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

[Rushy]

Surreal to see VIII Holly alongside Queeg

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[International Debris]

We’ve got terrible AI Lister and Holly II now, I wonder if we can complete the set by the end of the year.

[Dave]

We’ve got terrible AI Lister and Holly II now, I wonder if we can complete the set by the end of the year.

I’ll add this horror to the set.

[Rushy]

Every time I watch Waiting for God, I regret that “vomitisation!” didn’t become recurring slang

[Rushy]

I only just noticed that during a night-time transition, the model prop of Red Dwarf is lit significantly dimmer. That’s a lovely touch. 

[Technopeasant]

Galileo (Seven),  Galileo (Seven), Galileo (Seven), Figaro (Four), Magnifico…

No wait…

[Technopeasant]

Paul McGann?

[Dave]

Paul McGann?

Got a touch of the Ralph Fiennes for me.

[Flap Jack]

Looks more like Todhunter than Rimmer.

[Warbodog]

It’s not perfect, but it at least gives us an idea of what the lost ’14B’ scene might have looked like, so it was a worthwhile effort.

[Moonlight]

[Podey]

Weirdly, that Hattie face has been mirrored, which is probably why it doesn’t look like her because our faces aren’t fully symmetrical and the shadows etc don’t sit right. 

AI doesn’t do that, this is a manual Photoshop.

[Podey]

(though the source image, whatever that was, certainly has been upscaled and it may have been mirrored before that happened as there are minor textural differences on each side)

[Warbodog]

[Podey]

[Podey]

[Warbodog]

[Podey]

I like how weirdly biblical this one feels, almost like it’s a depiction of Cloister The Stupid rather than Lister.

[Dave]

These are very upsetting.

[International Debris]

I’m not sure whether the Big Meat one or plug-nose-Kryten is the scariest, but I am sure both are going to be in my nightmares tonight.

[Dave]

This one is like one of those Simpsons shots where Bart is looking straight at the camera.

[Technopeasant]

See kids, this is the sort of things we used to do in MS Paint. You can keep your ChatGPTs…

[Professor Flibble]

[Warbodog]

If you didn’t know Red Dwarf, would you believe that this shot of outer space in the future was from some 1940s crime film?

[Podey]

Fixed it.

But yes, it does have the vibe of an era where you’d expect to be hearing “nyah, see!”

[Warbodog]

[Flap Jack]

A true classic in the “writers can’t do maths” genre.

[Rushy]

If Columbo was a detective lieutenant in the LAPD, then he must’ve had John McClane as his colleague at some point. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Columbo is a 70s cop show. John (originally part of the NYPD from 1976) only worked in LA for a couple of years after the events at Nakatomi Tower in 1988. By the mid 90s he was firmly back in New York.

[Warbodog]

Miami Vice is more my vintage cop show flavour. Bruce Willis was a one-time bad guy.

[Rushy]

Columbo is a 70s cop show. John (originally part of the NYPD from 1976) only worked in LA for a couple of years after the events at Nakatomi Tower in 1988. By the mid 90s he was firmly back in New York.

Not only was the first Columbo film in the 1960s, but the revival of the show lasted until 2003. Columbo worked at LAPD the entire time. 

[Jonathan Capps]

I like how weirdly biblical this one feels, almost like it’s a depiction of Cloister The Stupid rather than Lister.

Biblically accurate Lister

[Warbodog]

Miami Vice is more my vintage cop show flavour.

Speaking of:

He’s never been mistaken for ex-Officer Crimmer,

A criminal whose name is “crimmer.”

[Dave]

[Moonlight]

One of the stronger model shots in the early series.

[Dave]

Rimmer’s motorbike towards the end of Meltdown: presumably it’s a hologram bike, right? Why don’t we see Holly whipping up complex hologram accessories like this for him more regularly? It stands out as something they don’t even bother explaining but just include because it looks good.

Also, Holly appearing as a projection within the holo-bike is an unusual level of complexity for something like this.

It’s another episode (like Backwards) where she apparently accompanies Kryten and Rimmer to another planet but then is completely absent for most of it. She only seems to pop up on the bike to establish she’s around so that Lister can then ask her to give him Rimmer’s light bee at the end.

[gerrydelasel]

Since Wax World is a theme park, maybe they had various holo-props available?

[Warbodog]

[Warbodog]

For an episode that’s otherwise lax with continuity and logic, Backwards does a lot of good subtle hologram coding with Rimmer that stands up when you try to catch it out.

– Makes some effort to cover the H.

– Kryten reads the newspaper because he can translate it and he’s the subservient mechanoid, but also because only he can hold it.

– Kryten does the stunts in the show because he’s the subservient mechanoid, but also because only he can do them.

– There’s only one costume hanging in the dressing room (Kryten’s), because Rimmer’s are projections.

– Rimmer sits on chairs, as ever, but he doesn’t lean on anything and just passes through open doorways.

– He ambiguously bumps the table, but it could be someone else.

[Moonlight]

We could make a list of times Rimmer comes into minor contact with props / the set / other actors.

[Warbodog]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Presumably Rimmer could project even whackier things than Kryten eating and egg forwards

Also, that part of the act in their show is basically, to the crowd, Kryten throwing up on stage 

[Moonlight]

 

Did you mean wacky or were you imagining their act being this?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

No I meant whacky

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/whacky

[Dave]

Moonlight’s H has fallen off

[clem]

Did you mean wacky or were you imagining their act being this?

The Sensational Reverse Dangerous Brothers

[Rushy]

There’s a line in Me2 that’s always puzzled me. Holly does his Norweb gag for a “bit of excitement there”, then Lister tells him he doesn’t need excitement. 

And then Holly says this:

Why is he being such an arsehole here? They never address it. Is he just grumpy Lister didn’t fully appreciate the gag or something? 

[Professor Flibble]

I’ve always quoted that line but yeah in the context of the scene, it comes out of absolutely nowhere.

[Warbodog]

Another strand of that episode is Lister learning (or at least Holly and the audience observing) that he does benefit from Rimmer’s company to keep him semi-functional. Seeing him resort to a self-commentated solo bubblegum blowing competition to stay entertained seems like part of that, just not expressed clearly.

[Author]

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