Only The Good Is Alright

[Ben Saunders]

…but in the mirror universe, does Rimmer have an enormous cock, or a fanny? When I was young I assumed it was a fanny, but now I’m older I’m thinking enormous cock.

Topic

[bloodteller]

>I’m not in love with VIII, but I thought it would have been a better use of it’s time if we’d had Back in the Red as one episode (extended or not) and then the next seven being a mix of Canary missions and Porridge-esque prison scams.

THIS. so much time is spent in Back In The Red setting up the whole prison ordeal, and it only ends up lasting for 4 and 1/2 episodes- it ends up feeling like a waste of time.

[bloodteller]

>Just think if Doug had his way originally Red Dwarf would have ended with Series 8 with the crew getting back to earth in that kinda VIII shinanigans sort of way.

checked in the scriptbook and yeah, they were going to get back to Earth by using “the antimatter generator found in the Mirror Universe” which is a bit of a weak way for them to get home tbh.

wait a minute, was the line in Back In The Red Part 1 about the ship now having an “antimatter generator” supposed to foreshadow the “Earth” episode? i suppose them mentioning it beforehand would’ve made it feel slightly less shoehorned in, but either way what would a mining ship need antimatter generation for?

[Ben Saunders]

Watching Only The Good and then immediately watching Back to Earth made me realise they use extremely similar plot points – in both, the Dwarfers invent some fucking gun out of thin air that allows them to travel between dimensions. At least in BtE, we have a smart sciencey person invent it, and we’re given a lovely montage of Sophie Winkleman being smoking and building it.

(and it’s not real)

[GlenTokyo]

To be fair, Katerina is supposedly a science officer of the crew, so would have been present in Only the Good too, along with a lot of other intelligent people you’d assume.

I always thought that if you’d gone with the crew, all the ships, intelligent people and supplies, they would have got back to Earth pretty quick sharpish. They also had the good Holly. If the shit one can make the hop drive, the good one could probably get them back to Earth and probably even to the correct time period with a bit of wibbly space thing assistance, or another time drive from a derelict.

[Moonlight]

and we’re given a lovely montage of Sophie Winkleman being smoking and building it.

I’m pretty sure that was a fog machine.

[Ben Saunders]

The vibe I got from the crew in VIII was everybody was far too concerned with “how the hell did we get here” as opposed to “how the hell do we get back”, like it never occurred to them to try and return because they were all too preoccupied with being confused.

And nah, you don’t need a smoke machine when you have Sophia Winkleman on your set

[Ben Saunders]

Good Holly didn’t have three million years of boredom that led him to tinkering with dimension jump technology to pass the time

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The other thing BTE has going for it is that they don’t actually invent anything or go anywhere

[GlenTokyo]

Possibly, but considering in later series space is basically the middle aisle of Aldi, they’d have picked up a time drive or dimension ripper or Supralight FTL drive or something that would have them back.

I always thought that conversation between Hollister and Newton showed Hollister in a good light, as though they’re on it and they’ll have possible solutions soon, which is contradicted unfortunately later on, of all the series VIII issues, Dennis the donut boy annoys me more than most.

[Ben Saunders]

They go on a metaphysical odyssey, quinn

I don’t really see anything wrong with Donut Boy but I feel like everyone else on the entire planet does

You could go from Donut Boy to Good Captain if you tried hard enough, one doesn’t disallow the other

[Ben Saunders]

When I say I don’t see anything, I understand why people think it undermines the character

[International Debris]

I’m not very fond of Comedy Hollister in general – in the first two series, he’s played straight, which allows humour to happen around him, without compromising the fact that he’s meant to be captain of a massive fucking spaceship.

[Jawscvmcdia]

TWO MONTHS IN THE HOLE!

[bloodteller]

to be fair you don’t see much of him in the first 2 seasons, maybe he was eating donuts while we weren’t looking

[GlenTokyo]

Yeah you could do a good job having got there in the wrong way, there are people practicing law and even medicine that are perfectly good at it until it’s found out they never passes their exams or something, and maybe the situation they’re in would bring something out of him and he’d be immense in a time of crisis, but it’s just a bit unnecessary to turn every character into a comedy one. In Series VIII when you have Ackerman as the ridiculous authority figure can’t Hollister just be the captain? It can still be funny, the chicken costume was funny, probably more funny because the character has been established as competent and respected so it’s unexpected.

It’s nice to have a serious character to act as a bit of a threat or pallet cleanser.

[GlenTokyo]

*Passed *Palate

If somebody would clean my pallets though I’d appreciate it.

[flanl3]

Could somebody clean up my pellets please?

[Captain Bollocks]

But she wasn’t real, so she wouldn’t have been there. Unless they managed to hallucinate someone they’d never met but who did actually exist, which would be next level weird.

More pressingly, the question remains; If she *was* real and had crossed over through the mirror universe, would she have had a big fat throbber of a cock? Even though the men were clearly still men and the women were clearly still women?

[Captain Bollocks]

Well, I fucked up that attempt at quoting.

[flanl3]

Well, I fucked up that attempt at quoting.

I mean, who hasn’t, though?

[Ben Saunders]

Resorting to >meme arrows seems to be the way to go

[flanl3]

Resorting to >meme arrows seems to be the way to go

[Dave]

Resorting to

meme

arrows seems to be the way to go

[Lily]

Show off.

[flanl3]

Resorting

to

>meme

arrows

seems

to

be

the

way

to

go

[Dave]

Not as easy as it looks, is it.

[bloodteller]

so… is Only The Good alright?

[Ben Saunders]

For Series VIII yeah

[bloodteller]

i do quite like the metal-eating virus appearing at the start of the episode and then finally coming into play towards the end, that was quite clever.

but then again, Justice already did that much better

[Ben Saunders]

Tfw basic plot setup and payoff is described as “clever” in Series VIII – that’s how bad it is

[International Debris]

It’s not much of a payoff, either. Virus lands on ship. Virus starts destroying ship. No conclusion.

[Ben Saunders]

I take it you haven’t seen Season XI

[Ben Saunders]

Season IX, I mean. Pesky Roman numerals.

[bloodteller]

there’s a lot of bloody captions in Only The Good, isn’t there? “Six Hours Later”, then ” Five Minutes Shhhlater” then “Two Hours Later”. whatever happened to using model shots to show passage of time? captions feel very unlike Red Dwarf tbh

[Dave]

Season IX, I mean.

What is this ‘season IX’ you speak of?

[GlenTokyo]

Watched the deleted scenes for VIII recently due in part to this thread. To be honest, I have never wanted to see more of VIII so didn’t bother in 2005 or whenever it came out, or any year since, but I have to say with a few reshoots of the cesiumfrankolithicmixyalibidiumruxydixydoxydexydroxide bits from Chloë and Robert, the ending where Rimmer is a twat and leaves the crew to find their own way is miles better. Obviously it’s a bit heartless but compared to the one we got I think it’s funnier and more in universe than having the grim reaper appear.

[bloodteller]

yeah the original ending is a lot better, it also serves as a nice conclusion to Series VIII- the dwarfers are out of prison at last, they’ve once again got the ship to themselves and the revived crew are left behind. it ties up all the loose ends.

in the ending with the grim reaper, the revived crew just exit the narrative as soon as the microbe shows up, the dwarfers just exit the narrative when rimmer comes back to the decaying ship (why did they disappear?) and nothing is concluded.

i think even on the VIII Documentary, doug addresses that the original ending worked a lot better “but for some reason, we went past that and did the second ending which truly didn’t work”

[International Debris]

I’m really glad Doug’s moved on from cliffhanger endings to season closers, as none of them worked. I know the ending of Out of Time is dramatic, but I’d love to see a version of VII that didn’t have to cope with it.

[Rubber]

General series VIII question: when they’re in prison, there are often these scene-setting prison ‘exterior shots’ – or at least that’s what I assume they are. An orangey capsule thing in the foreground with a turquoise-grey background which looks like dozens and dozens of floors/balconies with little dots of light scattered over it. I could never work out what the fuck any of it was supposed to be, from which angle we were viewing it and to what scale. Anyone?

[Ben Saunders]

The Tank?

It’s The Tank.

[Rubber]

It’s The Tank but what is the CONFIGURATION of the whole thing, is this some top-to-bottom ship-spanning facility? Do all the floors across the ship come to a halt around the prison? How is the prison on a single floor? It all just seems a bit bollocks tbh.

[Ben Saunders]

The bit in the middle’s G-Tower. From the looks of it, it’s not a “floor”, but rather a restricted “area”, given the name “Floor 13” to sound spooky or something. Red Dwarf is MASSIVE so it’s not out of the question that they could hide shit.

Also The Tank is called “The Brig” several times in VIII, and “The Brig” is referred to in The Inquisitor, so…

It’s a bit silly honestly

[Rubber]

Thanks! Sometimes I wonder if series VIII wasn’t maybe a bit ill-conceived and shit in some minor ways.

[bloodteller]

you have to wonder since that tower’s right in the middle of the prison and connected to FUCK ALL, how anyone ever actually goes in and out of those cells

[International Debris]

Or, y’know, why it has such a ridiculous convoluted design.

[GlenTokyo]

you have to wonder since that tower’s right in the middle of the prison and connected to FUCK ALL, how anyone ever actually goes in and out of those cells

The DVD would suggest retractable bridges.

It is a shit design though.

[bloodteller]

having to retract multiple bridges every time you just want to go in or out of the cells seems really really ridiculous.

i suppose it does stop the prisoners getting out though, doesn’t it? if they’re imprisoned in a tower connected to nothing then their attempts to escape would only result in death

[Rubber]

Having said all that, my favourite thing in all of series VIII was the LOVELY COSINESS of Lister getting anything he wanted from his cell by hammering on a pipe. Even if it was in one of the shite episodes.

[International Debris]

i suppose it does stop the prisoners getting out though, doesn’t it?

Like in Krytie TV, where Lister and Rimmer quite easily sneak into the main part of the ship to sabotage ‘ex-boyfriend Tim’/Ackerman’s quarters.

I had considered that it could be part of the tank somehow, only it looks like the main ship, Lister believes it’s Tim’s quarters, so it would have to be in the main ship, and even on a badly run ship like Red Dwarf, I still find it hard to believe that Ackerman would be allowed to bring a date back to the secret prison (or even willingly live in the secret prison).

[bloodteller]

>Like in Krytie TV, where Lister and Rimmer quite easily sneak into the main part of the ship to sabotage ‘ex-boyfriend Tim’/Ackerman’s quarters.

Kryten explains he’s “paid off the guards” presumably so Lister can do this. Though given that crushed beer cans are used as currency in Krytie TV, i’m not exactly sure what he’s paying them off with. Krytie TV is a bit weird like that

>Having said all that, my favourite thing in all of series VIII was the LOVELY COSINESS of Lister getting anything he wanted from his cell by hammering on a pipe. Even if it was in one of the shite episodes.

yes, this was quite a nice moment

[Author]

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