The Gallifrey Gals’ own thread

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Made it.

Topic

[clem]

XI is pretty consistent for me in terms of enjoyment (I like Can of Worms more than most people). I think it probably is objectively the best Dave series overall, and also my favourite on balance, but there’s not much in it. I’m not sure how I’ve gotten this impression but X feels like it’s more popular with the normies.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think XInis consistently better with better premises for episode. Not a big fan of Can of Worms but that’s the only real let down 

XII is fine, Cured is my favourite episode (of Dave era, possibly all Dwarf) but it relies to heavily on whacky ideas. Siliconia is kinda of a fan fic, Mechocracy I could see happening in VIII. And then it leans on call backs. Granted in the best episodes but it does feel a little like Doug was running out of steam, even when the writing was otherwise great. 

[Dave]

And then it leans on call backs.

This is what takes away from XII more than anything else for me (well OK, apart from… you know). The callbacks and nostalgia references become so relentless in the back half that it detracts from the good stuff that is in there, in episodes like M-Corp (which would have been better without that final coda) or Skipper, where the genuinely great first half gives way to a second half that leans just a little too much on cosiness and familiarity.

[sleepey]

IMO if you swap Officer Rimmer for Cured, XI is a top-tier series on par with the classics & XII is a complete skip.

Not that XII has zero good ideas or jokes of course, but every episode devolves into nostalgia bait and/or cynicism by the end, & it all just feels like Doug’s on the verge of succumbing to Ageing British Comedy Writer’s Syndrome, banging on about political correctness, activists, unions, & so on.

[RunawayTrain]

I’m not sure how I’ve gotten this impression but X feels like it’s more popular with the normies.

I think I prefer it on balance, probably because it feels *to me* (and I’ve said this a lot before, sorry) like a more desolate universe than the other series and thus more like the early BBC series.  Objectively it may not be, but I can’t get past the feeling of it.

That said, I do prefer XI over XII.  Samsara is an odd one in that the cast never meet the other characters in the episode, so it’s very strange as an audience member knowing something more fully than the Dwarf crew will, but despite that feeling odd I do really quite like the episode.  The scene with Lister and Cat trapped discussing ‘eureka!’ is so silly but never fails to make me laugh.

Weirdly, in my memory XI feels tonally closer to X than XII, but it has been a while since I last watched them.

[Technopeasant]

For all its obvious flaws and tribulations X still has a homey feeling that elevates it over XI and XII in my eyes. I’d probally place XI next up though, as the back half of XII is frankly a touch overrated (especially M-Corp). It frankly needs repeating how miraculous it was that Krysis was actually good with THAT premise, even if Can of Worms kinda does the reverse.

[Ben Saunders]

As one of the cast said on the documentary, X feels like foreplay for XI + XII. It’s a little thin on paper, a little safe, a little sitcommy. The loneliness/emptiness feeling to me is just a noticeable lack of money. Pig racing, teleshopping, stirmasters, on-hold gags, IKEA flatpack time machines, meeting Jesus, Taiwan Tony, all very silly stuff. Even without the racism the Taiwan Tony stuff is naff. The performances are loud and unsubtle.

As soon as XI kicks in you get that same feeling you get going from I to II and II to III, like oh damn they’re really hitting the ground running now.

The Beginning feels like a real kick up the arse in terms of confidence and style and obviously the model shots.

I don’t dislike X and it feels mean to be too hard on it after watching We’re Smegged, but I do think XI stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Dave era. XII is still full of great stuff but definitely feels like they’re being spread a little too thin over 12 episodes, it has all those callbacks, it has Timewave and that same fucking mid-episode music sting playing at the beginning of every damn story.

Despite all the complaining I still enjoy most of it and wouldn’t wish to live in a world where it never happened, it sounds like I’m being hugely negative but I know if I watch the episodes again I’ll be laughing, except maybe during the Formica scene.

[Formica]

except maybe during the Formica scene.

I’ll be the first to admit my brief foray into porno was a mistake but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in

[Technopeasant]

Was that what he was rubbing?

[Flap Jack]

IMO if you swap Officer Rimmer for Cured, XI is a top-tier series on par with the classics & XII is a complete skip.

So not only is Officer Rimmer worse than Cured in your estimation, but Officer Rimmer is the episode which is dragging Series XI down???

[International Debris]

The back half of XII is my favourite Dave stuff, but the front half is my least favourite, which makes it a very difficult series to judge. I suppose the back referencing does drag it down a tiny bit, although I actually find Skipper the least bad on that front; without the reverse ‘everybody’s dead’ gag, the second half is all original enough not to really feel like fanwank to me. Talkie and the M-Corp coda do feel a little unnecessary, though. 

Overall, XI is definitely the most consistent Dave series. 

[Dave]

without the reverse ‘everybody’s dead’ gag, the second half is all original enough not to really feel like fanwank to me.

[Ridley]

I love how much they loved XI. While I remain lukewarm at best on Samsara and Can of Worms, their reaction has made me realise I was under-rating the series a little. The low points are tolerable compared to X and XII’s worst moments, while the rest is pretty damn solid.
I predict that Cured and Siliconia will get a similarly positive reaction from the Gals, and then…

At this stage, I imagine they’ll be diplomatic about what Timewave is trying to do since Taiwan Tony came and went without comment (to the best of my recollection).

[Formica]

At this stage, I imagine they’ll be diplomatic about what Timewave is trying to do since Taiwan Tony came and went without comment (to the best of my recollection).

I do wonder if comments have primed them enough to not feel bad about disliking it. It is all-around an inexcusable episode.

I’m more expecting the episode to be followed by one of their lectures-to-camera, which can be one of my least favorite elements of their reactions. They are almost always correct, it’s just I find the style to be

[sleepey]

So not only is Officer Rimmer worse than Cured in your estimation, but Officer Rimmer is the episode which is dragging Series XI down???

Yeah a lot of XI episodes (& Cured) have a rubbish-sounding premise that actually manages to work despite itself. Like oh, another Justice/Polymorph/Hitler episode? Kryten having a sitcom dad midlife crisis? But they swerve away from the obvious & make something fresh out of it. Butler, formica, the female cat, the 9-way mexican standoff, “it’s because I’m Hitler isn’t it “.

Officer Rimmer is basically the opposite, starting really strong & creative with Herring & the body printer stuff, before turning into “oh, another Rimmer going mad with power and/or cloning himself episode”. You know what the punchline to every joke is going to be for like 15 minutes until the monster shows up, there’s a strained callback to “I’ve always got a pen”, & then they shoot the credits at it. It’s series XII through and through!

[Flap Jack]

OK, well I respect your opinion, no matter how wrong it is.

[Formica]

I totally get the perspective. Red Dwarf getting stuck on one concept isn’t usually a good formula for adventure episodes. Officer Rimmer also made the massive error of pretty much spilling its whole plot in its original synopsis, so there was never as much of a sense of discovering something unfolding in front of you on the first watch. That said, I think it’s overall got very tight jokewriting, which holds it together against a lot of other episodes.

Always good to have fresh opinions around here regardless. Keeps us from getting too stuck in consensus.

[Dave]

Always good to have fresh opinions around here regardless. Keeps us from getting too stuck in consensus.

I disagree

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Always good to have fresh opinions around here regardless. Keeps us from getting too stuck in consensus.

[Ben Saunders]

Always good to have fresh opinions around here regardless. Keeps us from getting too stuck in consensus.

[sleepey]

Me when I’m conditionally tolerated

[International Debris]

Can people stop pretending Cured is a particularly good episode? It’s utter gobbledegook with a ‘turns out the disabled person is pretending’ twist, it can go away.

[Dave]

‘turns out the disabled person is pretending’ twist

Maybe one for the “exactly two episodes” thread.

[Flap Jack]

Ah-hem.

[Dave]

Very tempted to go and write “Bodyswap and Epideme” in that thread now.

[Rudolph]

‘turns out the disabled person is pretending’ twist
Maybe one for the “exactly two episodes” thread.

Lister pulled the same trick a week later.

[International Debris]

“How do they keep doing it? Because there was certainly a time in the middle there, where they were not doing it.”

The shadow of VIII hangs over even the most enthusiastic fans. But they loved Cured.

[tombow]

strange seeing all those scenes knowing that Doug is an amputee 

[Technopeasant]

Just imagine if he was Taiwanese.

[Ridley]

Christmas Timewave?

[International Debris]

Nah that’s next week. The festive episode will be Mechocracy. 

[Technopeasant]

Probably would have been better for early November…

[tombow]

I was just thinking about the iconic “Kryten’s funny faces” opening to Mechocracy. I saw someone once on another message board saying how the opening was “the audience in hysterics with Kryten just sitting there doing nothing” and that this was a horrible example of how fan-servicey and lazy RD and the audience had become. But I found that scene really funny and still do. The Gals enjoyed it too and said “the whole episode could be this”.

[International Debris]

They enjoyed Talkie a lot, which was fun to see – it can be nice watching people who are far less cynical and jaded than I am.

[Warbodog]

Seeing that they had Steven Universe reactions on their channel was one of the things that persuaded me to try out that show recently for some hopefully high-quality family screen time, since there must be something to it. The kid didn’t care for it, so I’m just watching it by myself every day. It’s so good.

[Unrumble]

EDIT: wrong thread 

[Ian Symes]

I was just thinking about the iconic “Kryten’s funny faces” opening to Mechocracy. I saw someone once on another message board saying how the opening was “the audience in hysterics with Kryten just sitting there doing nothing” and that this was a horrible example of how fan-servicey and lazy RD and the audience had become. But I found that scene really funny and still do. The Gals enjoyed it too and said “the whole episode could be this”.

Without wanting to sound like a snob, if they think that Robert is just sat there doing nothing then they don’t really understand comedy. Every tiny movement is deliberately crafted.

[Dave]

Yeah, there are so many little beats and micro-reactions to that opening scene, while appearing to be doing very little. I think it’s really brilliant and one of Robert’s best moments.

It’s reminiscent of the Norman Lovett standup routine that was mentioned in one of the old RD books (it may even have been Robert’s own book) where he walks on stage and says nothing to the audience but reacts to their reactions, and gets huge laughs from it.

[Ben Saunders]

Ony my last rewatch I realised just how good Robert is in the Dave era, obviously he’s always been one of the top performers in the show with lots of little moments that elevate him, so it’s nice to realise he’s still got it. Craig turning into a mechanoid over the course of Siliconia is very good, also.

[clem]

It’s reminiscent of the Norman Lovett standup routine that was mentioned in one of the old RD books (it may even have been Robert’s own book) where he walks on stage and says nothing to the audience but reacts to their reactions, and gets huge laughs from it.

Yeah that story is in The Man in the Rubber Mask. 

See also the Beat the Geek menu screen:

[Moonlight]

Is Beat the Geek Series 9?

[Dave]

Series IX:

1. Beat The Geek

2. Dad

3. Identity Within

4. Bodysnatcher

5. The End: The Original Assembly

6. Red Christmas

[Ridley]

What exactly is the fan service in Kryten doing nothing supposed to be? A DNA reference?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

What exactly is the fan service in Kryten doing nothing supposed to be? A DNA reference?

There isn’t any. It’s just throwing out negative buzzwords to say something is shit when you don’t actually have anything to base it on 

[Moonlight]

This is how I felt when people on the official forum like 15 years ago would describe Series VIII bunkroom scenes as feeling “like a parody” of earlier bunkroom scenes even though that doesn’t feel like it accurately describes those scenes or any of the reasons they aren’t as good as the classic ones.

Anyway I got chewed out for supposedly policing people’s language when I pointed this out.

[Ben Saunders]

Kryten doing nothing is hardly fanservice. This is fanservice:

[Moonlight]

Surprised that, of the two of them, it was Doug who wrote a character getting their nipples clamped to a car battery.

[Ben Saunders]

Doug got pretty gory after Rob left, which they mention on the commentaries – cannibalism, amputation, harpoon through the leg, being eaten by a dinosaur, hari-kari, etc

[Warbodog]

Last Human has its fair share of gory, violent and mean-spirited moments too. I guess Rob just gets more weirdly/horrifically specific and with more total immersion, e.g. the cocktail umbrella from Backwards.

[Flap Jack]

I’d like to live in the world where Kryten doing nothing genuinely is fan service, basically no different to bringing back Holly or Talkie Toaster and having them repeat a classic line. I want to hear Robert complaining about how fans won’t stop making him do nothing at conventions. I want to turn on “Britain’s Top 69 Side-Splitting Sitcom Scenes” on Channel 5 and see Martin Kemp waxing lyrical about what an iconic moment in comedy history it was when Kryten did nothing for an entire scene in White Hole. I want studio recordings of new episodes to be a nightmare because the audience keep booing and jeering whenever Kryten says anything or gets up. I want to see Kryten doing nothing rendered as a mobisode animation. I want to see a 360p upload to the official BBC Comedy YouTube channel of Kryten doing nothing, and for the comments to be split between people saying things like “like if you’re still watching Red Dwarf in 2021!” and people saying how the BBC could never have a comedy character do nothing nowadays, because of woke.

[Author]

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