Mundane observation dome

[Jonathan Capps]

Not really an observation, more a recollection please don’t ban me.

You haven’t had to force me to face the terrifying onward march of time, so you’re safe.

[Warbodog]

Series X being almost a decade ago makes sense in terms of my own chronology and is on the cusp of being classic/nostalgic Red Dwarf, but some aspects like reading the Irene E reactions on here afterwards (“what is this, fucking Mr Men?”) don’t seem so long ago. Series XI & XII are obviously brand new things that only just came out though.

[Dave]

You haven’t had to force me to face the terrifying onward march of time

Sorry about that. If it’s any consolation it will be a while yet before the Idea For An Episode thread hits the same age.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Series X being almost a decade ago makes sense in terms of my own chronology and is on the cusp of being classic/nostalgic Red Dwarf, but some aspects like reading the Irene E reactions on here afterwards (“what is this, fucking Mr Men?”) don’t seem so long ago. Series XI & XII are obviously brand new things that only just came out though.

BTE and X are definitely eras of the show that happened a long time ago to me, which far they were, but they feel a long while ago. All of the stuff that surrounded those releases is, as you say, nearing nostalgia levels.

But yeah, XI and XII feel much more recent even if they were 4-5 years ago.

[International Debris]

Watching X for the first time still feels like the current chapter of my life, which is scary.

[GlenTokyo]

BtE feels a lot longer ago than X, even though it was only a couple of years. I think it’s mostly Craig, he changed in the face quite a lot between BtE and X, in BtE he looks more like he did in VIII.

[Pete Part Three]

I prefer to count it in ice ages, then it’s only 0.00004.

[Ridley]

BtE feels a lot longer ago than X, even though it was only a couple of years. I think it’s mostly Craig, he changed in the face quite a lot between BtE and X, in BtE he looks more like he did in VIII.

Bit harsh, between VIII and BTE was when he got disfigured.

[Loathsome American]

In the spirit of non-groundbreaking insights, I have just been idly thinking lately about how much Red Dwarf has sort of “grown out of” so many of its original premises. The “last human”/“no aliens” concept is of diminished importance and more of a technicality in the populated space they seem to exist in now, and even before he switched to hard light and could touch things, you could sometimes go a few episodes without Rimmer being dead and a hologram being particularly relevant.

I wonder, if Doug had it to do over again or had known what the show was going to become, if he would have made some of those premises looser given how much he has to write around them now. Would he find it easier if he could just say there’s people and aliens, or does he on some level enjoy having to justify everything as a GELF or a mechanoid variant or technical nonhumans?

[Warbodog]

In the spirit of reductive speculation about who did the sci-fi and who did the comedy, I’d guess that the no aliens rule came from Rob, since I know he was against the robot at first. There’s precedent in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books, and the Dune books only have animal-level aliens with all the intelligent races being engineered human-derived things. Rob probably read those.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The restrictions the writers placed upon themselves really work well for the sort of show Red Dwarf was in the first two series.

As soon as you want to branch out the stories and be a little more action/adventure then something has to give.

The no alien rule does feel a bit pointless these days considering they have what anyone else would consider aliens. They’re monsterous villains that just happen to have originated on Earth.

It’s really surprising it takes them so long to make Rimmer a hardlight hologram in the show when the idea originated in the books early.

I don’t think that’s something you would change though. It is a part of who Rimmer is that he can’t touch anything. And his character develops when he can regain those abilities. Stories like Bodyswap and Holoship likely wouldn’t have happened had Rimmer been hardlight from the start.

As for Lister not really being the last human, that’s sort of a bit lazy writing really. A bit like in the book itself. Doug just throws that concept out and introduces other humans at his whim.

I don’t mind a slightly more populated space, again it allows them to do a much larger variety of shows. But constantly coming across other humans (Telford, Irene E) or having them magically brought to you (Timewave) to create a story is a bit cheating and just lets that’s concept of who Lister is down again.

[Spaceworm Jim]

I think GELFs, Simulants and all the rest are blatant cheats to get around the No Aliens Rule as much as anyone else, but I think there’s a huge difference between that and actual aliens being in the show. Also, Rimmer being right all along about aliens existing in the first two series would retroactively make those scenes poorer. I’m expecting the next special to be about the crew coming across aliens.

[International Debris]

I think the gradual introduction of various GELFs and, eventually, hardlight, worked really well for the show, as it allowed them to explore the largely unpopulated universe and Rimmer’s lack of body for quite a while before changing them over time. Part of me still wishes hardlight was only available on Legion’s space station, as giving Rimmer a body does remove a little of what made the character what it was. It’s not a big deal, but I would have preferred it that way.

As far as humans are concerned, it’s an issue I have with the Dave era. 1-VI Dwarf, we see other actual humans in six episodes, three of which are time travel, three of which are alternate versions of the main characters.
In X-XII, there are seven episodes with humans, two are time travel, one alternate dimensions, four are actual different people with the crew in the future. Throw in Tikka and VIII and you’ve got 16. If I really wanted to be petty, I could say that the alternate realities joke at the end of BtE means everyone in that was a real human, and thus could push it up to 19. Either way, Doug Dwarf is considerably more populated than Rob and Doug Dwarf, and I think it’s not a good thing. I quite like the VI/VII thing of coming across simulants and GELFs more often, of them travelling through a part of space that’s occupied by effectively ‘alien’ lifeforms, but the more human-centric approach doesn’t work for me, and somewhat spoils the atmosphere of the show.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Throw in Tikka and VIII and you’ve got 16.

Don’t forget the six episodes of VII that Kochanski is in.

[Spaceworm Jim]

I agree there, ID. Red Dwarf is at its best focusing on the relationships between the main cast, especially Rimmer and Lister. More humans distracts from that as well as sort-of cheapening the original premise of the show. I’m not sure if Doug agrees with me.

[RunawayTrain]

^^^ agree, agree, agree, with all the above. The universe being well-populated in any way is its own problem if overused, but being populated only by human creation and not humans themselves is still a lonely parameter, with Lister the last human alive and Rimmer the only other human in his life.

I have other problems with the universe being populated by beings with their own personalities, but when they met humans before (BBC-era) you didn’t know when they next would meet one. In Dave Dwarf it feels like every other episode*, so it almost doesn’t matter when they leave Lister’s life, because he’ll meet humans again soon enough.

*I do not know if that actually is the case, but with the 3 Dave series that’s how it feels to me, anyway.

[Hamish]

Sure they are all Holograms, but Holoship kind of counts right? At least as much as Telford. And Langstrom was going to be invited to join the crew to begin with.

[Spaceworm Jim]

Langstrom and the Holoship crew maybe, but I thought Telford was a genuine human? He’s on Irene’s level. He gave the Cat a gun and all.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeh Telford is human as he was the one being experimented on.

I wouldn’t say Holoship on it’s own counts. It in an of itself is an interesting concept and actually, a clever way of them meeting people within the set parameters. i.e. everyone is dead, but Holograms (like androids) would still be functioning.

I don’t mind a semi-populated space if it is clearly the shit humanity had left behind. Abandoned computers, robots, GELFS, holograms etc. There can be some really interesting stories derived from that. Justice being a brilliant example of this semi-automated system still running and the guys just tripping over it basically and getting caught up in its logic.

To Runaway Train’s comment, our crew meet

Trojan – Howard and Crawford (Hologram and a simulant from the past pulled into the present)
Fathers and Suns – Pree (A computer)
Lemons – Jesus and other sundry humans in the past
Entangled – Irene E (Human)
Dear Dave – No-one
The Beginning – Hoguey plus a number of other simulants

Twentica – Numerous simulants in the present and humans in the past
Samsara – Briefly two humans in the present before they perish (although only Kryten and Cat on comms)
Give and Take – Snacky and Asclepious (both robots)
Officer Rimmer – Captain Herring (a printed entity that is ostensibly human)
Krysis – Butler, a Gelf and the Universe
Can of Worms – a Polymorph.

Cured – Telford and the “Evils” (A human and 4 androids)
Siliconia – hundreds of androids
Timewave – dozens of humans (from the past pulled to the present)
Mechocracy – none
M-Corp – Whatever the people within the M-Corp thing are, holograms or AR or what? But intelligence none-the-less
Skipper – Rimmer meets various versions of the Red Dwarf crew

The Promised Land – Cats.

Aside from anything else there are only two episodes where they don’t meet anything at all and out of 19 episodes 10 of them have some sort of humanity if you include Howard and the M-Corp people.

It kinda undermines Lister’s moping about missing humanity when he meets them every other week.

[International Debris]

Holoship works because, although they are ostensibly human, they have absolutely no interest in the non-Rimmer crew. Although it’s through snobbery, it’s still an alienating factor, and no one from the ship properly interacts with the rest of the Dwarfers. Even Binks communicates with Lister vicariously through his transmissions to the Enlightenment.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Just out of curiosity and because I’m awake, thought I’d run through the rest of the show

The End – Humans but arguably pre-accident and shouldn’t count
Future Echos – they see future versions of themselves
Balance of Power – none (Rimmer appears as Kochanski but it’s still Rimmer)
Waiting for God – Cat Priest
Confidence and Paranoia – title characters (hallucinations)
Me2 – Another Rimmer

So other than Cat Priest and Hallucinations, they meet no-one new

Kryten – title character (android)
Better Than life – computer game NPCs
Thanks for the Memory – none
Stasis Leak – pre-accident crew in the past
Queeg – title character (computer, but really Holly)
Parallel Universe – alt-versions of the crew in another dimension (humans)

(Kryten and their Parallel Universe selves are the only new people they meet in this series. Queeg is ostensibly Holly, there’s NPCs in BTL and in Stasis Leak it’s pre-accident crew)

Backwards – humans on Earth in the future (yep it’s the future, think about it)
Marooned – none
Polymorph – title character (a Gelf)
Bodyswap – none
Timeslides – humans in the past
The Last Day – Hudson 10 (android)

(A GELF and an Android plus 2x lots of humans in the past – which makes for 3 occurrences in two series that’s happened)

Camille – title character + Victor (two GELF, 1 appears as 2 humans, a cat and an android, plus herself)
DNA – none
Justice – none
White Hole – none (unless we count Talkie Toaster, which I’m not)
Dimension Jump – alt Rimmer
Meltdown – numerous human inspired wax droids.

(This series might be the most devoid of additional characters yet it’s at that time in the show you’d expect more)

Holoship – numerous holograms
The Inquisitor – title character (android)
Terrorform – a couple of semi-naked women from Rimmer’s subconscious oiling Rimmer but otherwise none
Quarantine – Landstrum (a hologram)
Demons and Angels – alt-versions of our crew
Back to Reality – 4 people (Timothy Spall, The “is this the Dibly party” woman, The Fascist dude and the kid – but they’re all hallucination)

(Again a very sparse series at a time you expect a little more from the original run. Only some holograms, an android and some hallucinations)

Psirens – various GELFs masquerading as human
Legion – Gestalt entity
Gunmen – 2 Simulants and some NPCs in Kryten’s subconscious
Emohawk – GELFs
Rimmerworld – Arguably numerous humans all derived from Rimmer’s DNA
Out of Time – their future selves.

(So the only humans here are either Psiren, NPCs or Rimmer)

So in 36 episodes the only actual honest to god humans they meet are from time travel shenanigans. The rest are all varying forms of hallucinations and holograms etc

Tikka to Ride – they actually only meet 3 humans, the 2 cops and JFK himself. But they see plenty. However all in the past and as a result a split timeline
Stoke – they only meet a version of Ace, although Lister jousts one and fucks one in an AR game.
Ouroboros – Kochanski (human)
Duct Soup – Kochanski (human)
Blue – Kochanski (Human)
Beyond a Joke – Kochanski, a stimulant, Able and a couple of others plus all the Jane Austin characters (human, sim, android, NPCs etc)
Epideme – Kochanski, Carmen, title character (2 humans – 1 deceased – and a virus)
Nanarchy – Kochanski, nanbots (human and nanos)

(This series is a lot emptier than I thought it would be too, on par with the rest not counting Kochanski. Although I think you do as she is an additional human Lister has regular contact with)

Not going to bother listing off series 8. Other than Cassandra every additional character is human and there’s thousands.

BTE – hallucinations of humans.

[RunawayTrain]

Thanks for that, quinn_drummer. So not quite humans every other ep, but when compared with the first VII series the contrast is clear.

In Samsara it’s very odd because we the audience ‘meet’ the humans yet our main characters either don’t, or meet them briefly off-screen.

Is Dear Dave the one with the vending machines and him falling on top of one? I’ve just put my finger on why miscellaneous machines having personalities in the Dave era irks me but not in the BBC era – they don’t figure prominently as individual characters in the BBC era; at most is Talkie Toaster in White Hole. But dispenser 23(?) is an actual character in Dear Dave, I think, and the vending machines in Mechocracy certainly have more than a passing line.
*They’re part of the plot*, whereas in the BBC series, interactions with ship machines with personalities are mostly just to give us slices of life (except arguably in White Hole – and TT is never implied to be a character always there. Revived to test the intelligence upgrade, but we don’t see or hear from him again until the Dave era. He’s certainly not keeping them company after that ep by any means). There is no sense of having a conversation with the food dispenser as peers, but the interactions with dispenser 23 are more like friendly acquaintances rather than the machine just there to perform a function.

I guess it could be a signal of Lister’s loneliness that he’s looking for casual companionship from machines, but I dunno. Just feels like writing that relies on extra characters despite it ostensibly being just the 4 main characters. Fathers and Suns is another, we meet the medi-bot as another character – which it wasn’t before. Doesn’t feel quite such a lonely, lifeless ship any more.

So it’s not so much having extra personalities that bugs me, but how big a role they play and how much the episode relies on them.

[Warbodog]

At the same time, writing off the human race and calling Lister categorically the last human being alive (as far as Tikka to Ride as I recall) always seemed presumptuous. Still saying that in the Dave era would be a mid-period X-Files Scully level of stubbornness.

[GlenTokyo]

Also has to be said the quality of performance of the people they meet is far better in the first 6 series so the crew running into other characters often is a lot more enjoyable, VII and VIII had their moments, there were a few good guests in there too.

Mac before they made Hollister an idiot in VIII was great, Robert Bathurst, Denis Lill, Suzanne Bertish, Jenny Agutter etc, and even the actors who weren’t well known for their acting chops necessarily and were in Emmerdale Farm and Bergerac and stuff, provided high quality performances with menace/ humour as appropriate and most importantly, believability in the universe of Red Dwarf.

Could blame scripting, so maybe I’m being harsh on the Dave Dwarf guest actors but apart from Pree and Asclepius, I don’t think there’s been anyone approach the menace or in universe believability levels of the Rob and Doug Dwarf guests. Some characters now take me out of the story because their performances are a bit panto, or just pants, or only there for the gags and the character doesn’t make sense.

Which is fair enough if you just want to make jokes, but the beauty of Red Dwarf is/was (?) that it’s a legitimate science fiction show too (with admittedly dodgy continuity).

[Hamish]

Langstrom and the Holoship crew maybe, but I thought Telford was a genuine human? He’s on Irene’s level. He gave the Cat a gun and all.

I was not saying Telford is not human, but in terms of meaningful character interaction with the main cast he is far less “human” than say Nirvana Crane is in her interactions with Rimmer. And when you have a well drawn Hologram character already at the core of the show, it is not really clear to me how much of a meaningful distinction can be made between a living human or a Hologram in-universe.

I first saw Holoship from a VHS tape I rented from the library a while after I had already seen most of the Grant/Naylor episodes, and I do remember finding it unusual at the time how populated the episode was in comparison to the rest of the show. Pointing out they are Holograms seems on the same level as justifying the Kinatawowi by making them GELFs to me.

I do grant the point about how the Enlightenment crew other themselves from the Dwarfers and thus make themselves more alienating, but then Timewave attempts to do the same thing with the crew of the Enconium. It just does so in a much more problematic fashion.

[Warbodog]

Holoship and Meltdown are both busy and were polarising/unpopular among fans when they came out, maybe this was part of the reason.

As snobbish as it can seem to claim the show died after series 2 (1 if you’re really hardcore), it’s interesting where different people draw the line based on what you want to get out of it. I’ve seen people saying they stop watching after series 4, or 5.

[Jenuall]

Better Than life – computer game NPCs

Depending on how picky you want to be about things you could include Gordon the 11th generation AI as well – it’s a recorded message so they’re not actually meeting him but it’s a new face on screen I guess.

Thanks for the Memory – none

Again if we wanted to be picky technically we meet Lisa Yates but that’s a memory/flashback and it’s a very fleeting moment

Backwards – humans on Earth in the future (yep it’s the future, think about it)

I’d still say it was the past – time is literally running backwards so taken from the crews point of reference in they year 3 million+ 1993 has to be seen as the past surely?

DNA – none

“Empty universe” purists would probably moan about them finding another ship with working technology on it – the crew interacting with another functional talking computer etc.

Justice – none

Now this one is just wrong – we meet our first simulant in this episode!

The overall point stands though, they meet fewer unique individuals in the earlier episodes.

I also think the point from GlenTokyo is very true – the quality of the performances and writing of the people they meet takes a nose dive after the Grant Naylor era. The people they meet are, within the context of a sci-fi comedy show, pretty grounded and believable in the first 6 series – but as things progress we end up with everyone they meet being some OTT caricature and the zany nob gets dialled up to 11

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

<

*They’re part of the plot*, whereas in the BBC series, interactions with ship machines with personalities are mostly just to give us slices of life

Other than the vending machine in Only The Good … but but I’d comfortably move that interaction into a ‘Doug’s era’ category rather than a ‘BBC era’ category for the sake of argument.

I’d still say it was the past – time is literally running backwards so taken from the crews point of reference in they year 3 million+ 1993 has to be seen as the past surely?

But it’s not their past, it’s the universes future. If it was their past time wouldn’t be running backward.

Now this one is just wrong – we meet our first simulant in this episode!

Oh of course, completely forgot about him. As I regularly do watching the episode.

I also think the point from GlenTokyo is very true

Yeah it is, I’ve said as much myself in the past. All of the characters are played much less comedically. The comedy coming from the situation and the interaction, an evil character is just that, evil. They’re not comedy evil or camping it up for laughs, which seems to happen all to often in Dave era. Take the bickering Exponoids and Simulants in Twentica and The Beginning. Where’s the menace in any of them?

[International Debris]

Yeah, I definitely fall into the ‘not liking comedy guest characters’ camp. Humour can arise from them, and often does, but their character shouldn’t be undermined by making them overly wacky. Meltdown has some fairly broad performances, which might be another reason it’s less fondly remembered than most of the Grant Naylor era.

As a one-off, a ‘comedy’ guest would be fine – I liked Hogey a lot, for example – but it’s definitely the issue that, even though the tone of the Dave era feels either like 1-VI, or at least an attempt at 1-VI, most of the guest characters still feel like they come from VIII. Even Asclepius was ramped up a bit much in the comedy creepy stakes for my liking.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Meltdown has some fairly broad performances

Meltdown I can forgive though as they are meant to be caricatures of these historical figures in universe.

The same goes for camp Hitler in Cured. The point is he is the reverse of the man we perceive, so that’s fine. And it is an absolutely brilliant performance.

But when a character is meant to be the bad guy, to have a dimwitted simulant or what is essentially Johnny Vegas in a pink coppers uniform, undermines the character and the situation.

I liked Hogey a lot, for example

I think Hoguey works because he isn’t meant to be a menace, that’s fine and he can be a bit silly. The humour there comes from subverting all our expectation, especially with regards to the crews relationship to him.

But imagine Inquisitor played like that. Urgh!

[Loathsome American]

I don’t know if this is a vain grasp at trying to find an objective distinction, but it sometimes feels like they tend to at least meet more people AT ONE TIME in Dave-era episodes? BBC-era, they generally meet individuals whereas now they tend to meet other crews or groups?

Holoship a notable exception, but also Holoship is really really really really good.

[RunawayTrain]

quinn_drummer series VIII didn’t count in my mind, because although the universe may not be populated the ship certainly is – but actually it fits very well into the premise of an unpopulated universe, it just feels totally different from the rest because our characters are not alone any more. But the crew are alone in the universe.

I don’t know if this is a vain grasp at trying to find an objective distinction, but it sometimes feels like they tend to at least meet more people AT ONE TIME in Dave-era episodes? BBC-era, they generally meet individuals whereas now they tend to meet other crews or groups?

Holoship a notable exception, but also Holoship is really really really really good.

Yes exactly. Holoship is an exception in the BBC era but we only actually see at most 3 of them on screen at once, and although they are not actively hostile it is immediately clear they are not friendly either, they only stopped in the first place because they were interested in Rimmer. And our main characters don’t even meet the crew, only Rimmer does; the others only ever meet Don Warrington’s character.

This is one thing most of series X and XI got right, for me, that apart from Lemons and Twentica (and arguably The Beginning, but the Yes-men barely count as actual characters and our crew don’t meet those) although we meet more characters overall it’s usually only one or two on screen at once. Samsara they barely even meet them, though it feels weird for the audience to see and know far more of them than the crew ever do.

The same goes for camp Hitler in Cured. The point is he is the reverse of the man we perceive, so that’s fine. And it is an absolutely brilliant performance.
But when a character is meant to be the bad guy, to have a dimwitted simulant or what is essentially Johnny Vegas in a pink coppers uniform, undermines the character and the situation.

I think Hoguey works because he isn’t meant to be a menace, that’s fine and he can be a bit silly. The humour there comes from subverting all our expectation, especially with regards to the crews relationship to him.

But imagine Inquisitor played like that. Urgh!

I largely agree, except the simulants in The Beginning – I can forgive the comedy there because although they’re idiots we know they are a real threat, there is never any doubt that they WILL annihilate our crew when they get the chance. They don’t get out of it by making the villains sympathetic to their side, they only get out of it by outwitting the villains. Whereas throughout much of the Dave era they meet people who are or become sympathetic towards them, which dilutes the original feeling of the universe being a hostile and lonely place towards the last human alive. In the BBC era they rarely leave any characters they meet on friendly or even civil terms! Lots of escaping rather than being let go.

[Jenuall]

Both Quarantine and Legion even directly play up to the fact that everyone they meet is in some way trying to kill them!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Is Asclepius the first person they meet who can shoot straight?

[RunawayTrain]

Both Quarantine and Legion even directly play up to the fact that everyone they meet is in some way trying to kill them!

Has anyone counted whether 31 was an accurate count there or just a comical-sounding number?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Both Quarantine and Legion even directly play up to the fact that everyone they meet is in some way trying to kill them!

Has anyone counted whether 31 was an accurate count there or just a comical-sounding number?

It was just the number of episodes at the time.

No-way have they met 31 unique individuals trying to kill them.

Attempted kills …

Confidence, but not Paranoia
(That’s all of series one)

No-one in series two tries to kill them (except the BTL game itself if we can say it is trying to kill them, which we don’t know from the TV show)

Polymorph and Hudson 10

Curry Monster, Simulant and the evil wax droids which we don’t know the number of

Inquisitor, Terrorform Beast(?), Landstrom, Despair Squid

Multiple Psirens

That’s 9 individuals plus the wax droids and the psirens trying to kill them.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Obviously they meet more people than that, they’re listed above, was just curious on the killer count.

[Warbodog]

Has anyone counted whether 31 was an accurate count there or just a comical-sounding number?
It was just the number of episodes at the time.

Ooh, nice! Like Police Squad where the number of dustbins Frank knocks down corresponds to the episode number (just one reason why it’s a shame it ended at six).

Tension sheets are red because it helps you relax, but this is contrary to red’s associations with being an energetic and stimulating colour in conventional colour psychology, as followed in manipulative marketing and branding.

They say it can also lift your spirits, but more traditional stress/anxiety-calming colours would be blue, green, purple or even yellow. Although this varies by culture to an extent, so it’s all kind of bollocks, isn’t it.

[International Debris]

It’s quite likely that the pan-dimensional liquid beast from the Mogadon Cluster tried to kill them.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Tension sheets are red because it helps you relax, but this is contrary to red’s associations with being an energetic and stimulating colour in conventional colour psychology, as followed in manipulative marketing and branding.

The tension sheet is red because Holden over heard Rimmer tell his younger self they should be red.

It’s a boot strap paradox with no psychological basis to it.

[Pete Part Three]

It’s not a bootstrap paradox as it’s explicitly shown that there was an original timeline where Holden came up with the design (and colour) independently at a later age.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s not a bootstrap paradox as it’s explicitly shown that there was an original timeline where Holden came up with the design (and colour) independently at a later age.

The later age thing I’ve always read as young Rimmer not going to the patent office, and then years passing and Holden remembering the idea (maybe in his half asleep state it sits quietly in his subconscious for a while) and then finally “invents” it. But it was still Rimmer that planted the idea with him as a kid in the first place.

Holly says you’ve put the timelines back how they were, but thats as a result of him going to his younger self and Holden over hearing.

So yeah, bootstrap.

[Pete Part Three]

If the timeline was reverted exactly to how it was, Rimmer would not have been dead up to the events of the episode.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That’s another issue entirely.

That timeline is as a result of Rimmer going back to telling his past self about the tension sheet. Holden over hears it, and it is subsequently Holden that “invents” it.

[Pete Part Three]

A causal loop (bootstrap paradox) is based on the understanding of a single fixed timeline (i.e. Kyle Reese fathering John Connor in The Terminator).

The changing timelines in Timeslides is based on the understanding of the Time traveller creating a new timeline whenever they travel back in time. (Marty inventing rock and roll in Back to the Future). When the traveller returns to their time, it’s not really the same place they left; it’s the future of the timeline they created.

A bootstrap paradox would imply that the idea for the Tension Sheet came from nowhere. That’s not the case; it came from the first timeline.

[International Debris]

It’s typical Red Dwarf vagueness that makes this arguable on both side. I’ve always taken it as not a bootstrap paradox, though, and that Holden invented it at a younger age than he originally did.

Lister’s kidneys in Give & Take, now they’re a great bootstrap paradox.

[Warbodog]

I’ve always wondered about ‘enig’ in that regard. Whether that’s a finitely repeating closed loop (until the Inquisitor’s erased, which breaks it) or was subject to change each time, since Future Kryten shouldn’t say “for some bizarre reason” when he should know what enig means by that point if he followed the same course as Present Kryten. Unless some of the Krytens don’t know it and just pass the (not that useful) clue on, or they just all have to be enigmatic for the sake of the script (Kryten says he’s going to recite it verbatim, but we don’t know whether he did, unless we already saw that he did).

Nice to have some light reading to relax from the Backwards thread.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Isn’t Kryten repeating what his past self said because he knows that’s what supposed to be said so he says it verbatim?

[Jenuall]

Yeah enig always bothered me as well, it’s just one of those things that you have to gloss over

[Dave]

I’ve always wondered about ‘enig’ in that regard. Whether that’s a finitely repeating closed loop (until the Inquisitor’s erased, which breaks it) or was subject to change each time, since Future Kryten shouldn’t say “for some bizarre reason” when he should know what enig means by that point if he followed the same course as Present Kryten. Unless some of the Krytens don’t know it and just pass the (not that useful) clue on, or they just all have to be enigmatic for the sake of the script (Kryten says he’s going to recite it verbatim, but we don’t know whether he did, unless we already saw that he did).

Now let’s discuss Heaven Sent.

[Author]

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