Novel material that overlaps with the show

[Beryl 2]

Has anyone made a list of material in the novels that was also featured in the show?

“Marooned” is a good example.

Topic

[Dave]

It was covered in a piecemeal fashion when we did the book club a while back, but I’m not sure there’s a single list of it compiled anywhere.

I suppose it’s a tough call to make in some respects, because while there are certainly some parts of the novels that feel like direct lifts of TV scenes (stuff like Future Echoes or the cockpit stuff from Legion) the overlap is mostly still presented in a different way in the books.

So while the novels may tell the story of episodes like Kryten or Gunmen or White Hole, it’s all embellished and changed so that they still feel like slightly different stories. DNA for example is so different that it only barely shares the same concept.

Ultimately I guess it’s a sliding scale as to what is a direct lift, an adaptation, a similar idea or an all-new concept. And even then there are lines dotted around all over the place that are drawn from other episodes without them really evoking the stories themselves.

[Warbodog]

Besides the plot elements, there are probably little lines or ideas all over the place taken from other episodes, like the Vyonne McGruder story. I guess it’d be a short list of I to VI episodes that have absolutely no presence in the novels. That’s a total guess though.

[International Debris]

It would be interesting to see an episode list with each episode annotated with what, if anything, ended up in the books. 

[NeverLeavingFred]

In terms of stuff going the other way (i.e. material from the novels being adapted in the show) am I right in thinking Ouroborous essentially makes the implication that Kryten inadvertently killed the crew of the Nova 5 (as happens in the first novel) “cannon”, whereas in the original episode (and the following episodes) the cause of their accident went unexplained?

[Dave]

Yeah, that seemed to be a case of the books informing the show. Similar to the Kochanski continuity change to have her and Lister as a couple pre-accident.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

It does seem to infer that the IWCD version of events is canon to the TV series in that respect, though it’s not explicit so there’s enough room for alternative interpretations of Lister’s assertion. I think someone did suggest something along the lines of, maybe they let Kryten try piloting the ship and he crashed it.

[Warbodog]

Bazookoids debuted in Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, which came out a few weeks before Polymorph.

Much of the plot of White Hole was in the Better Than Life novel, four months before the TV version.

Kochanski joined the crew in Last Human, over a year before Ouroboros.

[Nick R]

Not exactly a major shared plot, but another thing that appeared in a novel prior to the TV series: Star Fleet being mentioned in Last Human, and then much later in Back to Earth.

[Jonathan Capps]

Last Human also predicted the show going to shit.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Didn’t predict Kochanski going from unlikeable to potentially interesting to virtual non-entity though.

[Rudolph]

Has Lister’s drunken Monopoly pub crawl been referenced at all in the series? I feel the idea of him being shanghaied aboard Red Dwarf has become the de facto backstory for the character, despite The End and Waiting for God setting up that he’d left being a trolley attendant due to career worries and having a five year plan to set up a farm and restaurant.

[Warbodog]

I think it’s remained a novel divergence, since it’s such a big thing to not mention. In Timeslides he talks about regretting joining the Space Corps as if it was just a standard career choice. But the continuity retcons did really start from series IV, so maybe the unspoken backstory was there by then and it just didn’t come up.

[Flap Jack]

Has Lister’s drunken Monopoly pub crawl been referenced at all in the
series? I feel the idea of him being shanghaied aboard Red Dwarf has
become the de facto backstory for the character, despite The End and
Waiting for God setting up that he’d left being a trolley attendant due
to career worries and having a five year plan to set up a farm and
restaurant.

It hasn’t. In fact Ouroboros was pretty late on, and that established that Lister had shore leave on Mimas, which I think at least implies that Lister didn’t join up there?

I personally don’t think of the Monopoly pub crawl as being part of TV Lister’s backstory, because I prefer the simpler idea that Lister genuinely was just on Red Dwarf to make a living. In The End, Lister is pretty easygoing and optimistic, which contrasts well with Rimmer, who is uptight and making himself miserable over his career failings. In IWCD Lister has a lot more angst and is just generally more depressed about even having to be there, which I don’t think works as well because it turns the radiation leak into just another horrible event in the series of horrible events that is Lister’s life. The difference in microcosm is that novel Lister is in the doldrums about breaking up with Kochanski, while TV Lister is naively hopeful that Kochanski will fall in love with him.

It also has the effect of making Lister’s Fiji plan feel very tacked on in the novel. Like, novel Lister very clearly only cares about getting back to Earth and that was even his reason for getting Frankenstein. It’s hard to believe that the more cynical Lister of the novel would genuinely dream up that plan.

[Rudolph]

Oh yeah, I prefer the TV concept of Lister being slightly more industrious and not just a victim of circumstance.

[Moonlight]

This is approximately seven hundred and fifty-four times funnier than the novel replacing “nipples” with “tits.”

[Dave]

This is approximately seven hundred and fifty-four times funnier than the novel replacing “nipples” with “tits.”

[Author]

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