Doug had updated his Twitter

[loadoftottnumb]

https://twitter.com/dougrdnaylor/status/1670844370780667936?s=46&t=hK16mSlA7wC-Avokc1jP4A

I reckon it’s a new character called Frank. 

Topic

[Ian Symes]

Btw, there’s no way the closure of the Twitter account is due to loss of access. For one thing, I helped GNP gather all their various passwords together after Seb died (that was fun, on the phone to a brand new widow while we’re both still utterly traumatised, seems really worthwhile now). I’m not even sure if Curtis Threadgold is still employed by GNP (or Grant, or Naylor), although it seems very much doubtful given that the two things he was responsible for have now been shut down. While I’ve not spoken to Curtis about any of this stuff for a while, having known him for over two decades it strikes me as highly unlikely that he’d have done anything daft when they (presumably) let him go.

So presumably it boils down to a) money, being unwilling or unable to pay someone to run the accounts, b) pettiness from one or more of the main parties about who should be controlling it, or c) a combination of the two.

[Dave]

[Dave]

So presumably it boils down to a) money, being unwilling or unable to pay someone to run the accounts

If Doug is saying he’ll tweet out Red Dwarf news from his own account then presumably he would be happy to do the same through the official account. So it doesn’t seem like money to pay someone to operate the account can really be an issue here.

“Not my choice” definitely feels like a suggestion that it’s someone else’s choice.

[Flap Jack]

Jeez, none of those explanations bode well.

If it’s about it being too expensive, that doesn’t exactly line up with “oh we are going to be making SO much Red Dwarf, out of our buttskis in all directions” proclamations. Even projects which have to rely entirely on crowdfunding can usually stretch to posting updates to a free Twitter account.

And if it’s about Doug and Rob not being able to decide who controls it or what it should post, then, well, what the fuck?! If something as basic as that is enough to cause a deadlock that leads to this, then it’s difficult to see how anything is getting made by GNP ever.

[Dave]

[Stephen Abootman]

[Rudolph]

[Stephen Abootman]

[Moonlight]

I’m telling you people, it’s all part of Rob Grant’s evil plan. I have evidence, I just lost it. In a volcano.

[Stephen Abootman]

Good job he tagged himself in case people thought he meant another Doug Naylor.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Boug Baylor.

[Rudolph]

Doug Rdnaylor.

[Jonathan Capps]

Good job he tagged himself in case people thought he meant another Doug Naylor.

It’s starting to feel like everyone’s been replaced with a poorly defined robotic copy of themselves.

[Moonlight]

Doug’s Twitter is going to descend into Danny’s but without the sense that he’s ranting about something important.

[RunawayTrain]

Doug’s retweeted this bit of fun
https://twitter.com/Hadrians_Gate/status/1700217033168748720?s=20
Red Dwarf is in the final, battling SG1, TNG, and DW (and despite this being a Red Dwarf site, I confess to being very torn!).  Voting closes at about 7.30pm tomorrow

[Flap Jack]

Is it weird to not think that Red Dwarf is more deserving than Doctor Who, but kind of want it to win anyway?

[RunawayTrain]

Well, it did win, despite the odd traitor here and there ;)

Apparently Dr Who won the previous three years.

[International Debris]

Red Dwarf is very clearly my favourite TV show. But if I were judging it as a sci-fi show, it wouldn’t win. 

Also I’m really fond of SG-1, but it’s really not top tier sf. How it beat Babylon 5, DS9, Battlestar Galactica, The X Files, The Expanse, Farscape and Star Trek TOS is bonkers. 

[Moonlight]

I feel like The X-Files’ average gets dragged down quite a bit just by how fucking dreadful the season 11 finale was.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Much as Farscape is a guilty pleasure of mine ,if only for the adorably quaint late 90s CGI and the Henson company’s exemplary practical effects work in bringing the alien creatures to life (at least the ones that aren’t just people with rubber foreheads – which is gonna be in most sci-fi anyway in mid to low budget visual mediums for obvious reasons so that’s not a slight against the show specifically), I’d hardly class the John Crichton’s space harem among the all-time greats of sci-fi.

[International Debris]

It’s one of my all-time favourites, but either way I’d class it in a league above SG-1 solely on the grounds of how weird and imaginative it is. 

[si]

Red Dwarf is very clearly my favourite TV show. But if I were judging it as a sci-fi show, it wouldn’t win.

I did toy with voting for Doctor Who for that same reason, but in the end, just thought ‘fuck it’.

[Moonlight]

I might have voted for TNG if I’d been thinking about season 5 at the time.

[Ridley]

I did toy with voting for Doctor Who for that same reason, but in the end, just thought ‘fuck it’.

You voted for Torchwood?

[International Debris]

He went with Hyperdrive.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Poor misguided soul.

[Stephen Abootman]

Doug has retweeted this interview he did: https://x.com/ImaginWorldsPod/status/1702064206579921373 

There is a transcript on the page which contains the following:

So you got something else come. I mean, it’s coming back, right?

DOUG: Well, it’s looking awfully like it’s coming back. It’s not signed and sealed yet, but
there are certainly very encouraging noises. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully

As a miniseries a movie?

DOUG: They haven’t said, uh, last time, I mean, to be fair, they did want two new
specials and then we got tripped up by a couple of things, one of which was Covid. So
whether they’ll want something different, I don’t know. And also the other thing I did was I wrote a, uh, I’ve written rather, uh, a TV film for, uh, the Red Dwarf cast being fictitious
versions of themselves. And they’re, they’re desperate to do that.

Wait, what do, what do you mean fictitious versions of themselves?

DOUG: Well, so in other words, it’s Craig Charles playing Craig Charles, a fictitious
version of Craig Charles. Chris Barrie is very, like, he’s a comic version of the real Chris
Barrie.

Like a Curb Your Enthusiasm version of behind the scenes Red Dwarf?

DOUG: Exactly. But it’s also science fiction, and they get wrapped up in a, a real world
is set on earth, um, in, in contemporary times. And, um, they’re desperate to do that. So
I’m trying to blackmail UK TV into forcing them to do that. Along with, um, more Red
Dwarf. I went to a convention a few weeks ago and the lines for, for the cues for
autographs for the cast, and even me were just overwhelming so many people with
kids. There was 11 old girl came with her dad, uh, and she said, can you answer a
question? I Yeah, sure, of course. And she goes, um, you remember that show where
Red Dwarf went faster than the speed of light? And I went, yeah. And she said, Rimmer
is uh, made of light, so how is it possible for anyone to see him? And she was 11
. And it was like, wow. And there was, I was really blown away how this a really
young audience there that have either been introduced it by the parents, well almost
certainly, probably, uh, who are loving it all, like, you know, the parents did. It’s quite
weird. 

[Moonlight]

Come on, Series 15. We’re so close.

[Jonathan Capps]

I’m holding out for series 16.

[Dave]

[Stephen Abootman]

One thing he said that I hadn’t really thought about before: “I think they [UKTV, presumably] kind of like to leave it a few years. So it’s then, oh, it is back.”

Hard to say how things would have gone without Covid but when you see the amount of publicity “Red Dwarf is back on the iplayer” or “Red Dwarf is back on the BBC for the first time in 15 years” gets, I guess there’s unfortunately a logic to that approach as opposed to “the last Red Dwarf was a success so let’s get a few more out ASAP to less fanfare”.

[Ridley]

FANDOM: Make Red Dwarf into an attractive interlaced, log cabin structure or something:

[Flap Jack]

It’ll obviously be Series IX. After all, they’ve already tapped a G&T user to produce it.

It’ll still be set after The Promised Land of course.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Uh, well, uh, It’s not signed and sealed yet, but there are certainly very encouraging noises. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.

I’m expecting the phone to ring any day now.

… any day now.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Moonlight]

I’m reaching to my phone to call my lawyer…oh…hahahah! That’s good. Never mind.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Oh no, it’s Sir Patrick Syndrome, a highly-respected and versatile sentient virus that makes people not want to file lawsuits by amusing them!

[Stephen Abootman]

RIP

[Rudolph]

Just seen about John Pomphrey’s passing, which is sad to hear.

[Stephen Abootman]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Union Jack underpants? Whose dream was he dreaming, Tim Brooke-Taylor’s?

[Ridley]

I am now telling Doug exactly what he can dream with a wardrobe supply of etc.

[Moonlight]

[Unrumble]

[Moonlight]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I don’t know why this is where my brain went 

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Frank Smeghammer]

[Frank Smeghammer]

No scratch that, this one is better

[Author]

Replies