Mundane observation dome

[Warbodog]

Do you have any miscellaneous insights on the series that may be worth contemplating for a few seconds before moving on with our lives? Here are some of mine.

1. The four regulars have names that can work any way around, though this would have been more obvious if David Ross had stayed and wouldn’t work if Chris Barrie used his real name.

2. The series’ lax attitude to continuity extends to the setting. Outside of Holly’s distress calls, I don’t think three million years is mentioned all that much after series I and before VI (not sure about later years). Instead, we get the extremely fudged “dead for centuries” and “travelling for thousands of years” – not actual retcons, but suggesting a more conventional setting for casual viewers tuning in and the sort of stories they’re telling. It’s only millions when they need it to be.

3. 200 years of stasis between series V and VI means that the earlier series took place in their equivalent of the early 19th century by comparison (e.g. Blackadder the Third). Since they didn’t run into a long-lived Camille or one of her great-great-etc grandchildren, it didn’t come up.

4. Although Lister is routinely slagged off in the series, he’s spared the level of seemingly authoritative character assassination that Rimmer gets, because the audience is aligned with Lister’s viewpoint most of the time. For example, we see Kochanski Camille belittling Rimmer’s interests, but we don’t get the equivalent of Hologram Camille reacting to Lister’s pickup lines, we’re left to form our own opinions on those. This flimsy point has not been considered much beyond this single example.

5. Cat’s costumes are overwhelmingly referenced more than anyone else’s in the series, but the least discussed by fans.

6. Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibbley were so seemingly ubiquitous in canon and tie-in merchandise through the 90s (Smegazine strips, T-shirts) that they still feel overused today, even though it’s been over 20 years since they appeared. Maybe they’re allowed back after all.

7. Only series III & V and maybe XI & XII (not as familiar with those) don’t have any sense of an arc whatsoever (though IV’s minor Kryten disobedience arc was already fucked up by episode shuffling). Series III is just about the only series where no episode directly references any previous episode, but it still has the Backwards scrolling text and general references to Rimmer having died and stuff.

8. One of the series’ most famous and quoted scenes – everybody’s dead, Dave – is a straight-up 2001: A Space Odyssey homage and would have been received that way at the time, but doesn’t work like that for most people coming to the episode later on or new viewers who are young or don’t watch old films.

9. Sometimes dismissed as lightweight and gimmicky today, Backwards was designed as an innovative interactive experience to reward extracurricular effort. As well as inviting fans to work out the backwards events and filming logistics, Arthur Smith’s eugolonom is teasingly long and “you scoundrels” is clearly a cleaned-up translation gag even before you’ve heard it. Unfortunately, by the time technology caught up with the intent and the ability to reverse media files properly on home computers became commonplace, Backwards Forwards came out and everyone just cheated with the walkthrough.

Imagine the quality of the musings I left out!

Topic

[Moonlight]

They go on to give everyone an erection in that episode too.

[Rushy]

I watched Lemons and Entangled with my brother. It was a painful reminder of just how horribly half-arsed Entangled is. 

It’s one thing if you have to cobble together plot points at the last minute, but all of the dialogue sounds so unnatural. There’s no lead-in between conversations, they just inexplicably change subjects every other sentence.

The entire sequence on the BEGG world is, for my money, the low point of the entire series and that includes Krytie TV and Pete.

[Ben Saunders]

Hard-light hologram prostitutes does solve the “who needs to clean up the mess” problem of Star-Trek-like holodecks.

[Technopeasant]

It could have made more sense if they’d drugged Ackerman with something that had actively made him have sexy times rather than just a truth drug.

Lethal cocktail of sodium pentothal, sexual magnetism virus, and Boing the virility enhancement drug.

[Warbodog]

Lethal cocktail of sodium pentothal, sexual magnetism virus, and Boing the virility enhancement drug.

And the programmable virus that eats through clothes so you’d have to keep changing your superhero costume.

[Technopeasant]

[Jenuall]

Valid, although IMO that is easier to suspend disbelief as it’s serving a joke that I enjoy, isn’t integral to the plot, and with some stretch you can argue a case for why they might have that outfit. Duane is a suppressed part of Cat’s personality, something that he has been trying desperately all his life to get away from, some part of him may have held on to those clothes. (okay, it’s not a great case but it’s something!)

In Stoke it’s a key plot point that Lister dresses up as a Knight to trick Rimmer into gaining confidence, the whole story relies on it happening so I think it’s not unreasonable to hold it to greater scrutiny!

[International Debris]

I’ll be honest, I laughed more at that meme than I do at the second half of Emohawk.

[Nick R]

Going back a bit:

No, it’s Danny John-Jules who was playing some kind of a Dracula

[Technopeasant]

[Warbodog]

In Stoke it’s a key plot point that Lister dresses up as a Knight to trick Rimmer into gaining confidence, the whole story relies on it happening so I think it’s not unreasonable to hold it to greater scrutiny!

Maybe the armour was a hard-light hologram based on the AR resource, if holograms can be generated based on discs. They could probably make all sorts of useful or entertaining things all the time if they weren’t the 4% gang.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Not really an observation, but how is it that this clocks Lister onto Simulants

[Warbodog]

What would non-rogue Simulants be? Even the ones that are more like a functioning military in The Beginning are still described as rogue.

[Flap Jack]

The OG Simulants who were fully subservient to humans? Like what Sim Crawford was pretending to be.

[Warbodog]

Yeah, “probably” rogue in the year 3,000,000ish then, Lister.

[Technopeasant]

He lives in hope. Just not that much.

[Ben Saunders]

Since turning 27 he’s trying not to be so racist

[Warbodog]

[Rushy]

They race-swapped Mac in the new Batman game lol 

[Ben Saunders]

Woke has finally gone too far

[Dave]

Macface

[Warbodog]

Lego, they’re all made of fucking Lego.

[Moonlight]

Next they’ll turn him into a chicken.

[Podey]

Don’t want to share this on the front page but look at this AI monstrosity I stumbled across on Instagram. 

[Moonlight]

I hate the future.

[Warbodog]

I was looking through another Rob Grant tribute thread and seeing someone say they loved both Rob and Grant helped cheer me up a little.

[Meteo]

They race-swapped Mac in the new Batman game hee hee Artist Formerly Known as Prince

…or they could’ve cast some new guys, since over half the cast are dead.

[FutureEchoes]

Edit: Wrong thread 

[Podey]

The first I heard of the news last night was a post on an unrelated group with a photo of the main cast and a reference to “Rob” dying. It was extremely weird clicking the attached link to see which one it was.

[Rushy]

Don’t want to share this on the front page but look at this AI monstrosity I stumbled across on Instagram. 

Is that Chris Chan?

[Warbodog]

So many bleak AI tributes on YouTube with thumbnails of people who aren’t Rob Grant, I don’t know if rogue bots are doing it themselves or people are actively being cunts. (Either way, presumably this sort of thing’s been happening for a while).

[Nick R]

I don’t know if rogue bots are doing it themselves

Bots, probably rogue

[tombow]

I saw an episode of something when I was a kid that I thought was the 10%ers. I remember a man seeing his lawyer, and the lawyer says “it’s ok son, we’ll prove your innocence” and the man says “there’s one problem though, I did it” and the lawyer says “great! I love the guilty! I love the sinners!” in a loud, theatrical way. It’s always stuck in my mind, just browsing the episodes now to see if it was that series.

[Rushy]

I really love it when you can spot traits of Dave era acting in earlier series. It’s almost like some form of foreshadowing

[Moonlight]

This is one of my favorite lines in the whole show, and it’s not a joke (despite getting a laugh for some fucking reason). The double meaning for both the character and the show itself is so delicious.

[Technopeasant]

Next you’ll claim “death isn’t the handicap it used to be” isn’t a joke…

[Moonlight]

What exactly is supposed to be funny about “I know. I’ve done it myself”? There’s a laugh after that but it’s not funny nor is it even written like it’s intended to be a joke.

Meanwhile “Death isn’t the handicap it used to be” is so silly on its face that I cannot imagine why that’s the comparison you’re making.

[Warbodog]

They should move the laughter from that bit to after the “it was a Friday” in Back to Earth.

[Moonlight]

They should move it to both “That’s not a man. That’s Lister,” and “Lister, has your brain gone 404?” Two lines I enjoy that get dead silence from the audience.

[Ben Saunders]

Maybe it’s smug laughter. Heh heh.

Nobody laughs at the awooga waltz either, but they probably couldn’t hear him.

[Podey]

Genuinely annoyed I never realised I could go to school dressed as a Red Dwarf character for World Book Day. 

[Dave]

Genuinely annoyed I never realised I could go to school dressed as a Red Dwarf character for World Book Day. 

I did go as Holoship Rimmer once, for Comic Relief though I think.

[Dave]

Unrelated: I was in a museum today and saw this, and I had to stop myself laughing as I realised I’d never be able to explain to anyone why.

[Ian Symes]

The cloche is huge but also flattened and fragile.

[Dave]

Every time I read the word Cloche again I struggled to retain self control.

(It’s at the gas street museum in Birmingham if you want to subject yourself to it next time you’re back Ian.)

[Technopeasant]

What exactly is supposed to be funny about “I know. I’ve done it myself”? There’s a laugh after that but it’s not funny nor is it even written like it’s intended to be a joke.

Meanwhile “Death isn’t the handicap it used to be” is so silly on its face that I cannot imagine why that’s the comparison you’re making.

The point is both statements are absurd from where we are standing, but less so given where they are. It’s the incongruity. See also ”

Lots of people have died and gone on
and done really, really well.”

I do think there is an element of “oh how clever” to the reaction though.

[Moonlight]

Is it a gag that Kryten basically amputates his hand and then has to unscrew it anyway? I’ve always been mildly confused by that, but it occurs to me it might be a joke.

[Rushy]

I thought he loosened it up a bit, or something

[Moonlight]

He’s clearly actively chopping through it.

[Warbodog]

I think the only gag is that he’s whistling nonchalantly while severing his hand and having his eyeball hanging out, which are conventionally distressing events.

[Author]

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