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

[Jonathan Capps]

Fun fact: in the original layout, Lister could have never have seen the TV because of the pipe running between the bunk and the TV’s wall.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Huh, had never really considered that. I reckon he’d be able to see it, but it would be partly obscured by the pipe.

[Dave]

Controversial Red Dwarf quiz question from the usually 100%-accurate WhatCulture.

[Flap Jack]

So given they put “Asclepius” in quotes, they must be talking about Snacky.

Still wrong, but it’s closer.

[Jonathan Capps]

Mind that culture, WhatCulture, shit

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

To be fair to WhatCulture, didn’t it take G&T an entire Dwarfcast to get the logistics of it worked out?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Talkie Toaster missed a trick with not offering Lister a naan.

[Renegade Rob]

I think it’s interesting that since Back to Reality was a group hallucination, the fact that cybernautics “was” in fact traffic control was almost certainly down to Rimmer chiming in earlier that it could just mean traffic control. Like if he hadn’t felt the need to take Jake Bullet down a peg in the recuperation lounge, he wouldn’t have put that idea in everyone else’s heads. 

And since, per Multiverse 101, every hallucination also is it’s own dimension, there’s a dystopian fascist dimension where cybernautics means traffic control due largely to a git in another dimension feeling the need to burst the bubble of an enthusiastic crewmate. 

[GlenTokyo]

Cybernautics should be web browsing really.

[Flap Jack]

In Stasis Leak, Rimmer goes back in time and (presumably?) switches over to being generated by past Red Dwarf instead of present Red Dwarf. This doesn’t seem to be problematic at all, so therefore there probably wasn’t already a hologram on the ship at this time – unlike in IWCD.

[Renegade Rob]

I’m sure past Holly detected that Red Dwarf was generating Rimmer for some reason and because of his 6000 IQ was just like, it’s a time thing, I’ll allow it. Hell, that’s probably why he brought Rimmer back as a hologram in the first place. Not to “keep Lister sane” but actually to maintain the time loop. It’s also equally likely that, after literally one episode earlier, Rimmer complained about how much the Hologrammatic Projection Cage sucked, at which point he was informed that they had light bees on Red Dwarf. They pulled those out of mothballs sometime between Thanks For The Memory and Meltdown, so who’s to say it wasn’t immediately before Stasis Leak, especially since Rimmer’s walking around Backwards Earth willy nilly a few episodes later. If he had the light bee when he went back in time, that means past Red Dwarf wouldn’t have had to generate him, although if that’s the case it still leaves the question of why he was able to seamlessly hide in the table as well as Future Rimmer hiding in the sink (that’s two holograms right there in the same room, so maybe that limitation is and always was a lie). 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Rimmer never leaves the sip, and the stasis leak is an open portal so is power and projection could be coming from the future. If it switched to being run by past Red Dwarf wouldn’t his personality and memories revert to his original disc state before the accident?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

This observation might be a little more than mundane, and doesn’t directly relate to Red Dwarf.  But in S03E04 of early 00s sketch show Smack the Pony, there is a character in a sketch who very clearly identifies herself on a phone call as Barbara Bellini.  Given that that doesn’t appear to be a common name in anyway, and Bellini is presumably Italian in origin so you wouldn’t instinctively give it as a name to a character in a sketch played by an English woman, I can only assume it’s lifted from Red Dwarf as it seems far too far fetched to be a coincidence. 

[Flap Jack]

Ah, good counter-suggestions. I’ll also add that I don’t think phasing through tables and sinks necessarily contradicts the idea that he might have had a light bee. Entangled showed us that you can still do that with a light bee, even after you’ve been upgraded to hardlight (which Future Rimmer probably is).

I do keep trying to come up with an explanation for how Rimmer’s light bee and his many extended jaunts away from Red Dwarf can happen without it meaning that the one hologram limit is no longer a thing. But no luck so far.

[si]

But in S03E04 of early 00s sketch show Smack the Pony, there is a character in a sketch who very clearly identifies herself on a phone call as Barbara Bellini.

What a beautiful name. 

[Stabbim]

all the hologram limitations became a lot less important, and probably more cumbersome for them to write around, once they abandoned their original plan of having Lister successfully boot up Hologram Kochanski at the end of Series 1.  Holochanski being unable to touch anything (Lister, first and foremost) would’ve likely been a significant narrative device through out the second series, possibly resolved at the end if Series 2 was to be the final series. Holo-Rimmer being unable to physically interact with stuff or having an operational range limited to the ship just got in the way, especially when Series 3 started and the show’s tone shifted from “The Odd Couple, In Space” to “Star Trek, But Ridiculous”.

In retrospect it’s a bit of a wonder that the “hard light” thing wasn’t officially introduced until Series 6 given that Rimmer’s light was selectively hard as early as the ejection seat gag in “Backwards”

[Flap Jack]

The original plan was for holo-Kochanski? I should really re-watch those behind the scenes docs at some point..

I guess the real world reason for light bees and the implication that there’s no longer a one hologram limit is known, but the in-universe explanation, that is my heart’s true desire.

[Stabbim]

The original plan was for holo-Kochanski? I should really re-watch those behind the scenes docs at some point..
I guess the real world reason for light bees and the implication that there’s no longer a one hologram limit is known, but the in-universe explanation, that is my heart’s true desire.

yes, IIRC there was a strike at the BBC in 1988 that stalled production of Series 1, during which time they came up with the ME2 episode idea, which they liked so much they changed course to accommodate it. (among other things it was a lot funnier, in their estimation, than the episode premise they scrapped to make room for it)

[Rudolph]

The original plan was for holo-Kochanski?

I think it’s the Red Dwarf Programme Guide which gives a brief synopsis of Bodysnatcher along the lines of Rimmer goes insane and tries to build himself a new body, using parts stolen from Lister, with the episode ending with Kochanski replacing him as the hologram.

[Ian Symes]

That’s not quite right – it wasn’t that Bodysnatcher that was going to end with Kochanski being rebooted, it was that Confidence & Paranoia was originally going to be the last in the series, and that would have ended with Kochanski being booted up instead of a second Rimmer.

[Dave]

It is interesting to ponder what the second series would have looked like with that outcome. Presumably either way it’d be short-lived and we’d get a resolution to the cliffhanger and a return to the core dynamic soon enough.

Or maybe the second hologram would stick around and you’d get a Series VII type awkwardness where Kochanski isn’t interested in Lister after all.

[si]

Or maybe the second hologram would stick around and you’d get a Series VII type awkwardness where Kochanski isn’t interested in Lister after all.

She could’ve had a thing with the Cat.

Although, then again, if Rob was writing that, it wouldn’t end well, would it? 

[Jonathan Capps]

That’s not quite right – it wasn’t that Bodysnatcher that was going to end with Kochanski being rebooted, it was that Confidence & Paranoia was originally going to be the last in the series, and that would have ended with Kochanski being booted up instead of a second Rimmer.

You say that, but how many episodes start with “E”.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Now now, it’s not his fault.  TOS is down so he can’t look it up.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

There’s always ladyofthecake.

[cwickham]

> It is interesting to ponder what the second series would have looked like with that outcome. Presumably either way it’d be short-lived and we’d get a resolution to the cliffhanger and a return to the core dynamic soon enough.

Or maybe the second hologram would stick around and you’d get a Series VII type awkwardness where Kochanski isn’t interested in Lister after all.

It has been noted that Kochanski has a lot of prominence in the Series I publicity photos, presumably with the intention she was going to be a regular in II.

[Stabbim]

It is interesting to ponder what the second series would have looked like with that outcome. Presumably either way it’d be short-lived and we’d get a resolution to the cliffhanger and a return to the core dynamic soon enough.

Or maybe the second hologram would stick around and you’d get a Series VII type awkwardness where Kochanski isn’t interested in Lister after all.

Well, presumably at first they didn’t necessarily know they would ever get picked up for a 3rd series and beyond.  Only being contractually certain of having the first 2 series’ to tell all the story they wanted to tell, resolving Lister’s goal to still fulfill his “plan” within those 12 episodes becomes more urgent.  So Holochanski gets revived at the end of Confidence & Paranoia (now the ending of S1) and S2 becomes about the (hilarious) struggle to have a relationship around her lack of physical form, and that ends however it ends in the series (and show) finale.

Once they knew there’d be a 3rd (and 4th, and 5th) Series, that resolution could be deferred, even forgotten about.  Possibly even needed to be delayed if it was meant to be an end-of-show moment for Lister (his “objective for the game, you twonk!” to quote the game attendant in Back To Reality). 

Of course, if that was the plan, that changed, too (S7).

[Warbodog]

It has been noted that Kochanski has a lot of prominence in the Series I publicity photos, presumably with the intention she was going to be a regular in II.

I put that down to the familiarity of Clare Grogan, what they just happened to be filming when the photographer turned up, and/or typical Grant Naylor deception tomfoolery.

[Ian Symes]

Yeah, it’s worth remembering that Clare Grogan was by far the most famous of anyone in the whole first series at the time.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The crate behind Lister has a VII spray painted on it 

[clem]

I put that down to the familiarity of Clare Grogan, what they just happened to be filming when the photographer turned up, and/or typical Grant Naylor deception tomfoolery.

I suppose she’s the only holdover from their original plan to get big names for the rest of the crew, like Ronnie Barker as Hollister, so that killing them off in the first episode would be even more of a twist. Original Kochanski Alexandra Pigg was pretty high-profile at the time as well I think, having won a BAFTA a few years earlier. 

[Flap Jack]

Something mundane I realised: if you only count the episodes which have the 4 most “definitive” characters as part of the main cast, the pre Grant Naylor split and post split eras have exactly the same number. 24.

[International Debris]

Although, in terms of runtime, even accounting for Back to Earth, The Promised Land still nudges it in Doug’s favour.

[Jenuall]

[RunawayTrain]

This is more of a wondering than an observation, but it’s also not an in-universe unanswered question, so.  It struck me that the ‘Outland Revenue’ joke might land a bit differently with audience members who are too young to remember Inland Revenue.  Probably only a minute percentage, but we do know there are some *very* young audience members (HMRC was formed in 2005).

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’m aware of Inland Revenue, but I started working full time, in an accounts department at the age of 17 in 2005.  I’ve only ever personally and professionally dealt with HMRC.  It’s actually crazy to think I started just at the time it changed and sort of don’t know anything else other than it did used to be Inland Revenue.  To the point I would have thought HMRC exited longer before I became working aged.

I don’t think the joke wouldn’t land if you didn’t know who Inland Revenue were.  Anyone from outside the UK watching would presumably just have to have a stab at understanding the joke (though American’s have the advantage of having Internal Revenue Service), the same as anyone who grew up only with HMRC.  

It’s just a future, spacey, tax revenue collection office.

[Dave]

I often wondered whether it was a double joke that (as well as the “Inland Revenue” play on words) was referencing early 80s Sean Connery sci-fi movie Outland, which I assume Rob and Doug would have been aware of. Set on Io, no less.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I was always more of a Moon 44 fan myself.  More of that Alien/Blade Runner aesthetic that didn’t quite land in BtE, but with the benefit of it actually being set in that sort of world.

In a way, Moon 44 (and to a lesser extent, Outland) could easily be set in the world of Red Dwarf – they’re both about far-future mining companies operating in the solar system and beyond, and in fact, in M44 the company name is the Galactic Mining Corporation and the fonts look very Microgramma-y.  Hell, half of the premise of M44 is sending convicts on dangerous assignments on behalf of the corporation!

[Dave]

There’s also this Outland connection, which I’d forgotten about:

https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/red-dwarf-prop-discovery/

[Ben Saunders]

This is more of a wondering than an observation, but it’s also not an in-universe unanswered question, so.  It struck me that the ‘Outland Revenue’ joke might land a bit differently with audience members who are too young to remember Inland Revenue.  Probably only a minute percentage, but we do know there are some *very* young audience members (HMRC was formed in 2005).

I’m 26 and I don’t really know what Inland Revenue is, I could sort of infer that they’re some sort of debt collection agency, though. I didn’t even register the name “Outland Revenue”, just assuming that the joke was he owed the tax man money. In fact I was so young when I first watched it I probably barely registered anything. It was just a series of wacky things happening.

[RunawayTrain]

I’m aware of Inland Revenue, but I started working full time, in an accounts department at the age of 17 in 2005.  I’ve only ever personally and professionally dealt with HMRC.  It’s actually crazy to think I started just at the time it changed and sort of don’t know anything else other than it did used to be Inland Revenue.  To the point I would have thought HMRC exited longer before I became working aged.

I don’t think the joke wouldn’t land if you didn’t know who Inland Revenue were.  Anyone from outside the UK watching would presumably just have to have a stab at understanding the joke (though American’s have the advantage of having Internal Revenue Service), the same as anyone who grew up only with HMRC.  

It’s just a future, spacey, tax revenue collection office.

No, I agree the joke would still work, just maybe knowing the play on the name of an existing institution gives it a slight bit more depth than simply having plucked a name from nowhere.

I’m 26 and I don’t really know what Inland Revenue is, I could sort of infer that they’re some sort of debt collection agency, though. I didn’t even register the name “Outland Revenue”, just assuming that the joke was he owed the tax man money. In fact I was so young when I first watched it I probably barely registered anything. It was just a series of wacky things happening.

Inland Revenue was ‘the taxman’, now Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.  (Income tax, customs charges, VAT, National Insurance contributions, etc.)

I’m quite surprised by both these responses, actually, and interesting to hear such different perspectives.  I recall seeing the Inland Revenue letterhead as a child (I’m in my early 30s) and it wasn’t until in my 20s that I learned of HMRC, then took slightly longer to make the connection that HMRC had actually replaced IR.

That said, on one hand people still make reference to DSS which I’ve only ever known as DWP from having to sign on in my teens, and then as the complete opposite there are people (usually younger) who have basically never heard of either DWP, HMRC or their predecessors because they’ve never really needed to know.

[Warbodog]

I’d heard of Inland Revenue through TV or something, because I always knew Outland Revenue was a (presumably deliberately weak) pun. But it would be more obscure than most of their contemporary references, where it’s usually clear what the joke is, even if you don’t know the subject (a bad film, someone with breast implants).

I wonder what the single most obscure and baffling reference in Red Dwarf is for modern viewers. Something that entertains the audience but makes absolutely no sense without the forgotten context? (If so, it’s probably in the Jokes you didn’t get thread).

Maybe Quayle’s a contender.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

 ’m quite surprised by both these responses, actually, and interesting to hear such different perspectives.  I recall seeing the Inland Revenue letterhead as a child (I’m in my early 30s) 

 

Im mid 30s and its very possible I saw Inland Revenue letters or heard the name on TV but as a kid in the 90s and teen in early 00s that would have meant nothing to me and I’d have just ignored it as a grown up thing

[Dave]

I wonder what the single most obscure and baffling reference in Red Dwarf is for modern viewers. Something that entertains the audience but makes absolutely no sense without the forgotten context? (If so, it’s probably in the Jokes you didn’t get thread).

Maybe Quayle’s a contender.

I guess most of those gags are written so you understand the point of the joke even if you don’t get the specific reference.

Arguably something like the Blade Runner homage in BtE is more difficult to get than throwaway cultural references as certain parts of the story are a bit baffling if you’re not familiar with the movie.

[Flap Jack]

I wonder what the single most obscure and baffling reference in Red Dwarf is for modern viewers. Something that entertains the audience but makes absolutely no sense without the forgotten context? (If so, it’s probably in the Jokes you didn’t get thread).

Maybe Quayle’s a contender.

Berni Inn?

Or Doug McClure. I’m not even convinced he was still a household name at the time the episodes referencing him came out.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You’d be surprised, wet and dreary Sunday afternoons (and I’m sure the nice sunny ones too) were fully of 20-30 year old movies back in the 80s and 90s.  He might. not have been relevant, but I bet his films were on regularly enough for the audience to get the reference.

[Dave]

Also, Troy McClure from The Simpsons is close enough that people might get it via that route.

(Although even that reference is now decades old. Fuck.)

[RunawayTrain]

I have never seen Blade Runner, absolutely no clue what it’s about, no idea about Berni Inn and nor do I know who Doug McClure is (but I know Troy McClure).  Quayle was a reference I needed explaining too.  Tbh the Reagan mask I only understood via having seen the Spitting Image puppet shortly after getting into Red Dwarf – obviously I know who Reagan was but until a couple of years ago would not have been able to identify what he looked like. 

I’m sure there are references that have passed me by (Berni Inn apparently is one!, Cinzano Bianco being another until it came up on G&T) and there have been others that I knew or suspected were references but didn’t fully understand.

[Dave]

Teasy Weasy is pretty obscure, although again it’s a joke that you get easily with the context even if you don’t know the specific reference. 

[Warbodog]

The Birdman custard gag might not translate internationally, unless I’m underestimating the universal popularity of instant custard mix.

[Author]

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