Series V has two theme songs in almost every episode

[Moonlight]

Open The Inquisitor and listen to the brief pause before the theme properly starts. A second, muffled, quiet version of the theme can be briefly heard in the background noise. This is true of other episodes in Series V, but not all of them.

This is an unacceptable error. Somebody accost Ed Bye at DJ and tell him I’m never watching Red Dwarf again.

Topic

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I was just writing this up myself.

I’ve found it on all s05 episodes excluding Terrorform (and confirmed it’s not on S03,04,06).  There is another, quieter theme tune playing before the theme tune kicks in.  It’s kicked right down low in the mix so you might need headphones.  But essentially, if you fire up an episode and as you get the Red Dwarf silent flyby, you’ll hear it’s not so silent and the first bar or so of the theme plays and is then over taken by a proper full volume theme as it should be.

In some cases I think there might actually be *three* layers of theme tune there.  You can kind hear it before this more obvious quieter one too.

My only guess is, as the theme tune never quite starts at the same time, they’ve taken the mix and mastered video & audio of the opening credits from an edit on an earlier series, turned the audio right the way down but not silence it completely, and then added the theme on at the point they needed it to start for s05.

It’s not quite “THERE’S LYRICS IN THE RED DWARF THEME’ territory but it’s quite interesting non-the-less.

[Moonlight]

For the record I found it. You just looked in more places after I told you.

Fucking cheater. A pox on you.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Sorry for being capable of doing research.

[Dave]

I like this new Digest version of the Red Dwarf Discord.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You bastards might not want to hang out with us but god damn we’re going to make sure you know what we’re talking about.

[Warbodog]

Cool. It’s those cute little flaws that keep a guy interested.

[Jonathan Capps]

This is cool. I guess it suggests that they didn’t have a version of the credits without the theme tune already baked into them?

[Moonlight]

This is the opening titles we’re talking about. I now realize I didn’t specify.

[Jonathan Capps]

You’ve made a fool of me

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’ve just realised that my theory would be flawed a little given the opening titles would be a new edit bar the opening fly by.  So unless they somehow didn’t have that model shot available and pulled it from an earlier series opening titles then fuck knows what happened.

[Jenuall]

The tape must have got twisted man!

 

[Moonlight]

I’ve just realised that my theory would be flawed a little given the opening titles would be a new edit bar the opening fly by. So unless they somehow didn’t have that model shot available and pulled it from an earlier series opening titles then fuck knows what happened.

Considering this model shot appears in every single opening titles in 3-5, it wouldn’t shock me if they just sourced it from there. It would have been convenient vs. digging up the model shot reels for a shot you already have a ton of copies of on hand.

[Warbodog]

This encouraged me to take the time to appreciate the opening montages, since we take them for granted after a while.

– III might have been a shock at the time or to anyone still going in blind today (cast changes and stuff like the Polymorph), or just seemed a natural evolution, it’s slower than the next few
– IV’s maybe my favourite, I like how everything syncs up
– V’s is a bit too action-oriented, they’ve seemingly put every stunt and explosion in there to show off to the Americans
– VI is nice and colourful, it notably spoils all the fan service of Emohawk in advance
– VII: who’s the chick? Can’t remember my original reaction, apart from looking forward to the daft fake head explosion episode.
– VIII: would have been shocking if I hadn’t seen the trailer a few days ahead. Amusing now that it highlights most of the infamous stuff. (At the time, I expected the bit with Kochanski lusting after Rimmer was her being amazed to meet her resurrected self, for some reason).
– BTE: Blade Runner references should have been obvious, but I was watching in company and not going back and analysing, it was just good to see them.
– X: this is what VIII should have looked more like if they’d been sensible.
– XI/XII: more ambitious, more elaborate, more budget on the screen.
– TPL: I looked away the first time to avoid spoilers. It’s like the bit in Thunderbirds or Mission: Impossible where they’d show you the episode you’re about to watch so you can decide if you won’t bother.

[Moonlight]

– TPL: I looked away the first time to avoid spoilers. It’s like the bit in Thunderbirds or Mission: Impossible where they’d show you the episode you’re about to watch so you can decide if you won’t bother.

I have the memory of a goldfish who lives in a bowl of vodka, so I was able to just forget the shots until I saw them again.

[Flap Jack]

Wow, this is a cool discovery. Amazing there was anything new left to notice about classic Red Dwarf in 2021. I should have known that when I lost access to my Discord account, I would eventually miss some real time Dwarf gold unearthing.

I also really hope it is somehow true that there are 3 versions of the theme in there, because if that was going to happen to any batch of RD episodes, surely Demons & Angels should be among them.

[Mr-Stabby]

Haven’t got a copy to hand,  but it sounds like audio pre-echo. You often hear it on older stuff. There’s always a pre-echo of what’s coming up before it kicks in. Just an artefact of analog recording mediums of the time :) It’s so well known that they even inserted it deliberately into the theme tune of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace :)

[International Debris]

Pre-echoes come from when analogue tape is stored long enough, it begins to imprint itself on the next bit of tape spooled around it. It’s most obvious on audio cassettes, particularly ferric ones. The question is, if this happens on analogue video, why isn’t there an image pre-echo?

[Warbodog]

I wondered what that was in old cassette audiobook rips.

[Dave]

Well it probably is audio pre-echo, it sounds like it.

[Moonlight]

I should have known that when I lost access to my Discord account, I would eventually miss some real time Dwarf gold unearthing.

Get a new one, you cheap bastard. We’re lonely without your pancakes.

[Flap Jack]

Get a new one, you cheap bastard. We’re lonely without your pancakes.

Sad to say, but I got out of the habit of opening Discord a while before I messed up my 2FA, or else I would for sure have saved up the dollarpounds required for a new account by now!

If I recall, in the brief time I was active there, the messages in the general chat were just coming through way too fast for me to either read them all or think of anything relevant to say before the topic changed.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

There was a brief period early on when we were so active it was like that, just everyone talking over everyone else.

With people like you loosing their accounts and some just choosing not to frequent often/at all, along with a whole bunch of specific channels for chat on certain topics, the conversations got easier to follow and it’s not as constant.

[Warbodog]

It’s far too easy for me to self-employ my time in profitless and non-practical ways, as forum activity demonstrates. I just have to avoid social media / social reality.

[Moonlight]

It’s far too easy for me to self-employ my time in profitless and non-practical ways

See, that’s my justification FOR doing nothing else.

[Moonlight]

Update: Backwards DOES have it, just not on the opening theme. It’s on the intro crawl’s music.

Curious that there’s only an echo when nothing else is playing.

[Jenuall]

My problem with Discord is that I still try to treat it too much like a traditional forum, so when I come back to it I feel like I should try and “catch up” on everything I’ve missed since I was last on. There’s usually too much stuff and you just end up getting frustrated at all the discussions you missed and are too late to contribute to rather than just jumping in on what is now “live” so to speak

[Dave]

Maybe I just hit it at the wrong time, but from my brief sojourn into the Red Dwarf Discord there seemed to be a disproportionate of time taken up by people discussing exactly what they like to stick up their arses, coupled with (from some quarters) a liberal slagging-off of other G&T posters and admins behind their back.

Given that, I chose blissful ignorance every time.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Thankfully those responsible for that are gone.

[Dave]

That’s good to hear. Sorry it gave such a bad impression at the time.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Oh don’t, I know at times it was a bit of a shit show and a bit hostile.

We tried to be fairly liberal with moderating, like here I guess.  When Katydid/Moonlight originally set it up it was a free for all and it was fine for a while.  But then she brought me on to help do some actual moderating and we’ve tried to make things better.

We’ve had to ban a couple of people and set up a little barrier to entry to deter time wasters.

We have dedicate channels for chat on certain things to so the main chat isn’t just awash with everyone talking over everyone.

It would be good to see more people around, and to have some different and varied RD related chats.

Last year we did some watch-a-longs on the run up to TPL which was fun.  We keep threatening to do that again so I might actually try and organise something like that soon.

[Ben Paddon]

There’s a Discord?

Edit: Ooh, I found it.

[Author]

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