An Inexplicable Thing About BBC2's October 1997 Repeat Run Of Series VII

[cwickham]

I was just updating this: http://cwickham.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-red-dwarf-bbc-broadcasts-guide.html

And I happened to notice something on BBC Genome I somehow missed when I first wrote it: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/140/20?order=desc&q=%22red+dwarf%22#search

According to Genome – and hence, presumably, the Radio Times – when BBC Two reran VII in October 1997, “Blue” and “Duct Soup” were switched around in the running order. I will presume this is actually what happened (and update the Guide accordingly), unless someone who happened to see that repeat run can confirm otherwise, but does anyone know *why* that might have happened?

Topic

[MANI506]

Appease the Chris Barrie fans by front leading the series with hot Barrie action.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

There was a national tragedy the week duct soup was meant to air, when 5 young lads got stuck in an air duct and died, so they pushed it back a week out of respect.

No need to look it up, it happened.

[(deleted)]

I taped-to-keep this run at the time, and I am 100% certain that my tapes were in order. Saying that, they were across two E180s with four shows on each, so I could have been pernickety enough to re-arrange them. Maybe this was even why they were spread so wastefully…

[Plastic Percy]

I think Blue works better before Duct Soup. Kochanski is still new enough to have never attended Games Night, is still looking for her Dave, and has to have Kryten explain the pants and salad cream rules. In Duct Soup, she’s been on Starbug long enough for Lister to have found her a dress and some makeup on a derelict, as well as for her to have made a log of the toilet pipe noises in her quarters.

[Flap Jack]

I think that Blue is after Duct Soup for 2 very good reasons:

1. It’s not exactly as exciting to see Rimmer again if he’s been in every episode before it anyway. If you have Duct Soup first to cement the new status quo, it makes Chris Barrie’s appearances in Blue more of a nice surprise.
2. It’s cruel to let people watch Duct Soup without giving them a proper palate cleanser the week after.

[Moonlight]

We could solve the entirely of VII if we just deepfaked Rimmer’s face over Kochanski.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Lister trying to get Rimmer to go to bed with him in Epideme would be weird

[Dave]

Blue would be complicated.

[Flap Jack]

I buy Lister trying to seduce Rimmer, but Rimmer coming up with that plan to defeat Epideme? Pull the other one.

[International Debris]

Lister trying to get Rimmer to go to bed with him in Epideme would be weird

Yet less weird than trying to get his mum to go to bed with him.

[By Jove its holmes]

“It’s Yvonne McGruder! I injected her with blood and adrenalin!”

[Warbodog]

Thanks for the list, cwickham. That helped me to pin down the largely random order I saw the original 52 in, from 1994-2000 on TV and video. Always figured the curry monster scene was the first Red Dwarf I saw, but with the episode shuffling it would have been Lister’s head bursting on 10/06/94. I was eight.

Loved the Lone Wolf gamebooks too, even if I didn’t start on those until the age of twenty-eight.

[cwickham]

That’s very kind of you to say, thank you!

[Rubber]

Watched some of VII on Sky today for various reasons and the entire ‘Kryten’s paranoid dream’ in Duct Soup was cut. Was there something offensive in it? Apart from it being in Duct Soup, obv.

[Unrumble]

Watched some of VII on Sky today for various reasons and the entire ‘Kryten’s paranoid dream’ in Duct Soup was cut. Was there something offensive in it? Apart from it being in Duct Soup, obv.

Maybe “Thank you, with a capital R” was considered offensive to dyslexics?

[Moonlight]

In the Red Dwarf Discord server we watched (courtesy a stream from quinn_dummer) the The First Three Million Years and subsequent broadcasts of Better Than Life and Thanks for the Memory on Dave. Both had extremely blatant cuts and very awkward ad break placement. Might just be like that.

Also they were stretched into 16:9, because apparently in 2020 all broadcast television is just outright designed to piss me off with how pointlessly shitty it is compared to watching something off the DVD. And I do want to emphasize how much more tolerable it still was than the American equivalent which I’m not even sure has any show left between the ad breaks.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Why I didn’t just stream the episodes myself and relied on the Dave Broadcast will now remain a mystery that will haunt us forever, but it is interesting seeing how the episodes are slightly edited for broadcast on a commercial channel, the awkward ad breaks and the forced music cues etc.

This week following the Doc we have Queeg and then Marooned, which is something of an odd choice, to skip over Parallel Universe and Backwards (and Stasis Leak I guess).

[Ben Saunders]

We watched it because it was on. If they hadn’t aired BTL and TsFTM we wouldn’t have watched anything. Simple as.

[Moonlight]

To be fair, both Queeg and Marooned are far far better episodes than Parallel Universe and Backwards.

[Author]

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