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

[Nick R]

Something roughly like this for me:

D tier and above are ones I enjoy watching; F tier and below I don’t.

I’m not going to dig up my Coral Canvass ratings, but the scores I gave probably correspond fairly closely to those 10 tiers.

… This wasn’t a very mundane observation. New thread for tier lists, anyone?

[Ridley]

https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/red-dwarf-tiermaker-lists/

Or Rushy can bump the old one.

There’s a jump scare of Phil putting Holoship at the top in there though.

[Warbodog]

Contemplating the boys’ effects on history

[Technopeasant]

This wasn’t a very mundane observation. New thread for tier lists, anyone?

Are you flattering yourself that it was a profound observation?

[Rushy]

I imagine these monitors probably looked futuristic in 1997, but now it just looks like Chloe and Robert are playing Stardew Valley on set

[Moonlight]

Rimmer, as far as I know, has never said the word “buckaroo.” But I think he would.

End post.

[Technopeasant]

[sleepey]

[RunawayTrain]

It is unfortunate yet tragically apt that Enconium (SS Enconium in Timewave) is perilously close to ‘meconium’. 

A google search shows it must have been based on ‘encomium’, but I wonder how many people know of that vs how many know of meconium.

[Nick R]

[International Debris]

It is unfortunate yet tragically apt that Enconium (SS Enconium in Timewave) is perilously close to ‘meconium’. 
A google search shows it must have been based on ‘encomium’, but I wonder how many people know of that vs how many know of meconium.

I think of it every time, and it never fails to be utterly fitting.

[Moonlight]

It is unfortunate yet tragically apt that Enconium (SS Enconium in Timewave) is perilously close to ‘meconium’. 
A google search shows it must have been based on ‘encomium’, but I wonder how many people know of that vs how many know of meconium.

[Moonlight]

If the original telling of this backstory wasn’t dark enough, Series VIII makes it even worse.

[Dave]

It’s often mentioned that when filming “Kryten”, a cover was placed over the skeletons so that the audience was surprised by the dead crew of the Nova 5 at the same time as the characters were.

But how does this line up with the fact that there’s an earlier scene in the episode showing Kryten with the skeletons, helping them to apply lipstick etc.? Did the audience on the night just not see that?

Personally I’ve often felt like the story might be stronger without tipping the reveal in that earlier scene and leaving it for the big laugh.

[Rushy]

It’s often mentioned that when filming “Kryten”, a cover was placed over the skeletons so that the audience was surprised by the dead crew of the Nova 5 at the same time as the characters were.
But how does this line up with the fact that there’s an earlier scene in the episode showing Kryten with the skeletons, helping them to apply lipstick etc.? 

The scenes aren’t necessarily recorded in order. They could’ve easily filmed that little bit with Kryten towards the end after all the big group scenes were done. 

[Dave]

True, but I thought they typically tried to give the audience on the night a relatively linear experience of the episode. 

Either way, it made me wonder whether the episode might be better without seeing the skeletons early.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s a fun gag watching Kryten treat the skeletons as living crew, and says a lot about the character so we as the audience know who he is before the Dwarfers

But I do think the reveal for the audience would be better if we saw it at the same time as Rimmer et al.

But maybe we do need the context of how Kryten has been living for millions of years.

[Dax101]

Well the scene does seem to depend more on Chris Barries reaction than it does the audience reaction to seeing it. So the scene earlier with Kryten as he walks up to apply lipstick and whatever might be the moment the cover was taken down for the audience.

[Warbodog]

It’s Hitchcockian suspense rather than surprise, as a reference to the Norman Bates reference.

I was having the more mundane thought about how Lister knows about Androids. Whether it’s been running for centuries or Kryten’s obsessed with an oldie from his relative past, the equivalent of Lister’s 20th century films.

[Rushy]

I was having the more mundane thought about how Lister knows about Androids. Whether it’s been running for centuries or Kryten’s obsessed with an oldie from his relative past, the equivalent of Lister’s 20th century films.

I always assumed that he doesn’t have a clue what Kryten is talking about, but just can’t be bothered to ask. 

[Unrumble]

I was having the more mundane thought about how Lister knows about Androids. Whether it’s been running for centuries or Kryten’s obsessed with an oldie from his relative past, the equivalent of Lister’s 20th century films.

I always assumed that he doesn’t have a clue what Kryten is talking about, but just can’t be bothered to ask. 

If he doesn’t have a clue about it at all, “that stupid soap opera” seems like one hell of a leap, based on Kryten singing the theme for 5 seconds. 

[Flap Jack]

Maybe he just assumed it was a soap opera because the theme tune was such an obvious rip-off of Neighbours.

[Technopeasant]

The longest-running soap opera of all time is Guiding Light, which began on radio in 1937 and moved to television in 1952, ending in 2009 after a combined 72 years on air. However, if the question refers to the longest-running soap opera currently on the air, that title belongs to General Hospital, which has been broadcasting on television since 1963.

So maybe its just been on awhile?

[Nick R]

This forum does some very strange things when you paste formatted text.

[Technopeasant]

[Nick R]

[Technopeasant]

[Dave]

I was having the more mundane thought about how Lister knows about Androids. Whether it’s been running for centuries or Kryten’s obsessed with an oldie from his relative past, the equivalent of Lister’s 20th century films.

I bet the first thing Lister did when he woke up from Stasis is catch up on all the soap operas that came out in the meantime.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Wherever that “fact” about General Hospital came from must be very US centric as Coronation Street started in 1960 and is still going.

[Warbodog]

Wherever that “fact” about General Hospital came from must be very US centric as Coronation Street started in 1960 and is still going.

That’s why I didn’t discount the soap (and Channel 27) being extremely long-lived, especially since they’re aimed at artificial life forms.

It’s hard to tell whether the androids in Androids are supposed to look like basic old-school versions or futuristic, because it’s Red Dwarf.

[Nick R]

Wherever that “fact” about General Hospital came from must be very US centric as Coronation Street started in 1960 and is still going.

It’s also out of date:

Guiding Light – 1937-2009 (72 years)

The Archers – 1951-present (74 years)

[Flap Jack]

2 numerical ones from Better Than Life.

Even if we generously assume that Lister is a 23rd century guy, and word of Red Dwarf’s radiation leak got back to Earth in 2299, they would need to make 5 or 6 new Friday the 13th movies on average every year from 1989 onwards to reach this number.

This is an extremely short minimum estimated distance away. It’s only 0.24% of the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri.

If we take this to mean that Earth (or at least where it used to be) is 60 billion miles away from Red Dwarf, and we assume that Red Dwarf was travelling in a straight line away from Earth for Lister’s whole stay in stasis, this means that Red Dwarf’s average speed was around 2.28mph. That’s lower than human walking speed.

And even if you assume that there was a Berni Inn on Neptune, but Red Dwarf was close to Earth at the time of the radiation leak, that only increases the average speed to 2.45mph.

[Ian Symes]

Well, he did say over 60 billion miles away. He didn’t specify exactly how much over.

[Warbodog]

He got stuck with the 7 of 70 billion, so just stuck with “over 60,” like my Nan with her age.

[Moonlight]

I refuse to be generous. They are making 17 of these things a year for 97 years.

[Warbodog]

‘2077’ is the location on the ship or something.

[Moonlight]

Ah yes, B Deck, C Deck, and 2077 Deck.

Also reminding everyone that Rimmer calls Hollister “Mr. Fat Bastard 2044”, implying 2044 is a year he would’ve been alive for.

[Warbodog]

‘2077’ is Future-Esperanto for ‘0833.’

’20’ is a 24-hour 8pm, and 7 is 3 for some reason.

[Flap Jack]

Well, he did say over 60 billion miles away. He didn’t specify exactly how much over.

I knew someone would say this! The classic get out for writers fudging the maths in their scripts.

I refuse to be generous. They are making 17 of these things a year for 97 years.

Either way it’s pretty perfect that they’re making more Friday the 13th movies per year than there are Friday the 13ths.

[Rushy]

Ever since Rob described himself as a continuity nut in that G&T interview, I’ve imagined Doug being the one to create all the canon inconsistencies in series 1-6, and Rob comically tearing his hair out every time he finds one. 

He has nightmares about Fat Bastard 2044. He got ulcers from Lister remembering that he once played pool with planets. 

Doug had to blackmail his family to ensure the visual reboot of Series III. 

[Moonlight]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ah yes, B Deck, C Deck, and 2077 Deck.
Also reminding everyone that Rimmer calls Hollister “Mr. Fat Bastard 2044”, implying 2044 is a year he would’ve been alive for.

He is the 2044th winner of the weekly competition 

[Dave]

“Mr. Fat Bastard 2044”

Maybe they read the results out around quarter to nine in the evening. 

[Technopeasant]

Wherever that “fact” about General Hospital came from must be very US centric as Coronation Street started in 1960 and is still going.

• General Hospital:
  • Has been on the air since 1963.
  • Holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running American soap opera in production. 

So yes, the source was American and probally out of date. If anything that just further illustrates the point though.

Soaps are forever.

Based on a cursory glance there are more episodes of GH than CS, but that isn’t relevant to longevity.
My top of the head math isn’t actually inaccurate if Lister watched about six episodes of GH a day. You could argue Lister had nothing else to do, but being in Series II it isn’t that long since he was presumably employed full time.

Also, the actor who said “that stupid soap opera” ended up on a soap opera, stupid or otherwise.

[Ian Symes]

I really want to watch the entirety of Coronation Street from the beginning. It all exists in the archives, and the vast majority of episodes are easily found online, so it’s technically doable. But I once figured out that if I paced it like my successful one-episode-per-day runthrough of the entirety of Doctor Who, it would take me just over 32 years to catch up to the present day, by which time a further 10,000 odd episodes will have been made. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Bold to assume Corrie will still be on air in 32 years 

[Rushy]

I really want to watch the entirety of Coronation Street from the beginning. 

I tried that once. It was charming, but after about episode thirtysomething, it got a bit samey

[Flap Jack]

You could go for Sesame Street instead. That might only take you 14 or 15 years.

I did once have an idea for a blog where you’d watch Coronation Street episodes and Sesame Street episodes that aired in the same respective weeks as each other and compare them. But the only major reason for doing it would be so you could call it “The Grover’s Return”.

Random fact: Sesame Street debuted in the same month that Corrie switched to colour.

[Warbodog]

I only made it a few episodes into Dark Shadows, but that only has a pathetic 1,225 instalments anyway.

[Ian Symes]

Bold to assume Corrie will still be on air in 32 years 

Oh, it will. And William Roache will still be there.

[Author]

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