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

[Dave]

That’s DNA, right?

Meltdown. So you get a yellow square. 

[Jenuall]

[Moonlight]

Is it bad that I read “DNA” and my brain understood it as “Meltdown” because that’s the actual answer?

[Unrumble]

[International Debris]

I love the fact they found that location and instead of saying “let’s try somewhere without the local park fence in the background” they thought “yes, provincial small town England is the exact look we want for this futuristic alien theme park.”

[GlenTokyo]

There’s an actual theme park about 20 minutes away too, maybe the budget couldn’t stretch or they wouldn’t let them film.

I suppose people going “oh that’s Thorpe Park” isn’t really better than the random path round the back of some council allotments look.

[Moonlight]

They should’ve poorly bluescreened a castle on the horizon.

[GlenTokyo]

They should’ve poorly bluescreened a castle on the horizon.

What could have been…

[Dave]

What could have been…

[Moonlight]

They download Lister’s brain in Can of Worms so there should be a very recent copy in M-Corp.

[Nick R]

And of course…

[Ian Symes]

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Jenuall]

I should probably watch The Wizard of Oz at some point, then all of these memes might make sense

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

You haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz?!

[clem]

[Nick R]

I should probably watch The Wizard of Oz at some point, then all of these memes might make sense

[Jenuall]

You haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz?!

I’ve obviously picked up lots of it by cultural osmosis but yes, I’ve never actually sat down and watched the original movie.

[RunawayTrain]

You haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz?!

I’ve obviously picked up lots of it by cultural osmosis but yes, I’ve never actually sat down and watched the original movie.

If it helps, I have seen it but only as a child 25+ years ago, so I’ve forgotten most of it and didn’t understand most of the memes.

[Moonlight]

My memories of The Wizard of Oz are pleasantly intertwined with those times they’d roll the big bulky TV into my elementary school class on a cart and pop in a VHS instead of making us do work that day.

[Warbodog]

It just occurred to me that the root of Lister’s age discrepancy – claiming he’s 25 in both Future Echoes and Backwards – was for the sake of making Rimmer’s “mid-20s” description in the former so doomily specific. In Backwards, they just used Craig’s real age, having forgotten / not caring.

[Flap Jack]

Lister must have taken up Rimmer’s IWCD hobby of spending tons of time in stasis. How else can you explain him only recently turning 28 in Tikka to Ride?

[Warbodog]

Lister must have taken up Rimmer’s IWCD hobby of spending tons of time in stasis. How else can you explain him only recently turning 28 in Tikka to Ride?

If series VII had any semblance of planning, it could be an attempt to bridge the age gap to the younger actress love interest being introduced. If Doug recasts Kochanski again it’ll be like a Hitchcock film.

[tombow]

or Woody Allen

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

… Wait a damn minute

[Hamish]

You haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz?!

[Jenuall]

Rimmer’s got me beat, I haven’t even seen West Side Story 

[Warbodog]

You could skip the equivalent of two full episodes of Series VIII, including all the Time Wand / dino shit:

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Captain Bollocks]

If Norman Lovett had been cast as Rimmer as he initially auditioned for, what would have been the fate of Red Dwarf III? Would he have grumpily agreed he needed to attend rehearsals, and would he have used this as collateral in order to get his ball back off Dona DiStefano? 

[loadoftottnumb]

Yes 

[Moonlight]

Would we agree that, even counting VIII, Polymorph is one of the very silliest episodes of Red Dwarf?

[Warbodog]

Would we agree that, even counting VIII, Polymorph is one of the very silliest episodes of Red Dwarf?

It might be the main episode that goes for (or comes across like) sci-fi parody rather than sci-fi comedy. It’s funny, but I’ve never been especially fond of it.

Maybe Camille would fit that bill too, but mixing at least a bit of serious with the silly.

[Moonlight]

Maybe Camille would fit that bill too, but mixing at least a bit of serious with the silly.

It is a bit silly, but it’s not on the same cartoon cuckoo bananas level of wacky that Polymorph is.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Justice and DNA both resolve in very silly ways 

[Dave]

Yes, I can only imagine that Polymorph, Camille, DNA and Justice felt very cartoonish and silly to contemporary viewers after the gritty seriousness of Series 1 and 2.

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, I mean in Series 1 Lister contracted an illness which gave him the power to will brand new people into existence using only his imagination. He became a deity as a side effect of the flu.

It’s not what you tell, it’s how you tell it.

[Dave]

It’s not what you tell, it’s how you tell it.

Yeah, it’s what makes Polymorph such a fun episode I think. A goofy premise about a shape-shifting, emotion-sucking cartoon character, but told like it’s Alien.

[tombow]

Polymorph has almost religious significance for me in my childhood Dwarf memories. Queeg, Marooned and Polymorph were the first 3 episodes I watched properly all the way through (as opposed to just seeing bits of, but not really understanding them, while my Dad had it on). In Queeg, I didn’t know who the characters really were, but I grasped that they were basically naughty schoolboys in space and Holly was like their lovable headmaster who had let them get away with too much. In Marooned, I’d already grasped from the bits I’d seen before that Lister was the cool one and Rimmer the nerdy one, and Marooned really drove that home for me and I felt like I understood them both as being similar to people I knew in real life.  But that scene in Polymorph where they’re all arguing after being changed (with Rimmer suggesting the leaflets etc)… that was the moment I felt “I care about these guys and the adventure they’re on, I want to know more about this programme”.

Since we’re on observations, I will say that after rewatching the show over the past couple of years… I’ve always believed that if Rob Grant stayed, series 7 onward would have been as good as the classic years, but now, even though series 4 – 6 have some of the best episodes, I do think the main premise was running out of steam – for example, how many times can they meet personifications of their negative emotions.

[Moonlight]

Yes, I can only imagine that Polymorph, Camille, DNA and Justice felt very cartoonish and silly to contemporary viewers after the gritty seriousness of Series 1 and 2.

Thanks for the Memory and Queeg being my favorite episodes of Series 2 skews my memory of its overall tone closer to Series 1, and makes me forget at times how much stuff like Better Than Life, Stasis Leak and Parallel Universe feel like a prelude to the craziness of III.

[Podey]

I was doing a presentation for school about aliens once (don’t ask, I don’t know) and had decided to show a clip from Red Dwarf as part of it. I had my VHS, bunged it in and showed a clip from Polymorph. Then when I went to stop, the class (just because they wanted to watch TV at school) all shouted “nooooo!” and I caved and let it play, so we ended up watching almost an entire episode of Red Dwarf in class as part of my presentation. I forget how it was graded…

[Ridley]

Poorly, hopefully, since the polymorph isn’t an alien.

[Podey]

As an adult, I know that, but as a 14 year old…. it was an alien.

[Flap Jack]

Red Dwarf’s view of aliens is extremely conservative, in a way. The Kinatowawi people that the Dwarfers actually meet might be thousands of generations removed from those who have ever actually been to Earth, and yet they’re still “not aliens” relative to Earth? It’s like considering every human on the planet African.

[Unrumble]

Red Dwarf’s view of aliens is extremely conservative, in a way. The Kinatowawi people that the Dwarfers actually meet might be thousands of generations removed from those who have ever actually been to Earth, and yet they’re still “not aliens” relative to Earth? It’s like considering every human on the planet African.

[Dave]

[Flap Jack]

Also, on that note felis sapiens are especially aliens. Not only has no “current era” cat person ever had Earth as a home (and it’s unlikely any of them other than Felix have been there at all), that’s true for the entire species throughout history. Felis sapiens aren’t “from Earth”, they’re from Red Dwarf.

[clem]

Also, on that note felis sapiens are especially aliens. Not only has no “current era” cat person ever had Earth as a home (and it’s unlikely any of them other than Felix have been there at all), that’s true for the entire species throughout history. Felis sapiens aren’t “from Earth”, they’re from Red Dwarf.

This is tacitly part of the joke in Waiting for God isn’t it, i.e. Rimmer’s obsession with the made-up Quagaars, and his total lack of interest in the actually alien cats.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The point is that no life independently evolved on another planet and all can trace their origin to Earth

it’s a loop hole to get around no aliens but it’s kinda impressive they stick.

[Author]

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