Refresh For The Memory: Series 1 Byte 1

[Ian Symes]

You asked for it. Ahead of the forthcoming 35th anniversary poll, the G&T community is embarking on a big old rewatch, tackling half a series (or one feature length special) per week. This is your designated thread to make notes, share observations and start pondering your rankings.

This week, we’re watching THE END, FUTURE ECHOES and BALANCE OF POWER. Have at it!

Topic

[clem]

It’s part of the 15 minutes of raw FX footage in the extras, without sound, so presumably it’s just what they already had and not specially put together for the DVD.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ok bit behind I l know but I’m watching series one and can’t help but appreciate how much Balance of Power completely makes sense chronologically as the second episode.  But on from that, if it had been the second episode, our second introduction to Cat would be him stealing the cigarettes, his checking himself in his mirror twice, and his interaction with Rimmer.
I feel we get a better introduction to him in Future Echos, we get to know his character more, but here he is just in a couple of scenes for a couple of gags.  Makes him feel somewhat alien still.

[International Debris]

I suppose that kind of makes narrative sense, that we gradually get to know him better as he acclimatises to living with others for the first time.

[Formica]

The End

Finally catching up on this. Bringing you a couple new segments for these first two series.

Corridor Watch – Noting which events are taking place in these corridors. To really round out the whole talk.

– White Corridor 159 gets a lot of action this episode, as it’s both the location of the vending machine and the stasis booths.

– Corridor 147 is mentioned as the location of the Botanical Gardens, although the sign isn’t shown on-screen.

– Red Corridor 454 is where Cat comes tumbling out of the vent.

Esperanto Watch – I’ve done a bit of Esperanto on Duolingo avd done some reading on it for fun. This surely qualifies me to critique the early show’s use of it (usually good enough when it’s used, occasionally questionable, and definitely not used often enough for the ship to be usable by a crewmember or guest who speaks only Esperanto)

Level/Nivelo – Yeah, pretty much. Whatever level even means on this ship.

Botanical Gardens/Botanika Gardeno – This is wrong, but recognizable – should, at the very least, be Botanika Ĝardeno. Arguably, it should be Botanikaj Ĝardenoj to match the plural of ‘Gardens’, although this element may be lost in translation to the much more literal Esperanto. Even the great minds over at Esperanto Wikipedia can’t seem to agree which it should be on the Listo de Botanika Ĝardenoj.

Captain/Sipestro – And this one should be ŝipestro. Hollister’s captain of the ŝipo (ship), after all, not the sipo (not a word).

General Observations

– Service dispenser opposite the food dispenser in multiple corridors (although clearly just that same set recycled). At least we see both used by Balance of Power, but it does seem quite inefficient.

– One of the signs in the cafeteria labels the Food Recycle Container. If this is taken literally, surely the urine recyc isn’t that far a step down, or is that just a term for composting I’ve not heard before? Also, can anybody make out the sign next to it?

– #ReleaseTheNutCut

– Never mind Rimmer, what was Petersen doing in the drive room?

– When Rimmer shouts after Lister for “insulting a deceased superior technician”, they’ve clearly sealed off the captain’s office in the background.

– Rimmer doesn’t fade when he passes through the table or Lister in the drive room, but does when he runs through Cat in the teaching room.

– He learned all that stuff about Frankenstein in kitty school AND nobody believes it? AND the only other Cat known on the ship is the priest?

[Unrumble]

  He learned all that stuff about Frankenstein in kitty school AND nobody believes it? AND the only other Cat known on the ship is the priest?

Maybe the ‘Nobody believes that stuff’ refers to the section of cat society who were militant atheists, of which Cat was one. 

[International Debris]

To be fair, I went to a Church of England primary school and I don’t think anyone I went with was actually a Christian. Even at the age of 11 we used to snigger when we were expected to believe that stuff.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– Rimmer doesn’t fade when he passes through the table or Lister in the drive room, but does when he runs through Cat in the teaching room.

That’s a lousy way to criticise a hologram. Have you no respect for the dead?

[Formica]

I suppose a more interesting note is that his software doesn’t seem cruel enough to generate a sensation for passing through people and objects. The other option, which seems plausible enough to me, is that he gets a bit queasy just at the first time his concept of his own physical presence is violated, as might we all.

[Formica]

Future Gechoes

Corridor Watch

– White Corridor 159 appears once again right outside the stasis booth whilo Lister and Cat talk about what can be brought into stasis. Lister seems to walk straight from here into the drive room, continuing his conversation with Cat. Makes you wonder how it took him so long to get there after being let out of stasis.

– Yellow Corridor 346 is right outside the Drive Room, as Cat runs out from breaking his tooth and again in a couple of angles that show outside the door. It’s at a spot that it’s only captured in certain angles.

– White Corridor 147 is just outside the drive room as Lister runs off to keep Cat from breaking his tooth.

– White Corridor 132 is part of the route of Lister’s death march on the way to the navicomp, it’s around the right hand corner of (this iteration of) this corridor: 

Esperanto Watch

– Nothing new this episode, but maybe the captain sign does say ŝipestro? There’s a little mark above the S, I don’t think it’s big enough to be the circumflex, and it being missing certainly matches the botanical gardens’ same error.

General Observations

– Currently have no DVD player, so I’m rewatching through other means. This included some interesting subtitles on this episode, including an “$05 distress call”, “he’11 get back to you”, “astrona vigation”, and “in your mid-205”.

– Some very jumpy camera work as Rimmer runs down the hall. I don’t usually notice that sort of thing but it was a little significant.

– Calling the photograph of the dog “me dad” is another in-universe joke, right? Not Lister slipping up? I’d always imagined it was meant to be the latter but poorly performed, maybe that was never the intention though.

– The medical room is quite shit, right? There’s clearly meant to be more around the corner, but all we see is a “medical room” wall where they’ve taped up some x-rays. Either someone’s private medical data on display or weirdly grim design.

[Formica]

Also, is the bit of the ship outside of the medical room recognizably any other part of the ship? Not sure I remember the phone turning up again at any point.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

John’s ‘set’ articles are a good resource for those sorts of questions

https://www.ganymede.tv/2018/12/set-to-rights-the-captains-office/

[Warbodog]

Calling the photograph of the dog “me dad” is another in-universe joke, right? Not Lister slipping up? I’d always imagined it was meant to be the latter but poorly performed, maybe that was never the intention though.

His dad’s in the background behind the dog, but the focus of the picture for Lister. He’s the orange corridor sign of people.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

astrona vigation

Yeah, Kochanski’s bunkmate. She was one of the helmsmen.

[Unrumble]

Calling the photograph of the dog “me dad” is another in-universe joke, right? Not Lister slipping up? I’d always imagined it was meant to be the latter but poorly performed, maybe that was never the intention though.

His dad’s in the background behind the dog, but the focus of the picture for Lister. He’s the orange corridor sign of people.

One of Craig’s scouse-iest deliveries. “That’s his dog, Hann-ehh!”

[Ewing]

I haven’t been rewatching it like you guys have but I do remember all of these episodes like the back of my hand, and I’m skimming through them in another window as I write some of these thoughts down for each Byte. I’m including my scores for the Canvas.

THE END: 9/10*
– It’s a 10/10 pilot but only an 9/10 episode in terms of the larger grading scale of the show. If we had .5s it would make things easier because there’s truly so many great episodes of Red Dwarf that I had to come up with my own grading curve and baseball analogy to keep it coherent to my standards. Consider the following if you dudes over there know the game:

7-10: Home Run
5-6: Hit
3-4: Out
1-2: Strikeout

– The heart of the show is Lister vs. Rimmer and if/how that develops into a co-existence. It’s established from the very first scene of the first episode. It’s the foundational basis for everything in the show as far as I’m concerned. You take that away for a few episodes in Series VII and it’s like taking away Tom from Tom & Jerry cartoons.

– I know Grant & Naylor hated the look of the original sets in Series 1 but it’s a great example of art through adversity to me. They had no budget at all and but the cheap sets perfectly evoke that this is a low grade working class ship. It looks even better in Series 2.

– The twist that everybody the audience meets in the first 20 minutes is dead by the end of the episode is a fantastic hook. The better hook is that Lister accidentally became the God of the Cat people. The best hook is that he’s stuck with a guy he can’t stand, the consequences of his Cat Godhood, and a senile computer in the blackest of black depths of deep space.

– The unsung MVP of this episode, and the show in general, is Howard Goodall. These two pieces of music have been stuck in my head for over a quarter century by now:

– I always thought the music was at its best in these first two Series in 1988. I get that Grant & Naylor wanted to overhaul everything in the third one but I always missed the original sound of the show.

FUTURE ECHOES: 10/10
– Best episode of Series 1, probably top 10 all-time for me, maybe even top 5. You dudes have always nailed that in the older polls.

– “Well it probably is deja-vu!” is a bit I’ve shown people before to get them to watch the show. It’s better sci-fi comedy writing than maybe anything ever written for the screen to that point in 1988.

– Holly telling Rimmer off and then giving him the beehive hair is the first instance we see of Holly messing with the crew, a gag that never gets old for me.

– Always loved everything about Lister’s Zero-G Football obsession. The photo with Jim Bexley Speed and the tremendous London Jets uniform still gets a laugh out of me. “And as you can see, he was really, really, really, really, really thrilled to meet me.”

– I tend to ignore VII and VIII but it’s fun to connect Old Man Lister’s cybernetic arm with the Epideme virus. I like to think he lost it to the virus in his version of the future.

BALANCE OF POWER: 8/10
– I don’t hate this episode by any means but it’s just not as amazing as the the rest of everything else the show made in 1988 with the possible exception of Stasis Leak. It’s still a home run, like every other episode in the original 36 bubble, but it’s not a grand slam.

– The first explicitly Lister vs. Rimmer plot episode, which means the show fires on all cylinders at various points in this one. The opening argument over boredom and the checklist being one of them.

– Future Echoes introduced Talkie Toaster, Balance of Power briefly sees the introduction and exit of Chatty Crapper (I don’t know what else to call him) with the brilliant “oh crap” wordplay joke.

– The conclusion to the flashback where Lister says “alone” in both the past and the present and that smegging sad Goodall music kicks in is shockingly high art and drama for a cheaply budgeted sitcom.

– Rimmer fighting off the Petersen arm is the first we get of Barrie’s perfect physical comedy prowess.

[Warbodog]

I think The End gets a bit underrated and is better than most of the classic episodes, an unusual stand out in a good way. Maybe it falls short for many people for not being up to the expected funny standard and being heavier on plot, but every scene’s iconic as hell.

We definitely got lucky with how the strike disruption and reshoots worked out, or it would have been a lot rougher.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

        

[Rushy]

The End: I want to enjoy this more than I do, but there’s a little too much early installment weirdness, esp with the Cat who I appreciate more in concept than execution. Danny talking and singing to himself makes me cringe, and it’s a hump I always have to get over with series 1. Also, the format of the story is so different from status quo that I’m hardly ever in the mood to put it on. I mainly love McIntyre in this. 

Future Echoes: I guess the idea was mindbending back in the day, but for me it falls flat. It’s just 20 minutes of Lister being occasionally confused by the echoes, and then 5 minutes of actual plot at the end. Red Dwarf being casual is not a bad thing (I’m a fan of the next episode), but these scenes give me very little to chew on. One of my least favourite bubble episodes. 

Balance of Power: One of my comfort food episodes. This is where the Rimmer/Lister rivalry is solidified as one of the most compelling parts of the show. It’s also a great showcase for how Rimmer tries to hold on to elements of their past (JMC rank system etc) and how Lister engages with him on that level. 

[Dave]

Future Echoes: I guess the idea was mindbending back in the day, but for me it falls flat. It’s just 20 minutes of Lister being occasionally confused by the echoes, and then 5 minutes of actual plot at the end. Red Dwarf being casual is not a bad thing (I’m a fan of the next episode), but these scenes give me very little to chew on. One of my least favourite bubble episodes. 

[Jenuall]

Future Echoes is close to being the best of Series 1, only narrowly pipped by Me² in my view. A clever concept that is executed really well and milked for both its sci-fi potential as well as comedy *chef’s kiss*

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Jenuall]

[Rushy]

[Unrumble]

If it doesn’t flick your love spuds, that’s fair enough. But your main gripe seems to be that it’s not plot-driven enough, whereas I think many would say it fulfills the remit of a half hour sitcom, by mining plenty of com from the intriguing sit. 

Again, if you find the mechanics of the ep to be unfunny, or dull and not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is, you’re perfectly entitled to your legit opinion. 

[Rushy]

whereas I think many would say it fulfills the remit of a half hour sitcom, by mining plenty of com from the intriguing sit. 

It’s a competent episode of a sitcom, but for me, the best of Red Dwarf’s sitcom side comes from the relationship between Rimmer and Lister, the pathos of their predicament, or some strange idea they get into their heads. 

Future Echoes doesn’t really have that. It’s on complete autopilot as far as the dynamics are concerned. They’re just kinda chilling around, then they get confused about the echoes, then Holly explains the echoes, then there’s five minutes of drama about Lister possibly dying, and that’s it.

Waiting for God is kinda like that too, but it’s bolstered by the Quagaars and Lister having to deal with the cat genocide he inadvertently caused. There’s at least something more going on with them as people.

Dear Dave has Lister trying to figure out if he made a difference in the human race by having a child, and the vending machine subplot emphasizes how ludicrous and sad his quest for love has become (while also just being an amusing yarn). 

I will admit that the sci-fi marvel of the echoes is lost on me, since I grew up on shows like Farscape that did storylines like this in much greater detail. So it was never this spellbinding concept for me as it might have been for others. 

[Warbodog]

I first read Future Echoes in the novel version and it was one of my favourite bits of the book. I might have seen that sort of thing played straight on Star Trek, but the overlapping dialogue from two sides was clever and funny, like a Two Ronnies sketch, the imminent danger was tense, and their concept of causality seemed perfectly tight (later re-reads exposed the breaches).

I saw it after a year or two and the episode didn’t live up to that reading experience outside of a couple of key scenes, but still really good. Not a huge disappointment like TV Better Than Life and Backwards were, but I came to appreciate episode BTL on its own merits eventually.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> but the overlapping dialogue from two sides was clever and funny,

This is the thing. It may not be “about Lister and Rimmer”

most of Red Dwarf isn’t. It does happen. But it’s a sitcom first and foremost. 

And Future Echos, as the second episode of a BBC sitcom, is pulling off something as clever as anything on Star Trek and making it funny and all in 30mins. 

It’s well regarded because of so how written it is for what is meant to just be a couple of dudes stuck on a space ship 

[Flap Jack]

I don’t think it’s even fair to say that Future Echoes isn’t about Lister and Rimmer’s relationship. The whole setup with them planning to go into stasis explores how Lister doesn’t consider Rimmer’s perspective on things, and is pretty dismissive and unsympathetic about the whole “being dead” situation. And Rimmer shows his lack of trust and friendship with Lister with his anxiety about not being switched back on when stasis is over. He chooses to stay switched on even if it means going mad with loneliness because he doesn’t want to be at Lister’s mercy.

Granted, this conflict gets kind of interrupted by the future echo shenanigans, but it’s still a major part of the episode. It’s not just filler until timey wimey stuff starts happening. By contrast, Balance of Power has Lister and Rimmer’s relationship as a central focus, but it’s really just Lister vs. Rimmer there.

But even if Balance of Power is more your taste, Future Echoes is still better than Dear Dave. That’s just science.

[Technopeasant]

[Nick R]

[Warbodog]

Ha, I must have focused on Rimmer’s double take every time, I never noticed Craig’s silent movie era acting.

[Dave]

I still think they’re missing a massive opportunity to do Future Echoes re-Remastered.

[Rushy]

Rimmer: “Are you taking good care of my Blue Alert bulb?”

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ha, I must have focused on Rimmer’s double take every time, I never noticed Craig’s silent movie era acting.

I think I’ve only ever noticed Craig

[Technopeasant]

Because someone was going to…

[Technopeasant]

[Nick R]

[Professor Flibble]

Well, I’m a bit behind to contribute to this. About 4 years.

But I’d like to give my thoughts on each episode.

The End

– Does the full version of the “F” zoom out still exist somewhere? I seem to recall hearing that it doesn’t.

– Weird seeing the Series I-II intro without the Holly introduction after it.

– Not really sure why they put a grate over the opening shot.

– Generally, a good opening scene, establishes the characters’ dynamic very efficiently.

– Interesting to hear Chris Barrie’s first attempt at a Craig Charles impression

– “Yo, Toddhunter, get down!” “Indeed.” This sort of exchange always appeals to me. 

– Remastered’s version of George McIntyre’s funeral scene looks daft but the original does feel a bit empty

– Never noticed the cake before.

– Love Goodall’s “Everybody’s dead, Dave” cue

– I always expect a bigger audience reaction to “What’s an iguana?” and I don’t know why, given I’ve seen the episode loads of times.

– “I can’t write it down, I’ll remember it.” Ask Holly for a holographic pen and clipboard, surely? To be fair, they were just starting.

– I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed the pause in Lister’s final line but I don’t think it particularly bothers me.

A very solid first episode, funny considering it has to spend time laying the groundwork for the show’s sci-fi concepts

[gerrydelasel]

Captain/Sipestro – And this one should be ŝipestro. Hollister’s captain
of the ŝipo (ship), after all, not the sipo (not a word).

It is ŝipestro in the captain’s office, the circumflex is just very small.

[Author]

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