Camille Question

[Shoes Have Soles]

Hi all,

Long time reader, first time poster on G&T. Please treat me with patronising contempt.

In honour of the 30th Anniversary and accepting the fact that we won’t be treated with another Can’t Smeg won’t Smeg programme (damm you BBC 2) I have decided to go through the entire canon of Red Dwarf again. So far so good.

Being a sad git I have decided to set up the complete, nay definitive, spreadsheet of each episode complete with ratings, which ships are used, and which main characters are in it. However I have now reached the true glory years (imo) of Dwarfdom, hitting the sweet spot of series 4. In Camille closing credits I noticed that ‘ Kochanski Camille’ is listed. That was the first time I thought that Kochanski was in the episode as a version of Camille. Given that Lister did not even mention this to her I was somewhat surprised to have that in the credits.

So would this be seen as an episode with a version of Kochanski being in Red Dwarf? Interesting.

Topic

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Originally, Camille would’ve become Kochanski but apparently Rob and Doug thought seeing Kochanski would’ve made Lister depressed and/or immediately raise his suspicions regarding the situation.

So instead they recasted her with Craig Charles’s then-girlfriend, they just forgot to fix the credits.

[bloodteller]

there’s a Deleted Scene of the episode (you can find it on the DVD) where Lister tells her that she looks really similar to Kochanski. they talk for a few brief moments about how she was special to him and there’s a gag about their breakup.

so presumably it’s the intention that she at least resembles Kochanski enough for Lister to bring it up.

[International Debris]

Yes, I think basically she’s meant to be as close to Kochanski as a stranger could possibly be without it being suspicious.

[Warbodog]

I wonder how bad the original scene with Tracy Brabin was (successful actress and now MP), since it wasn’t included in the deleted scenes, maybe for being too embarrassing.

Is that an unprecedented bit of recasting in Red Dwarf? Apart from the actual Kochanski later. Omg foreshadowing mind=blown

[cwickham]

IIRC they tried to get the original version of the scene on there but Brabin (or possibly her agent) refused permission.

[clem]

I didn’t know that. Either Robert Bathurst or his agent wouldn’t let them use his outtakes. Any other actors done this?

[Pete Part Three]

The Bathurst bloopers turned up on Bodysnatcher. I can’t remember what the reasoning was for them taking so long to materialise.

[clem]

They did?! I must have seen them then, but have no memory of them. Maybe he just lightened up.

[GlenTokyo]

I never got the Bathurst thing. I can’t see him being up his own arse like that, it’s not as if he’s some super serious actor with a reputation to protect, he’s done plenty of comedy and generally quite light things. Maybe after he appeared on Mrs Brown’s Boys his agent gave up and released the smeg ups haha

[Pete Part Three]

Bathurst was going to sign off on the smeg ups, but then he got Cold Feet.

Thank you, I’m here all week. Try the veal.

[Dave]

That was such a good pun that I propose a Toast.

[Taiwan Tony]

Joking Apart, what else has he done.

[GlenTokyo]

Cold Feet famously as said but really just lots of British things that every actor is in like Midsomer Murders, My Family, Hornblower, Wild at Heart etc

Was in Blackadder, and unfortunately Mrs Brown’s Boys.

[Paul Muller]

It’s a shame he didn’t pop up as a cameo in Skipper, but I suppose with his busy schedule there’s more chance of waking up to discover My Dad’s The Prime Minister.

[Taiwan Tony]

Thanks GlenTokyo, but I was just joining in. He’s in Joking Apart as well, see. Steven Moffat doing to Seinfeld what he’d later do to Friends. (Um, stealing it?)
I remember it being very good, anyway, and I’d love to see it again.

[Ben Paddon]

Dismissing Joking Apart and Coupling as rip-offs of American sitcoms rather does them a disservice. For a start, Coupling is actually good.

[International Debris]

The Coupling / Friends analogy is completely daft anyway, they’re structurally totally different, both in Coupling not being a single group of friends (Jeff and Jane barely even talk) and the fact that the episodes were mostly very strangely structured – it wasn’t a straight-forward sitcom at all.

[Warbodog]

I never saw much Coupling, but I liked the one where there was a non English speaker and we saw the escalating misunderstanding play out from both perspectives, with the scene repeated and the languages flipped.

Did it have a lot of experimental stuff like that? Even one unconventional episode per series like One Foot in the Grave would make it worth my time.

[International Debris]

Most episodes had at least an element like that. One has two plot lines going on screen at the same time, using split screen. There are a couple with lots of flashbacks that only vaguely begin to make sense near the end of them.

[Pete Part Three]

The clever stuff almost makes up for Jack Davenport.

Almost.

[Ian Symes]

I never saw much Coupling, but I liked the one where there was a non English speaker and we saw the escalating misunderstanding play out from both perspectives, with the scene repeated and the languages flipped.

This episode is absolutely one of the best half hours of sitcom of all time.

[Ben Paddon]

Coupling also gave us the line “I’ve got the key to the gates of paradise… but I’ve got too many legs!”

[International Debris]

My favourite is the one where they all end up at Steve’s house, independently, claiming to be either Dick Darlington or Giselle. The first time that episode was on I only caught the last two minutes, and I couldn’t fathom how any episode could possibly climax with that.

It was a bit smug at times, and the female characters were pretty shallowly written (less so Sally, who was given a lot more depth as it went on), but purely from the perspective of really cleverly written – and very funny – comedy, it was a bloody excellent show.

That said, so many of the funniest bits revolved around Jeff, to the extent that I’ve only ever seen the first episode of the fourth series.

[Author]

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