Contradictions

[Dave]

Obviously the continuity of Red Dwarf is usually absolutely water-tight, but occasionally the odd flat-out contradiction does slip through.

Topic

[Moonlight]

Posting again because thread has become invisible and that usually fixes it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Given there’s 9 months + the time for baby Lister to grow a little beyond a newborn baby in series VII that we don’t see, there’s easily a whole year and then some in there alone

But you don’t have to read “since turning 28 I’ve found a new maturity about myself” to mean, just before series VII.  He could mean “since I turned 28 two years ago” – because the joke is he hasn’t really matured at all, he just thinks he has.

[Moonlight]

We need a special devoted to lost time from Series VII where they’re all taking care of a baby like a sitcom that’s gone on too long. 

Wait.

[Warbodog]

They could de-age Alexander John Jules to play baby Lister again.

[Dave]

We need a special devoted to lost time from Series VII where they’re all taking care of a baby like a sitcom that’s gone on too long. 

Maybe Bobby can finally get his story about Kryten having a baby Kryten.

[International Debris]

Given there’s 9 months + the time for baby Lister to grow a little beyond a newborn baby in series VII that we don’t see

The final scene is explicitly 18 months later, so yeah, I’d say VII probably has the most unseen time within a series. Seemingly the only notable things that happened in that time were Duct Soup, Blue and Beyond a Joke.

[Warbodog]

[Rudolph]

[Nick R]

[Starbugger]

Rimmer only having sex once, with Yvonne McGruder, despite losing his virginity to Sandra from Cadet School in the back of his brother’s Bentley V8 convertible.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Rimmer only having sex once, with Yvonne McGruder, despite losing his virginity to Sandra from Cadet School in the back of his brother’s Bentley V8 convertible.

It can be read that Rimmer is largely making it up. Perhaps didn’t go all the way. Which is why his main memory of the event is the car, and not the sex. 

[Technopeasant]

Doesn’t the novel highly imply that?

[International Debris]

Yeah, he’s trying to find a story that wasn’t quite so pathetic so came up with that one where he at least got somewhere.

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve heard (typically young) people ask if “hand stuff counts” for losing your virginity (obviously not). After typing this I thought up several “well actually” caveats, but you know what I’m talking about.

[Warbodog]

Why does Lister spell Thursday with a silent “F” even though he pronounces it correctly?

[Cardinal_Hordriss]

Why does Lister spell Thursday with a silent “F” even though he pronounces it correctly?

I don’t think it’s a silent F, I think he means – Ours Fursday. 

[Cardinal_Hordriss]

I don’t know where the “ours” came from and it won’t let me edit it out. Must be a predictive text think that slipped past me. 

[Warbodog]

It’s supposed to be that he thinks the word is ‘Fursday,’ but he’s on record pronouncing it ‘Thursday,’ so shouldn’t be spelling it that way, plus there’d be an extra space in the crossword to fill (this detail has always nagged me!), so I was imagining what other unlikely spelling he could be coming up with.

[Ben Saunders]

He put it in the wrong box(es)

[Cardinal_Hordriss]

It’s supposed to be that he thinks the word is ‘Fursday,’ but he’s on record pronouncing it ‘Thursday,’ so shouldn’t be spelling it that way, plus there’d be an extra space in the crossword to fill (this detail has always nagged me!), so I was imagining what other unlikely spelling he could be coming up with.

Oh yes… I wasn’t thinking of the crossword. What about Fhursday?

[sleepey]

Thurfday

[Flap Jack]

Maybe he put a T but just had poor handwriting… ?

It is one of those annoyingly basic “Lister is stupid and/or careless” gags that crept in during Series VI.

[Flap Jack]

Ironically Lister re-proved he pronounces Thursday correctly in a later scene which was about an entirely different way he was stupid/careless.

[clem]

It’s supposed to be that he thinks the word is ‘Fursday,’ but he’s on record pronouncing it ‘Thursday,’ so shouldn’t be spelling it that way, plus there’d be an extra space in the crossword to fill (this detail has always nagged me!)

You needn’t let that bother you any longer, because it’s got nothing to do with a crossword.

[Moonlight]

[Technopeasant]

He only read the one recipe.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Maybe he put a T but just had poor handwriting… ?
It is one of those annoyingly basic “Lister is stupid and/or careless” gags that crept in during Series VI.

[Warbodog]

You needn’t let that bother you any longer, because it’s got nothing to do with a crossword.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Nick R]

A crossword is a memory quiz on how well you can remember words. 

Except for cryptic crosswords. They’re quizzes on how well you can remember a bunch of arbitrary rules you’re somehow supposed to just know, like if a clue contains the word “propellant” it’s a BLATANT CLUE that you have to take one of the other words in a clue, reverse it, then alternate the resulting letters with those of another word in the clue. (Or something like that – I don’t do cryptic crosswords.)

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, that’s a bad moment too. But in Series 1 Naylor and Grant had the excuse that they were still figuring out Lister’s character. They don’t have that excuse in Series VI.

[Ben Saunders]

I like to think his antics in Series VIII where he does a colour-by-numbers and annoys Rimmer with it is just him having fun rather than having the mind of a worryingly slow 6-year-old, he’s just incredibly bored and finding something, anything to do, and relishing how much it annoys Rimmer to bring it up. It’s the kind of thing I might do to my mates just to pass the time. But in Series VI, it’s Kryten who points out the Fursday thing so it’s harder to believe it’s just a joke. Unless Kryten had a new banter program installed recently.

[Flap Jack]

It wasn’t a colour by numbers, it was a dot-to-dot. I guess it must be Misremembering Puzzles Completed By Lister Week.

I think you can rationalise some of Lister’s stupid Series VIII moments as just him messing with Rimmer, but there are so many of them it’s hard to believe they’re all like that. Plus after Back in the Red they become pretty chummy.

[sleepey]

Yes it was a dot-to-dot he was doing in Pete. The colour-by-numbers was Thanks for the Memory.

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[Nick R]

[Moonlight]

I like to think his antics in Series VIII where he does a colour-by-numbers and annoys Rimmer with it is just him having fun rather than having the mind of a worryingly slow 6-year-old, he’s just incredibly bored and finding something, anything to do, and relishing how much it annoys Rimmer to bring it up.

The Series VIII script book explicitly says in the scene direction “He is taking the piss” but I also don’t think that necessarily comes across clearly in the episode.

[International Debris]

No it doesn’t at all, Craig’s playing it too wide-eyed. 

[Flap Jack]

For the record, I checked the script book for the Gideon’s Bible bit, and it does say “Lister is being a fucking idiot.”

OK it doesn’t really, but it doesn’t say he’s doing it as a wind-up either.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

To be fair I only know what Gideon’s Bible is from Red Dwarf. Lister hasn’t had the luxury of watching that particular show. Not even in the Joy Squid induced hallucination 

[Dax101]

It is one of those annoyingly basic “Lister is stupid and/or careless” gags that crept in during Series VI.

I think it works fine for his character. Lister isn’t meant to be highly educated or even educated at all. He is a character that never cared about education. And It doesn’t go into the area of being too stupid. So i think its fine

[Warbodog]

[Flap Jack]

Maybe we all have our own threshold for how stupid Lister can be and have it feel in character, but my personal one is definitely below “being unable to spell the days of the week”. I also think Lister should be able to identify all the basic 2D shapes by sight, remember the order of the colours of the rainbow, and know what sounds are typically made by various common farm animals.

[Warbodog]

To be fair I only know what Gideon’s Bible is from Red Dwarf.

They came in to give a talk at my secondary school the year before and distributed New Testaments (not the full Bible, just the promotional sampler) to the really enthusiastic multitude.

[sleepey]

Maybe spelling just isn’t such a necessary skill in the future when everything can talk to you. Handwriting is already in decline. He probably couldn’t read an analog clock either.

[Rushy]

Lister’s intelligence has always wildly fluctuated depending on the needs of the plot or joke. 
He’s established as an unambitious slovenly vending machine repairman who didn’t want to get tied down to a career as a shopping trolley attendant. The fact that he could figure out the controls for Blue Midget was already a break in character as far as I’m concerned. 

[Technopeasant]

I mean, we all know Wednesday is the difficult one.

[Author]

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