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

[Captain Bollocks]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[loadoftottnumb]

[Flap Jack]

[Unrumble]

[Nick R]

[Warbodog]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Podey]

Just curious, what is everyone’s head canon explanation as to why the “Mr and Mrs David Lister” future of Stasis Leak never happened?  

(this is assuming, as my failing memory assures me, there has been no canon explanation)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Out of Time screws up the timelines and changes everything 

[Flap Jack]

Broadly, just that the amount of time travel they get up to causes the future to change (ditto for Bexley’s death).

But more specifically, it was that the Out of Time future was later down the line on the “Lister marries Kochanski” timeline (“in 5 years time you find another way to come back in time” lines up too well), so by getting into that scrap with their future selves – and in theory destroying the time drive, though Series VII undermines that – they set themselves on a course to avoid the Out of Time future, and therefore also to avoid the Stasis Leak future.

(Edit: lol, of course someone would post it first while I was typing)

[Podey]

If the Out Of Time confrontation is what changed it then that means that the brain-in-a-jar Lister was the Lister who married Kochanski? Obviously there’s no reason that her absence contradicts that as they’re from a MORE future point than the previous future selves.

Come to think it, don’t future Rimmer in both Stasis Leak and Out of Time both have moustaches, too?

[Podey]

Though, given that Lister wakes up after 200 years in Psirens, I think it’s fair that saying “the timeline of it being 5 years later fits” is a bit of a stretch.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Though, given that Lister wakes up after 200 years in Psirens, I think it’s fair that saying “the timeline of it being 5 years later fits” is a bit of a stretch.

They always talk about time relative to their actual waking lives. In VIII Lister even makes a point of saying “it’s been 5 or 6 years, not counting stasis”

[Warbodog]

Future Lister says that in 2077, so five years later is 2082, 73 years before he’ll be born.

[Podey]

Fair point!

[Warbodog]

I forgot Lister was actually born three million years in the future.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Broadly, just that the amount of time travel they get up to causes the future to change (ditto for Bexley’s death).

But more specifically, it was that the Out of Time future was later down the line on the “Lister marries Kochanski” timeline (“in 5 years time you find another way to come back in time” lines up too well), so by getting into that scrap with their future selves – and in theory destroying the time drive, though Series VII undermines that – they set themselves on a course to avoid the Out of Time future, and therefore also to avoid the Stasis Leak future.
(Edit: lol, of course someone would post it first while I was typing)

I heard an expanded version of that theory where it’s Lister’s failure to save Kochanski and the loss of his, um, everything, that contributes to their succumbing to hedonism.

[Frank Smeghammer]

I refer you back to Smeg Ups on this particular time anomaly

[International Debris]

The person who invented the time machine they used in Stasis Leak was only born as a result of the Inquisitor killing off one of his less worthy “sperms-in-law”. As a result, by erasing all of the Inquisitor’s work, the inventor was removed from time, the time machine was never made, and they no longer had the opportunity to go back to the pre-accident timeline. Also, other words and phrases starting with “time”.

[Flap Jack]

I heard an expanded version of that theory where it’s Lister’s failure
to save Kochanski and the loss of his, um, everything, that contributes
to their succumbing to hedonism.

Yep, ironically there’s a good chance it was me you heard it from to begin with!

https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/jokes-you-dont-didnt-get/page/17/#post-272885

It took me way too long to find where I posted it first, because of course it would be in the “Jokes you don’t/didn’t get” thread, not Unanswered Questions or Fan Theory Corner or this one.

It was all Warbodog’s fault for volunteering a plot point he didn’t get, rather than a joke.

[Podey]

You can tie Kryten’s absence from the Stasis Leak “future” into it quite nicely, too, given how against the different versions meeting each other he would have been, as per Out of Time. He wouldn’t have wanted to have been there because it would have changed how the crew reacted to him when they found him on the Nova 5.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Nick R]

Another way of reconciling it through headcanon:

The Stasis Leak future did happen for the Lister we followed throughout series 1 and 2.
But as we go from series 2 to series 3, the TV series “Red Dwarf” switches to following a slightly different timeline/dimension/reality/parallel universe, which features a Lister who is identical except that he’s not destined to experience the future seen in Stasis Leak.

(Similarly, in the books, the jump from Better Than Life to Backwards can be seen as set in a single continuous timeline, while Last Human hops across to following a different one. Or is that the other way around? Or maybe, are neither of them set in the original timeline, and the true successor to the Infinity/BTL continuity lies in Grant Naylor’s book “The Last Human”, which was never released in our timeline?)

If you want, you can extend this to say that between every series – or even between every episode – we switch to observing the events of a slightly different timeline.

There, I’ve just wiped out every single inter-episode continuity complaint in one fell swoop. You’re welcome, fandom.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The different series = alternate time lines is a not uncommon theory, especially when continuity is adhered to and changes regularly. 

Personally I don’t think it’s the sort of show that need reconciling at such a level. 

[Dave]

Wait, there’s continuity in Red Dwarf?

I prefer to imagine that there’s a slight shift to a parallel universe at the beginning of every scene.

[Moonlight]

I can live with backstories mutating all over the place, but there is no timeline in which I buy Lister and Rimmer pulling pranks together like schoolboys in Pete.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Continuity

[Dave]

CONTINUITY

[cwickham]

Would Lister really “not mind” that Rimmer had driven four people who rang the Samaritans to kill themselves and only object to the wrong number? Couldn’t that line just be “You spoke to five people and they all committed suicide! One was a wrong number!” without affecting the rhythm or timing?

[Frank Smeghammer]

I’d suggest Lister is saying that it is part and parcel of the job. People ring Samaritans at their lowest and sadly you can’t convince everyone. These people were suicidal anyway, it’s not necessarily Rimmer’s fault. He could have just been unlucky, new to the job so lacking the tools to help the callers, its not really Rimmer’s fault so to speak. He spoke to 4 extremely depressed individuals and they all committed suicide, hardly a surprise in some respects.

However the cricket score man, that just shows that Rimmer really is a depressing man to talk to. That’s the part that tops the whole thing off and cements that yes perhaps Rimmer was to blame.

I must add two things here. Firstly of course I know that the reality of the Samaritans is not like that. If someone has called up, they are very much more savable than your average suicidal individual. They’ve reached out for help so you’ve got a good chance of reaching them. They will also inform emergency services if they believe you are a danger to yourself and are about to do something “final”. For the sake of the joke on Red Dwarf, this detail is not important. The layman understanding of Samaritans is that they will try to talk you down off the ledge and may not be successful. They in fact have a very good success rate.

Secondly I really didn’t enjoy dissecting this section as it makes it seem really awful and callous for a quick throwaway gag

[Podey]

“I wouldn’t mind, but…” is a common crutch people use when exaggerating for comic effect so I wouldn’t take it literally.

[Warbodog]

[International Debris]

“I wouldn’t mind, but…” is a common crutch people use when exaggerating for comic effect so I wouldn’t take it literally.

To be honest, if we are taking it literally then it’s basically Lister saying “I don’t blame people working on the Samaritans phone line if they aren’t successful saving someone,” which seems like a reasonable attitude. The fact that it turned out Rimmer probably was to blame means he did mind. 

[Dave]

I’d suggest Lister is saying that it is part and parcel of the job. People ring Samaritans at their lowest and sadly you can’t convince everyone. These people were suicidal anyway, it’s not necessarily Rimmer’s fault. He could have just been unlucky, new to the job so lacking the tools to help the callers, its not really Rimmer’s fault so to speak. He spoke to 4 extremely depressed individuals and they all committed suicide, hardly a surprise in some respects.
However the cricket score man, that just shows that Rimmer really is a depressing man to talk to. That’s the part that tops the whole thing off and cements that yes perhaps Rimmer was to blame.

I must add two things here. Firstly of course I know that the reality of the Samaritans is not like that. If someone has called up, they are very much more savable than your average suicidal individual. They’ve reached out for help so you’ve got a good chance of reaching them. They will also inform emergency services if they believe you are a danger to yourself and are about to do something “final”. For the sake of the joke on Red Dwarf, this detail is not important. The layman understanding of Samaritans is that they will try to talk you down off the ledge and may not be successful. They in fact have a very good success rate.
Secondly I really didn’t enjoy dissecting this section as it makes it seem really awful and callous for a quick throwaway gag

[Nick R]

Between these two Samaritans scenes, they never actually specify that all the people who committed suicide were people who phoned up. The only one we know was a phone call was the cricket scores wrong number. The dialogue could be interpreted to mean that the others who killed themselves were his fellow Samaritans volunteers.

[Frank Smeghammer]

No I think you’re right though, International Debris made my point much better and more succinctly

Think there may be some other more recent reasons I deep dived into Samaritans and their work thinking about it

[Dave]

The really weird thing about that Samaritans callback in The Inquisitor is that Lister refers to four suicides, not five. So arguably he’s referring back as much to the Brittas gag as to the one from The Last Day.

[Moonlight]

I remember watching Brittas and being really turned off by the “Lemming Sunday” bit from Red Dwarf basically being copied. I’d be more inclined to suspect it was parallel thinking if the characters weren’t played by the same actor.

[Dave]

Yeah, I’m still not quite sure how they got away with that.

Brittas also died and got resurrected at least once, another blatant ripoff.

[RunawayTrain]

I’ve definitely seen the lemming joke called out before (probably on here at least) but also a comment that with it being a fairly obvious joke for that kind of character, it could be a coincidence.  But on this one, 

However I do feel inclined to defend the killing off/resurrecting though, because the joke was specifically that he was too annoying for heaven, but too fundamentally decent to not go there after death.  Which works with Brittas’ character, and is consistent with how he’s been portrayed from the start.  Laura explicitly talks about his decency when he’s in hospital after not looking at a level crossing in series 1 – he’s awful, but he genuinely cares and does what he truly thinks is best.

Yes they’re both dislikable characters, but for different reasons.  Brittas doesn’t have selfish motivations, he’s just completely and genuinely oblivious to the fact that people have different experiences and viewpoints, and that the world isn’t purely the way he sees it.*  He’s unintentionally awful, bulldozing people with positivity.  Whereas Rimmer is (or, perhaps more correctly after TPL, ‘was’) mostly motivated for selfish reasons and very negative.  I think I’ve seen it summed up that Brittas has too much self-confidence, and Rimmer doesn’t have enough.

*I really relate to that, as it’s not something I truly understood until my late twenties.  It took until my early twenties to emotionally grasp that other people were *actual people* with their own lives and feelings like me – very hard to describe, as I felt empathy before that and cried when sad things happened to other people, but that realisation meant I suddenly understood in a way that I hadn’t before, and I could connect much more deeply.  Then the later understanding that others have different experiences and viewpoints meant I could truly grasp that people didn’t feel or think the same way as me, and WHY.

I’ve always assumed it was because of autism; but whether that’s correct or not (I mean I definitely am autistic but I don’t know if it’s The Explanation for that or whether it was because of anything else instead) it’s definitely why I empathise with Brittas whilst feeling a bit sorry for him still being oblivious, knowing what he’s missing out on. 

Okay, brain’s gone and I have no idea if my train of thought got lost or if it was supposed to terminate there.

[Dave]

However I do feel inclined to defend the killing off/resurrecting though,

My comment about that was meant as tongue-in-cheek, apologies if that didn’t come across!

[RunawayTrain]

My comment about that was meant as tongue-in-cheek, apologies if that didn’t come across!

Ah sorry, maybe ‘defend’ was too strong a word – I didn’t fully twig that you were joking but I do know most comments on here are lighthearted at least  ^‿^  I just tend to get carried away with thinking things through too seriously.

[Moonlight]

I just tend to get carried away with thinking things through too seriously.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Author]

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