Better Than Life Podcast

[Spare Hand One]

Probably not right or fair for the main G&T gang to write about this on the blog, but we can talk about it in the forum, right?

Anyway, it’s pretty good. I like the hosts and the general concept: two hosts (one who loves RD actively and another who just remembers it fondly from back in the day) interviews a different comedian about RD each week. Great theme tune. There’s a “recast the cast” segment I’m not generally fond of but it does sometimes result in interesting takes on what exactly makes our characters who they are.

Stuart Goldsmith and Gemma Arrowsmith were particularly good guests: knowledgeable and keen. RD clearly means a lot to Stuart. Gemma works as a screenwriting teacher and she cites RD as examples/exercises in her class; her insight/analysis in this capacity was really interesting as well as her general fan voice being keen and delightful.

Bec Hill, Tom Price, Will Duggan were quite shit.

Anyway, it’s episode-by-episode and in order. They just did Bodyswap. New episodes drop on Fridays.

Very few guests seem to like VII-VIII so I’m looking forward to hitting those episodes to see what happens.

Anyone else listening to this?

[Jenuall]

I’ve been listening to these as and when I find the time. There’s definitely been a varying quality of guest – both in terms of the general levels of entertainment they bring and their knowledge of the show which has been kind of all over the place.

Is it too much to ask that people being brought on to a Red Dwarf podcast to talk about an episode of Red Dwarf actually know things about that Red Dwarf episode and the show in general? I don’t think so! Even if people get things wrong in the spur of the moment it would be nice to have some kind of “fact checking Santa” equivalent to drop in during the edit and tidy things up a bit.

It’s clearly a more mainstream effort than a Dwarfcast so it’s never going to be as anal and full of details as the sort of thing that us gimps like to listen to, but it serves a purpose and something decent enough bringing more attention to the show now that it is potentially a going concern again is nice.

Some of the suggestions for alternative castings have really made me question whether the people involved actually “get” the show and characters at all…

One thing that also frustrates me a bit with this podcast, and plenty of others are guilty of it, is that the two hosts sound too bloody similar to my ear! Plenty of times I’m not actually sure which one of them it is that’s making a point!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

We (well a couple of us) in the Discord listened to / still at times listen to this podcast and basically spend every week listing all the things they are wrong about 

I got so infuriated with it that I stopped. Others continued and regularly confirm it hadn’t gotten any better. 

I wouldn’t mind the guests not knowing their shit, or the guy that hasn’t seen the show in “decades”. But there’s a host who is a self confessed fan who regularly just repeats rumours and speculation that’s been circulating as fact and mostly silent producer who seems to know a bit more than the others but never corrects anyone. 

It’s fine as a fun and dumb rewatch podcast but it’s strays far too much into “here’s what we know from behind the scenes” and then is wrong 

[Spare Hand One]

It’s clearly a more mainstream effort than a Dwarfcast so it’s never going to be as anal and full of details as the sort of thing that us gimps like to listen to, but it serves a purpose and something decent enough bringing more attention to the show now that it is potentially a going concern again is nice.

That’s a very good point and I feel the same way: I genuinely open my mind and accept that they won’t be as obsessive as we are, I genuinely think that’s fine. I don’t want to be a gatekeeping prick about it. But why can’t they just be honest about their level of involvement/love for the show? They come in all “I’m Red Dwarf mad, me” but then they don’t know what the Polymorph is.

Not all guests, of course! The ones I liked were very good.

[Spare Hand One]

One thing that also frustrates me a bit with this podcast, and plenty of others are guilty of it, is that the two hosts sound too bloody similar to my ear! Plenty of times I’m not actually sure which one of them it is that’s making a point!

Also true. They obviously can’t help it but I’ve given up on knowing which one is talking. It doesn’t matter but the dynamic of expert vs casual fan is out the window.

[GlenTokyo]

My tuppence, a) I think if you’re going to do a podcast about something and it’s not very clearly stated you’re coming in fresh, then why open yourself up to being regularly wrong with an audience that is comprised of a lot of people who know you’re regularly wrong? And b) I really don’t think it’s hard to acquire a fair amount of knowledge about Red Dwarf. Maybe there’s an advantage to growing up with it and having the knowledge go in when your brain is maleable and receptive, but we are blessed with behind the scenes content that is entertaining and enlightening, the cast and crew have been pretty consistent over the entire run, there’s not that much of it anyway, and there’s an active community discussing and archiving stuff, so if you’re starting a podcast, get the DVDs out, visit a few websites, and read a couple of books/ articles and you’re going to hit all the major stuff. And c) some of the castings are absolutely batshit.

That said, I agree with the above. It’s good to have an ongoing anything about Red Dwarf that gets some attention on social media, especially with twitter being a wasteland.

[Flap Jack]

Whoa, wait, hold on, Dulcé Sloan is a Red Dwarf fan?! That’s amazing, I don’t even care if she makes mistakes about behind the scenes trivia.

You see, we assume that US TV stars are unreachable for this sort of thing, but has anyone actually checked if Conan O’Brien would be willing to guest on a Smegazine Rack episode?

[Ian Symes]

There is at least one former host of a late night American talk show that is guaranteed to be familiar with Red Dwarf.

[Ridley]

Chevy Chase, right.

[Dave]

There is at least one former host of a late night American talk show that is guaranteed to be familiar with Red Dwarf.

James Corden was in Doctor Who, not Red Dwarf.

[Unrumble]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

James Corden was in Doctor Who, not Red Dwarf.

He had a brief cameo in Tikka to Ride:

[Jenuall]

[Ridley]

*Fallon Munchkin Song w/ Paul Rudd*

[Flap Jack]

OK, I know I’m weeks behind still, but I just listened to the Bodyswap episode.

Like I’m sorry, what do you mean that being stranded in deep space is only really a tragedy for Rimmer, and Lister is having a great time??? Marooned was just 2 episodes before this and Timeslides is just one episode after it, COME ON.

The critical flaw of this podcast might be that it feels like they’re always reaching for fresh takes on the plot and characters, and so just end up confidently speaking nonsense a lot of the time. Thinking about it, that’s probably why I’m always behind despite still generally enjoying it.

And this was just in the opening general chat too, before Tom Price added in his extremely questionable criticisms of the plot.

[Technopeasant]

The critical flaw of this podcast might be that it feels like… nonsense a lot of the time.

[Flap Jack]

I finally caught up to the Dulcé Sloan episode, and thankfully it did not disappoint. 👌

Though there was a telling moment were they remarked that Dulcé had “encyclopedic knowledge” of Red Dwarf, even though she’d already failed to remember Kryten’s series number (either of them) and had got the US pilot mixed up with Parallel Universe.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

How the hell do you mix up the US Pilot and Parallel Universe 

[Dave]

How the hell do you mix up the US Pilot and Parallel Universe 

“My Louboutins are going to be worth a fortune”

[Flap Jack]

How the hell do you mix up the US Pilot and Parallel Universe 

She thought the US pilot replaced The Cat with a dog. Don’t know how she got there mentally, but it was just that one detail.

It’s a shame, as she was being very negative about the US pilot, and most agree that Hinton Battle’s Cat was one of the stronger aspects of it. Would have been interesting if she knew of him or had any thoughts about him, given he only recently passed away, and he was the only Black cast member in that version. It could have tied into the general Cat/Danny John-Jules discussion too. If only there was someone on the pod who was a Red Dwarf obsessive and could add these details. Alas.

[Warbodog]

If only the Better Than Life Podcast was a pair of women, they would get a thread too.

[Moonlight]

Let’s start our own podcast and get everything so pedantically right we spend every episode arguing over whether it’s Series 1 and 2 or Series I and II.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Let’s start our own podcast and get everything so pedantically right we spend every episode arguing over whether it’s Series 1 and 2 or Series I and II.

It’s obviously Season One / Two

[Flap Jack]

The First Outing and the 2nd Outing.

[Formica]

TFBWCM and KBTSQP

[Jenuall]

Just listening to the Bodyswap episode now, and yeah I think that this is the one that has annoyed me the most so far!

Feels like a constant stream of poor takes from people not actually knowing what is good about the show, how it works, what the motivations of the characters are… Feels like the 20 minutes in the middle of the episode have been a three way workshop in how to “fix” the narrative of Bodyswap, by suggesting an increasing number of ideas that are worse than what we already have…

[Flap Jack]

Right? Glad I wasn’t alone in finding that one especially weird. I kind of got the impression that Tom Price had taken a screenwriting course or something where they said “you must start the main plot as early as possible” and he took that so to heart that he ended up thinking that a “Rimmer and Lister swap bodies” episode could be better if it was actually about Lister’s mind being replaced by Carol Brown’s, or about Lister gaining a temporary neurological illness. Even if Lister had needed to swap bodies with Rimmer to disable the bomb, it’s hard to see how that would have made the episode better in general.

Considering how many classic Red Dwarf episodes open with something that has nothing to do with the main story at all, it’s so arbitrary for Bodyswap in particular to get treated like it dropped the ball for only setting up the plot in the intro, instead of directly causing it.

Though it is funny that John and Fergus felt the need to stress in their post-discussion bit that Tom really is a big fan of the show, they swear.

[Warbodog]

Bodyswap’s always been my underdog favourite of Series III, and I like that the self-destruct section works like a self-contained Red Dwarf Short that you could show to someone who only had a 7-minute attention span (while still setting up the premise of the continuing episode), so this arrogant “fixing” of it is annoying me without even listening to it.

[Flap Jack]

So, I may have “accidentally” let myself get 3 months behind on this podcast (and given the amount of discussion on it, maybe everyone else did the same… ), but I’m fully caught up now. It continues to be an enjoyable listen – or else I wouldn’t have been able to binge it – but it also continues to be marred by stupidity every now and then.

Lowlights for the Series 4 batch:

– Fergus, despite being the one of the 2 hosts who’s meant to be the hardcore fan, is still weirdly spotty when it comes to Red Dwarf knowledge. He wasn’t aware that Out of Time had the cast reading off hidden scripts, he didn’t disagree when a guest declared that Series VII was shown on BBC1, he didn’t know which series Taiwan Tony was from (despite Taiwan Tony only coming up because he was an option in a quiz that Fergus himself had written). And he told a guest that Series XI and XII were “2014 and 2016”, and that The Promised Land was 3 episodes and “in 2020, just pre-lockdown”. It’s hard to imagine a devoted Red Dwarf fan not having TPL’s status as a mid-lockdown show seared into their memory… but I suppose he might have been referring to the taping, which had been discussed due an email from a listener who attended it in an earlier episode.

– In the “Series 4 Preview” episode, they respond to an email question about the “3 new specials filming in the autumn”, but they never acknowledge that it’s just a rumour and spend a while discussing it as if it’s 100% confirmed news. So they essentially turned their high profile Red Dwarf podcast into a vector for misinformation. Great job, guys.

– In the Camille episode, John offers his interpretation of Kryten in the episode, that Kryten actually only loved Camille when she appeared as a mechanoid and not when she was revealed to be a blob, which may be the most egregiously wrong analysis I’ve ever heard given about a Red Dwarf character – and I’ve seen people say that Lister was morally in the clear for faking Rimmer’s death in Stoke me a Clipper.

To give John an iota of credit, he did immediately take back his opinion, but only because he remembered the specific line where Kryten tells Lister it hurt him to lie to Camille at the end, and not because of, you know, the entire rest of the episode. Like, what the hell did he think the story was before he realised his mistake in the podcast recording???

“Kryten has a lesson in deceit from Lister and becomes a perfect and eager liar immediately. Unfortunately he goes too far in taking his new skills for a test drive, and out of extreme politeness tells a disgusting monster that he’s attracted to her, which obviously he isn’t because she’s a disgusting monster. They then begin a sham courtship. Thankfully for Kryten though, her husband soon shows up, and this gives him the excuse to get rid of her. Kryten reflects to Lister that there’s clearly no such thing as a noble lie after all, because his noble lie only got him into trouble.”

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

None of the above surprises me at all 

it seems the “fan” is someone who watched the show a bit some time ago and thinks they know more than they do  

Do they not still have their producer who clearly knows more than them and would chip in at the end sometimes with some actual honest to goodness hard facts about the show?

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, producer Alex is still around, but they only seem to have the confidence to interrupt sometimes.

[GlenTokyo]

Continues to blow my mind that people do specialist podcasts about things they don’t really know enough about, when the intended audience is going to be majority people that do.
Especially Red Dwarf, when the information is so easily accessed and concise. Just watch the DVDs and visit Dirty Feed and you’re pretty much covered it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’d argue that it demonstrates that there’s at least a little democracy left in podcasting and it hasn’t all been taken over by big flashy production studios and professional actors, comedians, journalists etc making everything. 

It might result in a not exactly perfect podcast, but I presume it appeals more to more casual fans that don’t necessarily want the finer minutia and background on the show and just want a couple of people and someone funny discussing a show they enjoy. 

That said, they could so easily do a barest amount of research before recording  

I often think how Dwarfcasts is the only podcast I regularly listen too that is still just two or three friends at home talking into a microphone about something they enjoy without the flashiness or adverts etc 

[Technopeasant]

TPL was in TWO parts on UKTV Play though.

[Rudolph]

Having listened to a few episodes of the podcast, it’s made me feel a hell of a lot better about the Doctor Who podcast I’ve just started making, and our own spotty knowledge as three self-confessed hardcore Who nerds.

[Flap Jack]

TPL was in TWO parts on UKTV Play though.

I mean if he had said it was 2 episodes, I would have just shrugged and dismissed the point as correct enough.

[Ian Symes]

Especially Red Dwarf, when the information is so easily accessed and concise. Just watch the DVDs and visit Dirty Feed and you’re pretty much covered it.

Ouch, the burn.

[Ian Symes]

Dwarfcasts is the only podcast I regularly listen too that is still just two or three friends

Yeah, it depends how we feel about Cappsy on any given day.

[Technopeasant]

correct enough

[GlenTokyo]

Especially Red Dwarf, when the information is so easily accessed and concise. Just watch the DVDs and visit Dirty Feed and you’re pretty much covered it.

Ouch, the burn.

There’s no talking my way out of that oversight so I’ll just apologise.

[Jenuall]

Yeah I dropped off listening to this a while back, the weight of accumulating wrongness from the hosts was just getting too much. Which is a shame because I quite enjoyed hearing some of the guests views on the show – it was nice to get a chance to see what some more contemporary comedians thought about it all.

Ultimately I think it’s quite telling that the best episodes were the ones where the guests actually knew their shit

[Jonsmad]

Especially Red Dwarf, when the information is so easily accessed and concise. Just watch the DVDs and visit Dirty Feed and you’re pretty much covered it.
Ouch, the burn.

There’s no talking my way out of that oversight so I’ll just apologise.

Take The Fifth

[Jonsmad]

Yeah I dropped off listening to this a while back, the weight of accumulating wrongness from the hosts was just getting too much. Which is a shame because I quite enjoyed hearing some of the guests views on the show – it was nice to get a chance to see what some more contemporary comedians thought about it all.

Ultimately I think it’s quite telling that the best episodes were the ones where the guests actually knew their shit

Did you find yourself screaming… “Stop Getting Dwarf Wrrrrrrong!!!!

[Flap Jack]

Just wanted to highlight this accidental gem from John at the end of the latest ep:

Is there an episode of Series 5 that’s not a classic? I’m not sure there is, you know.

Who’s joining us for Demon’s & Angels?

[Warbodog]

You’re a hard to please fan if you’re making a Red Dwarf podcast and pretty much every episode of I-VI isn’t a classic by default, even ones you find fairly average. Let’s appreciate the good things in life.

[Technopeasant]

But even so, let’s be honest, it is Demons & Angels.

[Dave]

I like Demons & Angels!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah Demons and Angels is great 

[Ben Saunders]

I would have said D&A is bottom half of all episodes but not bad by any means, then I checked the Coral Canvass and it’s sitting there at a whopping 21st! Better than DNA?! I am very mildly in disagreement.

[Author]

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