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

[Warbodog]

I like the still slim and fabricy IV/V Kryten of Smegazine era publicity photos. VI feels a bit smooth or something, then VII has the distracting edge highlights, and is he silver now? I never thought to notice his mask in VIII because there was always something more concerning going on in the frame, though obviously he was barely in the suit.

[Technopeasant]

This is actually the scene I pulled that frame from.

Yes, but the hooked nose is less glaring dead on.

I like the still slim and fabricy IV/V Kryten of Smegazine era
publicity photos.

I have never been into how his limbs were done in V. The fabric coverings just look cheap, and when sitting oddly look like guitar cases.

The clamshell designs of later suits are far superior.

[Unrumble]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is this an argument for single-cam Dwarf or are you more focusing on other elements of the look?

FUCK MY ASS PAGE 69 etc. etc. etc.

[Moonlight]

There’s more than one thing going on with the visuals than the camera setup.

[GlenTokyo]

I’m in the fabric camp too, for me it makes him seem more like a mass produced robot, because it’d be the cheap and simple option in universe vs the solid sleeves, because they’d be more likely to foul each other and harder to repair etc. 

They need to bring it back if they ever make anymore too, because out of universe, it’d be a lot more comfortable and flattering for an elder gent than half inch thick foam and fibreglass around your entire body.

[International Debris]

Is there any image comparing the ten costumes?

[Dave]

Is there any image comparing the ten costumes?

[Ben Saunders]

Is this an argument for single-cam Dwarf or are you more focusing on other elements of the look?

I meant Kryten, I like how he looks in Series VII. I don’t mind the edge highlights or the silver costume. As for Series VII in general I think when it works it really works, sometimes I’ll see a Smegle and think hey that looks pretty good with the lighting and the shot composition or whatever. But obviously if we only get that minus the audience being there then it’s not worth it.

[Jenuall]

Handy collage of Kryten’s suits:

Wait, is that not what we meant?!

[Unrumble]

[Warbodog]

Ever noticed this glitch in Holoship? Confirmed it’s in the episode itself, authentically captured by Smega Drive.

[Moonlight]

I spot those every so often in this era.

[Technopeasant]

Upper shoulder pain, obviously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ProVkOGB7A

[Technopeasant]

As per my Lister breathing fire looping GIF in the other thread, if the AR machine could replicate the experience of eating curry than why was he so particularly devastated in Tikka?

[Warbodog]

AR curry in Tikka to Ride would be like Bedford Falls / Back to Earth Kochanski and he could have ended up wasting away, full on imagined vindaloo, so it’s a good thing he didn’t think of it.

[Warbodog]

Also, Rimmer was already basically on a ship of the nymphomianacs that series.

[Moonlight]

Pitching the new title Nymphovania.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

For ages I’d been trying to figure out what this gif reminded me of, and I think it’s Rory Bremner doing a Tony Blair impression 

[Technopeasant]

Doctor Who did get edgy in the ’80s…

[Nick R]

Pitching the new title Nymphovania.

[Jenuall]

[Flap Jack]

Sure, we all know and love Red Dwarf’s many Franks, but what about

[Nick R]

[Flap Jack]

How deep does it go?!

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Craig getting his lines wrong and calling Kryten by the actors name 

[Warbodog]

Someone’s pointed this one out before:

But I never thought to check the continuity of Petersen’s tattoos. Sure enough, elsewhere in the same episode (Balance of Power):

Okay, but what about The End?

Would they remember for Stasis Leak?

A bit blurry and probably done from blurry memory, but pretty much,

[Technopeasant]

I already shared my theory that Petersen writes the Bible after Lister triggers the Big Bang.

[Moonlight]

He carves it on the side of a spaceship that Scully finds buried on a beach at the Ivory Coast.

[Technopeasant]

[Ben Saunders]

Christ he looks hungover on this frame, great method acting. He also looks slightly AI upscaled.

[Ian Symes]

Sure, we all know and love Red Dwarf’s many Franks, but what about

[Nick R]

I know and love Red Dwarf’s many Franks.

But I also know and love Red Dwarf’s many Bobs.

But which is better?

There’s only one way to find out…

… playing the FIGHT featurette from the series VIII DVD.

[Moonlight]

This line always struck me as weird. Sure, Io could be British, but it still feels odd.

[Ben Saunders]

He actually says Brittas embassy

[Moonlight]

Let’s petition Doug for a remastered edition of Back to Earth where Gordon Brittas is bluescreened over Craig on Coronation Street.

[Ben Saunders]

[Technopeasant]

Felt it was a missed opportunity to reference Brittas there at the time.

[RunawayTrain]

A swimming factory?

[sleepey]

Swimming doesn’t grow on trees, they have to make it somewhere

[Ridley]

Get your wires right, Bobby, and there’s a bag of chips in it for ya.

[Moonlight]

This is such a bizarre edit. The lack of audience reaction just makes it feel even weirder and it’s one of my favorite bits of the episode.

[Technopeasant]

Get your wires right, Bobby, and there’s a bag of chips in it for ya.

Retro tech YouTuber The 8-Bit Guy just referenced this exact scene funnily enough. He also previously gave the giant floppy bit a shoutout.

[Rudolph]

This line always struck me as weird. Sure, Io could be British, but it still feels odd.

I think the novels back it up that the various colony worlds are governed or owned by various countries. Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers has Mimas being a Spanish colony, and Better Than Life has Dione being French. So it’s quite possible that Io is British.

[Moonlight]

This is such a bizarre edit. The lack of audience reaction just makes it feel even weirder and it’s one of my favorite bits of the episode.

I posted this but it seems to have broken (it was linking to a Discord upload, not SmegaDrive directly).

[Ben Saunders]

There was one other result on smegadrive for “laughter echoes”

[Moonlight]

I am going to start slipping that into random spots in my subtitle corrections until Cappsy notices.

[tombow]

I was thinking last night about the similarities between Rimmer and Rincewind (Discworld), 

both high strung, neurotic, nerdy, and “cowardly” (by the standards of their universe)

both have a menial job in the place where they want to be higher ranking/heroic (ship and Wizard University)

both end up in a higher position in an unhappy way due to an accident (keeper of a dangerous spell/highest ranking person on RD), though Rincewind at least gets to stay alive

both end up as the guardian of a chilled out, tropical shirt wearing person and are joined to make a trio by an enigmatic animal like creature, (Twoflower/Lister, Luggage/Cat)

[Technopeasant]

https://youtu.be/wOLuWxFueQk?si=tD8Fkdf521AhqkrT

He was about to call his lawyer, when he realized it was good science fiction.

[tombow]

wow. I saw him in the flesh a few times in the 90s but I didn’t realise how since then he aged into actually looking like a Discworld wizard. With the spiky beard and brows he really looks like an illustration you’d see on a book.

[Author]

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