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]

Or maybe they were just briefly reminiscing about that time they visited Justice World, who can tell.

[Moonlight]

This really does make XI The Derelict Show.

[Technopeasant]

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

By that criteria the mail pod in Better Than Life should also count.

[Moonlight]

I’m going to argue that Mechocracy should also count because the plot is kicked off by an unseen derelict broadcasting a phony emergency beacon.

[gerrydelasel]

The image of Rimmer on My Incredible Career is obvious a frame from Me2. They airbrushed out the hologram H but, curiously, also went to the trouble to airbrush out the badges on his collar?

[Rushy]

The badges might’ve referred to something that could potentially sue the BBC, and they only found out after Me2

[gerrydelasel]

They appear to be generic school prefect badges, but who knows

[Dave]

They look a bit like Blue Peter badges because of the shield shape, but I don’t think they are.

[Ben Saunders]

They look a bit daft, which I imagine is why they removed them.

[Flap Jack]

If you zoom in enough, the badges say “Chicken McNugget” and “Gareth Gwenlan fucks kids” respectively, so legal insisted they be scrubbed out.

[Jenuall]

If the person doing the airbrushing was anything like me they would have removed them for being unevenly attached. I can’t unsee that now!

[Technopeasant]

If you zoom in enough, the badges say “Chicken McNugget” and “Gareth Gwenlan fucks kids” respectively, so legal insisted they be scrubbed out.

Gareth Gwenlan fucks Chicken McNuggets

[Podey]

There’s a big stand with 20-30 signed copies of Titan at Birmingham FP but I was sad to note that they (or at least the one I looked at) didn’t have the thing about Rob signing it from one universe to the side, just Andrew’s. 

[Dave]

There’s a big stand with 20-30 signed copies of Titan at Birmingham FP but I was sad to note that they (or at least the one I looked at) didn’t have the thing about Rob signing it from one universe to the side, just Andrew’s. 

The Rob ones were the specially produced “signed” editions. Andrew would have just signed regular copies when he was at FP.

[Author]

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