Refresh For The Memory: Series VII Byte 1

[desbug]

Well I like Tikka To Ride. I agree with almost all of the criticisms here about the curry obsessions, and rebuilding Starbug, and yet… I think it’s the silliness of the conspiracy theory explanation that did it. Even if, as was pointed out earlier, this means that actually the end of Out Of Time might not make as much sense.

Compared to what was to come, it’s pretty good – I never went back to it like I did the first 6 series but I was ready with the opinion that there was at least one episode worth watching after Out Of Time. No one ever asked for that opinion but I was ready with it. So here it is!

. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

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

I had heard it, and I didn’t make the connection for ages. Not sure whether that’s down to me or the writing.

[Stilianides]

Thinking generally about Series VII, I can understand why some people talk about it as a comedy drama – especially with Craig describing it as such in the DVD documentary – and there are moments where it does feel like that. I would say though that, generally speaking, in a comedy drama the humour comes naturally from the plot and the characters. 

In VII, much of the humour still comes from out-and-out jokes and too many are of the “than” or “as” variety that had already been done to death in VI when we know from Andy De Emmony’s comments that it would be who Rob came up with a gag like, “a longer yellow streak than…” at very short notice.

With him gone, there is a noticeable lack of bite to the jokes. “duller than an in-flight magazine…”, “about as smooth as Egyptian whisky.”, “about as stable as an Italian taxi driver…”

This is the sort of unnatural dialog that you wouldn’t get in a comedy drama imo, and it’s also much less funny than VI.

[International Debris]

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.

Yeah, this is an interesting point. Given that all he did in VI was be cowardly and get Space Corps directives wrong, they could easily do a monster of the week series without him. Instead, one of the (many) issues with VII is that it tries to revert to character comedy in the same series as losing its most interesting character.

[International Debris]

With him gone, there is a noticeable lack of bite to the jokes. “duller than an in-flight magazine…”, “about as smooth as Egyptian whisky.”, “about as stable as an Italian taxi driver…”

Yeah, they almost feel like fanfic gags, like someone’s noticed VI used them a lot (and, to an extent, the earlier series) so tried to do it too, only without a proper comedy writer’s sense of what works. I also wonder if the lack of studio audience led to some flat performances meaning they couldn’t even get the best out of meagre material. But yeah, when the show is clearly aiming for something more dramatic, the dialogue feels much more overtly sitcommy, which just makes it stand out even worse. 

[Stilianides]

Duct Soup 

An interesting attempt at character comedy with just three minor flaws. Kryten’s character is horribly mangled, Lister’s character is horribly mangled and Kochanski’s character is always crap.

To be fair, the early “kill two birds with one shower” is decent enough, but it’s just a shame about the Kochanski scenes. Her, “No change there then” is the sort of obvious joke that needs a perfect delivery. It doesn’t get one.

The whole plot of the episode and Kryten’s part in it feels all wrong. It’s another example of Doug twisting the characters in order to manufacture a story.

I understand why he wanted to add an extra complication with Lister’s claustrophobia, but it’s still preposterous to try to introduce this in Series VII. Especially as it contradicts with numerous earlier Dwarf moments. Doug was optimistic if he thought, “I don’t always get it” was going to be enough of an explanation for fans to placidly accept it.

I can smile at nonsense such as “Bent Bob” or the rusty gate story without actually thinking it really works.

The best bits of the episode by far are Cat’s lines and his insensitivity. “Boy is it cramped” and “Are you born that way or is it because you’re kind of cissy?” For a few moments when he is with Lister, you can almost imagine that things might not have been so bad if Kochanski hadn’t arrived. 

[Flap Jack]

Stoke Me a Clipper – Absolutely excellent opening, that unlike Tikka justifies itself as a cold open. I don’t even mind how exaggerated it all is, because in this context it being over the top is why it’s so fun. Even “Princess Bonjela” doesn’t bother me, the Ace Rimmer action so thoroughly wins me over.

Shame about the rest of the episode.

I appreciate that Doug (and Paul) were in a tough spot with Chris leaving, and wanted to give him a proper send off that made it seem like his character journey was complete, but unfortunately trying to speedrun a character arc where Rimmer becomes a professional hero was way too ambitious for 1 episode. The characters just don’t seem like themselves here (Rimmer is so easily peer pressured into becoming Ace), and the story is told with completely unearned seriousness. Past the opening, this episode is a drag.

– “This is my best top, damn it” feels more like an Ace Cat line than an Ace Rimmer line to be honest. Sure, shrug off the injury, but it doesn’t have to be so clothes focused (minor point though).

– Ace is already a hologram in the opening, right, and him being shot is his post-fatal injury? So why would being shot harm his clothes, or even penetrate hardlight? Also, presumably he could have survived the fall without a parachute too… the silliness in the rest of the episode actively harms the opening if you think about it too much (which I always will).

– Why is Kryten so surprised/appalled at Lister for using the AR machine for sex? This is situation normal for him. We’ve been speculating that Paul Alexander wanted to emulate Gunmen with all the ‘Lister of Smeg’ stuff, but this makes it seem like he hadn’t even seen it.

– So this episode has 2 female characters, and they both exist purely to be sexual conquests for the male characters (and they’re both royalty). Not great!

– The crew experience so many inter-dimensional shenanigans (including a Christmas liquid beast, apparently), that it’s quite the contrivance for Rimmer to say “ooh, I hope this dimensional anomaly isn’t Ace Rimmer, I hate him don’t you know”. Especially when you consider that Ace not easily being able to make return journeys was clearly established before. (Also, spoilers, it’s only 1 episode until they receive more inter-dimensional travellers, unrelated to Ace.)

– Even if it’s plausible that he could have learned the information he needed second hand, it’s still deeply weird that Ace acts like he’s met the others before, especially the way he immediately acknowledges The Cat. This episode reeks of hastily done rewrites.

– I can’t easily explain it, but there’s something off about Chris’s performance as Ace in this. It’s like it’s too exaggerated. Maybe this ties into Ace not actually being the ‘real’ Ace, but I’m not so sure.

– Ace being a hologram raises so many questions, and it’s clearly just that way so they can do the Rimmer/Ace switcheroo and have the light bee graveyard, which are both bad, so it definitely wasn’t worth it.

– “What, to wind up looking like a reject from a gay pride disco?” – I guess it wouldn’t be an Ace episode without Rimmer being casually homophobic towards him. Lovely.

– Why does Rimmer being able to fool everyone into thinking he’s Ace for a day mean he’s ready to become Ace? Being able to act like Ace in a social context has absolutely nothing to do with the skills required to become a professional secret agent/super hero/mercenary. Does MI6 recruit people based purely on whether they can order a vodka Martini while doing a Sean Connery impression?

– On the subject of Rimmer’s training, I don’t buy the “escaped AR knight” routine as a way of proving that Rimmer is ready to be Ace (beyond it being a way too silly idea in general). Rimmer will attack when he’s cornered and in danger, sure, we know that already. But what makes Ace different is that he puts himself in danger to save others. Rimmer has absolutely not demonstrated that he would do that by the end of the episode.

– Lucky for Lister that Rimmer didn’t think to check the AR knight’s body after he’d shot it.

– I hate that Ace’s hair is canonically a wig. Maybe the logic is that he started out like our Rimmer, but (A) he doesn’t need to change his hair, and (B) both Ace and Rimmer should just be able to simulate the hair because they’re holograms, they don’t need a literal wig.

– I’ve spoken about it at length in another thread so I won’t belabour the point here, but it’s still so fucked up that they fake Rimmer’s death. Out of character, immoral, and pointless. (Also I feel like “I want you to become the next Ace, see if you can pretend to be me for a day” doesn’t quite imply “pretend to be me literally forever and cover up my death so that I don’t get a funeral”, but maybe that’s just me.)

– Everything about this new Ace Rimmer lore, that Ace Rimmer is a role taken on by sequentially infinite Rimmers as like an official position of protector of the multiverse (however you even define that), is just bad. Rimmer should not be that cosmically important. And neither should Lister, just as an aside. I hope that doesn’t happen.

– With their massive detour to the Rimmer light bee graveyard, I can’t even imagine how hopeless their hunt for Red Dwarf is now. Would be nice if they even mentioned that at some point.

– Just to make a rare positive comment not confined to just the opening, I will say that Howard Goodall’s music is seriously delivering the goods.

– Rimmer gets postposthumously promoted to First Officer, so I can only assume that if and when he comes back, he will have that rank.

– Holograms dying is an odd prospect, because presumably all you need is a spare light bee and you could just restore from a back up (assuming it is hardware damage and not software damage like in Rimmerworld/Quarantine). I guess Wildfire didn’t have any, but given how small it is it’s impressive it could have a hologram at all. Makes me wonder if Cat or Kryten would have asked about this after ‘Rimmer’ died, whether they would bring him back if they found Red Dwarf, even if he had to go back to softlight.

[paintings]

Does MI6 recruit people based purely on whether they can order a vodka Martini while doing a Sean Connery impression?

Given the stories about MI6 agents that have emerged over the years, I would opine that the answer to that question is “Yes” :-(

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Even if it’s plausible that he could have learned the information he needed second hand, it’s still deeply weird that Ace acts like he’s met the others before, especially the way he immediately acknowledges The Cat. This episode reeks of hastily done rewrites.

I’ve always read it that this Ace has met at least one version of this crew in another dimension thats similar enough he can play it off as if he knows them quite well.  It could well be that this Ace originated from a crew of 4 similar to our Rimmer.

[Flap Jack]

Given the stories about MI6 agents that have emerged over the years, I would opine that the answer to that question is “Yes” :-(

Oh. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of example…

I’ve always read it that this Ace has met at least one version of this
crew in another dimension thats similar enough he can play it off as if
he knows them quite well.  It could well be that this Ace originated
from a crew of 4 similar to our Rimmer.

Reasonable assumption for sure, but it’s still very odd for him to act as if he’s met them specifically before. He would have needed the second hand information anyway, just to know they’d met an Ace at all. Unless he says “Well, I said I’d be back for breakfast. How are those kippers doing, fellas?” every time he comes across a Starbug or Red Dwarf and hopes for the best.

[Rudolph]

I’ve always read it that this Ace has met at least one version of this crew in another dimension thats similar enough he can play it off as if he knows them quite well. It could well be that this Ace originated from a crew of 4 similar to our Rimmer.

I think there’s a deleted scene where Ace expands on his origins a bit more. That he’s a Rimmer from a timeline where he abandoned Starbug at the end of Out of Time and used the time drive to escape to Napoleonic France, where he was eventually found by his mortally-wounded predecessor.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Followed immediately by a very unfortunate line involving the phrase “rampant homosexual”. Removing that scene was definitely the right call.

[Dave]

Sounds like it might have been vaguely funny in a homosexual kind of way.

[Flap Jack]

Ouroboros – Well… there are certainly worse episodes. In fact, if you could exclude its opening, I think this is a better episode than Stoke, both in terms of laughs and drama. Nothing in the main body of Stoke is as funny as “obscene phone call” (not that the bar is spectacularly high). From a storytelling perspective, although I loathe the idea of making Lister his own dad and giving him this supposed importance to the universe, it plays more believably to me than with Rimmer. Because Ace Rimmer is inherently a caricature, especially in Series VII, so trying to do that much pathos around Ace falls flat for me, but with Lister I think the sincerity works, or at least comes a lot closer. Unfortunately, the episode is so much worse for the lazy and sexist way that Kochanksi’s character gets treated, and for the unbearable and out of character jealousy of Kryten.

– In the Standard version, you can still clearly hear the fade out of the theme tune at the beginning. That’s so sloppy. It’s already weird enough to have a Red Dwarf episode without a title sequence.

– I’m wondering about the logistics of Grav-Pool. Seems like the table is just hanging from the ceiling. Cheating by making the table wobble must be rampant in the future.

– Is the bar of the Aigburth Arms being locked behind a fence like it’s a prison a sci-fi future thing, or are pubs already like that? I wouldn’t know because I don’t hang around pubs at opening or closing, and I haven’t been to Liverpool.

– Kryten’s weird chuckle after he reacts to Lister’s teeth is actually quite disturbing.

– Lister saying “Wibbly thing or swirly thing, and he refuses to commit himself? He’s losing it. He really is.” is a really bad sign. DON’T EXPLAIN THE JOKE.

– Kryten says “Suggest we treat it like a tidal wave, and head straight to the eye of the storm”. Pardon my ignorance, but isn’t that tornados? Surely the “eye” of a tidal wave is just… underwater.

– I appreciate how Lister’s flashback outfit matches his Series 1 dress sense, and I like the new uniforms too, even though they’re a retcon. They feel like the kind of costumes that would have ended up in the movie if it had happened, and are better than the Series VIII uniforms, which were like a compromise option between Series 1/2 and Ouroboros.

– Kochanski’s ex-boyfriend Tim being a chef adds a probably unintentional psychological layer onto Lister trying to become a chef in Balance of Power.

– Really bizarre how they cast an obvious kitten as an adult, pregnant cat. Did they think that if it wasn’t so small, it wouldn’t have been plausible that Kochanski chose to spare it?

– Oh, how I’ve missed you, Red Dwarf, and your random corridor disintegration machines.

– Continuity Hiccup 1: Kochanski gets 6 months in stasis for bringing an unquarantined animal aboard Red Dwarf, when Lister got 18 months. You could chalk this up to them being lenient on her as an officer, but alt-Lister also predicts it would be 6 months if he got caught too.

– Continuity Hiccup 2: Lister got the cat on shore leave on Mimas, but in The End he got Frankenstein from Titan. So realistically it actually isn’t Frankenstein in this episode, but a totally different cat, and yet that cat ultimately still evolved into the same guy 3 million years later? Combined with it being an obvious kitten, I feel a fan theory coming on:

Felis sapiens doesn’t naturally exist in the Kochanski-verse; the Cat we see as part of their crew is actually a refugee from an unspecified third universe. The true divergent point between the 2 timelines is that in the Lister-verse, Lister acquired Frankenstein (an adult, pregnant cat) while on shore leave on Titan, and was able to successfully smuggle her onto Red Dwarf. This happened while Lister and Kochanski were still an item, so Lister was thinking a lot about his Fiji plan, which included both Kochanski and a cat. He was later found out, and sentenced to 18 months stasis – 6 months for breaking quarantine regulations, and 12 months for refusing to divulge Frankenstein’s location. Frankenstein was safely sealed in the hold during the radiation leak, and the rest is history.

In the Kochanski-verse, however, Lister decided against getting a cat on Titan, but later, after Kochanski had broken up with him and he was on shore leave on Mimas (presumably not that much later, considering both Titan and Mimas are moons of Saturn), Lister decides to get a cat for a different reason, that he’s heartbroken and lonely, and so opts for a (obviously not pregnant) kitten instead. This kitten is discovered and confiscated by Kochanski on his return to Red Dwarf, as we see in the episode. Kochanski couldn’t bring herself to report or kill the kitten and so kept it, but was eventually caught red-handed. This resulted in the kitten being seized by JMC and presumably killed, and Kochanski was sentenced to 6 months stasis for breaking quarantine regulations only.

– “It breaks every reg in the manual” is a bit harsh from Kochanski. Surely it must break a maximum of 1 reg.

– Other casualties of deleted scenes which only made it into the Xtended version: Kochanski-verse Cat never gets to speak, and Cat Prime calls Kochanski “Officer BB” before it’s explained what that stands for. Shades of Last Human.

– Slightly surprising that Kochanski would want kids, given that she’d inevitably be burdening them with being the last of humankind (unless inbreeding happens… shades of Last Human again).

– “GELF ship! Somehow they’ve managed to infiltrate non-space!” is an under-appreciated precursor to “Kryten figured it out”. Heavy “Somehow… Palpatine returned.” vibes.

– Lister is a real cunt at times in this episode. He takes advantage of Kochanski in her waking confusion and essentially assaults her, and this is played for laughs. Yuck. And then later he’s practically gleeful about her being stranded away from her loved ones. What a way to kick off a Will They/Won’t They, by making me actively root for one of the pair to escape. I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t see the “reminisces about upskirting” Lister from Stasis Leak ever again, but I guess Doug had other plans.

– And just to make it even more uncomfortable, Kryten victim blames Kochanski for Lister’s actions. Great.

– The scene is painful for Kryten’s whole deal, but I do enjoy Lister enquiring about the details of Kryten’s hypothetical sheet-folding just so he can make his lie more credible.

– Continuity Hiccup 3: Lister says that Kryten was responsible for the deaths of the Nova 5 crew, which was only ever the case in the novel version before this. Thanks, I hate it.

– How exactly did the crew of the SS Augustus all die of old age while Kryten was working on the ship? It’s not like they would have been stranded in deep space at that point…. oh, wait, is he saying that they didn’t die while he was working there, they just died in the first hundred years he was on the Nova 5? OK, that’s kind of a funny idea for a line, but it could have been better phrased.

– Another joke ruined by explaining it: Kochanski directly pointing out that Kryten has a silly walk right after he criticised hers. We can see the walk, you don’t need to tell us it’s ridiculous.

– Lister being concerned about how being an absent father will affect his child seems a bit off, considering his doppelganger will be there. Feeling weird about not being there personally makes sense, but not acting like the child won’t have a father figure in their life.

– Anyone else think Kochanski could have made the jump across the breach if she’d just sprinted into it? She basically just did a light jog there.

– How does Kochanski on the phone know how long it is until she’s out of reach? Is she recalling the maximum lengths of all the rope on Starbug and keeping track of the exact distance she’s falling the entire time?

– It’s still so weird that there’s a secret 18 month time jump somewhere in Series VII. It really isn’t paced like that.

– “With us going round and round, the human race can never become extinct” – no Lister, I regret to inform you that once you and Kochanski have both passed away, the human race will in fact be extinct.

– On the audio commentary for this, Chloe Annett joins, but for some reason they don’t introduce her at the beginning. It’s really strange.

[Dave]

Felis sapiens doesn’t naturally exist in the Kochanski-verse; the Cat we see as part of their crew is actually a refugee from an unspecified third universe. The true divergent point between the 2 timelines is that in the Lister-verse, Lister acquired Frankenstein (an adult, pregnant cat) while on shore leave on Titan, and was able to successfully smuggle her onto Red Dwarf. This happened while Lister and Kochanski were still an item, so Lister was thinking a lot about his Fiji plan, which included both Kochanski and a cat. He was later found out, and sentenced to 18 months stasis – 6 months for breaking quarantine regulations, and 12 months for refusing to divulge Frankenstein’s location. Frankenstein was safely sealed in the hold during the radiation leak, and the rest is history.

In the Kochanski-verse, however, Lister decided against getting a cat on Titan, but later, after Kochanski had broken up with him and he was on shore leave on Mimas (presumably not that much later, considering both Titan and Mimas are moons of Saturn), Lister decides to get a cat for a different reason, that he’s heartbroken and lonely, and so opts for a (obviously not pregnant) kitten instead. This kitten is discovered and confiscated by Kochanski on his return to Red Dwarf, as we see in the episode. Kochanski couldn’t bring herself to report or kill the kitten and so kept it, but was eventually caught red-handed. This resulted in the kitten being seized by JMC and presumably killed, and Kochanski was sentenced to 6 months stasis for breaking quarantine regulations only.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

– Is the bar of the Aigburth Arms being locked behind a fence like it’s a prison a sci-fi future thing, or are pubs already like that? I wouldn’t know because I don’t hang around pubs at opening or closing, and I haven’t been to Liverpool.

I’ve not seen a pub like it in the UK, but it reminds me of the bar in Blue Brothers the band play in that had chicken wire in front of the stage to stop all the glass bottles hitting them.

[Warbodog]

Loads of insights in these write-ups that didn’t occur to me at all (or to Doug & co, evidently), great stuff. I’ve been more focused on grasping for positives to get me through.

Some feedback/rebuttals:

I hate that Ace’s hair is canonically a wig.

That’s the only bit that really worked for me. Rimmer’s cursed his unmanageable hair before (and in the novels), I like things that make his Ace potential more credible (which the rest of the episode failed to deliver).

With their massive detour to the Rimmer light bee graveyard, I can’t even imagine how hopeless their hunt for Red Dwarf is now. Would be nice if they even mentioned that at some point.

I can’t remember if they’ve said they’re looking for it at all since losing trace in Out of Time. They must be going somewhere though. Probably not to Earth, since they could just pop on spacesuits and go there right now with the time drive (unless it’s not where it should be).

Lister saying “Wibbly thing or swirly thing, and he refuses to commit himself? He’s losing it. He really is.” is a really bad sign. DON’T EXPLAIN THE JOKE.

I took the over-explaining as being its own hilarious joke.

random corridor disintegration machines.

It was the departure/arrivals bit though, where they may have to disintegrate animals and things routinely.

is he saying that they didn’t die while he was working there, they just died in the first hundred years he was on the Nova 5?

Interesting idea about the SS Augustus, but he’s talking about times he was left on his own, so that ship must have been lost down a wormhole or whatever before eventually making it back or being recovered.

I noticed the crappy digital zoom for the first time.

Can you tell me where these are? I was always bothered by the zoom out after Kryten’s daydream in Duct Soup not going all the way before he talks again.

Chris/Rimmer Prime’s eyes also look strange at points in Stoke, like their outline’s been ‘sharpened’ or something.

[Flap Jack]

I took the over-explaining as being its own hilarious joke.

Good point. I didn’t consider that we were meant to interpret Lister’s current state as him ‘losing it’ himself, because… I mean, we literally just saw how the thing with his teeth was an accident. (And of course there’s nothing wrong with wearing a pink dressing gown.)

Can you tell me where these are? I was always bothered by the zoom out
after Kryten’s daydream in Duct Soup not going all the way before he
talks again.

The instance I noticed is when they’re walking down the road in 1966. First they cut from zoomed out to zoomed in, but for the zoom back out again, you see the whole thing:

Doesn’t look amazing just in the Smega-Drive, but on an HD TV it just looks bad.

[Stilianides]

I took the over-explaining as being its own hilarious joke.

Good point. I didn’t consider that we were meant to interpret Lister’s current state as him ‘losing it’ himself, because… I mean, we literally just saw how the thing with his teeth was an accident. (And of course there’s nothing wrong with wearing a pink dressing gown.) 

To be fair to Doug, the joke is clearly not simply meant to be “wearing a pink dressing gown is wrong”. It’s intended to be the combination of tucking dental floss behind his wadded ears and putting cute animal slippers on his feet while, at the same time, wearing a pink dressing gown with a frilly trim that doesn’t fit in with what we have seen from Lister up to this point at all. 

A pet peeve of mine from this scene has always been that it seems out of character for Lister to agree to put the dressing gown on so readily in the first place. It would have been more convincing if he’d briefly protested before Kryten convinced him by explaining about changing the colour and removing the trim.

[Dave]

Good point. I didn’t consider that we were meant to interpret Lister’s current state as him ‘losing it’ himself, because… I mean, we literally just saw how the thing with his teeth was an accident. (And of course there’s nothing wrong with wearing a pink dressing gown.)

Oh, I’ve always seen that as a gag about Lister not seeing how he’s ‘losing it’ too, conspicuously setting up how ridiculous he looks ahead of meeting Kochanski.

[Flap Jack]

I think it would have played better if he had just said “Man, Cat really is losing it.” without saying “Wibbly thing or swirly thing, and he refuses to commit himself?” first.

A pet peeve of mine from this scene has always been that it seems out of character for Lister to agree to put the dressing gown on so readily in the first place. It would have been more convincing if he’d briefly protested before Kryten convinced him by explaining about changing the colour and removing the trim.

Definitely disagree on this one. The fact that Lister has no hangups whatsoever about the dressing gown’s style and is just excited to get a new piece of comfortable clothing (which would be a rarity in deep space and especially on Starbug) feels refreshing and is much more in character for Lister than if he had gone all #MasculinitySoFragile about it. Not that I couldn’t imagine him ever reacting that way, but it would just be a tired cliche.

Unless it was a subversion. E.g. “Kryten, you are not catching me dead wearing that! … The stitching isn’t symmetrical.”

[Stilianides]

Definitely disagree on this one. The fact that Lister has no hangups whatsoever about the dressing gown’s style and is just excited to get a new piece of comfortable clothing (which would be a rarity in deep space and especially on Starbug) feels refreshing and is much more in character for Lister than if he had gone all #MasculinitySoFragile about it. Not that I couldn’t imagine him ever reacting that way, but it would just be a tired cliche.
Unless it was a subversion. E.g. “Kryten, you are not catching me dead wearing that! … The stitching isn’t symmetrical.”

Haha. Well, nobody mentioned anything about him going all “#MasculinitySoFragile” and that wouldn’t really fit in with the episode as written anyway. The whole point of Lister putting on the dressing gown (and the novelty slippers) is that they look ridiculous on him, so when he meets Kochanski he appears to be the very opposite of the “definitive Lister” that he describes himself as.

I think that rewording and rethinking the scene would have made it more convincing, but I recognize that is partly because I dislike a lot of the characterization in this series and so much of it is forced.  

[Flap Jack]

Duct Soup – Not a terribly popular one, but for my money – a few obvious issues aside – it’s actually a pretty decent pseudo-bottle episode (although even in a bottle episode they managed to get some GELFs and a water slide in there). On the commentary Chloe Annett names this as her favourite episode ever, and you can see why, because it’s the only one that at all focuses on her as a character, and she gets a pretty good range of emotions to play. And she gets to beat the crap out of Kryten in the end, so that’s satisfying. In general it’s just nice to have a regular Red Dwarf episode again – them having to survive on a low power/malfunctioning ship has shades of White Hole. So while it’s hardly amazing, it is a nice change of pace from the pretentious tosh that has plagued the last 2 episodes. Plus, Lister got a well earned break from being a total arsehole like he was in the first 3 episodes (uh, casual homophobia excepted). Granted, I would have preferred it if none of the main characters were arseholes instead of the baton passing to Kryten, but you can’t have everything.

– No title sequence again, and it’s still weird. Though at least we got a “VII” title card in this, unlike in Ouroboros where we got nothing. Is a little consistency too much to ask for?

– The very beginning scenes with Lister and Kochanski in their bunks is probably the only time for the whole of Series VI and VII that Starbug actually feels as oppressively cramped and lonely as it ought to be. This is unfortunately undermined by the rest of the episode showing that it has a vast network of absurdly wide vents, but still, it’s appreciated.

– Given their past issues with water supply, you’d think having baths instead of showers would be the norm (especially for The Cat), because of how wasteful showers are. I guess the water gets recycled anyway, but it must be costly to keep filtering/cleaning that much of it.

– Kochanski says “When I joined the Corps, I knew it would be tough in deep space”, but, uh, surely going into deep space isn’t the Space Corps purpose, it was an accident? Maybe they make you sign a form declaring that you won’t sue if get stranded in deep space, just in case.

– Where did Kochanski get all her spare clothes from? I can’t remember any opportunities in Ouroboros where she would have brought a suitcase over.

– Is Cottage Cheese with Pineapple Chunks in the unofficial Red Dwarf recipe book? Probably too simple on its own, but it could be the basis for something else.

– Hate Kryten’s characterisation in this episode, but his ‘vision’ is undeniably funny (although it could have done without him saying “I’ve seen the future!” at the end. We get it, OK). I’m actually not sure who was more out of character – Lister in the vision, or Kryten in the rest of the episode.

– There’s quite a weird dynamic going on between Kochanski and Lister (… beyond the obvious ‘she’s both his mum and the mother of his child’ element, I mean). Sometimes she acts like Lister is her ex from long ago, but she’s no longer interested, and yet in her universe her Dave was exactly the same as ours when they originally broke up, and the present day version is the love of her life. It’s such a disconnect. She and Lister actually only met a couple of weeks ago or whatever, but they play it like our Lister was actually the one she used to date pre radiation leak, and her Dave is a completely unrelated guy.

– It is a bit of a cheat to reveal Lister as claustrophobic and handwave away all contradictions with “I don’t always get it”, but it sets up some good scenes with Kochanski and Cat, so I think it’s forgivable.

– Lister should have asked Kochanski to name her “loads of gay friends”, because to me that read as an obvious lie, even within the general lie.

– So, ‘Bent Bob’. Not exactly top tier representation there, but it is still nice for queer people to be acknowledged in a way where the ultimate target of the joke is Lister’s ingrained homophobic attitudes and insecurity about them.

– Biggest question of all: where is all the light in the ducts coming from? It frequently looks like it’s daytime just above them.

– Enjoyable subversion at the end, where Kryten tries to sell the torture he put everyone through as a journey of emotional enlightenment, and Kochanski puts him right.

[Stilianides]

Duct Soup – Given their past issues with water supply, you’d think having baths instead of showers would be the norm (especially for The Cat), because of how wasteful showers are. I guess the water gets recycled anyway, but it must be costly to keep filtering/cleaning that much of it. 

Maybe I’m misreading your post, but I’m not sure why baths would be the norm. They use up a lot more water than showers, so it makes sense that they would shower most of the time.

[Rudolph]

– Where did Kochanski get all her spare clothes from? I can’t
remember any opportunities in Ouroboros where she would have brought a
suitcase over.

It’s another reason why I think Blue makes more sense coming before Duct Soup. In Duct Soup, she’s been on Starbug long enough to catalogue all the noises the waste pipe makes and enough time has passed for Lister to have the chance to find some makeup and a new dress on a derelict for her.

In Blue she’s still new to life onboard ship. The episode opens with them chasing another dimensional tear, she experiences her first games night, and – to answer your question – we see her stitching together an outfit with a sewing machine when Kryten explains the rules of the ship to her.

[Flap Jack]

Maybe I’m misreading your post, but I’m not sure why baths would be
the norm. They use up a lot more water than showers, so it makes sense
that they would shower most of the time.

No misreading, I was just wrong. It was energy usage I was thinking of, not water. My bad. Thanks for the correction!

It’s another reason why I think Blue makes more sense coming before
Duct Soup. In Duct Soup, she’s been on Starbug long enough to catalogue
all the noises the waste pipe makes and enough time has passed for
Lister to have the chance to find some makeup and a new dress on a
derelict for her.

In Blue she’s still new to life onboard ship. The episode opens with
them chasing another dimensional tear, she experiences her first games
night, and – to answer your question – we see her stitching together an
outfit with a sewing machine when Kryten explains the rules of the ship
to her.

Good point about the episode order. So the idea is that they have enough spare fabric for her to make her own clothes, that’s fair enough. Though it is funny that they’re all in that same red colour. Maybe Cat decided that scarlet is no longer in vogue.

[Flap Jack]

TIL that if the title of a thread gets updated, the site marks it as having unseen replies, but doesn’t bump it to most recently replied.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Huh, so that’s why I got notified of new messages that I’d already read.

[Loathsome American]

Finally catching up after my Halloween viewing threw my rewatch off track. 

Series VII was really exciting for me when my local PBS station picked it up, because they’d been playing I-VI on a two-episodes-a-week loop for some time. I’d learned about VII with my very new and exciting internet access, so I had a real sense of anticipation (and forewarning of Chris Barrie leaving). Bought a new blank VHS tape to record a permanent copy for myself.

So I liked it well enough at the time (and watched the tape over and over and over) just because it was New Red Dwarf. I did not spring for the DVD, though, because by that time I had come around to the conclusion that it had been a step down by then. I actually have not watched VII the whole way through in 20 years, maybe.

Tikka is ambitious and resembles, in its way, a classic-format Dwarf episode. It’s definitely the one I rewatched most often. But the resemblance to the show at its prime highlights all the small wrong steps and things that just feel off. The complete reverence for JFK also feels very much of a different time to me now.

Stoke has funnier lines than I remember, but even at the height of my excitement for these episodes, making Ace into a lineage of heroes felt like ruining the original joke of Dimension Jump by going too big with it. I will also confirm that the CG always looked bad.

Ouroboros (certainly the most mysterious title seeing it out of context on an episode guide on a web page!) is actually pretty bad, I think. The “It’s a comedy drama now!” thing is overstated, but this episode starts to look like an attempt to do a “legitimate” sci fi show and can’t pull it off. Making this revamp of the premise into the third episode instead of the first only accentuates it instead of cushioning the blow.

That said, Duct Soup is not bad, actually! Chloe Annett turns in a decent performance and maybe could’ve worked as an addition to the cast, but even as a callow youth I thought all the “I’m a girl trapped on a ship with yucky boys!” stuff was pretty trite material. And I had forgotten how much Jealous Kryten really is nails on a chalkboard.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Rudolph]

I’ve always liked the idea we saw in the Ace Rimmer Smegazine strips, rather than the concept we got here of Ace. That in each and every universe, Rimmer is doing something better or more noteworthy – Prime Minister, celebrity footballer, superhero, space pirate etc. – and that ‘our’ Rimmer is the lone standout for being a bit shit.

[Warbodog]

A valid creative interpretation of Dimension Jump’s epilogue:

In the decades that followed, Ace Rimmer searched countless realities and met thousands of different Arnold Rimmers. However he never encountered an Arnold Rimmer as deeply sad and worthless as the one he’d met aboard Red Dwarf. His impossible search continues…

[Author]

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