Unanswered Questions

[Warbodog]

That was when the logo switched to serif and the opening montages went more dramatic and less humorous (maybe limited to V’s). I think they were trying to look sophisticated. This was no longer a primary concern by series VIII.

[Flap Jack]

OK, I would like a word with whoever told them that a 4:3 image cropped to widescreen looks sophisticated. Perhaps it was the same person who told them to do all the bad changes in Remastered.

[Jenuall]

It’s whoever decided that they should add two different shades of red to the top and bottom of Series V that needs to be shot in my opinion, at least VI made them the same colour so it was like playing a crappy PAL conversion of an NTSC game back in the day

[Flap Jack]

Series VII might be the weirdest, because the bars are narrower, so I don’t think the clips are even properly widescreen. Choose one or the other, come on, folks.

[Dave]

Why does Lister’s shami kebab in Polymorph look like a seekh kebab instead?

[Warbodog]

Who is in the queue ahead of Rimmer at the printer shop that he has to wait days for his car stickers?

[clem]

Why does Lister’s shami kebab in Polymorph look like a seekh kebab instead?

It wouldn’t wriggle on the plate or attach itself to Lister’s neck as effectively if it wasn’t sausage-shaped, but yes it seems Rob and Doug gave it the wrong name by mistake.

[Ian Symes]

That’s a misheard line, it’s actually a chamois kebab. Petersen used to use them to clean his car.

[Dave]

It’s actually a shimmy kebab, it was made during the filming of Tongue Tied.

[Flap Jack]

Why exactly does Red Dwarf have a holo whip?

[GlenTokyo]

Why exactly does Red Dwarf have a holo whip?

Nothing makes sense.

Except maybe a really bad taste holgrammatic Ancient Egypt theme park planet.

[Dave]

McIntyre was into BDSM. I think Rob is planning to explore this in detail in the next novel.

[Flap Jack]

“I don’t want you to think of me as someone who’s dead, more as someone who’s no longer a threat to your marriages!

Unless your spouse is a dom.”

[Dave]

Anyway, I don’t think Red Dwarf really has a holowhip, I think Lister just made that up to scare Binks.

I think it’s only the ‘low’ Red Dwarf that has one, because of course it does.

[Flap Jack]

I do like that Binks is scared enough of Lister to GTFO immediately, even though he knows that he does not have a holo-whip on his person.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think it’s only the ‘low’ Red Dwarf that has one, because of course it does.

And works in the reverse … i.e. Lister implies the holowhip whips holograms.  The holowhip in D&A is used by a hologram to whip a human.

It’s actually then, unknowingly, the first instance of hardlight in the show

[Dave]

Is it definitely hardlight? Is Lister being hit by the hologram part or something else?

I wonder if the holowhip is just a small actual whip that has tech built in to project a thin hologram of a whip around the whip part. That way a person could hold the whip handle and still whip the hologram with the hologrammatic whip part.

The other way round – with a hologram that would hold it and whip a human, like Low Rimmer does – is more complicated though, because a holo-handle couldn’t move a real whip. You’d essentially have to have some kind of hovering robot whip that would move according to the command made by the hologram.

Maybe I’m at risk of overthinking this.

[Warbodog]

Hologram technology is a scam. Red Dwarf’s “holograms” are just traditional ghosts who believed enough in the pseudoscience to return. “Hard light” is poltergeists that can do telekinesis.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Holowhip in the Holoship sense could just be a holoprojector and a light whip that could harm holograms, that’s not the issue.

It’s the other way around that it becomes a problem, how is Low Rimmer able to hold something that can affect the physical world and hurt Lister.

If that technology exists, why hasn’t someone made holo-gloves to give holograms the ability to touch, pick up, move things?

[Jenuall]

Because we all know the sort of things that Rimmer likes to touch

[Flap Jack]

I’m on board with the “hovering robot” explanation for the reverse holo-whip. It’s essentially just another light bee combined with a skutter holding a whip. Plausible enough.

If that technology exists, why hasn’t someone made holo-gloves to give holograms the ability to touch, pick up, move things?

Probably because it would never be easier or cheaper than just providing a hologram with a robot they could instruct to do those tasks for them. There’s likely not enough justification for the whip either, outside of the context of the Low ship.

[GlenTokyo]

Holowhip in the Holoship sense could just be a holoprojector and a light whip that could harm holograms, that’s not the issue.

It’s the other way around that it becomes a problem, how is Low Rimmer able to hold something that can affect the physical world and hurt Lister.
If that technology exists, why hasn’t someone made holo-gloves to give holograms the ability to touch, pick up, move things?

Did Rimmer’s hologram airfix kit area contain a real physical airfix model in that deleted scene? If so, then they have that technology, but only in a very small area.

It has to be hard light though anyway, it’d have to be to interface between the real world and a hologram.

Maybe that’s why they cut that scene, too many questions

[Pete Part Three]

Why exactly does Red Dwarf have a holo whip?

They had massive holo-slaves. Massive holo-slaves.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Aren’t all holograms essentially slaves anyway?  Presumably, as a part of your contract with the company, you sign over the right from them to turn you on as a hologram and use you for work if you die.  You have very little freedom.  You can’t leave the ship really, if you wanted to resign they’d tell you to fuck off and get back to work.  Actual resignation would just being turned off.  Once the mission is over, they’d turn you off.

[Dave]

I always found the extended comments on holograms in the novels interesting for this reason.

Previously I had assumed the same, that essentially your existence is pretty much at the whim of the company.

But the novels suggest more of an independent existence outside of that too, with groups of holograms putting together protest rallies to claim rights for the dead etc.

[GlenTokyo]

I always found the extended comments on holograms in the novels interesting for this reason.

Previously I had assumed the same, that essentially your existence is pretty much at the whim of the company.
But the novels suggest more of an independent existence outside of that too, with groups of holograms putting together protest rallies to claim rights for the dead etc.

You can probably pay Sunlife an extra 10 quid a month for a lightbee in the event of your death.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Well I imagine how your hologramatic status comes about right?  McIntyre is a essentially a tool of JMC, one they are paying a hefty cost to power, because he is vital to the ships mission.

Perhaps once they’re done with him he would have the option of transfering his existence to some sort of private holo generator that everyone has the option of.

So, you could choose to be revived as a hologram post death in your will if you want, and have that freedom. But if your employer chooses it for you, you’re indebted to them for the period of time they need you un-dead.

[Flap Jack]

By the way the novels describe it, I’d say holograms have limited guaranteed rights – i.e. a hologrammatic person still has some human rights such as right to personal property, and it wouldn’t be legal to steal from or deliberately ‘kill’ a hologram that isn’t under your control, but those crimes aren’t necessarily considered to be on the same level as murdering or stealing from a living person.

And the constant caveat would be that whoever’s footing the bill for your hologram would essentially be in charge of your afterlife, and be allowed to shut you down if they chose. I’m imagining there’d be legal protections which compel hologram companies to continue supporting their holograms even if they go bust, but these would be consumer rights, not human rights.

So in short, if you’re rich then you’re mostly free. If you’re not rich then you’re essentially a slave of your employer.

I also assume that hologram workers have pay parity with living workers, not for their own benefit but to prevent holograms from ‘taking’ all of the non-manual jobs from living people.

[Flap Jack]

Do the non-cat parallel universe versions of The Cat also have no real name, or are they just credited/subtitled this way? It would make sense for them to have more normal given names, if Cat simply being called “Cat” is meant to be an extension of his feline vanity.

Kryten does call the Rat “Mr. Rat” but perhaps that’s just an unofficial surname and his first name is Roland.

Complementary question: why do the heretic cats in The Promised Land have proper names?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Cat’s name sort of is and isn’t his name isn’t it.  They call him Cat, but also there are times when he is called The Cat.  Does Kryten ever call him Mr Cat at all? I can’t quite recall.

It would be quite the coincidence if all other versions of “evolved pet life form” were all just called ‘Dog’ and ‘Rat’ etc and they hadn’t given them a name at all over the years.

Complementary to the complementary question … Cat ought to have a feline name given to him at birth, like his brother Rodon, and used fairly frequently until everyone left.  But that’s not once brought up.

So Cat is basically Doctor Who in the name department.

[Dave]

Does Kryten ever call him Mr Cat at all?

The only examples that immediately spring to mind are Smeg Ups (“anything else coming Mr Cat?” and the Mr Guitar sequence.)

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Ah yeah … if only there was someway to easily search all the in show dialogue …

The answer is yes, in Skipper

 

[Flap Jack]

Thinking about it, the whole “cat people don’t have names because they’re so vain they can’t imagine anyone needing a name to know who they are” detail is just from Infinity, isn’t it? Not something that’s directly acknowledged in the TV show.

So maybe TV Cat didn’t tell anyone his name at the beginning because he was too self-absorbed to care, and once he was close enough to the others that he might be inclined to share it, he figured “eh, whatever, I’m used to just being called “Cat” now, and there aren’t any other cats around, so I’m The Cat”.

Also I think Cat does actively introduce himself as The Cat a couple of times, but possibly in his head he’s doing an equivalent of Lister saying “Hi, I’m the human”.

Regardless of whether Cat has a real name or not, his nonchalance about anyone knowing or using it does still speak to his feline character. So I think it makes more sense if Dog and Rat do have real names that their crewmates use for them. Dog is never addressed in Parallel Universe, and Rat is only addressed by Kryten, so the idea of them having proper names isn’t outright contradicted.

Another curious detail – we never learn the cat priest’s name, right? But by IWCD logic he ought to have one, as he is a religious cat.

[Jenuall]

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s quite cruel really isn’t it, that Rimmer and Lister never once stopped to give him a name or ask his name.  Lister just says “hello, Cat?” and it sticks.

It would be like having a woman joining an all male work force and just being refered to as “the girl” … which no doubt has happened historically.  Ditto racial slurs and such.

[Dave]

It would be like having a woman joining an all male work force and just being refered to as “the girl” … which no doubt has happened historically.

[Flap Jack]

Ah yes, Smurf BB.

[GlenTokyo]

Doesn’t the Cat Priest just call him “the boy” or “boy” too, maybe he just genuinely doesn’t have another name, seeing as his parents were less than ideal and abandoned him anyway. Or maybe his name is stupid so nobody called him that.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I did think about that.  I got the impression at the time Rob and Doug wrote that to give a sense of there being very few cats left (and many had already left) and it was like the first birth in a long time and he was therefore the only … kitten? … amoung those there.

But, that doesn’t really line up with time lines.

It’s said in a fatherly, peistly, affectionate way, so I’d take it as more of a generic “ahh the boy” because he’s always been the young one.  But it could well be that he doesn’t know his name.

You’re right that his parents being “a cripple and an idiot” they didn’t bother to name him.

Ideally Doug will write another 90min special to explore and answer all these questions.

[Dave]

The Name Of The Cat, featuring John Hurt showing up at the end as a previously unseen felis sapiens, and leading directly into the Day Of The Cat 50th anniversary special.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Followed by The Time of the Cat were he spends the rest of his life protecting a small town from some Simulants.

[Flap Jack]

Does Kryten ever call him Mr Cat at all?

 

Ah yeah … if only there was someway to easily search all the in show dialogue …

The answer is yes, in Skipper

I see your 2017, and raise you 2005.

I feel like there’s some quantum entanglement going on, that I would happen to open the “Cat’s name” can of worms on the same day as I end up reading PtN for the first time.

[Flap Jack]

Oh, and also, if you search “Mr Cat” without the full stop, earlier results than Skipper appear.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

So a lack of proper observation for grammar in the subtitles reveals Mr Cat to date back to series vii? So it’s purely used by Doug?

[Warbodog]

I guessed they’d all be from the post Grant Naylor era. Kryten had more attitude back then, and seemed more comfortable openly belittling Cat since he wasn’t a superior human, as racist as that may be. It makes sense that he’d come to respect him more over time.

[Flap Jack]

Yes. Well, I guess it’s a Doug, Robert Llewellyn and Andrew Ellard thing.

Interesting that it still takes until Series XI for Kryten to refer to him as Mr. Cat in the TV series. Plus Kochanski saying it in Beyond a Joke is a roleplaying thing, she’s not calling him that outside of AR. So Taiwan Tony gets the first fully serious “Mr. Cat” address in the show. What an honour.

 

[Dave]

So a lack of proper observation for grammar in the subtitles reveals Mr Cat to date back to series vii? So it’s purely used by Doug?

I wonder if Doug could have (consciously or subconsciously) picked it up from those mentions in the earlier Series VI Smeg Ups?

[Flap Jack]

Honestly it feels like such a natural Kryten-ism, it’s surprising that it wasn’t in the Grant Naylor era first.

[Pete Part Three]

>I wonder if Doug could have (consciously or subconsciously) picked it up from those mentions in the earlier Series VI Smeg Ups?

Indeed, potentially another Captain Bollocks situation.

Robert occasionally flinging it around, suddenly becomes “oh, Kryten always says that”.

[Author]

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