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

[Flap Jack]

I don’t think they exist at all in the Dave era

[cwickham]

(They’re also pretty plot-important in Officer Rimmer)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Which episode has the gag with the Skutter having the turning indicator 

[Dave]

There’s also the Skutter that Rimmer uses to try and drop kippers on Ace in Dimension Jump.

[Nick R]

Yes, but apart from Bodyswap and Dimension Jump and Back to Earth and Officer Rimmer… when have the Skutters appeared in the show’s peak and in the Dave era?

[Podey]

I for one wish this hadn’t been on screen.

[Warbodog]

Yes, but apart from Bodyswap and Dimension Jump and Back to Earth and Officer Rimmer… when have the Skutters appeared in the show’s peak and in the Dave era?

[Jenuall]

[International Debris]

Which episode has the gag with the Skutter having the turning indicator 

Give & Take

 

[International Debris]

So what have we got so far. Bodyswap, Justice, Dimension Jump, Back to Earth, Officer Rimmer, Give & Take, Mechocracy, and then there’s The Last Day:
and White Hole:  So that’s nine examples. Can we disprove Quinn any further?

[cwickham]

I know you all try to suppress the memory but they’re important to the plot of Pete

[Frank Smeghammer]

VIII definitely doesn’t count

[Jenuall]

This has made me wonder, and given the context I’m wary of being too authoritative on this, but is this the only instance where we see a Skutter not on board Red Dwarf itself? Or actually I think they are down on the moon for Rimmer’s death day party in Thanks for the Memory? 

[Moonlight]

They’re playing keyboard.

[Jenuall]

I was obviously too busy worrying whether the sausages were done

[clem]

A couple of skutters are with Lister and co. on Blue Midget in BITR 3 when they escape the first time, without Rimmer. That turns out to be AR though of course. The only other instance I can think of is the Children in Need sketch, also set on Blue Midget. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

So what have we got so far. Bodyswap, Justice, Dimension Jump, Back to Earth, Officer Rimmer, Give & Take, Mechocracy, and then there’s The Last Day:
and White Hole:  So that’s nine examples. Can we disprove Quinn any further?

Hey this wasn’t my claim thank you. 

[Moonlight]

Quinn was wrong. Let’s tell everyone!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

 

[Podey]

[International Debris]

Hey this wasn’t my claim thank you. 

Apologies.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Apologies.

[RunawayTrain]

And “Quinnese Whispers” definitely isn’t racist.

[GlenTokyo]

This is a poorly researched mundane observation as I could just be being thick and have missed it but, I’ve watched the model shots a fair few times, and the model shot of Red Dwarf that opens the rock titles is used just once or twice in either the first or second series, and then more often post III, but doesn’t feature in the the raw FX footage.

You’d think they’d have that one to hand.

[Formica]

*** DELETED FOR BEING SHIT ***

I’m afraid I’ve arrived quite late to the party.

[Unrumble]

I’m afraid I’ve arrived quite late to the party.

[Moonlight]

Futurama s06e07 “The Late Formica J. Fry”

[Dave]

This is a poorly researched mundane observation as I could just be being thick and have missed it but, I’ve watched the model shots a fair few times, and the model shot of Red Dwarf that opens the rock titles is used just once or twice in either the first or second series, and then more often post III, but doesn’t feature in the the raw FX footage.

You’d think they’d have that one to hand.

Could that be the one that was lost, then found and cleaned up to be used in Skipper?

[Renegade Rob]

So something I’ve observed and wondered about… In Back in the Red, Part 1 (yes, I realize that engaging Series VIII on its own terms is the act of a fool or a madman, but follow me on this…), when they lose Starbug’s midsection, Kryten remarks that they may have to have sandwiches for lunch. He didn’t seem like he was in deadpan mode, so if we take him at his word, in my mind this means there are two possibilities:

1) Kryten assumes that they’ll have the run of the ship as normal including the presumably intact and re-nano’d food stores, which begs the question of why they wouldn’t just get beer milkshakes and curries and fish once they crash and land and recover. 

OR, more likely, and my personal favored interpretation…

2) Somewhere in the Starbug cockpit there’s a place where they store emergency sandwiches or at least the fixins like bread and cold cuts, which sort of makes sense if you think back to Starbug separating in the Xtended ending of Tikka to Ride; of course there would be supplies for the crew on either half of Starbug to subsist. 

So that’s my mundane observation: that there’s a non-zero chance that by the End of Series VII and start of Series VIII, the Starbug cockpit had a section for emergency sandwich storage. This amuses me and makes me smile and feels right for the characters as we know them. 

[Warbodog]

I took it to mean that because Kryten couldn’t cook any more, he’d have to throw something simple together. With the slight hang up that sandwich materials are conventionally also kept in the kitchen, but by that point in my thought process, I’d presumably been distracted by something equally hilarious happening.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I’m going with, they have some emergency sandwiches in the cockpit and don’t know where they are in the ship, so they might not be able to reach a vending machine or anything in time for “lunch” in the sense Kryten considers it.

[International Debris]

I can’t hear it as anything other than Doug thinking another gag was necessary at that point, and that was the best he could come up with. I know that’s going against the spirit of the thread, but it’s the only way my brain can process a lot of VIII stuff.

[Renegade Rob]

I can’t hear it as anything other than Doug thinking another gag was necessary at that point, and that was the best he could come up with. I know that’s going against the spirit of the thread, but it’s the only way my brain can process a lot of VIII stuff.

I mean, that’s the fair rational way to process Series VIII. At least Community had the good sense to retroactively say that Season 4’s awfulness with the alternate showrunners was due to a “gas leak” in the school, but no man can or should attempt to reconcile Series VIII with what came before or since, unless it was one long shitty unreality bubble Starblug plonked into sometime during Nanarchy when they’re retracing their steps

The galley is in the midsection, which the sandwich line is basically referencing when it breaks off, so for years a certain subroutine running in my brain has been like wait, wouldn’t they have lost ALL their food supplies when they lost the galley? Where the fuck are the sandwich fixins? 

(Which itself reminds me of that running “Making Soufflés against the Daleks? Where do you get the milk?” gag in Doctor Who, but at least that had a punchline, so to speak.) Wait a second… perhaps we’ve been looking at this all wrong. That sandwich line could be a Moffat-esque hint… they WERE in some kind of unreality bubble/AR simulation/converted Dalek fugue state the whole Series VIII might actually be a puzzle box of genius that we’ve blown wide open! (I kid, of course. I would rather endure 4 billion years in a confession dial than rewatch Series VIII). 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

(I kid, of course. I would rather endure 4 billion years in a confession dial than rewatch Series VIII). 

Is now a good time to plug my positively-reviewed VIII fanedit that cuts out all the filler, the tasteless humour, the filler, the CGI, the filler, the fat jokes, most of Krytie TV, and the filler?

[Moonlight]

I did a fan edit of Back in the Red that’s 35 minutes shorter and the opening Starbug scene is actually quickly paced and engaging in a way that makes you think “Wait, was VIII actually alright?” until you realize I cut like four minutes of pace killing banter.

[RunawayTrain]

… no man can or should attempt to reconcile Series VIII with what came before or since, unless it was one long shitty unreality bubble Starblug plonked into sometime during Nanarchy when they’re retracing their steps       

I think you’ve almost cracked it.  VII-BtE were all unreality bubbles, and they came back into normal space for X.

Any references to that section of the series in the Dave era are either purely coincidental, or the crew misremembering and thinking that what happened in the bubbles was reality.  Which, if they have memories of it, the memories of experiencing it are real even if the events were not.  Kinda like how we remember dreams.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

BtE were all unreality bubbles

What is it with all the BtE hate? Are we all seriously gonna disregard some of the best acting of Craig Charles’ career just because it’s got no laugh track?

[Renegade Rob]

BtE were all unreality bubbles

What is it with all the BtE hate? Are we all seriously gonna disregard some of the best acting of Craig Charles’ career just because it’s got no laugh track?

I’m inclined to agree. Well firstly, I don’t have too much hate for VII either, as it was one of the first series I ever watched so I have a sentimental soft spot for it. And BtE… very flawed but not meant to be considered a normal “episode” so I don’t hold it by those same standards, so by its own low standards, it has acquitted itself. (Hey, that’s quite good. Might trademark that.)

Seriously, I adore BtE largely because there was a dark time when that fucking death in the balls ending was THE ending and I was so grateful that, if BtE never resulted in a subsequent series, that the show ended on an up note, or at least on a story that celebrated and respected it. When they laugh about Multiverse 101 at the end of Part 3, that could’ve been the end, and I was like, thank CHRIST, an actual ending. 

[RunawayTrain]

What is it with all the BtE hate? Are we all seriously gonna disregard some of the best acting of Craig Charles’ career just because it’s got no laugh track?

I don’t hate it, it would just explain why it’s so startlingly different from the rest.  (Not all of VII was unredeemable either.)

[GlenTokyo]

This is a poorly researched mundane observation as I could just be being thick and have missed it but, I’ve watched the model shots a fair few times, and the model shot of Red Dwarf that opens the rock titles is used just once or twice in either the first or second series, and then more often post III, but doesn’t feature in the the raw FX footage.
You’d think they’d have that one to hand.

Could that be the one that was lost, then found and cleaned up to be used in Skipper?

Yeah, that seems to be the one.

They’ve lost it again haven’t they? 

[Warbodog]

My turn for a shit observation. Kryten famously loves mopping, but do we ever actually see him doing it? Surely in VII or X–XII, but I came up blank so far.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Unrumble]

Presumably the budget for series II wasn’t big enough for an actual mop. 

[Warbodog]

He could be raking leaves or anything there.

[Flap Jack]

As far as I’m concerned Series VIII is the only one egregious enough to be worth unreality-bubble-ing. You could decanonise VII and BtE but you’d have to keep major elements like them finding and losing Kochanski, and Lister being his own dad, because they get referenced in X. And you’d leave a “how did they find Red Dwarf” gap of course.

Series X does have that Only The Good… reference too, but in VII’s case the stuff you have to keep canon is mostly the stuff you’d want to retcon anyway.

[Ian Symes]

It was in fact a completely different highly corrosive micro-organism that almost destroyed Red Dwarf.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

The second highly corrosive micro-organism, being less intelligent than the first, stowed away in the pre-production pitches for Series IX… where, many years later, it died of old age.

[Renegade Rob]

So am I the only one who always interpreted the Grim Reaper in Only the Good… to be a guise of the chameleonic microbe? It took the form of Talia’s escape pod, likely sentient to some degree, and also obviously a “real” Grim Reaper is incompatible with Red Dwarf’s universe, and it wouldn’t be the first sentient micro-particle in Red Dwarf to have a mischievous and perverse personality. 

[Flap Jack]

So am I the only one who always interpreted the Grim Reaper in Only the Good… to be a guise of the chameleonic microbe?

Well it wouldn’t surprise me to learn you were the only one! There are a few points against it:

1. There wasn’t any suggestion beforehand that the chameleonic microbe had a personality.

2. The chameleonic microbe doesn’t stand to gain anything from pretending to be the grim reaper.

3. A chameleonic microbe pretending to be the spectre of death probably shouldn’t be vulnerable to being kneed in the crotch.

Honestly Series VIII is full of so much difficult or impossible to explain nonsense that the literal grim reaper showing up does not particularly stick out, but Occam’s razor is just that Rimmer was delirious from the smoke and hallucinated it.

[Author]

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