Mac and Me²

[Warbodog]

I’m a bit confused about the logistic of the Hollister/radiation leak scene in Me², what with it being recorded (I think) during The End and there having been two recordings of that, but this ramble might have helped me to work it out.

Was the scene always intended for Me², filmed early for actor convenience, or actually supposed to be part of The End at some stage? It wouldn’t fit there structurally as we have it now, and they wouldn’t bother with the practical explosion effects for a possibly deleted scene, so I figure it’s just Rob and Doug being practical and on the ball.

However, I’d also assumed that meant Hollister’s Red Dwarf snowglobe was put into The End for the sake of making the Citizen Kane reference five episodes later. But the snowglobe’s already there in the Original Assembly, before Me² was conceived, so it was always just a prop.

So I guess Rob or Doug spotted the Citizen Kane snowglobe connection while writing their double-Rimmer story and the enigmatic-last-words sub-plot developed organically from there? That’s nice.

Those last-minute replacement/panic episodes (Me²/White Hole/Out of Time) are all fantastic and some of my favourites ever, they should have subjected themselves to unreasonable stresses more often. As long as you ignore the examples from subsequent series where those ended up being some of the worst episodes ever.

[Warbodog]

If the explosion was intended for The End, either version, I know the smashed snowglobe and gazpacho soup will have been added later (as they maybe were anyway). Including that in The End would be a nice teaser we could all enjoy in retrospect, but also a needlessly confusing non sequitur at a crucial story moment for first-time viewers.

It’s also a bit rubbish that they reuse Holly’s “white corridor 159” announcement from one episode earlier.

[bloodteller]

well now I feel like an idiot for not realizing the whole “Gazpacho Soup” subplot was a Citizen Kane reference. and they even namedrop Citizen Kane in the cinema scene later on, too. how did I not notice?

[Warbodog]

I got it via Simpsons before making myself watch Citizen Kane eventually.

Me² is better than Citizen Kane and one of the all-time greats. Made top 10 in the 2008 G&T poll but sinking since, placed lower half in all the 90s polls.

I only watched Casablanca and It’s a Wonderful Life this year, mainly to better appreciate Red Dwarf references. IAWL is great and enhances those bits of the books, but Casablanca wasn’t really necessary just to recognise Kryten repeating already-famous dialogue right at the end.

[Pete Part Three]

>So I guess Rob or Doug spotted the Citizen Kane snowglobe connection while writing their double-Rimmer story and the enigmatic-last-words sub-plot developed organically from there?

Yes, I think it must have been just a happy coincidence, rather than something that was seeded deliberately. I can’t see that the scene was ever intended for anything other than Me² which was hastily written/recorded at around the same time the pick-ups for The End occurred (allowing Mac and the guy in the blue boiler suit to come back).

>As long as you ignore the examples from subsequent series where those ended up being some of the worst episodes ever.

Doug tells a fascinating story in the Series 6 DVD documentary of Rob’s passive approach to deadlines, and how he wasn’t prepared to start on something until he was totally confident on the idea, while Doug was tearing his hair out, wanting to get started. Make of that what you will.

[Plastic Percy]

I find it interesting that it doesn’t line up with what we see in ‘The End’. Rimmer dies next to Hollister’s desk, but both his ashes and Captain Hollister’s appear in the middle of the room when Lister emerges from stasis. Also, despite what Holly told him, Petersen is nowhere to be seen during the recording. Oh, and the snowglobe is sat on Hollister’s desk when Lister leaves stasis too.

I guess the Skutters could have tied up or whatever.

[Ben Saunders]

They’re standing in the correct place at the beginning of the scene, aren’t they?

[bloodteller]

>Also, despite what Holly told him, Petersen is nowhere to be seen during the recording.

To be fair, it had been three million years since the event. Holly had probably forgotten exactly who was present in the room during the disaster

[flanl3]

The bodies could have blown around some afterwards.

[Dave]

Well, it’s taken a while, but we finally discovered a continuity error in Red Dwarf.

[tombow]

hold on..doesn’t Arthur watch Casablanca in Hitchhikers Guide? rip off confirmed

[Ben Paddon]

I always took that Death Day tape to have been tweaked by Rimmer for dramatic license, rather than a literal presentation of exactly what’d happened.

[Dave]

>To be fair, it had been three million years since the event. Holly had probably forgotten exactly who was present in the room during the disaster

The piles of albino mouse droppings are very neat for the aftermath of cadmium II release related panic/being hit in the face by a nuclear explosion.

Maybe the skutters have spent three million years tidying them up, moving them around and attempting to make certain they are ‘pure’.

[Author]

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