Refresh For The Memory: Series VII Byte 2

[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 BLUE, BEYOND A JOKE, EPIDEME and NANARCHY. 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
Series VII Byte 1

[Dave]

For a long time I thought Blue was pretty crap and was overrated by fans just because it had the Rimmer munchkin song at the end.

Rewatching it, it’s better than I remembered and is a welcome attempt to properly address the Lister-Rimmer relationship and the gap that Rimmer’s departure leaves in the show.

I still think some of it is a bit off-key, but as a whole I like that they at least tried to give some proper closure to all things Rimmer. Before he came back again four episodes later.

[Warbodog]

I’m enjoying this half more than the first half. With Rimmer finally out of the picture and Kochanski fully integrated, it feels like a more worthwhile experiment in sub-par Red Dwarf. The chasm to Emohawk is narrowing.

[International Debris]

Blue

Episode five, the first in the series to open with the title sequence. 

Opens with a Kryten jealously scene, not an auspicious start. I do like the fact that Lister is getting fucked off about it. 

God, the fucking planets and nebulas spacescapes are awful. 

Vidal beast of Sharmet II. Forgot about that. 

I love the two second pause between “ice gas” and “I hate to interrupt”. Really adds to the dialogue. 

Baked potato timer is quite a funny nonsense gag. Wrestling in treacle less so. 

For my favourite episode in the series, I’m not very entertained by these opening scenes. 

Lister calling Cat Rimmer is very on the nose. 

“As it seems you may be with us for some time”. Yeah, this definitely feels like episode four. Maybe it was moved to spread the Rimmer content out a little. 

Good to know that during the difficulties of VI, they still had the time to stop for golf. I do like this scene, though, it’s something I can imagine actually being in an earlier episode. 

I suppose the wrong costume can be written off as Lister remembering wrong. 

This is the least sci-if episode since the first two series, isn’t it? Purely character based stuff. Might be why I prefer it to the others in the series. 

I remember the dream, thinking oh thank God he’s back! What a disappointment that is. 

Ah yes, the kiss. 

OK, Kryten complaining to Cat about Kochanski ups the annoying level to quite a funny level. 

Hitler’s Nuremberg speech is one of my favourite VII gags. Still makes me lose it. 

One up, one down, one to polish. Sometimes he’d leave the room. Amazing how taking the piss out of Rimmer can suddenly liven up the humour. 

“Confusingly filed pants rash” is an enjoyably daft line. 

Games night is fairly shit. 

The Rimmer Experience is definitely the highlight of the episode. From this to the end is pretty flawless. From the double “wonder at the start”, through to the makeup, then the dialogue and unconvincing acting, it’s all superb. I also love how much Kochanski is actually enjoying the whole thing. Everyone else is disgusted and she’s having a whale of a time. 

It’s possible that the first time I watched the Munchkin Song was the time I’ve laughed most in my entire life. I don’t think it’s lost much in the intervening 25 years. Just a gloriously daft, incredibly original and staggeringly funny bit of ridiculousness. It’s like Doug got his sense of humour back again. 

Character-based plot, Rimmer-based humour and some classic moments, it’s definitely my favourite of VII. Still a step below anything in the bubble but it’s actually watchable. 

[International Debris]

Beyond a Joke

Why was a lobster in the cargo bay? 

Lister won’t eat an animal that’s been a cartoon. Erm. That’s pretty much all meat out, then. 

“It was… everyone… never mind” feels like a bubble line. 

Pride & Prejudice Land. More utterly boring ‘women like high art’ type tedium. 

The Bennets’ performances are pretty enjoyably over the top. 

As a character moment, Kryten’s stuff here is terrible, but the physical (and aural) humour here is top notch. The dart and the swinging log in particular. And yeah, the tank bit is a great moment, the kind of thing only Red Dwarf could do. But I don’t need this kind of thing from Kryten either. 

Bloody hell, a model shot! 

Cat missing the white lies is funny, but why is the lobster supposed to be so horrible?! 

“Apart from being you?”, “hello wall”, “maybe 29th” – these opening few minutes have a surprisingly high gag hitrate for a not very good episode. 

Simulant and GELF ship. This is the first time VII feels like a follow up to the increasingly populated universe of IV-VI. Although I obviously prefer the character based stuff, I think there’s potential in this version of the show and an VIII that followed up on this would have been far more preferable to the semi-reset-button and pantomime humour we got instead. 

Fucking GELF costumes fuck off. And the language. 

More models! 

After a surprisingly decent opening, things fall down with the arrival of Able. I wonder if Robert’s original script would have been a better episode, 

Ice cream vans is almost there but feels too much like a subpar VI gag, and Danny reads it as if he knows this. 

God, the CG Starbug and model shot composition is ugly. 

The fatboy story is fucking terrible. It doesn’t work at all. 

I hate all the Mammet stuff. Just utter crap. Every character has to have some big realisation moment in this series. Totally unnecessary.

Fucking hell this music. What’s this doing in Red Dwarf?! 

“I never get invited to parties” is quite a good line, but I can’t make out anything else he says in that scene. 

Having a guest character to die to save the regulars is a new thing and I can’t help feeling it could do with just a touch more gravitas somehow. 

I like the fact that half the audience catch on straight after “he ain’t heavy, sir”. 

I didn’t hate that as much as I have before, but after a first act with some good gags and an intriguing premise (they lose Kryten, effectively) it’s fairly underwhelming. 

[International Debris]

Opening with the title sequence for three episodes in a row! This second half definitely feels more relaxed and confident after the first half’s all-over-the-place weirdness.

Oh God, opening with a geeks vs slobs scene, great. What a positive effect Kochanski has had on the dialogue. 

Water supplies are low. Maybe use the many gallons that are aimlessly cleaning ducts every day?

The chicken kiev line is the latest in a long stream of shit simile gags. 

The Leviathan sets are fantastic. 

“See, it’s affecting him already” is a top notch cheap gag. 

The Caroline Karmen stuff is a great example of how a serious enemy can be threatening and yet incredibly funny. It’s one thing this does better than the Dave era. 

Oh God more jealous Kryten. Fuck offffffff. 

Lister has been overdue that punch all series. 

More men vs women gags. Great. 

There’s a universal translator in a universe with no aliens. Right. 

Epideme is another great Dwarfy idea, even if the name is a bit obvious and shit. It also offers a lot of good gags, like chop chop, left from right, Cat’s handshake, half a juggling lesson. There’s a run of good gags in the middle here. 

Supply bunker seven. Right. 

I like the trumpet music as they speed across space. Feels much more appropriate for the show than most of the library music in VII and VIII. 

Cat’s faint and the shot of him on the floor are superb. 

I’m beginning to think the stability of the format at this point is allowing more time for Doug to come up with good gags because I’ve laughed more this morning than I did on last week’s binge. 

[Dave]

Pride & Prejudice Land. More utterly boring ‘women like high art’ type tedium. 

The Bennets’ performances are pretty enjoyably over the top. 

Worth noting that this was actually a pretty specific parody of the – massively successful – BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice that came out in late 1995. (The one that’s now mainly remembered for Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in a wet shirt.)

With VII premiering in early 1997 it was still a relatively fresh target at the time of broadcast and certainly at the time of writing, and the costumes/performances of the P&P characters are obviously pretty directly inspired by the BBC version.

So in some ways you can kind of see the P&P stuff as Red Dwarf actively underlining its status as a cult alternative to the more mainstream and respectable BBC stuff – even though VII ironically got a lot more support and promotional push from the BBC than earlier RD series had, positioning it a little more in the mainstream. (The new series got a big Radio Times push at the time if I remember right, that cover with them all slightly stretched in a weird way.)

[Warbodog]

Blue

The least annoying episode of VII so far, but faint praise is still the best I can do!

Giving Rimmer another send-off, several episodes later, felt drawn-out at the time, rather than a treat. In the grander scheme, it’s even less worthwhile, making this basically the episode with the kiss and the song.

It also suffers from Duct Soup’s incongruous insertion, making its Ouroboros follow-up feel even more drawn-out and unwelcome and making the slower middle of the series feel more like filler. Would’ve made more sense to put this fourth.

– Is this the first episode with distinct A and B plots? Or is the Kochanski/Kryten/linkway side of things more like the general background ambience of this period?

– So I guess it was always Doug who was fixated on Herman Goering’s cross-dressing, as it gets its third mention. There was the Hoover reference in Tikka too.

– I remembered the comet scene being excruciating, glad it was out of the way quickly. It’s not as convincing as the cockpit scenes from VI, and the action music that suddenly pipes up near the end just sounds desperate.

– But I enjoyed the baked potatoes bit and callback.

– “Rimmer, man, you coming?” did its job and got me. A welcome jolt out of the tedium.

– Whereas the unforgettable kiss can never be as funny as the first time.

– Considering they represent (some of) Rimmer’s old costumes in the Rimmer Experience (though Doug still seemed to be averse to the series 1-2 look before Remastered nostalgia), they presumably just didn’t have them available for the flashback scenes.

– Kryten can blow his nose.

– I like the surreal ghost train aspect of the Rimmer Experience. “I owe my life to him” was hilarious the last time I watched, but less now I expected it. Rimmer’s introduction was authentic to his death tribute video. The song just rhymes Rimmer with other words and has an annoyingly catchy chorus. Not a classic Red Dwarf sequence for me.

[Stilianides]

Blue

Firstly, to continue the conversation that some were having on the previous Byte, there seems to have been huge uncertainty about what the running order was going to be for this series. Kim Fuller has said that this episode was originally going to be Kochanski’s first appearance, so obviously plenty of rewriting must have gone on.

I think one by-product of the new shooting style was that it makes some of the cockpit acting a lot less convincing. In previous series the actions sequences were mostly fairly believable. Here, it looks more like what it is – a bunch of dodgy actors bobbing up and down in their chairs. :)

The baked potato gag is a good example of a delayed joke and the execution of that specifically works very well. It’s just a shame that a lot of the stuff that comes between the set up and the punchline is fairly annoying.

Nice to see Rimmer again, even if the golf scene is nothing to get excited about.

The actual dialogue of the kiss scene isn’t great, either, but it’s understandable that Rimmer and Lister’s intimate moment should have been so popular with fans due to the longtime emnity of those two characters. 

Kryten’s Hitler Speech is well-delivered and this episode has random highlights in amongst the long stretches of mediocrity.

Even the Rimmer Experience is quite patchy, but the song does make up for it. A brilliant visual idea from Doug that combines perfectly with Howard Goodall’s music and the nonsense lyrics.

When the series was first broadcast, I’d given up watching it by this point, but I recall friends talking positively the next day about the song, in particular.

[Warbodog]

Beyond a Joke

This felt like the defining series VII episode at the time. For whatever reason (poll peer pressure?), I came to consider it the biggest stinker of the bunch through 20+ years of avoiding the series, but watching it again, I didn’t think it was so bad. Probably even my favourite so far!

– Bobby wasn’t a father yet, so the concept of kids wanting to play their video games rather than come down for dinner might have come from Doug.

– As Dave said, Jane Austen World always seemed like a pisstake of the ubiquitous BBC dramas of the time, even more with the BAFTA dig.

– I enjoyed the unnecessary finishing off and death rattle of the second Bennet sister. Kryten getting hit by the log is pretty funny.

– As annoying as whingeing Kryten has been, having that “simmer” over the last four episodes and “boil over” here makes it retrospectively justified (but only if it stops now).

– They could have edited closer to the explosion to make the dummy head less obvious, but that added to the humour as a kid, in an immersion-breaking way.

– Kochanski makes bad jokes and comes up with clever schemes. They’re assuring us she’s not a Rimmer replacement, but that character still needs work.

– Series 4000 Mechanoids, Simulants, Kinitawowi-style GELFs – everything is recycled here, but we are VII series in.

– I always found the audibly sick Don Henderson uncomfortable to watch, but it’s inclusive casting. “You can be a disgusting cyborg.”

– Could they actually get ‘2X4C’ wrong, or is it just another retcon they thought sounded better?

– Kryten’s head having being intentionally comical all along is fine for me. I just don’t think about these revelations outside of the episode. He came to Out of Time’s uncanny valley explanation on his own, or it’s what they’re told.

– I found the techno sequence silly as a kid, but with Starbug dodging bad CGI asteroids and Able doing space drugs and saving the day with a ‘Nega Drive’, it’s aged adorably.

– The pod crash is the first ship shot of the series that’s impressed me (the Ouroboros chase was too wobbly and had distracting music).

– The curry being so hot that Lister breathes fire is so bad it’s good.

[International Debris]

Nanarchy

“Last week on Red Dwarf…” is a weird fourth wall breaking moment. 

Fucking hell, three writers on this. 

Guitar opening is great. Really horrible performance. 

All the one arm stuff after this is horrible. The one armed bandit is quite funny but the rest of this scene is fucking painful. Ok, “do you need a hand” is good. 

Fucking hate how the biscuit dunking scene is portrayed as if it’s just starting and yet the biscuit is more than half eaten. 

The tough love thing is all solid character and plotting. No good jokes, but it works. 

Unlike the draughts scene. A poor ‘Cat is insensitive’ gag stretched out over a whole painful scene. Awful. 

Model! 

The false arm scene is the best part of all the one arm stuff. Might be the funniest Kryten stuff in the whole series. Another one of those brief moments I can imagine being in a bubble episode. 

This was my introduction to the concept of nanotechnology. Seems a cliche these days. 

Fuck off planets and nebulae. 

And now we finally get to the meat of the story. 

“It’s the cockpit, dummy” is one of the worst jokes in the entire show. 

“There must be more electricity out there” is possibly the most awkward example of that type of joke in the series. Goes on for about three times as long as it needs to. 

I like the Lister and Kochanski stuff here. They feel like two people who’ve gradually settled into being friends, the pacing and performances and natural and comfortable and the boiled sweet gag is fun. 

The list of “valuable stuff” they’ve brought in is great. 

Holly’s return deserves the cheer, I love how understated it is. The rest of his stuff in this episode is pretty shit sadly. He performs it well but the lines are awful. 

The Bombay Aloo progressive folk duo is such a ludicrous image I can’t help but laugh. 

I’m not a big fan of the nanobots resolution to the missing Red Dwarf, but knowing where it’s going I hate it. 

“Insert them in you” is brilliant. 

How did that Lister and bodybuilder composite get through? It’s so shit. 

It’s so good to see the original Dwarf model again! Looks like the next series will finally return to the classic format again, with some great model shots and, with the Kochanski character beginning to settle in a little and the issues surrounding VII’s production in the last, a year or two of writing should enable a good combination of character and sci-fi for VIII. Doug wouldn’t have brought Holly back if he didn’t have some good material lined up for the character, and if we’re really lucky we might even get a satisfying return of Rimmer. A cast of six would be pushing it a little, but with a potential film around the corner I’m sure Doug will be trying his hardest to write a solid run of memorable, intelligent scripts. With an increasingly populated universe of Simulants, GELFs and derelicts to explore, there’s potential for some great plots!

VII, then. A very mixed bag. In some ways the first half comes across worse in a full series run like this because its proximity to the bubble, as well as having Rimmer there, leads to comparisons with earlier episodes, and it fails miserably in that regard. By the second half, it feels more settled as a slightly different show and there’s more emphasis on sci-fi scenarios leading to funny gags. There’s still nothing that will pierce the Grant Naylor bubble, of course. Blue and Epideme are my favourites, probably both a couple of drafts away from a lower bubble placing. Stoke and Beyond a Joke are both half good episodes let down by their shit halves. Tikka, Ouroboros and Nanarchy have good scenes but are mostly poor, and Duct Soup is almost entirely awful. 

I think the biggest issue with the first half is how much it’s trying to take on. Not only does Doug have the unenviable task of writing the show without Rob, but he’s then introduced a new visual style for the show which takes some getting used to. And then he has to resolve the cliffhanger from Out of Time, write Rimmer out, introduce Kochanski and have her get to know the crew. It’s so plot and continuity heavy that none of those episodes have any room to breathe at all. 

And as someone with proven experience of comedy writing and producing TV shows, here’s How I Would Have Done It.

Six episode instead of eight. With all the strain things were under with the loss of Rob and Chris, adding two more scripts didn’t help at all. 

Keep the studio sitcom format. Basically as above. It didn’t need any more changes. 

Episode one: Back in the Red. Opens with the last couple of minutes of Out of Time and, once Starbug is destroyed it suddenly returns to them picking up the time drive again. They quickly get deja vu and then realise what has happened. In order to change events, they use the time drive to get back to Red Dwarf after they originally left for the Esperanto, effectively stealing it from themselves in the process. 

Episode two: The ‘Kryten is broken’ episode Beyond a Joke could have been. 

Episode three: There’s a threat to Red Dwarf and, with no other way out, Rimmer remembers how he nearly saved them in Out of Time and does so here, fatally damaging his light bee. “Maybe one day we will come across technology that could repair it, but it’s unlikely. For all intents and purposes, sir, Mr. Rimmer is dead.” It could even be the hologram projection suite that gets damaged somehow, meaning no further holograms could be used.

Episode four: A better version of Blue. 

Episode five: A better version of Duct Soup.

Episode six: A better version of Epideme. Tighten it a little and introduce the nanobots at the very end. If it has to end on a cliffhanger, maybe something like “hold on, with these, couldn’t we recreate other things?” as a possible lead to bringing in Kochanski or Rimmer in VIII.

[Stilianides]

Gah, I meant to type that the song was a great visual idea from Ed. 

[Flap Jack]

Water supplies are low. Maybe use the many gallons that are aimlessly cleaning ducts every day?

In mild defence of Duct Soup, Lister did say that the ducts were just a conduit for water that was already being recycled.

– Is this the first episode with distinct A and B plots?

Waiting for God.

Actually, arguably The End, if the B plot (Rimmer’s exam) doesn’t have to last the whole episode.

[Warbodog]

Waiting for God

I thought it’d be something incredibly early, but I only considered as far as Balance of Power before not bothering.

[Rudolph]

What is Kryten trying to imply with not trusting Lister’s subconscious-controlled robotic arm around Kochanski? Because it sounds like he suspects the arm will compel him to rape her. I don’t even know what he thinks Lister will be swinging around his head in that scenario.

[International Debris]

I think it’s just him finding Kochanski annoying and projecting that onto Lister as well. ie not very good scripting as usual.

[cwickham]

In the September-November 1997 repeat run of VIII, Blue and Duct Soup were switched over. Every other run AFAIK used the original order (there was only one more BBC run of VII, the late-night one in early ’04).

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

There’s a universal translator in a universe with no aliens. Right.

Surely having no aliens makes translation infinitely easier? As presumably whatever GELF languages exist 3 million years in the future are descended from whatever languages were spoken by them back when they first came into being. By my reckoning, presumably a universal translator would incorporate those early GELF languages too, be they based on existing Earth languages or conlangs of their own devising. So if they share common roots, the universal translator should be able to translate it.

Anyway, I didn’t hear anyone complaining about the translator in Emohawk.

[Flap Jack]

Blue – Good episode. I mean, not *Series 1-6* good, but still (probably) the best episode of VII. Except for the golf one, the Rimmer sequences alone propel this one to the top for me. The rest of the episode is OK too, though it does have a serious structural problem. It starts out being about the prospect of Kochanski leaving and how Lister and Kryten feel about that, but this is essentially dropped and left unresolved in favour of Lister missing Rimmer. That is the stronger material, so it’s better for doing that, but really the whole episode should have just been about that.

– Lister conditioned himself to get turned on by his gran’s bra. As if he wasn’t already incestuous enough in this series.

– There are so many episodes in which the actors shake themselves around in their cockpit seats to create the illusion that they’re experiencing turbulence, but I’m not sure it’s ever looked more obviously fake than in this episode. Maybe they didn’t move the camera enough?

– Cute detail that Kochanski’s sewing machine is labelled “Talkie Sewn Sew”.

– Big one for Cat saying proper character names. 2 “Rimmer”s and 1 “Kryten”.

– “Traga 16” is a weird one. It doesn’t look like a GELF world, but surely they wouldn’t name a planet/star that, and they shouldn’t have historical records of astronomers naming celestial bodies so far into deep space either.

– The Vidal Beast of Sharmutt 2 sounds even more like an alien than the pan-dimensional liquid beast of the Mogodon cluster (on top of the fact that Sharmutt 2 is yet another sci-fi planet name). I guess we have to assume once again that this is a GELF, and that it was named by the more intelligent GELFs like the Kinatowawis, but they’re getting lazy with this.

– Strange moment early on where Kryten suggests that maybe Lister sabotaged the ship to prevent Kochanski from leaving, and Lister denies it in a tone which implies maybe he actually did, but this is never picked up on so I assume he is actually innocent.

– Kryten is such a dickhead in this, again. At least he isn’t endangering anyone’s life this time, but it’s still just so unpleasant to watch him being so petty and horrible to Kochanski, when she’s already having such a hard time of it. Lister gets a custom therapy ride in AR for dealing with his longing for a guy he didn’t even get on with, while Kochanski has lost her universe, gets bullied by Kryten for doing totally innocuous things, and she’s just expected to shrug it all off. The only upside of this subplot is that at least Kryten gets talked back to a bit.

– Cat says “You’ve seen her pants?!” about Kochanski to Kryten, but he
shouldn’t be so amazed. He saw them himself just last episode. More
evidence for Blue as episode 4.

– Seems odd for Lister to focus on Rimmer’s toilet paper habits when he can’t have actually done anything like that since before the radiation leak.

– Kryten says “Wait a minute, here comes the best bit” before the Munchkin Song, and he’s right. As well as being a certified banger, I’ve actually found it genuinely affecting when they bring it back in instrumental and melancholic form, such as at the end of Trojan.

– They talk around directly acknowledging what they all believe the case to be, but the vibe regarding Rimmer does seem to better fit him leaving than him dying. In particular, Lister saying “I never want to see or hear from that scum-sucking, lying, weasel-minded smegger in my entire life!” doesn’t really sound like something you’d say about someone who you’re pretending is dead.

[Warbodog]

I thought they were all just playing along with Rimmer double-dying to motivate him to leave his life behind and become Ace. Even if Kryten and especially Cat were supposed to believe it during the episode for credibility, there was no need for Lister to maintain such a massive lie afterwards.

[Warbodog]

Maybe I missed repeats, because Epideme was always the (BBC) episode I remembered the least until I watched it again a few years ago and found it surprisingly strong (though not enough to motivate a full VII reappraisal on my own).

It’s my favourite of this series by far. A decent mix of sci-fi, horror, drama and even a few good gags catapulted it above FOUR bubble episodes (if you find that annoying, wait til we get to Cassandra).

– Coming across someone who happened to be on Red Dwarf is like that daft bit of speculation in The Geap, but it actually happens.

– It’s just The Thing or The X-Files’ ‘Ice,’ but the early scenes bring back the darkness of series V, subsequently mixed with VII’s smut.

– I’d foolishly hoped jealous Kryten wouldn’t last the series. A missed opportunity for continuity if he was taking up meditation or something after the last episode’s events, but that might as well not have happened.

– Epideme’s another of those good sci-fi ideas like they used to have, before bollocks like Ouroboros. The execution’s a bit awkwardly unfunny, but I found Mr Epideme more of a cheesy Talkie meets Confidence than the insufferable AIs of VIII & X.

– The amputation(s) make for good drama and the episode’s best gags. The execution is appropriately, shockingly horrific. It’s Lister!

– Funniest: Cat’s attempted handshake gave me the first proper laughing-with-it laugh of the series. He had plenty of other good stuff too, and a good tense relief laugh when they remember to revive Lister.

– In bad comedy, Lister’s simile gags have never felt more forced and unnecessary, but I suppose he’s trying to keep his pecker up.

[Dave]

Strange moment early on where Kryten suggests that maybe Lister sabotaged the ship to prevent Kochanski from leaving, and Lister denies it in a tone which implies maybe he actually did, but this is never picked up on so I assume he is actually innocent.

Oh I think the implication is definitely that he did it.

[Dave]

Kryten is such a dickhead in this, again. At least he isn’t endangering anyone’s life this time, but it’s still just so unpleasant to watch him being so petty and horrible to Kochanski, when she’s already having such a hard time of it.

This is my main issue with VII in general. In previous series, the all-male cast works well and they sometimes use it to examine some traditionally male traits in an enjoyable way.

But suddenly having a woman on board seems to turn the dynamic inside out and make all the men focused on her in an uncomfortable way.

Kryten’s horrible resentment and jealousy is obviously the most grating aspect of this, but Lister’s regular attempts to cajole her into sex and Cat’s pervy enjoyment of her from afar are also pretty weird and uncomfortable. 

It’s like the whole show suddenly becomes about L, K and C acting like teenagers in the presence of a real-life woman, which does a disservice to them – and also doesn’t give Kochanski much to work with as a character, as she almost always ends up being either an object of lust or the butt of a joke.

I watch Red Dwarf a lot with my daughter and this aspect of Series VII is the main reason I avoid it (we’ve only watched it once together). It’s just a really uncomfortable watch and one of the few cases of then-contemporary 90s attitudes bleeding through to the show in an unpleasant way.

One of the few cases in which Last Human handles things better than the show, as Kochanski is much more assertive in that and feels a lot less like a female prop who’s only there for the others to react to.

[Flap Jack]

Oh I think the implication is definitely that he did it.

Oh gosh.

If it’s alright with everyone, I’m just going to stick with my more generous interpretation, because if Lister did damage the ship on purpose to prevent Kochanski from leaving, that makes him an irredeemable scumbag, worse than Kryten in Duct Soup. Not ideal for an episode where we’re supposed to feel sympathy for him.

I mean, I know he already sexually assaulted KK in Ouroboros so him being bad to her wouldn’t be a new frontier, but at least he gets actively called out for that, even if it’s a very light condemnation.

[Unrumble]

I mean, I know he already sexually assaulted KK in Ouroboros so him being bad to her wouldn’t be a new frontier, but at least he gets actively called out for that, even if it’s a very light condemnation.

[Stilianides]

Beyond a Joke

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that this ep had a bunch of rewrites because it’s very stop-start and disjointed. In that sense, it reminds me of some of Doug’s later efforts, as the plotting and pacing are a long way short of the quality of Series I to VI. I think Beyond a Joke deserves its negative reputation and if it’s not among the worst 10 episodes, it’s pretty damn close.

That said, it’s actually quite a smart idea for them to flee from the Simulant’s ship to convince him to follow them, but they recover Kryten far too quickly for there to be any drama. 

Able is tedious, there is no depth to the character and the resolution with the Sim’s ship is too brief to be of much excitement. They do, at least, treat Able’s demise with some respect (unlike some of the deaths in later series).

Kochanski is at her worst with the embarrassing, “Hello, wall…” moment, and the intentionally unfunny “Hue” joke. Having a character with no sense of humour can be very amusing if executed correctly. But not in this instance.

I really dislike the explanation of Kryten’s back story.

Lister’s ‘Fatboy’ nickname feels quite uninspired and rather a manufactured way to crowbar in the “Double chalker” joke.

The Cat is amusing once or twice (in the otherwise horrible Gelf costume scene and with, “Are we eating the same stuff?”). Very often (too often?) in this series the humour comes from him insensitively misreading the situation and saying the wrong thing.

One or two good model shots and Chris Veale’s work wasn’t all bad considering the time and budget constraints. That said, it certainly wasn’t all good, either.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s like the whole show suddenly becomes about L, K and C acting like teenagers in the presence of a real-life woman, which does a disservice to them

Does it?  I think that’s exactly how 3 men in their situation would behave.  As much as we might not like it, and as much as in another time they may have behaved differently.  

Granted a more or less whole series of it is annoying as fuck and should have maybe resolved in a couple of episodes but I don’t think it does them a disservice in anyway.

Oh I think the implication is definitely that he did it.
Oh gosh.
If it’s alright with everyone, I’m just going to stick with my more generous interpretation, because if Lister did damage the ship on purpose to prevent Kochanski from leaving, that makes him an irredeemable scumbag, worse than Kryten in Duct Soup. Not ideal for an episode where we’re supposed to feel sympathy for him.
I mean, I know he already sexually assaulted KK in Ouroboros so him being bad to her wouldn’t be a new frontier, but at least he gets actively called out for that, even if it’s a very light condemnation.

Agreed.  I’ve always read that as Lister genuinely trying to help Kochanski, showing a bit of unearned bravado and ultimately putting the ship in danger, but certainly not deliberately.

[Dave]

Does it?  I think that’s exactly how 3 men in their situation would behave.  As much as we might not like it, and as much as in another time they may have behaved differently.  

Granted a more or less whole series of it is annoying as fuck and should have maybe resolved in a couple of episodes but I don’t think it does them a disservice in anyway.

Cat’s reaction I can accept as he’s never been around women before, but for Lister it’s a far cry from the person we saw in the early series of the show who encouraged Rimmer to think of women as people rather than sex objects to be tricked into a relationship, and for Kryten his ugly bordering-on-misogyny jealousy/resentment and unfamilarity with women again feels far from his characterisation in the earlier series. They even have to resolve the contradiction of him being so un-used to women (despite his experiences on the Nova 5) by saying he’s had his memory wiped. They might as well have said the same for Lister.

[Warbodog]

Nanarchy

I associated this with being a particularly dull episode. Like Blue, the first half deals with serialised consequences, then there’s a slight main plot. Like Duct Soup, it’s filled with long dialogue scenes that fail to be really amusing. One of my least favourites of the year.

– Cat discussing Lister’s arm peaks at “well, except you” and then goes from tedious to downright horrible.

– “Hand pick up the ball” is empathetically stressful, like watching someone struggle to breathe.

– The nanobot discussion felt like something from IV-V, with Kryten’s science bit not needing to resort to cheap laughs and some good Cat interjections. It also checks off Kochanski’s clever idea per episode.

– The resolution of the search is a bit Ouroboros in being overly convoluted and not really satisfying or coherent. It was so drawn-out by now (especially in real time), it just feels like clearing out old business ready for the next run.

– Having Norman Holly mainly interact with Kryten feels odd, but I suppose it clears up what would have been a major discussion point otherwise (he’s only been visually reset).

– I didn’t know who Holly was when I first watched it (I’d seen glimpses of Hattie years earlier, but didn’t make the connection). I found the novels not long after, then started catching up on the old series later in the year.

– My main reaction to the closing scene this time was relief, not really thinking about what’s coming directly next, just moving on from this era at least. Back then, I’d only properly seen the Starbug series, so the change in setting felt monumental. Out of Time had left me on a downbeat cliffhanger for years, this was a happy ending that would presumably be as easily resolved, even just in dialogue, and a promise of more adventures to come.

[Warbodog]

(Reading the dialogue, I’ve only just realised that it’s an existing planetoid with Red Dwarf debris strewn about. I’d always taken “that planetoid is Red Dwarf” to literally mean the ship had been compressed into a small, red and planetoidy sphere that somehow preposterously had gravity and atmosphere).

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’d always read that the planetoid is Red Dwarf too. I think the script maybe changes it mind. 

Why would the nano bots leave what they didn’t want on a planet rather than leaving it all just floating in space? Feels like the, turning it into the planetoid in the first place fits what little we know of their motivations in the first place. To just be unnecessarily annoying.

[International Debris]

It could be that the physical ship is the planetoid and all the actual stuff – gear, clothes, computers, etc. – was left on the surface. 

I mean the whole thing requires you to believe that a microscopic version of the ship could produce a vapour trail strong enough for them to confuse with that of the actually five mile long ship. It’s nonsense and I wish Doug had found a better way to bring the ship back. 

[Stilianides]

Epideme

I have to give Paul Alexander credit for coming up with one of the tightest plots of the season, especially as it originally concluded with Epideme biting into Rimmer’s hologramatic arm. It can’t have been easy for writers like him and John McKay (Identity Within) to pen episodes without knowing whether they would be able to include the most interesting character.

Apparently, it was Ed who suggested including a zombie, and I think this is one of few sequences to make good use of Kochanski’s presence on board. The new camera style also works quite well when Kryten hurriedly searches Lister’s room for Kochanski. My partner walked in on my rewatch and the moment where Lister spat out a chunk of Caroline Carmen brought a genuine laugh.

I do understand, to some extent, the rationale in hiring Gary Martin to voice Epideme, but his performance feels a bit CITV for me. If Patrick Stewart had agreed to play the part, that would have been a huge coup and he later proved on Frasier (which I know I probably mention too much on here) how funny he could be playing a part in a sitcom. He had already been hilarious in the movies with his cameo in L.A. Story.

Cat has the funniest lines with his typical (for this series) insensitivity to Lister’s new condition.

Not classic Dwarf by any means, and there are some dry stretches, but one of the better episodes of Series VII.

[Warbodog]

It could be that the physical ship is the planetoid and all the actual stuff – gear, clothes, computers, etc. – was left on the surface.       

That’s what I thought, but assuming they compressed it as tidily as possible, the ‘planetoid’ would be bloody small. Smaller than the asteroid embedded in the original ship. This is series VII though, which has no concept of scale.

[Rudolph]

I know some people pick up that Rimmer’s blueberry muffin from Back in the Red has Tesco printed on its cup, but I always notice the ball Lister tries to pick up in Epideme has the Orlando Magic logo on it.

[Dave]

I do understand, to some extent, the rationale in hiring Gary Martin to voice Epideme, but his performance feels a bit CITV for me.

I wonder whether it was one of those things that might have benefited from being in front of an audience to better gauge the reaction. From the Series VII DVD documentary, everyone seemed to love him and his talents, and I wonder whether their feelings about him pushed them towards a “bigger” voice for the character when an audience might have found it more grating.

But for me it’s not the voice so much as the weird timings that I always find really irritating. Some lines are great though, it’s just a bit all over the place.

[Stilianides]

I wonder whether it was one of those things that might have benefited from being in front of an audience to better gauge the reaction. From the Series VII DVD documentary, everyone seemed to love him and his talents, and I wonder whether their feelings about him pushed them towards a “bigger” voice for the character when an audience might have found it more grating.
But for me it’s not the voice so much as the weird timings that I always find really irritating. Some lines are great though, it’s just a bit all over the place.

Yeah, that’s a good point and it’s certainly possible.

I think there was the issue from this point on, though, of the audience laughing at everything. That was one of the comments made during a Dwarfcast for Series X, and I think it was the same on XIII (and would have been on VII). It probably became a lot more difficult to gauge reactions from here on in.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I wonder whether it was one of those things that might have benefited from being in front of an audience to better gauge the reaction. From the Series VII DVD documentary, everyone seemed to love him and his talents, and I wonder whether their feelings about him pushed them towards a “bigger” voice for the character when an audience might have found it more grating.
But for me it’s not the voice so much as the weird timings that I always find really irritating. Some lines are great though, it’s just a bit all over the place.

Yeah, that’s a good point and it’s certainly possible.
I think there was the issue from this point on, though, of the audience laughing at everything. That was one of the comments made during a Dwarfcast for Series X, and I think it was the same on XIII (and would have been on VII). It probably became a lot more difficult to gauge reactions from here on in.

Given we had Taiwan Tony and Medibot in the same episode then yeah, having an audience doesn’t guarantee performances will be honed and adjusted to what we think would have worked better.

[Stilianides]

Nanarchy

I think it’s quite a big issue that the last two episodes of the series essentially have invisible antagonists. I know that Paul Alexander has admitted that Epideme was a radio idea, but the same could be said for James Hendrie’s suggestion of incorporating nanobots.

The opening scene is desperately overlong, both in terms of the guitar playing and the one-armed-men joke. If it had been cut down to listing three examples, it might not have been so bad. 

Another overlong scene involving picking up the ball, but Robert does some nice physical work.

The pedant in me quibbles with the following joke: “Two weeks we spent checking that one out.” “…it was worth at least another week.” The repetition of the word “week” feels clumsy.

Finding Red Dwarf ought to be a celebratory moment for fans, but it feels like a confused mess. It’s nice to see Norman again (even if he admitted that he struggled without an audience), but this could have been so much more. The show does its best to hide the fact that no budget appears to have been spent on this section and it is largely the characters sitting in the vehicle and being rocked from side to side.

The line about forming a progressive folk duo is amusing.

Cool to hear the music cue when Red Dwarf is finally shown, but you now can’t see it without remembering that we have Back in the Red to come…

[Flap Jack]

Beyond A Joke – This is an episode that I always used to forget about, and on this rewatch I’m not entirely sure why, because there are some memorable bits in it. Maybe it’s just due to how the episode has a very disjointed structure. It’s like if Emohawk were way less funny. Overall though, it’s… not terrible. It’s nice to have a proper villain of the week for the first time in the series (I count the Kinatowawis in Ouroboros as more of an aside than a central villain), Kryten blowing up the countryside with a tank is pretty awesome, and Able and the Simulant have a few decent moments. But there are obviously significant problems, most prominently that the character conflict which gets the plot going – Kryten being overwhelmed by his negative feelings about his crewmates – is easily resolved in a purely technical manner by a guest character, and this makes way for the “Kryten finds out he was designed as a joke” problem. But that’s resolved easily too, with just a quick pep talk from Lister, it’s incredibly underwhelming. Really they should have just stuck with one of these things, made it the throughline of the episode, and have Kryten’s relationship with Able be what helps resolve it. Oh well.

– Lister, Cat and Kochanski’s reason for postponing Kryten’s dinner is really weak. They’re stranded in deep space for the rest of their lives most likely, but they have to play this Pride & Prejudice game right now for some reason, at a time they would I assume be eating dinner anyway, even if Kryten hadn’t prepared anything special? Why??? The lobster most likely won’t be as nice when it’s less fresh, and it clearly means a lot to Kryten. Just play your game in an hour, FFS.

– Kryten treating Jane Austen World like it’s Metal Gear Solid 3 is pretty good, though he clearly doesn’t have the patience for proper stealth gameplay. Also, I’m not sure why he tried stealth at alll if his objective was to get their attention? You don’t need a tank, Krytes, just run up to them while screaming or something.

– Kryten can just bring assets from a totally different game into Austen World. Silly, but not quite as silly as a virtual knight escaping into real life. (Also I’m pretty sure this is how people incorrectly think video game NFTs would work.)

– It’s a serious indictment of Lister that he doesn’t remember which century Kryten is from. They’re meant to be friends, and they must have discussed his origins so many times over the years. (It’s the 24th, as I’m sure we all know.) On top of that, they set the dilemma up as if finding out Kryten’s birthday is the key to fixing him, but they don’t find it out and they don’t fix him. More weird plot structure there.

– I don’t know how the GELF costumes made it into the show when the script apparently had so many drafts. “OK, but how do they have GELF costumes?” should be a fairly easy question to come to mind. Must have been another anomaly caused by the fight with their future selves, because why not.

– Their GELF disguise plan has a lot riding on the idea that the Simulant can’t speak GELF and so wouldn’t know they’re faking (although I’m not sure how they planned to negotiate the trade if they couldn’t talk to him), but how could they be confident about that? The guy literally has a GELF crewmate and he’s a robot. It’s actually bizarre that he doesn’t speak GELF.

– Speaking of GELF language, sigh, the “whole language is just hackhackhackhack” thing again.

– Able gets characterised as stupid here, but give him credit where it’s due, he figured out his original crew were dead millions of years quicker than Kryten did. And he came up with a way to defeat to the Simulant at the end too.

– I don’t find the retcon about Professor Mamet too objectionable (it’s certainly nowhere near as bad for Kryten’s backstory as “You killed the crew, Kryten!”), but it does feel largely pointless. Also, it does seem kind of bad to make it so the female creator of Kryten had a “woman scorned” motivation.

– Interesting to hear on the audio commentary (a rare instance of a writer’s commentary, technically) about episode ideas that weren’t used. Of course there was TOWEK, which got a happy ending a decade later. Then there was Craig’s idea about the characters almost getting back to Earth, but turning up at different points in history and ending up as the explanation for various major UFO sightings (which if it had happened, would have meant that the Futurama episode “Roswell That Ends Well” was ripping off 2 Red Dwarf episodes instead of just 1). And finally… the “gay ray” episode. Yeah, probably for the best that one didn’t happen. Would have made Timewave look like subtle and incisive social commentary.

– Is Robert Llewellyn’s portrayal of Able… able-ist?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Frasier (which I know I probably mention too much on here)

There’s no such thing as too much mentioning of Frasier.

[srmcd1]

Here’s a thought:

Could David Ross have played Able? If nothing else, it would’ve given Robert a break.

[Dave]

Given we had Taiwan Tony and Medibot in the same episode then yeah, having an audience doesn’t guarantee performances will be honed and adjusted to what we think would have worked better.

Although Dave-era Dwarf is more broad in general. Epideme would be more of a fit in an X-XII episode, I think.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Epideme comes across as a more insane Talkie Toaster at times. 

Talkie is genuinely brilliant and not overdone but I think it lends to Epideme fitting g in that era too. But yes definitely fits the more broad era of later years. Or really, just the Doug years given viii is t much better.

[Rudolph]

Could David Ross have played Able? If nothing else, it would’ve given Robert a break.

I like this idea. I’ve always been curious to how Ross would’ve looked in the proper Kryten makeup and costume.

[Unrumble]

I’ve always been curious to how Ross would’ve looked in the proper Kryten makeup and costume.

[Stilianides]

Frasier (which I know I probably mention too much on here)
There’s no such thing as too much mentioning of Frasier.

It’s kind of you to say that. I’m working on a Frasier related project at the moment, so sometimes it takes over my thoughts. I will try not to flood this board with crowbarred in references to it, though.

[Dave]

It’s kind of you to say that. I’m working on a Frasier related project at the moment, so sometimes it takes over my thoughts. I will try not to flood this board with crowbarred in references to it, though.

You must have been delighted to read this thread and hear that Blue‘s a-callin.

[Ian Symes]

[Stilianides]

Nice. :)

[Author]

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