Home Forums Ganymede & Titan Forum Refresh For The Memory: Series V Byte 2

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  • #278458
    Rudolph
    Participant

    How is Rimmer being a loser who’s brothers with a successful person
    any different to reality? That never really sat right with me.

    Kryten outlines it at the end, I think. That Sebastian and Billy having the same, normal upbringing meant that Rimmer could no longer blame all his hang ups on his dysfunctional parents.

    This does raise the question of how Kryten knows anything at all about the Doyle boys childhood, and whether it could have really been all that normal of a childhood if one boy ended up a homeless junkie and the other a fascist dictator.

    #278460

    Indeed, they could have favoured Lister and encouraged him to bully Rimmer, directly leading to their situations. 

    #278461
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    How is Rimmer being a loser who’s brothers with a successful person any
    different to reality? That never really sat right with me.

    Reading this gave me a memory jolt, as I was sure I’d posted an alternative interpretation of that on here before. Turns out I had, in July 2020 in the ‘Unanswered Questions’ thread. I still think this makes sense:

    In a way the Rimmer brother thing is the only real fumble in Back
    to Reality, but thinking about it, the only issue with it is the way
    other characters recognise it.

    Because it isn’t really “oh, Rimmer’s worst nightmare: he can’t blame
    his failure on his parents, because his brother is more successful than
    him, unlike in reality”, it’s “not only does Rimmer have a more
    successful brother, but the brother is massively more successful than
    any of his real brothers and he is massively more of a failure than his
    real self, and the brother has the visage of LISTER, one of the few
    people in his life that he convinced himself he was superior to,
    literally the only person in his career that he outranks”.

    The Despair Squid didn’t need to invent an entirely new depressing
    scenario for Rimmer, it just had to exaggerate his existing
    circumstances. It highlights how much Rimmer already hated himself.

    #278469
    Stabbim
    Participant

    This does raise the question of how Kryten knows anything at all about the Doyle boys childhood, and whether it could have really been all that normal of a childhood if one boy ended up a homeless junkie and the other a fascist dictator.

    Well, that’s the clue, isn’t it. “Bleedin’ clue, you twonks!” as guest star Timothy Spahl might say.

    That’s the hint that the “it was all just a game” sequence is the hallucination.  They still really are who they are, not the “players” they think they are, and Kryten is still the infodumper who understands the situation, and they accept his explanation of it.

    Dream logic doesn’t fall apart while you’re in the dream, you keep rolling with it.

    Like the premise of Back To Reality, and love to cling to the idea of their Character Objectives in the game being meta-commentary on, or promise of, what they’ll strive for in future seasons and how their stories will conclude when Red Dwarf does it’s final farewell episode/special.  Don’t like that it’s FemHolly’s swan song, but at least she saves everyone’s butt one last time before riding into the sunset.

    [Holly’s also a highlight in Demons & Angels, with the Rude Alert sequence and her blink-and-you’ll miss-it Siouxsieesque Low Form]

    Back half of 5 is among my favorite bytes, even before Quarantine — ESPECIALLY that line where Cat’s the astute one and immediately recognizes the threat posed by cabin fever — started hitting real different in the last couple years.  “The Luck Virus” feels like a clever parody of the way heroes in every show always manage to get the lucky break that lets them escape the trap and save the day at the end, leaning into Magic Bullshit by openly copping to it.

    #278475
    Unrumble
    Participant

    The whole Billy Doyle scene is fantastic. From Rimmer’s smug imagined-backstory, to the reveal, and him trying to row it back into something more noble befitting of ‘William’ Doyle. 
    It’s hard to imagine watching without knowledge of the punchline now, but I don’t feel like it’s that obviously telegraphed while Rimmer’s in the middle of his elaborately woven tale. But it’s still beautifully done and hilarious, regardless of whether you think it’s obvious what’s coming.

    Always loved Kryten’s deadpan “no, it isn’t” which bursts Rimmer’s bubble. A nice continuation from the “maybe I’m the guy who doesn’t take any crap from whoever the kind of guy you are” moment.

    “I’m on the run from the fascist police with a murderer, and a mass-murderer and a man in a bri-nylon shirt”. *chefs kiss*

    Doesn’t look like all that written down, the delivery really sells it. 

    #278507
    Rudolph
    Participant

    I’m guessing Clare Grogan was either busy or wasn’t asked back for Kochanski’s cameo in Back to Reality. It’s interesting how her recasting and loss of accent, coupled with how Lister doesn’t seem to notice she looks totally different, foreshadows the changes made for her ‘return’ in VII.

    #278509
    Jenuall
    Participant

    I’m guessing the Red Dwarf game auto-generates the look of the love interest based on the players desires?

    That glimpse into the other players’ game really rams home how shit our 4% crew were – they’ve barely been in the game 5 minutes and are off having the kind of Starbug adventures that our lot had to wait ages for!

    #278512
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    Honestly it’s never even occurred to me before that that was an opportunity for a Clare Grogan appearance, although it was so brief it would have been an insult to offer her it.

    The fact that ‘Kochanski’ isn’t even brunette made me sure we weren’t meant to think it was really the same person.

    Although I also thought that the session Lister looks into was from one of the other machines rather than one they just vacated (therefore Kochanski may have been a player character in an alternate scenario)… but looking at it properly, it is those same guys isn’t it.

    #278516

    That glimpse into the other players’ game really rams home how shit our 4% crew were – they’ve barely been in the game 5 minutes and are off having the kind of Starbug adventures that our lot had to wait ages for!

    It’s an hallucination though, you can’t take it as anything close to what did or could have happened.

    It’s just making Lister feel despair by showing these guys having fun in the game.

    In Lister’s hallucination, it could well be that they started later in the games run

    #278519
    Jenuall
    Participant

    That glimpse into the other players’ game really rams home how shit our 4% crew were – they’ve barely been in the game 5 minutes and are off having the kind of Starbug adventures that our lot had to wait ages for!

    It’s an hallucination though, you can’t take it as anything close to what did or could have happened.
    It’s just making Lister feel despair by showing these guys having fun in the game.
    In Lister’s hallucination, it could well be that they started later in the games run

    Oh yeah I know, it’s just fun to riff on!

    #278520

    I love how ludicrously macho that Lister is. There’s definitely a Big Finish spinoff to be made with the BTR crew. 

    #278524
    Warbodog
    Participant

    I love how ludicrously macho that Lister is. There’s definitely a Big Finish spinoff to be made with the BTR crew. 

    Red Dwarf didn’t need Big Finish, it had the Smegazine.

    #278527

    Someone, I think it was Wilhelm Scream, suggested they should’ve got the Red Dwarf USA actors to play the ‘new’ Dwarfers.

    Aside from the fact that they were all on the other side of the Atlantic… why?

    #278529

    Someone, I think it was Wilhelm Scream, suggested they should’ve got the Red Dwarf USA actors to play the ‘new’ Dwarfers.
    Aside from the fact that they were all on the other side of the Atlantic… why?

    They also weren’t going to be cast in the as yet unwritten Red Dwarf USA for a while either.  That was made between V and VI.

    #278530
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    The new Red Dwarf players in Back to Reality should have been played by the cast of Into The Gloop.

    #278531

    As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End

    #278532
    Unrumble
    Participant

    As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End

    #278534
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    Back to Reality – Pretty good, huh? It just does such an incredible job of selling you on the transition to the ‘real’ world. The opening sequence works so well as a complete setpiece, that after you get to the twist you’re not really thinking about the despair squid any more. Even though the ‘real’ world is pretty much just 4 scenes with mostly straightforward sitcom direction, the way they’re put together makes them totally engrossing and convincing. I’m pretty positive I didn’t think they were pulling the “it was all a dream” card for real the first time I watched this (because I did have 3 more series on my ‘Just The Shows, Vol. 2’ set to go, and that would have been a very bold direction to take things in), but I wasn’t thinking about that in the moment, I was just going with it. The episode isn’t quite as joke-dense as others, but it’s sacrificing that for some effective drama, so it’s all for good. And of course, all of the alternate versions of the characters are great, but Duane Dibbley steals the show.

    – Most meta episode yet, right? Would probably be the most meta episode ever if not for Back to Earth.

    – The audience seemed somewhat mellow during this episode, relatively. Maybe they were just in shock from the revelation that they were just playing a video game the whole time.

    – I’m a bit dubious of Kryten fully profiling those skeletons. How do you tell the gender or ethnicity of some bones? I know the bones are remarkably well preserved considering how many thousands of years the people they belonged to have been dead, but still. Also, I really don’t think he needed to say one of them was “”oriental””.

    – The squids must have to be careful to avoid killing off all other animals on the planet and starving themselves.

    – M. Night Shyamalan totally ripped off the concept of the despair squid for The Happening.

    – Funny how the “blatant” clues are all bits of information we’ve never learned before – that Rimmer can’t swim despite having swimming certificates, that Lister is the ultimate atheist despite being a pantheist. But neither of them deny it so I guess they must be true.

    – Rimmer is the only one who is clearly happy the moment he finds out he’s not a hologram/himself. It’s impressive, then, that the despair ink still gets him to be suicidally depressed in the same time as the others.

    – So at what point in the episode did they hallucinate all of the website content within ‘Geek Chase’?

    – Does ACAB include Jake Bullet? Yes, he does work for an explicitly fascist country, but on the other hand the only thing we actually see him do is kill a fascist.

    – Is Prelude to Nanarchy still canon? Back to Earth would seem to suggest no due to Cat taking a squid back to Red Dwarf, but uh, maybe he just took it into Deep Sleep and kept it on board Starbug secretly throughout all of Series VI and VII? It’s a stretch, but not so much of one when you remember Cat picked up the joy squid despite clearly having no opportunity to do that.

    – The way Holly defeated the despair squid off screen was so casual. Considering the premise of the episode, could it not have been that there was no living despair squid all along, and that it was just its leftover ink which was causing the problem? Still, nice that she gets a hero moment before she’s gone from the show forever.

    – OK, forget Terrorform, this is the Series V episode that would not be recommended to make your first ever Red Dwarf episode.

    #278539
    Warbodog
    Participant

    As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End

    #278541
    Warbodog
    Participant

    #278542
    Unrumble
    Participant

    Rimmer can’t swim despite having swimming certificates

    Suppose he doesn’t necessarily have to have actually swum, could just be maintaining the lie he’s fabricated with his fake certificates

    #278550

    Okay, somebody call Mythbusters – is there actually a deleted scene of Rimmer scouring his swimming certificates for the microdot?

    #278551
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    Okay, somebody call Mythbusters – is there actually a deleted scene of
    Rimmer scouring his swimming certificates for the microdot?

    Hmm, I’ve never heard that myth before. I’m not sure where in the episode you’d put a scene like that.

    There isn’t one on the DVD, though I guess you mean one that was lost to time, like they thought those Better Than Life and Bodyswap deleted scenes were, before the Bodysnatcher Collection.

    Andrew Ellard did ask in the Back to Reality fan commentary if anyone had written a fanfiction where Rimmer inspects the microdot, so maybe that’s where the myth originates from?

    #278552
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    Suppose he doesn’t necessarily have to have actually swum, could just be
    maintaining the lie he’s fabricated with his fake certificates

    I’m just going to go with the interpretation that Rimmer’s swimming certificates are real and he does remember swimming, but in the context of “Red Dwarf: The Total Immersion Roleplaying Game”, these were implanted memories as part of his role as a sleeper agent, and that the players are meant to eventually notice that Rimmer can’t actually swim, and then think to check the certificates. Doyle-Rimmer is just too bewildered and confused by the whole situation to interject with “But I can swim!” as soon as he hears “… and not being able to swim”.

    Because the whole joke of Rimmer’s swimming certificates is that he takes his real but mediocre achievements and tries to pass them off as degrees. The certificates themselves being forgeries is over-egging the pudding.

    As for pantheism vs. atheism, thinking about it, the two things aren’t totally irreconcilable. Lister believes in the inherent spirituality of the universe, but he doesn’t believe in any conventional deity figures, so therefore he could be described by a layperson as an atheist. “The ultimate atheist” is probably pushing it, but still.

    And hey, Lister’s religious beliefs were proved to be literally correct by Krysis. Must be nice.

    #278553
    Warbodog
    Participant

    I’m just going to go with the interpretation that Rimmer’s swimming certificates are real and he does remember swimming, but in the context of “Red Dwarf: The Total Immersion Roleplaying Game”, these were implanted memories as part of his role as a sleeper agent, and that the players are meant to eventually notice that Rimmer can’t actually swim, and then think to check the certificates.

    Great fix! The Inquisitor mention already seemed to retcon away the silver, don’t take away his bronze too.

    #278554

    I always took “the ultimate atheist” to be a more metaphorical statement in that his mere existence would appear to disprove beyond all doubt any semblance of some grander scheme by a supreme being for humanity and the universe, rather than being a literal reflection on Lister’s beliefs. And I say that as someone who disliked The Last Day apparently taking a stance on his beliefs.

    #278555

    I’m just going to go with the interpretation that Rimmer’s swimming certificates are real and he does remember swimming, but in the context of “Red Dwarf: The Total Immersion Roleplaying Game”, these were implanted memories as part of his role as a sleeper agent, and that the players are meant to eventually notice that Rimmer can’t actually swim, and then think to check the certificates. Doyle-Rimmer is just too bewildered and confused by the whole situation to interject with “But I can swim!” as soon as he hears “… and not being able to swim”.

    Because the whole joke of Rimmer’s swimming certificates is that he takes his real but mediocre achievements and tries to pass them off as degrees. The certificates themselves being forgeries is over-egging the pudding.

    It’s am hallucination, you can’t try and make sense of the game as if its a real in universe thing.  The fact Rimmer can swim doesn’t have to make sense.  This is the first 2 minutes after having “learnt” they were in a game.  They are confused and disoriented and the despair ink is probably still working out the best way to induce despair properly.  Inconsistencies be damned.

    #278557
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    It’s am hallucination, you can’t try and make sense of the game as if
    its a real in universe thing.  The fact Rimmer can swim doesn’t have to
    make sense.  This is the first 2 minutes after having “learnt” they were
    in a game.  They are confused and disoriented and the despair ink is
    probably still working out the best way to induce despair properly.  Inconsistencies be damned.

    Hallucinations don’t need to make sense in general, that’s definitely true. The nitpicking of these details is more from a storytelling perspective for me. The reveal is meant to be believable in the moment, so anything too contradictory would give the game away. (Plus, the characters and setting are so vivid, it is fun to think of the alternate continuity where Red Dwarf really was revealed to be just a video game, as I gather was used in the Smegazine strips.)

    Ultimately it’s fine, because the swimming certificate/atheism contradictions are too subtle to stick out when you’re first watching, but if Andy had revealed some things that were more obviously wrong, that would have been a problem.

    #278559

    What is quite incongruous is why all four of those people choose to play a computer game together.

    The Doyle brothers know each other but don’t seem too close.  Maybe Jake knows Seb through but being a traffic cop it seems unlikely.  And where does Duane fit into all this?

    Given they’re in this thing for four years it must cost a lot.  So I assume Seb is paying for it all for everyone.  So it wouldn’t be the case it’s four random people that are put into the same game.

    #278561
    Rudolph
    Participant

    We learn that Red Dwarf has a years-long waiting list, so it’s possible that the arcade might pair up individuals if they don’t arrive as a foursome. So Duane and Jake may not have had friends who wanted to play the game with them, so they were paired up with Billy and Sebastian to make a group.

    #278562

    Yeah but that’s where my “I assume Seb it paying for all this” comes into play.  A traffic cop and … whatever Duane is don’t look the sort to be able to afford 4 years in a computer game.

    Unless it’s cheaper than rent.

    #278564
    clem
    Participant

    Got this pressing the Smega-Drive dice button

    Demons & Angels is one of those episodes where I mostly agree with people’s criticisms but just don’t find that stuff as bothersome as others seem to. I think it deserves credit for being a bottle episode that really doesn’t feel like one (just like Out of Time), what with the three Red Dwarfs and all the re-dressing of sets and the cast playing multiple roles. Granted there are moments where it doesn’t quite come off, but it’s an admirably ambitious and overall successful episode.

    Don’t think I’ve ever noticed that High Kryten’s mouth doesn’t move at all when he says “Poor devil. His gun must have gone off accidentally.”

    The way Low Cat’s fangs move when Lister first encounters him always bugs me.

    Lister and Kryten are easily the best Lows and I agree Craig’s remote-controlled acting is very good too. 

    When the Lows are controlling Lister, they seem to have a video feed of his POV. Not sure how the spinal implant does that exactly. 

    #278567
    Flap Jack
    Participant

    Yeah but that’s where my “I assume Seb it paying for all this”
    comes into play.  A traffic cop and … whatever Duane is don’t look the
    sort to be able to afford 4 years in a computer game.

    Unless it’s cheaper than rent.

    Well we know from Geek Chase that Duane is a master hacker, so maybe he used his software skillz to work his way up the ladder at some disreputable tech company and built up enough savings from that to afford the game. He may have even worked on Total Immersion games themselves. … or he just used his hacking skills to steal from people.

    As for Jake, police wages are probably pretty good in a literal police state, and if you’re a cop (even in traffic control), there’s always plenty of opportunities to make money through good ol’ corruption.

    Also, maybe they didn’t intend to spend 4 years in there, but by virtue of it being “total immersion” they weren’t able to decide they’d had enough, and Leisure World International were happy to leave them in there and keep draining their savings accounts.

    #278570
    Stilianides
    Participant

    Got this pressing the Smega-Drive dice button

    Demons & Angels is one of those episodes where I mostly agree with people’s criticisms but just don’t find that stuff as bothersome as others seem to. I think it deserves credit for being a bottle episode that really doesn’t feel like one (just like Out of Time), what with the three Red Dwarfs and all the re-dressing of sets and the cast playing multiple roles. Granted there are moments where it doesn’t quite come off, but it’s an admirably ambitious and overall successful episode.

    I wouldn’t really ever have said that Demons and Angels is a bottle episode. Even if that were the initial intention, with so many effects and some of them having to be redone for the reshoots, I can’t imagine it turned out that way.

    #278573
    Dave
    Participant

    Got this pressing the Smega-Drive dice button

    Well, now we know where they got the idea for Legion.

    #278791
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Honestly it’s never even occurred to me before that that was an opportunity for a Clare Grogan appearance, although it was so brief it would have been an insult to offer her it.
    The fact that ‘Kochanski’ isn’t even brunette made me sure we weren’t meant to think it was really the same person.
    Although I also thought that the session Lister looks into was from one of the other machines rather than one they just vacated (therefore Kochanski may have been a player character in an alternate scenario)… but looking at it properly, it is those same guys isn’t it.

    I’m guessing the Red Dwarf game auto-generates the look of the love interest based on the players desires?
    That glimpse into the other players’ game really rams home how shit our 4% crew were – they’ve barely been in the game 5 minutes and are off having the kind of Starbug adventures that our lot had to wait ages for!

    Yep.  Part of the hallucination is the voice on the intercom mentioning Red Dwarf is a Total Immersion video game.  Same company as Better Than Life, same “immersive” game experience, presumably the same gaming code as well.  The other game doing will is another jab of despair: “you sucked at being you.  Anyone else would’ve done a better job.”  An Inquisitor who has found them all guilty of wasted potential.  And for Lister specifically, as “Lister’s objective for the game [you twonk]!” Kochanski’s just an NPC, generated in response to the Lister player’s subconscious desires.  She looks however the Lister player wants her to look.  She is, simultaneously, destiny, impossible, and pointless.  And he’s wasted years of his life pining over a mere string of code and figment of his imagination.  Despair.

    #278797

    New theory, so the game isn’t completely exclusive to men playing it, there’s rooms with groups of female players.  Most opt for playing what we see as the Parallel Universe characters and the in-universe explanation would be that it’s possible to cross over into other games quite easily if you want to.

    You can also play as Kochanski who is meant to in some way survive along with Lister (hence our seeing him “save her life” when Lister watches the game briefly). Maybe Confidence and Paranoia and Stasis Leak were all ways the game was trying to nudge our players to get a Kochanski into the game.

    (again, hallucination so none of this is at all actually relevant but still fun to speculate)

    #278800

    I love the idea of a Clare Grogan character in the BTR world being sat waiting for four years going “for fuck’s sake” every time our crew fuck up another chance to make her a regular character. She eventually takes TIVG to court as she paid the full fee yet got about ten minutes of gameplay out of it.

    #278801

    “You mean I can play for 5mins but I have to pretend to be one of the others?! What the fuck are those guys doing?!”

    #278810
    Stabbim
    Participant

    New theory, so the game isn’t completely exclusive to men playing it, there’s rooms with groups of female players.  Most opt for playing what we see as the Parallel Universe characters and the in-universe explanation would be that it’s possible to cross over into other games quite easily if you want to.
    You can also play as Kochanski who is meant to in some way survive along with Lister (hence our seeing him “save her life” when Lister watches the game briefly). Maybe Confidence and Paranoia and Stasis Leak were all ways the game was trying to nudge our players to get a Kochanski into the game.
    (again, hallucination so none of this is at all actually relevant but still fun to speculate)

    Well, there’s that old story (don’t know how accurate it is) that Grant & Naylor did consider having Lister and Rimmer be women at one point early in development and even considered recruiting Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders for the roles [what a Parallel Universe episode that would’ve been] so I guess if Red Dwarf really were a Total Immersion game and women were playing it Lister and Rimmer (and Cat & Kryten) would simply become women and the NPC crew would still just be generated from their subconscious assumptions and desires, including but not limited to Kochanski [maybe!] becoming a guy.

    #278811
    Unrumble
    Participant

     Kochanski [maybe!] becoming a guy.

    #278812

    French and Saunders as Lister and Rimmer? I can’t see it working. Their style of humour is very different.

    #278813
    Jenuall
    Participant

    I like the idea of Grogan being sat in some Fortnite style holding lobby for 4 years waiting for the others to trigger her getting back into the game!

    Extrapolating a “we’re still in the game!” style scenario where series VI is still part of the simulation – perhaps that would explain how stilted her performance is in Psirens. “5 fucking years and you’re telling me I just get to turn up for a 30 second illusion!?” I’d be phoning that shit in as well!

    #278816

    But we never see them return to the game. In fact, last we see them they’re on the run from the fascist police and about to shoot a harpoon through all their heads.

    #278819

    Maybe that’s in the game too.

    #278822

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