Bobby on YouTube

[si]

Bobby’s currently doing doing a live Q&A thing on the YouTubes. He’s been doing it for about 50 minutes, so maybe I should have drawn peoples’ attention to it before now.
https://www.youtube.com/live/zuifa2qq9aM?si=pjGqsq_vYZCldx_P

His words on the possibility of new Dwarf?

“I am not at liberty to say. Which is such a giveaway. Cause I didn’t think we were meant to tell anyone – I don’t think we are – but Craig was telling everyone yesterday, so: it’s not impossible. It’s not confirmed, not confirmed, but it’s not impossible that we will be making a further Red Dwarf experience.”

[Stephen Abootman]

I believe they were both doing Newcastle comic con yesterday in case anyone wonders where Craig was telling people.

Additionally, he said that Rob Grant hasn’t spoken to him about Titan.

[Unrumble]

[Moonlight]

“Bobby has updated his YouTube”

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Petition to have him rename his channel to LlewTube

[Jonathan Capps]

BobbyBox

[si]

Petition to have him rename his channel to LlewTube

Pretty sure he did do online stuff using ‘LlewTube’ years ago, actually.
Someone in the live chat this afternoon questioned why they’d never used ‘Ed Bye’ as a synonym for cheerio. Robert thought it was a great idea, and that it had never occurred to him before.

[Flap Jack]

Petition to have him rename his channel to ‘Everything Electric’, and then start posting exclusively from a brand new channel called ‘Actual Kryten’.

[Captain Bollocks]

BobByC One for general entertainment. BobByC Llew for slightly more niche subject matter. BobByC Three for the yoof demographic. BobByC Four for highbrow repeats. 

[tombow]

“Krytie YT” with a constant shower room feed in one corner

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is BobByC Three the one that keeps repeating Three Pints of erskiB?

[Ridley]

Bobservation Dome (mundanity optional)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Bob Station

I’ll let your imaginations play around with that one 

[si]

There’s another live stream this evening at 6pm…

Listen out for anything interesting. I think we’ve got the best we’re going to get Red Dwarf-wise, though.

https://www.youtube.com/live/0Bg9g5xXLtc?si=A8pbMPqO68cjIhaV

[Stephen Abootman]

Didn’t think he’d do another one quite so soon, must have enjoyed it.

See his comments have been picked up by at least one other site https://tellymix.co.uk/red-dwarf-reboot/

[Moonlight]

https://tellymix.co.uk/red-dwarf-reboot/

jesus fucking christ making another installment of a show with all the same people that follows up the previous installment is not fucking reboot you dumb bastards ffs god fucking dammit

[Flap Jack]

I’m on Tom Harris’s side with this one. A reboot being with the same people (or at least a lot of them) and being a direct continuation can still be a reboot, just a soft reboot instead of a hard one. The key aspect is just that it’s brought back after a long absence where it was presumed dead. The Dave era fits the definition as far as I’m concerned, especially with the change in network.

Plus Dave Dwarf wasn’t even a direct continuation. A 9 year time skip that doesn’t even resolve the cliffhanger it left us on is pretty indirect!

[Moonlight]

Reboot = resetting something with a new cast.

Revival = continuing from the last installment.

[Flap Jack]

A revival is a type of reboot.

I know that people often insist upon the revival/reboot mutual exclusion, but language is defined by usage, and people have long been using “reboot” for both things, maybe even for as long as it’s been a common term in media.

[Dave]

A revival is a type of reboot.

I don’t agree. Something like Still Open All Hours isn’t a reboot, because it’s a direct continuation of the original show and its history. It doesn’t reboot anything, but it revives it: it picks it back up and continues with it after a long period away.

That’s what Dave Dwarf did. I don’t think that (outside of some quibbling over resetting Rimmer’s hologram status and getting rid of Kochanski) it really resets anything, especially since it’s indicated that both of those things have in-contiuity explanations.

People might use “reboot” and “revival” interchangeably but I don’t think they have quite the same meaning.

[Dave]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[PreeCome]

Reboot = resetting something with a new cast.

Revival = continuing from the last installment.

Correct. Tellymix click baiting or just a being a twat. Probably both.

[tombow]

haven’t the reboot/return definitions become vague now though? Like when Batman Begins came out they went to great pains to communicate it was a new series so you could bet that Danny DeVito’s Penguin wasn’t gonna show up in it. Then Casino Royale kept Judi Dench’s M and all bets were off. Hollywood suddenly realised you could mix reboot and sequel elements and people wouldn’t really care as long as there were past characters they liked in it. So now you have the same JJ Jameson from the Raimi Spider-Man films in the new ones, and everyone just shrugs.

[Flap Jack]

@ Dave

The problem with that logic is that it takes it as a given that the definition of ‘reboot’ precludes revivals, when that definition is the very thing we’re disagreeing on.

As long as you categorise it as a revival rather than a sequel series, Still Open All Hours is absolutely a reboot, by the much broader way the word “reboot” is actually applied. Ditto Dave Dwarf, 2000s Doctor Who, the recent-ish X Files series, Twin Peaks: The Return, the Comedy Central and Hulu eras of Futurama, and so many other examples.

For the times this has come up as an actual argument, nobody has been able to answer why the terms “soft reboot” and “hard reboot” exist, when by your definition, anything that would qualify as a soft reboot would not be a reboot at all.

You can disagree with a word being “misused”, but ultimately if the supposed misuse becomes widespread enough (which is surely the case for reboot), then that usage forges the definition. Like you can rage against people using “literally” to mean figuratively or “nonplussed” to mean unimpressed or “gaslighting” to mean lying, but after a point you can only express dislike, not deny that these definitions are real. We could all agree on G&T right now that a reboot must be an absolute continuity reset, no exceptions, but it would change nothing; the broader definition would continue unabated.

People might use “reboot” and “revival” interchangeably but I don’t think they have quite the same meaning.

Right, just like “rectangle” and “square” don’t have quite the same meaning. 😉

[Dave]

I’d say a soft reboot is more signified by non-story elements like starting with a new “season 1”, and by a minimising of continuity links, but without actually contradicting what went before – like New Who. Whereas a hard reboot would be free to make wholesale changes and re-imagine a property completely.

I agree that usage can change language (even incorrect usage), but given that it’s so useful to have Reboot and Revival mean different things, and it’s not very useful (and can be actively confusing) to use them interchangeably, I prefer to keep the distinct meanings.

[Nick R]

[Ben Saunders]

This is like the discourse over people calling the Crash Bandicoot/Spyro the Dragon remakes “remasters”, when they fucking aren’t in any sense of the term

[Unrumble]

The recently-cancelled Quantum Leap is another one that I’ve seen referred to as both a reboot and revival, but qualifies firmly as the latter for me, as they have heavily weaved in continuity and characters from the original show.

[Dave]

I think a revival can still act as a soft-reboot of sorts, if it maintains some links but shifts the focus significantly onto new characters and storylines. My earlier example of Still Open All Hours probably counts as an example of that mixture, without being a true hard reboot.

Whereas something like the one-off recent Goodnight Sweetheart episode is a pure revival as it picks up straight from where the last episode of the original series left off – although I guess you could argue that Gary now being a man-out-of-time in the present day is a slightly reboot-y aspect.

There are some grey areas, basically. 

[Frank Smeghammer]

All this talk of reboots and revivals and revamps got me thinking

Was The Promised Land a Reunion special?

[Dave]

All this talk of reboots and revivals and revamps got me thinking

Was The Promised Land a Reunion special?

[Flap Jack]

I’d say a soft reboot is more signified by non-story elements like starting with a new “season 1”, and by a minimising of continuity links, but without actually contradicting what went before – like New Who. Whereas a hard reboot would be free to make wholesale changes and re-imagine a property completely.

Wherever you stand on reboots vs. revivals, that seems like a weird way to categorise things. If New Who – which is commonly referred to as a revival – is not a revival but a reboot, despite being a continuation, then where’s the line? If they had called its first series “Season 27” would that have been enough to shift it into revival territory, or if they had brought back Paul McGann, or both? At least with the “if it’s a continuation, it’s not a reboot” definition, it’s not so unclear about which is which.

I agree that usage can change language (even incorrect usage), but given that it’s so useful to have Reboot and Revival mean different things, and it’s not very useful (and can be actively confusing) to use them interchangeably, I prefer to keep the distinct meanings.

I can see where you’re coming from, but for me it’s more useful to have a single word to describe the phenomenon of media properties being brought back after being cancelled or ended (I even keep reflexively wanting to say “rebooted” when describing it) than it is to have single words to distinguish them. Essentially, I’d rather say “hard reboot” and “soft reboot” to describe the sub-types than “reboots and revivals” to describe the general case.

Also, you can see how it came from practicality. When it gets announced that a long dead TV show is coming back, they don’t always reveal straight away how many of the original writers and cast will be involved, whether it’s a new continuity etc., but people still need ways to describe it.

Plus, although it doesn’t really matter, the broader definition of reboot does fit better etymologically. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I reboot my PC, at least 3/4 of the time it doesn’t lose all my files in the process.

[Dave]

Wherever you stand on reboots vs. revivals, that seems like a weird way to categorise things. If New Who – which is commonly referred to as a revival – is not a revival but a reboot, despite being a continuation, then where’s the line?

See my later post about how a revival can also act as a soft reboot sometimes. 

Also, Doctor Who is really a special case in these discussions as it’s a show that has been revived multiple times in different ways, and contains within it an in-built soft-reboot system that’s integral to the show’s enduring appeal. The whole point of it is that it reinvents itself constantly, but incorporates this into its ongoing continuity. Brilliant really.

[Dave]

Also, you can see how it came from practicality. When it gets announced that a long dead TV show is coming back, they don’t always reveal straight away how many of the original writers and cast will be involved, whether it’s a new continuity etc., but people still need ways to describe it.

Yeah – plus you also have revivals that might at first appear to be fresh starts and full-on reboots, but which then later reveal links to the original that make them more of a direct continuation than might have first appeared. Again, like New Who only gradually introducing references back to the classic era in its early days.

[Nick R]

Yeah – plus you also have revivals that might at first appear to be fresh starts and full-on reboots, but which then later reveal links to the original that make them more of a direct continuation than might have first appeared. Again, like New Who only gradually introducing references back to the classic era in its early days.

Or Amazing Spider-Man (2012) being a reboot of Spider-Man (2002), and then Captain America: Civil War/Spider-Man Homecoming being another reboot… only for No Way Home to reveal that they were all taking place in the same multiversal continuity all along, retroactively transforming them from reboots into revivals.

[Flap Jack]

See my later post about how a revival can also act as a soft reboot sometimes. 

OK, so to summarise:

Me – revival is a subset of reboot.

Moonlight – revival and reboot are mutually exclusive.

You – Venn diagram.

Glad we could clear that one up. 😅

[Dave]

Exactly!

[Unrumble]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Okay, let me straighten this out for you because you’re all clearly doing it wrong –

1) Direct continuation – a revival that picks straight up from where the previous series left off

2) Soft reboot – a murky, nebulous middle ground that acts as a reboot but contains elements of previous continuity, so a sort of semi-revival

3) Hard reboot – a straight reset, remake, whatever you want to call it, that disregards previous continuity altogether and starts fresh

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Reboot is clearly starting over whereas revival is bringing something back from the metaphorical dead 

Language and usage might change but that’s how those phrases ought to be used really. 

Red Dwarf has only ever been revived. Even if people call it a reboot.  The language was used incorrectly and then dictionaries documented it. Doesn’t change what actually happened.

Also, Robert wears the same boots as Kryten as he has since series 3. Quite clearly not a reboot. 

Soft reboot is a fairly new concept and I’d say it’s where it’s taking the same show and resetting it a little. Ever Doctor Regeneration would fall into that category. The Abrams Star Trek film would fit as its same cinematic universe split of into a different internal universal with the same characters but different actors.

[Dave]

Okay, let me straighten this out for you because you’re all clearly doing it wrong –
1) Direct continuation – a revival that picks straight up from where the previous series left off
2) Soft reboot – a murky, nebulous middle ground that acts as a reboot but contains elements of previous continuity, so a sort of semi-revival
3) Hard reboot – a straight reset, remake, whatever you want to call it, that disregards previous continuity altogether and starts fresh

[RunawayTrain]

So … the ‘parallel universe for each series’ theory would actually make it a soft reboot each time?

(I had to skim over parts of the thread because brainpower is in shorter supply these days, but I personally would use reboot and revival mutually exclusively.  And I didn’t even know soft and hard reboots were a thing.  However I try to be a descriptivist when it comes to linguistics; things like this certainly challenge how firmly I hold that view!)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You could argue series III and series VIII are soft reboots as they more or less completely re conceptualise the situation in different ways.

[Formica]

Add VI and XI to the soft reboot series pile while we’re at it, I think.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I actually meant VI, not III

XI doesn’t really change anything from before 

[Flap Jack]

Reboot is clearly starting over whereas revival is bringing something back from the metaphorical dead 
Language and usage might change but that’s how those phrases ought to be used really. 

“Ought to” is an interesting thing to throw in there. Why ought they?

Because if the way they’re actually used isn’t the key, then what’s left is just the earlier, generic meanings of the words. And on that front:

To reboot = to switch something on after it’s been fully switched off.

To revive = to bring back something from death or near death, or alternatively to wake something up.

Those are pretty darn similar concepts. That’s a part of why it feels silly to insist they must be hugely different things when applied to media properties.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I actually meant VI, not III

Easy mistake to make

[Author]

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