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]

Indeed there are no aliens in Red Dwarf.

But there are a shitload of GELFs

[Dave]

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.

You missed out DNA.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Confidence and Paranoia too

[International Debris]

And The Inquisitor.

Terrorform, too. 

[Flap Jack]

My interpretation was that Moonlight was looking for instances where a character or creature transformed their appearance in order to deceive others, therefore DNA and Confidence & Paranoia don’t count.

With the assumed addendum that the transformation has to be fantastical / perfect, so examples of “normal disguises” like in Stoke Me a Clipper and Back in the Red also don’t count.

[Warbodog]

Pleasure GELFs and Psirens don’t physically change their form, they only project the illusion. Psirens has always felt like a Camille episode.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Dave]

My interpretation was that Moonlight was looking for instances where a character or creature transformed their appearance in order to deceive others, therefore DNA and Confidence & Paranoia don’t count.

With the assumed addendum that the transformation has to be fantastical / perfect, so examples of “normal disguises” like in Stoke Me a Clipper and Back in the Red also don’t count.

Borderline I reckon.

[Warbodog]

Borderline I reckon.

[Stephen Abootman]

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[cwickham]

[Moonlight]

[Flap Jack]

[Moonlight]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

[clem]

[Moonlight]

Why are all of these from Series 8? I can’t think of any good ones because I don’t watch the one series that has all the disguises.

[Unrumble]

[Unrumble]

[Frank Smeghammer]

Only the Good is a Camille episode confirmed

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[International Debris]

[Flap Jack]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Flap Jack]

[Rudolph]

[clem]

[clem]

[Nick R]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[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

In other face-blind news, The Creator from BTE is also Hogey the Roguey

This is embarrassing now

[Flap Jack]

To be fair, he’s quite heavily made up as Hogey. It’s less of a face recognition problem as it as a memory-for-Red-Dwarf-guest-stars problem.

[loadoftottnumb]

I’m more amazed that he’s the geeky one in Carry on Loving. 

[Jenuall]

[Frank Smeghammer]

To be fair, he’s quite heavily made up as Hogey. It’s less of a face recognition problem as it as a memory-for-Red-Dwarf-guest-stars problem.

That has always been my weak spot in Red Dwarf Trivia. That’s why I’m doing my research on IMBD on this latest watch through

[tombow]

I was talking with someone on a youtube recap of parallel universe and we both thought Arlene is way more cocky, confident and aggressive than the male Rimmer. Do we have a point…?

[Nick R]

I was talking with someone on a youtube recap of parallel universe and we both thought Arlene is way more cocky, confident and aggressive than the male Rimmer. Do we have a point…?

I agree she does come across like that. But in-universe, that difference can be explained by the fact that the episode takes place on her home turf. If the episode was about Arlene, Deb, and the Dog travelling into “our” Red Dwarf universe, Arnold would probably behave similarly. 

[clem]

I agree she does come across like that. But in-universe, that difference can be explained by the fact that the episode takes place on her home turf. If the episode was about Arlene, Deb, and the Dog travelling into “our” Red Dwarf universe, Arnold would probably behave similarly. 

There is that, and Rimmer saying he gets like that when he’s drunk but I don’t find Arlene believeable as a female version of Rimmer for the most part. It seems like Rob and Doug got carried away with their right-on premise for the episode, wanted to make a point about sexual politics and the characterization suffered as a result. Mostly Arlene is the problem, although the idea that Lister would take the dickish attitude that “it’s the [wo]man’s responsibility” never sits right with me either. 

[International Debris]

Arlene behaves how Arnold would like to behave / how he thinks he behaves, but she’s definitely a lot more confident than our Rimmer.

[loadoftottnumb]

Arlene is one of the few characters I actually dislike watching, she just comes across as deranged and insufferable. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Arlene behaves how Arnold would like to behave / how he thinks he behaves, but she’s definitely a lot more confident than our Rimmer.

To be fair to Rob and Doug, they do write Rimmer as having a little more confidence in this episode. The whole talk about how he tries to pick up women, whilst creepy, is definitely not the Rimmer we know. He wouldn’t have the balls to approach anyone let alone try and trick them into bed with hypnosis. 

That doesn’t make it much better. But maybe it’s an indication of how Rob and Doug hadn’t really nailed down Rimmer as well as they do later on.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Arlene is an okayish reflection of who we think Rimmer is that early on in the show. Rob and Doug are writing a female counterpart for a character who has only had 6 episodes to his name at the point of writing. Hardly an established and fully fleshed out character. You have to remember that we are seeing this with hindsight and reams and reams of further character evidence of later series.

In a lot of ways, you have to see it as Arlene showing off to the visitors. It is her ship, she is acting senior officer, and so the confidence stems from that. In hindsight, perhaps she should have been less aggressive and more like Arnold in Kryten when he thinks he is about to meet the ladies of the Nova 5. Toffed up to the nines, shouting Esperanto that he barely understands etc, to try to impress the men coming aboard

I think we have to give credit where it is due and say the mannerisms and delivery of lines is excellent and bang on for Rimmer, but yes perhaps that is not how he would have reacted were the roles reversed.

[International Debris]

On the whole it just feels like an exaggeration for the benefit of the plot, which isn’t unusual for the show and it works for the episode, so it doesn’t bother me massively.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

What’s Arlene’s version of elbow titting? Knee balling?

[Dave]

What’s Arlene’s version of elbow titting?

Tit elbowing

[Moonlight]

That has always been my weak spot in Red Dwarf Trivia. That’s why I’m doing my research on IMBD on this latest watch through

I feel like going to IMDb for TV trivia is like going to a creationist for a primer on evolutionary biology. Anyone can post anything without a source but you’re required to provide a source to contest a piece of trivia.

[Author]

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