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

[Warbodog]

I didn’t notice that Babylon 5’s colour-coded sectors actually had those colours along the walls until they turned up the lights in the last season.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The ship is divided into decks A-Z

Each deck is a horizontal section of ship. We know Z deck has labs on it from Meltdown.

The crew seem to spend an awful lot of time around B deck in Dave era so possibly living desk?

Anyway, each deck is divided into colour sections and each section has corridors/floors numbered 1 through to the many hundreds. 

It probably help if you think of everything all bunched up one end of the ship too, and not spread out across all 5 miles of it. Then think that the back of the ship contains all the engines and perhaps some big space for some onboard mining.

That’s why the Diesel Decks are giving their own naming scheme and not a part of the alphabetised scheme.  They are vertically a different section of the ship to the rear, running parallel to the other 26 habitable decks that are used for living and other work space endeavours.

The same can then be said for “Floor 13” which when you see it, spans more than one floor.  Floor 13 is actually the nickname for “The Tank”.  Perhaps its an old engine room that’s converted (explains why it looks like a pumping station) and has a lift run through all floors top to bottom.

The only thing that unfortunately doesn’t quite fit into this neat little summary is the fact that they know which floor 16 is meant from Rimmer’s diary, when a deck isn’t referenced.  As by my theory there ought to be up to 26 floor 16s, one on each deck.  But given there are only 3 stasis booths across the whole ship, it would be easy to extrapolate which floor they meant, if there other’s aren’t on a floor 16.

This helps explain too why it takes them 2hours to travel a few hundred floors in an X-Press Lift when it fought to really be minutes.  The lift is actually passing by many thousands of floors, through up to 26 decks.

Is it the books that refer to Red Dwarf being 3 miles wide? Or am I pulling that from my arse.  I’ve always seen the original model to be quite boxy, and nearly as wide in as long (ignoring the scoop and thruster) so it could be up to 5 miles wide too.

A mile is 5280ft, each floor is shall we say 10ft tall? So you could easily have up to 528 floors per mile, 2640 floors across 26 decks if the ship is 5miles wide, or 1584 floors if it is 3 miles wide.

That would explain why it takes so long by lift to go from potentially the top of the ship to the bottom.

[GlenTokyo]

I’m almost certain there are yellow corridors too but I can’t go hunting through the smegadrive at the moment. 

[Warbodog]

I had yellow in mind too.

This helps explain too why it takes them 2hours to travel a few hundred floors in an X-Press Lift when it fought to really be minutes.  The lift is actually passing by many thousands of floors, through up to 26 decks.

She says they’re travelling 2,567 floors in the episode anyway. (Did they record a unique presentation for every floor-to-floor permutation? Would some of those have a different presenter, after the point at which this one died? No wonder she’d had enough).

I forgot there were lettered ‘decks’ too.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Well then I rest my case.

It is an express lift, it is likely dedicated to traveling a set number of floors.  Top of the ship to bottom.  Each deck will too have it’s own express lifts, as well as lifts that stop at every floor, or at least travel groups of floors.

So the longer journeys likely to have different sets of videos.  i.e. this express lift is 2hours so has a whole safety demo. But a lift that just does A deck will be different.

[Formica]

Why would that take so long? You could presumably walk the full length of the ship faster.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Why would that take so long? You could presumably walk the full length of the ship faster.

Not really.  2hours is probably average for most people covering 5 miles.  I can do 6miles on foot in that time and I’m a quick walker.

[Warbodog]

‘Gone with the Wind’ being the in-flight movie implies the lift journey is at least three and a half hours, probably longer.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

maybe they don’t make it to the end of the film, watch the rest on the return journey

[Dave]

Maybe it’s a remake starring Myra Dinglebat and Peter Beardsley.

[clem]

maybe they don’t make it to the end of the film, watch the rest on the return journey

That makes sense because it’s in two parts with an intermission. As for it being a remake, could be, but Lister’s humming the original’s music when they exit the lift. Don’t think I’ve ever noticed that til the current rewatch. 

[International Debris]

An ‘express’ lift should travel faster than a good walker’s walking pace, though.

[International Debris]

Today I learned that it isn’t “white corridor 159”.

I just remembered that’s where Lister collapses in Confidence & Paranoia, so I think the subtitle is wrong.

[Rudolph]

I’m almost certain there are yellow corridors too but I can’t go hunting through the smegadrive at the moment.

Rimmer and Lister’s quarters seem to be on Yellow Corridor 348 in Future Echoes.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

An ‘express’ lift should travel faster than a good walker’s walking pace, though.

this is Red Dwarf though.

Admittedly I looked it up and Express Lifts average 22mph now. But then we wouldn’t have the jokes would we.

[Warbodog]

There are turbolift rides in Star Trek where characters have full conversations going down what’s supposed to be a couple of decks, and even those fans seem to let it go.

[GlenTokyo]

I’m almost certain there are yellow corridors too but I can’t go hunting through the smegadrive at the moment.

Rimmer and Lister’s quarters seem to be on Yellow Corridor 348 in Future Echoes.

Thank you, I knew I’d seen one somewhere.

[Jenuall]

After mentioning the floors inconsistency thing during my stray thoughts on Stasis Leak I actually started working through the episodes to do a catalogue of corridor/level/floor references, because it’s a crazy fun packed life I lead!

I’ve not got massively far with it yet as I kind of assumed one must already exist and didn’t want to waste my time on it if so, but if there really isn’t one then I’ll probably crack on with it at some point. 

[Rudolph]

Right, because I’m a sad git up to nothing on a Saturday night, I’ve skimmed through I & II on my phone. Here’s a list of the various corridors we see signposted on screen, in ascending order:

White Corridor 132 (Future Echoes)
White Corridor 147 (Confidence and Paranoia & Me2)
White Corridor 159 (The End, Future Echoes & Confidence and Paranoia)
Yellow Corridor 348 (Future Echoes & Better Than Life)
Red Corridor 413 (Parallel Universe)
Red Corridor 454 (The End & Waiting for God)
Yellow Corridor 541 (Balance of Power)
Red Corridor 592 (Queeg)
Red Corridor 603 (Parallel Universe)

[Formica]

Right, because I’m a sad git up to nothing on a Saturday night, I’ve skimmed through I & II on my phone. Here’s a list of the various corridors we see signposted on screen, in ascending order:
White Corridor 132 (Future Echoes)White Corridor 147 (Confidence and Paranoia & Me2)White Corridor 159 (The End, Future Echoes & Confidence and Paranoia)Yellow Corridor 348 (Future Echoes & Better Than Life)Red Corridor 413 (Parallel Universe)Red Corridor 454 (The End & Waiting for God)Yellow Corridor 541 (Balance of Power)Red Corridor 592 (Queeg)Red Corridor 603 (Parallel Universe)

Perhaps another helpfu question: where are each of these? Where are characters en route to/from when passing through them?

[Warbodog]

I don’t think too much thought was put into it when filming, Cat seemingly goes around the corner from White 147 to White 159 when he finds the unconscious Lister.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That’s not too incongruous.

presumably every corridor can’t be in sequence so much as you’d have some running in parallel etc 

[Dave]

[Formica]

I don’t think too much thought was put into it when filming, Cat seemingly goes around the corner from White 147 to White 159 when he finds the unconscious Lister.

Half the point of this website at is to poke holes in the unimportant detais nobody bothered to write for this show, then create wholly implausible explanations to patch them up. Since we’ve seemingly run out of new topics, we are now doomed to reopen each and every one with more and more detail until the end of time.

[Dave]

we’ve seemingly run out of new topics

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Warbodog]

Maybe the ‘decks’ are skateboards they use to move cargo and scientific equipment around the corridors/floors/levels.

[Dave]

Bombshell discovery:

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That just helps to tie series 3 more into 1&2 than 4&5

It kinda feels that Rob and Doug’s heads were still in that early era, even if the “look” of the show had moved on. 

[Dave]

But a blue corridor! It’s blue! Everything we thought we knew has been turned on its head.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Dave]

[Flap Jack]

[GlenTokyo]

Yellow, blue, red, white, 4 colours, 4 cardinal directions maybe?

[loadoftottnumb]

I’ve probably watched the episodes from Series 1 more than any other. I had both ‘Bytes’ on VHS from a very young age, pre-remastered. it wouldn’t be ridiculous to guess I’ve watched them all 30 times or more over the years. I’ve just now noticed, after this corridor chat that they reuse Holly’s ‘emergency, there’s an emergency going on…’ line from Confidence and Paranoia for the death video in Me2 the very next episode. The obvious in universe explanation is that it was a standard pre-recorded message but odd that I never noticed. 

[Dave]

I’ve probably watched the episodes from Series 1 more than any other. I had both ‘Bytes’ on VHS from a very young age, pre-remastered. it wouldn’t be ridiculous to guess I’ve watched them all 30 times or more over the years. I’ve just now noticed, after this corridor chat that they reuse Holly’s ‘emergency, there’s an emergency going on…’ line from Confidence and Paranoia for the death video in Me2 the very next episode. The obvious in universe explanation is that it was a standard pre-recorded message but odd that I never noticed. 

It’s in Future Echoes as well, isn’t it? I think the idea is that it’s standard and reused.

[loadoftottnumb]

Oh blimey is it? 

I am clearly not the most observant, mundane or otherwise.

[International Debris]

That bit always felt very awkward to me, especially the suggestion that Rimmer is needed at White Corridor 159 as everyone on the ship is dying of a radiation leak.

[Flap Jack]

I also noticed the repeated the line for the first time during my “Refresh for the Memory” rewatch, but I’m not so charitable in my interpretation of why it’s repeated.

In Confidence & Paranoia it makes sense for Holly to say “Will Arnold Rimmer please hurry to white corridor 159” because white corridor 159 is literally where Lister collapses, and Arnold Rimmer is the only other crewmember he could notify. But in Me² it doesn’t make sense at all, so we have to assume he only says it due to radiation leak induced malfunction. But it’s such a specific line, it’s clear they just didn’t bother to record a new one for the Me² flashback.

I didn’t twig it was in Future Echoes first, but I guess that only had the “Emergency. There’s an emergency going on.” part. That makes more sense to repeat, but it still seems weird that it’s in the Rimmer death video, because you’d think that Holly being so monotone and relaxed when announcing an emergency was a post-senility affectation.

[Warbodog]

I always figured it was Holly alerting Rimmer to fix the suddenly loose drive plate in that location, much too late. Probably took me a while to notice it was reuse, since I watched Me2 a lot more often than C&P.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

My theory for the longest time about Holly asking Rimmer to go to White Corridor 159 was that Holly realised the majority crew wasn’t going to survive, and so in order to keep Lister, the only crewmember to survive, sane when he was able to be released, if he managed to get Rimmer into stasis too then that in turn freed up the use of the holo-generation suite, which could then in turn be used to generate a hologram of another crewmember who might be more essential upon release. Obviously Rimmer was unable to comply and thus his plan failed. However, in hindsight I don’t think this works as an explanation as there’s no obvious stasis booth in sight, at least as far as I can remember (I’ve not seen it in a fair bit).

[Unrumble]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[clem]

[Author]

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