Ranking Kryten's Cosmetic Appearences

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Ranking all of Kryten’s cosmetic changes throughout the show, feel free to add your own, mine would be:

1) Series V
2) Series VI
3) Back to Earth
4) Series XI & XII
5) Series VII
6) Series III & IV
7) Series X
8) Series II
9) Series VIII

VIII is ranked the lowest cause I think his mask looked like shit and they had the resources to make it look way better but they didn’t, that’s why for me it beats II which is understandable why it looks shit.

X and above is where the masks stop looking like shit for me, but X would be the worst because of the nose they gave him and the weird bags under the eyes thing I never understood. III & IV I thought Kryten always looked sweaty. VII and above I generally like, but VII I think they put too many stark lines, while with XI & XII I don’t think they put enough; but they’re fine for me.

Back to Earth was close to being made my favorite tbh, I think Kryten hasn’t looked as good since and its impressive considering the budget constraints they had. V & VI Kryten is the one that always shoots to my head whenever I think of Kryten.

Topic

[Bargain Bin Holly]

*why for me II beats it

[bloodteller]

If you pause III at certain moments Kryten looks like a bald man who’s just spent 12 continuous hours in a sauna.

[bloodteller]

Or one of those big spinning hunks of meat you see in really cheap kebab shop windows.

[Unrumble]

Maybe his extreme sweatiness is what caused him to stutter “sawn-off shhhhotgun”

[NoFro]

Talking masks…

III is grim. Poor Robert.

I think IV is a lot better. One of the best actually. Surprised that you lumped III and IV together. I always saw them as looking quite different but that might just be me.

BTE is pretty much perfect. Looked at those first images and thought “yep that’s Kryten” with no reservations. Despite the constant changes it is odd that we all have a way of thinking that IS what Kryten looks like and that ISN’T what Kryten looks like.

Anyway I think VI is my favourite. V is also very good.

VII/VIII I don’t like so much. II is fine considering. X I got used to but certainly was a bit odd at first with the funny nose. X/XI are a bit soft looking.

Basically IV, V, VI, BTE are different versions of great. The rest vary from Meh to Bad.

[GlenTokyo]

Think you have to split it into head and body because they aren’t always as good as each other.

Head V, VI, IV, XI, XII, III, BtE, II, VII, VIII, X
Body III-V, VI-VIII, XI/XII……… BtE, X, II

Best all round would be V I’d say. Worst all round X.

[GlenTokyo]

Just to add, 3 is sweaty but I like the design more so that’s why I’ve put it above the ones I have.

Maybe he’s just a slimy robot in that series, getting over a WD40 habit.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Surprised that you lumped III and IV together. I always saw them as looking quite different but that might just be me.

I never noticed much of a difference, but I’m aware that the two series were made a couple years apart so maybe I’m missing something; its just that there are so little differences between the two series I might’ve just been blind to some of the changes.

[bloodteller]

If we’re talking Kryten appearances, what’s up with his look in Back To Reality? He’s meant to be half human but they’ve put all metal shit over his face so he looks even more robotic than before

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I think there’s supposed to be a human brain under the metal bit of his head

[Dax101]

I think VI had the best version of both head and body.

Series 3 you can probably forgive due to it being early on in the make up process. VII and VIII makes Kryten look much bigger built in both head and body.

X,XI and XII seems fairly low quality with both mask and body.

[Warbodog]

VI has always felt like the default/ideal Kryten to me. I like VI Rimmer too.

IV for Lister, Cat, Holly and ensemble pics.

[Unrumble]

Pretty sure Robert says something about this in one of the commentaries, that he looks bigger due to weight-gain.

[Unrumble]

Ok, I obviously haven’t quite figured out the quote HTML thing. I was trying to quote Dax101 about him looking bigger in VII and VIII.

[International Debris]

V
VI
IV
BtE
VIII
X
VII
XI/XII
II
III

[GlenTokyo]

I like VI but I just like how III-V has much more complexity even though it was obviously horrendous to wear haha.. the grey cuffs, the round waffle things on his arms and legs and the neckhole with all the chamfers, the crinkly undersuit. It’s great.

Also I think the smoked perspex shoulder blocks are better than 3 LEDs that don’t do anything.

[Pete Part Three]

X and it’s beaky nose is dogshite. III’s complexion is awful. V is tops. The LEDs on his shoulders in VI was a nice idea, but pretty redundant since it didn’t work. I don’t like the silvery suit in VII or the white lines that they stuck on the angles on his mask.

But the absolute worst representation of Kryten is in Back in the Red where he strips naked (an awful idea in Bodyswap deleted, that should never have been revisited), his head falls off and his hand inflates (?!). I mean, fuck off. (And unlike much of the nonsensical crap in that episode, this is before the AR kicks in).

>If we’re talking Kryten appearances, what’s up with his look in Back To Reality?

It’s a way of rationalising that he’s changed appearance, like all the others, without having to resort to taking off the mask (since Bobby had already been seen extensively without it in DNA, and it wouldn’t make much sense to the audience if he looked like the same guy). Within the reality of the hallucination, the fact that Jake’s Kryten has an angled head, is because Jake has an angled head. (Note, that the replacement Kryten is just a bald guy in the next game).

[Dave]

He also has human hands in Back To Reality, which is a nice touch.

[Ben Saunders]

IV and V look really good, I used to really like VI but now I think it looks a bit… mushy…, II is obviously shite for various reasons, as is VIII, VII looks great but incongruous with every other iteration, BtE is definitely one of the best, X is shite and he looks too fat in XI and XII, although those are the series in which he looks most like Robert Llewellyn

[Dave]

VI
V
IV
III
VIII
Back To Earth
Red Kryten from Krysis
X
VII
USA
XI & XII
II
Gold Kryten from Krytie TV

[Bargain Bin Holly]

So you thought the Ferrari look was an improvement?

[Dave]

Yeah, I thought it served the story well and the ‘what if Tony Stark designed Robocop’ nature of it.

[GlenTokyo]

I thought the red outfit and accompanying scene was one of the worst things to ever appear in an episode of Red Dwarf and maybe any television program ever to be honest.

[Ben Saunders]

It is a bit broad, innit? Watching Bobby try to run around like a race car in that suit was just tragic.

[GlenTokyo]

On a related note, I was going to start a topic on this but I fell foul of the new spam filter, so I’ll post it here.

I found this ‘if Ray Winstone played Kryten’ mask on an archived Red Dwarf forum post somewhere…

And I clicked the TOS link and it was an official product in the design stages, now I’ve seen the Cat, Rimmer and Lister costumes presumably made under the same license by this company, but I can’t recall ever seeing this one and Google searches haven’t really shed much light.

I mean, I don’t want one or anything, I think it’s pretty terrifying to be honest but it’s interesting. What happened? Did it come out and I missed it? Would it have needed to be £300 or something, was it judged too hideous for public consumption?

Here’s the link to TOS’s article

http://reddwarf.co.uk/news/2011/03/25/first-glimpse-of-kryten-costume-and-mask/

[Hamish]

> I like VI but I just like how III-V has much more complexity even though it was obviously horrendous to wear haha.. the grey cuffs, the round waffle things on his arms and legs and the neckhole with all the chamfers, the crinkly undersuit. It’s great.

What you call complexity I call a bunch of random items glued to an under suit. It makes more sense for a robot to have one cohesive shell. I have never understood the love for the V suit although the mask is fine. VI is the standard by which all Kryten’s should be judged.

[bloodteller]

>Gold Kryten from Krytie TV

Honestly it took me ages to notice he was meant to be gold. I thought they were just doing the VII thing of the suit being really shiny and stuff

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I was under the impression he was gold in Ouroboros too

[flanl3]

Ah, yes, alternate Kryten.

[si]

Scott Tracey Kryten.

My brother worked out that his current design of his 3D printed Kryten head is around the same size as Scott Tracey's. So he grabbed a Thunderbirds toy out of a cupboard and tried it out. pic.twitter.com/1HNALogxmX

— Si (@bromley001) July 28, 2018

[tombow]

personally I like the milder ones that have less angles and show his normal face off the most, because I like his expressions.

[Unrumble]

Hmmm

VI
V
IV
BTE
VII
VIII
III
USA
XI
XII
II
X (the nose!)

[Plastic Percy]

I quite like the VI costume and the VII head. I like Kryten having more parts to his costume than just a chestplate over grey overalls as it looked in III – V. And the VII has the slightly lighter colouring on the angles of the mask, giving it a nice bit of definition. I’m not keen that the VII costume turned him silver, as I feel he looks better with a black chasis.

Saying that, I rather like the X costume. The tubes on the shoulders give it a sort of retro feel.

[Unrumble]

Ah, I was only considering the masks, not the whole outfit

[GlenTokyo]

I like the XI/XII top half the most of the Dave series, and probably the most since the Grant Naylor era, just wish the legs would get slimmed down. I assume they do it to make Bobby a more uniform thickness but I just don’t like how massive they are.

[Dave]

I don’t know, a big round body with little thin legs might end up looking like Doctor Robotnik.

[Dax101]

Not a great costume

[Ben Paddon]

I actually really like the XI-XII Kryten costume and mask, though the ear “vents” are slightly too big for my liking. I think part of the problem, if it can so be called, is that Robert has changed shape over the last thirty years. Entirely understandable – he’s human, after all – but it does mean he’s lost the svelt look he had when Kryten looked his absolute best during IV-V.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Kryten looked his absolute best during IV-V.

Of course you mean the factually correct answer of V-VI Kryten. (sarcasm)

Not a great costume

I actually think he looks really good in that photo, like, really good.

For some reason I have a lot to say on Kryten’s individual appearances so I’d like to add my two cents on the pros and cons of the XI & XII ensemble.

Pros:
#1) Nose is less ‘beaky’
#2) No eye bags
#3) Overall face is nearly excellent, apart from one thing (See Cons #1)
#4) Outfit for the body is very well-detailed and easy on the eyes (He has a socket for the groinal attachment even though he doesn’t use it, attention to detail)

Cons:
#1) Signature lines on Kryten’s face aren’t as noticeable as they should be, he’s supposed to have an angular face (“All the curves you got are gonna become right angles.” – Fallout 2)

– Best Kryten mask this side of Swindon –
{Note – But not TOO angular, or it becomes Series VII Kryten, which while not bad, can be pretty distracting on casual viewing}
#2) This one WILL sound petty and I’ll look like a dick, but XI & XII Kryten is quite… well.. . big in the stomach area. Maybe they can somehow make it a bit thinner without Bobby having to do anything he doesn’t want to, but yeah if he could be a little more… slim.

[Dax101]

Well they say black is a slimming colour so i don’t know why they went with a grey instead.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Probably to better contrast Kryten with the black-cladded MILFs in Siliconia, which being possibly one of the first episodes to be written prior to XI & XII sounds plausible to me.

[Rushy]

1. Series III

2. Series IV/V/VI

3. Series VII/VIII/Back to Earth

4. Series XI/XII/Promised Land

5. Series II

6. Series X

[Author]

Replies