Can someone tell me why Chris doesn't like this font?

[Jawscvmcdia]

In the Series 8 DVD commentaries, Chris Barrie stated that he didn’t like the font used on the crew’s uniforms. Am I the only one that thought that there wasn’t anything wrong with it? He suggested that it made the show look dated, but as a font it seems relatively timeless to me and still see it regularly in use even to this day.

Topic

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

looks very doctor who 80s

wobbly sets and letters falling off in the background when the fuhrer is making her speech etc

[Ben Saunders]

Actually it looks very much like the font used in The War Machines which would make it very Doctor Who 60s. I think it’s ugly and hard to read but Chris complains about it multiple times as if it is the worst aspect of VIII

[bloodteller]

i kind of like the font, to be honest. does anyone know what it’s called?

it’s at least six times better than the weird calculator font they use in Pete and Only The Good…

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

>Actually it looks very much like the font used in The War Machines which would make it very Doctor Who 60s.

Actually if you thought Dr Who was on in the 60s you weren’t really there.

[bloodteller]

actually i’m pretty sure Dr Who started in the 60s

[Ben Saunders]

>it’s at least six times better than the weird calculator font they use in Pete and Only The Good…
To be honest I assumed they were the same font.

>Actually if you thought Dr Who was on in the 60s you weren’t really there.
Eh?

[Warbodog]

Are Rimmer and Kryten’s prison uniforms noticeably lighter than the others’ to suggest that they’re more fastidious about laundry and the colour washes out? Discuss.

[Ben Saunders]

Is Kochanski’s not? Kryten makes sense but do the others even have the means to clean their own uniforms?

[Ben Saunders]

Forget Kochanski, surely the Cat of all people would look after his the most

[Warbodog]

Just a detail I used to find distracting, back when I’d actually watch VIII. I didn’t know if they were going for some contrast in Lister-Rimmer scenes (why?) or just made a mistake.

I think Baxter’s might be lighter too, and someone else’s (evil cowboy bloke from Only the Good?) seems to be a different shade entirely.

[Pete Part Three]

I hate that font. I hate the canary uniforms and the prison outfits. I hate the lighting,

It’s quite impressive how on just about every aesthetic choice, the series is a total fucking disaster.

[cwickham]

It’s because it’s shit.

[Moonlight]

Kryten’s VIII costume is the cheapest-looking one outside of David Ross’s.

[International Debris]

It’s such a cheesy ‘sci-fi’ font. It’s absurdly stylised. I can’t fathom a genuine situation whether that font would be used on prisoners uniforms or anything ‘functional’. I do like those kind of fonts, but only in situations where the stylisation fits. Just another symptom of VIII’s terrible attention to detail.

[bloodteller]

i can sort of see that font being used on the ship- it doesn’t really stick out as being out of place, at least to me. the sudden and unnecessary use of the LED calculator-styled font captions in latter half of VIII is really rather rubbish though. it’s 3 million years in the future, why is everyone typing on calculators?

the absolute worst offender is “5 minutes sshlater…” from Only The Good though

[International Debris]

I dunno, I’m not sure I can imagine a 22nd century mining corporation going “yes, let’s use this 1960s style sci-fi font for our fittings”. It just doesn’t make sense. For a start it makes everything harder to read.

And yes, the calculator LED font is also fucking terrible. It’s like the designers suddenly went “oh wait, it’s sci-fi, we need to use fancy square computer fonts, that’s what the future will look like!” after seven series of microgramma.

[Jawscvmcdia]

[Jawscvmcdia]

[bloodteller]

>And yes, the calculator LED font is also fucking terrible. It’s like the designers suddenly went “oh wait, it’s sci-fi, we need to use fancy square computer fonts, that’s what the future will look like!”

the annoying thing is most of the LED calculator captions aren’t even necessary, as well. the one in Pete is exposition that’s told by Kryten literally seconds later, and the one in Only The Good is “6 hours later”. do we really need to know that the pod started melting exactly 6 hours later?

[thomasaevans]

Nope – Chris is spot on. It’s what i’d expect to see on a sci-fi series produced by CBBC. Awful.

[Ben Saunders]

When else has RD used passage of time captions? The original assembly for The End, Thanks for the Memory (?), Stasis Leak?

Why is the Smeg it is in a DIFFERENT font?

The cameras they used on VIII seem to give a pretty clean image, which made me think it looked good when i was younger. If only they used those cameras to capture nicer sets.

[Dave]

When else has RD used passage of time captions? The original assembly for The End, Thanks for the Memory (?), Stasis Leak?

Also Dimension Jump, Ouroboros, The Beginning…

[Me Own Stunts]

I think Chris Barrie doesn’t like the series 8 font because it is shit? That’d be my guess anyway.

[Me Own Stunts]

Quite why the overarching shitness of series 8 passed him by I don’t know, however.

[Ben Saunders]

Interesting how he had things to say about the quality of the writing in VI but not VIII. Arguably VIII is more original since I think his gripe with VI was the recycled material/running gags.

[Dave]

Plus, in the meantime he’d done “A Prince Among Men”, which probably put things into perspective.

[Me Own Stunts]

> Interesting how he had things to say about the quality of the writing in VI but not VIII. Arguably VIII is more original since I think his gripe with VI was the recycled material/running gags.

According to Doug in the series VII documentary, Chris Barrie wanted to leave after series VI because he couldn’t be arsed with all the effects shooting in Red Dwarf anymore, and wanted to enjoy more straightforward sitcom work like Brittas. Which would explain his preference for series VIII too, since it’s basically just a cheap and simple CBBC show isn’t it, set in the corridors of a LOLwacky!!!1 spaceship.

That said – everyone on the documentary for series VIII apart from Norman Lovett seems to think it’s a brilliant series. Robert Llewellyn calling it “distilled Dwarf” and all that. Doug Naylor, who was racked with anguish about the rubbery crocodile in ‘Stoke Me A Clipper’, seemingly had no problem whatsoever with the rubber and CGI dinosaur work in ‘Pete’. And nobody seemed to notice that the writing was utter guff (only that they ran over-length), or regret their decision to play all their characters with exaggerated cartoony movements and constant gurning.

It’s worth looking again at Chris Barrie’s contribution to the series VII commentaries, where he sits in during episodes in which he only appears briefly. In a nutshell: when he’s not a part of what’s going on, nothing seems to interest him. At first you think he’s criticising the quality of the writing, but then you realise he’s just not fussed about scenes and stories that lack his contribution.

[Col]

I have always called this ’70s space writing’, the kind of thing you’d see in ‘Space 1999’ and the like. it is difficult to read, and unessecarily so. Imagine walking through a door marked ‘airlock’ after not understanding the sign!

[bloodteller]

OANG3A/ WAONIMC

since we’re complaining about fonts, what’s with the font used around the ship in X? it’s readable i guess, but why are half the letters backwards?

[Ben Saunders]

They look like screenshots from a PlayStation One game on my phone, lol. What even is that font though.

[Me Own Stunts]

Brexit Britain’s version of Esperanto.

[GlenTokyo]

I’m also going with the “because it’s shit” answer.

It’s the scifi Tomorrow’s World circa 1981, ZX Spectrum Monthly, “Oh shit is this in space? Better use a crap font” font.

Awful

Give me Microgramma or fuck off.

[bloodteller]

“By the way, we’re in space. Passed a sort of shitty font a couple of days ago, co-ordinates enclosed. It’s about *that* shape. You can’t miss it.”

[RickLee84]

It’s the font you get at the bottom of cheques. Remember those, nostalgia fans?

[si]

I thought it was pretty cheesy, to be honest. A clichéd version of what ‘the future’ will look like.

[si]

It’s like the designers suddenly went “oh wait, it’s sci-fi, we need to use fancy square computer fonts, that’s what the future will look like!” after seven series of microgramma.

Oh, someone’s already said that before me. I’ll get back to sleep then.

[Hamish]

> It’s the font you get at the bottom of cheques. Remember those, nostalgia fans?

I still get payed by cheque, but then I have also been known to pay for things using large envelopes full of cash. Just farmer’s and drug dealers these days.

[Hamish]

I have no idea where that apostrophe came from.

[bloodteller]

only just noticed- this font is used in Give And Take too, on the space station.

that’s the end, i didn’t have anything more to say about it. it’s just a thing that happens to be true

[Author]

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