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

[Dave]

Plus, do we even know for sure what its “standard” form is?

You can deduce that it is in its natural form when it looks like something that doesn’t look like anything else.

[Podey]

Lister says his all-time worst fear is what it turns into when it becomes the xenomorph-esque monster so presumably not that, unless his fear coincidentally happens to be a polymorph in it’s natural form.

[Dave]

Lister says his all-time worst fear is what it turns into when it becomes the xenomorph-esque monster so presumably not that, unless his fear coincidentally happens to be a polymorph in it’s natural form.

I always took that to be a joke about the Polymorph immediately knocking whatever was previously #1 off the top spot.

[Flap Jack]

You can deduce that it is in its natural form when it looks like something that doesn’t look like anything else.

But it has multiple forms that don’t look like anything else – the small form that sneaks around, and the big slobbering monster form. They can’t both be its standard form, right? If one of the forms is either a mimicry of another GELF we haven’t seen or something from someone’s (or its own) imagination, there’s no reason they can’t both be that.

[clem]

We don’t only see the big monster form when it’s scaring Lister, but also when it’s draining Kryten’s guilt and Rimmer’s trying to shoo it away, and again just before the heat-seekers get it at the end. It uses that form to evoke Lister’s fear because it’s a big scary monster, so why bother turning into something else? And when Lister says it’s his worst fear I think he just means it’s the most frightening thing he’s ever come face to face with, not that it’s from his nightmares or anything like that. Also it has the tentacle with the sucker it uses to extract their emotions. 

[Warbodog]

I always took that to be a joke about the Polymorph immediately knocking whatever was previously #1 off the top spot.

I think he would have accepted any large, fanged creature looming in front of him and it fit the bill.

[Dave]

I think he would have accepted any large, fanged creature looming in front of him and it fit the bill.

[Ben Saunders]

Debate: what was Lister’s #1 fear before the Polymorph knocked it off the top spot?

[Dave]

Debate: what was Lister’s #1 fear before the Polymorph knocked it off the top spot?

[International Debris]

So, in the episode, it definitely feels like the joke is the Polymorph has knocked off whatever was previous in the top spot. I’m sure in Better Than Life it’s described as a manifestation of some nightmare creature he’d previously imagined or something though, isn’t it? 

[clem]

I’m sure in Better Than Life it’s described as a manifestation of some nightmare creature he’d previously imagined or something though, isn’t it?

That sounds about right because ISTR its default state in the novel is just a sort of big gelatinous pile of flesh. I know it’s a huge evil-looking rat instead of a snake and it drools into Lister’s mouth or something like that, so maybe that’s what’s described as his nightmare, but maybe the monster is as well. 

[tombow]

I imagine the polymorph just creates an AI like reproduction of whatever person creates an effect (a sexy woman, Rimmer’s mum) combined with information about what that figure would say to gain the response (what’s the most embarrassing thing Rimmer can imagine his mum doing or saying) and then create hallucinations . I think it’s just a mindless beast able to run AI type programs using data from other’s minds.

I always wondered did Lister even have an intimate experience with a “Rimmer’s mum” polymorph, or did he experience it as the image of a different person, or did he just lie there groggy and go along with it and nothing actually happened.

[Dave]

It’s interesting that the Polymorph is clearly psychic to some extent but they never really get too bogged down in exactly how it knows what everyone’s most prominent emotion is.

[Dave]

I always wondered did Lister even have an intimate experience with a “Rimmer’s mum” polymorph

I always assumed this was made up to irritate Arnie.

[Podey]

I’d guess there’s some crossover with Camille/pleasure GELFs, since they’re able to physically connect with their target and alter their appearance.

[Warbodog]

The Psi-Scan was a specialised psychic detection kind of gadget in Polymorph before it became their general tricorder.

[Ben Saunders]

It’s interesting that the Polymorph is clearly psychic to some extent but they never really get too bogged down in exactly how it knows what everyone’s most prominent emotion is.

If some animals can “smell fear” then the Polymorph can smell other emotions. Such as vanity and uh, politeness?

[Dave]

Kryten constantly smelling guilty is now part of my headcanon.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh, guilt, of course.

[Technopeasant]

This stemmed from thinking about Holly’s reaction to Ace… did he change which gender he was attracted to when he changed his image? Or was he always bisexual? Or is he still attracted to women but this is Ace’s sexual magnetism overriding everything?

They did base their first face on the greatest lover who ever lived so they are probably pansexual.

[Rushy]

I thought they only digitally added Holly when he was telling Lister about the Cat people, but they reuse the same trick in DNA. Does it happen anywhere else?

[Dave]

Yes, in White Hole.

[Frank Lewis]

AUGH!!! LIGHT… TOO BRIGHT!!!!!!!

[Moonlight]

There’s various reasons you can tell he’s not (i.e. casting a shadow on the vending machine at times, actively walking through the corridor to arrive there) but I always thought Craig looked SUPER green-screened in from this angle.

[Podey]

Red Dwarf frames with green-screened auras.

[Dave]

Red Dwarf frames with green-screened auras.

[Dave]

Red Dwarf frames with green-screened auras.

[Dave]

Red Dwarf frames with green-screened auras.

[Podey]

…. I mean, the implication was supposed to be they LOOK Green-screened but aren’t. 

The thread you’re looking for is actually ‘Red Dwarf frames with green-screens”.

[Dave]

Well I’m going to have to go back and remove all the actually sexy scenes from the sexy auras thread now.

[Ian Symes]

…. I mean, the implication was supposed to be they LOOK Green-screened but aren’t. 

The thread you’re looking for is actually ‘Red Dwarf frames with green-screens”.

ACTUALLY, all of the above are shot on blue screen, so they perfectly fit the brief of things that look green-screened but aren’t.

[Podey]

Couldn’t think of a good punchline so this is sort of a DIY one.

[Dave]

[MANI506]

Bravo!

[Flap Jack]

Internal Doors on Starbug Which In Certain Shots Look Like Green Screen Backgrounds That They Forgot to Key Out in Post Production But Actually Aren’t

[Ben Saunders]

Certain Shots Look Like Green Screen Backgrounds That They Forgot to Key Out in Post Production But Actually Aren’t

[Rushy]

Certain Shots Look Like Green Screen Backgrounds That They Forgot to Key Out in Post Production But Actually Aren’t

Regarding the Son'a Collector in "Insurrection" … were the blue walls a design choice or unfinished bluescreen effect?
byu/ety3rd instartrek

[Podey]

I just used the word “oodles” in a sentence and then realised I don’t think I’ve *ever* heard it used by anyone outside of ‘Only The Good…’ in my entire life. 

[Jenuall]

The implication being that for the rest of the week they aren’t just relaxing, so what exactly are they doing on the other days then? A strenuous schedule of hard work? Seeking opportunities for personal development? Spiritual fulfilment?!

[gerrydelasel]

During the week they’re still painting the ship military gray. It’s a big ship.

[Warbodog]

Sunday lines up with Rimmer attending a church service, so those two weird bits make sense together, if not beyond.

[Ben Saunders]

He needs to find something to occupy his mind while Rimmer is away, how sweet

[Technopeasant]

I just used the word “oodles” in a sentence and then realised I don’t think I’ve *ever* heard it used by anyone outside of ‘Only The Good…’ in my entire life. 

I have heard it oodles.

[Asclepius]

The implication being that for the rest of the week they aren’t just relaxing, so what exactly are they doing on the other days then? A strenuous schedule of hard work? Seeking opportunities for personal development? Spiritual fulfilment?!

Finding old derelicts and hacking their way in and swiping what they need.

Or hadn’t that started yet? There’s one for those of you who have *all* the facts. At what frequency do the crew start finding derelict ships? Kryten would be the first example I presume. You can only include ones that they meet during ‘normal’ travel, not ones they meet through plot devices such as in Trojan.

[Warbodog]

Series IV is when they fully abandon the original you, me, the Cat and a load of floating smegging rocks premise, but we still only see a few weeks of their lives.

[Dave]

Even in III a couple of the stories rely on external catalysts rather than internal – the Polymorph breaks in, and Hudzen turns up.

That gets ramped up in IV – Camille’s distress signal, the DNA ship, the stasis pod, Ace Rimmer appearing – and that sets the tone for V and VI where again most of the stories rely on some kind of external factor to make them work.

[Ian Symes]

Episodes in which the crew come across a derelict ship or space station or similar:

Series 1 – none

Series 2 – Kryten

Series III – none (although the Polymorph comes from a pod that’s floating around nearby)

Series IV – Camille, DNA, Justice

Series V – Quarantine, Back To Reality

Series VI – Legion, Rimmerworld (although that’s a derelict that they themselves made derelict two episodes earlier), Out of Time (although we don’t see it on screen)

Series VII – Tikka To Ride (the same derelict from Out of Time), Beyond a Joke (although it turns out to be occupied), Epideme

Series VIII – Cassandra, Krytie TV (off-screen), Pete (Part One)

BTE – none

Series X – Trojan, Entangled

Series XI – Samsara, Give & Take, Officer Rimmer, Krysis, Can of Worms

Series XII – Cured, Siliconia, Timewave

The Promised Land – The Promised Land

[Warbodog]

Series VI – Legion, Rimmerworld (although that’s a derelict that they themselves made derelict two episodes earlier), Out of Time (although we don’t see it on screen)

Also loads in Psirens, and the whole GELF zone in Emohawk. The show basically has aliens at that point.

[Dave]

Out of Time (although we don’t see it on screen)

[Podey]

[Author]

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