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

[Pete Part Three]

Doesn’t Infinity clear this up?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I do find it quite amusing that we all accept that the best way to resolve a dispute in the show’s continuity due to a ret-con is to consult a different continuity in a different medium.

[Dave]

Yeah, obviously I thought of Infinity at first but I’m just talking about the show.

[Dave]

Re Kochanski. I think the fact they had previously had a relationship could be even more of an argument not to bring her back. Would you want to be stuck alone in deep space with your ex? Especially for Kochanski, who would clearly not want that relationship.

Ok, so they briefly power everything down so they can also bring back a hologram of Lewis Pemberton for a few minutes too.

[GlenTokyo]

It’d be quite cruel too considering she’s dead.

Even if she’s not “dead dead” he’d still be confronted with the fact that she died 3 million years ago and isn’t coming back (excluding sci-fi shenanigans).

While I’m sure he’s not happy Rimmer is dead, I don’t think his hologram status and what that means would play on his mind quite as much as someone he loved.

[Pete Part Three]

The (living) version of Kochanski is apparently so bored with Lister, that’s she’s willing to steal a Blue Midget and explore deep space on her own for eternity, than spend any more time with him. This is clearly the behaviour of someone who is unhinged (or just exceptionally poor character development).

Anyway, the handwavey TV show answer (if you’re not willing to accept Infinity Holly’s “Dave, she finished with you”), is that bringing Kochanski back as a hologram to keep Lister company would have eventually drove *her* insane.

[Rudolph]

I think there’d be an issue that even if Holly had switched on Kochanski’s hologram, and she and Lister had managed to work out their differences, it would be quite frustrating for both of them that they wouldn’t be able to consummate their love. That Lister would still have the love of his life, or a reasonable facsimile, but wouldn’t be able to so much as hold her hand, would drive him bonkers.

[Dave]

That’s where the holo-whip comes in.

[GlenTokyo]

That’s where the holo-whip comes in.

Quality tumblr writing prompt.

[RunawayTrain]

So this is actually one time they really (unintentionally, in the real world) did right by Kochanski, not torturing her by either being unable to be physical in a relationship, or potentially be pursued by someone she no longer loves for the rest of her life – especially as Lister is the last human alive and is therefore *highly* unlikely to find anyone else to love.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Perhaps worth noting the Holly in Chloe’s Kochanski’s universe believed Lister, who had recently split with her, was who she needed to keep her sane.

[Warbodog]

Perhaps worth noting the Holly in Chloe’s Kochanski’s universe believed Lister, who had recently split with her, was who she needed to keep her sane.

Yes, but keep in mind that universe’s Kryten had a gold shell and Cat had a deeper voice, so who knows what imaginative differences the Holly might entail.

[Warbodog]

Unused “Ouroboros Holly” concept art

[Dave]

That looks like the character-select screen for the worst beat-em-up ever.

[Jonathan Capps]

Holyphemus.

[Dave]

Rewatching Demons And Angels tonight, I noticed Chris definitely has an accidental slip into his Ace Rimmer voice just after Lister has been chloroformed and Rimmer says “Okay.  How long before the triplicator activates?”

[Dave]

Also, I’ve always found the beginning of Terrorform (with Kryten putting his eye on his hand) reminiscent of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, where the Iron Man is putting himself back together in the first chapter and his hand picks up an eyeball and walks along with it.

But then, rereading the book with one of my kids the other night, I realised that the very first lines of the book are weirdly reminiscent of one of the gags in that Terrorform scene too.

The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff.
How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where did he come from? Nobody
knows. How was he made? Nobody knows.

It took a lot of self-control not to follow up with “should anyone find this recording, perhaps it will shed some light on what happened here”.

[Warbodog]

Something I’ve been thinking about the perceived less threatening baddies of the Dave era is that we’re meeting them alongside the more experienced and universe-weary crew who aren’t entertained by the cat and mouse games any more.

This is more of a meta than a strictly in-universe idea, but you could apply Lister’s conversation with Hogey in The Beginning – about how it used to be a fun distraction* – back to the classic era, and the wider mission for everyone to stay sane in far future deep space (which some, like Lanstrom, Hudzen and Asclepius, failed).

Maybe some seemingly serious classic villains like the Inquisitor, the old-school Simulants and even the agonoids from Backwards aren’t as committed to their quests as they’ve convinced themselves and are mainly just finding something to do. The performances may have been straighter, but they’re still prone to pompous, corny dialogue like they’re playing a role (“So, the mortals seek to challenge my mastery!”)

It’s who they are, or what do they have left? Talkie Toaster understood this right from the off.

* Although this point is maybe undermined immediately in The Beginning when they’re attacked by Simulants.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Very nice theory, I like this.

I don’t think it is undone by The Beginning as the crew used to enjoy the fun distractions but are bored of Hogey as it is the only distraction and it’s become repetitive.  Immediately being attacked by Simulants pulls them out of their 10 year slump of having not a lot to do and puts them on the run again.

[Warbodog]

Anyone else notice a slight similarity with the closing theme and the bridge in Bowie’s Loving the Alien?

YouTube user Tommy Ravioli has spotted the same bit of Red Dwarf music in Mariya Takeuchi’s ‘Mouichido’ (もう一度 / Once again), also from 1984.

It only happens once in the song, from 2:18.

It sounds way more like Red Dwarf to my untrained ear than the Bowie song. Seemingly from her album Variety, released 25 April 1984. Bowie’s Tonight was released 24 September 1984, for the record (pun!)

[Dave]

That is very similar, isn’t it.

I love the mashup version in that youtube video.

[GlenTokyo]

Anyone else notice a slight similarity with the closing theme and the bridge in Bowie’s Loving the Alien?

YouTube user Tommy Ravioli has spotted the same bit of Red Dwarf music in Mariya Takeuchi’s ‘Mouichido’ (もう一度 / Once again), also from 1984.
It only happens once in the song, from 2:18.
It sounds way more like Red Dwarf to my untrained ear than the Bowie song. Seemingly from her album Variety, released 25 April 1984. Bowie’s Tonight was released 24 September 1984, for the record (pun!)

I saw that video for the first time last night, popped up on my YouTube suggestions. Algorithm doing its work.

It’s a great mash up, appreciated the effort of Japanese Red Dwarf on the screen too.

[International Debris]

That mashup is lovely, cheers for that!

[International Debris]

Das bier ist schmeggd.

[Jenuall]

I am not fränggisched!

[Dave]

Faith, Hopfen and Charity. And the greatest of these is Hopfen.

[si]

I like it when they say Schmegg.

[Rudolph]

He’s a SCHHHHHHHMEGG HEAAAAAAAAD.

[Dave]

In Holoship, does Stocky deliberately choose Crane as Rimmer’s most likely opponent to beat because it accurately predicts that they will fall in love and she will withdraw due to her love for him?

If so that always passed me by.

And even then, it was apparently 96% likely that she wouldn’t do that.

(Although with Stocky’s 5% margin of error it could obviously be anywhere between 91% and 101%.)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If thats the case, has it also predicted Rimmer would resign when he found out?

For what its worth I don’t think thats the intention. I always read it as Crane being the thickest of the Holoship crew.

[Warbodog]

I thought it was that simple too, but with a ship of (mostly?) smug intellectuals, you’d think the person with the lowest IQ would be common knowledge and they wouldn’t have to run the numbers, so maybe there’s more to the stimulating match-up.

If the Enlightenment crew are having “constant” sex, why is the sex deck all the way down on Floor 3125?

Why do non-corporeal light beings need to use lifts to get around when they could teleport around at the speed of light? Their ship has no mass, so they don’t have light bees. I know Rimmer wants to be a real boy, but I’d expect they’d be more like the Dean Stockwell Cylon from BSG wanting to rise above human limitations.

[Dave]

If thats the case, has it also predicted Rimmer would resign when he found out?

I suppose they never asked Stocky that – just who he would be most likely to beat.

[Dave]

Also, all this talk of Stocky makes me wish that Snacky had been introduced as having snackastic capabilities.

[Warbodog]

Binks’ radio is just a construct, so why didn’t they make one that could broadcast video too? Save him having to describe things.

[Dave]

Also, if the project was only in its early stages when Kryten left the solar system, how would he know that holoship crews were so legendarily arrogant?

[Dave]

Binks’ radio is just a construct, so why didn’t they make one that could broadcast video too? Save him having to describe things.

I bet that radio doesn’t even work, Binks just does that whole routine for his own amusement. It’s not like we ever hear them replying.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You sort of have to assume Kryten absorbs all the data from the computers on derelicts they come across, so he has something of an encyclopaedic history of the human race up to the point of its extinction.

[Warbodog]

I only just noticed that they all say their IQs except Nirvanah and Rimmer. So we don’t get the hint that hers is lower, and maybe Stocky doesn’t know that Rimmer’s not up to their level (though could probably guess).

[GlenTokyo]

I always saw it as she was most likely to lose because she would fall for him, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t also the closest to him intellectually too, though I wouldn’t really go to that personally.

Also maybe it was just Stocky knowing all along, Crane would be replaced by Rimmer, Rimmer would resign through guilt and they’d get Crane back.

[Flap Jack]

Why do non-corporeal light beings need to use lifts to get around when they could teleport around at the speed of light? Their ship has no mass, so they don’t have light bees. I know Rimmer wants to be a real boy, but I’d expect they’d be more like the Dean Stockwell Cylon from BSG wanting to rise above human limitations.

This is really straying away from Mundane Observations and towards Unanswered Questions, but I’d guess that even though the Enlightenment crew are holograms and quite smug about it, they still have human brains/souls. It being normal to just instantly teleport around the ship, phase through walls, float instead of walk etc. would just remind them of their non-corporeality and pseudo-existence, and that would likely be very traumatising. Like how Rimmer had a depressive episode and near existential crisis in The Promised Land after just a few hours of low power mode. Those not strictly necessary everyday tasks like travelling in lifts give their post-lives greater structure and meaning, and allow them to not dwell on whether they truly have sentience.

On another note, you mentioning that the holoship has no mass made me realise (probably way later than everyone else): what’s generating the holograms? There are 2 explanations I can think of: (A) There actually is a ‘real’ physical ship at the centre which is both generating the broader ship and all of its inhabitants and moving on its own steam, but the tech is so advanced that it’s too small to be picked up by Red Dwarf’s scanners – like the size of a thumb stick. Or, (B) God did it.

[Dave]

You sort of have to assume Kryten absorbs all the data from the computers on derelicts they come across, so he has something of an encyclopaedic history of the human race up to the point of its extinction.

Everything except knowing anything at all about women.

[si]

If the Enlightenment crew are having “constant” sex, why is the sex deck all the way down on Floor 3125?

Going down.

[Unrumble]

You sort of have to assume Kryten absorbs all the data from the computers on derelicts they come across, so he has something of an encyclopaedic history of the human race up to the point of its extinction.

Everything except knowing anything at all about women.

Makes sense. Over the years, he’s had more RAM than a field of sheep.

[Jenuall]

Why do non-corporeal light beings need to use lifts to get around when they could teleport around at the speed of light? Their ship has no mass, so they don’t have light bees. I know Rimmer wants to be a real boy, but I’d expect they’d be more like the Dean Stockwell Cylon from BSG wanting to rise above human limitations.

This is really straying away from Mundane Observations and towards Unanswered Questions, but I’d guess that even though the Enlightenment crew are holograms and quite smug about it, they still have human brains/souls. It being normal to just instantly teleport around the ship, phase through walls, float instead of walk etc. would just remind them of their non-corporeality and pseudo-existence, and that would likely be very traumatising. Like how Rimmer had a depressive episode and near existential crisis in The Promised Land after just a few hours of low power mode. Those not strictly necessary everyday tasks like travelling in lifts give their post-lives greater structure and meaning, and allow them to not dwell on whether they truly have sentience.
On another note, you mentioning that the holoship has no mass made me realise (probably way later than everyone else): what’s generating the holograms? There are 2 explanations I can think of: (A) There actually is a ‘real’ physical ship at the centre which is both generating the broader ship and all of its inhabitants and moving on its own steam, but the tech is so advanced that it’s too small to be picked up by Red Dwarf’s scanners – like the size of a thumb stick. Or, (B) God did it.

Given that the only information we are given about the Holoship comes courtesy of an automated toilet attendant I think we can probably take it with a pinch of salt when he says it has literally zero mass.

I must admit though that I never really bothered to think about it that much!

Given the “Red Dwarf can only sustain one hologram” suggestion (which lets fact it has been bent/broken before) are we to assume that during the events of Holoship Rimmer’s projection gets taken over by the Holoship itself for a period of time? Otherwise how are they able to interview potential candidates for his replacement? Given that there is some overlap between Rimmer and Sam I guess we have to assume that the Holoship is projecting him back onto Red Dwarf at this point as well?

Speaking of which I always wondered why if generating the hologram itself was so hard couldn’t they at least have tried spinning up some of the former crew members as Holly style “faces on a screen” to interact with? They’ve got all the personality data and memories stored for them all – surely that would be less computationally expensive for the ship and therefore worth trying?

[RunawayTrain]

I think the clue there could be ‘sustain’ – so they perhaps can temporarily have another, but Rimmer was not going to risk it back in Balance of Power.  The crew didn’t think he was coming back so didn’t give it a second thought, and he’s so distressed and distracted when he does return that he doesn’t get chance to whinge about it endangering him.  Can imagine he likely moaned about it afterwards though, saying they should have waited until the holoship had gone and they were sure he wouldn’t need to come back.

[clem]

I always wondered why if generating the hologram itself was so hard couldn’t they at least have tried spinning up some of the former crew members as Holly style “faces on a screen” to interact with? They’ve got all the personality data and memories stored for them all – surely that would be less computationally expensive for the ship and therefore worth trying?

It could have saved them performing the mind swap with Brown in Bodyswap, which didn’t work anyway.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

And even then, it was apparently 96% likely that she wouldn’t do that.

what if it was predicting failure on Crane’s part and – like Craig with zero gee, kick boxing – everyone played it wrong.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Speaking of which I always wondered why if generating the hologram itself was so hard couldn’t they at least have tried spinning up some of the former crew members as Holly style “faces on a screen” to interact with? They’ve got all the personality data and memories stored for them all – surely that would be less computationally expensive for the ship and therefore worth trying?

I suspect it’s running the personality computation and running billions of variables to determine actions every second is whats power intensive, not the light projection of the hologram itself.

[Dave]

I suspect it’s running the personality computation and running billions of variables to determine actions every second is whats power intensive, not the light projection of the hologram itself.

In that case, why not project Norman as a full-body hologram all the time too.

(I think we know why.)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Holly needs to be accessible from any part of the ship (and they need the hologram capabilities for crew)

they have a hologram ship interface in Andromeda as it goes. They had the foresight not to make the computer a bald old man.

[Author]

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