how would you resolve the end to ” only the good …”

[NitroChrisUK]

with the specials comin up .. will they let us know what happend after lister cat kryten and kochanski were trapped in a mirror universe with no way back and rimmer runnin away after kickin death in the balls with no one else on the ship ( or was there other prisoners on there?) ….seems like there going to be a hell of alot of explaining to be done …. if it was up to you … WHAT HAPPEND NEXT ??

Topic

[pfm]

If it was just Rimmer and Lister I would accept it. Obviously it’s NOT so all the better, but I think we can all live without Kochanski and Holly, we did for VI (granted I’m not the biggest fan of that series, bar Gunmen).

Now, let’s just stick a needle in that huge pulsating bubo, forget all this nonsense and ENJOY the fact that we are getting SOME form of new Red Dwarf. Frak Earth, that’s what I say.

[NitroChrisUK]

yep all that matters is that hopefully its funny .. seing as its a comedy .. the worry is that after all these years we may be disapointed but hopefully it will be spectacularly good

[Ben Paddon]

What if it’s a “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” style special, set during one of the earlier series? I mean yes, the cast are visibly older, but that never stopped… someone.

[ChrisM]

What if it?s a ?Battlestar Galactica: Razor? style special, set during one of the earlier series?

I wouldn’t mind that at all.

If the specials were set later it would be nice to reference the character’s ages (lost in parallel universe(s) for that long and it’s taken that long to get back… and all that jive-bunny*… )…

… but I’m fine with them just ignoring the ages in a historical setting.

It might be interesting to see the crew’s mysterious ecounter with the pan-dimensional liquid beast from the Modagon (Mogadon?) clustre. On the other hand, considering the budget, I doubt they’d pull that off. Well… unless liquid beast affects involved filming pools and chucking buckets around in which case it could be the most cheaply realized sci-fi beastie ever. Outside of Star-Trek of course.

*or possibly literally, if they encountered a universe where Lister’s pet Frankenstein was a rabbit. But my mind has gone off on a tangent now… (what would a humanoid bunny look like? Why is that a creepy thought? (oh wait Bugs… and Roger Rabit. More the former, he’s got more jive. Doubt they could afford such an icon though, even if he does take payment in root vegetable products.)

[Paul Muller]

Yeah.

I’ll be interested to see what happens with such a small budget – have a nasty suspicion they might forgo any FX shots of the ships and just re-use old footage.

[NitroChrisUK]

>have a nasty suspicion they might forgo any FX shots of the ships and just re-use old footage.

dont think that would bother me to much altho there are them remasterd scenes for the series 7 dvd and its not as hard these days so you never know might get more bang for your buck than they would expect … though i find it hard to immagin it being set on red dwarf ( to many sets )but u never know

[Seb Patrick]

The Grandfather Paradox means that the entirety of reality should have been wiped out at the conclusion of Out of Time. And if not then, then at the conclusion of Tikka, when the same thing happens.

Ergo, everything that happens from VII onwards can safely be ignored, as that universe doesn’t actually exist, and any episodes you may encounter from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

[NitroChrisUK]

yep it wouldent bother me is they carried on from series 6 but in a different direction .. much like the sarah conner chroicles carries on from terminator 2 whilst completely ignoring terminator 3 .. bt i think with dwarf and all the paradoxs .. plus explaining holly and kochanskis absence would make more sense

[Jonathan Capps]

> Ergo, everything that happens from VII onwards can safely be ignored, as that universe doesn?t actually exist, and any episodes you may encounter from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

A winner.

[Pete Part Three]

That clears that up.

[Paul Muller]

I’ll put the kettle on.

[JamesTC]

The Grandfather Paradox means that the entirety of reality should have been wiped out at the conclusion of Out of Time. And if not then, then at the conclusion of Tikka, when the same thing happens.

Ergo, everything that happens from VII onwards can safely be ignored, as that universe doesn?t actually exist, and any episodes you may encounter from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

“The Grandfather Paradox is this: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveller’s grandmother. As a result, one of the traveller’s parents (and by extension, the traveller himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have travelled back in time after all, which in turn implies the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveller would have been conceived, allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox.”

Though not mentioning the universe is destroyed in that piece from good ol’ wikipedia, one of many outcomes can be established by the logical paradox that is formed, the outcome Red Dwarf establishes is that the events occured to the man but not to the grandfather and events were turned back (not without repercussions, unstable dimension in RD) so that the man can then avoid his error and stop the logical paradox.

[NitroChrisUK]

what im not sure of at the start of tikka to ride listers says soemthing to the affect ” killing us killed themselves because we could never become them in the futur to kill our past selves “
fair enuf ..
then how does kennedy kill his past self .. because if he does that it means he cant become his future self to kill himself in the past .. so really nobody is there to kill kennedy …… me confused or am i missing soemthing

[JamesTC]

then how does kennedy kill his past self .. because if he does that it means he cant become his future self to kill himself in the past .. so really nobody is there to kill kennedy ?? me confused

It could be that with the future Star Buggers being the original future selves their time line as well as themselves can be changed because they exist as originals, Kennedy was a different version of himself not from the original time line so he could kill himself because essentially he was a different man because he was not meant to exist. Ouch, its like brain freeze only much worse.

[NitroChrisUK]

yep mega brain freeze i think iv mentiond this before its like the other future selves in stasis leak from 5 years into future what happend to them .. id like to think they were the same future selves that were killed in out of time maybe and which kochanski was it .. a future 1 or the same one from before the accident .. if so that would mean in the 1st episode she would have already have been married to future lister ahhh i dunnooo freezage going on

[JamesTC]

Poetic licence.

[NitroChrisUK]

well that sorts that out …?? :/ hah

[NitroChrisUK]

i guess certain time anomalies would wipe over other wise … like the amount of times history is changed in timeslides … i guess there just creating and endless amount of parralell sideways upside down and inside out timelines universes dimersions and god knows what else

[Seb Patrick]

what im not sure of at the start of tikka to ride listers says soemthing to the affect ? killing us killed themselves because we could never become them in the futur to kill our past selves ?
fair enuf ..
then how does kennedy kill his past self .. because if he does that it means he cant become his future self to kill himself in the past .. so really nobody is there to kill kennedy ?? me confused or am i missing soemthing

No, you’re not missing something, it’s a fucking ridiculous piece of bad internal logic. Dwarf may have had its series-to-series continuity problems, but Rob and Doug were never usually dumb enough to contradict themselves within the space of a single episode. I actually rate Tikka fairly highly, compared to some, but that little nugget completely balls it up.

And it could have been quite easily avoided, as well, if the explanation used for the Dwarfers’ survival at the end of VI had been the original one of Rimmer having destroyed the time drive and thus stopped the future versions from ever existing. Alright, so Kennedy killing himself would still have been a paradox – but as SoundableObject points out, there are multiple theorised ways to resolve a Grandfather Paradox. Unfortunately, by virtue of the spiel at the beginning of the episode, Dwarf chose the one that means that the Kennedy sequence can’t actually have happened.

[NitroChrisUK]

always wonderd why they state soemthing at the start of an episode and go completely agaist it at the end .. still one of my favourate episodes just always been slightly confuzzled by that bit of writing

[Pete Part Three]

I think everyone should go and watch Crime Traveller.

[Carlito]

I liked Crime Traveller, cheese and all.

[Mnoooah]

I think the fact that there is NO footage of this on Youtube – okay apart from the opening credits – is telling.

[Tarka Dal]

> Unfortunately, by virtue of the spiel at the beginning of the episode, Dwarf chose the one that means that the Kennedy sequence can?t actually have happened.

Could you explain this to me simple enough that Lister could understand it, because my hand is up and I haven’t got the slightest clue what you’re blathering about.

[JamesTC]

>> Unfortunately, by virtue of the spiel at the beginning of the episode, Dwarf chose the one that means that the Kennedy sequence can?t actually have happened.

> Could you explain this to me simple enough that Lister could understand it, because my hand is up and I haven?t got the slightest clue what you?re blathering about.

At the start of Series VII time was reversed to the point before the paradox with the crews future selves were fought giving the gang the oppurtunity to not become their future selves.
If this applied to ‘Tikka to Ride’ then when they pushed Oswald out of the window time should have returned to the point before they pushed him out of the window so they can avoid pushing him out of the window and christmas can be saved!

[ChrisM]

>If this applied to ?Tikka to Ride? then when they pushed Oswald out of the window time should have returned to the point before they pushed him out of the window so they can avoid pushing him out of the window and christmas can be saved!

That paradox might only be relevant if one kills one’s past self though.

It’s a good point though. A better example might be when Kennedy killed his past self.

It didn’t really bother me all that much though. I figure the bit at the start about a new universe being created to deal with the paradox incorporating stuff from different timelines gives a lot of room to maneuver. I.e. The new universe might not always incorporate the same stuff the same way.

[Almighty_crj]

But they did stop Oswald getting pushed out the window. They sent him up a floor and he failed to kill the President.

Well since we already know Red Dwarf uses the theory that every probability (or decision) has a dimension, Then Lister could have been talking to the Kennedy from the dimension that Oswald failed to kill on the correct angle with no influence from the dwarfers at all.

[Seb Patrick]

No, SoundableObject’s got it wrong. It’s got nothing to do with Oswald.

Right, the reason the crew survive the end of VI is that it’s impossible to kill your past self. Because if you kill yourself in the past, you don’t exist in order to kill yourself.

But Tikka resolves with JFK… killing his past self.

[JamesTC]

>Well since we already know Red Dwarf uses the theory that every probability (or decision) has a dimension, Then Lister could have been talking to the Kennedy from the dimension that Oswald failed to kill on the correct angle with no influence from the dwarfers at all.

But the dimension where Kennedy was shot and the one where he wasn’t are one and the same just with altered time lines. You could theorise that it creates an alternative dimension and so the fact that it is not the same dimension means he can kill himself quite easily because he is not the same man but we have the problem that in ‘Out of Time’ the future Dwarfers do not actually happen in the actual dimension so infact the regular crew were killed by an alternative future crew so the time lines would not have fixed themselves and the future selves would have went away happy in the knowledge that they killed their alternative past selves and are stuck like rats in space.

[Seb Patrick]

All well and good, but not in any way connected to the point I made. So in future I’ll answer for myself, cheers ;-)

[Seb Patrick]

(not that I’m saying your discussion/theory isn’t valid. But Karl specifically asked what I meant by mine.)

[JamesTC]

>All well and good, but not in any way connected to the point I made. So in future I?ll answer for myself, cheers ;-)

I was replying to a comment made by Almighty_crj. That is why I included this at the start –
“>Well since we already know Red Dwarf uses the theory that every probability (or decision) has a dimension, Then Lister could have been talking to the Kennedy from the dimension that Oswald failed to kill on the correct angle with no influence from the dwarfers at all.”

[Seb Patrick]

Yeah, but before that you replied to Karl’s question, which had been addressed to me, with something entirely different to the actual answer ;-)

[JamesTC]

>Yeah, but before that you replied to Karl?s question, which had been addressed to me, with something entirely different to the actual answer ;-)

Oh I see that is higher up, sorry!

[Seb Patrick]

… but to take on your point, I don’t think there’s a paradox involved in the Dwarfers killing Oswald even though they know him to have killed JFK. At that moment they become a part of the timeline in which JFK survives. By the show’s own rules, that’s not a problem.

And this is the thing, it’s about establishing rules. Given that the science involved is all theoretical, in a fictional context you can choose to resolve a grandfather paradox in any number of ways. In Doctor Who, the paradox of the future of humanity wiping out the present of humanity is only allowed to happen thanks to a machine that prevents the universe from simply collapsing.

So if the opening to Tikka hadn’t been the case, they could have got away with JFK killing himself. The explanation could be as simple as “those JFKs are both from parallel timelines”, which is a branch of science that Dwarf already has experience in dealing with. However, if you explain it away like that, you HAVE to say the same thing for the future crew killing the Dwarfers. You can’t have two different sets of rules for different scenarios – it breaks the narrative.

[JamesTC]

>The explanation could be as simple as ?those JFKs are both from parallel timelines?, which is a branch of science that Dwarf already has experience in dealing with. However, if you explain it away like that, you HAVE to say the same thing for the future crew killing the Dwarfers. You can?t have two different sets of rules for different scenarios – it breaks the narrative.

Which I theorised in this segmant of a post above –
“You could theorise that it creates an alternative dimension and so the fact that it is not the same dimension means he can kill himself quite easily because he is not the same man but we have the problem that in ?Out of Time? the future Dwarfers do not actually happen in the actual dimension so infact the regular crew were killed by an alternative future crew so the time lines would not have fixed themselves and the future selves would have went away happy in the knowledge that they killed their alternative past selves and are stuck like rats in space.”

[Seb Patrick]

but we have the problem that in ?Out of Time? the future Dwarfers do not actually happen in the actual dimension so infact the regular crew were killed by an alternative future crew so the time lines would not have fixed themselves and the future selves would have went away happy in the knowledge that they killed their alternative past selves and are stuck like rats in space

But if it was an alternative future crew, then there’s no paradox. “Our” Dwarfers should have stayed dead.

This is my point – if there were genuinely different reasons for the two situations resolving themselves differently, then the show should have given them. It doesn’t. All we have to go on is the explanation at the start : “By killing us they killed themselves”. That establishes the rule – in Dwarf‘s universe, it is not possible to kill a past version of yourself. Parallel universes be damned. The future Kennedy fades away after shooting himself – suggesting that he, just like the future Dwarf crew, no longer exists. So why are his actions still carried out?

[JamesTC]

>if there were genuinely different reasons for the two situations resolving themselves differently, then the show should have given them. It doesn?t. All we have to go on is the explanation at the start : ?By killing us they killed themselves?. That establishes the rule – in Dwarf?s universe, it is not possible to kill a past version of yourself. Parallel universes be damned. The future Kennedy fades away after shooting himself – suggesting that he, just like the future Dwarf crew, no longer exists. So why are his actions still carried out?

Well maybe the time line prefers to return to its original state (not without problems as are stated in ‘Tikka to Ride’, dimensional anomalies being created) so the JFK past and alternative future version existed as par of an anomalie meant to fix teh time line and the Dwarfers trying to fix JFK in time were swayed by the time line.
I know my theories are becoming more and more crazy and outlandish.

[Seb Patrick]

Okay, but the fact that you have to come up with an explanation for a plot inconsistency doesn’t stop it being a plot inconsistency.

[ChrisM]

Mine fits all eventualities:
‘The new universe* might not always incorporate the same stuff the same way.’

*The one generated to deal with paradoxes

[ChrisM]

I agree.

[Dave]

Beavers mate for life

[JamesTC]

>Okay, but the fact that you have to come up with an explanation for a plot inconsistency doesn?t stop it being a plot inconsistency.

Not saying it does, I just like everything neat and explained, I even worked out how the 8th Doctor is half human and the rest of them arn’t.

I think I can explain this –
>if there were genuinely different reasons for the two situations resolving themselves differently, then the show should have given them.

The show wanted to leave the science territory of Series V and VI to a lesser extent. Kryten summed it up really, “Garbled, confusing and quite franky duller than an inflight magazine by air Belgium.”

[Seb Patrick]

I even worked out how the 8th Doctor is half human and the rest of them arn?t.

“I once convinced my most hated enemy that I was half-human with nothing more than a wide-eyed expression, a couple of words, and a half-broken chameleon arch”

[JamesTC]

Is that a quote out of a BFA and if so which one?

[Dave]

>Is that a quote out of a BFA and if so which one?

I don’t think so, but it’s a fact. Beavers really do mate for life.

[Mnoooah]

>it breaks the narrative.

It’s already broken, though. In many, many places. The narrative is as ramshackle as the crew. I like it that way for the same reason some people like the early ultra-thrifty sets, it reflects the general tone of wonkyness.

[Seb Patrick]

>Is that a quote out of a BFA and if so which one?

No, it’s from Tony Lee’s comic, Doctor Who : The Forgotten.

[Tarka Dal]

> Right, the reason the crew survive the end of VI is that it?s impossible to kill your past self. Because if you kill yourself in the past, you don?t exist in order to kill yourself.

Ah! Of course. Cheers.

The question is out of the two physical interpretations of this paradox which is the most enjoyable? I love the JFK story. The twist of JFK being the second gunman, was an absolutely classic Dwarf riff for me. The OOT explaination and series VII establishing rant being much less enjoyable.

[ChrisM]

>The OOT explaination and series VII establishing rant being much less enjoyable.

I quite liked the confusing silliness of it. I would have preferred that particular paradox to be due to Rimmer shooting the time-drive though, as seen at the end of series 6 and glossed over with a whole other paradox at the start of series 7. I liked the fact that Rimmer did something heroic. Okay, he still did, even if he failed… but I just didn’t see any real reason to discount it.

It would have served the story better as well, for reason Seb stated above.

It doesn’t really bother me that much mind. I am curious as to why Doug Naylor decided to take that route though.

[Author]

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