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

[Warbodog]

I’ve never really given it that much thought before, but it really is very obvious that Kryten is meant to end with the space bike blasting off into space but they couldn’t manage it, isn’t it?

[Flap Jack]

[Moonlight]

If I recall, the Remastered version has Kryten fly away into the background of the Series V credits.

[cwickham]

And then it fades to the usual pan over the Remastered ship, which looks weird but it’s still a slight improvement on the original overall?

[Starbugger]

I’ve never really given it that much thought before, but it really is very obvious that Kryten is meant to end with the space bike blasting off into space but they couldn’t manage it, isn’t it?

The Gallifrey Gals YouTube channel has recently started reacting to the show, and they’ve been quite confused about where Kryten went and why he wasn’t in the rest of Series 2.

[Moonlight]

Hahaha, stupid normies being confused by a really unclear ending. Amateurs.

[Moonlight]

Slightly off topic and I may have said this before I specifically remember the first time I watched Officer Rimmer seeing them tell it to make a list and thinking they were setting up some clever payoff to Captain Herring turning into paper after completing his task, by tricking the Rimmonster into either completing its list or writing a list it had already completed.

I’m also mad at all of you for not adopting my term “Rimmonster” to refer to it. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.

[Unrumble]

I’ve never really given it that much thought before, but it really is very obvious that Kryten is meant to end with the space bike blasting off into space but they couldn’t manage it, isn’t it?

They did finally manage it for Remastered, and it looks ropey.

Considering some of the remastered ropiness, the space bike isn’t that bad really?

Remastered was my first experience of this ep, I was surprised when I finally saw the original ended on that freeze frame, as the remastered clearly shows they at least filmed the take off, if not the ‘blasting into space bit’ at the time. 

[Nick R]

I’m also mad at all of you for not adopting my term “Rimmonster” to refer to it. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.

A Rimmonster remonstration?

[Nick R]

Considering some of the remastered ropiness, the space bike isn’t that bad really?

A Remastered remonstration?

[International Debris]

Remastered was my first experience of this ep, I was surprised when I finally saw the original ended on that freeze frame, as the remastered clearly shows they at least filmed the take off, if not the ‘blasting into space bit’ at the time. 

Yeah, it’s one of a tiny number of bits I still haven’t got used to. I actually watched the what’s changed text track on the Bodysnatcher Remastered eps recently and was amazed at how so much of it feels unfamiliar these days, despite it being the version I watched at the point in my life when I could happily watch an episode 50 times without getting bored. But the endings of Kryten and Stasis Leak still feel horribly truncated on the originals for me. 

[Moonlight]

I imported The Bodysnatcher Collection around 2009 when I’d already owned the originals for a little while, and Remastered was always more of a curiosity for me than something I actively watched over the originals. I never had a chance to be a fan during the time when Remastered was as or more accessible than the original episodes, and I have no idea what the situation with PBS over here was with regard to which versions aired. I was excited for Remastered because I kinda had the naïve impression that it would generally be really cool and an improvement, and I was a little too young to see how shit a lot of it looked at first. I distinctly remember seeing a pretty trash close up fly-by of Red Dwarf and thinking it looked awesome. I did actually watch Remastered a fair amount but I always watched the originals more.

My first memory of watching the collection is putting on The End Remastered for the first time, and when the skutter bullshit happens my dad matter-of-factly remarks “That looks terrible.”

[Warbodog]

the time when Remastered was as or more accessible than the original episodes

For years, Remastered I-III and VII-VIII was the only Red Dwarf that was commercially available and broadcast (at least by the BBC). So, you know, only everything apart from all the best Red Dwarf in its original form or at all. They removed the pre-VII videos from shops around 1996/7, then it took until 2004 for it all to be available on DVD.

At least they were still in Blockbuster and places, and repeated on UK Gold or something all the time if your family prioritised telly appropriately.

[Frank Smeghammer]

You’re all going to laugh at me but I never spotted that in Gunmen the Simulant Captain also plays Death.

It’s Gunmen of The Apocalypse so I have watched it an unfathomably vast number of times. I’ve been watching it since I was barely out of nappies, many many times a year for many years and I never noticed this until 20 minutes ago.

Please please someone else tell me you didn’t notice this either so I feel less insane

[Unrumble]

Think everyone has examples of things they didn’t notice for years, I certainly do. 

On the other hand:

[Moonlight]

I’m face blind so I have an excuse.

[tombow]

I never noticed Bongo was Kryten as a kid until I saw dna

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’ve never really given it that much thought before, but it really is very obvious that Kryten is meant to end with the space bike blasting off into space but they couldn’t manage it, isn’t it?
The Gallifrey Gals YouTube channel has recently started reacting to the show, and they’ve been quite confused about where Kryten went and why he wasn’t in the rest of Series 2.

That’s a fairly good point as it goes. Having unfortunately grown up with only Remastered to watch for so long, knowing how they intended to end it meant watching the original made a lot more sense and you don’t have any questions. 

[Warbodog]

I can’t remember the remastered ending at all, I only watched it on the ’99 broadcast. I imagine an OG ’80s viewer would expect Kryten to return at least once, since he’s notably and uniquely still around, and Rob and Doug did actually give a lot of attention to continuity in those early days. Maybe he’d help with birthing and raising Lister’s twins, since that’s going to be a pretty major change in the dynamic from now on.

[Dave]

It’s funny how the exact timing of your introduction to Red Dwarf affects how you see Remastered.

For me, Remastered was just this slight oddity that I forgot about almost as soon as it happened, as I already had my various official VHSs and off-airs of the original episodes to watch as the definitive versions.

But just a couple of years later, it seems like any fans getting into Red Dwarf would have had Remastered as the core version of I-III and would have then had to get used to the original versions later on.

[International Debris]

On the plus side, I can imagine getting used to the originals is a much more enjoyable experience than getting used to the remastered versions.

Weridly, Remastered are the only official videos I had, my IV-VIII were all off-airs. I don’t think I even saw any in shops other than VII Xtended (avoided a bullet there), although I do remember my mum’s friend lending me the 1 & 2 tapes at some point in the mid ’90s.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s funny how the exact timing of your introduction to Red Dwarf affects how you see Remastered.
For me, Remastered was just this slight oddity that I forgot about almost as soon as it happened, as I already had my various official VHSs and off-airs of the original episodes to watch as the definitive versions.
But just a couple of years later, it seems like any fans getting into Red Dwarf would have had Remastered as the core version of I-III and would have then had to get used to the original versions later on.

As Warbo said further up, for the longest time it was all that was available. Took years to acquire original VHS or wait for the DVDs. 

It took a long time for the OG versions of the shows to surpass Remastered in my internal memory when thinking about the shows. And there’s occasionally still certain things that I don’t expect. The whole black card thing in balance of power feels out of place. And the lack of “yes god” at the end of The End is missed. 

[Flap Jack]

Weridly, Remastered are the only official videos I had, my IV-VIII were
all off-airs. I don’t think I even saw any in shops other than VII
Xtended (avoided a bullet there), although I do remember my mum’s friend
lending me the 1 & 2 tapes at some point in the mid ’90s.

Well, the artwork on the Remastered VHS tapes is arguably the best thing about the whole project.

[Unrumble]

But just a couple of years later, it seems like any fans getting into Red Dwarf would have had Remastered as the core version of I-III and would have then had to get used to the original versions later on.

Yep. I had been able to borrow Series I, Series II Byte II and Series III Byte I off friends when I was a little younger, but then Remastered came out, and as an innocent 11-12 year old, I would’ve assumed that label meant a massive upgrade.

Don’t think I saw the original Kryten -TFTM, or Bodyswap-TLD until the DVDs came out, by which point things like the ending of Kryten, or the CGI chase in Bodyswap were seared onto my brain and definitive. 

The one oddity was that despite already knowing the originals, I also bought the Series III Byte I remastered, as I adored those episodes, so for a while the two Polymorph endings kind of existed side by side, with neither being considered being better than the other, just ‘alternative’. 

[Hamish]

I have no idea what the situation with PBS over here was with regard to which versions aired.

I distinctly remember KCTS-TV in Seattle used the Remastered versions when they were going through the entire show at some point in early 2000s. The cat evolution artwork specifically springs to mind.

Most of the PBS broadcasts my parents recorded on VHS were from around the time that Series III and IV first arrived in the US though. Much of the pledge drive banter concerned explaining away all of the changes to the format of the show when compared to Series I and II.

We also had the first bytes of Series IV and Series VI put out by CBS Fox that my father bought while on a business trip to Coquitlam when I was kid. Plus later recordings of Series VI, VII, and VIII when they were being broadcast on Showcase here in Canada.

[Ian Symes]

I imagine an OG ’80s viewer would expect Kryten to return at least once, since he’s notably and uniquely still around

So you’re telling me that Snacky went off on a space bike at the end of Give & Take, but will turn up with a slightly updated design and a different actor in Series XIV?

[Dave]

SNACK IN THE RED, PART ONE

[Nick R]

Mundane observation:

If Holly’s parallel universe counterpart is called Hilly, does that mean that the computer on the parallel universe Holoship is called Sticky?

(She has stichastic capabilities.)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Gordon is called Girdin. Queeg was called Quaag.

[International Debris]

Queeg was Quagaar.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Arnild Rommer

[Frank Smeghammer]

The rogue emotions are listed in alphabetical order, with the exception of Love which is just tacked on the end

[Formica]

Wasn’t this guy banned?

[Frank Smeghammer]

Wasn’t this guy banned?

I know, I’m sorry. It conjures lots of bad memories

Series VIII…banned G&T users…Robert’s bad facial acting when not in a mask….

The whole horror is there

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Look at the options in the top left of that Data Doctor image

Desktop

System

Help

?

surely ? Denotes help too. Poor UI.

[Stabbim]

Queeg was Quagaar.

A handsome alien man, with long green hair and six testicles

[Moonlight]

Look at the options in the top left of that Data Doctor image

Desktop
System
Help
?
surely ? Denotes help too. Poor UI.

? is a mystery option where you get to play a 3D recreation of Green Hill Zone if you unlock all 180 emblems.

[International Debris]

When you press ? and hover the cursor over other bits of the screen a little box tells you what those bits do, obviously.

[loadoftottnumb]

Slightly off topic and I may have said this before I specifically remember the first time I watched Officer Rimmer seeing them tell it to make a list and thinking they were setting up some clever payoff to Captain Herring turning into paper after completing his task, by tricking the Rimmonster into either completing its list or writing a list it had already completed.

I’m also mad at all of you for not adopting my term “Rimmonster” to refer to it. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.

Well if you’re going off topic I’ll stay there to give a bit of an answer. I mentioned elsewhere I saw OR filmed and the whole first scene is removed where Rimmer bollocks Lister for not doing the MOT on the ramscope, whereby they then have a back and forth about making to-do lists and always having a pen etc, which the ending references. 

Oddly the whole ‘promoted/demoted’ technician 2.5’ stuff was originally included at the start of this episode, which would have made much more sense, Listers ‘welcome back Techinician 2.0’ line even survives later.

[Stephen Abootman]

[tombow]

I always thought Officer Rimmer should have had an ending where Lister says “sorry it didn’t work out man” or similar, and Rimmer, having had his fill of power, just says with a smile “c’mon Listy, where’s my nozzle cleaner? I’ve got some soup machines to clean out” and goes off happy.

[Dave]

I always thought Officer Rimmer should have had an ending

Seconded.

[tombow]

and a beginning too, from what Tott Numb says…

[Flap Jack]

[RunawayTrain]

That Private Eye lookalike is incredibly harsh, Kryten is far more of a human and with an infinitely better existence than the other guy could ever dream of.

[cwickham]

The “Everybody’s Dead, Dave” music playing as they enter Better Than Life is a nice bit of foreshadowing. Also part of the vibe that it was meant to go first before Kryten turned out so well.

Also never noticed the Better Than Life logo on the monitors before.

[Moonlight]

Better Than Life would actually be a hell of an opener coming off Series 1 with its approximately zero location shots. Unless you count the lighting gantry.

[Moonlight]

I have scientifically calculated that there are in fact 6 polymorph episodes:

Balance of Power

Polymorph

Camille

Psirens

Emohawk

Can of Worms

I will not be taking questions.

[Flap Jack]

I will not be taking questions.

Well that’s a shame, because I definitely have some, but I respect your right to privacy.

[Flap Jack]

Also, you forgot Queeg.

[Author]

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