TiMEWAVE reviews including one from 'the gay uk'

[RamesesNiblickTheThird]

just saw this on the official RD site about reviews of the episodes

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2017/11/03/twelve-rated/

a couple of reviews from Timewave stood out……

“Infectious silliness – it would be a fool who has a bad word
to say about it” – radio times

“A fun high camp romp of an episode” – the gay uk

oooh matron!

Topic

[bloodteller]

were we watching the same episode as them?

[bloodteller]

maybe they all watched TimeSlides and thought it was Timewave, that’d explain it

[Spare Hand One]

To be honest (and I hated Timewave) I never saw that there was an anti-gay theme. Camp does not mean gay. And even so, the episode was more down on tackiness than true camp.

[Bexley Heath]

The reviewer for “The Gay UK” is a rabid and in my opinion not particularly discerning Red Dwarf fan. As I said in another thread, they have an “interesting” web presence.

(They’re also not a gay man, for the record.)

[Hamish]

“Remarkably, Timewave actually gained viewers, for a series-high so far of 723,000. This is the first time a mid-series episode of Red Dwarf has ever recorded higher figures than its series premiere”

*bangs head against the wall*

[Seb Patrick]

The reviewer for “The Gay UK” is a rabid and in my opinion not particularly discerning Red Dwarf fan. As I said in another thread, they have an “interesting” web presence.
(They’re also not a gay man, for the record.)

I think it’s a bit unfair to write off their opinions as “not particularly discerning”, to be honest. And as they’re an active member of fandom who (to my knowledge) hasn’t been a dick to anyone, it’s not really very nice to have a pop at them from afar like that.

(Also, not being a gay man surely doesn’t preclude you from writing for an LGBT-orientated website, does it?)

[Dave]

Also, not being a gay man surely doesn’t preclude you from writing for an LGBT-orientated website, does it?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that that’s the case.

When I saw the review quote I did assume that it was the opinion of a gay man, simply due to the name of the publication. I thought it was an interesting reaction given the nature of Timewave, especially when it comes to the perceived homophobia within the episode.

(I assumed the review was included in the compilation of review quotes partly for that reason, especially since the compilation covers four episodes and The Gay UK only has a review quoted for one of them.)

Finding out that the writer of the review is not a gay man certainly changes my understanding of and reaction to the review.

[Ben Saunders]

Exactly what Dave said, essentially.

[Ridley]

The whole review is a rather brisk read. Doesn’t even address why the episode is divisive which it uses as the headline.

[Ridley]

Not headline. Subheader?

[Seb Patrick]

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that that’s the case.
When I saw the review quote I did assume that it was the opinion of a gay man, simply due to the name of the publication. I thought it was an interesting reaction given the nature of Timewave, especially when it comes to the perceived homophobia within the episode.
(I assumed the review was included in the compilation of review quotes partly for that reason, especially since the compilation covers four episodes and The Gay UK only has a review quoted for one of them.)
Finding out that the writer of the review is not a gay man certainly changes my understanding of and reaction to the review.

As far as your reading of the review goes, fair enough, but I don’t see how that makes the review itself of less merit. After all, it’s not like the same is being said of other reviews (including on this very site) which aren’t written by gay men.

And your interpretation of why it was pull-quoted is wrong. It was pull-quoted because it’s a positive review from a site with a significant readership.

[Dave]

As far as your reading of the review goes, fair enough, but I don’t see how that makes the review itself of less merit.

I agree, I don’t think it makes it of less merit either.

And your interpretation of why it was pull-quoted is wrong. It was pull-quoted because it’s a positive review from a site with a significant readership.

Fair enough. Omitting their review of Mechocracy must just be an oversight then. It might be worth adding a quote from that review to the list, as it was even more positive, and it would lessen the impression that the Timewave quote was only added to address the perceived homophobia in the episode.

Here’s a link to the Mechocracy review:

TV REVIEW | Red Dwarf XII Episode 4: Mechocracy

There’s also a very positive review of Siliconia here:

https://www.thegayuk.com/tv-review-red-dwarf-xii-siliconia/amp/

And a really positive one of M-Corp if there’s a review round-up for the last couple of episodes:

https://www.thegayuk.com/tv-review-red-dwarf-xii-m-corp/amp/

[Ben Saunders]

Well Seb I think the idea is: One of the criticisms of Timewave is that it is potentially offensive to gay people because of the character of Ziggy, who can be perceived as a gay man, so having a gay man say “no it’s fine” can be interesting, while having anybody who isn’t a gay man say that is pretty irrelevant.

I don’t know if I really care, but I think that’s what Dave was getting at. Feel free to call me an arse if I’m wrong, Dave

[Dave]

You arse.

[Dave]

Joking aside, that’s pretty much what I was getting at. Given the controversy over Timewave and its gay/camp/”fruit” elements and the various ways they have been interpreted, having a gay person defend the episode carries connotations that aren’t the same as a review by a non-gay person.

To come back to Seb’s point though, I don’t think one is any less valid than the other, they’re just points of view that come from different perspectives. Which is more relevant for Timewave than it might be for other episodes.

[Seb Patrick]

Omitting their review of Mechocracy must just be an oversight then.

Their review was published on 2nd November. The roundup was published on 3rd November. Articles on TOS have to go through an approval process and so are written in advance of publication. So basically: their review wasn’t published when I was writing the roundup. Fun fact: Cappsy’s Mechocracy review missed the cut for the same reason.

Well Seb I think the idea is: One of the criticisms of Timewave is that it is potentially offensive to gay people because of the character of Ziggy, who can be perceived as a gay man, so having a gay man say “no it’s fine” can be interesting, while having anybody who isn’t a gay man say that is pretty irrelevant.

Fine. But Bexley Heath didn’t say that. Bexley Heath said:

The reviewer for “The Gay UK” is a rabid and in my opinion not particularly discerning Red Dwarf fan. As I said in another thread, they have an “interesting” web presence.
(They’re also not a gay man, for the record.)

So that’s (a) a write-off of the reviewer’s critical faculties, (b) a needless additional personal comment about them, and (c) a non-sequitur in the context of what was being said.

[Dave]

Their review was published on 2nd November. The roundup was published on 3rd November. Articles on TOS have to go through an approval process and so are written in advance of publication. So basically: their review wasn’t published when I was writing the roundup. Fun fact: Cappsy’s Mechocracy review missed the cut for the same reason.

The Gay UK published their Siliconia review on October 19th, but that wasn’t included either.

Like I say though, I’m happy to accept it as oversight or unintentional omission rather than an intentional singling-out of their Timewave review.

To be clear, I’m not trying to have a go at you Seb, or ascribe motives to you when you’ve explained that they aren’t true. I take you at your word that it wasn’t intentional in that way.

I’m just trying to explain how it might come across when you pick just one review quote from The Gay UK, and it’s about *that* episode.

[flanl3]

I will throw my hat in the ring and point out that I was both appalled by Bexley Health’s comments and felt like the gay UK review only being included for Timewave seemed a bit too close to just trying to excuse its homophobia. Please listen to me, I am right.

[Seb Patrick]

All I can say is that that review absolutely was not quoted to make the point you’re suggesting it was quoted to make.

The simple fact of the matter is that a lot more outlets covered Cured and Siliconia than covered Timewave, which is natural for any series as it goes on. When it came to Timewave, it therefore meant finding reviews from outlets that hadn’t been called on for the first two – you’ll note that Scified and MyM Buzz also don’t turn up in the first two blocks.

Once I’d got the reviews together for Timewave, it simply didn’t occur to me to go back and look at those same outlets’ reviews of Cured and Siliconia, because I didn’t need to – I already had enough quotes for the article. And as I’ve said, when it came to Mechocracy, most places hadn’t reviewed it by the time of writing because it hadn’t been on TV at that point and some places save their reviews until after Dave TX.

It’s as simple as that. No ulterior motive. No attempt to make a point.

[flanl3]

That is entirely fair and about what I supposed, but I hope you understand how I (and others) arrived at such a point.

[Dave]

Fair enough, and apologies for any perceived dickishness or being seen to be hassling you about it.

[Bexley Heath]

The reviewer for “The Gay UK” is a rabid and in my opinion not particularly discerning Red Dwarf fan. As I said in another thread, they have an “interesting” web presence.
(They’re also not a gay man, for the record.)

So that’s (a) a write-off of the reviewer’s critical faculties, (b) a needless additional personal comment about them, and (c) a non-sequitur in the context of what was being said.

I’m happy to retract (a) and (b); you’re right, those comments were unfair of me.

What I wanted to get across was: this isn’t a case of “The Gay UK’s TV critic thought Timewave was good”, it’s a case of “The Gay UK happens to have a Red Dwarf fan as a regular writer”. And said Red Dwarf fan generally comes across as getting immense enjoyment from pretty much any Red Dwarf episode simply because it is a Red Dwarf episode. Which, good for them! That’s great. (And makes for good publicity.) But generally one expects TV reviews to be a little less biased than that.

As for (c), Dave and Ben both correctly surmised why I made that comment. It was a sequitur in the context of the thread title, which implied that there was something particularly relevant about this episode being reviewed in a gay magazine.

[Seb Patrick]

Good-oh. And yes, for my part I appreciate now why the singular context of that review may have looked odd. It’s just honestly not something that would have occurred to me before, as the wider nature of the outlet didn’t even really seem notable to me in the context of reviewing Dwarf (although yes, I was aware that Dannii was the reviewer and that she’s a fan of the show generally).

Are we all being reasonable and coming to an agreement, then? That’s weird. Where’s Better Dead Than Smeg when you need him?

[Hamish]

> What I wanted to get across was: this isn’t a case of “The Gay UK’s TV critic thought Timewave was good”, it’s a case of “The Gay UK happens to have a Red Dwarf fan as a regular writer” … But generally one expects TV reviews to be a little less biased than that.

Wait, doesn’t Ganymede & Titan also have long time Red Dwarf fans reviewing episodes? SHOCK! HORROR!

I demand to see the results of full and thorough inquest into the matter immediately.

> Are we all being reasonable and coming to an agreement, then? That’s weird. Where’s Better Dead Than Smeg when you need him?

Will that do?

[Dave]

Are we all being reasonable and coming to an agreement, then? That’s weird.

I think the Internet only gets one of these a year, so let’s enjoy it.

[Ben Saunders]

Yes Hamish but it’s mostly Red Dwarf “fans” who appear to hate everything from VI onwards (;

Only a vaguely related point, but being more negative about things doesn’t mean you’re more discerning than somebody who is positive necessarily, and I think it’s toxic to think that way

[Author]

Replies