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

[Renegade Rob]

Pretty sure the antagonism thing was the reason in the novels, no? It’s been years, but I vaguely recall there being a sequence of Lister aimlessly moping around naked as the last human, so eventually Holly brought in Rimmer to get him back on track. 

[Dave]

Presumably he becomes headlight eventually

[Unrumble]

Pretty sure the antagonism thing was the reason in the novels, no? It’s been years, but I vaguely recall there being a sequence of Lister aimlessly moping around naked as the last human, so eventually Holly brought in Rimmer to get him back on track. 

There is this. But it could easily be explained away as “Miss Kochanski’s psychobabble” as opposed to her having any knowledge or insight into Holly’s decision. 

[Flap Jack]

Holly does also pull out the “Hell is being locked forever in a room with your friends” quote when justifying his decision, which suggests that the nature of Lister and Rimmer’s relationship – not just the quantity of it – may have been a factor.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I still maintain Holly revived Lister as a companion to Cat, otherwise there was no real reason to wake him to the news everyone is dead – unless Holly has this unmovable belief in absolute free will and he was giving Lister a choice. But given the choice it just seems cruel. 

[Flap Jack]

That idea doesn’t really make sense. Holly has no particular obligation to The Cat, and Cat doesn’t exactly act like he’s in desperate need of human companionship.

He says “I couldn’t release you until the radiation reached a safe background level”, so the clear implication is that Holly is more or less compelled by his programming to release Lister as soon as it’s safe to do so (as long as he’s completed his sentence). It may be cruel to wake him up, or it may not be, but that’s not for Holly to decide.

Although I don’t personally think it is cruel. Lister’s situation isn’t going to become less bleak just from him being left in stasis for some more centuries or millennia. Sure, hypothetically Holly could make the decision to go back to Earth himself and only revive Lister when they got there, but even if Earth is still there and still populated, it won’t change the fact that it’s millions of years in the future and everyone Lister’s ever met is dead. And if Earth isn’t still alive, Holly may have stolen Lister’s last chance to have a living humanoid companion in The Cat. If Lister wants to go back into stasis for the return journey he can choose that. It doesn’t help Lister in any way to take the choice away from him.

[Ridley]

I take “I couldn’t release you until the radiation reached a safe background level” to have an unspoken “or you’d die” not lack of ability to do it.

Although if we’re doing Holly following programming, I’m still partial to idea of the JMC shooting irradiated space Titanic as far away from Earth as possible to avoid dealing with the consequences as an explanation for why Holly didn’t simply stop.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

irradiated space Titanic

I nominate this quote for the Hall of Fame.

[Renegade Rob]

Three million years is such a specifically long time that I always kind of assumed that Lister was let out as a matter of protocol the exact second that the radiation sensors indicated that it had subsided to a safe degree.  

I’ve always wondered though, whatever a stasis leak is, presumably the time-ness is leaking from somewhere that it’s otherwise supposed to be, so does the existence of a stasis leak correspond to a nonfunctional or semi-functional stasis pod where time isn’t fully stopped? Perhaps Lister’s stasis booth ran out of gas because of the time leakage, with the leak’s “magic door” connecting the eras shortly before and shortly after Lister’s time in stasis. 

Also, it doesn’t count as an “irradiated space Titanic” unless there’s Kylie Minogue and an evil mustache guy with a metal box for a body. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

What about Douglas Adams’ Starship Titanic? Doesn’t that get a look-in?

[Renegade Rob]

Whoops, forgot about that. Good call. 

[Flap Jack]

Fun fact: “Starship Titanic” was the working title of that Doctor Who episode, until someone pointed out to Russell T Davies that it was already the title of the Douglas Adams game.

[Nick R]

[Dave]

[cwickham]

[clem]

[Renegade Rob]

[Podey]

Well, you see, the thing about black holes…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/black-hole-thats-33-times-bigger-than-the-sun-found-lurking-undetected-close-to-earth-13116094

[Unrumble]

I like how it’s described as ‘lurking’, suggesting it has some kind of nefarious plan.

[Frank Smeghammer]

I like however when something in outer space is described as “close to Earth” they actually mean billions of miles away

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I like however when something in outer space is described as “close to Earth” they actually mean billions of miles away

Space is big. Really big. 

[Flap Jack]

Light cannot escape a black hole, so while the black hole is 2,000 light years away from Earth, Earth is Ꝏ light years away from the black hole.

[Podey]

They didn’t really say if they liked it or not but I think they did? Laughed plenty throughout.

Unfortunately their comments about what they like and dislike about Kochanski’s portrayal doesn’t bode well for series 8….

 

[Ridley]

Is the way the comments throw out trivia typical with reaction videos or is it unique to these particular ones?

I predict Blue will go down well.

[Ridley]

The cast hated filming the Rimmer Experience sequence except for Chloe Annett.

[Podey]

There is usually some trivia thrown about but I don’t really watch enough to say if it’s more or less than average. 

Some of it does remind me of #DwarfFacts….

[Ian Symes]

I wonder if there’s an element of mansplaining as to just how big a percentage of their comments are of that nature.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Why does there need to be a gender-based term for being a condescending twat?

[Ian Symes]

Of course, women can be twats too. But there is a specific brand of twattery from largely cis, largely straight men who feel the need to explain everything to women because they assume that their tiny lady brains couldn’t possible know as much as them. It’s distinct enough to warrant its own term. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Touché.

[Warbodog]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is that Paul Whitehouse?

[Podey]

Is that Paul Whitehouse?

From Harry Enfield and Chums (or one of those shows), I’d guess. The other bloke is Enfield. 

[Formica]

I wonder if there’s an element of mansplaining as to just how big a percentage of their comments are of that nature.

It seems part mansplanation, part sort-of-warranted correction when they do actually get something wrong, and part just that a natural response to seeing people enjoy something you enjoy is to tell them little things about it. Also, it does seem like they encouraged it at a couple points across the run, it’s probably pretty good for boosting their channel even if sometimes irritating.

[Podey]

They did explicitly say they love reading all the trivia that people post in that new episode, for what it’s worth. 

[cwickham]

In the opening scene of Cassandra Norman Lovett’s neck is visible.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

In the opening scene of Cassandra Norman Lovett’s neck is visible.

Oooo matron 

[Warbodog]

Is that Paul Whitehouse?

From Harry Enfield and Chums (or one of those shows), I’d guess. The other bloke is Enfield. 

Yes, Women: Know Your Limits. Ian’s comment about tiny lady brains that I’m quoting out of context reminded me.

[tombow]

I was just thinking that when Kochanski cries “I’ve tried to fit in” she sounds like she just recently got stranded from a “good” ship, like pre accident Red Dwarf. I forgot she was just with the regular RD crew, but a more sensitive version. I mean, they may have been more mature, but they were still a bunch of guys. Or is she crying about the entire time, with both crews?

[Warbodog]

Or is she crying about the entire time, with both crews?

That could finally make sense of the offside line. Maybe alt-Cat was football mad.

[cwickham]

For some strange reason posting trigonometry questions about excluded angles in mindless shitposting threads kills them stone dead

[Starbugger]

I was just thinking that when Kochanski cries “I’ve tried to fit in” she sounds like she just recently got stranded from a “good” ship, like pre accident Red Dwarf. I forgot she was just with the regular RD crew, but a more sensitive version. I mean, they may have been more mature, but they were still a bunch of guys. Or is she crying about the entire time, with both crews?

The timescale of Series VII is a bit hard to fathom if you think about it too hard. There’s an 18-month time jump at the end of “Ouroboros”, after which Lister takes his younger self back in time, so presumably Kochanski has gone through an entire pregnancy and they’ve raised baby Lister for 9 months? Then we pick up in “Duct Soup” as if only a few weeks have passed and there’s no more mention of Kochanski being Lister’s mum. Lister, in his dream in “Blue”, mentions to Rimmer that she’s “been here a few weeks and she hasn’t quoted one Space Corps directive”, but that can be handwaved. I never get a sense that she’s around for that long, but maybe it all could account for the time she’s spent trying to fit in with “our” guys.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

 presumably Kochanski has gone through an entire pregnancy

Lister was conceived through IVF in the 22nd century so we can’t assume that either.

[Ben Saunders]

I was going to say maybe the ending of Ouroboros happens after the rest of Series VII, but it can’t because VIII has to happen (unfortunately).

Lister was conceived through IVF in the 22nd century so we can’t assume that either.

This got me thinking, If in the future we can speed up pregnancy/IVF with no ill effects, how fast can we make it before it’s really weird? Something about it taking say, 20 minutes is genuinely frightening to me for some reason, and 2 weeks or so also feels far too short of a timeframe in which to gestate an entire person. But it would be ridiculous to arbitrarily enforce the whole nine months, maybe.

[Ridley]

But it would be ridiculous to arbitrarily enforce the whole nine months, maybe.

Oh there’s definitely going to be a religious group somewhere in that world insisting on the correct, natural gestation period then.

Also,

I mean, they may have been more mature, but they were still a bunch of guys.

should be scrutinised but I can’t be bothered.

[Warbodog]

 presumably Kochanski has gone through an entire pregnancy
Lister was conceived through IVF in the 22nd century so we can’t assume that either.

Eighteen months is explicit in the episode though, and the baby doesn’t look older than a few months, so it’s basically what the caption’s saying:

This is another time reference to ponder in Nanarchy:

Series VI takes place across at least five months, based on time references within that series and Cat’s general mention of “months” chasing the vapour trail in Nanarchy, so an additional 18 months could fit in somewhere between Ouroboros and the Epideme-Nanarchy-BITR sequence, when the baby stuff might have taken place. In that case, the main issue would be Lister and Kryten’s behaviour around Kochanski seemingly totally ridiculous by the point of Epideme. It’s possible the time jump was always intended to have taken place post-VII when they’re comfortably back on Red Dwarf, but that may be giving too much credit to Ouroboros being thought through at all.

How’s that for maths in the red.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Hang on. Are you trying to tell me Red Dwarf hasn’t quite got its continuity right?

[Flap Jack]

I remember this being a point of discussion in Refresh for the Memory…

Given all the information we have, the most plausible explanation is that they didn’t start the IVF or IVF equivalent process until after Duct Soup, and at least the whole post-birth raising period (and maybe the gestation period too, or maybe not, depending on whether Kochanski actually carried Lister) happened either in between Blue and Beyond a Joke, or in between Beyond a Joke and Epideme.

[Formica]

There’s suspended animation to figure in too, right? It’s plausible for them to have started the tube right after Ouroboros, they go into suspended animation before it’s done, and Kryten raises the child for nine months once it hatches, waking up Lister to bring the baby back in time.

[Podey]

Let’s not even get into the fact that that “Eighteen Months Later” caption is over a scene that takes place three million years before. Make that make sense.

[Author]

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