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

[clem]

[Formica]

I only saw 2001 for the first time a couple months ago. Of all the many Dwarf moments that are 2001 references, I didn’t expect a TPL scene to be among them.

[Dave]

I only saw 2001 for the first time a couple months ago. Of all the many Dwarf moments that are 2001 references, I didn’t expect a TPL scene to be among them.

Yeah, nice that it was one of the less obvious parts of 2001 to homage.

[Moonlight]

Futurama did that reference, but it’s not one of the four or five Space Odyssey references that literally every show makes to the point where people are only recognizing those references from other references and not from having seen the film itself.

I love 2001 so it’s sad to see that most references are just the same thing in every instance. I’m still mad about how hacky the one in Sonic Boom was. Literally pulled a computer character out of their ass to make an “I’m sorry Dave” joke (which wasn’t a joke, it was a stock reference with no twist) and then it never spoke again.

Dammit, this would have sounded like a more sophisticated post if I’d managed to work in the word “semiotics” somewhere instead of complaining about Sonic Boom.

[Ben Saunders]

Lise Yates?! Lise?! I always just assumed it was Lisa. I need to lie down.

[Flap Jack]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I refuse to believe it’s another other than Lisa. What sort of name is Lise?

[clem]

[Unrumble]

[loadoftottnumb]

I’ve always noticed it say Lise, but never cared enough to mention it in and ‘explain that’ type threads. 

[Nick R]

My first encounter with the episode was in the Programme Guide, so when I finally watched it I was surprised her name wasn’t pronounced with a short “i” like “Eliza”.

There’s a hole in my memory, dear Lise, dear Lise,
There’s a hole in my memory, dear Lise, a hole.

My foot has been broken, dear Lise, dear Lise,
My foot has been broken, dear Lise, my foot.

My jigsaw’s been finished, dear Lise, dear Lise,
My jigsaw’s been finished, dear Lise, jigsaw.

“It’s aliens!” claims Rimmer, dear Lise, dear Lise,
“It’s aliens!” claims Rimmer, dear Lise, aliens.

The black box is missing, dear Lise, dear Lise,
The black box is missing, dear Lise, black box.

Your name’s on this gravestone, dear Lise, dear Lise,
Your name’s on this gravestone, dear Lise, your name.

I’ll gift him your memory, dear Lise, dear Lise,
I’ll gift him your memory, dear Lise, gift him.

That did not go too well, dear Lise, dear Lise,
That did not go too well, dear Lise, not well.

There’s a hole in my memory, dear Lise, dear Lise,
There’s a hole in my memory, dear Lise, a hole.

[Warbodog]

You can’t spell Lister without Lise.

But you also can’t spell Hollister without Lister, so they might just be bad with names, Frankly.

[RunawayTrain]

Lise Yates?! Lise?! I always just assumed it was Lisa. I need to lie down.

Ah now, see, watching stuff with the subtitles* prevents things like this.  It does also mean I don’t have any funny misheard lines (but that is rather the point of subs).

*proper subtitles, of course.  Not cleaned up automatic YouTube captions passed off as proper subs.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Lise Yates?! Lise?! I always just assumed it was Lisa. I need to lie down.

Ah now, see, watching stuff with the subtitles* prevents things like this.  It does also mean I don’t have any funny misheard lines (but that is rather the point of subs).
*proper subtitles, of course.  Not cleaned up automatic YouTube captions passed off as proper subs.

Even the proper subtitles are truncated a lot of the

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

See also: The Wilmas joke.

[si]

I just assumed it was Lise, but just pronounced ‘Lis-eh’.

[Stabbim]

between this and Young Ones co-writer Lise Mayer I was just convinced Lisa with an E was just one of those British English vs American English things that I didn’t know about yet

[Podey]

I’ve been watching all of Star Trek for the first time and there have been a lot of “so that’s where Red Dwarf got that!” moments.

(I’ve been holding off commenting this because I know exactly what quote one of you smeggers are going to reply with but sod it…)

[Dave]

I’ve been watching all of Star Trek for the first time and there have been a lot of “so that’s where Red Dwarf got that!” moments.

(I’ve been holding off commenting this because I know exactly what quote one of you smeggers are going to reply with but sod it…)

Did anything happen that made you laugh?

[Unrumble]

I’ve been watching all of Star Trek for the first time and there have been a lot of “so that’s where Red Dwarf got that!” moments.

(I’ve been holding off commenting this because I know exactly what quote one of you smeggers are going to reply with but sod it…)

[Warbodog]

Some things that seem like they’re from Star Trek might themselves be derivative or similar to other works, but the most prominent ones to me are:

– The Klingon Bird-of-Prey-like Starbug being randomly cloaked that time and landing in a park (Star Trek IV)

– Tikka to Ride / The City on the Edge of Forever

– Twentica / First Contact

– The separation and crash landing sequence in The Promised Land / Generations

The other way around, there’s obviously Thanks for the Memory / Clues and the Voyager similarities, maybe also Camille / The Perfect Mate, though that’s kind of a stock idea.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Some things that seem like they’re from Star Trek might themselves be derivative or similar to other works, but the most prominent ones to me are:
– The Klingon Bird-of-Prey-like Starbug being randomly cloaked that time and landing in a park (Star Trek IV)
– Tikka to Ride / The City on the Edge of Forever
– Twentica / First Contact
– The separation and crash landing sequence in The Promised Land / Generations
The other way around, there’s obviously Thanks for the Memory / Clues and the Voyager similarities, maybe also Camille / The Perfect Mate, though that’s kind of a stock idea.

You forgot that fact that if it wasn’t for Kryten, Data wouldn’t exist

[Unrumble]

[Podey]

I am really enjoying Voyager, so I wasn’t surprised to see some people calling it a Red Dwarf rip-off (which I don’t really think it is) on the net. I guess people being stranded in space in small ships with one hologram in their crew is my thing. 

[Podey]

Some things that seem like they’re from Star Trek might themselves be derivative or similar to other works, but the most prominent ones to me are:
– The Klingon Bird-of-Prey-like Starbug being randomly cloaked that time and landing in a park (Star Trek IV)
– Tikka to Ride / The City on the Edge of Forever
– Twentica / First Contact
– The separation and crash landing sequence in The Promised Land / Generations
The other way around, there’s obviously Thanks for the Memory / Clues and the Voyager similarities, maybe also Camille / The Perfect Mate, though that’s kind of a stock idea.

I probably misspoke, to be honest, I meant more of a reaction of “oh, here’s that general sci-if concept that showed up in Red Dwarf!” rather than necessarily thinking they copied episodes directly, more that what I’m watching is just an earlier point in the chain leading to that RD premise. 

[Warbodog]

I am really enjoying Voyager, so I wasn’t surprised to see some people calling it a Red Dwarf rip-off (which I don’t really think it is) on the net. I guess people being stranded in space in small ships with one hologram in their crew is my thing. 

The first episode also sets up what seem to be various senior crew / main characters who then immediately die, though Voyager’s less extreme on the numbers generally.

[Warbodog]

(Based on 90s memories, anyway).

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Warbodog]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I think I broke my post so here’s a repost

[Ian Symes]

If I had a nickel for every time Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now posted a meme in this thread about having a nickel for every time someone made a sci-fi show about being lost in space with a hologram, I’d have two nickels.

[Jenuall]

I’ve been on a big Star Trek re-watch (or first watch in the case of quite a few episodes – turns out my BBC2 90s watching was not as comprehensive as I thought!) myself and there have been quite a few times where I’ve thought – “oh that’s quite similar to Dwarf!” 

Voyager was always the show that I was hazier on (TNG>DS9>VOY – fight me!) so it came as quite the shock early on to see Neelix giving himself a role on ship:

In one episode they encounter a wormhole and manage to talk to and even beam across a Romulan from the other side – a way back to the Alpha quadrant perhaps?! Oh no, of course – the other end of the wormhole is experiencing time differently to this end, I wonder where I’ve seen that before…

If even Arnold Smegging Rimmer knows about it then it’s ridiculous that the big brains of Starfleet on Voyager didn’t work it out!

Then in the episode Elogium the crew encounter some space creature behaving oddly, everyone’s favourite “terrible fraudster distortion of a native American played by an absolute real life dickhead” AKA Chakotay comes to a similar conclusion to Lister regarding the despair squid

Rather than scarpering, Chakotay thinks the best course of action is to give in and get humped though… 

And the other night I watched an episode where the crew are sent a blatantly false video message to get them to do something stupid which couldn’t help but remind me of Psirens:

[Flap Jack]

I miss the first couple of seasons of Star Trek: Voyager when the stories were mainly about the crew and their interactions. Nowadays they’re encountering new people and monsters every week it feels like, the universe feels way too populated. Is it not meant to be deep space? And don’t even get me started on how many times they could have got back to Earth, but didn’t. It especially went downhill for me when Seven of Nine joined. Rick Berman always said that having a Borg drone in the regular cast was too much of a cliché, and he was right.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

And don’t even get me started on how many times they could have got back to Earth, but didn’t. It especially went downhill for me when Seven of Nine joined. Rick Berman always said that having a Borg drone in the regular cast was too much of a cliché, and he was right.

Yeah but tits!

In all seriousness though, her and The Doctor episodes are some of the best. And I like Seven as she challenges Janeway’s (and Starfleet’s) philosophy constantly. Which is always nice to see. Critique of the Federation. To the point she point blank calls Janeway a hypocrite for persistently telling Seven she should be an individual then getting cross when she isn’t the individual she wants her to be, i.e. conforming to Starfleet/Federation ideals and ideaologies. 

She shines a light on The Federations imperialism and Janeway fucking hates it. Good TV that. 

[Warbodog]

[Formica]

TNG>DS9

Do elaborate.

[Jenuall]

TNG>DS9
Do elaborate.

Silver and gold, no losers there!

DS9 is amazing. It’s the deeper, more complex show for sure. I love the longer running story arcs that it does, and how it forces the series into darker or more morally ambiguous areas regularly. Characters like Garak, Dukat, Quark etc. are all time greats… But it’s not TNG!

There’s just something special and timeless about that show which will always appeal to me, I think it hooked me at just the right age and so whether it’s objectively the best or not (it isn’t!) it will always be my favourite! 

[Podey]

I don’t like DS9 all that much. There I said it! 

Didn’t like the first 2 seasons, warmed to it for 3 through 5 but am getting bored of it again.

 

Maybe it doesn’t help that I came from two remastered series (TOS* and TNG) to one that hasn’t been remastered and looks incredibly old.

 

* not that TOS, obviously

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Well, everyone’s got the right to be wrong.

[Rudolph]

I am really enjoying Voyager, so I wasn’t surprised to see some people calling it a Red Dwarf rip-off (which I don’t really think it is) on the net. I guess people being stranded in space in small ships with one hologram in their crew is my thing. 

I’ve always thought of Lexx as being the closest to a Red Dwarf rip-off: the adventures of a slovenly technician, an eccentric robot, a dead man and a being with some animal DNA in their makeup; set aboard a spaceship the size of a small city.

[Unrumble]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Moonlight]

This is a bit off topic but I didn’t want to start a thread over it. I’ve broken my toe and am going to be limping around for up to 12 weeks.

Please meme my injury, I need a laugh.

[Stabbim]

This is a bit off topic but I didn’t want to start a thread over it. I’ve broken my toe and am going to be limping around for up to 12 weeks.

Please meme my injury, I need a laugh.

[International Debris]

 I’ve always thought of Lexx as being the closest to a Red Dwarf rip-off: the adventures of a slovenly technician, an eccentric robot, a dead man and a being with some animal DNA in their makeup; set aboard a spaceship the size of a small city.

The episode guest starring Craig Charles and Hattie Hayridge certainly adds to the Dwarf points. 

Those Kai/Rimmer images have made me wonder if there’s a single Kai line I can actually imagine Rimmer saying. Two diametrically opposite portrayals of a dead character. 

[Renegade Rob]

Been watching TOS through for the first time ever, as it kind of passed me by until now, and on Paramount Plus… woof, those CGI remastered Galileo shuttle shots do NOT gel well with the otherwise perfectly fine-if-retro 60’s vibe. Not sure how bad the original shuttle exteriors were, but they must’ve been better than that. It just sticks out. 

But thank god that’s the only sci-fi series to ever have remastered ship exteriors awkwardly inserted into old episodes after the fact. 

[Warbodog]

Those Kai/Rimmer images have made me wonder if there’s a single Kai line I can actually imagine Rimmer saying. Two diametrically opposite portrayals of a dead character. 

[Warbodog]

I’ve broken my toe and am going to be limping around for up to 12 weeks.

Please meme my injury, I need a laugh.

[Unrumble]

[Podey]

[Author]

Replies