Favorite Doug Dwarf gags

[Moonlight]

No explanation needed. To explain, this is intended for standout jokes from Dave Dwarf but I figured I’d include VII / VIII to throw them a bone they desperately need.

Topic

[Asclepius]

I can’t decide whether IMDb ratings are uniquely weird, or they’re actually normal and it’s everywhere else that’s weird. For most shows 6/10 is effectively the bottom of the scoring range in terms of averages, but maybe the general population are kinder than hardcore fans and just give a pass to anything that doesn’t physically injure you when you watch it.
Still, Pete Part II has a 6.9 average, and the worst Red Dwarf episode of all time has a 7.4, the same as Twentica and Mechocracy. That is fucking bonkers.

But I do enjoy the suggestion that Doug should have balanced Series XI and XII by just somehow knowing how the episodes would be received once they came out. What a mundane use of clairvoyance.

It’s not about “knowing how they’d be received” just…showing them to some people and getting some feedback. Or is it the same issue that RTD had with Dr. Who – he’s so all-powerful that no-one will say “Erm…about the Captain in a tutu…about the outrageous ‘oriental’ accent….etc etc”.

[Ben Saunders]

The general public seem to consider 5/10 the worst rating you could possibly give something. It’s best to treat a 1-10 scale on something like IMDB as like a 6-8 scale, really, with only exceptionally loved or hated stuff going outside that limited range.

I think the effects of “review bombing” are overstated, yes there’s a little dent to the scores but it doesn’t have the huge impact people would lead you to believe, and I think the scores for the Jodie era stuff are pretty agreeable. Most of my personal ratings are lower than the average but I score things properly so there are 2s and 7s and not just 5s to 8s.

You do have Sleep No More, Fear Her, In The Forest of the Night, Love & Monsters, The Lazarus Experiment, The Idiots Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, Curse of the Black Spot (boo!), Kill the Moon, The Eaters of Light, World War Three (boo!), The Vampires of Venice, Robot of Sherwood (boo!) and Empress of Mars all being sub-7, with only Orphan 55 and Legend of the Sea Devils going below 6. Deservedly so for the latter and probably the former but I haven’t thought about that since it aired.

[Warbodog]

Vampires of Venice stands out as not belonging in that list, I always thought it was a fun one. But some others I don’t really remember and later ones not seen.

[Ben Saunders]

Victory of the Daleks isn’t so bad. Curse of the Black Spot is fun. Eaters of Light I don’t remember. World War Three is good but “farting aliens bad”. I don’t remember Vampires of Venice either. Robot of Sherwood is fun. Orphan 55 I remember wondering what the hell happened during production to make it so that the monsters never appear in the same frame as any of the characters. Legend of the Sea Devils I remember wondering how this shit made it to television.

[cwickham]

Aliens of London/World War Three is a great script let down solely by how it is realised on screen.

Legend of the Sea Devils is clearly a production that bit off more than it could chew being made under COVID protocols, and *something* apparently got hacked out of it quite late in the day which only exacerbated things but it seems unlikely that’ll ever surface in exact words. Orphan 55 is a total disaster, an episode where everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, without either of those excuses.

[International Debris]

Skipper is lifted up by its relentless fan service. Half of it is one gag, and the other half is “remember Series I/II?” 
It’s not terrible, but it is the laziest episode of that year. 

The series I/II fanservice counts for five or six minutes of the episode. The second half has Mr. Rat, the sacrifice, multiple Listers, Rimmer as Holly, Blue Dwarf, Rimmer saying no as soon as the doors open, a montage of weird noises… there are loads of great gags in there that aren’t just fanservice. Even the scene with the original bunk room isn’t exactly fanservice other than the sets and costumes. 

“Nobody’s dead, Arnold” is shit, but there’s much more to the second half than “remember series I/II?”

[Doomitron]

Most of what you said lasts for like ten seconds each.

[Rushy]

the sacrifice, multiple Listers, Rimmer as Holly, Blue Dwarf, Rimmer saying no as soon as the doors open, a montage of weird noises… there are loads of great gags in there

I did love Mr Rat

[International Debris]

Ok so the second half can basically split into four scenes: the nobody’s dead Arnold one, Mr Rat, the montage, the bunk room one. The first of those is fanservice (and my least favourite part of the episode by some margin), the middle two aren’t, the last one has the original bunk room but doesn’t get its jokes from fanservice.

So I’d still argue that the episode just being fanservice and the second half just being “remember series I/II?” is a vast overstatement. It’s my second favourite Dave-era episode because I like the ideas and jokes.

[Doomitron]

Skipper has another Dave Dwarfian quirk I really hate where Kryten makes sure to point out “the skipper does require recharge time between skips” and this gets referenced once and promptly forgotten about immediately for the montage gags. Someone on the Discord said a lot of Dave era scripts feel like they’re one draft away from completion and this is one instance where I think that sentiment applies, I wonder if anyone ever proofread Naylor’s scripts before he’d submit them.

[Rushy]

 the last one has the original bunk room but doesn’t get its jokes from fanservice. 

I would argue this is actually more true of Back in the Red, where the bunkroom only serves as a place to briefly hold Lister and get him to reunite with Rimmer. 

In Skipper, there’s a big “awww” reveal of the bunkroom, then Rimmer and Lister have a moment of looking wistfully to Earth. It’s a much more pronounced evocation of Series I and II. The uniforms are more correct, the room is more correct, the thematic map of the scene as it were is more correct. The entire scene exists to give Rimmer the potential for a happy ending that is very much based in the I/II version of the character where they’re still trying to get home and where Rimmer wants to be alive and an officer. 

If it was a more general happy ending for Rimmer – detached from the era of I/II – it’d be more like Holoship or even Promised Land. 

[Professor Flibble]

Rewatching M-Corp, “Yes please, man!” has me pissing myself laughing 

[Ben Saunders]

I really like Lister using his captain privileges to keep hot food in stasis so he can eat it whenever. That’s exactly what I would do.

[Dax101]

I don’t mind the nostalgia for Skipper. I feel it has a purpose for that episode, at least. It often feels a little forced at other times

[Moonlight]

I would argue this is actually more true of Back in the Red, where the bunkroom only serves as a place to briefly hold Lister and get him to reunite with Rimmer. 

I only remember this because I did that half-length fan-edit of BitR and I put this scene back, but the bit where Rimmer talks to Lister in his cell with the wibbly shield is actually a reshoot of a second scene on the bunkroom set. It’s also 100% fanservice to bring that set back at all.

[Dax101]

The bunkroom in BITR looks more silver and less grey.

[Rushy]

his cell with the wibbly shield 

I love the wibbly shield. It’s cool

[Moonlight]

It feels too high tech for the ship.

[Doomitron]

Not to be 8’s biggest defender but you can explain that away as a creation of the nanobots.

[tombow]

what about laziest Dave era gag? “sounds like my old school” stood out to me as one that needed work

[Dave]

what about laziest Dave era gag?

The “Mars bar living in Scotland” line from Twentica.

[Warbodog]

Why is it living?

[Dave]

Why is it living?

One of the reasons it annoys me as a joke.

[Doomitron]

Sneezing the ashes in Samsara, probably the most obvious gag in Red Dwarf history.

[Technopeasant]

He couldn’t be more fried than if I spit on his wrist while eating a Mars bar living at my old school. Achoo!

[Dax101]

I thought “Unless the chick with the really calm voice starts talking it ain’t serious” from Skipper from pretty damn obvious. As well as “May I suggest, we don’t stay here and we don’t discuss”

Both practically told the audience what joke was about to happen.

[International Debris]

Skipper has another Dave Dwarfian quirk I really hate where Kryten makes sure to point out “the skipper does require recharge time between skips” and this gets referenced once and promptly forgotten about immediately for the montage gags. Someone on the Discord said a lot of Dave era scripts feel like they’re one draft away from completion and this is one instance where I think that sentiment applies, I wonder if anyone ever proofread Naylor’s scripts before he’d submit them.

That was probably me and yeah, it does bug me. It’s literally there to explain why Rimmer doesn’t leave the first alternate timeline as soon as Holly starts the alert, and never happens again. There are so many little niggles like that in the Dave era that are so frustrating, because as a viewer you shouldn’t be able to pick up on them and be able to mentally improve them on first viewing. After a bunch of nerdy rewatches, maybe, but the Dave era is full of those holes immediately.

[Moonlight]

He couldn’t be more fried than if I spit on his wrist while eating a Mars bar living at my old school. Achoo!

As someone who spent a year at a crooked school, that “sounds like my old school” line is VERY funny to me.

[Technopeasant]

As someone who spent a year at a crooked school, that “sounds like my old school” line is VERY funny to me.

It is however essentially a repeat of:

[Moonlight]

It is but I am from the most milquetoast middle class community so I don’t relate to that one so much.

[Frank Smeghammer]

what about laziest Dave era gag?
The “Mars bar living in Scotland” line from Twentica.

Gets a big laugh from the audience as well. One of the bug bears of Dave era Dwarf is you can tell lots of people there are just nervous and desperate for the show to be good.

So they just give a big laugh to bloody everything to be encouraging.

It’s sweet, and I’m glad they enjoyed themselves, but it’s painful to hear. The nervous energy is palpable

[tombow]

I really like the set piece of Rimmer having to carry those extension cords around when he’s on low power in TPL, and the contrast between that and his super-self. One of the best Doug era “epic movie like but still funny” images that make me think a Dwarf film would have been good.

[Warbodog]

Yeah, Rimmer and the extension cords was the highlight of the special for me. We’ve had Rimmer powering off before, but this was a funny and nightmarish new take on how being a hologram sucks.

[International Debris]

All the hologram stuff in TPL really feels like something from the bubble, it’s a funny idea with excellent execution, with existential horror behind it, and ultimately played for a moment of genuinely effective pathos. 

[Rushy]

The conversation between Lister and Lister Sr in Fathers and Suns is a thing of beauty. Great character development, great insight into Lister’s inner fears, some parallels with Rimmer (we see that Lister did have some ambition, or at least he absorbed what Rimmer’s saying to him) and it’s also very very fnny

[RunawayTrain]

Yeah, Rimmer and the extension cords was the highlight of the special for me. We’ve had Rimmer powering off before, but this was a funny and nightmarish new take on how being a hologram sucks.

It also happened to be a good illustration of trying to live with energy-limiting chronic illness.  It’s not a perfect analogy, but the physical restrictions, constantly having to be mindful of your energy level lest you drop too low (collapse / crash) and the impact of it all on trying to function in daily life is something people without energy-limiting conditions don’t tend to understand.  The overall vibe was very relatable.

(What I wouldn’t give to be as functional as low-power Rimmer again though!)

[Author]

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