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

[Warbodog]

[gerrydelasel]

Red Dwarf: The Other 33 Years. The next special chronicles the absolute
horrors of the survivors of the radiation leak, sealed in the bowels of
the ship. With no food, no water, no hope of reaching Holly, and no
escape,

Very H. G. Wells!

[gerrydelasel]

https://voca.ro/13sWDCevnipm

[International Debris]

Kryten is Desmond, he turned up for a single plot but they liked the character enough to bring him back. 

Although I’m amused enough by the idea of him having a past as a torturer enough to go with Sayid on that alone.

Rimmer is Locke, he thinks he’s big and important but he’s really not, he’s just a pain in everyone’s arse. Also he comes back from the dead. Which, y’know, is close enough. 

Lister is Jack, he’s the centre of the story but very few people’s favourite character. 

[Rushy]

Kryten is Desmond, he turned up for a single plot but they liked the character enough to bring him back. 

This might be a hot take, but I always felt Desmond was completely superfluous after he reunited with Penny. It went from fan service to fanwank. 

Rimmer is Locke, he thinks he’s big and important but he’s really not, he’s just a pain in everyone’s arse.

Hah! I adore Locke, but it’s true enough. He never realized what was truly worthy about him (his ability to bring out the good in others), and ultimately his lack of humility was his undoing.

 Lister is Jack, he’s the centre of the story but very few people’s favourite character. 

I’m glad Matthew Fox is acting again. A very underrated talent. 

[Turk Thrust]

Given he brought her in with a view to having a more diverse cast for the movie (not a bad idea imho), I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just thinking short term in terms of the series, since the movie was intended to have been a reboot, so it didn’t matter at the time if he didn’t have too much of a plan.
I am genuinely kind of gutted that her story will never be resolved, though. I don’t really want to see Kochanski back on the show full-time, but Chloe deserves better than that and I feel like she always got short swift from a lot of the fandom. It would have been nice to have had an episode to tie it off.

While I can understand someone suggested to Doug that having a woman in the movie would help to get funding, I don’t think casting Chloe was the right choice. If they’d had a woman part in the script and been able to say to investors, they could get a known face to appear, that might have been more appealing for people.

[Podey]

I did think of Locke for Rimmer but I don’t think Rimmer ever has the confidence and capability that Locke has on the island, which is 90% of his screen time. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Warbodog]

[Rushy]

I love that there’s a CG glitch in that scene that looks exactly like the Smoke Monster.

[Moonlight]

Robots drinking oil like a beverage is such a stock sci-fi comedy trope that I’m kind of shocked we made it to Series 12 before it came up with Kryten.

[Technopeasant]

The drink in The Last Day is rather close.

[Unrumble]

[Moonlight]

Wondering how much Gunmen is riffing Westworld (1973) in particular after this line.

For a fun extra connection, the guy in the middle is Richard Benjamin, who starred as Quark in the short-lived late 70s sci-fi comedy series Quark which bears a passing resemblance to Red Dwarf but is more a parody of Star Trek (and was created by one of the creators of Get Smart, a popular 60s spy parody that Mel Brooks worked on). It features a character called The Head who is a disembodied head on a screen.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

There fact he almost chokes in the whiskey and then says in a huskey voice “very smooth” really does drive home that Rob and Doug were doing that scene in particular in Gunmen

[Dave]

It completely inverts the meaning of Rimmer’s “I’ve seen westerns” line by having him accurately emulate a western.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It completely inverts the meaning of Rimmer’s “I’ve seen westerns” line by having him accurately emulate a western.

Well, emulate a man who hasn’t seen westerns ordering a drink in a fake western saloon. 

[Moonlight]

Westworld is sort of a meta western where everyone is going through the motions of a traditional American western film as a theme park attraction. It’s not that meta, but it is a little bit.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

DNA really feels like a proto-V episode in the first and final thirds.

[gerrydelasel]

Sir, surely anything from series IV is by definition proto-V?

[Moonlight]

That episode in particular has them investigating a derelict with dark lighting and a horror vibe. It feels like the kind of thing you strongly associate with V in particular in a way that most of the episodes in IV don’t really.

It’s like how Parallel Universe is silly in a Series III kind of way.

[Podey]

When I met Doug a year or two ago I told him my favourite Dwarf was when it had a bit of horror and he genuinely reacted like that was the first time anyone had ever said that to him. 

[Moonlight]

That’s clearly the correct opinion.

[gerrydelasel]

he genuinely reacted like that was the first time anyone had ever said that to him.

He’s clueless enough.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Listen, Red Dwarf was inspired by Blade Runner, not then Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

[Technopeasant]

When I met Doug a year or two ago I told him my favourite Dwarf was when it had a bit of horror and he genuinely reacted like that was the first time anyone had ever said that to him. 

But did you annoy him?

[International Debris]

Sir, surely anything from series IV is by definition proto-V?

That’s not how prototypes work. 

[gerrydelasel]

[International Debris]

Funny, I can actually see you making that face as you posted that.

[Starbugger]

Wondering how much Gunmen is riffing Westworld (1973) in particular after this line

Since Waxworld was a play on Westworld, perhaps the whole of Gunmen was inspired by the one joke they didn’t manage to get into Meltdown.

[Moonlight]

That episode in particular has them investigating a derelict with dark lighting and a horror vibe. It feels like the kind of thing you strongly associate with V in particular in a way that most of the episodes in IV don’t really.

It’s occurring to me that DNA was the last shot of IV.

[Warbodog]

It’s occurring to me that DNA was the last shot of IV.

IV was the most shuffled series and would make more sense in production order generally, especially with Kryten’s Meltdown subservience coming first.

[Unrumble]

[Nick R]

IV was the most shuffled series and would make more sense in production order generally, especially with Kryten’s Meltdown subservience coming first.

There’s an idea for a full series rewatch: watch the episodes in the order in which they were originally recorded. Via John Hoare’s old episode orders article (https://www.ganymede.tv/2005/12/episode-orders-2/), and the unofficial archive for the Dave episodes:

The End
Balance of Power
Waiting for God
Future Echoes
Confidence and Paranoia
Me2

BTL
Thanks for the Memory
Stasis Leak
Kryten
Parallel Universe
Queeg

Marooned
Timeslides
Backwards
Bodyswap
Polymorph
The Last Day

Justice
Dimension Jump
Meltdown
Camille
White Hole
DNA

Here’s a mundane observation: if you go by recording dates, DNA is directly followed by D&A:

Demons & Angels
The Inquisitor
Holoship
Terrorform
Quarantine
Back to Reality

Psirens
Legion
Rimmerworld
Gunmen
Emohawk
Out of Time

And then for series VII, we could use recent revelations in the audience screening thread to try watching them in the order in which all the episodes were first presented for laughter recording. We know that the first three were:

Stoke
Ouroboros
Blue

… but beyond that, we’re not yet sure about all the others!

Then an appropriately chaotic order for VIII:

BITR 1
BITR 2
Cassandra
Pete 1
Only the Good
Krytie TV
Pete 2
BITR 3

Series X: as broadcast

Give & Take
Can of Worms
Krysis
Officer Rimmer
Samsara
Twentica

Siliconia
Timewave
Cured
Mechocracy
M-Corp
Skipper

[Moonlight]

The ordering works up until Rimmerworld and then falls apart in VII and VIII.

Opening Series V with Red Dwarf blowing up is pretty good.

[Technopeasant]

Wasn’t Series VI also as broadcast or am I being dumb?

* Rimmerworld moved so I am indeed dumb. The fact Rimmerworld is a direct sequel to Gunmen underscores how this was never the intended broadcast order though. *

[Ian Symes]

Imagine if they’d have started Series III with Marooned – introducing Kryten and the new Holly, then doing an episode where they’re only in it for about thirty seconds each. 

[Warbodog]

Marooned: Original Assembly

[Moonlight]

Literal nepo baby.

[Technopeasant]

That’s not very nice to say about Tracey Eddon.

[Nick R]

That’s not very nice to say about Tracey Eddon.

She has an interesting list of credits! Star Wars, Bond, Mission: Impossible, Superman, Batman, MCU… and Red Dwarf and Doctor Who and The Brittas Empire and Waiting for God (the sitcom not the episode):
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0248866/

She was a stunt double for Carrie Fisher on Return of the Jedi. Now there’s a nepo baby!

[Ian Symes]

There is another name from the credits of certain episodes that one might just apply the term “nepo baby” to.

[Rushy]

She was a stunt double for Carrie Fisher on Return of the Jedi. Now there’s a nepo baby!

[Warbodog]

Literal nepo baby.

From the same episode, neko baby.

[Ben Saunders]

Nepo babies used to at least make good stuff like Lost in Translation

[Technopeasant]

There is another name from the credits of certain episodes that one might just apply the term “nepo baby” to.

He convinced his dad to keep the moonlight scene so we can let it slide.

[barbucha]

Back To The 1980’s: When Movie Legends and Props Become Reality

Back To The 1980’s (founded by John A. Griffiths and Ian Findlay) has established itself as a leading supplier of props and vehicles from the most iconic TV shows and movies of the 1980s. Their mission is to transform any event into a unique and entertaining experience thanks to authentic pieces that defined the popular culture of one of the most beloved decades.

Fans of Red Dwarf will be delighted to know that this very company has acquired a giant replica of the Starbug, which appeared in the AA Stellar Rescue commercials. We’ve covered the Starbug auction in our previous articles.

More info and photos in the article

[Ben Saunders]

Back to 2019 (God please no)

[Ben Saunders]

There are people out there living such vastly different lives

[Author]

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