Refresh For The Memory: Series XI Byte 1

[Ian Symes]

You asked for it. Ahead of the extremely imminent 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 TWENTICA, SAMSARA and GIVE & TAKE. Have at it!

Previous threads:

Series 1 Byte 1
Series 1 Byte 2
Series 2 Byte 1
Series 2 Byte 2
Series III Byte 1
Series III Byte 2
Series IV Byte 1
Series IV Byte 2
Series V Byte 1
Series V Byte 2
Series VI Byte 1
Series VI Byte 2
Series VII Byte 1
Series VII Byte 2
Series VIII Byte 1
Series VIII Byte 2
Back To Earth
Series X Byte 1
Series X Byte 2

Topic

[Formica]

If DNA had ended as abruptly as Samsara, then it would have ended at the reveal of tiny robo-Lister, leaving the audience to assume that of course if they have a tiny robo-Lister then victory is guaranteed.

Thanks for the Memory leaves me far, far more worried that they’re not in the clear. They’re just gonna do it better this time? What the hell does that mean?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It literally ends on Game Over.
It’s such a shit Game Over that it’s far easier to believe it’s just another trick of the game or silly episode text than to believe the game’s ended.

Yeah I’ve never really read it as “game over, they’re free” because immediately before the game is whacking Rimmer’s thumbs with a hammer.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If DNA had ended as abruptly as Samsara, then it would have ended at the reveal of tiny robo-Lister, leaving the audience to assume that of course if they have a tiny robo-Lister then victory is guaranteed.
Thanks for the Memory leaves me far, far more worried that they’re not in the clear. They’re just gonna do it better this time? What the hell does that mean?

Thanks for the Memory ends with the resolution to the flashback … it gives us nothing of what’s happened to or how it affects our characters.

And again I don’t think it matters.  The story that’s being told is over, we can surmise that things largely return to normal by the next episode, because they do.

With Samsara, I appreciate that maybe there’s something missing.  But I don’t feel it.  They figure out what’s going on, and they leave.  How they leave is incidental.  As I said, maybe a line from Kryten about resetting the karma drive would have been better.  Or maybe leaving the karma drive on knowing how dangerous it is is what leads the drive to allow them to leave as they’ve effectively done a really bad thing.

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

See, wouldn’t have taken much effort.  But no.  We had to wait 34 years for someone to meme it on a fan forum to get some closure.

[Warbodog]

[Flap Jack]

Fair enough about Thanks for the Memory, but I think the image of the jigsaw turning into the end credits is strong enough to make up for it. Samsara doesn’t have anything like that.

[Formica]

I realize that I’ve confused the ending of Thanks for the Memory with the ending of TNG:Clues, in which the conclusion is “we’ll just try again and do it better next time”, which I suppose is probably also the logical conclusion of letting the Dwarf episode spin for two more minutes. And still doesn’t make sense, how the fuck are you going to conceal two/five missing days as soon as you meet anybody else with a calendar (which will happen much sooner for the TNG crew. RD it might be til after Timeslides resets it all anyways)

[Flap Jack]

Give & Take – Was worried that this rewatch might take the shine off, but nope, it’s still great. Best episode of the Dave era so far, and probably top 3 Dave era overall. Great, well-executed concept with the stable time loop kidney-napping (it’s not original, because of Tikka Xtended, but it is better done), really effective (notional) villain in Asclepius (who manages to not be undermined by being too silly), good bookends with the lift subplot, it’s funny throughout, and best of all, it has one of the best guest characters of all time, Snacky my beloved.

Also, I disagree that the time loop needed more explaining. Lister does say that the way he’s been feeling only makes sense if his kidneys have been gone the whole time already. It shouldn’t need spelling out more than that. The real ambiguity isn’t that, it’s whether Asclepius was actually going to replace Lister’s kidneys or not – but that’s just a fun thing to debate, not something that was missing from the episode in my opinion.

– Kryten speculates that Asclepius is more advanced than him, but if Asclepius is from the 23rd century and he’s from the 24th, surely that can’t be true?

– As far as the “Asclepius – good or bad?” question goes, I get the impression that he didn’t have bad intentions, but was too confused and malfunctioning to reliably do good. If he was about to transfer a kidney from Cat into Lister (or give him the kidneys that were out in the open randomly), then that would have just been luck (i.e. the patient he mistook Lister for just so happened to need the same treatment), not intelligence. And even if he would have resolved Lister’s issue, he wouldn’t have been able to do it before the space station exploded.

– The most major negative in this episode is that it feels very uncomfortable how they trick Cat into agreeing to be a donor. If they’re going to trick him, they might as well just skip all the theatre and go straight to the chloroform, it would be just as ethical. It didn’t need to be this way. They could have done the trick as a way of making Cat understand how Lister feels to desperately need a kidney, and then The Cat could have a genuine change of heart. That would have been a lot stronger characterisation for everyone. Cat has changed a lot since Series 1, so I believe that he would choose to save Lister in the end.

– Snacky is of the same ilk as Bob the Bum. Someone who was never destined to recreate great scientific breakthroughs, but is able to do so anyway after being inspired by the Dwarfers. Heartwarming stuff. It’s maybe even a theme that runs into Krysis too (and Officer Rimmer, but as a subversion).

– Amazing that thanks to Snacky they now have yet another working time machine, that presumably is now always accessible to them. Though considering they needed to build a new time machine to resolve the plot, it’s fair to assume that the time drive and the rejuvenation shower are now out of action.

[Formica]

In none of these episodes are all scenes presented in chronological order.

[Rushy]

Twentica: A fun little romp. I wish the details were less hazy (how was the timeline not irrevocably changed), but it’s mostly good. The best part is Harmony. She was a scene stealer. 

Samsara: First half is 10/10, second half is bad. I loved the setup of the mystery, and the flashback storyline woven in-between the present day investigation was an inspired choice. But they spoiled the reveals by over-explaining every tiny thing. Like, some of the background stuff could’ve just remained background stuff.

The one thing that actually really needed explaining – the crew’s death – is left unanswered. We can assume the karma drive did it, but why? It’s clear that they eventually figured out what was happening and started behaving unethically to compensate. So why would the drive kill them? And why couldn’t Barker simply have reversed the program again?

Our heroes themselves do not actually solve the mystery. We as the audience get the answers in the flashbacks, but Kryten just pulls them out of his ass. He has absolutely zero reason to suspect that Green and Barker were responsible for tampering with the drive unless he read some report in the ship’s computer, but we never see this. He just says “it appears that-” as if it were self-evident. 

It really is a shame, because I was very impressed. I love the dystopian nature of the karma drive, and how it’s a natural evolution from Justice World. Even though the episode (misguidedly) plays it for laughs, there’s a real 1984 vibe to Barker and Green’s romance being penalized, and their every decision being rated by a computer. This could have been a truly terrifying episode in series 5. 

I wouldn’t have noticed this if the script hadn’t driven off a cliff, but there really aren’t a lot of laughs after the early Mine-opoly scenes, which are absolute gold, by the way. I loved seeing Rimmer and Lister’s downtime together and how comfortable they’ve become in each other’s company. That section on its own is just pure classic Red Dwarf, with every line producing a good laugh. 

Give & Take: I have no strong opinions about it at all. It’s solid. Not memorable, not very interesting, but fine for what it is. 

[Flap Jack]

Me when Rushy expends significant effort defending a controversial one-off vending machine character and then glosses over the episode containing the greatest one-off vending machine character of them all:

[Rushy]

Me when Rushy expends significant effort defending a controversial one-off vending machine character and then glosses over the episode containing the greatest one-off vending machine character of them all

But the only guest stars in that episode were a mad doctor and a stasis booth engineer?

[Author]

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