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

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The Grim Reaper was our Ace coming to save new Rimmer with a hint or irony, and didn’t expect him to fight back. 

[Renegade Rob]

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.

[Flap Jack]

Hey, as fan theories go, it’s still more plausible than The Inquisitor actually being Kryten. So now I fully expect to see an acclaimed fan fiction retelling of Only the Good… from the microbe’s perspective.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Hey, as fan theories go, it’s still more plausible than The Inquisitor actually being Kryten. So now I fully expect to see an acclaimed fan fiction retelling of Only the Good… from the microbe’s perspective.

I always liked that Kryten/Inquisitor thing but the one point that always stuck out is why he would try to erase himself in the actual episode? Surely that only ends the way it did anyway with him being scrubbed from existence and all his work undone.

But by erasing pre-inquisitor Kryten, he never became the Inquisitor to erase himself in the first place. Which of course means he isn’t wiped out. And he’ll have no memory of those events, which of course never happened

[Frank Smeghammer]

Here’s something to consider. How poxy and flimsy as a Red Dwarf Sci-Fi concept is Confidence and Paranoia?

I mean it’s Sci-Fi so anything goes I guess but it doesn’t feel very Red Dwarf and it doesn’t really have any believable explanation within the Sci-Fi laws of the show that hallucinations can just become “solid”.

It’s a show with no magic, no aliens, no particularly exceptional extraterrestrial powers to speak of other than mind-reading shape-shifting GELFS.

Now microbes can just “mutate” without any living hosts to grow upon and make a guy hallucinate fish rain. That would have been useful at many other times in the show where they could have infected Lister with this and had him dream up some important plot devices.

Did Lister ever consider using AR to manipulate his dreams so he would dream up a device to take them back to Earth that he could make solid?

What would have happened if he caught Mutant Pneumonia whilst also inked by the Joy Squid from BTE. Would another Kochanski have been made solid?

I mean it really becomes nonsensical when you think about it for too long

[International Debris]

It’s up there with Timeslides in the ‘bypassed the fine line and dived straight into fantasy’ category. 

[Flap Jack]

Haha, yeah, Super Pneumonia is essentially magic, just like Lister’s pregnancy.

In terms of taking advantage of it, though, I don’t think Red Dwarf has any tech that can control the content of your dreams, or force the disease to “choose” certain aspects of a dream to make solid. AR is just video games at the end of the day, even the drug-assisted Series VIII version of it.

Also, I have to believe the solid hallucinations did have limitations. Lister could hallucinate fantastical or impossible things as long they remained visual only (e.g. the combustion of the Mayor) or he could make fully real things that were at least physically possible (e.g. people, fish), but he couldn’t have just dreamt up a conceptually impossible machine and used it to go back to Earth. And I don’t think he could have dreamt up a time machine that actually was possible by chance, but he didn’t know about it (such as the time drive). He needs to know how a machine works in order for an imagined version of it to work, is my interpretation.

What would have happened if he caught Mutant Pneumonia whilst also inked
by the Joy Squid from BTE. Would another Kochanski have been made
solid?

The answer has to be yes, or at least it would be possible. If it had been her made solid, it would have been evil dream Kochanski rather than someone like the real Kochanski, but the chance is just as likely you’d get solid Noddy or The Creator or Simon Gregson.

[Jenuall]

It’s the big red reset/forget button at the end of the episode striking again, reaching the conclusion of a 30 minute window means the boys have to forget whatever new device/technology/macguffin they learned about during it. The show is replete with examples of things that could have really helped them out if they just tried them again properly or applied a different logic to it

[Renegade Rob]

Lister’s brief stint as the luckiest man who ever lived is all good and well, but if the luck virus had more oomph it could’ve caused more good things to happen than what he consciously willed, like hey tripping over a prototype time-space drive that will get them back to whatever version/time period of Earth that Lister deems is the “right” one (which I THINK is Earth circa “The End”?). And since it seems like Kryten didn’t give him all of it during Quarantine, dude, just inject another luck virus dose, then wish for a Time Hole that takes you to the proper Earth. Oh and that also revives Kochanski. They “luck virus” themselves a happy ending in “Last Human”, so we know the thought has occurred on some level.

Also, secondary mundane observation… In Series I, Holly discussed the possibility of making a human woman simulacrum but lamented that he didn’t actually know how and that he wouldn’t even know how to make the nose, but then fast forward to Series VIII, and he apparently created a second set of nanobots that indeed brought back humans from the crew of Red Dwarf, so, as he did when calculating the square root of 2049, he got there in the end. Maybe he was working on that as a subroutine the whole time or maybe it’s a fluke, but theoretically he does in fact make good on that aspiration he expresses in Series I. (Although I have no goddamn idea how his “second set” of nanobots comports with the original set of nanobots as seen in Nanarchy and when he even made the second set, but I refuse to let myself get sucked into another Series VIII rabbit hole of insanity.)

[Frank Smeghammer]

… In Series I, Holly discussed the possibility of making a human woman simulacrum but lamented that he didn’t actually know how and that he wouldn’t even know how to make the nose, 

I subscribe to the theory that Holly in the early series really does just make stuff up and mess with the crew to entertain them/himself. This scene especially as he keeps interrupting Lister’s film to express how bored he is.

He’s bored so he wants to toy with Lister, pique his interest and then let him down. Same reason he makes him erase all memory of Agatha Christie, knowing full well he’ll forget that he asked him to erase her.

In my view, this extends to faking a bomb threat in Bodyswap and other such adventures which can be disguised as computer senility. Extends to the chase for Red Dwarf which is referenced in VIII

[Formica]

I subscribe to the theory that Holly in the early series really does just make stuff up and mess with the crew to entertain them/himself.

I’d suggest that Queeg is pretty strong evidence to your point.

[Flap Jack]

And since it seems like Kryten didn’t give him all of it during Quarantine, dude, just inject another luck virus dose, then wish for a Time Hole that takes you to the proper Earth. Oh and that also revives Kochanski. They “luck virus” themselves a happy ending in “Last Human”, so we know the thought has occurred on some level.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to interpret the luck virus as just giving Lister the ability to make optimal decisions, rather than controlling the entire universe (and it’s also why that part of Last Human is bad).

It shouldn’t just be able to grant wishes, even if the things being wished for are plausible. So, if there happened to be a “back to Earth in Lister and Rimmer’s time” time hole within flying range already, the luck virus would make Lister choose to go there, but it couldn’t just make the time hole appear.

Of course the luck virus would still have been absurdly useful on so many occasions (LIKE WHEN THEY WERE TRYING TO FIND RED DWARF, WHICH IS WHY THE LUCK VIRUS SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ON STARBUG, DOUG), but in general I just assume that they’re saving it for a life or death emergency – and then when a life or death emergency happens, they either forget they have it or it’s not accessible.

The matter paddle however…

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

The matter paddle however…

What, you mean the one Kryten stripped down and turned into the triplicator?

[Flap Jack]

Yep, that’s the one. A whole series where they could have got back to Earth and yet didn’t, and then they decided the matter paddle was useless so they may as well turn it into something else.

[Frank Smeghammer]

I subscribe to the theory that Holly in the early series really does just make stuff up and mess with the crew to entertain them/himself.
I’d suggest that Queeg is pretty strong evidence to your point.

Further to my point, I also believe Holly does a lot of what they do to make Lister assume some responsibility and step up as captain. They undermine Rimmer at every stage (the Helen Shapiro cut, Petersen’s arm etc) and encourage Lister in subtle ways to keep him on his toes and appeal to his sense of right and wrong to make him be a leader

Holly does not want Lister watching drivel and scrumming choccies. They want him to run the ship.

But thats a totally different mundane observation/theory for another day…

[International Debris]

The matter paddle and the luck virus are probably the more egregious examples of bubble-era loose threads, but it’s actually rare they bothered writing in a get-out clause. Stasis Leak is the best example, with it effectively only being useful for three weeks (although there’s a huge question about how it even works – when did it leak into that shower room? If time travels at the same speed on both sides and the leak doesn’t time travel, then surely it would have originally leaked three million years before the accident? The more I think about it, the more it hurts my head), I like to think they go back a few more times in that period. But yeah, they usually just forget, abandon or cannibalise the tech after that.

Why do they wait until Holoship to fire up another hologram when they can use two after Me2?

Why do they not get a photo of the solar system / similar and project it on a cliff on a planet and fly Starbug through it to get home? Or even a city on Earth and use it as a second home? Surely a city you can’t leave is better than a spaceship with no other human beings.

Why doesn’t Holly search for human DNA onboard and make a bunch more people for Lister to have as company?

THE MATTER PADDLE

Why not use the psi-moon to make a Listerworld which might be more habitable?

LUCK VIRUS. Also, once Lanstrom is dead, surely there’s tons of useful tech there, other viruses, etc?

Personally I’d stay with Legion rather than going back to Red Dwarf, but that’s just me.

Use the teleporter from Rimmerworld again.

Fly back to where they last saw Red Dwarf and use the time drive to pick it up.

And of course then there’s Doug solo, in which they could at least use the time drive as a faster-than-light machine by just moving forward in time by a second. Or not destroy the time wand. Or just the Trojan to, y’know, travel in time in the way it brought Howard forward. Or just the rejuvenation shower to get back to Earth a little bit after they did on first try. Or use the map from The Beginning for… something. Or just orbit Earth after the EMP goes off in Twentica and then fly back down. Or print some of the Red Dwarf crew for company. 

Sorry, one of those posts again.

[cwickham]

Sustaining a second hologram in Confidence & Paranoia is said to require turning off all non-essential systems, and Lister wanting to bring back Kochanski again is sparked off because he’s looked at the dream recorder and found out she dreamt about him three times (which I’ve never devoted much thought to before but is actually a bit creepy). It can be hand-waved as Lister deciding the amount of power they had to devote to it wasn’t worth it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> Why do they not get a photo of the solar system / similar and project it on a cliff on a planet and fly Starbug through it to get home? 

This comes up a lot “get a photo of the whole of the earth and just go home”

I don’t think it’d work. Just because you have the whole Earth doesn’t mean you could fly down into it. The depth of the photo is surely limited by what’s visible. Sure one side of the earths countries are visible, but not in any detail. No cities. No people. At some point in reckon you’d hit a depth frame (like the side frame Lister walks into”

[Jenuall]

The “logic” of Timeslides is very wobbly – outside of the ski holiday and wedding photographs which seem to stick quick firmly to the rules that “only what you see in the shot is ‘real'” – and even there Lister clearly makes a snowball from something outside of the frame so that snow must exist despite being out of shot. So we know for a fact that there’s some wibbly wobbly action going on whereby reality is extrapolated beyond what can be “seen”

Either way – surely it’s worth a shot to try and find some more valuable uses for it? (the get out here is that they can say the mutated fluid ran out or something I guess?)

Teleporter from Rimmerworld always feels like a big “why the fuck don’t they do more with this” – it’s literally established in the episode that it can be used travel in both space and time – fuck going through all those unreality bubbles – you’ve already got what you need!

[Renegade Rob]

“It’s the developing fluid. It must have mutated.”

When I first heard that, I actually looked that up, like wait are biological compounds used in developing fluid, so it’s like the evolved pneumonia in Confidence & Paranoia? But as far as I can tell, nope, it’s just chemicals. Which makes that whole concept really, really dumb. The most charitable interpretation is that in the original near-future of Red Dwarf they had developed biological compound versions of developing fluid for whatever reason and that’s what evolved. 

Also, the “good decision” interpretation of the luck virus is all good and well, except it did manifest all the really specific tech they needed to defeat Flibble Rimmer. 

Also back to Timeslides, I remember being like wait so where was the slide of Rich Lister’s dining room that Rimmer entered? Did I miss a scene? But then on rewatch it’s like, wait, they used that that Blaize Falconburger exterior shot of the mansion.  Really, that’s sufficient? So if that works, maybe a photograph of Earth from space could work as well. (Actually now that I’m thinking about it, who the hell was photographing/filming young Rimmer and Thickie Holden in bed at night and why does Rimmer have that picture either?)

[Jenuall]

Maybe the nocturnal boxing gloves were a defensive measure against whatever creep was sneaking in and taking photos… 

The less problematic interpretation is that the photo was taken during the day and Rimmer just waited until night to step into it?

[Unrumble]

Also, the “good decision” interpretation of the luck virus is all good and well, except it did manifest all the really specific tech they needed to defeat Flibble Rimmer.

But the adapter and resistor that Kryten says they need are presumably items of equipment that he knows to exist, and exist on Red Dwarf, so could potentially just be lying around…

Actually I didn’t even finish typing the above, before realising it still hews much more close to ‘grants wishes’ logic. Fun to play devil’s advocate for a few seconds though. As you were.

[Warbodog]

The luck virus is such a big concept, it distracts us from the hologram telekinesis.

[Dave]

Actually now that I’m thinking about it, who the hell was photographing/filming young Rimmer and Thickie Holden in bed at night and why does Rimmer have that picture either?

I asked this during the quarantine commentaries and Paul Jackson said Rob Grant had come up with some kind of explanation, but I forget what.

[Podey]

The main thing that has always struck me about the luck virus (can’t be arsed to read everything so sorry if this has been mentioned) is the fact that Kryten gives it to Lister but Lister doesn’t correctly guess the door code, missing the last digit. It is Kryten who points out that he needs to press the last one, suggesting Kryten is the one that the luck is affecting, but that obviously makes even less sense than the luck virus itself. 

[Jenuall]

I guess a generous reading would be that it made him lucky enough that all of his guesses for the digits were correct, but wasn’t able to change the fact that he didn’t actually know how many digits were needed

[loadoftottnumb]

I do wish this show about a spaceship 3 million years in the future ran by a possibly senile possibly not computer that performed a head sex change operation of themselves and then went back at some point with no one mentioning it, with the man that’s a cat and the man that’s made of light and the robot that was turned into a man and then went back and the man that got pregnant and the no aliens but there is GELFs and Polymorph and BEGGs and spaceweevil and a sentient universe with a phone number and some dinosaurs and the grim reaper and Johnny Vegas in a pink helmet would at least TRY and keep things realistic. 

[Jenuall]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Rudolph]

(Actually now that I’m thinking about it, who the hell was photographing/filming young Rimmer and Thickie Holden in bed at night and why does Rimmer have that picture either?)

[Frank Smeghammer]

[Podey]

I do wish this show about a spaceship 3 million years in the future ran by a possibly senile possibly not computer that performed a head sex change operation of themselves and then went back at some point with no one mentioning it, with the man that’s a cat and the man that’s made of light and the robot that was turned into a man and then went back and the man that got pregnant and the no aliens but there is GELFs and Polymorph and BEGGs and spaceweevil and a sentient universe with a phone number and some dinosaurs and the grim reaper and Johnny Vegas in a pink helmet would at least TRY and keep things realistic. 

For the example I gave at least, it is more a case of not following it’s own internal logic than not being realistic. There’s a difference.

[Moonlight]

The teleporter also has time travel capabilities as seen at the end of Rimmerworld so they already had the Tikka time drive two episodes early.

[Moonlight]

For the example I gave at least, it is more a case of not following it’s own internal logic than not being realistic. There’s a difference.

Internal logic and realism are not the same thing as you say and I hate when people pretend asking for internal logic is demanding strict realism. Unless the argument is actually “literally anything can happen at any time for no reason and it would fit the show, therefore internal logic goes against it” (which, no, not even a little) it’s not even gesturing in the direction of making a point. “Asking for internal logic = asking for strict realism” is an argument I see so often and it only seems clever if you refuse to actually think about it even slightly.

[Renegade Rob]

Guys, we’re straying from mundane observations into heavy major fundamental observations, so we need to pull ourselves together and stay on topic!

I’ve always attributed any major inconsistencies in the canon to the fact that they’re always mucking about with time, so the ripples from that change things like Lister’s appendix or the century of their origin or Rimmer having been alive the whole time in Timeslides.

In Doctor Who, I’ve always felt there’s this undercurrent (that they touch on or imply every so often in the show) that because there’s an “infinite temporal flux” and everything is changing at all points in time, all you can do is hang on to the “moment” because the “present day” for people who aren’t time travelers is changing constantly while maintaining the same general shape (like a waterfall, always changing but still basically waterfall-shaped). With Doctor Who, we’re constantly following the Doctor, so as long as he remembers adventures, they’re still “canon” so to speak even if from a god’s eye view the events of that episode have been swept away by changing timelines (ie most of Series 5 was technically undone in the finale but it’s still canon for our heroes because they still remember it). But I imagine any time traveler or former time traveler (because time travel unmoors you from the flux and enables you to remember erased things, also from Series 5) must encounter a lot of frustration because if they, say, want to grab lunch at their favorite diner, they show up there one day and find that not only is it a Taco Bell, but it’s always been a Taco Bell. Their favorite neighbor Steve who they say hi to every morning, welp, now it’s a jerk named Kevin and it’s always been Kevin. 

I think this way of thinking can be applied to Red Dwarf and accounts for a lot of the inconsistencies, with the caveat the unlike in Doctor Who where we’re following the “same” Doctor and remain locked in while the rest of time and space rewrites itself around him and us, with Red Dwarf, we the audience are more aware of the changes in the timeline then the Dwarfers, ie, we’re not as closely locked in, so when Timeline A fluctuates into Timeline B and Timeline C etc., we find ourselves tuning in that week to Dwarfers B or Dwarfers C, with the minor timeline changes between episodes relatively small enough as to seemingly change things very little. (Contrast this to Doctor Who where, when time is constantly changing to Timeline B or C or D, we always still seem to be following the original Doctor A no matter what). 

Also, to bring things back to mundane observations as opposed to grand unified theories of time and space, um… it’s interesting in Confidence and Paranoia that Lister has to go through this elaborate fire escape obstacle course to get to the panel where Rimmer hid the holo-discs, but presumably since Rimmer couldn’t do it himself being a hologram, he needed the skutters to do it, so either A, the skutters actually must have had to navigate all those stairs and everything, or B, they had to use (either always part of their design like Daleks/R2-D2 or special external equipment that they attach onto themselves) little servos and space jetpacks to maneuver to the panel to hide the discs, which sounds adorable and is something I’d like to have seen. 

[Dave]

Or they could have just used the teleporter.

[International Debris]

The only proper answer to contradictions in Doctor Who is ‘Faction Paradox did it’.

[Renegade Rob]

The only proper answer to contradictions in Doctor Who is ‘Faction Paradox did it’.

The “Infinity Patrol” did it. 
Actually yeah that works for everything! 

[International Debris]

According to the Tongue Tied wiki, “SS Manny Celeste, Enlightenment, and Gemini 12 were all likely part of the Infinity Fleet.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a website that stretches the word “likely” quite as far as the Tongue Tied wiki.

[Renegade Rob]

Was the SS Trojan confirmed to be affiliated with the Infinity Patrol? I think Rimmer mentioned the “Infinity Fleet” but “infinity” is a generic sci-fi term so I’m not sure if “Infinity Fleet” signifies affiliation with the Infinity Patrol or is just a silly macho term for traffic control.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That entire entry is pure conjecture 

[loadoftottnumb]

I was more making the point that it’s just a batshit silly 30 minute sitcom, we don’t really need to hold it to account for anything. 

The next series could have Holly and Cat just switch places without anyone mentioning it, it doesn’t matter. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Look around at where you are. If we didn’t rip it apart and examine it from every angle and treat it semi-seriously the forum would be dead. 

That’s not to say we’re serious about the seriousness. But figuring out the inconsistencies is fun. 

[loadoftottnumb]

Fair point, I am perfectly guilty of it, I’ve asked questions about the Holoship and Gazpachp soup on here. 

You don’t have to be mad to post here but you do. 

[Rudolph]

[Renegade Rob]

Red Dwarf is bizarre because it alternates between complete parody and having actual hard sci-fi and internal logic. Nobody really goes, how come in Spaceballs, when they watched the VHS of the movie to figure out where to go next, why were they able to figure out where the good guys were hiding but not EXACTLY where, since they still had to comb the desert, and also why didn’t the bad guys go even further ahead and see how things turn out so that they know what not to do in case they lose? It’s obviously a complete parody that doesn’t invite that level of analysis. 

Red Dwarf has its share of Spaceballs gags (Talkie Toilet, the Cat ships/flap door), and yet… it occasionally aspires to be something more. It’s got brains, man. The Inquisitor would let off Spaceballs but would judge Red Dwarf more harshly because it IS smart and internally consistent… but only when it feels like it. Usually never at the expense of a gag or expediency, but damn if it hasn’t held fast to its no-aliens rule, three decades in. 

Arguably, it’s at its best as a show when it remembers to be logical hard sci-fi (i.e. Series V), like its telling that the objectively best episode isn’t necessarily the funniest but has an interesting concept and story well-told, with a minimum of Spaceballs gags. 

So somewhere in the DNA of every episode, even something like Timewave, is a “version” of the show which can theoretically be held to a higher logical standard, even if in practice it only manifests slightly. 

[International Debris]

The other thing is Red Dwarf wants you to invest in its scenario and characters, thus they have to be grounded to some extent. The observation dome scenes, or an episode like Marooned could never happen if the whole thing was in a cartoonish universe. The second half of Out of Time wouldn’t be so tense and uncomfortable if we didn’t buy into these characters really existing and having stakes. 

VIII is as close to the wacky sci-fi parody world of Spaceballs and such that Red Dwarf gets, with its interior decorated internal organs and dancing spaceships and ”I’ve got a big knob now” mirror universes, and it’s a big reason the series fails so badly. 

[Podey]

Just been down a horrifying mental rabbit hole after pondering the question “why the smeg was there dog food on Starbug?” 

It seems unlikely that there would be sanctioned pets on board since we never see any crew members with a dog (unless you count Smeg Ups as canon), but then I remembered Holly’s “lasts longer than any other kind of milk, dog’s milk” line. This implies access to dogs but, again, they don’t seem to be on board as pets. 

Unless….. oh god, is there a level on Red Dwarf for farming and milking man’s best friend?!  

The other thought that occurred was that perhaps the dog food was for people who undergo the “man to dog” operation that Holly alludes to and that these transformed humans are the only “dogs” on board, though this has disturbing implications RE: the source of the dog’s milk.

[Frank Smeghammer]

The other thing is Red Dwarf wants you to invest in its scenario and characters, thus they have to be grounded to some extent. The observation dome scenes, or an episode like Marooned could never happen if the whole thing was in a cartoonish universe. The second half of Out of Time wouldn’t be so tense and uncomfortable if we didn’t buy into these characters really existing and having stakes. 

VIII is as close to the wacky sci-fi parody world of Spaceballs and such that Red Dwarf gets, with its interior decorated internal organs and dancing spaceships and ”I’ve got a big knob now” mirror universes, and it’s a big reason the series fails so badly. 

Science Fiction is a wonderful thing because it does set its own arbitrary boundaries and makes its fans insist on the medium sticking to them.

For example, many didn’t like the final Star Wars because somehow Palpatine returned. Of course, the flimsy throwaway nature of saying he is back is one of the larger reasons but it comes down to believability. Why is it that we believe that this mystical Force can make people live hundreds of years, choke someone to death without touching them, create lightning from nothing, manipulate minds and surroundings and all these incredible things…but one guy can’t use it to cheat death?

Because for one reason or another, we just don’t believe it. And that’s the golden rule. Your audience has the right to just say “nope, don’t believe it. Doesn’t fit”. And that’s all there is to it. They can’t suspend their disbelief in that slight bit of uncanny possibility.

For example, if the Harry Potter series had ended with “oh by the way Voldemort suddenly dies because Harry discovers a big fuckoff Laser Sword in the Hogwarts dungeon and turns Voldy into a kebab”, we wouldn’t be best pleased. But this is a world where magic exists?? People can use brooms to fly but you draw the line at laser swords? Why???

That’s an extreme example of course, but I suppose my point is that sci-fi concepts will make you believe that the impossible is possible, but it has limits and you can’t get away with anything.

Why do we not believe in mutating developing fluid but we believe in a stasis machine that freezes a person in time for 3 million years? Both are absolutely mental concepts. One fits what we think the show is, and the other doesn’t.

But could another show get away with “mutated developing fluid”? Of course, without question.

[Unrumble]

[Author]

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