Refresh For The Memory: Back To Earth

[Ian Symes]

Since listening to Athletico Mince, I can’t help but imagine Reg Wharf as looking like Roy Hodgson.

WORAMMUH

[Rudolph]

[Flap Jack]

Back to Earth Part III – There’s probably not a lot in it, but I agree that this is the best episode of the series. The story comes to an emotional head at this point (obviously) and as the story is BtE’s strongest suit, I guess it stands to reason that this is the strongest episode. The nitty gritty of the actual plot isn’t especially great due to just being “Back to Reality again, but not as good”, but the performances – particularly from Craig – and the overall atmosphere really sell it.

On the whole, a decent effort. Maybe better than Series VII on average, but not at peak. The joke quality and density left me feeling overall a bit disappointed back in 2009, but now we’ve had the 3 much more classic Dave series that followed, I try to appreciate BtE for what it is.

– Continuity Watch: Kryten has a key concealed in his finger which unlocks a specific post box on the set of Coronation Street (or at least his subconscious expects him to have it). I trust that this will come in useful at least once per series after this.

– Quite bizarre for Simon Gregson to identify Carbug as a spaceship and not a car which has spaceship decor. Maybe this universe’s version of Simon Gregson has lived his life entirely within the confines of Coronation Street and has somehow never seen a car before.

– The Craig/Lister scene is funny throughout in my book, even down to the way Cat says “Yeah” after Rimmer says he’s not all there.

– Is it a hint for the joy squid twist that The Creator and the Dwarfers exist on the same plane of reality, yet The Creator can still affect things, meaning he’s essentially the god of his own universe? I thought it might be, but then I remembered that the film Stranger Than Fiction works on exactly those rules and doesn’t go with a “it was all a dream” twist, so maybe not.

– In the fakeout group assassination, why does Rimmer continue being projected after he’s been killed? Chris Barrie could have still had his top notch stage fall, he just needed to power down after hitting the ground.

– I know they explain why Lister does such an out of character thing as murdering a man with his bare hands, but still, seeing him kill The Creator by crushing his head is pretty darn brutal.

– Lister saying “but it can’t have been a despair squid, I’ve been happy the whole time I’ve been here” is seriously jarring, because of just how obviously it isn’t true. Dude was having an existential crisis on a bus about the pointlessness of his life. Honestly the plot would have made more sense if it actually was just another despair squid, or if it was a squid with no particular emotional inclination that just kept you asleep. Because any “joy” hallucination which requires you to work out it’s a hallucination before you can make anything good happen is pretty lacklustre. There’s clearly no evolutionary benefit to making your predators have a good dream or a bad dream. Comatose is comatose.

– Chloë Annett does a good job with the limited role she gets to play in this, and it was great to see that Kochanski hadn’t been relegated to just being talked about (yet).

– It seems like Lister is only asleep for a few minutes longer than the others at most, but I assume there’s some time moves faster in dreams/Narnia effect going on. There’d have to be, or else my fan theory that all of the fourth wall breaking bits in Smeg Ups, Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg etc. take place as part of Lister’s Back to Earth hallcuination doesn’t hold up.

– Kryten’s like “All dreams and hallucinations create a new universe, it’s multiverse 101” and perhaps physicists agree with this, but every nerve in my body is telling me that it’s bullshit.

[Jonathan Capps]

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Good meme, Cappsy, but what’s that to do with BTE?

[Jonathan Capps]

Just following on from the Mince references, nothing to see here 

[Flap Jack]

An interesting detail from The Making of Back to Earth is that BtE was shot in 4K, so they could do digital zooms and crops but still have the resultant frame be in 1080p.

Does this mean that Back to Earth is technically eligible for a 4K release? Obviously they’d need to upscale in the scenes where they zoom in, but there must be a decent amount of it which is full frame.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Didn’t they film to 4k but edit everything in 2k and then release in HD? So the best they’d have is 2k even if the rushes are 4k.

[Flap Jack]

Ah, OK, I wasn’t aware about the edit only being 2K.

But of course, if they still have the rushes, then re-doing all the editing and VFX from scratch would be totally worth it, both financially and artistically.

[Stabbim the Skutter]

It’s a VERSION of 4K…

So I realised this special was a blindspot in my re-watching of Dwarf in recent years, and decided to finally give it another shot…

Overall…I liked it! Surprisingly funny and deep, but all the Blade Runner stuff was weak and weird and can bugger off.

2009 Me: Wow they’re looking a bit old!
2022 Me: Wow they look so young!

“Early 21st century? Isn’t that when all the banks went belly-up and money became useless?” Yes, as of 2022 it is still certain, THAT is what will make the history books.

Although they were right about one thing; DVDs ARE gone now, the only time we buy physical media is when we want big collector’s edition boxes from Kickstarter or Limited Run, with like a retro floppy disc or Nintendo 64 cartridge. Funny how the piss-takey “prediction” turned out more accurate.

Could they REALLY not film in a tube station for 10 seconds? That green-screening was terrible!

Could they REALLY not film Big Suze standing by a road for 10 seconds? That green-screening was terrible!

Those two kids on the bus have likely finished uni now.

I don’t mind Rimmer killing Big Suze, but the whole scene comes and goes so abruptly.

To this day I have not seen Blade Runner, and thanks to this special I don’t feel like I need to.

I remember the Corrie stuff going on much longer than this.

Why does Rimmer’s typewriter-induced song sound like Freezeezy Peak?

Still makes me smile that they got Chloë back, it really makes this feel like a bridge between BBC Dwarf and Dave Dwarf. XI and XII are my least favourite Dave offerings because they’re just so devoid of continuity or feels.

“You’ll never get me” – She’s right, he never did.

The Kochanski stuff and the final scene are over and done with so quickly. A lot of this special feels faster-paced than I remember. They should have cut back on the Blade Runner stuff, binned Nose World entirely, and added more jokes and dialogue to the other bits. With a limited budget, that should have been a no-brainer.

[Flap Jack]

Could they REALLY not film in a tube station for 10 seconds? That green-screening was terrible!

I mean, legitimately I don’t think they could have.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Big Suze

[Moonlight]

Could they REALLY not film in a tube station for 10 seconds?

Maybe this isn’t as intuitive as it feels to me, but the fact that the shot is only a few seconds is precisely the best argument for why filming it on a busy location would be a complete waste of a zero-budget production’s resources. Would it really be so effortlessly efficient a use of their meager money to pay to get cast and crew out on location to film such a brief shot that could so much more cheaply and easily be done on greenscreen? And all without most viewers even blinking an eye at it? And that’s not even addressing the fact that they almost definitely would not have been able to film in the station while it was open, much like with the mall they filmed in, and then you need to populate it with extras which means MORE people you have to move out here and pay to mill about in the background. The mall had many important scenes set in it. The tube station is a mere transition. These both involve totally different logistical considerations.

So, yes, they legitimately could not afford to film for 10 seconds in a station. It is VERY expensive to do something like that and a quick couple seconds of transitional shot isn’t worth the money it would take just to mount the shoot.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Moonlight also makes a good point. I’m quite technically minded yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shot as green screen. It’s so brief it just doesn’t register. 

[Warbodog]

Could they REALLY not film in a tube station for 10 seconds?

Maybe this isn’t as intuitive as it feels to me, but the fact that the shot is only a few seconds is precisely the best argument for why filming it on a busy location would be a complete waste of a zero-budget production’s resources. Would it really be so effortlessly efficient a use of their meager money to pay to get cast and crew out on location to film such a brief shot that could so much more cheaply and easily be done on greenscreen? And all without most viewers even blinking an eye at it? And that’s not even addressing the fact that they almost definitely would not have been able to film in the station while it was open, much like with the mall they filmed in, and then you need to populate it with extras which means MORE people you have to move out here and pay to mill about in the background. The mall had many important scenes set in it. The tube station is a mere transition. These both involve totally different logistical considerations.
So, yes, they legitimately could not afford to film for 10 seconds in a station. It is VERY expensive to do something like that and a quick couple seconds of transitional shot isn’t worth the money it would take just to mount the shoot.

[Dave]

[Stabbim the Skutter]

[Ewing]

I had no idea a Red Dwarf special was in the works until it aired in 2009. I assumed the saga died with the horrendous “Only The Good” episode. This was my approximate reaction watching Back To Earth:

[Flap Jack]

In celebration of its arrival on the iPlayer, I decided to give Back to Earth another watch (as if that alone is a good enough reason) and I had a few more observations. So I thought, why not put them here? Why not, eh? WHY NOT?

– It’s weird how the squid penetrates the diving bell, but the bell doesn’t start filling up with water, nor does anyone express any concern about this happening. (Not “weird enough to notice on the first 5 watches” weird, though, obviously.)

– When recalling the flooding incident, Rimmer says he was “washed down a corridor at 80 knots per hour”. Knots per hour would in theory be a unit of acceleration, but best I can tell it’s not one people actually use. A subtle “Rimmer is stupid” joke, that he thinks a knot is a measure of distance? One that’s also at my expense for not noticing it sooner?

– Also, fun fact: knots are only referred to 2 other times in the series, and one of those times (the only time when it was about speed in water) was when they were hallucinating being attacked by the despair squid in Back to Reality. Coincidental or intentional?

– This rewatch got me thinking more about the logistics of the joy squid ink. It kind of needs to knock them all out at the same time for reasons of mental continuity, but Rimmer is exposed later than the others. So are holograms just more susceptible to hallucinogenic/soporific squid ink than humans and felis sapiens, but mechanoids are equally resistant?

– Given the joy squid sustained those injuries and squirted them with ink while it was still in the water, you’d think the water supply would be seriously contaminated now. Then again, they did say they’d built an immunity to the ink, so maybe they just DGAS.

– Can anyone make out what Michelle Keegan is eating in her scene? On this watch I thought it might have been a subtle joke about the “Actors – Don’t eat the sweets unless scripted” sign, but I’m probably just desperate for new things to notice at this point.

– Last time round I missed Cat saying “Kochanski”, which is a serious dereliction of duty in my pointless quest to note every time Cat says another character’s name.

– At the beginning them trying to capture or kill the joy squid was a whole ordeal, yet at the end they still haven’t done it, but they act like doing so is just a bit of admin. It’s like if instead of Back to Reality ending with “I took care of that. Limpet mines.” it instead ended with “Oh, the despair squid is still out there, and it’s about to attack us. But I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

– Lister’s being a bit naive with his plan to drop the joy squid on an ocean moon. “Make some happy sea life”? For the predators, maybe. For the prey it’s more like “Make some dead sea life, likely destroy the whole ecosystem.”

– Wait, that final line… it wasn’t… it can’t… oh fuck… OH FUCK.

*clears throat*

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Making a Meme of the First and Last Line of Every Episode of Red Dwarf – Day 110

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