Refresh For The Memory: Series VIII Byte 1

[Ian Symes]

You asked for it. Ahead of the forthcoming 35th anniversary poll, the G&T community is embarking on a big old rewatch, tackling half a series (or one feature length special) per week. This is your designated thread to make notes, share observations and start pondering your rankings.

This week, we’re watching BACK IN THE RED (PART ONE), BACK IN THE RED (PART TWO), BACK IN THE RED (PART THREE) and CASSANDRA. 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
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Series VII Byte 1
Series VII Byte 2

Topic

[Technopeasant]

[International Debris]

Good to see Rushy bowed out of the thread after getting an actual response to the trans question. Again.

[Warbodog]

[Rushy]

Well, I thought I was being a bit of a Talkie Toaster

[International Debris]

Irritating and repetitive?

[Technopeasant]

Irritating and repetitive?

[Rushy]

Irritating and repetitive?

[Rushy]

Back in the Red: I’m not totally immune to the novelty factor of this story. Seeing the old crew and quarters again, Rimmer talking about moving up the ziggurat, lickety-split. With some edits, it’s an entertaining light-hearted romp. I like the saturated aesthetic that Ed introduced for this season. Having an audience helps the actors’ timing immensely. I also enjoy how big the cast is now. We have the main four, Kochanski and Holly all together. It’s like a family reunion. 

The things I would edit out are:

*All the prison flashforwards, particularly the first one spoiling Rimmer’s return (especially when it’s directed to be a massive reveal later on). All the Hollister recaps (this shouldn’t be split into multiple episodes).

*Holly ruining his charades gag by playing charades, plus a few other lines that ruin the pacing of the action sequence.

*The scene with Kryten and Kochanski randomly talking about Legion. 

*Kryten’s medical exam, and some of his extended complaining about being classified as a woman. 

*The baked beans joke about Hollister. 

*Rimmer whining about not getting more info from Lister. He literally says he already has the confidential files at the end of the scene, so what’s the point? It should go from “don’t forget your part of the deal” to “But Lister, you know Me. My handshake is less reliable..”

*The Data Doctor.

*The entire ground control sequence, Blue Midget dance etc. Just have them sneak onboard Blue Midget and fly off. 

*The stopmotion animated sequence. Just go from E-11-T to them being out. 

[Rushy]

Cassandra is utter tripe outside of McEwan’s performance, and I’m dead serious. I’d rather watch Pete.

edit: Annette is very funny also, even if the context is… iffy to say the least. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Cassandra is utter tripe outside of McEwan’s performance, and I’m dead serious. I’d rather watch Pete.

[Rushy]

[Technopeasant]

I wouldn’t rather watch Pete (I mean, if I’m doing a complete rewatch I’m watching all of it anyway), but I agree the quality gap isn’t as large as many think.

[Rushy]

1) Why did Cassandra not alter the very specific chain of events leading to her death? 

2) Why was Cassandra not destroyed by her creators?

The whole thing disintegrates under the slightest bit of scrutiny. The episode tries to say Cassandra’s future was fixed, but it literally wasn’t. Even if we ignored all the time travel episodes between this and Future Echoes (conveniently the only one that gets referenced), there’s still the simple fact that Cassandra does not see the future like her namesake. She’s a computer. She predicts outcomes based on scenarios. They say this in dialogue!

So Cassandra had to orchestrate the series of events leading to her death. Which makes no sense with what the episode is telling us about her trying to take revenge on Lister. And if she really was just magic or whatever and could see the future for real, she should’ve known that her revenge scheme was going to be a complete waste of time. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> The whole thing disintegrates under the slightest bit of scrutiny.

You could say this about any of Red Dwarf. It’s not hard sci-fi and it isn’t pretending to be. I can be fun to debate and discuss and dissect it. But it just tell 30min stories based around daft sci-fi ideas. 

[Rushy]

> The whole thing disintegrates under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
You could say this about any of Red Dwarf. It’s not hard sci-fi and it isn’t pretending to be. I can be fun to debate and discuss and dissect it. But it just tell 30min stories based around daft sci-fi ideas. 

This is a question of simple logic though. 

I get that it’s a heightened, exaggerated reality, but it should still operate on a certain kind of logic. That’s why we can criticise the knight in Stoke Me a Clipper, the same episode that has Ace surfing a crocodile. 

[Dave]

The Cassandra thing is the kind of causal loop that Red Dwarf has often had fun with. Why did Lister see the Cat breaking his tooth, if he wouldn’t have broken his tooth without Lister first seeing the Future Echo? It was always going to have happened. Same with Cassandra – she knew what she would do and maybe even understood the circular logic of it all but was trapped because that was always what was going to happen.

[Technopeasant]

On a similar note, how come Lister’s actions in Timeslides don’t eliminate him along with Cat and Kryten by undoing the loop established in Ouroboros? Obviously wasn’t an issue when they wrote Timeslides, but is once they wrote Ouroboros. And honestly if we accept that Rimmer became the last human instead I see no reason they still wouldn’t have picked up Kryten.

[Warbodog]

she knew what she would do and maybe even understood the circular logic of it all but was trapped because that was always what was going to happen.

Trapped by (inconsistent between episodes) fate, by programming, or by her arrogance about her own infallibility.

Maybe she knew Lister’s chewing gum was the culprit all along, but telling him that and breaking free from the script would be worse than death.

Maybe she did try to change things, as the episode states, and Lister originally killed her in another way, so the chewing gum Rube Goldberg machine is a comically convoluted way of setting things back on course. (Although Lister actually shooting Rimmer for an indiscretion never seemed likely).

Whatever the case, if there even is one, thanks for the opportunity to think about this really good episode of Red Dwarf again!

[Flap Jack]

I do agree that the core plot of Cassandra doesn’t really hold together – not because it’s a stable time loop, but because the drama of it still treats Cassandra as if she’s capable of making choices.

But the episode is saved by both McEwan’s performance and by it actually feeling like a Red Dwarf episode, where the whole posse investigate a ship where some sci-fi hijinks are occurring and get into a predicament. Cassandra gave a glimpse of how the Series VIII cast could have gelled.

Granted these positives don’t sum to that much. I only gave it a 4 in the Coral Canvass. But that’s still head and shoulders above the rest of Series VIII.

[Flap Jack]

I’ve been thinking about Cassandra again, and I’m kind of surprised that my reappraisal here didn’t make any mention of how dark it is that Rimmer so casually marks Knot for death. Like “you can save your life, but only if you make someone take your place” is a moral dilemma from a horror film. That’s The Ring. That’s It Follows. Yet this plan doesn’t even give Rimmer a microsecond of pause. I know the wardens aren’t meant to be particularly likeable, but still, Rimmer as good as murdered a man.

[Rushy]

I’ve been thinking about Cassandra again, and I’m kind of surprised that my reappraisal here didn’t make any mention of how dark it is that Rimmer so casually marks Knot for death. 

He doesn’t mark Knot, Kryten did. Rimmer just spoke of someone taking his place in theory.

[Rushy]

But you have a point, though. Lister put up a valiant defense for the lives of wax droids, but he isn’t gonna stand up for the crew?

[Unrumble]

Yeah, it really highlights the red-shirty treatment of the resurrected crew, even the named characters, if even our protagonists are effectively dismissing them as NPC’s.

[Rushy]

If we count the original ending to Only the Good as canon, then Lister happily left Petersen, Chen and Selby to rot. 

[Flap Jack]

He doesn’t mark Knot, Kryten did. Rimmer just spoke of someone taking his place in theory.

All Kryten does is point out that Knot has entered the room. Rimmer is the one who decides that the first person he comes across who hasn’t already been introduced to Cassandra should take his place. He even marks Knot in the literal sense by giving him his jacket.

[International Debris]

I mean Kryten is clearly suggesting Knot as the one to die. 

Knot crushing Rimmer’s balls at the start of the episode is supposed to balance it I suppose, but yes, it’s all done very flippantly. Same as “we have to save the crew of the Enconium oh wait they’re a bit annoying let’s let them die”

[Rushy]

Same as “we have to save the crew of the Enconium oh wait they’re a bit annoying let’s let them die”

tfw Lister canonically cares more about Hitler than people expressing themselves freely

Lister the alt-right icon

meanwhile, Rimmer felt very comfortable with the Enconium and was ready to let Hitler die. Who’s the real bad guy here?

[Flap Jack]

I mean Kryten is clearly suggesting Knot as the one to die.

I took it more as an accidental implication Kryten was making by acknowledging Knot at that moment. But either way, Rimmer was the one to actually start setting up Knot to die.

So I’m just counting the “marked for death” moment as when Rimmer silently agrees to target Knot, not when Kryten gives him the idea. Although if Kryten did intend to suggest Knot as the sacrifice, that’s obviously still pretty dark for him too.

[Rushy]

Although if Kryten did intend to suggest Knot as the sacrifice, that’s obviously still pretty dark for him too.

It’s ambiguously scripted, but the way Bobby delivers the line makes it sound as if he’s trying to cue Rimmer in on the idea. 

[Warbodog]

It doesn’t stand out because it’s not like it’s out of character for Rimmer or anything, especially as this is supposed to be pre-softened Rimmer. If he really needed to justify it to himself, he could reason that Cassandra implied Knot wouldn’t make it out by knot mentioning him, so Knot was due to die anyway, like when he considered spacing the doomed Lister and Cat in Demons & Angels.

[Flap Jack]

As a warden, was Knot technically a Canary himself? Presumably he was, but if not then Rimmer actually sacrificed the one guy on the mission that Cassandra hadn’t already prophesied to either die or survive. That would add an extra layer of darkness to the whole proceedings.

Either way though, the idea that Knot was going to die anyway (in theory – obviously it was almost all bollocks in the end) was clearly not part of Rimmer’s reasoning, because otherwise he would have realised the twist that someone else dying as “Rimmer” wouldn’t save him.

It is perfectly in character for Rimmer (and especially nano-Rimmer) to do this, of course, it’s just the complete absence of even the hint of hesitation that makes it kind of chilling.

[Technopeasant]

Yeah, it really highlights the red-shirty treatment of the resurrected crew, even the named characters, if even our protagonists are effectively dismissing them as NPC’s.

I was going to suggest that being nano-creations made them seem more disposable, but that version of Rimmer was also a nano-creation.

[clem]

I was going to suggest that being nano-creations made them seem more disposable, but that version of Rimmer was also a nano-creation.

If only Doug had come up with the bio-printer back then, perhaps that would have been a more palatable way of bringing back the crew and then getting rid of them again at the end of the series, including bio-printed Rimmer. Then holo-Rimmer returns and off you go. 

[Technopeasant]

I mean, we have no evidence that nano-humans don’t also degrade at a rapid rate.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I mean, we have no evidence that nano-humans don’t also degrade at a rapid rate.

Series VIII spans about 18 months so if they are degrading it isn’t rapid. More like the speed a normal human body ages and degrades

[Rushy]

 including bio-printed Rimmer. Then holo-Rimmer returns and off you go. 

Given how he brought in Kochanski, I don’t think Doug ever intended to get rid of clone Rimmer until he wrote Back to Earth and thought “hologram more nostalgic lol”

[Warbodog]

Series VIII spans about 18 months

Is that mainly based on this?

He probably didn’t really go through with it.

It’s another sequence that would work great in audio.

[Dave]

Series VIII is the only one that’s improved by missing half the jokes. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Is that mainly based on this?

I’m sure it was mentioned somewhere, but I’ve even just flicked through the VIII script books and couldn’t see it.

I think the fact they’re on probation (and Rimmer is on work release) in Only the Good suggests they’ve done a fair bit of their 2 years.  Maybe I just extrapolated from there.

[Rushy]

I’m sure it was mentioned somewhere, but I’ve even just flicked through the VIII script books and couldn’t see it.
I think the fact they’re on probation (and Rimmer is on work release) in Only the Good suggests they’ve done a fair bit of their 2 years.  Maybe I just extrapolated from there.

It’s from Cassandra

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah I knew about that line, but that doesn’t tell us how much time has passed.  Just how much time Lister hopes will pass.

[Flap Jack]

I guess as they’re on probation in Only the Good…, at least a good chunk of their sentences must have passed.

[Dave]

There’s also this establishing shot from the start of Only The Good.

[International Debris]

I just thought, if the Smegadrive uses Eurostile because Microgramma would need to be licensed, can’t it just use Eurostile Extended which is basically the same as Microgramma?

[Moonlight]

While you’re bugging Cappsy to update the Smegadrive, get him to add all my subtitle corrections too.

[Technopeasant]

 Series VIII spans about 18 months so if they are degrading it isn’t rapid. More like the speed a normal human body ages and degrades

I only have 18 months to live?!

Rapid is a relative term, and we have no evidence they were still alive even by the start of Back to Earth.

[sleepey]

I mean, we have no evidence that nano-humans don’t also degrade at a rapid rate.

Lister’s nano-human arm still seems to be holding up.

[Flap Jack]

Lister’s arm was made by Kryten’s nanos though. Maybe it’s just the creations of Holly’s nanos that degrade.

Missed opportunity to have Series VIII end like Avengers: Infinity War.

[Warbodog]

I mean, we have no evidence that nano-humans don’t also degrade at a rapid rate.

Lister’s nano-human arm still seems to be holding up.

Low Lister also survived after the triplicated copies were supposed to expire.

Alternate Lister’s hand still survived in The Inquisitor after his timeline was erased.

Lister’s weird.

[Nick R]

Missed opportunity to have Series VIII end like Avengers: Infinity War.

[Author]

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