Home Forums Ganymede & Titan Forum The Lonely, Desolate Magic of Red Dwarf

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  • #298843
    Spare Hand One
    Participant
    #298844
    Dave
    Participant

    I enjoyed that. Especially the parts dealing with the show’s absurdist attitude to existence (and shades of Waiting for Godot) and the significance of class in the success of its casting and characterisation.

    Also, I’ve never fallen asleep to the TV show proper, but I definitely remember doing so during some of the animated episode recreations on the DVDs, like Bodysnatcher.

    #298855
    Warbodog
    Participant

    I find the series 1 & 2 / book 1 emptiness comfy too. If I didn’t have a family, I’d be fine living there (less so the increasingly hostile 3-6 eras), but then, I am massively introverted.

    The “magic” part is probably more down to childhood nostalgia than the video admits, since it grabbed most of us early and that sort of magic fades proportional to age (glad to know if I’m just speaking for myself there).

    #298861
    Spare Hand One
    Participant

    The “magic” part is probably more down to childhood nostalgia than the video admits

    I do wonder about that sometimes. It’s very hard for me to separate my nostalgic feelings for Red Dwarf 1-VI (especially 1-II) from anything like genuine appraisal. Whenever I come back to it though, I’m flabbergasted by how good it is. Doing a bit of a deep dive at the moment as it happens.

    In some of the ‘making of’ documentaries on the DVDs, there’s a bit of disrespect from Rob, Doug and the cast for 1-II. the diss the sets, costumes, even the scripts. And lest we forget Grant Naylor initially tried to burry Series 1 (and succeeded in burring The End for a long time). I’ll never understand it. They are almost certainly my faves. Series 1-II and the first two novels are my Red Dwarf really. I’m all about that “lonely, desolate magic” it seems.

    Part of my current deep dive, incidentally, involves listening and re-listening to the Dwarfcast Book Club and Smegazine Rack episodes – thanks Ian, Danny and Capps if any one of you is reading this!

    #298862
    Unrumble
    Participant

     thanks Ian, Danny and Capps if any one of you is reading this!

    #298873
    RunawayTrain
    Participant

    I don’t have any nostalgia around watching it as a kid or even a teen because I didn’t.  I also haven’t watched the video, so I could be way off here or I could be repeating a main point, I don’t know – but I think at least part of it is it evokes a nostalgia for a simpler, less hectic life, particularly before social media was such a major part of so many people’s lives* and carrying the world in our pockets, expected to be ‘always on’.  Similar to how period dramas tend to do it (but in a slightly different way, obviously).  They don’t have so many of the societal pressures that we have in modern reality. 

    Plus adventure of the week in the Red Dwarf universe is offset by periods of downtime and being able to do what they choose, alongside resting; they don’t have to choose between the two like so many have to in reality.  

    *I have nothing against social media per se, in fact people form vital communities on some platforms and it can be used for so much good, but we all know the flip side of that, how it can be used for ill and how uninvitedly pervasive it can be.

    #298879
    Warbodog
    Participant

    adventure of the week in the Red Dwarf universe is offset by periods of downtime and being able to do what they choose, alongside resting; they don’t have to choose between the two like so many have to in reality.

    Yeah, they don’t have to worry about work (outside of elaborate computer pranks).

    it evokes a nostalgia for a simpler, less hectic life, particularly before social media was such a major part of so many people’s lives

    That too. I despair at the current My Little Pony cartoons and comics having the magical horses stressing about their social media validation.

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