Is anyone else a little bit gutted that XII is totally in the can?

[GlenTokyo]

It’s a bit beggars can’t be choosers obviously but as Red Dwarf XI finished in a meh fashion, and certain aspects of the production have plenty of room for improvement (models, endings, music cues) I find myself with a mild sense of foreboding about Red Dwarf XII, mainly that’ll it’ll carry on in the same ‘opposite of good’ direction that the end of XI started to take and that I’ll hate it.

It would have been nice to know that they can take from XI and learn for XII but there’s about 0% chance they’ll tool back up for recording so if for example all XII’s endings are abrupt as well there’s nowt to do but deal with it.

Same goes for the models and effects, the live action effects were generally amazingly good, but the models could do with a second look in some areas. Again, more chance than 0% as they don’t need the full sets, but maybe only a 1% chance.

I know we have to take it how we can get it now, but in the past it’s always been nice to see the changes from series to series.

On a positive note, I’m sure they’ll go in and redo the music cues after the complaints, and some people at UKTV will have had a major bollocking so it might not be a PR shitshow next time round.

Topic

[flanl3]

Oh, but there are differences. Go watch the original Can of Worms opening in deleted scenes then go watch the actual one in Starbug 19 (apparently an XII set, judging from when they filmed it), then go look at the last scene of Twentica (they say in the documentary that’s an XII set). Small differences, but it shows that they really do intend to give that different feel.

[Pete Part Three]

A little, yes. I wasn’t totally convinced by the idea of filming two series at the same time, as I’m sure it’ll be hard to escape the feeling that XII is XIb. Remains to be seen if they’ll fiddle with the episodes further; I suspect they’re done and dusted and UKTV will just sit on them for about 10 months now.

Going to the trouble of deliberately creating aesthetic differences is nice, but it’s a rather roundabout way of doing things.

[John Hoare]

I seem to recall I predicted that they’d do a day or so of reshoots between XI and XII. It somehow seems less likely now it’s all in the can with seemingly fewer problems than usual…

[(deleted)]

Mounting pickups for XI stuck onto to XII records (probably 10 minutes’ worth total of XI actually shot in 2016) seem to be one of the reasons that XII fell slightly behind schedule, alongside Chris Barrie being sent home ill on the first prefilming day of ‘Everybody’s Kryten Lol’, so all their efforts seem to have been just to get all twelve scripts covered by wrap day. By the standards of any show other than Red Dwarf the last few weeks were evidently a bit hairy.

To add to your theory John, VIII and X both had reshoots after the series had been wrapped and edited, so it’s not unprecedented. They *did* do some ADR very late on and snip Twentica after screenings, so they were fine-tuning XI right to the bone. XII on the other hand looks like it has already been picture-locked and signed off now (presumably as the post-production block was for all twelve together), so I think any decision as to tweaking XII after XI transmission has been made for them. This already puts XII in a different category as it’s had much less luxury in front of the camera and a less reactive post-production period.

We’ll find out when they accidentally post a DVD of all six shows to everyone in the phone book on Wednesday.

[NoFro]

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the establishing shots were different to XI. After seeing that same shot of Red Dwarf for the millionth time I convinced myself that they had not thought about doing two series worth of establishing shots when doing the model shoot, and thus in the edit had to divvy the few they had between the two series.

[Dax101]

Series XI and XII will probably be different look wise as series IV and V was since it was mostly the Same sets with a few differences.

Now obviously that doesn’t change the fact that the writing for series XI and XII is bound to be of the same quality, same flaws and all because here is no learning curve to go off XI.

I wasn’t all that sold on XI and so ain’t jumping up and down with excitement for next series sadly.

[Slainmonkey]

It is my understanding though that Doug said he would use the break between the 2 series to tighten the series XII episode scripts. In that case I hope Doug used that time to fix up nagging issues with those scripts like the rushed endings that series XI had.

[Pete Part Three]

Since the rushed endings could have been fixed with editing or reshoots in the XII block if they’d been recognised as a problem, I’d say that’s unlikely.

[Slainmonkey]

Well Twentica did have a reshoot ending…..but it felt very tacked on, but I guess less script changes would be made to episodes that were already shot and in the can. I do remember Doug saying he was using that time to tighten the scripts in XII, so I guess only time will tell.

[Paul Muller]

I was hoping we’d get to see Starbug landing on its new pad, which was built by the Model Unit – but the raw footage has shown up on the DVD, which is a bit weird.

Having said that, they made the bizarre decision to pump a bluescreen shot full of dry ice, which I can imagine would fuck up the key quite a bit – so maybe they just realised it would be a hassle to comp in a background and gave up. Which would be a real shame.

[(deleted)]

I had that same thought as well. It looks like they realised too late and swapped to black, but the fact that there’s loads of bluescreen shots with smoke on is as crazy as anything in We’re Smegged.

[Author]

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