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

[Nick R]

Kryten is the exact mid-point between Bobby and Cotton Hill.

Edit: Since this is now appearing at the top of a new page, I should clarify that I’m talking about the Kryten tattoo on the last page. This isn’t just some mundane observation I was making out of the blue.

[Technopeasant]

In personality?

[Moonlight]

If this site pools money and buys me a high end home theater system I will tattoo “What an absolute slag!” across my forearm.

[Moonlight]

I was responding to something on the previous page and now I just look insane. I still want an 80 inch OLED.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If this site pools money and buys me a high end home theater system I will tattoo “What an absolute slag!” across my forearm.

I’ll do it for a pint and a bag of crisps

[tombow]

They all look like the Ron Smith smegazine versions except Kryten played by Harold Bishop 

[Nick R]

[Dave]

[tombow]

Chris Barrie foot fetishists – rejoice. He got them out in Tomb Raider, now immortalised on youtube.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

What the hell is happening to this place

[Moonlight]

We should be estimating Chris Barrie’s cup size for two or three pages while Ian begs us to show some decency.

[Dave]

What the hell is happening to this place

Something strange is afoot

[tombow]

I wonder if that channel even knows about Dwarf? Rimmer has some pyjama scenes in the first few series, and there’s Terraform

[Rushy]

We should be estimating Chris Barrie’s cup size for two or three pages while Ian begs us to show some decency.

At least we know Craig’s. 

[cwickham]

MATHS IN THE RED PART TWO HUNDRED AND ONE

We should be estimating Chris Barrie’s cup size for two or three pages while Ian begs us to show some decency.

[tombow]

I’ve recently figured out that Alfred (from Batman), Holly, and The Celestial Toymaker (from Doctor Who) are all entwined in some cosmic, time spanning plan to give heroes (such as Batman and Ace Rimmer) fortitude by embarrassing them with cold soup.

Alfred began as a spy

eventually serves Batman as Butler

eventually is destined to be reborn as an AI and hologram

Holly would have helped organise the captain’s meal

The Celestial Toymaker not only took on the image of Alfred, but appears on monitors

all so 2 heroes could protect the universe?

[Dave]

[Rushy]

I met Chris Barrie in a dream I had. For some reason, I thought it’d be a laugh to watch Stoke Me A Clipper with him. He couldn’t have been more bored if he tried. Five minutes from the ending, he wandered off and said I can finish it without him. 

Git. 

[Moonlight]

Surely this is a composite but it looks so much better than the bluescreened Starbug shots in VI.

[Dave]

I met Chris Barrie in a dream I had. For some reason, I thought it’d be a laugh to watch Stoke Me A Clipper with him. He couldn’t have been more bored if he tried. Five minutes from the ending, he wandered off and said I can finish it without him. 
Git. 

Who has has a Red Dwarf dream?

[Rushy]

Oh, right. 

Well, err, that thread is for PEASANTS

[Flap Jack]

Honestly I think Dream Barrie deserves a lot of credit just for making it that far.

[Technopeasant]

Farther than Dream Rob Grant.

[Moonlight]

I am a caffeine addict and I wouldn’t drink six cups of coffee in one day. That’s like two or three Monsters. I never clocked this line until I watched with subtitles just now.

[Doomitron]

I met Chris Barrie in a dream I had. For some reason, I thought it’d be a laugh to watch Stoke Me A Clipper with him. He couldn’t have been more bored if he tried. Five minutes from the ending, he wandered off and said I can finish it without him. 
Git. 

Who has has a Red Dwarf dream?

Searching dream threads and there’s also whatever this is…

[Warbodog]

I am a caffeine addict and I wouldn’t drink six cups of coffee in one day.

It’ll be exaggerating to make their product sound less pointless. Two was my standard for years, but it’s slipped to three now, and occasionally four.

[Dave]

It’ll be exaggerating to make their product sound less pointless.

Yeah, that’s the joke. The average person doesn’t live to their 90s either. 

[Podey]

“Someone else tell him… I’ve got gussets to scrub.”

Best not to think about this entire exchange too much otherwise you come to the inevitable conclusion that Kryten’s cheerful and devoted manner is a facade and he’s actually been living in enslaved turmoil this entire time. 

[Warbodog]

The average person doesn’t live to their 90s either. 

I haven’t done the maths, but if it’s even accurate, I’d guess the calculation is based on them drinking six cups from birth too.

[Moonlight]

The average person doesn’t live to their 90s either. 

Yeah, but this show takes place in the far off year of 2077.

Two was my standard for years, but it’s slipped to three now, and occasionally four.

I used to drink an entire six pack of Diet Mountain Dew most days toward the end of high school. I’m not sure how I’m still alive.

[Ben Saunders]

There definitely are people who drink that much coffee, though, to be fair. Source: my recollection.

[Moonlight]

I don’t think the average person does, which is what the infomercial claims.

[Ben Saunders]

Well it’s not “the average person lives to their 90s has six cups of coffee a day”, it’s “the average person who lives to their 90s and has six cups of coffee a day”, so they aren’t really claiming anything false, as the average person who fits the description they made up would by design, fit the description they made up. 

[Dave]

Well it’s not “the average person lives to their 90s has six cups of coffee a day”, it’s “the average person who lives to their 90s and has six cups of coffee a day”, so they aren’t really claiming anything false, as the average person who fits the description they made up would by design, fit the description they made up. 

But it’s still a highly unrealistic description, is the point.

[Dave]

Yeah, but this show takes place in the far off year of 2077.

3,002,077

[tombow]

I used to drink lots of coffee because Dilbert creator Scott Adams, in his self help/business advice books, said he drunk coffee all day and he believed it was harmless. After his loss I had second thoughts 

[Podey]

There are a lot of things about Scott Adams that might have made you think twice about following his philosophy, tbh…

[Technopeasant]

Don’t actually think the coffee gave him cancer though.

[tombow]

it just gave him too much capitalist-friendly stimulation and turned him MAGA

[Technopeasant]

Honestly it was apparently the hypnotism stuff that made him weird.

[International Debris]

“Someone else tell him… I’ve got gussets to scrub.”
Best not to think about this entire exchange too much otherwise you come to the inevitable conclusion that Kryten’s cheerful and devoted manner is a facade and he’s actually been living in enslaved turmoil this entire time. 

Every now and then they seem to forget that Kryten enjoys his work and it’s always really jarring. 

[tombow]

I thought he was just angry at having done it for an inferior mechanoid. Once he knows it’s Dave he’s happy to do it again. ..maybe?

[Unrumble]

I thought he was just angry at having done it for an inferior mechanoid. Once he knows it’s Dave he’s happy to do it again. ..maybe?

It could work… but he does seem to be venting about having had to scrub those gussets at all, as opposed to caring who it was for.

[Jenuall]

Lister broke his programming so he doesn’t like doing it anymore.

Except for the times when he does like doing it.

[Warbodog]

It was an unreality pocket in which Kryten didn’t like scrubbing gussets.

[Moonlight]

They’re still in Better Than Life and Rimmer’s fantasy was that Kryten would rebel against Lister.

[tombow]

or “Lister is so gross even a Kryten is grossed out”

speaking of which, has Lister’s grossness ever genuinely made any of you feel sick? I don’t like that sneeze ironing thing he does in BTE and I hate that whole stuff with his teeth and the floss in Ouroboros.

[Rushy]

has Lister’s grossness ever genuinely made any of you feel sick

When he gets kebab into all the electronics in the drive room, I think in Entangled. 

[Warbodog]

Since you asked,

There might be more, but the next one I think of is sweaty Rimmer in Queeg bringing to mind the smell of the school changing room.

[tombow]

not sure I remember this image

[Author]

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