Refresh For The Memory: Series V 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 HOLOSHIP, THE INQUISITOR and TERRORFORM. Have at it!

Previous threads:

Series 1 Byte 1
Series 1 Byte 2
Series 2 Byte 1
Series 2 Byte 2
Series III Byte 1
Series III Byte 2
Series IV Byte 1
Series IV Byte 2

Topic

[Warbodog]

“it’s true, they really do care about you”

It’s kind of a reworking of a deleted bit from The Last Day, where Rimmer’s less enthusiastic about standing with Kryten against Hudzen (before going along anyway).

It arguably undermines him a little, but I do enjoy the dopey way Inquisitor reacts to Kryten’s distraction. “Huh?”.

The Inquisitor’s pomposity is ripe for puncturing really (he made himself a helmet with badass skulls on), but where would they find the time in a series V episode.

[Unrumble]

“it’s true, they really do care about you”

It’s kind of a reworking of a deleted bit from The Last Day, where Rimmer’s less enthusiastic about standing with Kryten against Hudzen (before going along anyway).

Thanks for highlighting this! I never felt much enthusiasm for deleted scenes for some reason, think I only gave them one viewing when I first got the DVD’s, so I don’t remember many. It is basically the same joke, but arguably overdone with the extra “yes, they would”.

I think it’s a good trim, as the disinterest seems a bit of a blip in Rimmer’s attitude compared to the party scene and the confrontation with Hudzen either side. Though also arguably not out of character that he would revert to his cowardly weaseliness in the scenario.

[Jenuall]

I think people are seriously underestimating how funny The Inquisitor is. I’m never going to deny it’s not a more serious episode with some genuine tense/dramatic moments, but it’s still incredibly funny throughout with probably the longest time between gags being at most a minute.

[International Debris]

How is it Kryten is replaced with a different model?

I think it’s only Beyond a Joke that suggests all series 4000s are played by Bobby. Camille and Siliconia both seem to contradict it (I know Camille is supposed to be a GTI, but gender isn’t mentioned in the list of extras, and while she isn’t really a mechanoid, Kryten would certainly be aware whether all 4000s looked the same or not). 

Now there’s a missed opportunity, not having a Hudzen in Siliconia.

Tech issue. Safari for iPhone, when quoting text, you need press return to get out of the quote box and start typing your reply. This usually works, but occasionally it starts a new quote box which you have to remove manually in the code screen. Today a new, blank quote box has appeared underneath my reply, thus:

[International Debris]

I think people are seriously underestimating how funny The Inquisitor is. I’m never going to deny it’s not a more serious episode with some genuine tense/dramatic moments, but it’s still incredibly funny throughout with probably the longest time between gags being at most a minute.

After Kryten’s jiggling foot they dry up a bit: a couple with Rimmer and Cat, youthed/aged, a couple of lines after the Inquisitor has been frozen, the old backfiring time gauntlet trick, and I’ll give you 15. It’s not much for almost a third of the episode. There are moments in other bubble episodes where the gags are fewer, but they don’t go on for so long, and the tone between them isn’t so utterly bleak. 

[Warbodog]

I never felt much enthusiasm for deleted scenes for some reason, think I only gave them one viewing when I first got the DVD’s

I’ve been watching them after the episodes this time around for extra insights, but was put off during series 4 due to how abysmal they were. Less trimming for time, more “shall we take out this completely shit bit that would spoil one of the best scenes/episodes ever?”

[Jenuall]

After Kryten’s jiggling foot they dry up a bit: a couple with Rimmer and Cat, youthed/aged, a couple of lines after the Inquisitor has been frozen, the old backfiring time gauntlet trick, and I’ll give you 15. It’s not much for almost a third of the episode. There are moments in other bubble episodes where the gags are fewer, but they don’t go on for so long, and the tone between them isn’t so utterly bleak. 

To be fair, there’s 6 minutes of actual episode content left at that point, so not quite “almost a third” – and as you point out there are still solid gags in there, including some real highlights – “I’m gonna use my brains for the first time in my life” “considering the circumstances do you really believe that’s wise” , “excuse me can I just distract you for a brief second”, “I’ve got to go back in time to sacrifice myself so we can get into this mess we’re in now in the first place”, “I’ve got it! Don’t tell me!”, “all in all today has been a bit of a bummer”, the aforementioned “give you 15”, it’s hardly a barren period!

Like I say, I’m not denying it’s a more dramatic episode than the average to this point, but it’s still very funny.

Other random thoughts on the episode – the “ENIG” business always annoyed me. “For some reason my final words are ENIG” You wot Kryten? You know what the reason is at that point, you’ve worked it out! Also “all my glorious work will be undone!” amounts to their reality going back to, seemingly, exactly as it was before! Now their just 4 people and a computer 3 million years into deep space so perhaps not the best subjects to identify changes to causality but you’d expect SOME ripple of changes to occur surely?

[International Debris]

Also “all my glorious work will be undone!” amounts to their reality going back to, seemingly, exactly as it was before! Now their just 4 people and a computer 3 million years into deep space so perhaps not the best subjects to identify changes to causality but you’d expect SOME ripple of changes to occur surely?

I thought maybe because they’re the last people in the universe, they would be the first the Inquisitor encounters in his journey back in time, but that doesn’t quite work either. Maybe he goes forwards in time and they are the last individuals on his first pass, and everybody has just ended up being like Lister and Kryten’s replacements and ended up in exactly the same situation anyway. He’s planning to go back and start again with a much stricter set of rules once he’s reached the end. You could even use it to explain the retconning of Hollister’s character and Kochanski’s appearance. 

To be fair, there’s 6 minutes of actual episode content left at that point, so not quite “almost a third”

Ah, I hadn’t realised it was such a short period! And yeah, there are good gags, but they’re clustered together, you’ll get three or four good lines, then after Kryten disappears there’s a good couple of minutes without a joke at all. The showdown between Lister and the Inquisitor is pretty much completely serious until the back-firing time gauntlet (the audience laugh at the word ‘balls’, but that scene could easily come from a drama). I suppose it goes deeper than simply numbers, though: when watching it, in the last ten minutes of the episode, the bleakness seems to permeate even the humour for me, which, combined with the lower gag rate, means it just loses something.

[Loathsome American]

I think on this rewatch maybe I do overrate The Inquisitor a bit. I think it’s plenty funny enough, the Inquisitor himself is a terrific design (and voice!), and the inquisition itself is one of the all-time Red Dwarf moments for me. But especially after having rewatched Justice so recently, the back part of this episode is the weaker of the two “get chased around an industrial area by a killer simulant” action scenes. I also sort of wish they beat the Inquisitor in a cleverer way? Especially when they set it up that Lister might have this lateral-thinking scheme, but then ultimately it’s just a “reverse the polarity” solution. Wouldn’t you like to see them force the Inquisitor to justify HIMSELF and fail to do so, or something like that?

Also something odd in the writing: Kryten makes the argument that in order to live a good life a mechanoid would have to break their programming (with the implication that Kryten has not, as he fails his test), and then in another two scenes Lister laments that he’s broken Kryten’s programming. The degree to which Kryten has or hasn’t broken his programming is sometimes fuzzy between episodes (and I guess “broken” vs “unbroken” isn’t a purely binary state), but this is contradictory within a couple minutes when it doesn’t really need to be. 

[Loathsome American]

Now their just 4 people and a computer 3 million years into deep space so perhaps not the best subjects to identify changes to causality but you’d expect SOME ripple of changes to occur surely?

If there was a version of the Inquisitor story where they make the Inquisitor justify his own existence, this could be the key argument: the Inquisitor’s nature-not-nurture solution is shown to be ultimately ineffectual because even with half of the crew being replaced, they still wind up in a functionally identical situation anyway. 

[Flap Jack]

the “ENIG” business always annoyed me. “For some reason my final words are ENIG” You wot Kryten? You know what the reason is at that point, you’ve worked it out!

Well, it’s a stable time loop, so he isn’t saying those things naturally. He’s just repeating what he heard himself say.

Also something odd in the writing: Kryten makes the argument that in order to live a good life a mechanoid would have to break their programming (with the implication that Kryten has not, as he fails his test), and then in another two scenes Lister laments that he’s broken Kryten’s programming. The degree to which Kryten has or hasn’t broken his programming is sometimes fuzzy between episodes (and I guess “broken” vs “unbroken” isn’t a purely binary state), but this is contradictory within a couple minutes when it doesn’t really need to be. 

That definitely does stick out. I guess that Kryten’s programming is broken insofar as he can lie, insult and generally exercise more freedom in his day to day life, but he still has self-doubt about how much his programming determines his life goals. “Am I serving the crew because I want to, or is that still just my programming?” he may be asking himself.

Another interpretation is that Kryten has fully broken his programming and could justify himself on that basis, but that his moral disapproval of The Inquisitor condemning mechanoids for something that is largely outside of their control is too strong, and he doesn’t want to place himself above other mechanoids.

Also, my feeling is that Kryten isn’t just logically resigned to being erased; he’s trying to make The Inquisitor doubt and question his mission, probably because he’s more concerned about the others failing their trials than he is about failing his own. Another reason he could justify himself, but chooses not to.

[Jenuall]

Another interpretation is that Kryten has fully broken his programming and could justify himself on that basis, but that his moral disapproval of The Inquisitor condemning mechanoids for something that is largely outside of their control is too strong, and he doesn’t want to place himself above other mechanoids. 

This has always been my view on it. Kryten knows that he has broken his programming and can conceivably provide some moral code that dictates his actions and could therefore be used to justify himself, but he doesn’t agree with the principle of what The Inquisitor is doing and so refuses to engage with it. Hence the stubborn label

[Dave]

Stubb-born

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– There are lot of potentially worrying implications to Red Dwarf/Starbug having a holo-whip, but Lister could have just been bluffing. Or McIntyre just had some kinks. Let’s not judge.

Assuming Lister wasn’t bluffing (and Low Rimmer having one might indicate he’s not), I don’t think McIntyre was the one to order the holo-whip, purely because he wasn’t dead for long enough to order one and have it delivered before the rest of the crew died. If it was already on the ship pre-accident, it had to have been Saunders (or whoever his TV analogue would’ve been) to order it. Unless he was planning to die and thought to order it ahead of time. Or he had designs on Saunders. As you say, let’s not judge.

Though that said, there’s no evidence that it was already on-ship before the leak, so I guess it’s possible? Did they always have a holo-whip? When did it show up? Did Lister order it to freak out Rimmer? Was he actually planning to use it? This line of thought raises so many questions.

[Dave]

I wonder if the recording order suggests that holowhips were meant to be introduced first in Demons & Angels and then the Holoship mention would act as a callback.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I think you’re probably right.

[Flap Jack]

Assuming Lister wasn’t bluffing (and Low Rimmer having one might indicate he’s not), I don’t think McIntyre was the one to order the holo-whip, purely because he wasn’t dead for long enough to order one and have it delivered before the rest of the crew died.

I think it’s just about possible. Stasis Leak (Past) was 3 weeks before the radiation leak, so it may have also just been a few days before The End (Pre-Stasis).

Therefore, as of Stasis Leak, McIntyre may already have died and been brought back as a hologram – they were just giving him some time to adjust to his death before they officially put him back to work with his funeral/welcome back party.

Consider also that during Stasis Leak, Red Dwarf was in orbit around Ganymede, and people were able to go on ship leave. Ample opportunity for George to get someone to bring up some holo-supplies to the ship. “Please purchase me a holo-whip,” I imagine he said to Todhunter or whomever, “so my death does not prevent me from participating in BDSM parties with Joe and his wife, which is one of my top hobbies.”

[International Debris]

This is probably a discussion for Demons & Angels, but how does a holowhip work? In Holoship, it seems as if it’s something Lister could hold in order to hurt a hologram, and yet in D&A, it appears to be exactly the opposite.

[Stabbim]

I always got the impression that McIntyre’s rank/position was something to do with manifests (since he has an archive of all the times Rimmer’s reported Lister) so he might have been able to requisition the holowhip directly and not go through Todhunter and/or the Captain at all.

Yeah, Lister’s threat in Holoship implies the holowhip is something more or less like a lightsaber, a “real” handle for a human to hold onto and a hologramatic whip tail that holograms could touch and be touched by.  Though the one we actually see in Demons & Angels would have to have the reverse polarity of that in order for Low Rimmer to wield it against Lister.  [Again, having to write around “Rimmer can’t touch anything” must’ve really been becoming a pain in their ass by this point].  I guess there’s either two variations of the tool that both bear the same name, or there is some way to switch modes

[Stabbim]

Why haven’t they started with Petersen, Chen, Selby, Kochanski, even Hollister?? Harrison feels like a prototype VII Kochanski.

Well, presumably there’s still that second copy of Rimmer where Kochanski is supposed to be.  Perhaps Holly still can’t [won’t?] find where Rimmer hid the Kochanski disk/file, nor will Rimmer ever surrender leverage by divulging where he stashed her

[International Debris]

Which then opens the question of why they weren’t even swapping disks, but just getting Holly to do it. 

In terms of McIntyre, the reports thing suggests to me that he’s in personnel. 

Every time I see the word ‘holowhip’ I think it’s a spelling mistake. 

[Flap Jack]

Perhaps Holly still can’t [won’t?] find where Rimmer hid the Kochanski disk/file, nor will Rimmer ever surrender leverage by divulging where he stashed her

I mentioned this before, but it doesn’t seem right to me that Rimmer wouldn’t divulge the location of Kochanski’s disk if he’s planning to leave forever, if it was still hidden at that point. He might not do it until it was absolutely confirmed, but in that case Lister would surely just wait, not start interviewing other people straight away. And I don’t think Holly would refuse either – she didn’t in Series 1.

That’s why my feeling is simply that Lister has moved on from Kochanski at this point, or at least he recognises that activating her hologram would be a bad idea.

Which then opens the question of why they weren’t even swapping disks, but just getting Holly to do it. 

They have an automatic CD changer type device, just off screen?

Or, spinning off my theory about Balance of Power, perhaps Holly has some crew members partially stored (just enough to interview them) in her temporary, digital memory for easy access, but if they were to be chosen to be the ship’s full time hologram, their disk would need to be properly loaded.

I guess there’s either two variations of the tool that both bear the same name, or there is some way to switch modes

The former makes the most sense to me. So like there’s a ‘standard’ type where the whip is made of light, but the handle is physical, and there’s a ‘reverse’ holowhip (which possibly only exists on Low Red Dwarf thanks to the triplicator copying the standard one) where the whip part can interact with living people, but the handle is like a special light bee that hovers around exactly where a holgram’s hand is, and responds to their movements.

[Rudolph]

Maybe they found the holowhip on a derelict?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Probably the simplest answer.

[Warbodog]

Maybe they found the holowhip on a derelict?

And keep it close at hand ready for Rimmer’s annual meltdown.

[Moonlight]

I wrote a long post about how the idea of Rimmer’s Inquisitor costume switch being a sensible way to establish a timeline shift is just downright unreasonable.

When I hit post it just vanished and I couldn’t get it back.

Rest assured I made some good points about how fucking stupid it would be to indicate an alternate timeline by using Rimmer’s REGULAR costume as a sign of this not being the same Rimmer, among several other things such as how this kind of costume change would go unnoticed except by the exact people who would be confused about it. 

[Unrumble]

Maybe they found the holowhip on a derelict?

And keep it close at hand ready for Rimmer’s annual meltdown.

[Warbodog]

how fucking stupid it would be to indicate an alternate timeline by using Rimmer’s REGULAR costume as a sign of this not being the same Rimmer       

It could have come down to the green costume looking better under the green lighting of the inquisition scene.

[Stilianides]

Terrorform

While I can agree that the plots have a more dramatic feel in Series V, I’ve never felt there was any reduction in the comedy content. The laughs come from the situations which is how it should be.

The opening six minutes are classic Dwarf. The production standards are top notch, Kryten has some good lines, and the computer scene is perfectly executed.

Rob’s influence is felt throughout the episode (yes, particularly in the “dank tuft of rectal pubic hair” and “cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity” lines) and I’m not sure Rimmer’s demons have ever been explored so successfully since.

There are plenty of laughs throughout with Cat getting several good lines at Rimmer’s expense.

The conclusion is funny, in character, and ties things up very neatly.

A very tightly plotted episode and one of the highlights of Series V.

[Warbodog]

I should probably watch the relevant documentary clip or commentary, but what’s going on with the completely alternative (and much worse) takes of The Inquisitor in the deleted scenes? Did Rob and Doug reshoot a lot of that episode when they took over in later weeks, or is it all still Juliet May and just refined on the day?

[Stilianides]

I should probably watch the relevant documentary clip or commentary, but what’s going on with the completely alternative (and much worse) takes of The Inquisitor in the deleted scenes? Did Rob and Doug reshoot a lot of that episode when they took over in later weeks, or is it all still Juliet May and just refined on the day?

I think the deleted scenes section mentions that the ending was later reshot and I presume the earlier scene was, too.

[Warbodog]

So probably called Jack Docherty back in when they went back to Sunbury pumphouse during Quarantine or Back to Reality filming, I suppose. It seems like the most extensive reshooting since series 1, especially if they also fixed any of the other episodes, but without the extra week to fit it in.

[Stilianides]

So probably called Jack Docherty back in when they went back to Sunbury pumphouse during Quarantine or Back to Reality filming, I suppose. It seems like the most extensive reshooting since series 1, especially if they also fixed any of the other episodes, but without the extra week to fit it in.

Well, they reshot massive chunks of Demons and Angels, too.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I wrote a long post about how the idea of Rimmer’s Inquisitor costume switch being a sensible way to establish a timeline shift is just downright unreasonable.

When I hit post it just vanished and I couldn’t get it back. 

G&T is silently censoring users.

[Dave]

G&T is silently censoring users.

The Inquisitor must have judged it unworthy.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

And keep it close at hand ready for Rimmer’s annual meltdown.

 

[Unrumble]

G&T is silently censoring users.

[Flap Jack]

Terrorform – Not on the same quality level as the previous two episodes, but definitely a continuation of the Series V hot streak. The opening with the injured post-crash Kryten is probably one of the most impressive and immediately gripping openings the show has ever done, and the way it’s structured to essentially start in media res means it leads neatly into a solid mystery/rescue plot. And once we get to it, the psy-moon concept works well, and pretty much every way Rimmer reacts to what’s happening to him is hilarious. To round things off, the way the rest of the crew are determined to rescue Rimmer and don’t even contemplate giving him up at the end is genuinely quite heartwarming to me. They do care, no matter how much they insist otherwise.

– Holly continues to be under-served by the scripts, but at least she gets a good interaction with Lister about the possible tarantula.

– We accept that Red Dwarf is in a universe without the internet, but do their computers not have GUIs either? Maybe they’d just opened the command line program. Either way, it’s nice to know that text adventure games are popular in the future.

– Lister and Cat do some extremely impressive one hand typing under stress, with immaculate spelling, grammar and punctuation and everything (except for the repeated “taranshula”s).

– Continuity Watch: Kryten’s visual interface gives him a copyright date of 2340, so he’s an enlightened 24th century guy. Incredibly they manage to keep this detail consistent in Back in the Red, in line with the rest of Series VIII’s strict adherence to continuity.

– Nice detail on Kryten’s interface with his “Condition” going through a bunch of random colours like mauve and heliotrope.

– Kryten seems to be basing his guess that Rimmer is on a psy-moon on very little. (He doesn’t even get the info from the psi-scan because, well, wrong type of psy.) It would be funny if he finished that full explanation of what a psy-moon is, then turned out to be completely wrong.

– Stupid sexy Rimmer.

– This has another instance of Cat saying someone’s name, “Out into Rimmer’s subconscious?”. For some reason I’m still keeping track of these.

– Rimmer’s mum being a leech felt a bit forced, like it’s clear The Cat wouldn’t naturally say “a huge great blood-sucking leech” if not to set up the punchline. Would have been better if they’d brought back Kalli Greenwood to make a 2 second cameo as a face superimposed onto a leech, rather than just explaining it… OK, I understand why that wouldn’t be worth it.

– Untapped reaction images, for whenever the government announces a new policy:

– Now that I think about it, the Psy-moon is functionally very similar to Better Than Life, only its constructions being bad isn’t a twist, it just happens straight away. It’s still unique enough I guess, with the more real stakes.

– Assuming the Smega-Drive transcription is correct, Kryten’s binary phrase actually translates into “Îâ” (if there are no spaces, which there probably would have been), which is a bit disappointing, and potentially offensive to native binary speakers. Though the actual translation – “01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110010 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101010 01100001 01100010 01100010 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010” may not have been practical for TV.

– Here we get the 4th – and final? – “Kryten shoots down Cat’s suggestion due to 2 flaws” gag, and it’s still good. Perfect example of how you can make a gag run without it just feeling repetitive.

– After The Inquisitor, this is the second episode in a row where Rimmer is up against his own psyche (and you can maybe even make the argument that the next 3 episodes kind of have that too). At least then, his psyche did ultimately side with him. The psy-moon creatures aren’t taking “but my upbringing” for an answer.

– Rimmer says that Lister called him a “cancerous polyp” “only this morning”, but surely more time must have passed since then? How quickly can Lister completely repair and clean Kryten? Maybe Rimmer being on the psy-moon made it harder to keep track of time.

– For something which is notionally a Rimmer episode, Terrorform has surprisingly little Rimmer in it. It’s 10 minutes into a 27 minute episode before he even appears. Not that this is a problem, as Series V is hardly short on Rimmer content overall, and it gives the other characters their chance to shine. Plus it means that Rimmerworld is not as derivative of this as I once thought.

– In relation to the above point, it occurred to me while watching this, would Terrorform actually be a really bad first episode? The way it just throws you in, and relies on you already getting what Rimmer’s general deal is. Did anyone here have Terrorform as their first ever Red Dwarf episode?

– Oh hey, Starbug has caterpillar tracks! I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunities to use those in future.

– I’ll just about buy the “Rimmer isn’t a hologram here” point, because sure, if the Psy-moon can create all these real physical creatures, it can create a body around Rimmer’s light bee, why not. It does also follow the trend of Rimmer getting a body but not getting an opportunity to enjoy it much, as set by Better Than Life and Timeslides. At least he gets to have a nice group hug before he loses it this time.

[International Debris]

Did anyone here have Terrorform as their first ever Red Dwarf episode?

Yup! I was single figures at the time, though, so probably didn’t care too much for character familiarity anyway.

[Flap Jack]

Ah! I wasn’t expecting to get a response on that so quickly, thanks ID.

It goes to show that Red Dwarf, and sitcoms in general (excepting ones that have ongoing narratives like The Good Place), just take you on a ride, and don’t really need to explain everything to get it as long there’s enough of a gist – then you can fill in that extra context later. It’s probably just fans that think about ideal viewing orders and such.

[Warbodog]

Oh hey, Starbug has caterpillar tracks!

Starbug is all the Thunderbirds and all the Thunderbird 2 pod vehicles.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I guess that makes Red Dwarf a mix of Thunderbird 5 and Tracy Island.

But which is Blue Midget?

At a punt I’m going to guess Thunderbird 6, because they only use it once and then immediately forget about it.

[Rudolph]

How many times does Starbug display an ability that never gets referenced later on? It has a cloaking device in Backwards, caterpillar tracks here, and can easily function underwater in Back to Reality.

[Unrumble]

How many times does Starbug display an ability that never gets referenced later on? It has a cloaking device in Backwards, caterpillar tracks here, and can easily function underwater in Back to Reality.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I guess that makes Red Dwarf a mix of Thunderbird 5 and Tracy Island.
But which is Blue Midget?
At a punt I’m going to guess Thunderbird 6, because they only use it once and then immediately forget about it.

Don’t gaslight me into believing here is a sixth Thunderbird

[Dave]

Don’t gaslight me into believing here is a sixth Thunderbird

There is, but for a Thunderbird it’s a bit shit. Basically the Thunderbirds equivalent of Carbug.

[clem]

Knowing that Kryten’s meant to have a six million year lifespan makes Binks’ “almost burnt out, give it maybe 3 years” an even sicker burn.

I’ll keep an eye out for it but I think The Inquisitor is the last appearance of Lister’s Titan Hilton blanket.

I’d never considered that Rimmer’s green costume was to show the change in timelines. I could have sworn there was a reference to it being a mistake at some point.

The DVD booklet does say it was an error.

Never noticed before that the pictures on Thomas Allman’s wall change when he’s replaced.

Also it’s weird that he has a framed picture of himself by his bed.

[International Debris]

The DVD booklet does say it was an error.

Vindicated!

[Unrumble]

Also it’s weird that he has a framed picture of himself by his bed.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

There is, but for a Thunderbird it’s a bit shit. Basically the Thunderbirds equivalent of Carbug.

Thank goodness I’m not the only one who thought that. Good lord, who thought it was a good idea to introduce a sixth Thunderbird and then have it be the most anticlimactic possible craft that nobody in their right mind would ever use except in the most improbable situations? It’s not fast, it’s not durable, it’s not got any useful tools, it can’t hold its position unless you’re going around in circles… I could go on for hours talking about all the things wrong with it as a Thunderbird craft!

[Author]

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