Unanswered Questions

[loadoftottnumb]

I wonder why everywhere the dwarfers go, gravity is about the same as on earth. Every crashed/derelict vessel, even those underwater, every planet, every space station. 

Maybe they only go places where gravity is at or about the same as earth? Trusty old Psi-scan. Though sometimes they are flung places without intending to be. Maybe they go places with different levels of gravity all the time but this happens off screen. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Well every ship they encounter originated on Earth, so they will have artificial gravity that is 1G. Planets and moons, presumably ships they find there wouldk have sought out planets/moons with gravity of 1G. Any other planet they went to they only go to when the planet is 1Gish.

[RunawayTrain]

I wonder why everywhere the dwarfers go, gravity is about the same as on earth. Every crashed/derelict vessel, even those underwater, every planet, every space station. 
Maybe they only go places where gravity is at or about the same as earth? Trusty old Psi-scan. Though sometimes they are flung places without intending to be. Maybe they go places with different levels of gravity all the time but this happens off screen. 

The cameras only work in 1g  ;)

[loadoftottnumb]

Was that stuff Kryten threw on Rimmers bunk in the titular episode, Gazpacho Soup? 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

It did look tomato, now that you mention it…

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It’s funny the things you take for granted that you assume others do to

[Warbodog]

The diary-reading Lister of series 2 would definitely reveal Rimmer’s most painful secret to a guy they’ve just met. Maybe when they were watching the Brando film he made the association.

[Dave]

The diary-reading Lister of series 2 would definitely reveal Rimmer’s most painful secret to a guy they’ve just met. Maybe when they were watching the Brando film he made the association.

[GlenTokyo]

I never connected it, its clearly cream of tomato soup, but being a Northern oik I’ve never had gazpacho soup, I always thought it was wazzy with chunks of veg in it though, like wet ratatouille.

[Ian Symes]

Yeah, that’s too creamy to be gazpacho. It’s probably a four pack of Heinz tins.

[Flap Jack]

I assume that Rimmer wouldn’t have tolerated Gazpacho being around to begin with, given his trauma.

[loadoftottnumb]

Ok but is it Gazpacho ‘in universe’ do we reckon? 

[Jonathan Capps]

Want Rob Grant to hurry up and announce something so we can tack this on to the end of the next interview.

[Warbodog]

What’s Cat more likely to like? Does it being in that pot suggest it was heated? If so, was it heated sarcastically?

[loadoftottnumb]

Doesn’t seem to be any steam coming from it. 

[International Debris]

Looking at that picture reminds me of how amazing a job the set people did at redressing the bunk room on the night. Obviously all the Blue Midget and Nova 5 stuff is going on, but to have it completely redone and basically wallpapered is pretty incredible. 

Or is it actually a newly built set?

[Dave]

Was the soup throwing a one-take-only deal? I’ve always found it a bit limp but I guess it would take a lot of effort to reset the bed and do it all over again.

[Flap Jack]

Yes, the soup throwing was a one take deal (or at least they went into it knowing it would be a nightmare if they had to reset). I can’t remember exactly, but I think this was discussed in the Bodysnatcher Series 2 doc?

[Warbodog]

Rimmer describes his former job in relation to chicken soup earlier in the episode, so he has a soup complex generally and can overthink Kryten’s intended symbolism at his leisure.

[Dave]

Yes, the soup throwing was a one take deal (or at least they went into it knowing it would be a nightmare if they had to reset). I can’t remember exactly, but I think this was discussed in the Bodysnatcher Series 2 doc?

It vaguely rang a bell for me. Maybe the Quarantine Commentary?

[GlenTokyo]

Thinking about the big British soups (Cream of tomato, cream of mushroom, chicken, oxtail, muligatawny, vegetable) I reckon cream of tomato was the only option that both showed up, and didn’t look like diarrhea or sick. 

[International Debris]

Oh yes, it’s bright orange, cream of tomato is the only choice there. 

[Warbodog]

[GlenTokyo]

[Flap Jack]

In the highly rated classic episode Beyond A Joke, why is Kryten upset by Lister’s request for ketchup?

I get the idea that his negativity has been building up over a long time and the ketchup was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but Kryten has never shown any sign that Lister’s extremely limited taste in food has even slightly bothered him. I mean, he drinks beer milkshake and only eats pizza if it’s smothered in curry sauce. By Series VII standards especially, putting ketchup onto lobster is nothing.

[Stabbim]

In the highly rated classic episode Beyond A Joke, why is Kryten upset by Lister’s request for ketchup?
I get the idea that his negativity has been building up over a long time and the ketchup was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but Kryten has never shown any sign that Lister’s extremely limited taste in food has even slightly bothered him. I mean, he drinks beer milkshake and only eats pizza if it’s smothered in curry sauce. By Series VII standards especially, putting ketchup onto lobster is nothing.

every otherwise negligible stressor is amplified to hazardous levels by Kryten activating “Jealousy Mode” (a couple notches on the dial past Smug Mode and Lie Mode) in response to Kochanski’s permanent presence, I guess.

Alternately he’s been operating with a corrupted, malfunctioning spare head ever since the Tikka To Ride fiasco and it finally caught up with him.

God, Series 7 Kryten is disappointing

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah it’s just the jealously stuff.  He doesn’t actually care about the Ketchup.  He cares Lister chose to spend the day in AR with Kochanski when he made dinner.  Now he is acting as if Lister is being unreasonably critical of the dinner for asking for Ketchup.

Its all a complete load of bollocks really.

[Flap Jack]

Ah, so the request just reminded Kryten of his love rival, Ketchanksi.

[International Debris]

Yes, good as the head explosion is, the scene doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. Like them all sat around desperately trying to pretend that the lobster is tasty, as if somehow it’s hideous. Given that Kryten does the cooking it’s fair to assume he’s pretty good at it, and lobster is hardly some sort of weird acquired taste. 

[Ian Symes]

good as the head explosion is

[Flap Jack]

The head explosion is crap, but that’s why it’s good.

[International Debris]

Depends what we’re talking about. The effect suffers but I think it’s a good gag.

[Warbodog]

I’ve never known how much the fourth wall breaking fakeness is the gag. That’s what I assumed when finding it screamingly hilarious at 11. It seems like the type of joke they didn’t normally do (the earlier unconvincing dinosaurs / red eyes lampshading having in-universe explanations), though in a scene where Kryten’s already being out of character anyway, maybe anything goes.

[Rudolph]

I’ve never thought it was intentionally bad, just it could’ve been edited a bit better. The cut being made closer to the explosion.

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

In an episode where they got a real tank and blew up a real gazebo they should have really blown up Robert’s head. 

[Unrumble]

In an episode where they got a real tank and blew up a real gazebo they should have really blown up Robert’s head. 

[Rudolph]

[Rudolph]

I know it’s pretty much just a throwaway bit of dialogue, but given Holly’s claim in Back in the Red that he arranges distractions to keep Lister busy, what other episodes are there where Holly could conceivably have set up the events that happened?

[loadoftottnumb]

Parallel Universe is an obvious one. (Assuming Queeg is too obvious to count) 

[RunawayTrain]

(Assuming Queeg is too obvious to count) 

Queeg was definitely more for Holly’s own entertainment.

[Formica]

I feel like a little over half of 1 & 2 episodes I could wrap my head around Holly pulling at least some of the strings on the plot to keep Lister entertained. After that, the only ones I could barely force out an argument for partial Holly manipulation on are:

Marooned: Grit on the scanner scope? Come on, the computer should be reading the data directly. Not even remotely believable. Holly wanted to kickstart a little adventure and just didn’t know that was going to happen.

DNA: Knew what she was doing from the start on the DNA computer, perhaps was already wired into it the whole time and just turned things into weird shit to keep it interesting.

White Hole: Genius Holly predicted everybody would have a lot more fun figuring it out (and she’d have to Talkie to a lot less Toaster) if she pretended she was about to run out of power.

Quarantine: Rimmer wasn’t actually infected by the holovirus. Holly took control of Rimmer’s hologram and was just messing about for a little fun, using little-known or well-reengineered ship controls to fling axes and burn open doors. Could maybe take it the step further to say Luck was almost or entirely a creation of Holly: letting the crew out of quarantine and letting the crew pretend random shit they found in the corridor was a connection to the holosuite. Maybe even random plastic shit she put there herself, we don’t really know (between vending machines and all the shit that arrives in M-Corp) how good the ship’s fabrication systems are. On the deck of cards: (a) real luck and he developed immunity after that, or (b) I’m running out here.
Have I missed any III-V? I’ll let somebody else have all the fun on 1-2.

[Formica]

[Veeva]

If you wanted to win the lottery by using the luck virus, would you use it when buying the ticket or would you buy a ticket and then contract the virus while the numbers were being drawn?

[Dave]

Yes

[Dave]

More seriously (but only slightly), the way the luck virus works is a bit nebulous – does it influence you to make the right choices, or does it warp reality to your benefit? It seems to work different ways at different times.

But my instinct would be to use it during the lottery draw, as that’s when the key event is happening. If you buy the ticket but then the virus wears off, it no longer ‘cares’ whether you win or not. 

[Flap Jack]

If we buy the in-universe explanation that the luck virus doesn’t literally give you reality-warping powers, then it would only work if you took it when you were buying the ticket (or it just wouldn’t work either way). Because you can influence which ticket you pick, but you can’t influence the person or machine which is drawing the numbers.

In theory – but not in practice, because writers are easily tempted by being able to actually progress the plot – any outcome that was truly random or otherwise out of a person’s control could never be influenced by the luck virus. So if you picked your lottery ticket by lucky dip instead of individually choosing the numbers, or you gave yourself a squirt of the blue stuff before you headed outside because you wanted the rain to stop, then the luck virus wouldn’t work.

But hey, maybe it does give you reality warping powers, I don’t know. It already gives you the ability to subconsciously intuit things without first learning the necessary information. It’s not like it being magic is off the table.

[Warbodog]

I somehow never noticed until just now that this same nonsense concept is in a Star Trek episode, but played straight.

(They leave it at “somehow,” obviously).

‘Quarantine’ broadcast: 12.03.92
‘Rivals’ broadcast: 03.01.94

[Flap Jack]

Of course, we all know that without Mr. Flibble, there never would have been Odo.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

Mr Odo’s very cross.

…with Quark.

(can’t get it to format how I want)

[Author]

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