want to get that off the ground.

[Ben Saunders]

Why so defeatist about it? It’ll either happen or it won’t, go watch something else in the meantime

[Stephen Abootman]

“Why so defeatist about it?”

Every Dax post comes with 2 free scoops of negativity.

[Dax101]

Hey i pretty much said i was confident Doug would make more Red Dwarf. id say that could be considered positive. but i ain’t gonna lie about how i feel about it ;p

My 2 scoops of negativity will come with chocolate syrup if there is any syrup to use ;p

[(deleted)]

Ben, read my posts again. Including the one where I specifically say I’m not bothered either way as to whether there’s a XIII or not and that I’m just listing the reasons why a XIII seems highly unlikely.

It’s not spreading toxicity to point out that every bridge Red Dwarf has crossed over the last 20 years has, for various reasons, burnt up behind it. The movie’s impossible, there’s no more money in the back catalogue, they’re never going to get a giant VFX team for free again, they can’t make a series alone again, they can’t make a series with Baby Cow again as their two chief allies have left, and they’re highly unlikely to make a new series for Dave again as the chiefs have changed, XII had noticeably muted promo and UKTV closed down the merch outlet.

At every juncture I’ve stressed that a live show *is* an open option available to them right now, as is Big Finish who are gagging to work with RD and could easily have done so for the 30th.

One thing I’ll pull you up on though – what part of the box set was “a big undertaking”? TOS might have done a good job at talking it up pre-release, and it might have taken forever to actually emerge, but in essence it was a very run-of-the-mill mastering project in order to gain shelf real-estate for BBCWW in a chain of shops that bellyflopped before they could buy it in. It certainly wasn’t ‘output’, and if a very simple repressing exercise can count as one it does kind of prove my point about how the brand has been laying inert for longer than would be practically expected by a channel or partner looking to co-produce a series XIII as a going concern.

[Paul Muller]

Personally speaking, I’d be more than happy with a book or two.

[Dave]

I kind of feel like I’d be happy with *anything* else, in the sense that we’ve already had much more than I ever expected. But I’ll also be happy enough if that’s it.

I’m sure Doug’s doing his best to keep the possibility of new projects in play, and I’m not going to sit here second-guessing it all, feeling like I could do it better or berating him for doing a shit job. I don’t feel like Red Dwarf owes me anything at this point.

[Ben Saunders]

>what part of the box set was “a big undertaking”?
The box set. You can criticise it to your heart’s content, but remastering eight series of television from the 90s into HD and sticking them on Blu-Ray’s and chucking them into vans to be distributed into all the different shops around the country is more than an afternoon’s work

[(deleted)]

I don’t think Doug was driving the vans.

Seriously though, in the scheme of the DVD industry, even as it now stands, that release would be regarded as small fry by most criteria. Stuff is rebundled and repackaged and reversioned all the time. The process behind the RD Bluray box was no different to or more complicated than a film or an NTSC show being prepared for a PAL DVD, which happens every day. Even the compiling of the Bodysnatcher disc afresh from old assets would be second nature to even tiny boutique labels. Just because Doug’s ancient curse turned it all into a mountain doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a molehill. That’s not even a criticism, that’s just contextualising what that release was. It was a simple squeeze.

[International Debris]

they’re highly unlikely to make a new series for Dave again as the chiefs have changed

I don’t get this. The people at Dave now are going to go “This was an enormously successful show for our channel that spearheaded our line in original content, let’s not have any more of it”?

[(deleted)]

In anything else in the world, that would be insane. In UK telly, nobody wants to recommission the shows that their predecessors commissioned. This is clearly abhorrently stupid, but clean sweeps under a new broom have been the norm since the 80s at least. Whether it’s BBC One primetime or CBeebies, that’s what happens. Always. Axe happy.

[genericnerdyusername]

Drop the enormously successful and expensive Red Dwarf? The BBC did something similar in the 90s, didn’t it?

Darrell, I agree with you an all accounts. I hope I’m misreading the tone of the replies people have been sending you. They seem aggressive, but I could be inferring a tone which isn’t there. I just want to say your contribution to this forum is always great and I hope people aren’t putting you off.

Who is in charge of Dave these days? I’ve Googled but too much of an idiot to find the information, I guess.

I haven’t thought this post through.

[(deleted)]

The only things immune from this, that sit in a kind of sacred safe zone, are shows where there would be negative consequences for the commissioner if they axed them. Whether that be unstoppable brand momentum where the show becomes more famous than the channel (Bake Off, Call The Midwife), long term contractual agreements that would be costly to break (Mrs Browns Boys or golden handcuffs deals that go wrong like when BBC1 signed Jim Davidson and couldn’t get rid), a show where its profits are big enough to prop up the channel financially (Doctor Who, Sherlock) or anticipated viewer pushback significant enough to create PR issues (any BBC or ITV soap). I don’t think Red Dwarf has ever been in that zone for Dave like it was for BBC2 in the 1990s. Taskmaster, if not for Avalon reasons than anything else, has probably gained immunity from this sort of thing, but Dwarf is easy meat.

[Dax101]

>Drop the enormously successful and expensive Red Dwarf? The BBC did something similar in the 90s, didn’t it?

Well really no they didn’t. the BBC were fully onboard with making more Red Dwarf all through out the 90s. and from what it sounds like they were onboard with it after series 8 too since they apparently kept money aside for a potential new series after… problem is i think Doug left it too long to go back and say hey can we have that money now? and by that point the BBC were like nah.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

he really ought to have kept the TV show going whilst trying to get the movie off the ground, at least for the first year or so.

[cwickham]

> At every juncture I’ve stressed that a live show *is* an open option available to them right now, as is Big Finish who are gagging to work with RD and could easily have done so for the 30th.

BF *are* meant to have recently acquired four new licensed properties. One of them is Adam Adamant Lives, we don’t know what the other three are…

[Paul Muller]

I kind of feel like I’d be happy with *anything* else, in the sense that we’ve already had much more than I ever expected. But I’ll also be happy enough if that’s it.

This is of course the correct attitude. Ending on ‘Skipper’ would at least tie things up in a neat fashion, certainly a damn sight better than Ed Bye copping a knee to the bollocks.

Whatever the likelihood of new series, I do think that a show that’s spanned thirty years, with such a rich and diverse universe of characters and stories deserves to continue and expand into new forms – whether it’s through books, comics, animation, videogames – whatever.

I’m convinced there’s still a strong audience out there, TV or otherwise, but it’s in Doug’s hands, and after what must have been a fairly exhausting decade for him, I can understand if he wants to finally put the show to bed.

[Ben Saunders]

Red Dwarf: The Next Generation

[si]

Jim & Bexley’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

[International Debris]

Pretty sure it’s been said here before that Doug’s already turned down Big Finish.

I like the idea of it in some ways, but without an audience, and with the possibility of getting other writers in, I’m not sure how good it would be anyway…

[Author]

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