New Red Dwarf Episode Announced August 24th 2008

[Mr Flibble]

http://llewtube.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=841#p7784

I won’t post the text, lest I get killed for wasting bandwidth.

Topic

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Actually, I reckon I’d start with them on Earth…it’s a Mad Max-style barren wasteland and they’ve been living in makeshift shelters for the past several years, trying to make the best of the situation. Lots of potential for funny small-scale stuff on a tiny budget.

Maybe humans have gone / died out…and only other inhabitants are clans of simulants / GELFs. Kryten is attempting to tidy the place up, Rimmer is trying to be in charge, Lister is just trying to get a tan. Cat and Kochanski are…er…doing something else.

It’d have bunkroom humour, the bleakness / desperation of being stranded…as in deep space or in Marooned…but it’d be something new.

[pfm]

> I am not a cretin.

> I?m just saying that in the last couple of weeks we?ve gone from ?no new Dwarf ever, the franchise is dead? to ?full cast reunion special being shot next month, with a possible series to follow?.

It was never implied that ‘the franchise is dead’. Doug clearly stated Dwarf wasn’t over

You’ve all lost the plot. Just wait for what GNP has to say (probably not this Friday).

[Phil]

>I don?t think Red Christmas is even CLOSE to giving us a fair indication of the quality of this special.

Oh agreed. (And I hope I’ll still agree after this special airs.) I just mentioned it as a counterpoint to the “It’s new Dwarf!!!!!!” excitement.

Hey, I’m excited, too. A clipshow doesn’t exactly fill my jeans with joy but, like everybody else, I’ll watch it. And even if it sucks, if the special features are good, I’ll probably buy it.

But the fact is, the conclusion of Bodysnatcher aside, we haven’t seen ANY great Dwarf material from Doug in at least 10 years. (And a lot of people would argue it’s been even longer.)

Red Christmas is not an indicator of how good the special will be. Of course not. But it IS the only “fresh” “new” material we’ve had since the show ended. AND it’s recent. While it doesn’t mean the special will be shit, it’s certainly not confidence inspiring.

Obviously the special will speak for itself.

Until then, rumors are flying around.

Reacting to them is the closest thing to entertainment we’ve had in the fandom for a decade.

Let the babies have their bottle.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

We’re just excited. It’s like a bunch of prisoners getting their first glimpse of tit in 20 years. You can’t help but wonder what else lurks within the bra, if you’re going to be seeing page 3 style action or if the minge will be involved…and the quality of said minge.

Excuse me, that was an analogy too far. Now I feel dirty.

[pfm]

> You can?t help but wonder what else lurks within the bra.

Apart from two veiny sacs of fat, you mean?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Ah, yes…but what lurks beneath them?

Is that…a curly wurly and a handful or wotsits?

Or is it a turd and a nest of grubs?

Let the debate begin!

[Andrew]

> Reacting to them is the closest thing to entertainment we?ve had in the fandom for a decade.

Slight overstatement?

[pfm]

Jim, you seriously are out of your tree.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

*waves*

[Phil]

> I am not a cretin.

It’s spelled “Kryten.”

[Dave]

Bloody hell, I go to the Edinburgh festival and find myself almost bereft of the internet and while my back is turned G&T goes to Def-Con 2.

The BBC is no longer interested in the audience that Robert Llewellyn’s wink used to attract.

[Steve Harris]

Much as I love the thought of the cast back together, I have to say I would be disappointed if it does turn out to be nothing more than clips with the cast reminiscing.

In truth, the DVD?s have provided more than enough of serious documentary and looking back for me. It also begs the question, why invest in a show in clip format and chat when a lot of that already exists in DVD format and could be shown on TV to reach a wider audience.

At this point in time, the specials could be any format, but Rob mentioning Doug working on it, fills me with hope.

Clearly this has stirred up a huge amount of on-line interest and despite the Sun being the offspring produced from the spawn of Satan, it has also helped to activate interest.
Andrew has hinted that the truth may lie between the words of Robert and those of then Sun! but only time will tell.

Obviously, ripping ideas to shreds that may or may not even exist at this time, is a bit like my local football team (totally fucking pointless), but speculation is healthy.

Surely if the time scale hinted at is correct, the whole thing must be pretty far along the planning route so I would hope to see an official announcement fairly soon. It would also be nice to see the on-line momentum going, something we know that can wane fairly quickly.

There?s so many ways this can go, it?s mind boggling?Cant wait.

[Mr Flibble]

Surely it’ll be a one hour special, and while the cast/set/crew are hanging around recording that, they’ll do some other crap for Dave to glue some clips onto, thereby giving Dave something new and special for very little extra effort*.

(*Andrew: add the word relatively)

[Andrew]

I have all sorts of words for you, but ‘relatively’ ain’t one of them.

[Phil]

:-O

[Smeg4Brains]

> I have all sorts of words for you, but ?relatively? ain?t one of them.

Is it “love”???
I bet it’s “love”.

[Jonsmad]

Exciting stuff, I think. Obviously a special would be best, and a good one at that,
but I’ve found all previous spin off stuff interesting from smeg up’s, documentarys, pbs adverts etc, to enjoy that if it’s the only new dwarf thing to make this point in history of the show.

[Phil]

Access Hollywood is reporting that Mac McDonald has been slimming down to a svelte 250 lbs for a mystery role. COULD IT BE?

[Danny Stephenson]

COULD IT BE?

Another bit part in a sci-fi flick to which the scene will end on the cutting room floor?

[pfm]

While Mac is always great in the series I don’t think having the crew around is a good idea. Maybe they could come up with a situation where Hollister is somehow left on his own with the Dwarfers.

[Squeaky Gibson]

I think Hollister is easily the best ‘secondary’ character from VIII and it would be great if Doug could work him in to the team. may be the crew could revolt against Hollister and the team could pick him up. with out the main crew, Hollister has to become part of the team and realizes (like he did in BiTR pt3) that the team are not bad and finds it easy not having 1,649 people under his command. it would be great to see Rimmer’s reaction to Hollister joining the team.

[ChrisM]

I think I’d prefer to get back to the original guys alone again (including Kochanski.) I wouldn’t mind if other crew-members featured in a guest role though, after all those other crew-members are still out there somewhere.

It’d be great if we could find out what happened to the surviving members of the Cat race too. Perhaps on the way to earth… or maybe they actually arrived their before them in their search for Fuchal! Maybe there is another war going on between the clean fashionable cat race and a race of giant sentient scuzzy cockroaches (or humanoid rats?) who evolved after humanity had left…

Like, you’re back on Earth, but do you really want to be here? ;)

[Ben Paddon]

Film effect, no laugh track.

I’m serious.

[peas_and_corn]

Film effect on every second episode.

[Phil]

Laugh track only when someone says “smeg!” or gets a boner.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

OOOH! A friday update on the official site!

And…….sod all again.

[Phil]

Has anyone other than Robert actually “confirmed” that we’d be getting the news in September? If what GNP is waiting on is some kind of green-light, then we’re at the mercy of that, and we could end up getting the news much later.

skjdbkj

[ChrisM]

OOOH! A friday update on the official site!

And??.sod all again.

Heh, yeah. We got news about Robert giving out news! Or not.

I’m still enjoying the wait though.

[Squeaky Gibson]

You know I find the last sentance very cryptic..

>The show is unlikely to feature any further Red Dwarf rumours, but you should watch closely, just to be sure.

what if we have the Dave idea wrong? what if BBC worldwide are making Red Dwarf for Five? the idea’s completely out of left field, but if Five were to announce that “you can see Robert again very soon on Five in Red Dwarf” then it would surely be in a continuity annoucement after the end of this series. I hope this theory is wrong, but it would mean any 1 hour special would be 45 minutes long, due to adverts and easy to sell to the US , as it would be their set running time and feature advert breaks.

[Andrew]

> it would mean any 1 hour special would be 45 minutes long

I love the levels of self-knotting this requires! You don’t know if any of the runtimes ‘announced’ are accurate, but if one of them IS, you’re certain those times are ‘broadcast duration’ rather than ‘content runtime’. :-)

It genuinely is just better to wait and see…

[Pete Part Three]

>what if we have the Dave idea wrong? what if BBC worldwide are making Red Dwarf for Five? the idea?s completely out of left field, but if Five were to announce that ?you can see Robert again very soon on Five in Red Dwarf? then it would surely be in a continuity annoucement after the end of this series. I hope this theory is wrong, but it would mean any 1 hour special would be 45 minutes long, due to adverts and easy to sell to the US , as it would be their set running time and feature advert breaks.

Or perhaps it’s just a tongue in cheek comment to make you watch Robert’s show?

[Danny Stephenson]

> It genuinely is just better to wait and see?

That’s exactly what I’m doing.

[locusceruleus]

> It genuinely is just better to wait and see?

…or to know whats going on and laud it over people. :P

Oh, and hi everyone.

[Nakrophile]

Surely if it’s Dave-produced then it will have the same time cuts for ads as five? Why was this such a big revelation? Eh, never mind for the time being.

[pfm]

I’m thinking right now that the ‘big thing’ that wasn’t announced at the same time as the OS relaunch wasn’t announced then because GNP found out that the broadcast would have to be pushed back to ’09 and therefore not in the 20th anniversary year. That would make sense considering there was some buildup to the 20th anniversary and then, well, very little.

[peas_and_corn]

Or maybe for the same reason they’re not announcing it now?

[peas_and_corn]

Or maybe for the same reason they’re not announcing it now?

[ChrisM]

Or now?
;)

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Anyone else getting past caring?

[Ian Symes]

Erm, no?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Maybe I have a short attention span.

I remember once…Oooh, look! Wrestling!

[Pete Part Three]

I had a weird dream last night (wait, come back) that the special consisted of the old crew and a next generation crew. To help illustrate this fact to the audience, the old crew had long-sleeved shirts and the new crew had short-sleeved shirts.

You’ll be relieved to know that I don’t dream about Red Dwarf very often.

[Paul Muller]

Last night I dreamt that I found a load of new episodes hidden away as easter eggs on the Series 2 DVD – they were crap though. I think one of them was called ‘Yo!’ – and consisted of a 10 minute montage of shit CGI shots of Red Dwarf and Lister and Cat arguing about who was more horny. Also, Craig Charles kept breaking character and talking over everyone’s lines.

I woke up feeling slightly irritated.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Wasn’t that one of the mobisodes?

[Phil]

I thought it was the abandoned concept for Pete: Part III.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

> I don?t want to be negative as I?m really looking forward to seeing Red Dwarf in whatever form it takes. It just seems odd that nobody?s leaking yet.

Speak for yourself. I’m on my fortieth Tena Lady.

Hmm….I think you’ve got a point, though. The further along we get with no confirmation…no rumours…the more likely it seems that it’s going to be something very small scale. Clip show with short talking heads / in-character sketches.

If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my own head.

[pfm]

> It?s supposed to be filming in October but nobody has heard anything about it except Robert Llewellyn who hadn?t even seen the script(s) when he last mentioned it.

He hadn’t seen the script because Doug hadn’t finished it. It’s worth noting that just because no-one else is shouting from the rooftops about the new Dwarf ‘thing’ doesn’t mean that loads of people don’t know about it. For a start, there’s no way the main cast haven’t known about it for months. They’ve probably been informed at every step, otherwise you could end up with the situation where one or more of them couldn’t do it due to other commitments.

I’m guessing a major reason for them shooting next month is the fact that Craig is off from Coronation Street (whether he was going to have this break anyway who knows, he may have asked for a longer holiday). It’s likely that the general line for months has been ‘don’t talk about it’ partly because they wouldn’t want everyone getting upset if it didn’t end up happening for whatever reason.

Then you’ve got to think about studio booking and production team hiring. Will Doug direct? Who will produce? Where the hell is it being shot? Are there any exterior locations to consider? These aren’t last minute decisions (well, you wouldn’t like to think they are)

[pfm]

> It?s supposed to be filming in October but nobody has heard anything about it except Robert Llewellyn who hadn?t even seen the script(s) when he last mentioned it.

He hadn’t seen the script because Doug hadn’t finished it. It’s worth noting that just because no-one else is shouting from the rooftops about the new Dwarf ‘thing’ doesn’t mean that loads of people don’t know about it. For a start, there’s no way the main cast haven’t known about it for months. They’ve probably been informed at every step, otherwise you could end up with the situation where one or more of them couldn’t do it due to other commitments.

I’m guessing a major reason for them shooting next month is the fact that Craig is off from Coronation Street (whether he was going to have this break anyway who knows, he may have asked for a longer holiday). It’s likely that the general line for months has been ‘don’t talk about it’ partly because they wouldn’t want everyone getting upset if it didn’t end up happening for whatever reason.

Then you’ve got to think about studio booking and production team hiring. Will Doug direct? Who will produce? Where the hell is it being shot? Are there any exterior locations to consider? These aren’t last minute decisions (well, you wouldn’t like to think they are)

[Phil]

The best news would be that we find out it’s been delayed until February, because that’d provide enough time for the project to actually be something big and exciting.

But yeah, as the shooting deadline nears and no announcement has been made, it’s hard to imagine it’ll be anything other than something small.

And if it is…oh well. We’ll cope. Let’s just hope it leads to something big next.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Bobby specifically says in one of his Youtube videos that he hasn’t seen a script, has no idea what it’ll be about and – most importantly – “only just heard about it” immediately before his trip to America…

So he hasn’t known about it for ages, unless he’s a big naughty fibber.

[Author]

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