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

[tombow]

What if Lister activated a hologram of himself to date holo Kochanski? Then got jealous. It’s never occured to me there could be a hologram of a living person on RD.

[tombow]

I watched After Work Josh “reacting” to that ep this morning, and now I’m wondering
Why do they discuss his next of kin when the human race is extinct?
How would he clone himself again?
I thought they were descendants but any who don’t look enough like Rimmer are got rid of, or maybe they’re sterile and just keep cloning.

Glad someone else watches his videos. His laugh is totally infectious, and I’m loving how he’s had such a positive reaction to British sitcoms, especially older stuff like Porridge. The first time I’ve watched a reaction video and it’s made me feel like I’m watching something for the first time again.

God bless ‘im.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

What if Lister activated a hologram of himself to date holo Kochanski? Then got jealous. It’s never occured to me there could be a hologram of a living person on RD.

The closest we got was Ace and Rimmer in Dimension Jump

Whilst you could have a hologram of a living crew member, why would you? They take up a lot of power and can only provide intellectual input. 

McIntyre can presumably continue most of his duties as a hologram, Rimmer or Lister couldn’t. And having a holo Lister would be pointless if you didn’t gain the added labour. 

Post accident, again why would you? What would Lister gain from his own Me2?

[cwickham]

Counterfactual universe: The 1987 electricians’ strike never happens, or Grant Naylor don’t have their meeting that leads them to drop Bodysnatcher during the hiatus, or whatever. Series 2 goes ahead with Kochanski as a full-time cast member. Does she survive the addition of Kryten to the cast, or do Grant Naylor take that opportunity to drop her?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I don’t think she’d have survived past episode 1 of series 2.

But who is to say we’d have had a Kryten episode in 2 that would leave to a permanent Kryten in 3?

Her introduction would completely upset the balance of the show (as we know it) so she’d either not make it very far or completely change the show.

I don’t think many of the s02 episodes would have survived with a Kochanski in them and if she were to stay around we’d have entirely different episodes altogether. 

But I really don’t think she’d make it past episode 1. Maybe a Kochanski centric episode focused on her relationship or lack thereof with Lister before she opts to turn herself off. 

[Nick R]

In a world where there’s only 169 crew on Red Dwarf Kochanski absolutely knows who Rimmer is. If it’s 1169 it’s less likely, but his reputation may precede him. Especially his gazpacho soup incident. I bet that’s been talked around the officers mess. 

I don’t think the gazpacho soup story would have spread far. I thought part of the joke was that it was really mild faux pas, but Rimmer made it into something bigger than it was, blaming it for ruining his entire career.

So the officers around the table might have laughed about it when it happened, and maybe occasionally afterwards as an in-joke among themselves. But I don’t think the story would have spread beyond them.

If Rimmer has a reputation among the officers, it comes from a lot of the other things he’s done over the years, not from the gazpacho soup thing!

But if Rimmer had let on just how embarrassed he was about that story… then it would have been gossipped far and wide, and been remembered as the ideal way to wind him up. But if can’t have been that well-known, otherwise Lister would’ve found out about it before the accident.

[Formica]

I mean, given the chrono-incestuous nature of Lister’s birth, really at least one half of his family tree is all just him, so who’s to say?

Mind you, that does make Jim and Bexley his half-brothers.

[International Debris]

Then got jealous. It’s never occured to me there could be a hologram of a living person on RD.

Bodysnatcher, innit

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Mind you, that does make Jim and Bexley his half-brothers.

And his uncles, etc. etc. etc.

[Formica]

Sure, but the question was about having a brother appear on the show. J&B probably fit that definition more closely than Able.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Eh, that’s subjective.

[Rudolph]

Just relistened to the Smegazine Rack podcasts, and it’s mentioned there’s a poster of the wrestler Sting in the Lows sleeping quarters in Demons & Angels. It reminded me that we also see a poster of the Marvel anti-hero Punisher in the same scene.


Inspired by someone else working out Lister is reading Alpha Flight #4 in Bodyswap here, I did a little investigating and worked out that the poster in question is by Mike Zeck and taken from his cover for The Punisher #3.

[Dave]

Excellent detective work.

[Starbugger]

You can see Robert’s hand as he waits for his cue to enter.

[tombow]

A head canon I’ve been mulling over is that Holly actually needed Rimmer to stop drifting and head home, with Rimmer being the only single crew member with enough practical knowledge of the entire ship to direct the shutters, and that’s why Rimmer remains in Timeslides. Not sure it can make sense though. Maybe he’d already done the job and set the course when Lister was woken. Him being a good companion for Lister was just icing on the cake 

[Frank Smeghammer]

A head canon I’ve been mulling over is that Holly actually needed Rimmer to stop drifting and head home, with Rimmer being the only single crew member with enough practical knowledge of the entire ship to direct the shutters, and that’s why Rimmer remains in Timeslides. Not sure it can make sense though. Maybe he’d already done the job and set the course when Lister was woken. Him being a good companion for Lister was just icing on the cake 

The reason Rimmer doesn’t die is because the visit from his past self inspires him to run to the second stasis booth as soon as he misrepairs the drive plate.

When he is visited by himself as a Hologram, it makes him aware that he is destined to die on Red Dwarf and in turn makes him more afraid of danger and death, and even more cowardly.

I don’t think Rimmer’s cowardice is even mentioned until Series III onwards. He’s not that cowardly in Series I & II

[Frank Smeghammer]

Of course he then dies at the end of Timeslides and is resurrected immediately because the crew do sort of want him back as much as they have a love/hate relationship

[Stabbim]

A head canon I’ve been mulling over is that Holly actually needed Rimmer to stop drifting and head home, with Rimmer being the only single crew member with enough practical knowledge of the entire ship to direct the shutters, and that’s why Rimmer remains in Timeslides. Not sure it can make sense though. Maybe he’d already done the job and set the course when Lister was woken. Him being a good companion for Lister was just icing on the cake 

Well, Holly’s had 3,000,000 years to himself.  I imagine he’s gone through the crew archive in succession many times in the interim, making sure each crewmember disk actually works.  Possibly even making backup copies to guard against disk corruption and the ravages of time.  He would have been able to practically test each one to see who could direct the skutters best.  And with Lister still in stasis, there’s even more systems that can be shut down as “non-essential” for the time being, so Holly could easily run countless 2 hologram experiments with Lister’s hologram as the control, to see who is in fact best at keeping him sane.

As for Timeslides, been a while since I rewatched it but I do remember Holly mentioning that it takes time for the new timeline to sort itself out, and only after a brief delay do Kryten and Cat disappear.  Which gave me the idea:

just as how the more faster than light you’re going the further into the future the future echoes are, the further back in time you go to alter history and/or the bigger change you try to make, the longer it takes for the timeline to “sort itself out”.  Thus why Holly has so much time to compare timelines and see what’s changed, and why Rimmer has so much time to remember what was and attempt another alteration.  it’s a 3,000,000 year trip; lots of stuff needs to resettle.

[tombow]

A head canon I’ve been mulling over is that Holly actually needed Rimmer to stop drifting and head home, with Rimmer being the only single crew member with enough practical knowledge of the entire ship to direct the shutters, and that’s why Rimmer remains in Timeslides. Not sure it can make sense though. Maybe he’d already done the job and set the course when Lister was woken. Him being a good companion for Lister was just icing on the cake 

The reason Rimmer doesn’t die is because the visit from his past self inspires him to run to the second stasis booth as soon as he misrepairs the drive plate.
When he is visited by himself as a Hologram, it makes him aware that he is destined to die on Red Dwarf and in turn makes him more afraid of danger and death, and even more cowardly.
I don’t think Rimmer’s cowardice is even mentioned until Series III onwards. He’s not that cowardly in Series I & II

but there’s also the “Lister gets rich” Timeline where it says Rimmer and Holly are alone for eternity.

[tombow]

…also, imagine how bitter Rimmer grew up in the final “thickie Holden gets rich first” timeline! Surprised he didn’t grow up to be a police interrogator or something 

[Frank Smeghammer]

but there’s also the “Lister gets rich” Timeline where it says Rimmer and Holly are alone for eternity.

Ah, yes of course, that is also an excellent point

[tombow]

here’s something that has occurred to me watching some random eps –

In the first few series, isn’t it a bit strange that Rimmer sleeps at all or needs a bed? Wouldn’t he just be turned off at night?

has the Dave era ever shown Lister or Rimmer in bed? (off the top of my head I remember Cat’s bedroom in Can of Worms and Lister in a hospital bed in Give and Take)

has there been a scene of Lister and Rimmer just talking alone, either in their bunks or just hanging out, since series 3 or 4? (actually typing that I just remembered the “dead moves” one in dear Dave, as well as the sun and moon emotional talk in Promised Land)

[Dave]

has there been a scene of Lister and Rimmer just talking alone, either in their bunks or just hanging out, since series 3 or 4? (actually typing that I just remembered the “dead moves” one in dear Dave, as well as the sun and moon emotional talk in Promised Land)

The one that sticks in my mind is the “rolling in smeg” bunkroom scene from Samsara where Lister is eating an ice-cream.

[Warbodog]

has there been a scene of Lister and Rimmer just talking alone, either in their bunks or just hanging out, since series 3 or 4?

Have you successfully lobotomised yourself of Series VIII?

[RunawayTrain]

In the first few series, isn’t it a bit strange that Rimmer sleeps at all or needs a bed? Wouldn’t he just be turned off at night?

Living a semblance of human normality, I’d guess maybe?  Though that would have been a good explanation for Rimmer going bald (alongside Chris in real life) and probably provided comic fodder as Rimmer’s vanity would have hated it.

Has the Dave era ever shown Lister or Rimmer in bed? (off the top of my head I remember Cat’s bedroom in Can of Worms and Lister in a hospital bed in Give and Take)

Are they in bed in The Beginning when Hogey comes in?  Rimmer lays on the bed in his robe moaning about something in … er … one of them – Samsara?  Lister with the mashed potato ice cream cone in the top bunk too.  But not sleeping *in* bed very often, I don’t think, except Lister sleeping off his surgery in G&T.

has there been a scene of Lister and Rimmer just talking alone, either in their bunks or just hanging out, since series 3 or 4?

Same as above in what-I-think-is-Samsara.  I think there’s a bunk room scene in BTE as well (in a shop, not on the ship) but they start off in the bunk room too.  Plenty of bunk room/cell scenes in VIII, but understandable you’d block those out!

[tombow]

oh yeah, I was actually thinking last week about how many bunk-y scenes were in 8 and BTE but forgot just now. Remember the Hogey waking them up too

Another thing I’ve never really thought about till now, both Queeg and Me2 Rimmer force Rimmer to exercise, can he even “get fitter” as a hologram, does he have any sense of getting tired. I can imagine his power draining but… couldn’t Holly just program him a stronger body? Though I suppose its mainly psychological in Me2 in terms of competing how disciplined they can be.

[tombow]

has there been a scene of Lister and Rimmer just talking alone, either in their bunks or just hanging out, since series 3 or 4?
Have you successfully lobotomised yourself of Series VIII?

its in the folder called “series bollocks”

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

oh yeah, I was actually thinking last week about how many bunk-y scenes were in 8 and BTE but forgot just now. Remember the Hogey waking them up too

Another thing I’ve never really thought about till now, both Queeg and Me2 Rimmer force Rimmer to exercise, can he even “get fitter” as a hologram, does he have any sense of getting tired. I can imagine his power draining but… couldn’t Holly just program him a stronger body? Though I suppose it’s mainly psychological in Me2 in terms of competing how disciplined they can be.

It’s a simulation apparently so he will feel tired depending on his muscle mass. He can get “fitter” by “working out” and the computer accounting for it.

[Warbodog]

can he even “get fitter” as a hologram, does he have any sense of getting tired.

They seem keen to establish his humanness early on with things like Holly giving him haircuts, shaves and showers, necrobics exercises, oversleeping. Though for some reason in Out of Time he seems surprised he could get fat or age as a hologram.

[International Debris]

There are quite a few drive room scenes between Lister and Rimmer in X. They’re the ones that all feel like awful standup routines – Shakespeare it’s over, dead moves, the man or the system. Similar is the sports commentator mail opening scene in Dear Dave.

XI has Samsara with the Mine-opoly game and then the ice cream bunk scene, and Lister trimming his toenails at the start of Krysis. Can’t think of any in XII. 

There are other bunkroom and cockpit scenes with Lister and Kryten, Lister and Cat or a larger ensemble, of course. Although they are almost all at the start of episodes. The mid-episode slow scene with the crew nattering about this week’s theme seems to have disappeared with IV. 

[Rudolph]

can he even “get fitter” as a hologram, does he have any sense of getting tired.
They seem keen to establish his humanness early on with things like Holly giving him haircuts, shaves and showers, necrobics exercises, oversleeping. Though for some reason in Out of Time he seems surprised he could get fat or age as a hologram.

Amusingly contradicting the episode immediately before it, where Rimmer spends six centuries in a prison without any noticeable change in appearence.

[International Debris]

Birdman’s boots are back!

Only…

…they never went away.

[Dave]

Thinking of Pete, could that awful “screw-oo-oo-oo-you-up” bit not have been fixed in the edit?

[Warbodog]

Birdman’s boots are back!
Only… they never went away.

Because for that one moment of the “story,” the Time Wand stops needing to directly zap things to affect them and just becomes a magic wand that can make people appear out of thin air.

Maybe the point was they were going to resurrect Birdman via his remaining boots / feet stumps, but that detail ended up being forgotten?

[cwickham]

I feel like the “screw-oo-oo-oo you up” scene is a conscious decision to do it live rather than via editing. A *baffling* decision, but a decision nonetheless.

[Dave]

I feel like the “screw-oo-oo-oo you up” scene is a conscious decision to do it live rather than via editing. A *baffling* decision, but a decision nonetheless.

It seems that way, but it’s a decision they should have changed in the edit.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

But if you wanted logic and internal consistency, why were you watching Series VIII?

[Flap Jack]

Maybe properly freezing the ooo-ooo-ooo guy when he’s meant to be frozen in post production would have been too difficult/costly, considering Kochanski’s in shot and is not meant to be freezing with him.

Besides, it all got laughs, who cares if it looks naff? Is what I assume they said to themselves.

[cwickham]

So, the opening scene of Balance of Power doesn’t really make sense once Bodysnatcher has been dropped and Future Echoes pushed forward, huh?

Also, I would be intrigued to know how much of BoP is taken from the pick-up week, because the audience seems *far* more receptive than the one for the original version of The End, except for the Rimmer-as-Kochanski scene (which is, in fairness, a shit scene).

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

So, the opening scene of Balance of Power doesn’t really make sense once Bodysnatcher has been dropped and Future Echoes pushed forward, huh? 

Why not?

[cwickham]

Lister says his plan is to get back to Earth even though (from the audience’s perspective) he’s just been shown empirical proof he never does last week, which had the whole plot strand of preparing to go into stasis for the voyage home. There’s also a natural progression from Rimmer’s roll-call in Bodysnatcher to the inventory they’re doing at the top of Balance, which is ripped up a bit by Lister clearly not being inclined to work at all at the start of Future Echoes. There’s also a passing reference to Rimmer hiding the personality discs which he did in Bodysnatcher.

As against that – presumably the scene of Lister asking Holly why he brought Rimmer back was added *after* they shelved Bodysnatcher?

[Flap Jack]

I definitely don’t consider the fact that Lister still wants to get back to Earth after Future Echoes a plot hole. Or rather, I don’t consider it a Balance of Power-specific plot hole.

At no point in Future Echoes does Lister (or any other character) indicate that they’ve twigged that the old man Lister echo means they never get back to Earth, and frankly I’m not convinced Grant and Naylor were even aware that’s what the implication was. Getting back to Earth is absolutely still the long term goal after Future Echoes, otherwise why even bother making a Holly Hop Drive, for example.

Ultimately it would just be so bizarre for them to write “Look out Earth – the slime’s coming home!” as a big mission statement at the end of the very first episode, and then pivot to “Actually, scratch that, I am guaranteed to die alone in deep space, oh well” before the first series is even done. I think Infinity makes it clear that was not the intended implication of the future Lister scene – the exact same thing happens, and Lister reflects on the fact that this means he must not go into stasis, but doesn’t think for a second that it means they don’t get back to Earth. In fact in the novel Lister not only tries way harder to get back to Earth, but the BTL plot directly depends on the reader believing that it could happen.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I don’t think it necessarily follows that him appearing in the bunk means he never gets back to Earth. All we know for sure is that Red Dwarf is still there and he’s on it. As you may recall, if a thing is predetermined to happen, then it will find a way to happen regardless of any changes of circumstance that would otherwise preclude it. If he settles on Earth, he’s still gonna have to return to Red Dwarf for that one thing.

[loadoftottnumb]

I recall reading somewhere, perhaps it was fan fiction, about a 178 year old (or whatever it was) Lister retiring to the decaying Red Dwarf in a forest or something, to complete his future echo duty. 

Sorry for the vagueness 

[loadoftottnumb]

Returning to not retiring, it had been ‘parked’ on earth for sometime 

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, I don’t think 171 year old Lister being on Red Dwarf and Lister getting back to Earth are irreconcilable, but it probably should have caused a “… hey, wait a minute!” moment.

The much bigger problem with old man Lister is that, unless you believe that future echoes aren’t certain to happen after all, it means that Lister is guaranteed to survive any peril he encounters for the entire duration of the show, and he should be confidently aware of this effective invincibility too, like an Arthur Dent/Agrajag situation.

Of course, future echoes aren’t certain to come true in the novels, because Lister permanently emigrates to a different universe before he can either turn 171 or have any children. Twice. (And in both cases they leave Red Dwarf behind.)

[Moonlight]

The much bigger problem with old man Lister is that, unless you believe that future echoes aren’t certain to happen after all, it means that Lister is guaranteed to survive any peril he encounters for the entire duration of the show, and he should be confidently aware of this effective invincibility too, like an Arthur Dent/Agrajag situation.

Cassandra except they actually effectively utilize the best idea the episode had?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Even if Lister did think the Future Echo meant he didn’t get back, and even experiencing the “cant change the future” stuff with Cat, I don’t think any of us wouldn’t push that to the back of our mind and be in absolute denial about it  and still attempt to return home. Otherwise you just has to completely give us on everything. 

He has also been shown that what you see, or think you see, isn’t always interpreted correctly. Rimmer thinks he saw Lister die. It was in fact someone else. 

The old man Lister scene could be old Lister leaving a recording playing in the future for young Lister to see as an echo, to encourage him to go to the medical unit to see his sons, so give himself something more to live for. 

[Formica]

Of course, future echoes aren’t certain to come true in the novels, because Lister permanently emigrates to a different universe before he can either turn 171 or have any children. Twice. (And in both cases they leave Red Dwarf behind.)

Was there anything that precludes another Lister hopping to the universe in another Red Dwarf to form the echoes?

[Formica]

In fact, Skipper establishing that universes diverge (and presumably always have) from a single point based on the effects of any decision in the Red Dwarf multiverse. This is something that is extremely tough tough to reconcile against the existence of the supposed set fate of future echoes.

It seems to me that there are several deranged explanations you could map onto this (I’ve thought of at least four but don’t feel like typing them all out now). My current favorite is that future echoes can echo back from any possible future universe, and the camera just followed down the timeline where they were all coming true because that’s what’s funniest.

[Author]

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