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

[Frank Smeghammer]

Unfortunately the cause and effect of changing timelines in Red Dwarf is one of the most inconsistent plotholes of the show. One minute the future is destined and cannot be changed, the next minute they establish that the smallest of changes can affect everything.

Depends what they want to establish. 

[Flap Jack]

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

Another Lister, possibly. Another Red Dwarf, I’m going to say no. The original Red Dwarf was the one experiencing the phenomena, so the echoes would have to be of events fated to take place on that Red Dwarf.

Although it being another Lister would be especially weird, because he’d be leaving messages for someone else, but pretending they were for himself. And the only way he’d know about the future echoes to begin with (and thus know to perform them) is if he also experienced them in his home universe (or I guess Holly could tell him, in Last Human continuity only), but he’d have no way of knowing if this new universe’s Lister had seen the same echoes. And is he giving repeat performances in 2 universes, or is he relying on a third dimension-hopping Lister to close the loop in his home universe?

Ultimately it’s a sci-fi setting so it’s always going to be possible to conceive of contrived ways the future echoes might still come true – hey, maybe the pan-dimensional liquid beast comes out of nowhere and takes Lister back to his original Red Dwarf at some point – but I’m just responding to what Grant and Naylor are actually telling us. And completely dropping the plot thread within the same book and then making it nearly impossible for the future echoes to come true is them telling us “the future echoes don’t come true”.

[Flap Jack]

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.

Oh yeah, this is essentially the way I take it too – well, not that it echoed from the future that was funniest, but just the one that was most likely to happen. That future echoes are less certain the further into the future they are. Even though that directly contradicts the message of the episode, it’s the neatest way to reconcile it with Jim and Bexley being safe in another universe, and Lister not being guaranteed to live until he’s at least 171.

The complementary theory is that it was specifically all of the time travel that caused them to veer off the path that would have lead them to Bexley’s death and old Lister on his bunk (in Timeslides and Out of Time most prominently).

[Moonlight]

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

It was actually Low Lister just fucking around. There are no babies, they just changed Rimmer’s appearance and had Lister pretend to interact with them. It’s an elaborate con to steal Red Dwarf during events that will transpire in Series XV.

[tombow]

I always thought that Series 1 and 2 were kind of a self contained story. And 3 onward being a kind of reboot. Maybe something like the last human novel is the “real” sequel to S1 and 2.

[Warbodog]

I always thought that Series 1 and 2 were kind of a self contained story. And 3 onward being a kind of reboot. Maybe something like the last human novel is the “real” sequel to S1 and 2.

I used to think it was nicely coherent too, but Stasis Leak already introduces a changed timeline by saving Kochanski, otherwise you have to come up with a tedious workaround for Holly misidentifying the dust that was never actually Kochanski, actually.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I always thought that Series 1 and 2 were kind of a self contained story. And 3 onward being a kind of reboot. Maybe something like the last human novel is the “real” sequel to S1 and 2.

I used to think it was nicely coherent too, but Stasis Leak already introduces a changed timeline by saving Kochanski, otherwise you have to come up with a tedious workaround for Holly misidentifying the dust that was never actually Kochanski, actually.

We don’t know she’s saved. We just know she married another future Lister three weeks before the crew died. She might have ended up on the ship for some reason day of the accident. She might have split with Lister in those three weeks and gone back to work. She’d have known about the accident. So that would have been quite morbid. Maybe she thought she could stop it. 

[Moonlight]

It wouldn’t be Series 1 and 2 if they weren’t teasing future plot developments that never happen.

[Flap Jack]

We don’t know she’s saved. We just know she married another future
Lister three weeks before the crew died. She might have ended up on the
ship for some reason day of the accident. She might have split with
Lister in those three weeks and gone back to work. She’d have known
about the accident. So that would have been quite morbid. Maybe she
thought she could stop it.

Yeah, I had a theory along those lines. That future-Lister thought he’d saved Kochanski, but whenever he actually got to the point of preventing her from dying in the accident, it created too big a paradox and the timeline reset. (Setting things up for him to became the less heroic Lister in Out of Time.)

Like with Future Echoes, the issue with theories like that is they work by actively undermining the story of the episode. And the story of Stasis Leak is meant to be that Lister and Kochanski eventually get their happy ending.

Unlike with Future Echoes though, I don’t give a shit about undermining the story of Stasis Leak.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

You know, Holly only said “she’s dead Dave”, he never specified that she was killed in the radiation leak specifically. It could still be that she wasn’t on the ship at all and he’s just assuming she’s dead because, well, it’s hardly likely that she’d still be alive 3 million years later, is it?

[International Debris]

How would she be used to grit the path if it wasn’t known she was turned into a pile of dust?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Shut up that’s why

(in case it isn’t obvious, this is a joke)

[Hamish]

We only have Holly’s word that is Kochanski, which could be suspect for a whole host of reasons.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

We only have Holly’s word about any of it. What if *he* slaughtered the crew, kept Lister in stasis for a few millennia, and the woke him up. As a joke. 

[Moonlight]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Nick R]

Holly as GLaDOS, you say?

Holly as GLaDOS.

[International Debris]

If Portal 3 comes along, I want Norman being a character in it. Whatever happens he’d annoy me less than Stephen Merchant.

[Flap Jack]

[Nick R]

If Portal 3 comes along, I want Norman being a character in it. Whatever happens he’d annoy me less than Stephen Merchant.

[RainbowGazelle]

When I was younger, I always interpreted the end of Stasis Leak as Future Lister marrying Kochanski, knowing that they would both die in 3 weeks time, but deciding it was worth it. So both their ashes will be around for Holly to identify in The End. Although I’m not sure how much sense this makes.

Actually, even if they did escape, wouldn’t they both be bothered by the fact they know that all their coworkers/friends are about to die? They both seemed pretty chill in that hotel room, as if no one was going to die at all.

[Dave]

So Kochanski just goes back to work and acts out the events of The End with past-Lister, despite knowing about the upcoming accident?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You assume this scene happened after Stasis Leak

Radiation Leak probably happened weeks after Lister was put in stasis. 

[Dave]

You assume this scene happened after Stasis Leak

Yes, but only as an excuse for my stupid GIF.

[Flap Jack]

You assume this scene happened after Stasis Leak

… it did?

[Flap Jack]

Oh right, you mean like, it maybe no longer happened after Stasis Leak changed the timeline? (Or rather, after Lister’s future time travel that had nothing to do with Stasis Leak changed the timeline.)

But that isn’t actually suggested by the episode.

[International Debris]

Radiation Leak probably happened weeks after Lister was put in stasis. 

Can’t be that long, he’s not gone into stasis in Stasis Leak and that’s three weeks before the accident. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

So how can he live to be the future echo at 171 and die on Red Dwarf in his early 30s?

[Dave]

So how can he live to be the future echo at 171 and die on Red Dwarf in his early 30s?

Easy, they take his remains to Backwards world and bring him and Kochanski back to life.

[Moonlight]

And then the Cat destroys a hillbilly vagina. See, it all fits together.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Stabbim]

And then the Cat destroys a hillbilly vagina. See, it all fits together.

“If he’s you, and you’re him, am I still me?  Who’s eating this pussy?”

[Unrumble]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Flap Jack]

Hey now, don’t libel the guy. The Cat definitely un-destroyed a hillbilly vagina.

[Flap Jack]

[Moonlight]

“Forwards” as a meme concept needs to be migrated to the main thread for further study.

[tombow]

I was watching Dimension Jump last night, and though I love it, I was thinking it would be more powerful if Ace was actually anything like normal Rimmer (IE, same voice, more similar look, just nicer and more confident). I find it hard to take him as a better-timeline Rimmer because he just seems so different, like a different character.

[Warbodog]

I was watching Dimension Jump last night, and though I love it, I was thinking it would be more powerful if Ace was actually anything like normal Rimmer (IE, same voice, more similar look, just nicer and more confident). I find it hard to take him as a better-timeline Rimmer because he just seems so different, like a different character.

He sounds like Rimmer’s high flying brother in Timeslides, which was nice continuity until The Beginning complicated it a bit. The differences between Ace and Rimmer are nurture rather than nature, so that’s the way you start talking when you become a Man of Honour.

The Ace in Stoke Me a Clipper was wearing a wig, which makes sense since that’s a physical, nature thing, but maybe you can just change your hair if you care.

[International Debris]

Ace’s overall appearance is definitely a bit on the cartoony end of things. He gets held down a year at school and as a result his hair starts growing straight and takes on an auburny tint. The voice is easier to headcanon: he started speaking with more authority to try not to seem so pathetic having been kept down, he became successful and thus spent more time with his brothers and other successful snooty types and his accent changed. I lived in Leeds for five years and my ‘the’s started turning into glottal stops, so it’s certainly not impossible. 

[RunawayTrain]

Ace’s overall appearance is definitely a bit on the cartoony end of things. He gets held down a year at school and as a result his hair starts growing straight and takes on an auburny tint.

He can afford straighteners, and cares enough to use them.

Either that or a straight perm.

Auburny tint?  Sun bleach from spending more time outside so the auburn shines through, maybe.

[Renegade Rob]

Perhaps Ace started off as a bitter parody of the macho rough-and-tumble marine types that young Rimmer simultaneously resented and aspired to be. There’s a great description of the Comedian in Watchmen where Rorschach is like “he saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a reflection of it, a parody of it.” 

When Ace says being left back a year made him fight back and he’s been fighting back ever since, it’s a great sequence, no question, but it always sat with me weird because at that point we hadn’t really seen Ace “fight” (give or take punching out Kryten and having to be held back after Rimmer makes the ‘spot the submarine’ jab). Ace in Dimension Jump was downright swell, a man’s man, so what was he fighting back against?

I wouldn’t put it past young Rimmer to start his persona of Ace semi-resentfully, as if to say “is THIS what you want?”. Parodying the very ideal his family and society want him to aspire to. The macho voice, the swagger, that hair. I can see him incorporating those as deliberate affectations and perhaps only over time did he grow into those sincerely. 

The prime universe Rimmer has done affectations as well, like in “Kryten” wanting to be called Ace and identifying himself as Captain A.J. Rimmer, Space Adventurer, and even pretending to be the captain of the SS Trojan. One can imagine that young left-back-a-year Rimmer was doing the same thing only much earlier, and it eventually got traction and stuck for “real.”

[tombow]

I guess for me it would have been more striking if Ace was just the Rimmer we know, but calm, confident, not cowardly, not back stabby or trying to get one over on everyone, lifting up those around him, etc. However, obviously that wouldn’t be as funny. As it is he looks and sounds so different I kind of have to struggle to feel that he is a Rimmer.

[Dave]

I also think that the point is that we’re seeing the two absolute extremes of what Rimmer could be – Ace is the best possible version, and (from what the closing text tells us) “our” Rimmer is the worst.

It would be interesting to see what the in-between Rimmers are like. What’s an average Rimmer?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Average Rimmer would still be quite lowly in the ranks, but probably a semi competent middle manager. 

Recognises he faults, doesn’t blame others but is still never going to be an officer.

Not quite a navigation office but above technician. Probably leading a small team. 

Could fix a drive plate without killing everyone. 

Ultimately everyone under his charge ends up promoting away from him.

Not completely unlucky in love, a string of fairly boring relationships in his teenage years and then a bit like BTL, ends up setting down with a wife and couple of kids.

[Dave]

Not that far from the one in the final world of Skipper, I guess.

[Rudolph]

When Ace says being left back a year made him fight back and he’s
been fighting back ever since, it’s a great sequence, no question, but
it always sat with me weird because at that point we hadn’t really seen
Ace “fight” (give or take punching out Kryten and having to be held back
after Rimmer makes the ‘spot the submarine’ jab). Ace in Dimension Jump
was downright swell, a man’s man, so what was he fighting back against?

I think it was more metaphorical than literal. Although we’ve seen and heard plenty of instances of Rimmer being bullied by his brothers and other school children. Dimension Jump starts with him being used as an improvised swing, for example.

And with their difference in hair, Ace does mention getting his highlights done in Stoke Me a Clipper and refers Cat to his stylist Alphonse at Astro Cuts in Dimension 24.

[Stabbim]

I also think that the point is that we’re seeing the two absolute extremes of what Rimmer could be – Ace is the best possible version, and (from what the closing text tells us) “our” Rimmer is the worst.

It would be interesting to see what the in-between Rimmers are like. What’s an average Rimmer?

As a technician only half are better

He looks okay in a Christmas sweater

Your chicken soup will never taste better

He does his job to the letter!

Average, Average, Average Rimmer

He’s smarter than some, than others he’s dimmer

Yvonne McGruder’s cooking his dinner

He’s Rimmer, Average Rimmer!

[Dave]

Excellent. 

[Unrumble]

Yvonne McGruder’s cooking his dinner

Pizza, I assume

[Author]

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