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

[Starbugger]

I was particularly grateful for the Promised Land coming out when it did.

Same, and it was my birthday so I was doubly grateful.

[cwickham]

Found in charity shop today

[Dave]

[Ian Symes]

[Dave]

[Renegade Rob]

By the way, did you all know that there’s a high end kitchen appliance line called SMEG? Everyone else I know seems to know about this, but I just stumbled upon it this year, and it’s like what, how did I not know about this? They even sell red toasters that say SMEG on the side (they don’t talk, but these days who knows). 

[Flap Jack]

By the way, did you all know that there’s a high end kitchen appliance line called SMEG?

…

Yes.

[Renegade Rob]

Eh, I knew I had to be late to the party on that, but imagine my surprise when I came upon a store and they’re all just on display together. 

[Flap Jack]

Smeg appliances are such a major reference point for (mainly casual) Red Dwarf fans, that I had to read your reply a few times just to convince myself it wasn’t a joke in itself.

People posting pictures of Smeg appliances (particularly toasters, for obvious reasons) as if they’re the first to notice the Red Dwarf connection is so ubiquitous, not only are such posts banned in the Escape Pod Facebook group, but “No smeg appliance posts” is literally the one and only rule in the Red Dwarf subreddit.

I’m jealous that you got to experience this moderately amusing coincidence 36 years into the co-existence of Red Dwarf and Smeg appliances. The rest of us are too jaded to enjoy it.

[Dave]

My favourite Smeg appliance/Red Dwarf reference might be this in-joke from Peep Show about Sophie Winkleman/Big Suze being in Back To Earth.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s a question a Unvierse Challenge too. Just as a point of fact. 

[si]

Found in charity shop today

What issue number is that Dandy? There’s a chance I’ve got it myself, and I want to check.

I will never run out of ways to be sadder than anyone else on here.

[Moonlight]

If Cat violates the holy mother is he still allowed to celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Frankenstein, or would people look at him funny?

[Dave]

If Cat violates the holy mother is he still allowed to celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Frankenstein, or would people look at him funny?

More to the point, if he did and it then turned out he was his own great-great-great-great-great-(three million years later)-grandfather, would that mean that with the two of them going round and round in time, the Cat race would never truly become extinct?

[Moonlight]

I was assuming she was already dead, so probably not. Something something at least his barbed penis won’t destroy her vagina.

[cwickham]

Found in charity shop today

What issue number is that Dandy? There’s a chance I’ve got it myself, and I want to check.

I will never run out of ways to be sadder than anyone else on here.

There was a huge box of Beanos and Dandys from the 90s (quite possibly donated by the same person as the T-shirt) and I picked up a couple, but the topmost one in the photo is issue 2635, dated May 23rd, 1992.

[Spaceworm Jim]

By the way, did you all know that there’s a high end kitchen appliance line called SMEG? Everyone else I know seems to know about this, but I just stumbled upon it this year, and it’s like what, how did I not know about this? They even sell red toasters that say SMEG on the side (they don’t talk, but these days who knows). 

I don’t believe you.

[Moonlight]

People thinking they’re the first to discover a SMEG Toaster comprises about 95% of Red Dwarf Facebook group posts. The other 5% is repeating the same four or five quotes over and over until the sun consumes us.

[Unrumble]

By the way, did you all know that there’s a high end kitchen appliance line called SMEG? Everyone else I know seems to know about this, but I just stumbled upon it this year, and it’s like what, how did I not know about this? They even sell red toasters that say SMEG on the side (they don’t talk, but these days who knows). 

I don’t believe you.

[Renegade Rob]

[Frank Smeghammer]

Redeemed yourself with that last meme in my books. Top drawer

[si]

Next step: teaching people how to spell Dwayne Dibly.

[clem]

Next step: teaching people how to spell Dwayne Dibly.

And Scutter. 

[clem]

And Kryton. 

I was faintly amused to see that self-confessed Red Dwarf fan Nish Kumar had a red Smeg fridge in his segment on Drunk History. At least I think he did, I mean it certainly looked as though it was recorded in his house. 

[Moonlight]

Aside from Craig Charles’ “Cash”, are there any instances of non-diegetic licensed music in Red Dwarf that are NOT part of Series 8?

That is to say, actual songs you might hear on the radio. Not instrumental library music, because there’s tons of that in the show. Pre-emptively disqualifying “See Ya Later, Alligator” because that’s played in-universe as part of the funeral, not as part of the episode’s non-diegetic soundtrack.

“High Noon” is a grey area because it’s a Howard Goodall cover and not an original recording but feel free to suggest it.

[Moonlight]

Next step: teaching people how to spell Dwayne Dibly.

And Scutter. 

On Plex, the episode description it pulled for Bodyswap spells skutter with a C. Someone tell Ed Bye I am never watching Red Dwarf again.

[Dave]

Aside from Craig Charles’ “Cash”, are there any instances of non-diegetic licensed music in Red Dwarf that are NOT part of Series 8?

That is to say, actual songs you might hear on the radio. Not instrumental library music, because there’s tons of that in the show. Pre-emptively disqualifying “See Ya Later, Alligator” because that’s played in-universe as part of the funeral, not as part of the episode’s non-diegetic soundtrack.

“High Noon” is a grey area because it’s a Howard Goodall cover and not an original recording but feel free to suggest it.

TOS can help answer this: https://reddwarf.co.uk/series/1/library-music/

(To navigate between series you have to manually change the URL rather than try to use the menus.)

[International Debris]

It’s a good job there’s a working backup of TOS, eh?

https://www.reddwarf.info/series/1/library-music/

[International Debris]

Seems like the answer is a bit of classical music in Timeslides, Rimmer’s music in the diving bell scene of BtE, and the Carbug scene. Everything else seems to be library music.

[Moonlight]

Classical almost doesn’t count but I’ll allow it. In that case The Last Day has some too.

Rimmer’s diving bell music is diegetic.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Aside from Cash, High Noon, See Ya Later Alligator, all the classical music from all the series including the well known Blue Danube Waltz and Four Seasons, Rimmer’s diving bell music and the music in the Carbug scene – there is basically, like, NO music in all of Red Dwarf??

[Jonathan Capps]

TOS can help answer this: https://reddwarf.co.uk/series/1/library-music/

[Dave]

Ha!

[Unrumble]

I’ve always assumed it was a case of “lol, let’s use an incongruous famous name”, but are there any potential layers that make this cleverer/funnier? Like her research was massively important for leaps in the medical world, and this episode is all about trying to eliminate a virus…

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ironically Madam Currie is dead, just like Caroline Carman

[Dave]

[Renegade Rob]

Sort of a cheat, but “Victory” by Darren Loveday and Stephen Loveday is that rock song playing during the sequence in Back to Reality when Lister/Sebastian is watching the other players in the “Red Dwarf” game, which, based on how we hear it in the corridor, is probably diegetic to Lister/Sebastian but not the players in-game. 

(Also, good on those players for even making it down to the cargo bay in that short period of time, to say nothing of finding Kochanski and booting up Starbug and clearly already having had adventures. How long were the Dwarfers in the recuperation lounge anyway, because those new players were not fucking around, maybe they were speedrunners.)

[Moonlight]

They were collectively trying to get the Kochanski% world record.

[Warbodog]

[Starbugger]

A mundane observation occurred while watching Dimension Jump recently, that Arnold Rimmer is a textbook vulnerable narcissist, while Ace Rimmer became a more overt/grandiose narcissist.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I just noticed this and pointed it out to Katie, and she encouraged me to tell everyone about it.

I grabbed this gif from Dimension Jump and I noticed something weird – 

Lister’s left leg appears to end with a stump just above the knee, and he seems to do the splits when he falls. Add to that that his head disappears after the first moment (as Katie pointed out to me), that his arms are clearly coming from the other side of the rails, that you can kind of see something moving behind as he comes down, and that the shot cuts away to Chris as he’s being pulled up and thus obscures him completely, I think that Craig is actually on the other side of the rails and he’s got a fake body which is then thrown out the side while he crouches down behind it; then when the angle changes, he discards the fake body and stands up. And it’s done so quickly and with so effectively that you wouldn’t even give it a second glance.

Well played, Ed Bye. Well played.

[Flap Jack]

Oh wow, excellent spot! By you and by Katie… whoever that is.

Though of course, if Ed Bye were that good, it would have been impossible to tell, rather than possible after 33 years and with popular access to HD-upscaled video playback. Better luck next time Edward Byesickle.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

 Katie… whoever that is

[Dave]

Hold on, are we saying that Craig Charles is swapped out for a dummy that falls through the bars? A really realistic dummy that’s then able to climb up again afterwards?

[Flap Jack]

Of course. A non-realistic dummy that couldn’t climb up wouldn’t work nearly as well.

[Dave]

What we didn’t realise is that Ed Bye’s super-realistic animatronic Craig Charles then went on to play Lister for the subsequent thirty years.

[Moonlight]

By you and by Katie… whoever that is.

[Flap Jack]

I’d just noticed Future Producer’s seemingly unique (AFAIR) habit of referring to another G&Ter using something other than their screen name, or a variation thereof.

Which I trust is not an actual faux pas, but it at least has the potential to confuse.

[Moonlight]

Blame my Red Dwarf server where we secretly plot to confuse and annoy you by using first names on G&T.

If anyone refers to a “KT” (which I know quinn has done several times) that is also me.

[Hamish]

Blame my Red Dwarf server where we secretly plot to confuse and annoy you by using first names on G&T. If anyone refers to a “KT” (which I know quinn has done several times) that is also me.

[Author]

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