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]

So do we think that Norm-Holly just preferred wandering around in a CRT monitor on a trolley, like that one history class where they let you watch Blackadder?

I think he was too embarrassed to admit he forgot how to be holographic. 

[Ian Symes]

I always took it as Holly having the ability to generate holograms, rather than being one himself. “Hologramic computer” = “gaming PC”.

[Nick R]

So do we think that Norm-Holly just preferred wandering around in a CRT monitor on a trolley, like that one history class where they let you watch Blackadder?

Fun fact: in the Year 9 WW1 history class when we were going to watch the last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, the teacher couldn’t find the right episode on the video. So we watched the episode “Plan C: Major Star” instead.

[Dave]

I always took it as Holly having the ability to generate holograms, rather than being one himself. “Hologramic computer” = “gaming PC”.

In that case presumably Starbug has a separate hologramic computer in VI and VII.

[Doomitron]

That reminds me how I always wish the “turning the AI companion human” thing that Kryten has happen to him in DNA happened to Holly instead. You’d lose the polaroid joke (which I never thought was super funny anyway) but I feel like you’d get a lot more material to mine out of giving Holly a body and seeing what dumb things they’d do and how the dynamic with the crew would change with having a woman onboard before changing her back.

[Doomitron]

Didn’t this happen in a Smegazine now that I think about it?

[Dave]

Didn’t this happen in a Smegazine now that I think about it?

There is the story with the liquid supercomputer thing where Lister and a humanoid Hattie-Holly have a chat, yes.

[Technopeasant]

[Moonlight]

TOWEH

[Technopeasant]

[tombow]

I always wondered if Lister’s suit at the end of DNA could be copyright infringement of Robocop

[Flap Jack]

Parody element makes it fair game.

[Rushy]

It’s a small thing, but I always thought Lister’s pained/disheartened expression here was a particularly good acting choice by Craig

[Doomitron]

Craig is the best actor of the four. Danny second, Chris third and in last I’d put Robert. Chris was probably better than Danny in the original BBC run but he’s been out of practice for a while and I think that’s impacted his performance to be more scene-chewy, but that’s probably due to the material he’s been given to a similar extent.

[Ben Saunders]

You put Robert last, but none of the rest of them could do Kryten. Maybe it’s all Robert can do, but he does it extremely well. 

[Doomitron]

In the way he can wear the Kryten prosthetics I suppose, but he’s the worst offender for scene-chewing and overacting imo.

[Rushy]

but he’s the worst offender for scene-chewing and overacting imo.

Scenery-chewing shouldn’t be stigmatized by default when you judge acting. Exaggerated, theatrical performance is an art form. 

I think Robert has absolutely outshined the rest of the cast at times (DNA comes to mind), but it is probably a fair criticism that he either has the least amount of range or oppurtunities to show his range. 

[Moonlight]

I think that’s impacted his performance to be more scene-chewy, but that’s probably due to the material he’s been given to a similar extent.

I agree, but at the same time Doug as the director could be reining him in. Chris is definitely still capable of sublte performances in the new era but his baseline seems to be fairly over the top compared the early episodes.

I joked in another thread in the past month that he delivers every line with movements like this.

[Doomitron]

It depends. Of course, a lot of my favorite actors chew scenery and I love performances where that’s all that’s happening (Paul Darrow in Timelash is the only thing that makes that episode worth watching), but contrasting the understated performances a lot of the Red Dwarf cast showcase in the first 5 or so series and the Dave Dwarf era where there’s so much gurning and mugging puts me off.

[Ben Saunders]

He injects such life into the character with some of those moments you might call scene-chewing or overacting, though. Him holding on for dear life during the “less brains than a mollusc” speech, the unnecessary sauce he puts on “it’s insane” and “blood-chilling terror”, the psi-scan bit in Quarantine, shouting in German, that stupid laugh he does. It’s all glorious. There are even moments in XI-TPL where I think he’s excellent. I don’t care if something is a bit broad or over the top as long as it’s funny.

[gerrydelasel]

I think Chris was a better actor than Craig in series 1-6, maybe 7, but went downhill on his return.

[Rushy]

Chris said that Rimmer has “grown into his skin” with old age, and that the young Rimmer always wanted to be old. I think the implication is that he’s become more confident to be as obnoxious as he wants. The shyness of youth is gone. 

[Warbodog]

He injects such life into the character with some of those moments you might call scene-chewing or overacting, though. Him holding on for dear life during the “less brains than a mollusc” speech, the unnecessary sauce he puts on “it’s insane” and “blood-chilling terror”, the psi-scan bit in Quarantine, shouting in German, that stupid laugh he does. It’s all glorious.

When I think of favourite line readings, it’s usually a bubble Kryten.

[Rushy]

Series V Kryten shouldn’t count, Robert was clearly hit with a magic ray of badassery that year. It’s unfair to all the other Krytens. 

[Dave]

Chris said that Rimmer has “grown into his skin” with old age, and that the young Rimmer always wanted to be old. I think the implication is that he’s become more confident to be as obnoxious as he wants. The shyness of youth is gone. 

Which all has interesting implications given his hologrammatic status. He’s “lived” as a hologram for longer now then he ever was actually alive, and the past few decades have all essentially been an extrapolation from his original save-state of how he probably would have aged. Is it all just a best-guess of the older man that the younger Rimmer would have grown into if he never really changed?

[Doomitron]

No I just think his acting is a bit shit.

[Technopeasant]

Was it intentional to not show Danny’s paltry only two nipples here so as to not break continuity?

[Doomitron]

If the Felis sapiens have six nipples why do the female ones we see in every other episode have only two breasts

[Warbodog]

I have wondered why they never went there for the visual gag, back when everyone else* was getting their nips out in Pete, DNA and elsewhere.

* (Well, apart from Kochanski, but who’d be interested in that?)

[Technopeasant]

If the Felis sapiens have six nipples why do the female ones we see in every other episode have only two breasts

One was a Polymorph, the others were a dream.

[Moonlight]

One was a Polymorph, the others were a dream.

[Doomitron]

[Warbodog]

[Doomitron]

[Ben Saunders]

They could easily have six breasts under there. It’s uncouth to think about it too much.

[Technopeasant]

They could easily have six breasts under there. It’s uncouth to think about it too much.

I was going to say Luna and Peanut don’t exactly strip down much no.

[Warbodog]

Cloister knew what he was doing.

[Moonlight]

I was going to say Luna and Peanut don’t exactly strip down much no.

You’re right. I demand a sequel. This is the kind of cat lore still yet to be revealed.

[tombow]

Thinking now about how and why Rimmer aged, he didn’t age during the 200 years of rimmerworld so he can’t have to, yet we can’t say Holly made him age with Lister because Holly wasn’t there. Maybe Holly had the foresight to put something in his program so his age would always match Lister’s?

[Warbodog]

I guess it’d update his age based on the ship’s chronometer, so when he’s out of range it’s like turning off your Wi-Fi. There are likely contradictions that could be pointed out because it’s Red Dwarf.

[Rushy]

he didn’t age during the 200 years of rimmerworld

But he did age during the 15 years of Out of Time

[Doomitron]

Better question is why Holly aged.

[Dave]

Better question is why Holly aged.

He’s a hologramatic computer too, maybe he can turn on a “natural ageing” function.

Or in the case of Skipper, “death warmed up”.

[Doomitron]

Why would he tinker with his face when…

[Doomitron]

Speaking of breasts and Balance of Power, its always disturbed me when Rimmer starts groping his breast after turning back from Kochanski knowing the body parts of other holograms are sentiment on their own as proven when he gets Peterson’s arm and it starts attacking him. Rimmer just committed full blown sexual assault there.

[Warbodog]

I thought that was Holly’s prank rather than Petersen’s arm wreaking havoc beyond the grave, but maybe it is.

[Dave]

Speaking of breasts and Balance of Power, its always disturbed me when Rimmer starts groping his breast after turning back from Kochanski knowing the body parts of other holograms are sentiment on their own as proven when he gets Peterson’s arm and it starts attacking him. Rimmer just committed full blown sexual assault there.

Just be thankful that Remastered didn’t add a honking sound effect. 

[Flap Jack]

It would make the most sense for it to just be Holly doing that, because surely simulating all the complexities of human consciousness is the main thing which limits Red Dwarf to one hologram at a time.

But either way it’s clearly a different situation with Kochanski, because if the logic is that it’s Petersen’s arm, therefore Petersen has control of the arm, then that would mean Kochanski would have control over the entire body in Balance of Power, but she doesn’t.

[Turk Thrust]

Better question is why Holly aged.

Even within the same episodes of Remastered.

I wonder how many people who were unfamiliar with Dwarf prior to that (for example, those outside the U.K.) didn’t notice.

[Turk Thrust]

In terms of acting performances, I would rank them:

BBC era: 1, Chris. 2, Robert. 3, Craig. 4, Danny.

Dave era: 1, Craig. 2, Danny. 3, Chris. 4, Robert.

[Author]

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