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]

fuck my arse post 5000 / page 101

[Ben Saunders]

It helps sell the tonal shift of the gag, but honestly I’ve never thought about it. He can just screw off his hand normally, can’t he? It can fly off if you inflate it like a balloon.

[Rushy]

He’s clearly actively chopping through it.

Yeah, but maybe only through the outer layer? Whereas the inside layer is more durable (Kryten’s skeleton basically) and can only be removed by screwing off. 

[Moonlight]

It very very much looks like he’s sawing straight through the arm like he does with Lister two series later.

[Warbodog]

[Stephen Abootman]

Saw this appear on YouTube this week and as usual for me, no idea if it’s something rarely seen or not so bunging in this thread in case it’s of interest.

[Rushy]

KRYTEN: “The Red Dwarf was in fact, a state of the art intergalactic vessel!”

[Moonlight]

These Series VIII-era promos on this set with Rimmer in his VII garb damage my brain. When do these take place?! Questions need answers.

[Dave]

KRYTEN: “The Red Dwarf was in fact, a state of the art intergalactic vessel!”

After three million years I reckon it made it a bit further than the Milky Way.

[Rushy]

These Series VIII-era promos on this set with Rimmer in his VII garb damage my brain. When do these take place?! Questions need answers.

After the ship is saved and the original Rimmer returned, but before Kochanski left is my guess. 

[Warbodog]

I suppose they could be playing a Troy & Abed style fake TV show because they got incredibly bored.

[Dave]

In Balance of Power, how long would Rimmer have been prepared to masquerade as Kochanski if Lister didn’t twig his ruse? Would he still be assuming her appearance today, just to avoid being outranked?

[Flap Jack]

He was just going to keep it up long enough to convince Lister that Kochanski wasn’t into him, so he would give up on gaining the power to keep her switched on. Then “she” would willingly switch herself back out for Rimmer.

[Dave]

While it seems a bit flimsy that Lister would give up on his attempts to outrank Rimmer just because Kochanski wasn’t into him, in the end he gave up after failing one exam so maybe he just wasn’t that committed in the first place.

[Flap Jack]

It makes sense to me – or at least I can see how it made sense to Rimmer – because while Lister definitely got frustrated with Rimmer bossing him around and restricting his cigarette access and such, the fact that he refused to let him see Kochanski was the thing that pushed him into taking action.

[Veeva]

If you watch the episodes sequentially, then The Last Day runs straight into Camille and DNA, giving you three Kryten-heavy episodes in a row.

[International Debris]

It also gives you Kryten saying “I knew I was lying” followed by a scene of Lister teaching Kryten to lie.

[Rushy]

It also gives you Kryten saying “I knew I was lying” 

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Would it not make sense for Kryten to be able to lie to another mechanoid in the service of preserving the life of the crew?

What he can’t do is lie for the sake of it.

[Flap Jack]

I definitely subscribe to that explanation, but it’s effectively just a fan theory.

Either way it’s still quite a contrast to go from him lying easily to lying being a major difficulty for him in the very next episode.

[Rushy]

I sometimes miss series III Kryten. There’s a kind of endearing awkwardness about the way Bobby plays him that helps to sell the idea that he’s a confused robot. 

[Moonlight]

I do enjoy his performance in Series III but the mask looks so gross and sweaty. The design is fine but it looks like somebody lubed him up.

I’m also not crazy about the VIII mask but I don’t quite know how to articulate why it feels off to me.

[Ben Saunders]

Too soft? Picture too clean? Lighting too bright? Negative association due to the quality of the episodes it’s in? I think the quality of the picture in VIII is odd, in some ways it looks excellent but in other ways it looks cheap. It is lit a lot brighter after three-to-four series of grimy darkness.

[Rushy]

I think the makeup looks fine. It’s just that Kryten is so sleazy and spiteful and weird at this point. For better or worse, Bobby commits to that performance 100% and so he comes off as a creepy twerp. 

[Warbodog]

Mundane meta-observation: Are we more bothered by continuity issues when they seem to be mistakes (Kryten lying/subservience, Rimmer in a wrong costume) or lapses of attention (time travel mechanics in VII) than creative decisions? Changing the nature of the Lister-Kochanski relationship and the crew complement in IV should be major immersion-breaking issues, but we seem to accept those just fine as deliberate choices they made, so they don’t actually distract us when watching (do they?)

…Then again, making Starbug insanely, needlessly huge in VII was a creative decision, so it could just be whether it was a good one or not.

[Moonlight]

Rimmer in the wrong costume is annoying for two key reasons:

(1) The blue hard light jacket is basically the only outfit he ever had that wouldn’t make even passable sense in this flashback.

(2) Lister is dressed in an earlier series getup which means they were actively thinking about what costumes would make sense for this scene.

Did they need to shoot other stuff with Chris that day but he’d only agreed to be there for forty minutes? What’s going on with that?

Also the scene isn’t that funny but Blue being hugely overrated based on its last five minutes isn’t the question here.

[Warbodog]

There could be some soft retconning going on because Doug was going movie franchise crazy and didn’t want to confuse new viewers with an “alternate” “costume” (why is that character wearing slightly different clothes than what I’ve seen before???).

But then the Munchkin Song represented (some of) those older costumes anyway, so not that. (Still not the original look though, since Doug only seemed to become fond of that again during Remastered and VIII. But make it browner and complement them with some garish prison garb that varies wildly in hue).

[Technopeasant]

 so it could just be whether it was a good one or not.

Playing devil’s advocate here, but is the Lister/Kochanski retcon actually good? I get the point was it was pathetic of him to pine so hard for a woman he hardly knew, but its kind of worse to be so possesive of a woman who ultimately had rejected him. If anything the peak tragedy would be they were on good terms when he was put in stasis and then she died.

Stardisbug might have been fine as a status quo shift if the show was always set on the shuttle, but the fact that just setting it on Red Dwarf was an option is what tanks it.

[Warbodog]

VII also ridiculously ditched the survival aspect that was so strong in VI (unless it’s still there inconsistently) so they can quibble over the appropriate condiments to accompany their lobster banquets.

[Rushy]

Mundane meta-observation: Are we more bothered by continuity issues when they seem to be mistakes or lapses of attention than creative decisions? Changing the nature of the Lister-Kochanski relationship and the crew complement in IV should be major immersion-breaking issues, but we seem to accept those just fine as deliberate choices they made

I never liked the retcons, but you either accept it or stop enjoying the show. 

The books help in blending the two eras together, and give rational explanations for some of the changes. Like how Holly switches himself off and the skutters stop working, and that’s why the ship looks so dingy and rundown in later series. 

The blue hard light jacket is basically the only outfit he ever had that wouldn’t make even passable sense in this flashback. 

We’ve seen hard light holograms without blue. In fact, Rimmer is the only one whose hard-lightness is signified by the colour blue. I think it’s more likely that the switch to hard light just glitched his uniform colour, and he was too embarrassed to ask anyone to fix it so he ran with “this shows you all that I’m hard light! Clarity and order, that’s my motto!”

He wore both green and red before, so clearly the colour is not related to rank. It’s optional.

And we’ve seen him wear a puffer jacket in Marooned, so that’s not new either. 

[Podey]

I noticed for the first time this week that the steering wheel is on the left-hand side of the car that they hallucinate in BtR. No reason to presume they’re on UK streets, of course but an interesting choice for a British show and immediately after the first brummy accent of the series.

I trust this is suitably mundane.

[Rushy]

I noticed for the first time this week that the steering wheel is on the left-hand side of the car that they hallucinate in BtR. No reason to presume they’re on UK streets, of course but an interesting choice for a British show and immediately after the first brummy accent of the series.
I trust this is suitably mundane.

That annoys me a little now, because we all know the Cat is the pilot. And he sits on the right. 

[Moonlight]

If anything the peak tragedy would be they were on good terms when he was put in stasis and then she died.

That’s literally Red Dwarf USA’s take.

VII also ridiculously ditched the survival aspect that was so strong in VI (unless it’s still there inconsistently) so they can quibble over the appropriate condiments to accompany their lobster banquets.

We were just talking in the server the other day about how they go from scraping lichen off asteroids in VI to having curry night basically every night of the week at the beginning of VII. I honestly wouldn’t have questioned it if they just had a lobster dinner without any pretext of having caught it scuttling around.

[Rushy]

I just always assumed that stuff belonged to their future selves. 

[Unrumble]

I just always assumed that stuff belonged to their future selves. 

[Moonlight]

I just always assumed that stuff belonged to their future selves. 

It must be all that curry they got from Hitler.

[Rushy]

Like Captain Barbossa, Lister insisted on keeping a supply around in case he ever got a new body.

[Rushy]

 

Why are there two different versions of the s12 opening?

[cwickham]

It was commented on when the DVD came out, the DVD version of Skipper has a different shot (the broadcast version was the same as all other episodes). It seems like a not-final edit was used somehow.

[Ian Symes]

It might actually be the least troublesome sloppy mistake in the post-Ellard DVD era.

[International Debris]

I just always assumed that stuff belonged to their future selves. 

This was my first thought, but it doesn’t tie in with Kryten and Lister’s conversation about the curry all being destroyed, no debris, and how they had curry night six nights a week, with popadoms and sauces and drinks and everything. Kryten using the last of the chilis is, for the crew in the ‘present’, the same day Starbug is destroyed. 

[Rushy]

I just always assumed that stuff belonged to their future selves. 

This was my first thought, but it doesn’t tie in with Kryten and Lister’s conversation about the curry all being destroyed, no debris, and how they had curry night six nights a week, with popadoms and sauces and drinks and everything. Kryten using the last of the chilis is, for the crew in the ‘present’, the same day Starbug is destroyed. 

Well, we know that there’s no actual damage from the fight with their future selves, because there was no debris and it was Lister himself who stole the curry supplies. 

So from Present Lister’s point of view, he suddenly gained a whole lot of curry supplies, only for them to inexplicably disappear a day later. The trauma is most likely about that. The conversation about curry night six nights a week could’ve referred to the Red Dwarf days. 

[Flap Jack]

That rationalisation makes Lister even more pathetic, really. 2 days ago he was on team “I don’t care what luxuries we can gain with the time drive, it’s not worth the cost” and now he’s like “No curry, which has been situation normal for ages? I’d sooner split the space time continuum in two or kill myself than live like that!”.

[Rushy]

I never said Tikka to Ride wasn’t a

[tombow]

I’ve just thought of a new head canon. So, the Infinity novel tells us that every crew member has their mind and body scanned when they first board the ship, in case they need to be re-created as a hologram. So, I assume a new hologram would only have memories from when they last got scanned. So, I think, important crew members, like navigators, are encouraged to regularly update their scan, in case they’re lost in action then needed as a holo. 

Rimmer in “The End” obviously remembers most of his time on the ship with Lister, so I think he was voluntarily getting himself updated – probably daily, as a self importance thing.

Although maybe everyone on the ship had to get a daily updating – maybe it was just done automatically as they walked from their bunk every morning? Even Lister and Rimmer had important knowledge the ship didn’t want to lose, like how to repair the food machines. And George obviously remembers his friendships with everyone in “The End”.

(apologies if the novel does explain this and I just forgot or missed it)

edit  – someone on Reddit theorises this is what the original purpose of dream recorders is

[Dave]

They probably just pieced together anything recent from CCTV, because apparently you can do that.

[Podey]

I’ve just thought of a new head canon. So, the Infinity novel tells us that every crew member has their mind and body scanned when they first board the ship, in case they need to be re-created as a hologram. So, I assume a new hologram would only have memories from when they last got scanned. So, I think, important crew members, like navigators, are encouraged to regularly update their scan, in case they’re lost in action then needed as a holo. 

Rimmer in “The End” obviously remembers most of his time on the ship with Lister, so I think he was voluntarily getting himself updated – probably daily, as a self importance thing.
Although maybe everyone on the ship had to get a daily updating – maybe it was just done automatically as they walked from their bunk every morning? Even Lister and Rimmer had important knowledge the ship didn’t want to lose, like how to repair the food machines. And George obviously remembers his friendships with everyone in “The End”.

(apologies if the novel does explain this and I just forgot or missed it)

edit  – someone on Reddit theorises this is what the original purpose of dream recorders is

There is something like that in series 12 where Lister’s memory is saved to the hologram projection suite but he hadn’t updated it in ages which is how he wound up with his younger personality again, in M-Corp I believe. 

I don’t remember enough of the specifics as to whether it perfectly aligns with what you’ve said, though.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

There’s a dream recorder. I imagine their personalities are getting updated every night along with their dreams being recorded.

[Moonlight]

They probably just pieced together anything recent from CCTV, because apparently you can do that.

I hadn’t seen this episode in years and I completely forgot they basically did the same thing as M-Corp but it was played as a joke.

[Author]

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