The Gallifrey Gals’ own thread

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Made it.

Topic

[Dave]

Wait, so if that’s what erstwhile means, isn’t Rimmer jumping the gun a bit by assuming she’s already dead when the whole point of the exercise was to check if it’s Babs or the Sim? I mean, he was right, but still…

Yeah, I always thought it was a bit weirdly worded for that reason.

[Jenuall]

Maybe he’s just suggesting she got married or otherwise changed her name

[Dave]

Or that being in the stasis pod means she isn’t technically existing at that point? Maybe?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Okay that’s just reaching, even for us.

[Moonlight]

VII is just batshit

I can just about accept the weird scale of Starbug in most of VII, but that fucking wind tunnel is just absolutely ludicrous. Not only is it enormously too big even for a double-sized Starbug, even if that location was supposed to be on Red Dwarf I’d still be thinking “That’s a wind tunnel. Why are they in a wind tunnel?”

I have no trouble accepting the industrial locations they go to across the show as spaceship interiors but the wind tunnel is just a wind tunnel. There’s nothing else it could be.

[Hamish]

“Former” or “Erstwhile” need not mean dead or no longer a thing, just the previous item in a list. In this case, the list of possible candidates in the pod includes Barbara Bellini and the Simulant. “Former” as opposed to “Latter”.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Ah, so he’s saying “the aforementioned Ms. Bellini” but being incredibly pretentious about it? Okay, I’m with you now, I get that.

[Podey]

[tombow]

I think I’m appreciating Chris Barrie’s physical comedy more after seeing the GGs mention it. I was a teen when S8 first aired, and I hated anything silly or kids show-ish (not that Rimmer having all that sex is kid’s show ish, but his wiggling body was kind of CBBC-like humour to me.) Whereas now I see an attempt to show off Chris’ skills in a way that RD hadn’t done as much of before.

[Jenuall]

He’s always been an expert physical performer, even if the context of most of it in VIII is awful you can’t fault the man for his delivery.

They did a good job taking advantage of his physical skills in the first couple of series as well – his hologrammatic acting for things like shaving, brushing his teeth, necrobics, imitating the other crew members etc.

[tombow]

yeah, I suppose so, it’s just that full on Mr Bean/Clouseau type wackiness, I didn’t have much appreciation for that at the time. I was thinking …what if Rimmer had been given a real life reason to be sexy, like he’d done something heroic by accident and been made a celebrity officer, and that was why everyone wanted him. 

[Podey]

This went about as expected, though they’re enjoying the jokes more than I’d have guessed.

[Podey]

Very interesting discussion at the end, though.

[Rudolph]

This also reminded me how blatantly Kochanski is dropped as a protagonist in BitR Part 1. Lister, Cat and Kryten all get followed to at least one scene after they get apprehended and split up, but Kochanski just disappears.

I’m fairly certain, outside of the scene where Kryten lists the nanobots benefits, Kochanski being from another dimension is never mentioned again.

[Warbodog]

I’m fairly certain, outside of the scene where Kryten lists the nanobots benefits, Kochanski being from another dimension is never mentioned again.

Does she even have any more moments as the Clever One after her navigation instructions in episode 1, or is it just jokes about sex, perving, boob jobs and periods?

[Ridley]

Bubbleheaded secretary to Professor Cat.

[tombow]

someone in the comments said they also don’t like “Thanks for the Memory”… and something just occurred to me for the first time. Is that also creepy? Seeing as Lister gives Rimmer explicit memories of Lise without Lise’s consent?

[Podey]

I guess you could make the argument that it’s no different to secretly filming someone you’re having sex with and showing the tape around, from the perspective of the victim anyway, though the actually story is more nuanced than that.

[Ben Saunders]

It was three million years ago, and Rimmer isn’t real

[Warbodog]

There’s generally a time limit with people’s privacy being respected after death, when they eventually become historical figures and fair game. Lister views Kochanski’s dream recorder and looks through the crew’s diaries, lockers and everything. Perspective on this could change when they start being able to time travel routinely.

[Ridley]

They’re Lister’s memories, no-one has been filmed.

If anything, the dystopian consent element is hacking Rimmer’s brain.

[Dave]

This went about as expected, though they’re enjoying the jokes more than I’d have guessed.

Yeah I thought it was very even-handed, probably a little bit fairer to the episode than it deserves. On a first watch, the gags at the start probably do seem a little funnier and more innocent when you don’t know what’s to come later, it’s all the shower stuff that really taints the whole episode with unpleasantness. 

[Flap Jack]

I mean if memories can be easily copied into computers, shown on screen as video, and put into other people’s brains, then that makes looking at someone effectively the same as filming them, doesn’t it? Or much worse.

Fair to say the ethical breach occurs when you choose to extract the memories though, not just because you looked at and spoke to someone without warning them that memory extraction technology might one day become available to you.

Privacy is only part of the issue as well. The way Lister so easily edits his memories, combined with memories not being reliable anyway, creates a libel/defamation minefield. Current deep fake tech seems quaint by comparison.

And that’s without the complication of people also making digital copies of their dreams (seemingly automatically, in the case of the Dwarfers) and mixing dreams in with memories.

[Ridley]

I mean if memories can be easily copied into computers, shown on screen as video, and put into other people’s brains, then that makes looking at someone effectively the same as filming them, doesn’t it? Or much worse.

Well, no, because your mind’s eye isn’t the same as a camera.

[Ian Symes]

I’ve got a photographic memory, except mine is an amateur photographic memory. All of my memories are blurred and out of focus, cut off at the neck, a lot of them sort of glamour and swimwear stuff. I can’t actually remember anything about my life between the ages of nine and eleven, because I left the lens cap on my face. 

[Podey]

Well, no, because your mind’s eye isn’t the same as a camera.

It is for the analogous purposes of what’s being discussed, given that you can’t *actually* give someone your memories. It’s a “recording” of a private experience that the other didn’t consent to being shared, 

[Flap Jack]

Well, no, because your mind’s eye isn’t the same as a camera.

That’s why I said “effectively”. It’s different, but it’s the same in the ways that matter for this. You’re still making a record of your experiences.

Would secretly filming someone with a camera become ethical if only certain stretches of footage are saved and some parts are edited in ways you’re not aware of?

Fundamentally, if someone tells you something in confidence, it’s typically regarded as unethical if you share that information with others without their permission. So it stands to reason that sharing your literal memory of the conversation would be unethical for the exact same reason.

Of course in TftM it’s a moot point because the person in question has been dead for millions of years, but the technology still has the ethically dubious potential.

[Warbodog]

Well, no, because your mind’s eye isn’t the same as a camera.

Haven’t you heard about that time the government connected a psychic’s brain to a computer and recorded his astral projections, then he died while using it and they recorded footage of Heaven that was seized by the Vatican?

[Flap Jack]

All these quandaries will be sorted out when Bobby’s ‘The Ghost Camera’ comes out, I’m sure of it.

[Ian Symes]

Just watched the Gals. They’re right that attitudes have changed a lot in the quarter of a century since this episode aired. Thankfully there’s nothing insensitive or offensive in any of the recent series.

[Dave]

I think the nice thing about their videos, and part of what makes them quite refreshing and charming, is that they clearly aren’t actively trying to catch out anything potentially problematic, and are attempting to go with the joke whenever possible. To the extent that their tolerance for some aspects of VIII is higher than mine is.

I wonder what they’ll make of some of the more contentious stuff that’s yet to come in the Dave era – my guess is that they probably won’t take it quite as seriously as we sometimes tend to, but I still think stuff like Taiwan Tony and Timewave* might register as “a bit dodgy”.

(*Taiwan Tony and Timewave sounds like a band name) 

[tombow]

I guess by series 8, it’s a world where multiple stasis booths, holograms, time travel and nanobots exist. But in series  2, they were more established as being alone in a lost, far future where the people they knew were a distant memory. So Lise is basically an ancient historical figure at that point.

[Jenuall]

[Rudolph]

Does she even have any more moments as the Clever One after her navigation instructions in episode 1, or is it just jokes about sex, perving, boob jobs and periods?

I don’t think she does, aside from playing the mum of the group, exasperated by the boys behaviour.

The final scene of the ‘real’ Kochanski is, I believe, her bonking her head on the mirror when trying to follow Rimmer into the mirror universe.

[Podey]

Technically her final “scene” would be Kryten’s revelation of her “breaking up” with Lister and doing a runner in BtE, I think, albeit off-screen. 

This is partly why I hope they do return to her story, kind of sad to think her out there on a ship all by herself…! Maybe she’ll have gone bonkers when they find her.

[Flap Jack]

Technically her final “scene” would be Kryten’s revelation of her “breaking up” with Lister and doing a runner in BtE, I think, albeit off-screen.

Even accounting for the quotes, I really don’t think off-screen events count as scenes.

Where her story was left is another discussion, but Only the Good… remains her last impact on the show as a present person and not just an idea or a memory.

[Podey]

Technically her final “scene” would be Kryten’s revelation of her “breaking up” with Lister and doing a runner in BtE, I think, albeit off-screen.
Even accounting for the quotes, I really don’t think off-screen events count as scenes.
Where her story was left is another discussion, but Only the Good… remains her last impact on the show as a present person and not just an idea or a memory.

Yeah that was a bonkers thing to say tbf.

[Dave]

I think you can definitely argue that BtE3 is the last Kochanski appearance, even if it’s a fantasy version.

After all, ever since Grogan’s last appearance we’ve had an alternate universe Kochanski that isn’t the “real” version either, so maybe Psirens is actually Kochanski’s last “real” appearance.

Or given that Psirens isn’t really Kochanski either, maybe it’s actually Stasis Leak.

[Nick R]

Depending on what you think happened between VIII and BTE, you might say that the real Rimmer’s final true appearance was in Stoke Me a Clipper.

But wait! If you don’t count hologram computer simulations of the characters as the real characters, the real Rimmer’s final true appearance was in Timeslides.

But wait! If you don’t count timeline-altered versions of the characters as the real characters, the real Rimmer’s final true appearance was in The End.

Also the real Kryten hasn’t really appeared since “Kryten”.

[Dave]

But wait! If you don’t count hologram computer simulations of the characters as the real characters, the real Rimmer’s final true appearance was in Timeslides.

But wait! If you don’t count timeline-altered versions of the characters as the real characters, the real Rimmer’s final true appearance was in The End.

The flashback in Blue, surely.

[Warbodog]

The flashback in Blue, surely.

Isn’t that all holograms? OG Rimmer might be human again in Terrorform.

[Warbodog]

Hang on, the flashback in The Beginning.

[Dave]

Isn’t that all holograms? 

Oh yeah, I was confusing it with the pre-accident flashback in Ouroboros. 

[Flap Jack]

Ouroboros is still later than Stoke, so the spirit of your reply was valid.

But whether Kochanski’s played by Grogan or Annett, that’s still meant to be the same character, while the Psirens and Back to Earth appearances specifically are not.

[Flap Jack]

OK, reading that back, I realise how weird it sounded to say that they’re playing the same character when those characters are from different universes to each other. The show does treat them that way a lot of the time though.

I guess the last thing New Kochanski did was walk into a mirror, and the last thing Old Kochanski did was either direct Lister to the Captain’s office, or walk into Lister and Rimmer’s quarters on future Lister’s arm while wearing a big hat (depending on whether you’re going from Kochanski’s perspective or the audience’s).

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Just out of curiosity, which are we counting as Hollister’s last appearance?

[Ian Symes]

The cameo in Red Dwarf Titan.

[clem]

Ouroboros is still later than Stoke, so the spirit of your reply was valid.

The flashback in Ouroboros is in Kochanski’s universe though, so that’s not the real original Rimmer either. 

[Moonlight]

[clem]

The flashback in Ouroboros is in Kochanski’s universe though, so that’s not the real original Rimmer either. 

Actually I suppose it could be him, since we don’t know exactly when the two realities diverged. Is it when Frankenstein miaows? 

[Author]

Replies