Refresh For The Memory: Series VIII Byte 1

[Warbodog]

Cassandra

The only post-VI episode to have been invited into my random viewing rotation previously (watching Dave episodes was more of a conscious choice/experiment), the first 8 minutes do make for an unwelcome reminder of the VIII situation and aren’t great (though maybe better than all the other prison scenes in the run), but then the rest of the episode is good. Really good!

You can be positive or negative about the ratio and relativism. I thought it might drop in my ranking this time, but it’s climbed if anything. I’ve got it above 11 Grant Naylor episodes. That doesn’t necessarily mean it holds together better, I just prefer watching it.

So to focus on the post-prison stuff:

– I like the atmosphere and Industrial/Ocean Zone setting, even if that militaristic music’s a bit over the top and overused.
– Kill Crazy is funny in this episode.

– The Cassandra FX always looked dodgy, but another good villain performance.

– Lister’s death horoscope is nicely ambiguous and in no way a fixed point, since Cassandra won’t be around to know, though deliberately setting it after the Future Echoes apparition gives it credibility.

– Rimmer’s impending death felt like a genuine threat, without the usual guaranteed last-minute save or timeline-erasing do-over, and with the uniquely Red Dwarf spin that we don’t know whether to root for him or not, since we really want the hologram. Clever stuff.

– We follow along with Rimmer’s logic, so forget how it relates to what was actually said, and of course he’s still going to die. Brilliant.

– Those BIG nametags do annoyingly dumb the gag down, and even threw me off on the first viewing. When Rimmer touched it, I thought the joke was going to be that Cassandra had read his name on his top all along, not having noticed Chekhov’s disappearing jacket at the time.

– Knot’s name also wasn’t well established enough for me to notice the pun on his name, even beyond the first viewing I think. I just thought he was saying ‘my name’s not…’ and it still worked.

– “Kryten figured it out” never stood out as an all-time infamous line to me, though it is a bit of a turnaround from him taking Cassandra at her word when recklessly playing Russian roulette with his shipmates earlier.

– Rimmer finally requesting his own death details gets a deserved audience reaction for a change. Always loved him double checking the details to make sure he wasn’t about to get into another farcical scrape.

– I probably assumed I’d eventually hear “giving it rizz” used in parlance outside of this episode. Nope.

– I shouldn’t even wade in here, but Rimmer grasping at the positive of a sympathy bonk before his death, orchestrated by the baddie, doesn’t strike me as being among the worst things he’s done, even before this series.

– It never felt like a complete retread of Future Echoes to me, just the kind of repeating theme you get eight series in. There are also bits of Back to Reality, Duct Soup and a series IV style sermon for Lister at the end. Maybe I would have emphasised the negatives if that had been in an older series, I’ve just always been grateful for its existence amid the shit.

[Formica]

[Ian Symes]

This thread is making me sad. In my head, Series VIII is buried away as being a piece of shit that can be safely ignored, if not for a few extremely dodgy bits here and there. But seeing it all laid out in detail like this emphasises just how much dodgy stuff there is, and how pervasive it is. I don’t think I’ve watched any of Back In The Red (save for a late night commentary session) since the DVD came out. When I first saw it I was just a kid, so my only qualms were about the quality or otherwise of the gags and the story. But now I realise that everything with the sexual magnetism virus is just hideous. Every bit of it is the epitome of rape culture, and it’s absolutely foul. When you look back at the 90s and the “new lad” phenomenon, it’s tainted with an aspect of misogyny in retrospect, but Back In The Red is worse than pretty much anything your Men Behaving Badlys, Fantasy Footballs or Game Ons did.

Also, the stuff about Kryten being classified as a woman just gets more and more offensive the more you think about it. Back then I saw it merely as a conduit for tedious jokes about men and women being different, but as the years go by and the small minority who want everyone to be categorised solely by the genitalia they were born with gets louder, it just gets uglier. It’s perhaps unfortunate for the show that things have developed this way – I don’t think for a moment that Doug actually intended to make a comment on what transphobes would now refer to as the “debate” on gender – but even so, it’s clumsy as fuck, and again, more than a tad misogynistic. It’s offensive to trans and non-binary people to suggest their identity is defined by their genitals; it’s offensive to cis men to suggest that their masculinity is only defined by their penis; and it’s offensive to cis women to suggest that their femininity is defined by not having a penis. So well done.

[Stilianides]

Back in the Red 3

The line, “You care less about your appearance than a member of the Dutch royal family” must have had some significance back in the late 90s. It sounds like gibberish to me now.

The Gideon’s Bible joke is overlong and tedious, while the gag about being elected President is not exactly biting satire.

Having said that, the blindfold idea makes me smile.

The Blue Midget dance is such an odd concept considering how unpopular Chris Veale’s work was in VII. I can’t really see anything to commend it as neither the CG nor Danny’s dancing are all that amazing. And then there is the matter that it is both unfunny and takes up a reasonable chunk of the episode.

The exit button is nowhere near smart enough for Kryten to not deduce it and the same goes for the sauce/ketchup bottle. I guess you have to give Doug some respect for being bold enough to include the screensaver and Blue Midget in the same episode…

Jeillo Edwards is fun as the ground controller and hearing her laugh is a crumb of comfort in this otherwise rather miserable experience.

Egghead Holly is a major no and then we have Norman’s dreadful theory of relativity joke.

Rimmer is a complete caricature in the ‘buttons’ scene.

Putting the sexual magnetism virus on Rimmer’s shoulders makes no sense and ignores that when he actually drank it, men were immune to its effects.

[Dave]

When you look back at the 90s and the “new lad” phenomenon, it’s tainted with an aspect of misogyny in retrospect, but Back In The Red is worse than pretty much anything your Men Behaving Badlys, Fantasy Footballs or Game Ons did.

While watching BitR I’ve been struck by how different it feels in style and tone to earlier Dwarf, including the fairly recent VII. And part of me wonders whether there was an aspect of Doug consciously writing this laddish sexist stuff to try to appeal to the audiences who like those kind of shows you mention – but doing it in a really cackhanded way because it doesn’t come as naturally to him as the character-based or idea-based stuff that’s always been Red Dwarf’s stock in trade.

Was there a sense by that point that RD’s style of studio sitcom was a bit flat and ‘safe’ and VIII was an attempt to fit in with the zeitgeist a bit more? It seems plausible to me.

[Unrumble]

Putting the sexual magnetism virus on Rimmer’s shoulders makes no sense and ignores that when he actually drank it, men were immune to its effects.

To the first part, absolutely. It’s not being absorbed into his body in any way. Even as a 12 year old I couldn’t get past this. It’s like it’s acting like a pheremone, which in my rudimentary understanding are not at all similar to viruses.

To the second, presumably the implication is that all the cons who jump him are either gay or bi? What Doug’s trying to say with that, I dunno. Something about prison inmate stereotypes? Prisoners will always end up shagging out of pent-up sexual frustration, regardless of orientation? 

[Flap Jack]

This thread is making me sad. In my head, Series VIII is buried away as being a piece of shit that can be safely ignored, if not for a few extremely dodgy bits here and there. But seeing it all laid out in detail like this emphasises just how much dodgy stuff there is, and how pervasive it is. I don’t think I’ve watched any of Back In The Red (save for a late night commentary session) since the DVD came out. When I first saw it I was just a kid, so my only qualms were about the quality or otherwise of the gags and the story. But now I realise that everything with the sexual magnetism virus is just hideous. Every bit of it is the epitome of rape culture, and it’s absolutely foul. When you look back at the 90s and the “new lad” phenomenon, it’s tainted with an aspect of misogyny in retrospect, but Back In The Red is worse than pretty much anything your Men Behaving Badlys, Fantasy Footballs or Game Ons did.

I think this is a somewhat common fan experience with Series VIII, especially if you’re a teenage boy/young man and therefore not really trained to think deeply about the dodgier aspects. I know for sure that when I first saw this series, I maybe had a vague sense that it wasn’t as good as previous ones, but I definitely enjoyed it and it didn’t occur to me just how unusual it all was. But with every rewatch, and with every time I think about it or discuss it with others, more serious and offensive flaws reveal themselves.

The salve for me is that Series VIII genuinely can be safely ignored. Or rather, its existence should still be acknowledged and its merits or lack thereof hashed out (and it makes sense to watch and judge it for this thread series and for anniversary polls and such). But when it comes to casual rewatches or for introducing new people to the show, Series VIII is eminently skippable. Going from Nanarchy to Back to Earth actually involves significantly less discontinuity than going from Only the Good… to Back to Earth.

For now, I’m personally counting on Ackerman and Kill Crazy to get me through this.

Putting the sexual magnetism virus on Rimmer’s shoulders makes no sense and ignores that when he actually drank it, men were immune to its effects.

Agreed about the shoulder application, but I don’t think the intention is that men are immune to the sexual magnetism virus. The implication is that it doesn’t override your general sexual orientation, and that all the people Rimmer interacted with when he had the virus before were straight (or for the women, either straight or bi). And that in The Tank, all of the unnamed male prisoner characters around Rimmer are either gay or bisexual. So it’s a homophobic joke about men in prison.

[Warbodog]

Isn’t the ending the only time the sexual magnetism virus is used for real? So it does affect everyone in the vicinity* and the simulation/characters didn’t know that. Don’t know why I’m bothering to defend it though.

Anyway, hopefully Byte 2 will address these concerns and it’ll be back to feeling like Red Dwarf again.

*(Except Lister).

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The exit button is nowhere near smart enough for Kryten to not deduce it

To be fair to Kryten, the button isn’t in front of him.

[Dave]

Maybe it’s the context of BitR, but Cassandra definitely lives up to my memory of it being “the good one” in VIII.

The concept is solid, the story moves quickly and packs a lot in, and there are lots of funny gags and lines that mostly feel solidly in-character.

I also like the way it uses the continuity and Lister’s past experiences against him, and makes Rimmer’s lack of knowledge a strength (another very funny line).

It’s also an episode that shows how a live audience can inform the performances, particularly the early scenes with Cassandra which has the actors adjust their timing to account for the laughs.

Talking of which, Cassandra is a good guest performance who works really well and feels less broad than most of VIII does, and more like something from the classic era.

And that goes for the episode as a whole really, particularly the way it mainly focuses on the five leads and milks the central concept for as many interesting twists (and laughs) as it can.

Even the potentially awkward plot involving Rimmer and Kochanski sleeping together works because we’re seeing it from her point of view – that this is a horrible situation that she doesn’t want to get forced into by fate – rather than her being a passive object of lust like she is with the sexual magnetism scenes in BitR.

If the rest of series VIII is as good as this, it should more than make up for BitR!

[Dave]

Also, given that I was particularly looking out for “Kryten figured it out”, it stood out that about a minute before Lister says that, he says this:

I guess as long as someone figured it out, that’s fine.

[Dave]

Also also: only a tiny moment, but I couldn’t quite decide whether that brief moment of Kryten not being able to spin the gun properly after shooting them all is funny because Bobby can’t do it or because Kryten can’t do it. Either way I guess it works.

[Stilianides]

To be fair to Kryten, the button isn’t in front of him.

Sure, but when Cat reads it out, either Kryten or Kochanski would have immediately known that 11 is XI in Roman numerals.

My point really, though, was that for the joke to work it ideally would have had much smarter writing.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– Knot’s name also wasn’t well established enough for me to notice the pun on his name, even beyond the first viewing I think.

– Those BIG nametags

[Stilianides]

Kryten being classified as a woman is undoubtedly stupid, but Doug clearly felt that he needed to make Kryten and Kochanski into a pairing and that was the best explanation that he could come up with. Personally, I don’t read into it any more than that.

It’s interesting that while VIII has always had its detractors, it also received plenty of positive reviews and the position of many at GNP seemed to be that it was a big return to form. The tone of the DVD doc is positively adulatory from almost everyone (Norman being the sole voice of reason) and this was years after the broadcast. The fat jokes seemed to be the only dubious thing that it was felt necessary for Doug to discuss. 
Not that I’m remotely suggesting that people shouldn’t discuss other things now, but I don’t think Series VIII was considered to belong to a specific moment in time, and a lot of concerns weren’t seen as being much of an issue until years later.

[Flap Jack]

Back in the Red Part III – Better than Part II, if only because that part got most of the overtly offensive stuff out of the way, which leaves this part to be pretty much half an hour of largely unfunny nonsense. But it’s still awful. It will be interesting to see if next week bears this out, but right now I feel like Back in the Red is worse than Pete.

—

– The opening bunkroom/cell flash-forward is a big improvement over the one in Part I, because Lister and Rimmer at least vaguely getting on is much better grounding for the banter. But it’s not all great – “I thought social workers were supposed to be nice” is a classic don’t-explain-the-joke, and the bit about Gideon’s Bible is like a sub-par stand up gag. Lister is not meant to be that stupid.

– Having praised the bunkroom scene, it is majorly undercut by the weirdness of cutting straight from that to Hollister’s recap. It makes it incredibly apparent how padded this is. This recap is especially odd too, because on top of the conventional “has clips of things he really shouldn’t”, he’s recapping things that only happened in AR as if they happened in real life, and doing some serious lying by omission in his own log. I feel like if you’re going to do a story like this, with major “it was all a dream” twists in it, you need to go with the out of universe “Last week on Red Dwarf… ” style recaps, not this in universe Captain’s Log conceit. Oh, and look, there’s Dennis the Doughnut Boy. Fuck off.

– Personal highlight of the recap for me: Hollister/Dennis says “Rimmer, one of the least able of my crew, has started acting very suspiciously, being incredibly insightful and efficient.” and the clip to highlight this is just like 1 second of Rimmer dropping files on Hollister’s desk, no dialogue. Incredible stuff.

– Major groan at Lister suggesting “Major Tom” as their call sign for ground control.

– Can I shock you? I like the Blue Midget Dance. … OK, maybe “like” is too strong a word, but I don’t hate it, anyway. The viewer is already aware that the characters are in AR at this point, and this story is so full of complete gibberish both in and out of AR that it’s hard to be offended by this in particular. At least it’s entertainingly crap. Sure, The Cat makes a line of shuttlecraft do a choreographed dance routine with the power of his mind, including air guitar and proto Gangnam Style, but why the heck not at this point. And yes, it makes no sense that the simulation would allow something so ludicrous to happen (as opposed to just making the double virtual ground controller just believe them when they say they have clearance) when this could clue Lister, Kryten and Kochanski into it not being real, but hey, none of the simulation makes any sense. Let’s not single out Blue Midget Dance for that.

– The rules of the AR trial seem kind of like the defendants are playing a tabletop RPG but have no interest in actually role-playing, and the GM has been forced to not push back against any of the players’ bizarre suggestions, and use loaded dice to ensure they succeed. (“OK, you’ve just been locked in the dungeon, and there’s a single guard stationed outside the door.” / “I turn into custard, and escape down the toilet.” / “This is a grounded World War II spy thriller… ” / “I said. I turn. Into custard. And escape. Down. THE TOILET.”).

– I assume that Rimmer read and memorised all of the confidential file information he wanted to know before he licked that envelope, but what if he had gone back and looked again? Would the simulation have included all of that confidential info, actively told him stuff he hadn’t already read, and create the opportunity for the others to see it? Or would the files have mysteriously become blank, giving the game away?

– The in-AR AR suite seems implausibly unattended. Just Thornton on the door, nobody actually inside monitoring them? I guess it’s like this so Rimmer is unimpeded, but you’d think he might notice the set up is a bit strange.

– Extremely jarring that Holly is absent for the entire time Lister and co. are in AR (except for his off-screen distraction in Part II), but then suddenly, he’s in Blue Midget! Huh? Why is it the actual Holly, and not just an NPC that’s programmed to behave like him? Why is Holly on trial? How is Holly on trial, when his presence was a secret? Did they hear Lister and Rimmer discussing Holly in the simulation, take Lister’s watch off him, and immediately plug Holly into the scenario? Who’s eating this chicken?

– When Rimmer edits the simulation to frame the others and protect himself, are Hollister and whoever else are viewing the simulation as a whole getting the unedited version, or are they missing out on key information because of it? Kind of highlights the stupidity of this complicated multi-level simulation approach, doesn’t it.

– Impressive that Lister correctly guesses the method by which they were drugged. I would have assumed the drugs were snuck into the food before I leapt to “psychotropic envelope glue”.

– Cat says “So you mean, nothing’s been real since then? Blue Midget, the ground controller – none of that was real?” which is seriously downplaying just how much of this story has been fake. It feels deliberate, like they don’t want the audience to reflect on everything that happened in Part II with this new context.

– Why does this AR trial have an exit function from the inside, and why is it a riddle? If they’ve figured out they’re in AR, just let them out. I mean, yes, I haven’t forgotten that the exit function doesn’t actually free them because they just go to Rimmer’s level of the simulation, but JMC surely aren’t getting any extra evidence for the trial by making the defendants take time out to do an escape room. And the claymation screensaver bit is especially pointless.

– Cat understanding “E11T” and “tomato sauce” are signs that they’re not in reality. Seems like a bad idea to actively alter the way the defendants’ brains work when you’re trying to assess their guilt, but what do I know, I’m not a legal expert.

– How exactly are the gang disabling the power of the (fake) AR suite from within a screensaver? Was there a draft of this episode that even entertains the idea of being comprehensible?

– Kochanski’s second time falling victim to the sexual magnetism virus made me think – how does the SM virus actually work within AR? Obviously if a defendant/player is the one using the virus, AR can make the NPCs act like lust monsters, but how does it work if a player is the one affected by it? Does the simulation actually change Kochanski’s brainwaves to force her to be desperate to have sex with Lister and Rimmer, or does it take control of her body away from her so that the behaviour can be acted out? Either way, it’s really fucked up!

– Lister casually mentions “the other Rimmer” and “the old Rimmer” while trying to recruit Rimmer, but has Rimmer actually had it explained to him what happened with his hologram? He’s acting very nonchalant about these references to another version of himself. Idk, maybe I just missed it.

– I like the “five buttons?” bit, but they keep having Rimmer say it, and overdo it.

– I don’t know why these simulations even include ground controllers, if the ground controller’s only recourse to stop someone taking off without clearance is to shout “Come back!”. They don’t even need the doors opened for them? No? OK then.

– When Kochanski says “Guys, I think we’re in the clear” and Kryten responds “I don’t believe we are, ma’am”, did anyone else misremember this moment as Kryten realising they were still in AR? Unfortunately, we can’t avoid the Theory of Relativity joke that easily.

– So Holly created his own set of nanobots. When? How? Why not just stick with it being Kryten’s nanobots that did it? The episode doesn’t know, nor does anyone. Besides anything else, if Holly can create nanobots, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he’d used them to un-planetoid Red Dwarf from the beginning.

– With Conehead Holly, the nonsense just keeps coming. Aside from how ludicrous he is in general, I noticed that he included himself when saying the crew died and were resurrected, which just boggles the mind. Holly never died.

– If Hollister had access to Holly this entire time, and a non-senile Holly at that, shouldn’t it have been trivial to clear Lister and the others? The data showing it’s 3 million years later, the information about the radiation leak, all the security footage showing them being alone on the ship for years, isn’t that enough? Why do they need hard proof of how they came back to life in addition to all of this readily available exculpatory evidence?

– Cat: “Why do we care? Nothing makes any sense no matter where we are.” <- most relatable line of the whole 3 parter.

– Hollister really wanted that sexual magnetism virus, so I guess he had serious rape plans. Great. Thanks for that, show.

– Holly’s sentenced to the brig too, but for what? I guess he helped Rimmer get the confidential files, but that all happened pre AR. And why would you keep a computer program running in a prison as punishment for the program? Either fix Holly, or switch him off. Such codswallop.

– Hey, you know when having the ability to do a psychotropic AR trial would have really come in handy, Hollister? IN THE END, WHEN LISTER REFUSED TO TELL YOU THE LOCATION OF A CAT HE SMUGGLED ABOARD.

– If you got someone who’d never seen Back in the Red before to watch the opening scene of Part I, and then you asked them to list possible explanations for Rimmer being angry at Lister, how far down the list do you think you’d get before you reached “As revenge for betraying him, Lister drugged Rimmer and set him up to be gang-raped”?

—

It’s not really a fair comparison, but I watched the latest episode of Andor straight after this, and the sci-fi quality whiplash was so severe I’m surprised I didn’t die.

[Flap Jack]

Kryten being classified as a woman is undoubtedly stupid, but Doug
clearly felt that he needed to make Kryten and Kochanski into a pairing
and that was the best explanation that he could come up with.
Personally, I don’t read into it any more than that.

Hmm, then he should have just said that the JMC didn’t consider it crucial to keep Kryten with people of the same gender as him because he’s a robot, and that only the women’s ward had the space or something. The desire to pair Kryten and Kochanski is not an excuse for the “no penis = woman” absurdity.

And honestly, the most major thing we got out of Kryten bunking with Kochanski was Krytie TV. It’s harder for the ends to justify the means when the ends are also bad.

[Dave]

The in-AR AR suite seems implausibly unattended. Just Thornton on the door, nobody actually inside monitoring them? I guess it’s like this so Rimmer is unimpeded, but you’d think he might notice the set up is a bit strange.

I also like the idea that he can be sent to pop out for a smoke, like there really are French windows on a spaceship. 

[Rudolph]

Why, at the start of the Blue Midget dance scene, are Craig and Chloe bobbing their heads up and down? I can’t unsee it, but have no clue as to what it’s meant to be.

[Flap Jack]

I also like the idea that he can be sent to pop out for a smoke, like there really are French windows on a spaceship.

Hey, if they’ve got an Observation Dome, why not a Nicotine Dome?

Or even if it’s not a dome, dedicated smoking rooms with special ventilation would make sense.

[Unrumble]

 Cat: “Why do we care? Nothing makes any sense no matter where we are.” <- most relatable line of the whole 3 parter.

Also one of the funniest and best delivered. 

It’s not really a fair comparison, but I watched the latest episode of Andor straight after this, and the sci-fi quality whiplash was so severe I’m surprised I didn’t die.

Same, only I watched Andor before BITRpt3

[Warbodog]

This rewatch is the only “adult” TV I watch at the moment.

When Dora the Explorer isn’t even the low point of your viewing day.

[Loathsome American]

I’m a little behind on this—just got through Epideme and Nanarchy yesterday and found them dispiritingly tedious. Really not looking forward to VIII. 

[Formica]

Wouldn’t you believe it, I put the wrong disc in this evening.

“What other father would claim to have an alibi for his sperm on the night of conception?”

Oh, just you wait, Arnold.

[Unrumble]

“We’ve drunk coffee thousands of times” is the same joke as “this is the cockpit dummy, we come here all the time.”

I’ve also always found “Hank Handsome: Space Adventurer” jarring, as it’s a rehash of the line from ‘Kryten’. Don’t know if it’s a deliberate callback, but I suppose it’s highly possible, considering they’re explicitly talking about the events of ‘Future Echoes’ seconds before. 

[Warbodog]

Don’t know if it’s a deliberate callback, but I suppose it’s highly possible

There’s a potentially interesting idea in watching the new Rimmer go through similar motions to the old one and diverging based on his own experiences and living status. Like one of the many alternative Rimmers we’ve seen in the past, but for the long term.

Having him read up on the confidential files straight away (which seemingly include a Red Dwarf episode guide) fast-tracks his knowledge to the level of the other characters / old Rimmer (it’s only Kochanski who has to ask what Future Echoes are). As he learns more about what the old Rimmer went through, you can imagine them being basically indistinguishable by the time a next series comes around. Especially if he died again, ha ha.

[Stilianides]

Cassandra

I’m not sure I will rank this as the best of Doug’s Dwarf, but it is in the top few…

A fairly strong opening scene with solid performances from Craig, Chris and Norman and some decent gags. “Become a dog” is a big laugh to kick things off (even if the joke then goes on too long) and Rimmer and Lister’s interaction, while not being top tier, is perfectly enjoyable when judged on its own merits. The cunnilingus moment is desperately lazy, though.

The close part harmony singing in front of Ackerman and the rest is then embarrassing and, to be fair to Jake Wood, Kill Crazy might be the highlight of this section.

The following few minutes, where it’s just Cassandra and the main crew, could almost have come from any series and they are none the worse for that. Geraldine McEwan was a fine actress and you can see that she is enjoying herself in front of the audience. It’s the kind of performance that was missing in VII. I enjoy quite a few moments, including Robert’s perfectly judged, “Is a dangerous…yes.”

Interactions with Knot become more pantomimey, and Kryten is rather cold in his, “Oh look, it’s Mr. Knot.” Doug’s rather flippant attitude to the death of minor characters is apparent, and we’ve seen this a bunch of times since.

Cat whacking Lister on the head has always annoyed me, simply because, in reality, it probably would have seen him hospitalized. It feels very cartoony which is true of too much of this series.

Transporting Rimmer has hints of DNA in terms of Chris’s performance.

The Rimmer and Kochanski stuff would have worked better if he hadn’t had so much sex in literally the previous story. It probably isn’t out of character for Rimmer, and he has done much worse stuff, but I don’t find it believable from Kochanski’s perspective or particularly funny.

The final accident where Lister ‘kills’ Cassandra all looks a little cheap and plasticcy.  

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Don’t know if it’s a deliberate callback, but I suppose it’s highly possible
There’s a potentially interesting idea in watching the new Rimmer go through similar motions to the old one and diverging based on his own experiences and living status. Like one of the many alternative Rimmers we’ve seen in the past, but for the long term.
Having him read up on the confidential files straight away (which seemingly include a Red Dwarf episode guide) fast-tracks his knowledge to the level of the other characters / old Rimmer (it’s only Kochanski who has to ask what Future Echoes are). As he learns more about what the old Rimmer went through, you can imagine them being basically indistinguishable by the time a next series comes around. Especially if he died again, ha ha.

This is one for next week but fuck it.  It occurs to me that Rimmer at the end of Only the Good is being as close to heroic as Rimmer in Out of Time.

He is first through the mirror.  He then without hesitation gets into character and goes with the flow to get the antidote.  Aside from Cassandra, a dinosaur and a hair eating virus he hasn’t really had that many crazy adventures to draw experience from, so he’s really flying by the seat of his pants a bit.

Once he returns to his dimension, he immediately rushes off to create the antidote, despite having zero science qualification.  He knows he hasn’t got the capability but it’s life or death and he is going to try.

Which leads him to kneeing Death in the balls and running off.  Whether that is literal or a metaphor/just Rimmer’s interpretation of events as he is caught up in this dying ship it doesn’t matter.  To him he is taking control and trying to save the day.  Something out Rimmer only does in the absolute more dire of circumstances and after 6 years of weird space adventures.

[Flap Jack]

Before I move on to Disc 2 to get to Cassandra, I just want to take a moment to highlight the FLAGRANT DISRESPECT Comedy Connections showed Chloë Annett.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

    

WHAT HAVE I DONE

[Rudolph]

I’ve noticed that twice this series Rimmer gets his genitals mutilated. Once by bashing them to a pulp himself with a hammer, and Mr. Knot crushing them beyond recognition in Cassandra.

[Warbodog]

In a way, it’s continuing the long-running gag that whenever Rimmer became tangible before, he was usually subjected to (or threatened with) extreme pain and suffering. But now it’s distinctly more genitals-based, and rapey. (Though in fairness, he gets more conventionally beaten up in Krytie TV and Pete).

[Flap Jack]

PSA: Being incredibly aroused will not make your genitals immune to being smashed by a hammer. Don’t ask me how I know.

[Warbodog]

Was Kryten’s penis sub-plot originally filmed as part of Cassandra, then mashed into the Pete mess? I heard that once.

That gives Kryten and Kochanski something to do at the start, so I can see it. It would make Cassandra harder to defend though.

[Stilianides]

Was Kryten’s penis sub-plot originally filmed as part of Cassandra, then mashed into the Pete mess? I heard that once.
That gives Kryten and Kochanski something to do at the start, so I can see it. It would make Cassandra harder to defend though.

Yes.

[Unrumble]

Was Kryten’s penis mashed into the Pete mess? 

[Unrumble]

I’ve noticed that twice this series Rimmer gets his genitals mutilated. Once by bashing them to a pulp himself with a hammer, and Mr. Knot crushing them beyond recognition in Cassandra.

Watching it again yesterday, I’ve never quite got my head around what that sound-effect is supposed to be, when Knot is doing his… manhandling.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’ve noticed that twice this series Rimmer gets his genitals mutilated. Once by bashing them to a pulp himself with a hammer, and Mr. Knot crushing them beyond recognition in Cassandra.

Watching it again yesterday, I’ve never quite got my head around what that sound-effect is supposed to be, when Knot is doing his… manhandling.

Rimmer has wooden testicles 

[cwickham]

The deleted scenes show what the Archie scenes spliced in from Cassandra would have looked like if they’d stayed in the originally planned episode.

[Rudolph]

Watching it again yesterday, I’ve never quite got my head around what that sound-effect is supposed to be, when Knot is doing his… manhandling.

It’s all very Bottom, isn’t it. Exaggerated sound effects and serious injuries just being walked off.

VIII is the start of Red Dwarf existing in a cartoon universe. Where logic at times exists on an almost Bugs Bunny level.

[Warbodog]

The deleted scenes show what the Archie scenes spliced in from Cassandra would have looked like if they’d stayed in the originally planned episode.

I wondered if they might, but sitting through scenes that weren’t considered suitable even for series VIII wasn’t a pleasant prospect. I’ll check that bit out later.

The Alien chestburster type parody with Cat would at least be relevant in the Cassandra context, with the mystery of the disappeared crew that you forget about on all subsequent viewings. I can’t remember how it was worked into Pete at this point, presumably random shit that happens to fill time.

[Dave]

The Alien chestburster type parody with Cat would at least be relevant in the Cassandra context, with the mystery of the disappeared crew that you forget about on all subsequent viewings.

Doesn’t Kryten quite quickly find out that the ship was sent out on autopilot without a crew? Maybe the original version would have resolved that differently (or later).

[Warbodog]

I just meant the scene might have had some actual tension before that realisation, rather than in Pete when [checks Smega-Drive] they’re hunting for a massive dinosaur and suddenly there’s an Alien parody.

[Moonlight]

VIII is the start of Red Dwarf existing in a cartoon universe. Where logic at times exists on an almost Bugs Bunny level.

I’d love to hear the argument for why something like Polymorph doesn’t qualify.

[Stilianides]

I’d love to hear the argument for why something like Polymorph doesn’t qualify.

Tone, execution and performances for a start.

[Flap Jack]

Cassandra – Ah, yes, the good one. Well, decent anyway. This one stands out because it broadly has the feel and structure of a Red Dwarf episode, and it’s focused around one sci-fi conceit and a guest star villain. The episode does all this well enough, but it is also brought down by common Series VIII issues, as well as the premise being convoluted in such a way that the story ultimately doesn’t make much sense. So it does feel to me that Cassandra is great only by the standards of the series it’s in.

– You’d think that if Doug brought Holly back, he would have resolved the issue of Holly having nothing to do in an episode, but nope. After he’s done his roverostomy bit in the beginning, he’s completely gone from the episode.

– One positive thing about Series VIII is that it kind of seeded the Series X set aesthetic with the look of the prison cells.

– Rimmer’s bit about the first 18 months of Lister’s life flashing by “’cause you had two breasts big as your head at your beck and call day and night” has an especially weird vibe when you know that’s Kochanski he’s talking about. I assume Rimmer isn’t up to speed on that, but you’d think he might know that Lister was adopted.

– Lister says that being in the Canaries gets you privileges, but doesn’t name any. If it doesn’t reduce their sentences, it ought to. If it did, that would explain why Holly put him up to volunteering, given his mission is to get them out of there.

– Speaking of Holly, it’s odd that Lister mentions him at this point, but Holly himself isn’t in the conversation any more, even though there’s no good reason he couldn’t be. If logistically Holly couldn’t be on the Silverburg, you’d think you’d seize the opportunity to give him more to say in the prison, but I guess not. It’s like Norman just finished that one back and forth with Craig, and then promptly went down the pub or something.

– Rimmer’s CANARIES backronym. Euuggggghhh.

– Lister thinking that canaries in coal mines were actually doing mining is yet another example of Lister being written as too stupid. Contrive a way to give that line to The Cat or cut it out.

– Why would Lister forge everyone’s signatures for the Canaries sign up? Was there really such a hurry that he didn’t have time to ask first?

– “No way am I becoming a Canary” is an incredibly weak example of a bicycle joke/Gilligan cut. It doesn’t have the punch or any kind of twist that it would need to land for me.

– Oh, Kill Crazy, you wannabe homicidal beauty. Given Chris Barrie’s recent conspiracy mongering, they should just replace Rimmer with Kill Crazy in Series XIII.

– Why did the people who wanted to get rid of Cassandra send her into deep space and to the bottom of the ocean instead of killing her? As Lister later demonstrates, killing Cassandra is apparently really easy.

– It’s a sign of how bad the format of Series VIII is, that for only the 2nd story they need to contrive a way to get them going on missions outside of the prison. It feels especially weak because they don’t even manage to integrate the other Canaries. After they board it’s just the regulars and Knot that are involved at all, and even Knot is just a plot device.

– Goes without saying, but Geraldine McEwan’s performance is the overall highlight of the episode.

– The whole “hang on, did anyone actually refer to me as Rimmer in Cassandra’s presence?” idea could have been better executed. Rimmer literally says “YES!!!” after Cassandra says “except for Rimmer” and Lister nods in his direction while asking “What happens to Rimmer?”. So sure, they never directly identified Rimmer as Rimmer, but also, Cassandra is a fucking idiot.

– Nice detail that Lister and Rimmer’s perspectives on fate are flipped compared to Future Echoes, though I think it’s less about Lister being more experienced with weird sci-fi stuff as they suggest, and more about Lister not being the one who’s destined to die.

– Rimmer says “Cassandra doesn’t know the future, she sees pictures of it”, but how does he figure that? Even if he’s right, his plan to trick her would only work if she could ONLY see pictures of her own personal future, because otherwise she would have already seen them making this Knot plan. And considering that they’re far off from entertaining the idea that Cassandra could just lie, they’ve already heard her predict events that she wouldn’t be present for, like the flooding on the ship, and Lister’s eventual death. So as far as they’re concerned, there’s no way this plan would work… and yet it does.

– I like that both Lister and Knot mention that they want to get back to Earth. If only the rest of the series remembered this.

– Kryten’s supposed test of their invulnerability doesn’t really make sense. The gun fires for Rimmer, but it might have only fired because he ducked, and if he hadn’t ducked he might still be invulnerable because it wasn’t time for him to die yet.

– Another thing that doesn’t make sense: the others making themselves shields for Rimmer on the assumption that their guaranteed survival will save him. Either you believe that the future is set in stone, or you don’t. You can’t use your guaranteed survival to prevent someone else’s guaranteed death.

– Would you say that Cassandra directly spoke to Kochanski at any point in this episode? If so, that makes Cassandra a rare Bechdel-Wallace pass for Red Dwarf.

– Maybe not the worst bit of sexism in the series, but Rimmer trying to coerce Kochanski into sex, and acting so gleeful about it while she looks so conflicted and distressed, is really uncomfortable. Absolutely not something that needed to be in this episode. Perhaps if they had played it so that both Rimmer and Kochanski were equally reluctant to begin with and being trapped there together made them warm up to each other for real, then it could have worked, but not when it’s this one sided.

– Unexpected, but “Aww, but Cassandra promised” might be the funniest line of the episode for me.

– “Kryten figured it out” is deservedly mocked for being an out-of-nowhere leap, but maybe he just realised the plot hole about Cassandra being tricked by the Knot/Rimmer gambit despite claiming to see futures other than her own, and deduced based on that that she lies?

– Lister says that Cassandra lied about the future to try and trick him into killing Rimmer, as punishment for him killing her in the future, but this can’t possibly be true. Cassandra has seen the future, so she already knows that her lie definitely doesn’t cause that to happen. Therefore, she has no personal reason to lie. In fact, Cassandra’s abilities means she has no free will at all. She can only do things because she’s seen that she does them. Sounds horrible honestly. I think that look she gave at the end might have secretly been one of sweet relief.

[Warbodog]

It’s all very Bottom, isn’t it.

[Warbodog]

“Cassandra doesn’t know the future, she sees pictures of it”

Maybe because I’m unimaginative, I always interpreted it as her having complete non-linear knowledge of her own personal experiences across her timeline, only knowing the things she says because she knows she says them, in that time loop bootstrap way, rather than any magical capabilities beyond her senses. But Doug likely meant something else.

Unexpected, but “Aww, but Cassandra promised” might be the funniest line of the episode for me.

Same for me this time, but long-term it’s got to be the Rimmer “death” prophecy. Always enjoyed Git Central too.

[Dave]

Nice detail that Lister and Rimmer’s perspectives on fate are flipped compared to Future Echoes, though I think it’s less about Lister being more experienced with weird sci-fi stuff as they suggest, and more about Lister not being the one who’s destined to die.

Yeah, thinking about it the whole plot of Future Echoes is about Lister proving that what was thought to be a fixed future event – his death – didn’t have to turn out as they thought because of a loophole revolving around mistaken identity of the person who dies. So for him to then insist that Rimmer’s death is unavoidable based on this experience is strange.

[Unrumble]

Rimmer says “Cassandra doesn’t know the future, she sees pictures of it”, but how does he figure that? Even if he’s right, his plan to trick her would only work if she could ONLY see pictures of her own personal future, because otherwise she would have already seen them making this Knot plan. And considering that they’re far off from entertaining the idea that Cassandra could just lie, they’ve already heard her predict events that she wouldn’t be present for, like the flooding on the ship, and Lister’s eventual death. So as far as they’re concerned, there’s no way this plan would work… and yet it does.

The flooding and Listers death, as described, could work with the “she sees pictures” theory… but when their first scene with her has shown her literally predicting their every word, verbatim, it seems like bollocks.

Unless she only gets ‘audio’ from her visions if they take place in the room with her. And she can’t read lips. 

But yes, how Rimmer has arrived at this conclusion is baffling. 

[Author]

Posts