Home › Forums › Ganymede & Titan Forum › Refresh For The Memory: Series V Byte 2 Search for: This topic has 95 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion. Scroll to bottom Viewing 46 posts - 51 through 96 (of 96 total) 1 2 Author Posts October 12, 2022 at 5:36 pm #278458 RudolphParticipant 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. October 12, 2022 at 5:49 pm #278460 International DebrisParticipant Indeed, they could have favoured Lister and encouraged him to bully Rimmer, directly leading to their situations. October 12, 2022 at 5:51 pm #278461 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 13, 2022 at 3:21 am #278469 StabbimParticipant 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. October 13, 2022 at 8:33 am #278475 UnrumbleParticipant 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. October 14, 2022 at 12:51 pm #278507 RudolphParticipant 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. October 14, 2022 at 2:00 pm #278509 JenuallParticipant 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! October 14, 2022 at 3:39 pm #278512 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 14, 2022 at 6:00 pm #278516 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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 October 14, 2022 at 7:02 pm #278519 JenuallParticipant 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! October 14, 2022 at 7:12 pm #278520 International DebrisParticipant I love how ludicrously macho that Lister is. There’s definitely a Big Finish spinoff to be made with the BTR crew. October 14, 2022 at 8:26 pm #278524 WarbodogParticipant 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. October 14, 2022 at 9:21 pm #278527 Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day nowParticipant 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? October 14, 2022 at 10:42 pm #278529 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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. October 14, 2022 at 10:45 pm #278530 Flap JackParticipant The new Red Dwarf players in Back to Reality should have been played by the cast of Into The Gloop. October 14, 2022 at 10:52 pm #278531 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End October 14, 2022 at 11:07 pm #278532 UnrumbleParticipant As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End October 15, 2022 at 12:19 am #278534 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 5:18 am #278539 WarbodogParticipant As a subtle reference to series 7, Chloe Annett should have played Kochanski in The End October 15, 2022 at 5:31 am #278541 WarbodogParticipant October 15, 2022 at 6:12 am #278542 UnrumbleParticipant 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 October 15, 2022 at 11:46 am #278550 Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day nowParticipant Okay, somebody call Mythbusters – is there actually a deleted scene of Rimmer scouring his swimming certificates for the microdot? October 15, 2022 at 4:31 pm #278551 Flap JackParticipant 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? October 15, 2022 at 4:50 pm #278552 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 5:25 pm #278553 WarbodogParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 5:29 pm #278554 Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day nowParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 8:08 pm #278555 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 9:38 pm #278557 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 9:54 pm #278559 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 10:02 pm #278561 RudolphParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 10:10 pm #278562 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 10:59 pm #278564 clemParticipant 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. October 15, 2022 at 11:45 pm #278567 Flap JackParticipant 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. October 16, 2022 at 7:14 am #278570 StilianidesParticipant 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. October 16, 2022 at 7:55 am #278573 DaveParticipant Got this pressing the Smega-Drive dice button Well, now we know where they got the idea for Legion. October 21, 2022 at 7:47 pm #278791 StabbimParticipant 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. October 22, 2022 at 7:34 am #278797 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant 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) October 22, 2022 at 9:00 am #278800 International DebrisParticipant 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. October 22, 2022 at 9:57 am #278801 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant “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?!” October 22, 2022 at 5:23 pm #278810 StabbimParticipant 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. October 22, 2022 at 5:52 pm #278811 UnrumbleParticipant Kochanski [maybe!] becoming a guy. October 22, 2022 at 6:22 pm #278812 Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day nowParticipant French and Saunders as Lister and Rimmer? I can’t see it working. Their style of humour is very different. October 22, 2022 at 6:51 pm #278813 JenuallParticipant 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! October 22, 2022 at 7:49 pm #278816 Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day nowParticipant 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. October 23, 2022 at 5:32 am #278819 International DebrisParticipant Maybe that’s in the game too. October 23, 2022 at 6:58 am #278822 Quinn: Clochebusters World ChampionParticipant Author Posts Viewing 46 posts - 51 through 96 (of 96 total) 1 2 Scroll to top • Scroll to Recent Forum Posts You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Log In Username: Password: Keep me signed in Log In