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

[Podey]

I’m sure this has come up before, but did anyone else have the experience of not being allowed to buy the “lets get out there and twat it” shirt by their mum?

[Professor Flibble]

I’m sure this has come up before, but did anyone else have the experience of not being allowed to buy the “lets get out there and twat it” shirt by their mum?

My dad had that t-shirt, and the “smoke me a kipper” one.

[Warbodog]

This was more my obscene t-shirt era.

[Podey]

Excellent reference. 👍

[Dave]

I’m sure this has come up before, but did anyone else have the experience of not being allowed to buy the “lets get out there and twat it” shirt by their mum?

Yes. I was explicitly forbidden from buying it by my parents. I got the Ace Rimmer one instead.

[Unrumble]

[Rushy]

Why should Kryten be jealous?

[Doomitron]

Kryten just ran that through ChatGPT and won’t admit it.

[Podey]

I think Kryten essentially is ChatGPT. 

[Doomitron]

No he’s DeepSeek.

[Dave]

[Doomitron]

[Flap Jack]

Kryten can only do traditional paintings while Butler can do expressionist ones. He’s jealous of Butler’s looser, more creative and emotionally driven art style.

[gerrydelasel]

Why does Rimmer keep doing this every time he talks about Yvonne McGruder? Is it some British sex thing?

To answer your question, yes it is a classic gesture meaning sex or phwoar!

[Ben Saunders]

trivia like some cover screenshots mistakenly using rehearsal footage

was it at least from the correct episodes?

[Warbodog]

These are the ones I was thinking of, but many more cute errors over the years.

(Answers: Unfilled bluescreen / Unvisored Levar)

[Technopeasant]

Why should Kryten be jealous?

As I’ve mentioned before, Kryten also has dabbled extensively in medicine.

Not sure he’s written much, but otherwise…

[Warbodog]

Why should Kryten be jealous?

Kryten also has dabbled extensively in medicine.

How and why are mechanoids built to last 6 million years by a company that wants to sell you new models after a few years?

[tombow]

I’m a little confused, because I thought barely anyone (except wealthy early adopters) was buying VHS till 1990 or so, yet there were Who VHS out in the mid 80s? Maybe the small demographic of people who did buy them overlapped a lot with who fans, I dunno.

[Warbodog]

I’ve seen old news reports about it. Videos were originally intended for the rental market, but you could buy them for like £70 (in 1980s money), like rental shops were doing, if you really insisted. People talk about buying Back to the Future, Return of the Jedi and things for that amount. They started releasing some blockbusters for direct purchase at a more normal price in the late 80s, like Rain Man and Batman, and it caught on.

[MANI506]

We had our first VHS machine in 1985 and I owned the straight to video Transformers movie The Return Of Optimus Prime. But yes it was mostly renting videos off a van that came around.

[International Debris]

To answer your question, yes it is a classic gesture meaning sex or phwoar!

Although a dated one; I’ve never seen it outside of older British comedies.

[FutureEchoes]

Edit: Wrong thread

[Author]

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