Doug Reddit AMA

[Stephen Abootman]

Thought I’d start a new topic so anything of note could be posted in here. The top rated comment at the moment (by some distance) is ‘Would you like any toast?’ so don’t count on it. Starts at 2pm. 

Hi, I'm Doug Naylor, Emmy Award-winning writer and co-creator of the sitcom Red Dwarf. My new children’s novel Sin Bin Island is published Sept 11 by David Fickling Books – AMA!
byu/DougNaylorOfficial inRedDwarf

Topic

[Dave]

I love that the initial planning stages for these stories clearly never gave any concession to real-world feasibility. Same with the Garbage World/giant cockroaches stuff.

I’d love to have a book of all the unused scripts that never made it, it’d be a treasure trove.

[Ben Saunders]

I’m kind of glad we’re not getting “Lister teams up with his 25-year-old-self”, because de-aging is shit, so that’s a shit idea. Even if you have Disney money, de-aging is shit. Indiana Jones? Shit. Luke Skywalker? Shit. So Dave Lister would be especially shit. 

Fine idea for a novel though because you don’t need to de-age words on a page. 

[Rushy]

I’m kind of glad we’re not getting “Lister teams up with his 25-year-old-self”, because de-aging is shit, so that’s a shit idea.

I agree on the deaging, but I’d be really interested to see the performances. Craig did a terrific job recapturing the energy of his 1980s performance at the end of M-Corp. I’d love to see Barrie try to channel his younger self too. 

[Dave]

Fine idea for a novel though because you don’t need to de-age words on a page. 

If they could de-age Grant Naylor to write novels like they did in 1991 that’d be super.

[Dax101]

For me its not about how de-aging looks. If it looks terrible than its not worth it. But if it just about passable I can look past this stuff. Aslong as the story is good and its funny without falling into cringe. Is it weird that with the Dave era its the story and comedy i worry most about?

[Paul Muller]

Very good of Doug to take the time to do this, and it’s great to have some clarity on the current state of Red Dwarf, albeit not the news most of us were hoping for. Personally, I’ve always loved the novels, so the prospect of more coming along is very exciting. There’s 30 odd years of Red Dwarf lore to dig into and explore since the last ones came out, so I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it. 

[Rushy]

FYI Doug is back on his AMA page to answer more questions that he didn’t get to last night!

[Rushy]

1. Doug was considering bringing Hattie Hayridge back for the new Red Dwarf special 

2. Any questions about reuniting with Rob should be directed to Rob

3. eBooks of all 4 RD novels is under consideration

4. Doug has “no thoughts” on an animated series

will keep an eye for more

[Rushy]

Doug would (probably jokingly) like to have Tom Cruise guest star in Red Dwarf, “as anything”. Also Margot Robbie as Rimmer’s mom. 

[Rushy]

Doug says he’s never seriously considered Big Finish as a venue for Red Dwarf, because he’s always been able to sell the shows on TV “until very recently”. 

[Rushy]

The implication at the end of Tikka to Ride extended is that the crew eventually changed their mind about abandoning Lister, and came back for him a few weeks later

[Rushy]

Someone asked what Doug would do if one of the cast members died. Doug ominously responds he would “still try to use them…”

Make of that what you will lmao 

[Rushy]

Writing to the BBC DEMANDING Red Dwarf (Doug’s use of caps lock, not mine) is encouraged

[Unrumble]

Someone asked what Doug would do if one of the cast members died. Doug ominously responds he would “still try to use them…”
Make of that what you will lmao 

Repurposing deleted scenes. The outtake of Craig getting wound up in that park at the noises from birds, dogs and planes springs to mind. 

[Warbodog]

Doug says he’s never seriously considered Big Finish as a venue for Red Dwarf, because he’s always been able to sell the shows on TV “until very recently”. 

He’s talking about it like a substitute rather than a supplement, which is a good attitude. It sounds like he’s not interested in having other writers churn out Red Dwarf for the sake of it and didn’t want to wear out his own ideas. But if he does end up doing even one boxset or something for lack of TV, that’d be cool.

[International Debris]

Either way, a BBC production would not only be more mainstream, it would also be free to listen to, which is a nice bonus.

Well, yeah, they’re pretty linked really. Why limit it to a thousand people who can afford to buy four episodes of something they’ve never heard for £30 when you can get hundreds of thousands – possibly even millions – from free radio with the option of releasing on CD afterwards?

I’m honestly amazed this doesn’t happen more with Big Finish as it is. Radio 4 have commissioned a few bits from them – the Lucie Miller era Eighth Doctor stuff – and it seems like a good way to get their stuff heard. Capaldi cited one of his reasons for not doing BF is he wanted his stuff be accessible by everyone, so it would be a great way to do that.

[Podey]

I love that the initial planning stages for these stories clearly never gave any concession to real-world feasibility. Same with the Garbage World/giant cockroaches stuff.
I’d love to have a book of all the unused scripts that never made it, it’d be a treasure trove.

I’d have bloody loved the whole Garbage World story be adapted in some form, I’ve even considered drawing the comic myself.

[Dax101]

If i remember right on the official site it says Rob and Doug went to Ed Bye and mentioned the idea of Garbage world to see if he thought it was filmable, to which Ed said Nope! and they went away to write something else.

Id guess it probably would have been adapted fairly loosely. 

[Warbodog]

It’d be a monumental episode if Garbage World was still Earth, but they could easily have made it a different planet that went rogue.

[RunawayTrain]

I suppose if I’d been fussed enough I could have searched and found out where the AMA was being held, but none of the promo for it mentioned which subreddit would be hosting!  Glad others were more on the ball.

That’s quite a shocking thing to hear, that Dave simply aren’t commissioning scripted comedy right now.  In a slightly twisted way it’s a relief to know it wasn’t specific to Red Dwarf, but still, wow!

[Podey]

The G&T guys did a good job of explaining why Dave likely weren’t commissioning scripted comedy like Red Dwarf anymore on the recent ‘Waffle Men’ podcast, though I do wish they’d recorded a week or two later in hindsight… emergency podcast? (probably not). 

Still, it’s a bit mad how much actual news there has been to talk about on the front page in the last month, isn’t it? 

[Ian Symes]

Yeah, this news coming so soon after the DwarfCast where we spent twenty minutes speculating about Dave’s commissioning policies does have very “cell inspection in ten minutes” vibes.

[Rushy]

Let the coping begin

[Author]

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