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

[Dave]

One of my favourite gags from the novels was Petersen recording his personality while blind drunk, meaning that if he was resurrected his hologram would have the mother of all hangovers.

[Warbodog]

The sleeping quarters camera doesn’t seem to be pointed at the shitter, at least, but maybe there’s another angle recording all that to the black box, just to be safe.

[Rushy]

One of my favourite gags from the novels was Petersen recording his personality while blind drunk, meaning that if he was resurrected his hologram would have the mother of all hangovers.

This doesn’t really work for me as a joke. 

1. His hologram would be resurrected as blind drunk, not hungover. 

2. Petersen himself had the mother of all hangovers. It’d be funny if he somehow forced his hologram to suffer it instead, but the hologram is just imitating what normally happens to Petersen anyway.

3. Holly can just remove the potential hangover. 

[Flap Jack]

They actually forced Petersen to sober up before doing the personality recording, because attempting to do it while drunk kept failing. So therefore his hologram would have had a hangover when he was activated, assuming his bodily state at the time of recording was being accurately simulated.

And yes, of course Holly could tweak things for Holo-Petersen (Holaf?) so he didn’t feel hungover, but it is still funny that hungover would be his hologram’s default state.

[Rushy]

[Warbodog]

[Nick R]

[Nick R]

[Technopeasant]

[Dave]

[Rushy]

This is reminding me of that chapter in Backwards where Ace tells him to push buttons on the control pad by bumping his light bee at them. And Rimmer’s like “oh yeah I never realised that”

[Warbodog]

Which retrospectively makes perfect sense of how the Polymorph could vacuum up his light bee to the location of its sucker and… suck the data about… over the wi-fi, I guess, or… um…

[Rushy]

Which retrospectively makes perfect sense of how the Polymorph could vacuum up his light bee to the location of its sucker and… suck the data about… over the wi-fi, I guess, or… um…

[Dave]

Which retrospectively makes perfect sense of how the Polymorph could vacuum up his light bee to the location of its sucker and… suck the data about… over the wi-fi, I guess, or… um…

The Polymorph could just turn into a WiFi signal, cut out the middleman.

[Rushy]

The only time I’ve ever detected visible annoyance from Doug is when someone in that Reddit AMA insisted that Rimmer should have his yellow suit from Out of Time by now. 

[Moonlight]

I don’t know how I could’ve telegraphed harder that I was making a joke when I said there would be riots in the streets if in the next new episode he didn’t do the one thing that could bring all fans together: give Rimmer the yellow jacket from Out of Time. And that if not riots, I would at least be outside chucking rocks at street lights.

If you read that unambiguously silly post and thought it was genuinely insisting anything that’s on you. I was making fun of the type of fan comment that you’re misrepresenting my post as being one of and I genuinely don’t know how I could’ve been more obvious about that.

[Rushy]

That’s all fine and good, I was just amused by how Doug brushed it off lol

[Moonlight]

I just feel bad because I don’t think he knew I was joking lol

[Unrumble]

[Moonlight]

[Technopeasant]

I mean, there are worse things to put on your tombstone than “annoyed Doug Naylor”.

[Moonlight]

I also annoyed Mike Reiss on Twitter a couple years ago but that one I’m OK with.

[Podey]

I annoyed Mike Skinner of The Streets on Twitter, once. 

And you know that bloke who makes wholesome, inspirational messages with balloons? I realised one day HE had blocked me…!

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

[Dave]

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

I once bumped into Jarvis Cocker’s arse while trying to navigate through a packed gig. And in fairness after the Brits incident it’s a pretty famous arse.

[Warbodog]

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

I loudly shouted Andrew Collings’s name at him in drunken excitement to see the man from the podcasts walking down a quiet street in Edinburgh by himself at night time. His professional radio voice seemed to waver slightly as he greeted me in reply and I wondered why I’d done this.

[Ian Symes]

I mean, there are worse things to put on your tombstone than “annoyed Doug Naylor”.

I can think of one recent recipient of a gravestone who could have that on there.

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

I was once sat at my desk absent-mindedly singing Freak Me by Another Level to myself, when Dane Bowers from Another Level walked past. 

[Jonathan Capps]

I once caused Iain Lee to have several on-air breakdowns.

[Jonathan Capps]

One time, when I was very drunk and watching the finale of Big Brother’s Bit on the Side, I decided to ring the mobile of someone famous who was currently live on the show. That famous man was Ian Symes, and I think he was annoyed.

[Moonlight]

I once caused Iain Lee to have several on-air breakdowns.

For as long as I’ve been here I’m still not sure I actually know who Iain Lee is.

[tombow]

I have a horrible habit of annoying celebs on trains, by staring at them trying to remember who they are, thinking I know them and trying to remember where from before I say hi, and then realising who they are afterward. Done it to both Jessie Eisenberg, who angrily pulled an annoyed face at me (bonus me in a Spider-Man shirt while his Lex Luther was in cinemas) and Alan Moore (who I was actually was going to ask if was the old manager of my local Forbidden Planet as I remembered I knew him from a comic shop). On the plus side I helped a man I believe was Sir Ben Kingsley get on the right train at Euston, and served James Bolam with his grandkids at my job. (I know it was Jesse, because he was wearing a hoodie of the London theater he was currently acting in, the same hoodie he had on in all the paparazzi shots).

[tombow]

I once caused Iain Lee to have several on-air breakdowns.

For as long as I’ve been here I’m still not sure I actually know who Iain Lee is.

probably most famous for presenting the 11 o clock show in the late 90s?

[Podey]

He also helped save the life of a caller to his late night radio show who called in after taking an overdose. Kept the man on the phone for something like 30 minutes as he lost consciousness and managed to crowd-source a location from other listeners to direct the ambulance to him. An incredible bit of radio if you ever get the chance to listen.

[Jonathan Capps]

In my defense, I called him a cunt well before that happened.

[Moonlight]

I’m Discord friends with the guy who wrote the English script for Skies of Arcadia, a beloved childhood Dreamcast RPG of mine.

I’m like 95% sure he’s not annoyed by me if we’re still chatting on and off 6 years later.

[Technopeasant]

 I once bumped into Jarvis Cocker’s arse while trying to navigate through a packed gig. And in fairness after the Brits incident it’s a pretty famous arse.

I can think of one recent recipient of a gravestone who could have that on there.

Here Lies Rob Grant. Co-created Red Dwarf and other stuff. Annoyed Doug Naylor.

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

My mom almost beat the crap out of Joe Clark during the nine months he was Prime Minister of Canada. She was walking past a television station in Lloydminster and he must have thought she was there to welcome him. Mark Carney probally has more security these days.

[Moonlight]

[Dave]

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

I was a comic guest at a con in Wrexham that had a huge chunk of The Hobbit cast in attendance. Thoroughly drunk in the wee hours, my friend Dan and I just went and sat with them uninvited in the bar, trying to get in on the big film industry convos, and they all got up and dispersed pretty much immediately.

Sorry Hobbits.

Sobbits.

[Dave]

You were an unexpected item in the Baggins area.

[Warbodog]

[Rudolph]

What famous people have *you* annoyed?

Mitch Benn exploded at me on Twitter when I tweeted about never voting Liberal Democrat again after 2010.

[Frank Lewis]

On that Rimmer getting beaten silly with the VHS Tape; I liked the reference to an obscure movies, and Rimmer’s Hobbyism (one of the few watchable things about the dreck that is RDVIII).

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

You were an unexpected item in the Baggins area.

Reader, I chortled 

[International Debris]

On that Rimmer getting beaten silly with the VHS Tape; I liked the reference to an obscure movies, and Rimmer’s Hobbyism (one of the few watchable things about the dreck that is RDVIII).

yeah, I get this, the problem is the phrasing. Nobody says “I have a scar. Never mind.” And then it turns out they were beaten by a CD copy of Nirvana’s Nevermind. It’s an awkward phrasing.

[Rushy]

I mean, to be fair, no one talks in stand-up monologues either, but we still got “shoes have souls”. 
It really just depends on whether it’s funny or not. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ignoring for a moment that Back to Reality is a hallucination, the fascist state and purification of democracy is presumably not race based because Sebastian (Craig) is the Voter Colonel.

Watching the episode at the moment, and Duane asking “so why has he been away for four years”, I saw a reaction for the first time that could be read that the Cop  is displeased/disgusted with having to answer the question of a black man. 

But then I immediately realised his superior, in Sebastian Doyle, is black/mixed race.

Arguably Kash Patel is currently head of the FBI but I still find it interesting that this implication in the hallucination exists.

[Moonlight]

The real enemies of democracy are children stealing apples.

[Dave]

I always read the dystopia of the BTR universe as being less about race and more about wealth vs poverty, with Sebastian and the Cop being part of a rich overclass.

I took his irritation with Duane to be just annoyance at the repeated questioning, but I guess it could be character-specific. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> I always read the dystopia of the BTR universe as being less about race and more about wealth vs poverty, with Sebastian and the Cop being part of a rich overclass.

It could be, but that leads me to something else I was wondering. Why Sebastian wasn’t financially supporting his half brother, but was – presumably – paying for his way in the game.  

> I took his irritation with Duane to be just annoyance at the repeated questioning

I think it is, but I just saw it differently for the first time just from a different perspective.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Moonlight, Wormst and myself have just watched Electric Dreams (film) – Wikipedia because it stars Lenny Von Dohlen the cop from BTR, (and Mac MacDonald as a removal man).

It is quite a good film, and includes this line towards the end 

As a meme that might make more sense in the context of the film.

[Author]

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