So what do you think we'll be getting for the 30th?

[GlenTokyo]

Seems like something would have been leaked because of the cast if it was anything major involving them

BBFC filings and such would come out if it was some kind of DVD or Blu-ray

Maybe it’ll be a Dave mini Dwarf night, lots of episodes maybe with some cast interviews but I’m thinking we’re getting announcements.

New series announcement on the TV? Commentaries for download? A new book or something?

What do you think?

Topic

[By Jove its holmes]

In 2038, seventy-four year Craig Charles, still playing Lister? I’ll take a pass on that.

[Lily]

>In 2038, seventy-four year Craig Charles, still playing Lister? I’ll take a pass on that.

They can do the other side of Future Echos, from the old Lister perspective.

[Flap Jack]

They can do the other side of Future Echos, from the old Lister perspective.

OK, this is only slightly related, but one of my favoured Red Dwarf fan theories is that the future versions of Lister from Future Echoes (and also the future versions of the crew from Stasis Leak) are from the same timeline as the future crew from Out Of Time – so, the time drive being destroyed prevented any of those futures from happening.

If this explanation is accepted, it cleans up a few issues:

1 – Lister and Red Dwarf can be in actual peril, without us assuming the reason he’ll definitely be fine is that Future Echoes needs to happen.

2 – It’s not a plot hole that everyone is now older than their future versions from Stasis Leak, yet those events haven’t happened.

3 – It allows the needlessly grim fate of Bexley to be considered non-canonical (I know this risks sparking an argument about whether unreadably fast-scrolling text is canon, but… I’d really just prefer a Red Dwarf where Lister didn’t give birth to two sons, have one die tragically young less than a week later, have to leave the other forever in another universe shortly after that, and all that have literally no emotional effect on him whatsoever, to the point that he never mentions them ever again… you know?).

So what I’m saying is: don’t do Old Future Echoes Lister, just so I can keep believing this fan theory. :p

[Ben Saunders]

You know I never thought about the (lack of) repercussions of Lister losing his two sons. That is an absolutely shameful complete abandonment of a plot thread that wasn’t working, but it’s for the best.

The opening crawl for Series III (which must be canon else why else would it be there) also fucks up my favourite fan theory, which is that Series One and Two take place in a different universe to III onwards.

Timeslides can be used to retcon pretty much everything, tbh

[Flap Jack]

He also doesn’t seem too affected by having to abandon… himself. Which is obviously a very emotionally confusing situation, but he still had to abandon his baby. Though, at least in Ouroboros he gives a heartfelt speech about it before it’s never acknowledged again (except for Fathers & Suns, of course).

Ah, and I was just reminded that Lister actually does directly reference giving birth to twins in Demons & Angels, which doesn’t exactly support the “it never happened to him” theory, BUT he also says he played pool with planets, which in-story never happened and so shouldn’t be remembered.

Clearly Lister just has supernatural powers which allow him to remember alternate timelines whenever he eats a Pot Noodle.

[flanl3]

I mean Bexley was well into his twenties when he died, right? It really could have been corrected after Out of Time.

[By Jove its holmes]

in 2038, Bobby Llew would be eighty-two. Again, I’ll take a pass on a 50th anniversary “in character” episode.

[Warbodog]

The Backwards scrolling text says the twins’ growth was hyper-accelerated and they appeared to be physically 18 years old after three days before being sent to the other universe. I have a feeling Rob & Doug may have come up with the rapid ageing to connect it to Bexley’s ‘mid-twenties’ death, but then either forgot or didn’t want to make that intro even longer and more complicated.

[flanl3]

Yeah, Bexley would’ve had to make a trip back around seven years later, which easily could have been corrected between Out of Time and Tikka to Ride.

[Ben Saunders]

Maybe that’s why Lister hates Pot Noodles. They actually taste pretty good, but the existential horror of suddenly remembering loads of aborted timelines and his dead son(s) is extremely unpleasant, hence he cannot eat them.

[Flap Jack]

Wow, OK, I guess I just kept assuming that the scrolling text mentioned Bexley’s death, but it doesn’t, does it?

I’ve never rated Future Echoes as highly as the G&T surveys (44th compared to 11th in the Pearl Poll), and I think that Lister’s jarringly happy reaction to hearing that he’ll have a son who will die at age 25 is the cause. Doug and Rob were setting themselves up for a guaranteed fall when they established this plot point. In fact, they tried to improve it in IWCD by changing “Bexley” to “Bexley’s son” and made it so Lister wasn’t quite as chilled out about it, but ultimately it had the same problems and probably made even less sense.

Right! So my modified fan theory is that the “Out Of Time” future crew were able to adapt the technology of the time drive to retrieve Bexley from the parallel universe and stop his rapid aging. They then arrogantly assumed they would use time travel to stop his death, but were unable to, and the tragedy of his passing helped put them on the dark path.

… you know, I’ve never thought about this until now, but presumably Jim and Bexley were unable to speak, walk or toilet when they left the universe as fully grown adults. Just in case anyone wanted to imagine what “Dad” might have ended up being like.

[Seb Patrick]

one of my favoured Red Dwarf fan theories is that the future versions of Lister from Future Echoes (and also the future versions of the crew from Stasis Leak) are from the same timeline as the future crew from Out Of Time

Stasis Leak might work, but Future Echoes Lister isn’t a brain in a jar.

[flanl3]

Hypothetically they restored Lister to a body at some point.

[Ben Saunders]

That is possible, t. Siliconia at least

[Flap Jack]

Stasis Leak might work, but Future Echoes Lister isn’t a brain in a jar.

I may have been operating under the assumption that Out Of Time took place later than Future Echoes.

But then why does Future Echoes Lister look so much older than Out Of Time Cat?

Erm… very good question! Well… uh… maybe felis sapiens age slower than humans, or maybe Future Echoes Lister experienced an M-Corp/Better Than Life (novel)-style aging event without it being reversed? Yeah, let’s go with that!

OK, OK, I’m obviously floundering here, but I think I had a good crack at it. =D

[bloodteller]

>I may have been operating under the assumption that Out Of Time took place later than Future Echoes.

but the future versions of themselves in Out Of Time are explicitly stated to be from “15 years in the future” while the future lister in Future Echoes is 171 years old.

[bloodteller]

also, isn’t the incident that turns Lister into a brain in a jar implied to have meant to have happen very shortly after the events of Out Of Time? upon hearing the news, Kryten instantly makes lister his favourite meal, tells him that he loves him, and then empties the whole ship’s stock of chillies into the curry he’s making for Lister because lister points out “there’ll be none left for tomorow” if he does that.

maybe that’s just me, but i always assumed the brain-in-a-jar incident was meant to happen later that same day, which is why kryten is so upset about it.

[Flap Jack]

Right, fine, lesson learned: thoroughly rewatch episodes before proposing fan theories about them. (The 15 years thing doesn’t directly contradict my second hastily thought up explanation, though!)

However, I think you may just be jumping to conclusions regarding the whole “Lister becomes a brain in a jar tomorrow” idea. I always read it as “Kryten doesn’t know when and how a tragic incident befalls Lister, but the knowledge that it’s going to happen upsets him and makes him want Lister to cherish his body while he still has it”.

[International Debris]

The Bexley plot in Future Echoes has already been summed up in the wonderful ‘Homecoming’ fan-fic:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12067118/1/Homecoming

[Warbodog]

While you’re trying to fit contradictory and aborted events into the timeline, remember that Red Dwarf doesn’t take place in real time.

According to dialogue, Back in the Red is “five, six years” since Lister woke up in The End. It’s already been two years by Kryten (episode), and some people interpret Rimmer’s “three years” in Stasis Leak to mean it’s been another year already (when it clearly means those 2 years + 18 months he and Lister worked together). If you assume Lister’s telling the truth about turning 28 shortly before Tikka to Ride, that would mean everything from Stasis Leak to Tikka to Ride takes place over one or two relative years.

Good luck.

[Dave]

We also know exactly one year passes between Polymorph and DNA.

[Flap Jack]

The Bexley plot in Future Echoes has already been summed up in the wonderful ‘Homecoming’ fan-fic:

Ooh, I didn’t know about this. Thanks!

And it’s by Karnie as well. :'(

[flanl3]

Also, if you interpret Queeg as actually being five months, and we also never see how long it takes them to get back to normal at the end of Better Than Life, Stasis Leak, or Thanks for the Memory, all ending on situations that could have lasted weeks or months more, that would compress the OQ series into taking place in at most maybe fifteen months, and that’s if you say that VI really only does take a few weeks (which it sorta does).

[Seb Patrick]

>While you’re trying to fit contradictory and aborted events into the timeline, remember that Red Dwarf doesn’t take place in real time.

And that not all series take place in the same universe as one-another.

[Ben Saunders]

Very prescient of Grant Naylor to incorporate the Mandela effect into their work twenty years before it was a thing

[Flap Jack]

And that not all series take place in the same universe as one-another.

*spits out Leopard Lager*

WHAT?!?!

[Pete Part Three]

Are we doing this again?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s a hill Seb will die on I think

[bloodteller]

>And that not all series take place in the same universe as one-another.

surely not

[Dave]

To be honest, there are some episodes where I’m not even convinced that every *scene* takes place within the same universe.

[flanl3]

Surely you can’t be talking about Tikka to Ride.

[bloodteller]

oh and Skipper and Dimension Jump and Back To Earth and Stoke Me A Clipper and Parallel Universe and Backwards and Timeslides, too.

[By Jove its holmes]

Speaking of Timeslides, Graham Chapman would have been much better than Ruby Wax. But, cancer doesn’t care whether you are a dockworker or a member of Monty Python.

[Ridley]

Get down with your bad self?

[Seb Patrick]

Speaking of Timeslides, Graham Chapman would have been much better than Ruby Wax.

I’m not certain of this. In general Graham Chapman is much better than Ruby Wax but I have a hard time imagining what that scene would have been like with him. So differently-written as to not really be comparable, I guess.

[Plastic Percy]

I presume there was some rewriting done, as Ruby Wax does play the character as more of one of those irritating late eighties/early nineties style VJs you used to get on MTV. I can imagine Graham Chapman playing it more straight (quiet at the back).

[Dave]

Speaking of Timeslides, Graham Chapman would have been much better than Ruby Wax.

Not that week, he wasn’t.

[Ben Saunders]

Wahey.

[Moonlight]

Do you think we’d have gotten to see his penis on Red Dwarf, too?

[Hamish]

With or without a rubber band?

[Plastic Percy]

I think we’ll be getting something between “bugger all” and “fuck all”.

[bloodteller]

fucker all?

[Author]

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