Is Justice a deliberate retcon…or is Kryten lying?

[Pete Part Three]

I’ve reached Justice in my rewatch, and I’m always intrigued over Kryten’s defence of Rimmer.

The Justice field works by detecting a person’s guilt (rather than trying to determine actual culpability), and Kryten’s defence hinges on this. He argues that Rimmer couldn’t possibly be guilty of 2nd degree murder, as his responsibilities extended no further than repairing vending machines. It’s Rimmer’s grand delusions over his role on Red Dwarf that is feeding his guilt.

Interestingly, you could possibly argue that his death scene in Me2 is a faked reconstruction along these lines; Hollister yelling at Rimmer “It was your responsibility to fix the drive plate” could be a warped Rimmer’s way of remembering the accident, but there’s clearly several lines in The End which confirm that Rimmer *was* responsible, and he *was* in the drive room when he died (despite clearly not having a reason to go there regularly).

The curious thing is that Justice never actually reveals whether this is Rob and Doug retconning events (and bringing things in line with Infinity, as they did a lot throughout Series IV) or whether Kryten is deliberately lying. Is it seeding the court-case later, when Kryten says “Boy, I’m really getting the hang of this “lie mode.”” when they enter Justice World, or just a coincidence?.

I’d also forgotten that Kryten refers to Rimmer as a “retard” at one point. Urgh.

Topic

[Warbodog]

I watched Cassandra a while ago when Rimmer rape allegations were flying around, I still enjoy it more than the majority of the Dave era and all of VII, and don’t think it’s as dragged down by as much cack as Parallel Universe or Emohawk.

I won’t touch the rest of VIII, but wouldn’t watch half of the new episodes for fun either.

[bloodteller]

yeah, i enjoy Cassandra far more than most of the Dave era too- it’s a genuinely great episode,i think. there’s just so much good stuff in it

[Taiwan Tony]

>I started with The End on the 30th Anniversary and then switched to doing 2 eps each weekend.

This is very restrained, in the age of box set binge watching. Do you find it allows you to digest the episodes as individual entities? If I watch a few episodes of a sitcom, they all merge into one after a while. In the way it doesn’t matter with ongoing narratives like Breaking Bad etc.

[International Debris]

I struggle to binge watch stuff that doesn’t have some sort of arc. I’m currently rewatching A Touch of Frost, and the only time I’ll watch more than one episode in a row is when it’s a two-parter.

[Warbodog]

My slow-binge record is probably Firefly. I’ve been watching for almost two years now (first time) and recently watched episode five. Helps to spread out the short supply, I guess.

[Pete Part Three]

>This is very restrained, in the age of box set binge watching. Do you find it allows you to digest the episodes as individual entities?

I’m not too fond of binge watching, particularly stuff which has individual stories per episode. When Sky Atlantic dumped the whole of The Trip to Spain on their on demand service last year, I stil kept to my own vague weekly schedule. It stops things blurring together, certainly.

I HATED when BBC2 first aired Buffy Season 7, and they dumped it on 3/4 days a week. The whole thing wasn’t was done and dusted in a few weeks and a show which previously had a bunch of standout episodes per season blurred into one. This may be emphasised by my distaste over the way they completely embraced the arc that season, mind.

I like spotting stuff I haven’t seen before when I rewatch something. After about 2 hours, I’ll likely be considerably less observant or, um, checking my phone.

[Dave]

I’m similar. Even when streaming services dump an entire series, I find I naturally progress at around one or two episodes a week. I wouldn’t enjoy it if I sat down and binged the whole thing.

[Ben Saunders]

I used to be the kind to binge-watch five or six episodes of a series a day (when I was young i had a VHS of Red Dwarf series with all of the non-special opening/closing credits except the first and last cut out, so would watch entire series in uninterrupted blocks regularly)

But now i watch one episode of whatever a day, sometimes two, MAYBE three if there’s some incredible cliffhanger that coaxes me into watching another.

[International Debris]

I do really struggle to watch arc-based shows at such a slow pace. My girlfriend and I got through Stranger Things 2 in two days, and that was only because we needed to sleep by the halfway point. Seasons 2 – 4 of Babylon 5 were similarly difficult to say no to as well, I was going through four or five of them a day.

[bloodteller]

honestly for me it depends how interested I actually am in a show- if i’m really enjoying it and it really interests me, i’ll usually blast through the entire show in a couple of days. when it’s a show i’m not as interested in, it can take me weeks to finish.

i think the most enjoyable way to watch is when they’re new and so you get one episode every week. getting to the end of the week and realising there’ll be a brand new episode of a show i like airing always feels like a treat, plus if the episode ends on a cliffhanger you get the suspense of “ooh, what’s going to happen next?!”

[Ben Saunders]

I agree with that sentiment bloodteller.
Recently I watched four seasons of Chuck in about a month and about midway through Series 4 things really were starting to blur so I took a break, lol.

[Taiwan Tony]

How is your rewatch going?

[Pete Part Three]

I’m out of my comfort zone as I hit Out of Time the weekend before last. I decided to press on with VII, as I like *bits* of it. Rather foolishly though, I watched the Xtended Tikka to Ride. I don’t dislike Tikka, but Xtended is awful with terrible gaps the cast have left for laughter that’s not there. It’s so soulless and off.

Stoke was slightly better than I remembered it, and I actually rather like the opening sequence despite it being utterly daft. Although here’s something that’s weird.: Starbug follows the “coffin” carrying Ace’s lightbee to its “final resting place”…but…where is that? Is that another dimension? All the other Ace Rimmers are there, so they must have travelled there from their own dimensions, which means that Starbug has managed to conveniently find a gateway to an alternate dimension in deep space. It’s a bit weird how the episode never explains this. I hate the way VII barely ever mentioned that they’re supposed to be tracking down Red Dwarf, and yet they take all these odd detours (the one in Nanarchy is far worse, mind).

And it’s also weird how we do alternate dimensions again in the very next episode.

Ouroborus Xtended last weekend and I started to think I should have left VII alone. I can’t think of anything good about this episode. The sequence in the dimensionial walkway always sticks out to me as being particularly horrendous. The effect looks crap,the staging of it is rubbish, and the alternate crew just stand there like lemons. I don’t normally mind Chloe, but I think she’s shit in this episode and the flashback with her and Lister talking about their relationship is just…wrong. I think I moaned about this episode in BTL about 21 years ago so I’ll shut up now.

[flanl3]

It’s the dimension of Ace Rimmer’s first space adventure. And they went back into deep sleep to follow the coffin.

[bloodteller]

does that mean from Stoke onwards, everyone’s just been in a completely different universe?

[International Debris]

They probably followed the wormhole back again afterwards.
But yes, that bit has always niggled at me as well. It’s glossed over in a very post-Rob era way “oh we just won’t even question it anyway look a nice theme tune”.

[flanl3]

…to be clear, I was proposing that the graveyard is in our Dwarfers’ dimension, since that’s the universe that Ace’s first space adventure took place in. No dimension jumping required.

[Pete Part Three]

>No dimension jumping required.

Ok, then how did the other “coffins” get there?

[Ben Saunders]

Chris Veale did them in a computer.

[flanl3]

No dimension jumping required by our crew. All the pods did it automatically.

[Warbodog]

The (fucking) coffins were BBC CGI, not Veale. Let’s assign blame where it’s due.

[Dax101]

I have always been curious how they were gonna pull off Red Dwarf exploding in Demons and Angels had they ever got round to remastering it since there were clearly limitations to what they could pull off with CGI, time on the budget. Makes me think of Starbug crashing in Bodyswap where they needed to cut away from the crash and all you see is some smoke.

[Pete Part Three]

>All the pods did it automatically.

I still think this poses more questions than it answers. But we’ve likely already given it more thought than Doug did.

[Ben Saunders]

Ace has dimension jumping technology so I’m not entirely sure what the problem is honestly

[Ben Saunders]

Safe to assume they used that to jump there and back or the coffins have minaturised versions of the dj tech. They could open something like a time corridor from Doctor Who except it’s a dimension corridor. This is the kind of thing that if an explanation of it was written, it would be the first thing to be left on the cutting room floor because it’s unimportant/boring

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Ace has dimension jumping technology so I’m not entirely sure what the problem is honestly

This.

[Taiwan Tony]

Does the rewatch change anything? Does it make you like the earlier series more or hate the whole franchise a bit? Have you changed your opinion on any of the first six series?

[Pete Part Three]

>Ace has dimension jumping technology so I’m not entirely sure what the problem is honestly

Ace #1 wants to be laid to rest in “our” Dimension, despite only spending a few hours there (odd, but OK). Despite the fact that “there’s no going back” to his original dimension, it’s easy enough to find a way back to our dimension (hmm). He finds another Rimmer to take on the mantle of Ace #2, and then dies. And then, what are we saying? Ace #1 wants to be laid to rest in a part of our dimension that’s two hundred years away from where he met the crew in Dimension Jump. (Why?) And Ace#2 either finds a way to materialise in our dimension far away from our Rimmer and drop off the coffin or…

>the coffins have minaturised versions of the dj tech.

If the dj tech is now ubiquitous enough to be used in coffins, it poses the question as to why the Starbug crew are happy to trawl around deep space with no Red Dwarf, when they could quite easily jump to another dimension themselves.

[Pete Part Three]

>Does the rewatch change anything? Does it make you like the earlier series more or hate the whole franchise a bit? Have you changed your opinion on any of the first six series?

I wish I could say “yes” to any of these, but not a huge change in my opinions on these.

I do vaguely recall a time about 24 years ago, when I liked Tongue Tied. Now it’s just fucking awful. I love Doug talking about how Danny took over that and “ruined it”, but I’m clueless as to what the original point of it was. As a comedy song, it’s crap. And the performance is just Chris and Craig mugging at the camera and Danny showing off. WHY IS THIS HERE?

I think I enjoyed Series IV slightly more (not that I’ve ever disliked it, just preferred II, III, V), but that may be in light of XI and XII.

I’ve always been a bit uneasy about Series VI and this rewatch hammered home how little I like the staging of that series. So much of it is the guys sat down in Starbug’s cockpit and looking straight ahead. After a few episodes of long scenes of this, it stops being visually interesting and when you couple that with a lot of interchangeable dialogue (directives, Cat’s “deader than”s etc) , the show does seem to fall into, well, not a rut…but an all-too-comfortable groove.

When we get gags that aren’t intrinsic to the plot, and are just interchangeable “gags” that could be moved from script to script, they have to be really good ones or they’re exposed for what they are.

Rimmerworld, I’ve liked more than most previously, but it really hit home how weak the second half of that episode is. The crew land on Rimmerworld, they experience the planet’s culture in 2 scenes, and then they escape. They bung a good teleporter gag and a load of misdirection about Lister’s fate to distract you, but this is one of the weakest endings you’ll find in Grant Naylor Dwarf. It’s not telling us anything new about Rimmer, it’s just Terrorform-lite. There’s probably a version of this episode where Rimmer overthrows the regime, or argues his case as being the “One true Rimmer”, but the show can’t be arsed.

(Oh, and Red Dwarf isn’t even mentioned in Rimmerworld, which brings home how quickly the narrative of finding Red Dwarf seems neglected after Psirens and Legon).

[International Debris]

VI generally has that problem. There’s a bit of ok character stuff at the start of Psirens, but other than thinking he’s great at guitar, having two Listers doesn’t tell us anything new about him. Polymorph explored the four characters by removing some of their fundamental emotions; Emohawk just brought back two alternate versions of the characters without doing much new with them.

If DNA was a VI episode, it’d skip most of the Kryten scenes and focus the second half of the episode on the Curry Monster. Only Out of Time really feels like a properly character-driven episode.

I still think it’s a funny, well made series with plenty of good ideas, but it definitely lacks the depth of the earlier ones for me which is why it’s my least favourite of the Rob era.

[Taiwan Tony]

I don’t like VI much either. Okay jokes that are very much “gags”. Looks sleek. But empty and insubstantial. Apart from Out Of Time, as International Debris says.
I do, however, give Tongue Tied a pass. Purely because I’ve had shit and weird dreams like that. As noted in a Red Dwarf dreams thread somewhere. I always thought it was purposefully odd, which I generally enjoy, rather than trying to be actual entertainment. If I’ve misinterpreted that, I’m pleased, because it doesn’t strike me as out of place. Unlike the shitty Rimmer songs in VII and Officer Rimmer.

[Pete Part Three]

Ha, I watched Blue at the weekend and actually warmed slightly to the Rimmer munchkin song, because I think it succeeds a bit better than Tongue Tied at the “funny” lyrics.

[Taiwan Tony]

Taken in isolation, yeah it’s funnier. Zimmer is a funny word isn’t it!

Congratulations on the rewatch. Are you still undecided about watching VIII?

[bloodteller]

i do think VIII benefits from a rewatch. i used to think Pete wasn’t very good because the general opinion on it is that it’s utter shite. but then i actually sat down and rewatched the whole of VIII and enjoyed Pete quite a lot-i even liked the basketball scene, which i used to dislike because i didn’t think it worked well in the context of the show. isn’t the main sport in Red Dwarf ZERO-G Football? why play basketball?

i don’t mind the basketball scene so much now though as it’s quite funny (“you were supposed to be picking up Rice!” “i did, we meet for drinks on Thursday.”), the song is decent and there’s actually some quite impressive basketball shots in it-how did Craig manage to head that shot into the basket, i’ll never know

[bloodteller]

VIII is basically the Trail Of The Pink Panther of Red Dwarf but without the ghost of Peter Sellers leaving a bitter aftertaste on it I suppose. there’s a very split opinion on it

[International Debris]

I enjoy VIII less with each watch, to the extent that last time I watched it it actually made me depressed.

[Pete Part Three]

I’m struggling with VII a little. I mean, I detest pretty much everything about Ouroborus, but its awfulness makes it slightly more interesting to watch than Duct Soup, which I just found to be interminably dull and seemed to last for about 2 hours. By the time Lister was running Kochanski a bath, I was already checking Twitter.

I don’t think “dull” is a charge that can be levelled at VIII…(“shit”, sure…but not “dull”) so I may see how I feel at the end of snoozeathon Nanarchy.

Beyond a Joke next, which I don’t actually hate as much as most people seem to. Mind you, I haven’t watched it in about 15 years, so I may put some extra effort in this time.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

My feelings on VIII change everytime I watch it.

Cassandra has always and probably will always be my least favorite of VIII, while Pete Part I and II I actually enjoyed during my Red Dwarf binge that came after my 3-or-so year hiatus of not watching the show. Only the Good’s depressingly hopeless ending was actually a breather for me during the binge but only because I knew there was more Red Dwarf afterwards.

[Ben Paddon]

Having rewatched them the other day, “Duct Soup” and “Blue” kind of feel like Red Dwarf VII doing II and I style episodes. With “Duct”, the plot kicks in around the halfway mark and involves some new locations, kind of like a series II episode. With “Blue”, it’s almost all character stuff; slower-paced, scenes that are only one or two lines of dialogue long… it has an old Dwarf feel to it with that VII aesthetic.

I still don’t hate VII, mind. VIII can get in the sea, but VII has a lot more going for it than I think people give credit for.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

VII was pretty good in places; I quite liked Kochanski as a new crewmember and I liked Kryten’s paranoia and how he’s like the new antagonist now that Rimmer is gone, that’s pretty funny to me.

I always thought Ace Rimmer looked his best in Stoke Me a Clipper compared to Dimension Jump and Emohawk (btw in the final episode he looks fine, granted, but in publicity shots for that episode the wig looks like shit), the opening where we actually see Ace on a mission was quite good. Really, Ace came across as somebody that was a genuine cool guy in that episode and not a giant douche like before, least to me anyway and its given a good excuse in the episode why that is.

The Simulant in Beyond a Joke has always been my favorite Simulant antagonist, I liked a lot of the more action-orientated elements in this series really. The set designs were great, the CGI not so much but given the time its excusable and doesn’t look too bad on repeat viewings (the Red Dwarf ship in VIII tho, that was just horrendous in design and practice; looks like a giant cock).

[bloodteller]

if your cock looks like the Red Dwarf ship you might want to get it looked at

[bloodteller]

mind you when i was on a nude beach once i saw a bloke who’s cock looked like the Low Strawberry

[Bargain Bin Holly]

It had the worms coming out and everything?

Was it like that one scene in the Inbetweeners 2 where everybody is fleeing from Will cause he has shit on his face

[International Debris]

Having rewatched them the other day, “Duct Soup” and “Blue” kind of feel like Red Dwarf VII doing II and I style episodes.

Yeah, the series in general is a retreat from the monster-of-the-week stuff of what came before it. Blue is by far my favourite episode of VII for that reason. Duct Soup I don’t hate as much as most around here do – I like the slow, character-based, confined location element of it – but it suffers from typical VII stuff of poor jokes and bad characterisation.

[tombow]

to me knowing “retard” as an insult didn’t come about until I heard US culture in the late 90s like South Park, Eminem etc. At the time, I just thought it was the kind of old fashioned, over-formal medical term Kryten would use to insult people, like “anal retentive” which I’d never heard of either before seeing it in an RD novel.

[Author]

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