Refresh For The Memory: Series VII 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 TIKKA TO RIDE, STOKE ME A CLIPPER, OUROBOROS and DUCT SOUP. 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
Series V Byte 1
Series V Byte 2
Series VI Byte 1
Series VI Byte 2

[Ian Symes]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

I’m 11 and there’s new Red Dwarf at last! This era should be peak nostalgia, but it was disappointing even when I only had the previous five episodes to compare it to. I agree VIII is overall worse, but this is the series I’ve always had that Phantom Menace type grudge against. VIII was just more bad Red Dwarf.

I remember it seeming pretty high-profile too. When your Andrew Collingses and Iain Lees slag off the show, I optimistically assume they watched some of this era.

It’s my hope that at least something from the vaguer recesses of this run (Blue? Epideme?) will impress me enough on its own terms that it can break into the bubble above the worst of best Dwarf, but it seems unlikely.

Tikka to Ride

The first episode of this rewatch I’ve had to tackle in multiple sessions. A combination of general dismay and being tediously over-familiar with the episode, since the Xtended video was the first and only Red Dwarf I could get my hands on for a while. I’ll try to focus on the positives.

– I appreciated Rimmer’s caution about avoiding time travel to prevent becoming their future selves. Seeing how quickly Lister gave in to the temptation and betrayed his shipmates made the Out of Time future more credible. It almost makes up for that conversation taking place in a FUCKING STUPID WIND TUNNEL.

– Spare Head 2 having a different personality (even before the modifications) confirms that Kryten just uses the one head normally and the spares were just that, rather than being on a regular rota as maybe implied by DNA. His main head dies in Beyond a Joke though, so fuck knows!

– Kryten’s skull being propped up like an old car bonnet is a good visual gag.

– I always enjoyed the giant pizza and cannibalism scenes. We’ve been there before, with things like Lister giving fifteen and the Psiren warning, but gore feels like a more natural fit for this ‘Lexx’ style era, so go crazy.

– Did Doug make Rimmer the most boring he’s ever been so we won’t miss him so much?

– Star Trek crap (‘The City on the Edge of Forever,’ 1967):

[Stilianides]

Tikka to Ride

I can vividly remember watching the original broadcast of this one. The opening explanation of the Series VI cliffhanger felt deeply anti-climactic and just wrong, the next 25 minutes of the episode was amiable enough without being particularly funny, and the ending left me open mouthed in astonishment. I thought it was truly awful and I couldn’t believe that Dwarf had fallen so far.

Now I can see that there are some things of value in the ep, but I would still rank it as comfortably the worst Dwarf up to this point.

It was a brave move to jettison the studio audience – especially as the show was going to be coping without a key writer and soon a key character – and it was an unquestionable mistake. Craig and Robert’s acting in the scene where they discuss the food shortage is a mile below anything from Series VI.

The characterization in this episode is also dismal. Lister was threatening to become a bit of a curry obsessed cliche in previous episodes, but here it is pushed to ridiculous proportions. Not only for ignoring the dangers of using the time drive, but also for sometimes still showing more concern for his next meal than for the damage that he has done to civilization. Rimmer is left to be the morally decent one praising Kennedy which feels off.

There are some brighter moments such as the giant pizza line and “One minute you’re down…”.

The physical comedy doesn’t work imo, however, and doesn’t feel vaguely convincing. There are also some feeble gags.

The model shots were clearly an issue, but that feels like one of the episode’s lesser problems to me.

[Dave]

I can vividly remember watching the original broadcast of this one. The opening explanation of the Series VI cliffhanger felt deeply anti-climactic and just wrong, the next 25 minutes of the episode was amiable enough without being particularly funny, and the ending left me open mouthed in astonishment. I thought it was truly awful and I couldn’t believe that Dwarf had fallen so far.

Same. I remember sitting round excitedly to watch the first episode with the whole family and then being really taken aback by how different it felt and how unfunny it all was, how all the weird new larger sets etc. felt very off, how strange the characterisation felt and so on.

I have since learned to like some of it but it still feels like a jarring break from the bubble era, like an off-brand Red Dwarf that has somehow become the official continuity.

Also, this begins the decline of the quality in Kryten’s masks. His VII one is ok but a marked step down from V-VI-era greatness. 

[Stabbim]

for me, there are two enduring lessons from the doomed USA Pilots and Series 7

1) without Chris Barrie it just isn’t Rimmer.

and

2) without Rimmer it just isn’t Red Dwarf.

I’m fond of all the AR Game sequences, gags, so I do enjoy “Sir Lister Of Smeg” going into the medieval game and using cheat codes.  And at the time the novelty/payoff of finally having Lister run into [a version of] Kochanski was cool, especially with the comedic subversion of after all this time pining she doesn’t actually get along with him all that much.  But in a lot of ways she’s stuck trying to fill the Rimmer-shaped void and no one could have done that successfully.

Lister’s GELF bride coming up again was a nice call back for a show that typically tells continuity to Sit Down And Shut Up.

Series 7 is like when your favorite football team goes into decline.  There’s still some good players and you enjoy watching them, you’re not going to shift your support to another team of course, but you resign yourself to accepting they’re not going to contending for the championship.  You just hope they win on the day you take your son to see his first match in person and don’t embarrass themselves too badly the rest of the season.

[Dollar Pound]

TIKKA TO RIDE

the title is loosely based on the title of an old the beatles song, a reference to cc’s hometown.  the song was yellow submarine.  they adapted it quite a bit.  to the point of unrecognisability.  like cc’s face in celebrities disfigured.  during preproduction of the yellow submarine film, paul mccartney was shocked that the submarine was actually yellow.  ‘i didn’t imagine it as an actually yellow submarine,’ he said.    

[Dollar Pound]

other the beatles song related episode titles include the end and please2me2

[Unrumble]

And Your Bug Can Sing

[Dollar Pound]

i’ve never seen one before, no-one has, but i’m guessing it’s a white album

[Dollar Pound]

being for the benefit of mr kryte!

[Flap Jack]

With a Little Help from My… People… I’ve Met

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Baby Is Me

Hey, Judas

Made Him Mad, Dona

Baby You Can Drive My Carbug

Ob-La-Di-Di-Di-Di-Di
The Continuing Story of Bent Bob

Can You Take Me Back (to Earth)?

While Mister Guitar Gently Weeps

Day Skipper

Fixing a (White) Hole

Get Back (to Reality)

Arnold Rimmer’s Poles and Cars Club Band

I’ll Be Back (in the Red)

Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Hairy Yeti Lookalike

She Came In through the Vent Shaft

The Holly Moon Song

In Spite of All the Dangerous, Unpleasant and Smeggy Situations

The End

The Ballad of Norm and Football

For You Blue Midget

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I swear this editor is broken.

[Dave]

I swear this editor is broken.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one.

[International Debris]

Yeah, I remember saying at school that this is how the cliffhanger would be resolved. So I liked it at the time. I don’t really know how else it would be resolved. I appreciate that Doug tried to make it funny too. It’s not great, though. 

Cameras not being able to understand science that an 11 year old child worked out. Great. I know there’s similar daft stuff in the bubble, but there really is a noticeable increase in cartoon logic at this point. For all the ‘VII is dramatic’ stuff, there are really VIII-ish elements at play from the start. 

Supplies in B-deck. B-deck?! Stardisbug existed before this, then. 

God, fucking curry obsession crap.

Honestly, this is one of my least favourite VII episodes. It’s the only episode with a a vaguely V/VI cast and plot, but I can’t watch it without thinking THIS IS SHIT. 

“If we’re sensible and mature”

“And do what?” 

“Go back and find Red Dwarf before it was stolen”

Oh yeah! That’s a good idea. 

The cargo decks were expanded, which doesn’t explain how they ended up with a landing bay in the next episode. 

I like the music behind the first cargo deck scene.

I don’t like the music while Lister is replacing Kryten’s head.

Kryten’s bonnet prop is more cartoony stuff, but it’s a pretty good gag. My second laugh of the episode after “a minute’s flatulence”. I love the way Lister asks how, and then suddenly knows exactly how to do it.

”I can’t go behind Kryten’s back” So… this isn’t Kryten? 

In Out of Time they had very few supplies, Kryten used the last chillis, yet now the major supplies of curry and lager have only just been destroyed, waffles are for breakfast, and Kryten is drinking whiskey. They really should have just found Red Dwarf. 

“Just programming it now, matey boy”, “name their kid after an airport”. At this point I’m mentioning the jokes that made me laugh rather than the classics. Texas book depository is great but doesn’t need Kryten’s ludicrous double take. 

Oswald leaving a loop around his foot, them grabbing the cable, not spotting him noisily trying to stay in the room, this is all utter nonsense, characters doing totally ridiculous things for no reason for the sake of a gag. Shit writing. 

Giant pizza is such a fucking terrible joke. Even as a 12 year old I knew a body wouldn’t look like a pizza. Awful, awful stuff. 

I love that every other time they have an opportunity to stay on Earth – Timeslides, Twentica – they want to but it gets foiled, but here they have a way back and use it for this. 

Chris is really good in this. He’s doing proper acting, selling the seriousness of the situation and being fed up with Kryten. He’s not remotely Rimmer, though. 

“Picking on the chickens” sounds like a joke, but it actually isn’t. A nonsense observation for the sake of a pointless rhyme. 

I like “let’s catch some surf”, a silly line that comes out of nowhere. 

Multiple copies of them makes for a brief amusing farce, and the dramatic stuff following it shows there’s potential for a good sci-fi story in here. I like the idea, it’s performed really well, and it’s a shame it’s preceded by 25 minutes of shit.

No matter how you headcanon it, the episode begins with ‘you can’t go back in time and kill yourself’ and ends with ‘you can go back in time and kill yourself’, which is probably the laziest writing in the whole show. 

Oh yes, hospitalising Lister, great ending. 

Yeah, I don’t like that episode. 

[International Debris]

Stoke Me a Clipper

I have two issues with this episode. The first is bringing Ace Rimmer back again. The second is making him a multi-dimensional superhero legend rather than what he initially was: a really talented and all round decent bloke. Actually, I have a third: Chris has forgotten how to play Ace.  

All that said, the pre-credits sequence is enjoyably silly. It’s one of those things where if you’re going to do that kind of daft humour, firstly have a good reason to, and secondly go all the way. Both are archived here, and it still gets some big laughs out of me.  

I’m glad Lister’s second characteristic – being horny – is being explored after the excellent portrayal of him being so obsessed with curry he doesn’t care about bringing humanity to the brink of extinction.  

“Lister of smeg” is a guilty pleasure. 

Some funny bits in the VR section, but it really, really feels like Paul Alexander liked the opening of Gunmen and wanted to do his own version.  

For many years I wondered why on Earth the Queen walked over a bear trap.  

How did Lister get his trousers off with the groinal attachment on? 

“Wow, that’s sharp”. Can’t beat an over-explained gag. 

Ah yes, the landing bay. Bugger off.  

Lots of lengthy, clunky lines here, the dialogue definitely feels very sitcommy and not remotely natural.  

God this version is Ace is fucking insufferable.

“It’s your destiny”. I hate destiny stuff in all fiction. It doesn’t help that this Ace says he took over from the Ace we previously met – who we saw recruited by Bongo – and then goes on to say he isn’t the second Ace, but he’s one of a legendary line of Aces. It’s just awkward, contradictory dialogue, like Rimmer saying to Lister that he doesn’t want to be Ace, then that he’d give it a go but is needed on Starbug, then saying he’s going to try. It feels like Lister is trying reverse psychology to make him do it, but it also relies on Rimmer having already arranged it. There’s definitely a feeling of the script being at least a draft away from completion. 

Where the fuck has that medical room come from? 

Roasting a chicken. How much food have they got aboard now? One of the draws of the VI scenario was the struggle of being aboard a transport craft with dwindling supplies. Again, it would feel less jarring if they were just aboard Red Dwarf. 

God, Rimmer’s cake lines during the fight are so, so awkward and unnatural. As for the knight itself… I don’t think that needs any more discussion, other than to say that I hate it.  

Craig’s expression when being asked to speak about Rimmer is great. His speech is just a Smegazine-style list of past gags.  

Christ, I forgot there was another Smee Hee. 

I love the music in the coffin scene. The actual idea is, much like Tikka, a great dramatic sci-fi concept that I just don’t think works for Red Dwarf. The idea of them being a bunch of fairly useless nobodies is completely undermined in the first half of VII and I hate it. The point of Ace in the first place was showing how personal drive can make you a better person (with the caveat that it can take circumstances to bring that out in a person), and the idea that being Ace was actually just some ‘destiny’ utterly undermines that. 

The last time we get a different end theme, and the only one that doesn’t include some version of the usual melody. 

I don’t think Stoke is an especially funny episode, but it’s the first character-led story since V, and the idea of giving Rimmer a positive send off, giving him the opportunity to become better (even if I don’t like the actual reason), and some genuine warmth from the others at his funeral makes it the most emotionally satisfying episode of the post-V, pre-IX era, and for that I have a fair amount of fondness for it. 

[International Debris]

Ouroboros 

Ah yes, the music again! I love this piece. 

You’ve lost one of the show’s writers, and arguably the most important character. Bringing Ed back was a conscious decision to make it feel more familiar and add some continuity for both viewers and the cast, so why the fuck did they then think a filmic, more dramatic, non-studio-audience version would in any way help?

“Monthly scrape” is a great line. 

“Oh my God it’s hideous” and the laugh, fuck off VII Kryten. 

Storage lockers. On a transport ship. 

Women working for charities, glad Doug’s really punching up here. 

“Fabric of my pants” is a great example of the really fucking shit, unnecessary gags in VII. 

“Two old priests in a Skoda” is one of those over the top, unnatural sounding similes that I usually hate, but it’s actually surprisingly funny. 

For all the shit characterisation at this point in the show, Rimmer in the flashback is actually a fairly good impression of the earlier version. It’s more series 2/3 than 1, but the lines and performance are a world away from the 6/7 version. 

I like the fact that Red Dwarf has disintegration microwaves in the corridors. 

I like that Lister’s daft outfit was played for laughs at the start, but then brought back for a great gag in the meeting here. Nicely structured. 

GELF ship. Three episode in, and every one has had a very direct reference to a past episode. Something that’s plagued Doug Dwarf ever since. 

Lister taking advantage of a barely conscious woman. Didn’t he criticise Rimmer for that? What a guy. 

You know, I really like Kochanski in this episode. Her mixture of annoyance and pragmatism is refreshing and she feels like a real human being rather than a one dimensional female stereotype. 

Oh fucking hell God jealous Kryten fuck off fuck off. This scene drags a subpar episode down into awful territory. 

God, Doug has no idea what to do with Cat in this series, does he? Every now and then he gets to make a “look how stupid I am” gag and that’s about it. 

Kochanski’s “thanks Kryten” is brilliantly done. I don’t think she’s that great at comedy, but with the right material, Chloe’s great. 

“I’ve seen the word Ouroboros on a box, therefore the test tube I’ve just put my semen into contains an embryo that will grow into me that I have to take back into time and place under a pool table” is a bigger leap of logic than all of Kryten’s best guesses combined, and makes his conclusion in Cassandra seem signposted. Come on Doug, you can do better than this. 

“You came in a box, that explains everything” is a proper Cat one liner at last. 

Obscene phone call is brilliant, obviously. 

Never noticed the “introducing…” on Kochanski’s credit before. 

Any qualities the episode might have – and the general move away from the monster of the week format is a plus for me – are totally undone by Kryten and Lister’s down epic sci-fi destiny bollocks. Him being an orphan ties in with his somewhat troubled upbringing, don’t make it Important in that way.

[International Debris]

Duct Soup 

On paper, this should be a great episode. A character based bottle episode, giving some depth to the new character. But…

Lister’s “to pee or not to pee” is terrible. The whole monologue is really stilted. Kochanski, on the other hand, is fucking awful here. Chloe can’t carry this material at all, and then it’s straight into ‘women like shopping and ponies’ territory once she comes out of the bedroom. 

“Oh my God it’s Princess Leia” is a great line. Doesn’t need the one after it, though. 

Posters for Kochanski’s underwear feels like a very unpleasant foreshadowing of Krytie TV. 

I like the way she took the time to backcomb her hair, only to comb it out again on the way to the sleeping quarters. 

I dunno, Lister’s kindness here feels partially genuine, but also contrasts horribly with the selfish sleaziness he displays throughout most of the series. 

Kryten’s flashforward is one of those things where its nature allows it to be kind of silly which makes it work better than all the other jealous Kryten material. 

“No change there then.” Kochanski stealing Cat’s lines now. 

“Maybe even that magnetic fishing game” is a lovely understated Dwarf line that feels like it could have come from the Rob era. 

Kochanski hasn’t had the opportunity to have her character explored over several series like the rest, so giving her some scenes like these should be great. Instead, we get Lister’s casual homophobia and Kochanski’s sex noises. 

For all the shittiness of Lister’s attitudes, I do like the way Kochanski calls him “hetero boy” at the end, clearly mocking his insecurity. 

“Boy is it cramped” is another one of those rare VII lines that is up there with the show’s best. 

Ignoring the logistics of what the fuck is going on why does Starbug have a water recyc system like this that goes down miles of ducts that would require a ship the size of Red Dwarf to make even the slightest sense of, I quite like the “what’s that noise?” exchanges. Really, though, some of the scenes show vent space that’s about as large as the entire midsection. 

Fuck off jealous Kryten. 

They’re finally catching that surf Kryten was after in Tikka. 

What the fuck is that final scene. Fuck off. 

What a load of unfunny shit.

[Moonlight]

I just want to take this chance to bitch about all the digital zooms into SD footage throughout VII. It makes random shots have utterly garbage quality, and there’s at least one really bad one in Tikka.

Oswald leaving a loop around his foot, them grabbing the cable, not spotting him noisily trying to stay in the room, this is all utter nonsense, characters doing totally ridiculous things for no reason for the sake of a gag. Shit writing. 

Yeah, this bugs me. Lister must have eaten so many curries he lost his peripheral vision. 

Some funny bits in the VR section, but it really, really feels like Paul Alexander liked the opening of Gunmen and wanted to do his own version.  

I feel like VII really shouldn’t have totally front-loaded its big location historical set pieces. We have literally two in a row in Stoke. Seems we could have used some of that money for other things, or at least transplant the knights set piece into another episode.

How did Lister get his trousers off with the groinal attachment on? 

I would assume it was underneath to begin with.

[Moonlight]

I swear to God Lister taking the voice changer out between the lines “So far” and “so good” seems like it should be the knight’s voice dubbed over the first half. It’s kind of baffling that they didn’t do that to further drive home the idea of the voice changer.

[International Debris]

Sometimes I think about VII and the way it expands on some elements of V and VI and think it’s a really interesting idea that, although far from perfect, had lots of potential. And then I watch it directly after spending 12 weeks watching the bubble era and remember that no, it’s fucking awful crap that removes almost everything likeable from the show.

[Warbodog]

Stoke Me a Clipper

Episode 2 of the run, and even to an 11-year-old it was clearly all an exercise in writing out an actor who didn’t want to be in it any more. Cheers, that’s really going to help with my outlook.

These first impressions lingered, mainly because I didn’t rewatch enough to replace them, but I’ve softened slightly. I still don’t like it, it’s the first outright bad episode, but it was watchable in the most basic sense, which won’t always be a given.

– The Nazi dimension and Medieval roleplay make for a weird juxtaposition at the start, especially with the real (Ace) scenario being played more implausibly than the video game. Are they supposed to be compared (Ace and Lister being horny for royalty?), or is it just escapism getting out of hand? Gunmen mixed noir and western, but that served as setup, these are completely unrelated concepts.

– Some funny moments in the Ace sequence. “Your brain moves quicker than a nun’s first curry” is a simile that tickles me. The hit rate of gags is depressingly low overall though.

– Are memorable cheat code phrases as 90s as I think, or are they still going? I can still remember many of them (ICANFLY, ILOVEU, RADIOACTIVE…)

– The Ace myth just doesn’t match up with Dimension Jump. I guess I have to decide which episode is canon then.

– Not enjoying the brash Murray Gold symphonics as much as the moody electronics of previous years, especially V. It suits the over-the-top theatrics here at least, but is it going to carry on in every episode?

– Lister’s acknowledgement that Rimmer helped to keep him sane after all (however debatable) is the only genuinely touching bit of the eulogy, and a nicer callback to the early years than the references.

– I wonder if they considered a flashback montage, but decided against it for visual inconsistency. It would have been a tear-jerker, but for the wrong reason.

– I don’t remember the coffins looking shit in 1997. I do remember watching an early 2000s repeat (first time I’d seen it since then) and getting a proper, horror movie cold chill down my spine about how unacceptable it looked, like I was embarrassed on the show’s behalf.

[Dave]

Are memorable cheat code phrases as 90s as I think, or are they still going? I can still remember many of them (ICANFLY, ILOVEU, RADIOACTIVE…)

IDSPISPOPD

[International Debris]

IDSPISPOPD

Is that the ‘call a cat over’ cheat?

[Flap Jack]

Tikka to Ride – It’s a real mixed bag, this one. On the one hand, the production (albeit pulling in a controversial direction) is genuinely very impressive and legitimately gives the show a more cinematic quality, with the direction and music in the 60s scenes being particularly good. On the other hand, the story, characterisation and jokes are really bad. Hm. Besides the general quality of the comedy and storytelling, it’s just generally really jarring if the presentation is more filmic but the characters are down to 1 dimension. As others have said, Lister being so obsessed with curry that he’s willing to double cross Kryten and risk messing with the space/time continuum just sucks. It’s such an unflattering contrast with his moral fortitude in Out of Time. I’m generally on the fence about whether it’s Tikka or Blue that’s the best episode of Series 7-8. After rewatching Tikka, dear god I hope it’s Blue.

– This is relevant for more than just TtR, but I’m not watching Xtended. I’m already watching 4 Series VII episodes in a week. There’s only so much a man can endure.

– Continuity Watch: Lister is only 28? HOW???

– Convenient that Lister has dynamic, fully edited external and internal footage of Out of Time handy, even though those events were erased from history.

– Feels weird to have a full cold open in Red Dwarf, especially when it’s such low key continuity clean up.

– They go to such effort to justify and explain them reacquiring the time drive, which makes the omission of the answers to the most major questions (“Why is it a personal device rather than a massive ship component?”, “Why can it now travel in space?”, “Can’t they just use the time drive to get out of trouble from now on?”) all the more glaring. Could they not have contrived a less powerful/more random way for them to stumble into the Kennedy assassination?

– “The Lone Ranger without… that Indian bloke.” – UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

– “Over the years you’ve had more RAM than a field of sheep” is a crap joke in any context, but the fact they must have called it RAM (despite it being more like hard drive space) just to use that joke makes it even more painful.

– Kryten’s head unscrews in the same direction as it screws on – clockwise. Literally unwatchable.

– Considering they had to navigate the reality bubbles and find the ship again, which in Out of Time took 3 days in stasis, how long was Kryten Prime out exactly? Surely he’d wake up after his night of clearing his memory, realise his body had been stolen and start screaming?

– There was no need to hide the fact that Spare Head 2 didn’t know how to operate the time drive. The time drive is completely different for no reason, so even Kryten Prime wouldn’t know how to do it!

– Agreed that Lister deciding to pull on a cord he sees on the windowsill for no reason at all and everything that ensues is bottom tier farce.

– The most fantastical thing in this episode is that it’s possible for a US President to be sent to prison. Although… for what crime, exactly? Adultery would be an impeachment worthy scandal, but cheating on your wife with the same person a mafia guy is cheating with is not an actual crime with jail time, is it?

– Ah ha, I noticed the crappy digital zoom for the first time. I praised the direction, but not without caveats.

– Why is Lister annoyed he didn’t ask Kennedy where to get curry? He could ask literally anyone that question, it’s not like that’s even where Kennedy lives. What a rubbish way to end the episode.

[Dollar Pound]

ourobwalrus

[Dave]

One of the worst things about Tikka for me is the shitty pink lightning-bolt-effect thing for the Time Drive. It looks like a complete afterthought. How is it so much worse than the kind of stuff we saw in Series VI?

[International Debris]

I don’t think I’d realised before just how ugly VII is. The film effect probably adds to it, but it all seems to have this weird sort of chrome sheen to it, and a lot of gloss. Starbug felt rundown and dingy in VI, but this version is just totally different, even though the sets are largely the same. And yeah, that time drive lightning effect is abysmal compared to those video effects four years before. 

 I was actually looking forward to reassessing this series and I’ve surprised myself at just how viscerally horrible I’m finding it this time around. For all my issues with VI, it’s a veritable masterpiece compared to this shit.

[Stilianides]

One other thing that I would say about Tikka to Ride is how forced it all feels.

I get the sense that Doug was really invested in the Kennedy idea (he has spoken about the amount of time he spent researching) and he then kind of crowbarred it into Dwarf. That’s why the time drive can suddenly move them to another location and Lister behaves in such an out of character way.

With Ed, as well, the huge new Starbug locations don’t really add anything imo. 

[Dave]

Not only do they not add anything, they also raise huge questions about where the fuck all that stuff is meant to be in Starbug.

[Warbodog]

Ouroboros

This has sadly become an exercise in judging episodes by their relative shitness now, but I always kind of liked this one, in spite of all its absolute wank.

– The temporary dynamic of three inevitably feels lacking. Having Holly around to cover for Rimmer’s sarcasm and ineptitude might have balanced it out okay, like the early years. But definitely Hattie.

– Hey, it’s the Psi-Scan! Genuine reaction. It was just nice to see a prop that was recognisable.

– Thought Rimmer’s exit was convoluted? The technobabble and nonsense is off the scale around the ‘temporal’ rip (which isn’t anything to do with time) and the hyperway through non-space (where there’s gravity and air), all so Kochanski can fall down a hole.

– Yet the subsequent in-vitro tube bit impressively manages to be worse writing.

– I really enjoyed that alt-flashback. Mainly the unexpected recapturing of OG Rimmer (as International Debris pointed out), but also for being set on Red Dwarf rather than a baffling Starbug. It felt like a glimpse of the filmed novel that could have been. Most worthwhile scene of VII so far.

– Even as a sexist kid, I don’t remember having anything against Kochanski personally (outside of some Duct Soup scenes, anyway) or about there being a Girl One generally. If I was unreasonably annoyed at anyone, it was Chris Barrie.

– I mainly watched this between age 11 and 13, never got the “have you before a disciplinary board” exchange or some other innuendos until just now.

– Could they not have made the disintegrator look a little less like a domestic microwave? Let’s play Red Dwarf, Patches!

– The return of the Kinitawowi would feel unnecessary in any other episode, but it works for the heightened contrast of Lister’s sorry state against the happy parallel universe couple. Mister Lister’s GELF Bride could have been a more visible or even recurring antagonist in this run.

– Addressing the meta concern of the audience being resistant to Kochanski is much like Peter Capaldi’s first… oh god, whiny Kryten is worse than I remembered. This is pretty shit after all. And it hasn’t even got to the Ouroboros stuff yet!

– Yeah, I’m not a fan of the Lister lore or its execution. It’s not even an original sci-fi concept. I don’t really think about it though and it doesn’t impact on the earlier series, beyond annoying memories when Lister’s box is mentioned.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

I swear to God Lister taking the voice changer out between the lines “So far” and “so good” seems like it should be the knight’s voice dubbed over the first half. It’s kind of baffling that they didn’t do that to further drive home the idea of the voice changer.

They were gonna sort it out in the dub!

Huh, the acoustics got all weird up in here. Sounds kinda like a set that’s supposed to be stone. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– Could they not have made the disintegrator look a little less like a domestic microwave?

You’re talking about a show that consigned people’s ashes into deep space through a swing-bin.

– I mainly watched this between age 11 and 13, never got the “have you before a disciplinary board” exchange or some other innuendos until just now.

Me either.

[Rudolph]

I nominate the cop and FBI agent in Tikka to Ride for the worst performances in Red Dwarf. It doesn’t help that the agent is given half a page of clunky, poorly written exposition that he’s been told he’s got two seconds and one take to deliver.

[International Debris]

Tikka & Stoke moan: if you know you’re writing out a cowardly character to be an attempted hero in the next episode, why not seed that by explaining that it was him who destroyed the time drive rather than their future selves? You could have him being smug in Tikka, only then to be faced with further heroics and the realisation that one gunshot isn’t the same as becoming a superhero.

[Stilianides]

Stoke Me a Clipper

I have a big issue with the whole idea of bringing Ace back for this episode. With Chris leaving the show, I think there was a chance to have some genuine drama and pathos as Red Dwarf is one of the few shows where you could ‘kill’ a main character and still legitimately bring them back later. If the crew could have had some sort of conflict (similar to the end of Out of Time, but with different enemies), the ship could have been damaged in such a way to leave Rimmer essentially dead. It also would have made it much smoother and easier to bring him back in Season VIII and beyond without the tedious “Is it the original Rimmer?” debate.

There is also the huge problem, for me, of Rimmer and Lister in the space of two episodes going from being fairly regular people (with plenty of sitcom oddness thrown in) to having huge sci fi back stories.

Having said that, the pre-title sequence is quite good (and, according to Paul Alexander, also used up the entire budget for the episode). It is very patchy and has some naff jokes, but it is well constructed with the crocodile splat and the clever choice to use “What a guy!” in a foreign language. Princess Bonjella is the second laziest joke in the episode, however…

The laziest being Lister of Smeg. I love Brian Cox and Sarah Alexander, but I can’t stand this overlong and rather pointless section. The VR scene in Series VI, as another poster pointed out, had Kryten doing the exposition and was also very funny. I know that the knight idea resurfaces later in the episode, but even that isn’t remotely satisfying.

There are one or two brighter moments later in the episode, in amongst the dreck, and Howard Goodall’s music is superb throughout VII. In fact, it might just be the best thing about the series.

[Stilianides]

Also, I can’t help wondering whether they could have used Chris’s time better on VII. They knew that they only had him for a limited period, so I would have thought recording a bunch of two hander conversations with Lister or cockpit group scenes might have been more sensible that having Rimmer and Ace onscreen together. Especially as, with no audience, they didn’t have to record stuff in any strict order.

That’s just my uninformed pondering, though, and there may well be good reasons why that didn’t happen.

[Rudolph]

Starbug’s supplies problem comes and goes now, and at this point they might as well be back on Red Dwarf.

Kryten doesn’t have enough tinfoil to roast a chicken, Kochanski has to go without cottage cheese and pineapples, but the water supply has gone from subsiding on urine recyc to their new ventilation system having gallons of the stuff to clean out a couple of miles of ventilation every few hours.

[Unrumble]

Starbug’s supplies problem comes and goes now, and at this point they might as well be back on Red Dwarf… the water supply has gone from subsiding on urine recyc to their new ventilation system having gallons of the stuff to clean out a couple of miles of ventilation every few hours.

Rather handwave-y, but can’t all these types of things be chalked up to the ‘dimensional anomalies’ caused by the encounter with the future selves? If they caused Starbug (or parts of it) to increase in size by over 200%, could weird, unexplained timeline fluctuations not have magicked away their supply problems?

No, I don’t find it satisfactory as an explanation either, but we’re into VII territory now, might as well embrace fanwank/headcanon wholeheartedly.

[Jonathan Capps]

Me: “Oh, I’ll just check the latest Refresh for the Memory thread!”

The latest Refresh for the Memory thread:

[Dollar Pound]

lady madonna kebab

[International Debris]

Starbug’s supplies problem comes and goes now, and at this point they might as well be back on Red Dwarf… the water supply has gone from subsiding on urine recyc to their new ventilation system having gallons of the stuff to clean out a couple of miles of ventilation every few hours.

Rather handwave-y, but can’t all these types of things be chalked up to the ‘dimensional anomalies’ caused by the encounter with the future selves? If they caused Starbug (or parts of it) to increase in size by over 200%, could weird, unexplained timeline fluctuations not have magicked away their supply problems?
No, I don’t find it satisfactory as an explanation either, but we’re into VII territory now, might as well embrace fanwank/headcanon wholeheartedly.

I suppose you could just about make this work if you could make heads or tails of just how long after the events of Out of Time things here are meant to happen (I mean I know technically they take place before Out of Time and the crew shouldn’t have any memory of those events let alone full details and video footage). Tikka seems to suggest it’s pretty much strange afterwards in its dialogue – the wind tunnel scenes are basically them reconvening to talk about what’s happened and what they’re planning to do going forward – and yet at the same time there’s stuff about “all the curry supplies have been destroyed”, along with the lager, and Lister eating salads and pasta, as if this was all the norm before the accident. Certainly the altercation with their future selves is apparently what’s to blame for the loss of the curry. And if we take the extended versions as canon, then that’s a fucking lot of curry. 

I don’t massively like Starbug as a main setting, but in VI they make the most of it by having the crew always struggling to get by, which adds a really interesting tension to the show’s dynamic. Here Doug wants to have his cake and eat it (and I’m sure they’ve got a whole fucking deck of cakes inside the new Starbug) by having them trapped on Starbug, even mentioning losing Red Dwarf in either a deleted scene/extended version of Ouroboros, but having Starbug be the size of, and as well stocked as, Red Dwarf itself. I actually wonder if he originally came up with the idea of them finding Red Dwarf again in the first episode, and then realised that it would actually make for a really great cliffhanger at the end so hastily wrote it out and just handwaved everything else away with “dimensional anomalies to cope with the paradox” in the hope that nobody would notice that it’s actually bollocks. 

Even worse, as a side-product of this, we ended up getting the resurrected crew and prison scenario in VIII. 

[Unrumble]

Even worse, as a side-product of this, we ended up getting the resurrected crew and prison scenario in VIII. 

This just reminded me that we’re only 2 weeks away from Rimmer’s Rapey-Japes. 

Of course, I could just not watch it. But where would the masochistic fun be in that? 

[Stilianides]

Ouroboros

I will start with the positives…

It was a bold move to start several of the eps in a non-traditional way and the opening scene does at least remember that Lister was born in the future (In Timeslides the pub feels more like something from the 1980s).

There are also one or two decent lines in the episode itself, such as Kryten’s “monthly scrape” comment and the obscene phone call gag.

The scene with Rimmer and Lister is passable, despite the bizarre bell boy uniform.

Now for the negatives…

I hate the whole idea of Lister’s birth and it takes away hugely from the whole concept of him being a fairly regular guy who just ended up trapped in space. Doug may have said in the documentary that Lister was never going to have normal parents, but we know that’s not how he and Rob once saw things. The script segment from Timeslides that was included in The Bodysnatcher Collection is infinitely preferable to the gibberish presented in this episode.

Kochanski’s first appearance is underwhelming both in terms of the writing and the acting. Chloe Annett seems lovely – and the scripts didn’t help her at all – but I don’t think she and Craig have real any chemistry in Series VII. With the other cast members all having a history of live performance, it might have worked better had they hired someone more of that ilk. Ultimately, though, I think the character was always doomed to fail.

I don’t think anyone could have replaced Rimmer but, if possible, returning to Red Dwarf and to Holly might have cushioned the blow. Not that Holly could have remotely directly replaced Rimmer, but it would have kept the show at 4 characters and would have meant that Lister’s and Kryten’s personalities were unaffected. The focus would then have had to be on the plots and the guest stars that they encountered every week but, as we know, they spunked most of the budget on the first two episodes.

Kryten’s character becomes deeply annoying in this ep (a few years later Doug said that he loved Robert’s jealous performance while admitting that the scene went on too long). If he had simply been annoyed at Kochanski coming about (“bossy old trollop”) or innocent as he is when she kisses Lister, it might not have been so bad. But the whining is painful to watch and hear.

The Gelf speak is dreadful, but at least we do get to see a genuine model shot.

And finally, the joke about women who work in Oxfam shops is uncharitable in every sense of the word.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is now a good time to plug my Canaries fanedit? It’s basically the same content as Series VIII Bytes Two and Three, but heavily condensed, with a much better flow, and considerably less sexism and fat jokes. 

[Flap Jack]

Starbug’s supplies problem comes and goes now, and at this point they might as well be back on Red Dwarf.

Kryten doesn’t have enough tinfoil to roast a chicken, Kochanski has
to go without cottage cheese and pineapples, but the water supply has
gone from subsiding on urine recyc to their new ventilation system
having gallons of the stuff to clean out a couple of miles of
ventilation every few hours.

For Tikka to Ride in particular, them having a supply situation more akin to Series VI actually would have enhanced the story and better served the characters. Lister does all that just to get curry for Starbug, when they’re meant to be hot on the trail of Red Dwarf and its plentiful curry supplies anyway, so it comes across as a serious character regression. If they were instead critically low on food in general, then everyone could have been convinced to use the time drive as a matter of life or death, and the episode would have only been better for everyone being on the same page. Sure, you’d need to think up a new episode title and you’d lose Ill-mannered Kryten, but it wouldn’t be a huge loss.

[Flap Jack]

Is now a good time to plug my Canaries fanedit? It’s basically the same
content as Series VIII Bytes Two and Three, but heavily condensed, with a
much better flow, and considerably less sexism and fat jokes.

Oh, it’s never a bad time to bring up Series VIII on here.

I was going to say you’d be better off waiting for the relevant Refresh for the Memory week, but actually it’s probably better not to think about watching a Series VIII fan edit in the same week we’re committed to watching the standard version as well.

[Warbodog]

Duct Soup

I used to consider this the absolute nadir of Red Dwarf, even for some time after Pete Part 2 came out. I was not delighted by its inclusion on the Xtended video, but I still watched it loads for lack of alternatives.

I no longer consider it among the very worst episodes, but surely one of the dullest.

– It didn’t get off to a great start when I got stuck complaining about more sweeping sitcom observations about how all men are, but then I laughed at Lister proudly killing two birds with one shower, so it was acceptable setup. Guy’s got some good life hacks here (if mingin), he was underestimating himself in Ouroboros.

– I like the groggy, after-hours feel of the early scenes, similar to bits of Me2.

– The offside line gave me one of the biggest laughs of the whole rewatch. Then I made sense of it as just Kochanski generalising about boys and not Doug forgetting what he was writing, so ruined it for myself.

– It’s packed with those kind of “mainstream” jokes and dialogue that don’t feel like Red Dwarf. Definitely contributed to my sense of it being an episode about nothing. Update: They actually make an airline food joke!

– Shame the peaches scene didn’t see Chloe being picked for the Tim Burton company.

– Cool adventure game music in the daydream sequence.

– The intestines comparison might just about excuse the ducts fitting inside a non-specifically giant Starbug, but their actual existence is less credible.

– I hadn’t heard the saying about swinging a dead cat back then, so thought Cat was making a hilariously random remark.

– The water action came a couple of minutes too late to prevent boredom, but I was watching the Xtended versions because they’re the first I found.

– Cheese slice snap is less inventive than the Timeslides games, but still a funnier mental image than anything actually in the episode.

[Author]

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