Refresh For The Memory: Series X 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 TROJAN, FATHERS & SUNS and LEMONS. 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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Back To Earth

[Dave]

I still feel like Trojan doesn’t quite get the recognition and credit it deserves for being the real comeback of Red Dwarf.

BTE was a fun oddity but didn’t really feel like the show’s return proper, more like a novelty one-off. But when Trojan aired I remember being delighted to feel like I was watching a bona fide new episode of Red Dwarf again, and one that finally went back to a version of the show we hadn’t seen since VI – in terms of the crew setup and live audience – and even V if you want to factor in Red Dwarf as a location too.

And it’s a really good episode! Rimmer’s brother couldn’t have been better cast and there are loads of big laughs of the kind that, again, we hadn’t really seen since VI. (The moose bit hasn’t ever been my favourite, weirdly, as it feels a bit too generic-sitcom to me. But Cat silently walking past the door late on in the episode is hilarious, and one of the biggest laughs of the Dave era.)

Anyway, Trojan is great and is definitely in my top 36 somewhere.

[Jonathan Capps]

I might actually think that Red Dwarf never again reaches the level of Trojan’s whoofers. There are better episodes but none that still make me laugh this much.

[Jonathan Capps]

Woofers?

[Warbodog]

Trojan

What Dave said, but more indulgent. This is the main episode for me where rewatches can never capture the original viewing.

At the time, I was relying on comfort TV like Doctor Who for a fantastical sense of ‘home,’ and Red Dwarf was seemingly going back to its roots and getting glowing previews from its most critical fans. I was the most recklessly excited I’d been for a new run since series VII, and the relief of it not only being not shit, but actually good was borderline orgasmic (I wasn’t wanking though, and anyone who said I was etc).

Now that I’ve calmed down, it’s still a good episode and a fairly tight, character-based opener. Some weak scenes early on, but it gets much better. Compared to the later BBC era it’s palpably low budget, boxy and not much to look at, but it’s focusing on what counts. It feels natural to say it’s the best episode in 19 years, but I’m afraid I still prefer Cassandra.

– Reading my excitable review from the time, I forgot that the return of big, red, red, big episode titles was such a huge deal in 2012, on the level of Matt Smith’s face in the DW intro.

– Is the ‘hey ho, pip and dandy’ philosophy Doug subtly lowering our expectations for the series?

– The Stirmaster plot is okay, but it could be worked around any characters in any situation. That’s not really new for Red Dwarf though, I feel that way about a lot of banter from I-III.

– They could have made the droids look more obviously like droids, so they didn’t have to clumsily tell us they’re droids (unless they just practically couldn’t and that’s why they had to do that).

– I’m always distracted by the little radiators on the Trojan bridge consoles.

– The quantum rod is decent RD SF. Messing with the rod also creates a quantum leap in quality as the episode suddenly gets really good.

– Rimmer’s resentment data jam feels like a rewrite of the Nega-Drive. It’s reminiscent of Rimmerworld too, except this Rimmer didn’t go through that, of course. Also:

– Funniest bit: “I think we all know the answer to this.”

– Star Trek crap: The Super Infinity Fleet(?) uniforms seem to be based on the later TNG movie uniforms. A bit of an oddly drab and (possibly) obscure reference compared to all the others they could have picked, also about 10 years out of date if they were just going for current.

– That Lister, always violently squeezing people’s heads!

– We’re left to figure out for ourselves that Howard’s from the past and this is Simulant Origins. I like being credited with some intelligence.

– Though I didn’t notice until it was pointed out that Howard is hard light (for the purposes of the telepathy gag). We’re probably not supposed to dwell as much on that.

[Flap Jack]

– Rimmer’s resentment data jam feels like a rewrite of the Nega-Drive. It’s reminiscent of Rimmerworld too, except this Rimmer didn’t go through that, of course.

Wait… what?

You’re naturally entitled to hold any position in the “Is Dave era Rimmer nano-Rimmer who died, original Rimmer who came back, or an amalgamation of the two?” debate, but the “of course” is a bit much.

It’s not like the case is open and shut, like “Why couldn’t they shift Cinzano Bianco?” or “Is Back to Earth Series IX?”.

[Warbodog]

It was a trolling joke, sorry. I think Doug took the best approach with ambiguity / ignoring the issue.

[Flap Jack]

Ah ha, I see. No apology necessary, I should have been able to tell.

[Dave]

Woofers?

[Warbodog]

Re:Rimmer, I used to go with ‘some kind of amalgamation’ or ‘doesn’t matter,’ but this time around I’m liking the idea of it being Nano Rimmer who’s learned all about the other one and come to see himself and be treated by others as the same person (as done elegantly on Farscape). But maybe that’s going to be directly contradicted or just made unlikely through lack of reference.

[Ben Saunders]

I convinced a girl to check out Red Dwarf for the first time, so she watched Trojan on broadcast. She didn’t like it and switched off at the ad break. I haven’t spoken to her much since.

I -despise- the pig racing bit, I think it’s probably in the bottom 10 Red Dwarf moments, and the stirmaster shit is dire as well. But overall I still like the episode, whatever’s left of it. Series X would get better, and the Dave era would get significantly better. While I do like Series X, it feels distinctly more “sitcom” than previous series to me, in the general tone, lighting, design, formula, etc. It was very noticeable, the mechanics of sitcomming, while I was watching. Maybe it was a budget thing. But that feeling goes away by series eleven, either way.

[Ben Saunders]

Also I think I she a little tear during the credits because I was just so happy to see “proper” Red Dwarf back, with however many of us all watching it together again for the first time in my life. 

[Warbodog]

It was very noticeable, the mechanics of sitcomming, while I was watching.

You can practically see the whiteboard with the A-plot / B-plot / running gags for at least the first two episodes. Maybe Doug was warming up (uniquely, this series was recorded in the order shown).

I noted that I kind of liked that rustiness at the time, and the reminder that there was an audience behind the camera watching it. I was probably making excuses.

[International Debris]

The BtE Doug commentary gave me hope that he’d begun to work out what made Red Dwarf Red Dwarf again. The G&T articles added to the hype and I sat down to watch it with some excitement. 

Trojan 

Still hate the cast names on the titles. 

Opening pig racing did not set the series off well. Moose conversation not much better. Obviously it has a purpose. 

Rimmer resitting his astro-navs is a very on the nose ‘return to classic Dwarf’ moment. Like Cat’s opening eaaaows. 

You’ve got to learn how to lose is a great example of a gag I really appreciate because of how few times I’ve seen the episode. Big laugh here. 

Stirmaster stuff is all shit. Might have felt like excellent commentary in an early 90s family sitcom but here it’s fucking awful. 

Everyone acting surprised that Rimmer’s bothers were more successful than him. 

Buttons stuff is a horrible reminder of BitR. 

Descending chair is great. 

“Did the rod do this?” is the start of the Dave era problem of under-explained plots. Kryten should have explained rather than asked. 

Kryten’s post-erasure acting is great. 

Cat walking into the room and then interrupting Rimmer is the funniest pair of gags since Rob left. 

Drawing on Rimmer’s face is childish but fun. 

The way Kryten says “lousy sex life” is fantastic. 

“I think we all know the answer to this” and the model shot. It’s taken half an episode but it’s running on steam now.

I know it’s loved but I hate “you were an utter twat”. Not only does it feel like he’s remembering someone he vaguely knew at school, and the word just doesn’t suit the show. 

“We all thought you’d gone down with that” – the first time the disappearance of the ship has really been referenced in the show. Hints of Last Human here. 

Gerald Hampton is such a fantastic name for Cat. 

Comedy voices on the phone are very VIII but Kryten has a great bicycle gag moment. 

Really not sure if I like the Howard reveal. It feels like it undermines Rimmer’s character and backstory a bit, and with The Beginning coming up it just complicates things further. 

I like seeing the start of the Simulant uprising though. 

Cat gets another whopper from simply walking into the set for the second time in the same episode. 

Shame we never get to see the ship properly renamed the SS Howard Rimmer.

It sets out the X format quite well: starts fairly poor, gets very good when it gets going, but still has some gags and performances which don’t hit at all. 

[Dave]

I know it’s loved but I hate “you were an utter twat”. Not only does it feel like he’s remembering someone he vaguely knew at school, and the word just doesn’t suit the show. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

<Blockquote> I know it’s loved but I hate “you were an utter twat”. Not only does it feel like he’s remembering someone he vaguely knew at school, and the word just doesn’t suit the show.  </blockquote> 

I’ve always felt the same. I also don’t like the delivery. It’s completely over delivered. I know people like Mark Dexter as Howard but he very much plays it like an actor on a stage in front of an audience. Always slightly turned to them, almost delivers the line directly at them by looking around the room and past the line of the camera. It’s like watching a panto actor. 

[International Debris]

Fathers & Suns

GELF hooch looms remarkably like Baxter’s hooch. 

“Yeah, it’s you” is good. 

Great as parts of this episode are, I honestly don’t like bringing back Lister being his own dad. It’s a shit idea and also means you can’t skip VII. Again, opening scene has too many shit jokes. 

I can’t imagine Rimmer being – for want of a better word – ‘woke’ enough to consider the racist thing, even to criticise Kryten. 

Fucking medi-bot fuck off. There’s only one medi-bot and he eats hundreds and thousands. 

Rimmer’s faux-nonchalance is way too broadly written and performed. Pulling rank is pretty good but up until that it’s poor. In a reverse of VIII’s over-explained jokes, the frame size here is probably under-explained and barely gets a titter. 

Pree negating the conversation is a little Cassandra. Rebecca Blackstone is great. 

Speaking of under-explained jokes, the two Listers scene never worked for me until someone here pointed out that Pree helped. A quick line explaining it might have been appreciated. 

Drunk Lister’s double fall is great. The fake guitar is superb. 

Victory South and Rimmer not watching it is great. 

Pree cocking up on behalf of Rimmer is such a good plot. I wish more of the episode was based on Pree and not fucking Taiwan Tony. 

Denti-bot is even worse than Medi-bot. 

On paper, the idea of a racist vending machine clearly holds potential, but whatever that potential is, this really, really isn’t it. 

Again with the ‘more Pree please’ thing, I love the idea that she’s gone slightly evil and I wish it had been explored further. 

“That’s not a man, that’s Lister” deserves a laugh. 

The little smile during “operation sizzle” is marvellous. 

Inside of the ramscoop is the kind of pointless fan service I can totally get behind. 

“It’s sealed” is my favourite joke in the episode. 

Two episodes in, two female characters disposed of. 

JMC mech course, what an interesting idea. Shame it never really leads anywhere. 

The Pree plot is very good and totally underused. The rest of it is pretty awful. 

[Stilianides]

Trojan

I understand why Series X is popular with many people, but I have a hard time warming to it for a few reasons.

The first thing that strikes me is the intrusive reactions of the studio audience. A comment in one of the Dwarfcasts was that, “The audience laughed at everything.” That is almost literally true. It reminds me of Mr. Burns and Smithers’ sitcom in The Simpsons and it is jarring to hear laughs over entrances and feed lines, rather than just jokes.

During the classic years, Rimmer and Kryten were my favourite characters, but imo by this point Chris and Robert weren’t the actors they had once been. That’s probably partly due to them being semi-retired from acting, but even in Robert’s very first scene it’s apparent that he is not quite certain of the script (it also doesn’t help that the mask looks so bad). Chris’s performance lacks the subtlety of the early years and the “Hey ho pip and dandy” scene is predictable and repetitive.

I remember that some people on Twitter claimed that Tim Vine had stolen the moose gag for his live act, unaware that he had been using it for years. I’m not suggesting that’s where Doug necessarily got it from, as it’s obviously possible for two people to come up with a similar joke about the same thing.

The television shopping subplot is really tedious and feels out of place in Dwarf. They are supposed to be alone in deep space and yet suddenly they are living in a fully functioning world where TV shopping channels continue to broadcast and the GMC is an active thing.

Howard’s appearance isn’t too plausible, but at least the script sensibly acknowledges, “What are the chances?”

Susan Earl is a very fine actress who is underused in an underwritten part. The ending feels rushed and I wish that Doug had brought in an outside director to have another creative voice be part of things. 

I think it’s difficult to have a show suddenly introduce something like the spinning beach balls in its tenth series, and it’s another idea that feels crowbarred in for this one episode.

There are a couple of nice physical moments with Rimmer’s chair sinking down and the Cat walking around the corridors in the background.

While Craig is generally on good form in this series, he is overacting like crazy when he expresses his anger about the Stirmaster. It also feels, as John Hoare mentioned way back when, like a misunderstanding on Doug’s part. “Hey, have you ever noticed how when you phone a TV shopping channel, they keep you on the line for ages and don’t want your money?” No. 

The rewriting of Howard’s backstory is par for the course for Doug and there is worse to come later in the series.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– Star Trek crap: The Super Infinity Fleet(?) uniforms seem to be based on the later TNG movie uniforms. A bit of an oddly drab and (possibly) obscure reference compared to all the others they could have picked, also about 10 years out of date if they were just going for current.

Rule of cool, my friend. Rule of cool.

But when Trojan aired I remember being delighted to feel like I was watching a bona fide new episode of Red Dwarf again, and one that finally went back to a version of the show we hadn’t seen since VI – in terms of the crew setup and live audience – and even V if you want to factor in Red Dwarf as a location too.
And it’s a really good episode! 

And the direction isn’t incompetent – can we say IV? Am I hearing IV? Any advances?

I convinced a girl to check out Red Dwarf for the first time, so she watched Trojan on broadcast. She didn’t like it and switched off at the ad break. I haven’t spoken to her much since. 

You should’ve tried showing her Stasis Leak.

(That was a joke, before someone jumps down my throat about that. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t show someone Trojan as their first episode no matter how much I like the episode.)

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

For the record – it feels like a mischaracterisation that Rimmer would be pro-Confederates.

[International Debris]

Lemons

Haven’t yet mentioned hating the X clang in the titles. 

Crazy golf using medical gear is a mix of Polymorph and Timeslides opening scenes. 

Drive room scene, fucking fuck off. Rimmer is not the sort of person who would be seen criticising a sacred cow like Shakespeare, even ignoring Meltdown. 

“Smeg” in the Kryten teasing section is great. 

Flatpack gags. Jesus, there’s some dire stuff in this era still. Already been done – far better – in The Last Day and Terrorform. 

Lister’s socks are alive, Polymorph again. 

Arrival on Earth and things improve somewhat. Naked warrior cat babes is an amusing line. Also they have to get back to find Kochanski. Amazing how we don’t ever actually see them looking for her. 

The repeat of “Britain in 23AD” is a V-esque line that’s used well here. 

Walking to India is such a bizarre idea. 

“This one here?” “eight,” “they dropped things sir,” and “isn’t Britain famous for its copper?” Good scene, this. 

The first Jesus moment is maybe the only time the show actually works better with an ad break. 

Rimmer’s extended calculator mime is enjoyably pedantic. 

eBay reference on Red Dwarf feels wrong. 

How many different faiths did Rimmer’s parents have? 

“Just like you” is a top tier Cat line. 

Why does Kryten try and disguise his face in the 1990s but walk around happily in 23AD. 

Last supper is a lovely visual gag. 

“The love I have for my Lord” feels a bit too misleading. It’s not really explained. 

Thanks for the physics lesson, Kryten. 

Cat having eaten bits of Lister is funny but a retread of Tikka. 

The reveal that, at one point, the film would have featured the operation scene, only on Hollister, suggests that it might have been a little more VIII than anyone might have hoped. That concept feels like something from an unmade Pete Part Three. Also why does the operation happen in the drive room?! 

How did Jesus read a book in English?

Wallace & Gromit is funny but another joke that feels out of place in Red Dwarf. 

I love the commandments stuff. It’s pretty on the nose but performed with enough gusto and joy to really work. I absolutely love Lister calling Jesus a knob. It works because it’s before the reveal, so he really thinks he’s saying that to the son of God. 

Another that starts poorly but really hits its stride. Without a b-plot and low on VIII-style gags it’s the best post-Rob episode so far.

[International Debris]

I meant Marooned, not Meltdown. I would have edited, only it did that thing where I’d have to enter all the paragraph breaks again and fuck that.

The one thing I noticed about this evening is how much I was laughing once each episode got going. So, so much more than I have for the last five rounds of this. Whatever the faults of this era, it has a lot of very funny bits. After earlier Doug Dwarf, that wasn’t a given.

[Warbodog]

Coming down from the simple high of Trojan, Fathers & Suns proved the most complex episode of Red Dwarf ever for me to process and subsequently rank, to the point that I perpetually delayed the necessary rewatch until now in a failed attempt to pretend that the Medibot was just something I imagined.

If anything, it was more extreme than I remembered. A potentially amazing episode, unnecessarily ruined. The father’s day plot and Pree plot are nicely entwined all the way, but the objectionable stuff only ties in right at the end (“stasis” and the medical form) and could be worked around with a fan edit or remastering Kerry Shale the fuck out of this universe.

I’m grateful they didn’t open the series with this one, that would have put me off my stroke.

– A hearty laugh of approval at Lister dismissing Ouroboros as “paradoxy, sci-fiey smeg.”

– Oh great, here we go. Rimmer’s limited knowledge of Chinese civilisation feels in character, at least.

– Oh for fuck’s sake, this ride’s going downhill fast. Wheeeeee! The Medibot is the first time in this rewatch I’ve considered skipping the scene, so I guess that makes it my Worst Thing in Red Dwarf.

– Funniest: “Breast size?” and Rapunzel’s pubic hair both got big laughs.

– I guess the implication is that Pree would be naked in a wider frame, or at least scantily clad. Best that the joke cuts off there, and grateful they didn’t go younger than 25 despite Rimmer’s history in an inconsistent display of taste.

– Predictive Behaviour Technology is clearly written by the same guy as Cassandra and Back to Earth Part III, to the point that it’s getting repetitive now, but it’s a nice way to keep us engaged and second-guessing the plot.

– Lister leaving himself drunk video messages and punishments is clearly based on an unpublished story I wrote in 2010, based on the time I found a drunk note on my phone calling me a fucking loser.

– It’s a genius scene. The predictive tech is a great twist on the usual time travel / parallel universe / split personality scenario for these type of scenes. I don’t know whether the funny father-son interplay retrospectively justifies Ouroboros, but that isn’t going away if we ignore it.

– Not only is replicating Rimmer’s work clever and funny, it’s also a callback all the way to the drive plate.

– It’s a bit Queeg 500.1, but ruthless by-the-book efficiency being their undoing is more for the Good pile.

– I’ve been to Taiwan, it’s lovely and so are they. I got a 90-day visa for China, but could only handle 9. I only like things a bit Chinesey.

– As much as discussion of Taiwan Tony has kept him in my thoughts, I hadn’t actually heard the voice in 10 years. It’s like fucking Aristocats.

– Getting the distorted racist accent to say “knickers” in a sub-plot about unintentional racism is the icing on the Good Calls cake.

– The One Foot in the Grave / Curb Your Enthusiasm thread-pulling resolution feels a bit rushed, and sadly involves the sub-plot. I thought Rimmer was going to predictively cock up his supervisor role and they’d be fine, but that would just be lazy.

“That’s not a man, that’s Lister” deserves a laugh. 

Not the best joke ever, but it’s crazy that it gets nothing.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

How did Jesus read a book in English?

He once went to the land of Albion.

[Stilianides]

Fathers and Suns

I will say, first of all, that Kerry Shale has received a lot of unfair criticism for his performance as Taiwan Tony (and a lot of fair criticism for his performance as the Medi-Bot!). If Doug had intended for that character to be played in any other way, he could have given the actor more direction or changed things in the edit. It’s a vending machine selling Endangered Panda Stew (with, incidentally, the Chinese character for cat written on it) and it was clearly intentional for it to feature every stereotype in the book.

I think there is a funny sketch idea there somewhere about a group of people discussing whether something as innocuous as Chinese Whispers is racist while, simultaneously, being unaware that they are ignoring the much more obvious examples of racism that are all around them. The execution missed the mark, though, and Doug needed to be much clearer about what he was aiming for.

The stasis/racist ending also doesn’t work at all for me and while we are probably supposed to find it clever, it just feels like a mess of ideas all hurriedly crammed together. If Doug had cut this whole C-plot out, it would have helped the episode a lot. 

Rebecca Blackstock is great as Pree and the energy of her performance outshines one or two of the other cast members. After watching Series VIII again so recently, the similarities with Cassandra are unmistakable, but there are also enough differences in the execution to make her a worthwhile character.

Sadly, I hate the whole idea of Lister being his own father and this whole section is wasted on me.

Lister running away from the Denti-bot doesn’t work as a visual joke.

It’s a really weak conclusion to the drama with the machines not big or threatening enough to convincingly make you feel that the crew are in any danger. It all looks cheap and, as one of the old Dwarfcasts said, they really needed to film another take or two.

The actual final scene of Lister going back to playing video games does, at least, restore the status quo and rounds things off fairly well. Not hilarious by any means, but a neat reference to how the episode began.

[Warbodog]

Lemons has lost its novelty over time (I was surprised that it rose a few positions between polls), but it’s still quite a fun, sub-Meltdown faux-historical. It continues the trend of the plot and accompanying jokes being good and the generic filler considerably worse, but managing more of a throughline this time.

– “Medical students’ practice rectum” would be an iconic phrase if it had come in an earlier series.

– Nice continuity with Lister’s studies and the anaesthesia having run out. I’m less fond of the Kochanski mention, since it amounts to nothing, but it’s at least a more credible reason to go back than inconsisently respecting the timeline.

– I thought the Shakespeare bit was from Dear Dave, but no such luck. It “pays off” with a brief callback later, so that was worth it.

– It’s not exactly off brand, but the invention of a Literal Immortality Shower has such awesome ramifications for the human race, I’ll headcanon that it’s just more overpromising tat like the Marilyn Monroe droid that would never really work properly anyway. It’s already established that time travel is easy to stumble upon accidentally, so no issue there.

– Funniest: “Isn’t Britain famous for its copper?” The Mickey Mouse operation in full force, for all of a couple of seconds until Lister brings up coins.

– I think the “Jesus” gag was spoiled by a trailer, it has that sense of anticlimax about it. Shame.

– This episode spews so much random historical trivia, but embarrassingly forgets there was no 0 AD when making an extended joke around it (you can generously blame it on the characters).

– Rimmer’s middle name always felt like it needed explaining… but not like that. Series X can’t stop itself from revising his backstory, but this is the only one I find objectionable.

– Jesus’ born-again atheist rant is pretty cringey, however accurate. Lister points out that he’s a knob later, but he should have been there at the time, like with his younger self’s crypto-fascist rant.

– But I do admittedly enjoy the cheeky chrizzo-baiting of playing with Jesus’ cock, emboldened by the Life of Brian excuse.

“The love I have for my Lord” feels a bit too misleading. It’s not really explained. 

Yeah, what was that?

[Stilianides]

Lemons

Opening scene feels like a rewrite of early Dwarf, but still fun to see Craig and Danny playing it together.

The Shakespeare stuff then is more like bad standup and Chris’s acting is some of the worst that he’s done.

Then some very obvious jokes about Swedish furniture and Lister’s socks.

Things don’t get going until the crew arrive on earth, and particularly with Lister’s, “Right, have you got any lemons?”

Nothing hilarious about most of the ep, but it makes a huge difference for Doug to concentrate on one storyline.

The Indian market also looks pretty good considering the budget restraints.

The Rube jab/boob job joke is a shocker, and Urethra Franklin is another gag that is old enough to have cobwebs on it.

James Baxter’s performance is sometimes fine, and sometimes incredibly broad. I can understand why it divided opinion at the time.

The best episode of Series X imo.

[Flap Jack]

Trojan – A good opener, and a very reassuring sight in 2012. I definitely agree with the complaints about the pig racing and the Stirmaster subplot being way too generic sitcom fare, but it’s inoffensive enough (and I do enjoy some aspects of it, like the way the shopping channel hosts have to stretch to find numbers that make the product sound even slightly beneficial) and Craig’s commitment to the bit does sell it. The important thing Trojan got right is that the core story about Rimmer and his brother was true to the characters, and the general rhythm of the show is finally back to what it was in 1993.

– Continuity Watch: Rimmer has failed his astronavigation exams 9 times before. I’ve spent so long thinking about this exam count across various media that I now can’t even remember whether this is correct or not, but I suspect not. At the very least it means he hasn’t done any more attempts since The End until now, which seems unlikely.

– The logistics of the All-Droid Shopping Channel confound me. I’m willing to believe that it’s all just automated (like the facility in Justice) and they would still be operating and broadcasting adverts despite not doing any actual business for millennia. But it doesn’t really track that the lines would be so busy. I guess that’s part of the joke, that even when Lister is the only person who could possibly be calling, the service is still shit. Even though, as many have observed, it’s a mis-aimed parody, because being put on hold for ages is for when you need help or a refund, not when you want to spend money. Maybe the story would make more sense if Lister had already received a Stirmaster, but it was broken?

– I’m sure that the hold music on the phone is a music cue from an earlier series, but I can’t remember where it was used specifically.

– By the way they describe the quantum rod, it sounds like they could probably use that to get back to Earth, so of course they don’t even mention trying it.

– The price of the Stirmaster ($£70) would make a good quiz question.

– It’s such a brief appearance here, I always forget that Starbug is in Series X. In my head it’s all Blue Midget.

– The whole ‘Moose’ bit is really all in the performances, particularly Danny’s. It doesn’t actually make any sense for 1970s car accident trivia to be a lateral thinking question, and if it was, it wouldn’t have that answer because mooses were only involved in 20% of incidents.

– The Dwarfers have become incredibly complacent in recent years. How many Simulants have tried to kill them in the past? Yet Howard directly calls Crawford “a Simulant” and they don’t even blink. Maybe he should have just called her a “sim” up until the reveal?

– Lister missed a trick by not saying that touch telepathy only works on organics. It’s plausible.

– Weird that at one point the plan is to teleport to the shopping channel space station, but Lister doesn’t mention getting in on that. And he doesn’t consider going there later either.

– How did Howard die in the first place, and end up 3 million years in the future? Considering that Crawford doesn’t know about the Simulant uprising and surely wouldn’t have waited that long to make her move, it reads like they fell through a time portal (… or Timewave), or have been in stasis, not that they’ve just been chilling out.

– Anyone know why they make a point of showing Crawford accidentally shooting out all of the teleport booths? A plot point that was dropped? The teleport booths don’t seem too OP, compared to the rod.

– I love the melancholic version of the Munchkin Song that plays when Howard dies. It’s impressive how flexible that is as a motif for the character of Rimmer now.

– One thing that holds this episode back from true greatness is Doug’s reluctance to commit in the Howard death scene. Rimmer refusing to drop the lie even when his brother is dying in his arms is kind of funny I guess, but it doesn’t feel true, and it undermines the whole scene. Plus, if he had come clean and gained closure, it would have made his sudden resentment for Howard’s posthumous honours even funnier.

– RIP Jo Howard. That dedication hit harder for me now than it did in 2012, now that I’ve been watching so many behind the scenes features so closely to each other.

[Warbodog]

it reads like they fell through a time portal (… or Timewave), or have been in stasis, not that they’ve just been chilling out.

The way Kryten described the quantum drive put me in mind of those wormhole diagrams showing space folding to connect two points. You’d assume that with the rods being part of the navigation system, the Quantum Twister itself would move to the other point, but as they don’t seem to have gone anywhere, they pulled Howard’s ship to them instead (for some reason). If it’s doing all that to space, might as well be through time too, I figure.

[Warbodog]

Oh good, he does say ‘time.’

[Dave]

God Kryten’s mask is awful in X isn’t it.

[Loathsome American]

Chris’s performance lacks the subtlety of the early years and the “Hey ho pip and dandy” scene is predictable and repetitive. 

Yeah, when I first sat down to watch X, this was the biggest friction point for me. Rimmer as a character obviously has a bunch of affected mannerisms, but Chris’ performance in the bubble era has always felt like a naturalistic portrayal of a person who CHOOSES to adopt these affected mannerisms. Whereas in the early part of X (and I seem to recall it gets better as it goes on), Chris is playing a broad character who just has those mannerisms as part of their personality. So the affectedness comes from the actor Chris Barrie and not the character Arnold Rimmer. 

Assuming that makes any sense and is not just me overintellectualizing “He’s just a bit rusty.”

[Unrumble]

So the affectedness comes from the actor Chris Barrie and not the character Arnold Rimmer. 
Assuming that makes any sense and is not just me overintellectualizing “He’s just a bit rusty.”

[International Debris]

It’s such a brief appearance here, I always forget that Starbug is in Series X. In my head it’s all Blue Midget.

It’s also in Entangled.

Yeah, when I first sat down to watch X, this was the biggest friction point for me. Rimmer as a character obviously has a bunch of affected mannerisms, but Chris’ performance in the bubble era has always felt like a naturalistic portrayal of a person who CHOOSES to adopt these affected mannerisms. Whereas in the early part of X (and I seem to recall it gets better as it goes on), Chris is playing a broad character who just has those mannerisms as part of their personality. So the affectedness comes from the actor Chris Barrie and not the character Arnold Rimmer. 
Assuming that makes any sense and is not just me overintellectualizing “He’s just a bit rusty.”

Oh yeah, he completely forgets how to play Rimmer after leaving in VII. He had already become unrecognisable by VI, but that was a natural development through the changes in his actual character, the show’s setting and style, etc. BtE and X are better than VIII, but he’s still Chris Barrie doing a smug, gurny idiot for a lot of X. There’s a general improvement over the Dave era, he’s just about got the hang of it by TPL. And now the several years off and obvious brain rot he’s displayed on his website means we might lose it all again. 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

– The Dwarfers have become incredibly complacent in recent years. How many Simulants have tried to kill them in the past? Yet Howard directly calls Crawford “a Simulant” and they don’t even blink. Maybe he should have just called her a “sim” up until the reveal? 

I put that down to all their repeat encounters with Hogie.

 – Continuity Watch: Rimmer has failed his astronavigation exams 9 times before. I’ve spent so long thinking about this exam count across various media that I now can’t even remember whether this is correct or not, but I suspect not. At the very least it means he hasn’t done any more attempts since The End until now, which seems unlikely.

I just took it to mean he’s not counting the times he failed while dead. Or the time he had his spasm. Or the sweat incident.

[Jenuall]

Haven’t yet mentioned hating the X clang in the titles.  

I hate this so much. Basically any time they dick around with the series number representation on screen is a no for me – the prison chalk tally, X clang, the II into X twirl… all need to get in the bin as far as I’m concerned!

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

   

[International Debris]

They are all pretty shit, although VIII’s at least has a thematic reason, and II into X is unobtrusive. It’s the actual clang sound that makes it so horrible for me. Totally unnecessary and unimaginative. 

I’m not tremendously fond of on-screen numbering anyway. The bubble era was just Red Dwarf, no reason to change that. 

[Flap Jack]

Fathers & Suns – An episode which was tantalisingly close to greatness, but was brought crashing down to mere adequacy by a certain extraneous sub-plot. Pree is great, and the way they lean into the “Lister is his own father” thing for both the jokes and as a unique way of Lister examining his own life and choices is so good that it retroactively makes the Ouroboros twist somewhat worth it (and Lister interacting with the pre-recorded version of himself is still the standout scene). But god-fucking-damn-it, Taiwan Tony. A white Canadian doing a deliberately offensive Chinese accent has no place in Red Dwarf, and probably no place on TV in general because come on. It would have been bad even if the core jokes – them agonising over a possible subtle case of racism while completely ignoring an extremely obvious and definite case of racism, and a question about Chinese Whispers being repeatedly misheard – were well executed, but they weren’t. And the way it ties into the main plot with “stasis” is so painfully forced. Lister could easily have just remembered that he created a second ship record for his “son” without that prompt, and it wouldn’t have seemed weird. It’s such a shame, because on this rewatch I found myself enjoying the non-TT bits even more than I expected to. They really hold up, and even Medi-bot isn’t that bad.

– Impressive that Lister’s 12 month old poppadom shard still crunches. I guess he didn’t just put it in a drawer.

– It’s like a time capsule of 2012 to hear Pree’s abilities described as being “like predictive text on a cell phone”. I feel like even at the time, “autocorrect” was rapidly overtaking that as the go-to term, if it hadn’t already fully supplanted it.

– Mostly I’m happy to go along with Lister role-playing the idea that he and his dad are separate people, but it feels a bit off for Rimmer to do it too. Also he launches into “How can you even stand your dad?” when Lister is mainly talking about being the dad and receiving a gift from his son.

– The TV series Rimmer was going to watch, “Victory South”, is eerily similar in concept to the abandoned “Confederate” series the Game of Thrones creators were planning to make. Thank goodness HBO realised that any TV series that Rimmer would be into is not worth making.

– One additional problem with the “chinese whispers” subplot is that it doesn’t even make any sense. The whole thing needs everyone who hears the question to relay it differently, but there’s no real reason for people to keep mishearing it, other than Tony’s accent being so thick that people can’t understand him. And if the joke is relying on that, at that point the joke is pretty much just that his accent is over the top, not a clever satire of it.

– Why is there a queue for Denti-bot? Cat and Lister are the only ones who could ever need dental work, so who are they waiting for? Is it a too-subtle jab at dentists for being late, or just an excuse to have a scene where Cat and Lister talk about the anasthetic? If it’s the latter, surely it could have worked with Cat bumping into Lister as he leaves with the anasthetic.

[Warbodog]

A white Canadian doing a deliberately offensive Chinese accent has no place in Red Dwarf, and probably no place on TV in general because come on.

I think it’s got a place in something smart and edgy like Brass Eye (to use a current reference), not Red Dwarf which you watch when you want a good time and don’t really want to be ironically reminded about the shameful legacy of racist comedy, everyday racism, people’s future and livelihoods depending on whether they have a hilarious accent, etc.

[cwickham]

Selected Filmography of Kerry Shale

Additional voices in a video game based on The Blair Witch Project (2019)

The main character Ryszard Kapuscinski, who is Polish, in the film “Another Day of Life” (2018)

An apparently-well received Japanese video game called “Puppeteer” as a character called “Ying Yang” (2013)

Bill Clinton in the Mo Mowlam biopic “Mo” (2010)

“Tsar Gorgi” in the video game “Battalion Wars 2” (2007)

Additional voices in the “Vietcong” video game series (2002-05)

A character with a name of Italian origin in the TV movie “Gideon’s Daughter” (2005)

Additional voices in the video game “Jackie Chan Adventures” (2001)

The voice of Gnasher in the 1990s “Dennis the Menace” animated series

Mr Beaver in the BBC’s 1988 adaptation of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”

[Warbodog]

I just remembered “I hear you’re a racist now, Father” (to use another modern example), so I’m less sure. It didn’t help that it happened at a time in Red Dwarf when the gap between ambition and execution was about as wide as it’s ever been.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Taiwan Tony is basically Mr Yunioshi except it’s 2012 and not 1961!

[International Debris]

The thing about Ted is the whole episode revolves around him realising his silly casual racist impression was inappropriate, which was actually pretty forward thinking in the late ’90s, especially in a studio sitcom without much history of satire (beyond occasional jabs at the Catholic church). Fathers & Suns has a vending machine with a dodgy accent, and then two main characters referring to him as “a bit Chinesey”, and that’s it. Like a fair few bits in the Dave era, it requires you sit down and think about it work out exactly what happened, and why, and not in an a “makes you think” way, but because it’s so under-explained on screen. My initial response to TT was “what the fuck was that?” rather than “oh, that’s a clever perspective on how quibbling over the minutiae of something can often be at the expensive of missing the larger problem, wonderful satire!” And I still don’t know exactly what to make of a white guy writing dialogue for two black guys to describe another white guy doing a pantomime Chinaman voice as “a bit Chinesesy” in general. It’s just a headfuck. 

As I said upthread, I think the idea of a racist vending machine has potential to be fantastic in the right context, done well. The phrase “racist vending machine” makes me chuckle in itself, because it’s so ludicrous. A properly satirical show projecting everyday bigotry onto the future like a more comedic Black Mirror would be a much better home.

[Dave]

For me, the racism subplot is disappointing because it introduces something into the series that didn’t really exist before, in the sense of the modern conception of casual/inadvertent racism (and the hangups around it) still existing and persisting into their sci-fi future.

Given that Red Dwarf has always previously been such a casually progressive vision of the future, without racism ever really having intruded into their reality, I think it’s fair to infer from earlier episodes that racial division doesn’t really exist in that way for them. So to have it then intrude so clunkily, and in a way that makes it feel like attitudes haven’t really progressed from the early 21st century (or maybe even late 20th century) is a bit jarring.

[Unrumble]

[Flap Jack]

Lemons – A solidly good ensemble adventure type story, and well placed after 2 character-focused eps. It doesn’t reach the highs of those episodes, but it doesn’t reach the lows of them either (especially in Fathers & Suns’ case), and it executes its core idea well without any major whiffs. It’s not really reaching for greatness as all the commentary about Christianity is pretty shallow, but it’s all enjoyable. Plus the sets in this episode are incredibly impressive, and James Baxter as Jesus was overall pretty good too.

– Written by… Doug Naylor? That’s not how I remember it.

– I like the continuity of Lister studying engineering after Fathers & Suns, but why would he be reading “The Most Influential Humans” for that? It’s just another thin justification for a character to be reading the thing required for the gag, like how Rimmer was inexplicably doing lateral thinking questions/70s Swedish road accident trivia for his astronavigation revision. In this case I think it would have been more believable for Lister to just be reading the book for fun.

– Rimmer’s perspective on Shakespeare sure has changed since Marooned. Maybe he always felt this way, but since he lost his Complete Works book he no longer feels the need to lie for clout. Or maybe he’s lying now just for the sake of contradicting Lister.

– The rejuvenation shower being Swedish flatpack is from the same “tired and obvious observational comedy” playbook as the shopping channel phoneline stuff from Trojan, but at least this is over very quickly, it’s not a whole subplot.

– Lister says they can’t stay on 1st century Earth because they need to get back to find Kochanski, but I think the fact that Rimmer and Kryten wouldn’t be able to maintain their lives in this setting might be an issue too.

– The rejuvenation shower makes no sense whatsoever within this story. Why does it have a remote that can reverse their time travel, when it was an accident? How can the remote bring them back, when the shower itself is 3 million years in the future and into deep space? How the hell does Jesus use the shower again to get back to Earth without any guidance? How does the second/third journey to the past take them to India after they left, and not Albion several months earlier again? I’ve tried to excuse the rejuvenation shower in the past because it’s at least a purely accidental time travel method, but when you think about what actually happens, they basically have another Series VII time drive in the end.

– Pretty convenient that everyone they interact with in India speaks English, eh? At least there’s a justification for Jesus of Caeseria and the lemon merchant, but that doesn’t explain anyone else.

– Ummm, well actually guys, scholars estimate that Jesus would have actually been between 27 and 29 in 23 AD, actually. Gosh, what a blunder. Although… maybe that was a secret clue that J o’ C wasn’t the Jesus? I don’t know how old Tom Pepper was in 2012, but that means I don’t know that he isn’t 4-6 years older than James Baxter.

– Regardless of whether it’s appropriate for Rimmer to reference ebay in general, he shouldn’t be referencing it as if it’s a current thing he’s able to use to sell things.

– When they escape back to Red Dwarf, why don’t they send Jesus back home straight away (before they find out about his kidney stone)? Given what they’re assuming about his historical importance, keeping him in the future for any extended amount of time seems like a bad idea.

– If I had a nickel for every time Kryten causes Cat to unintentionally eat human meat, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. Right?

– Another decent attempt at continuity with them acknowledging that they don’t have anasthetic for Jesus’s surgery… but then they just do the surgery without explaining how they got more?

– “It’s not killing, it’s genocide. I think that’s OK.” is probably my line of the episode.

[Warbodog]

– Written by… Doug Naylor? That’s not how I remember it.

Is that a reference to Doug’s science facts crowdsourcing or something else?

[Flap Jack]

Is that a reference to Doug’s science facts crowdsourcing or something else?

It’s a reference to a dream I had, which is pretty niche to be fair.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Is that a reference to Doug’s science facts crowdsourcing or something else?

What, have you never heard of the late great Many Ampersand Symbols?

[Author]

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