Unanswered Questions

[Dave]

Who took the picture of young-Rimmer’s dorm room that he uses to go back in time, in Timeslides? And how is adult-Rmmer in possession of it in the future?

The more I think about this the more it bothers me.

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Why does Kryten look so sad here?
Is it because he can’t remember how to embed images?

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

It’s because he’s seen the despair-inducing truth about their reality behind the aperture through which we perceive them.

[tombow]

The Last Temptation of Eddie the Eagle 

ha ha. I saw him training for “dancing on ice” the other day. He’s filling in for the contestant from gogglebox who got injured during training. It looks like he’s going to be skating to a certain 1970s slightly sci fi themed rock song, but I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler. 

remember this?

https://youtu.be/U20uFSWpBm0?list=PLUBbFCvgQ5VuFjDSYn-5bbfeAsalhKv3r&t=43

what do you all think of me now?

[Warbodog]

Why do future echoes have sound when they’re about going faster than light, and light and sound have very different speeds? Why are they relative to Red Dwarf in space and time for their durations, when the future Red Dwarf will be going to be somewhere else? Is it like “stone tape” theory for ghosts, and the sound-images will be going to have been recorded by the materials in the walls or the ship’s asteroid?

[Dave]

FUTURE ECHOES ZERO

Prequel set in 1969. When Concorde breaks the speed of sound, passengers begin to hear things they’re about to say in the future.

[Nick R]

FUTURE ECHOES: ORIGINS

Prequel set in 1947. When USAF test pilot Chuck Yeager etc etc

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

If you see a future who of a time you’re travelling faster than light again, would you see a future future echo?

[International Debris]

Why are those specific moments future echoes? Surely if it’s to do with the speed of travel, they’d either see the future constantly or not at all, not just odd moments that are almost all notable moments in the characters’ futures? How is Red Dwarf able to pass through stellar bodies without anybody feeling it or there being any damage? 

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

How is Red Dwarf able to pass through stellar bodies without anybody feeling it or there being any damage? 

I think they just missed them all.

[Podey]

Do we think that they will ever resolve the Kochanski plot thread set up in Back to Earth?

It’s weird because I’ve always felt that Chloe has earned the closure and I hope it happens but I also sort of don’t really want to see it and I imagine, if they do bring her back, she will be written off for good by the end. 

[Warbodog]

Why are those specific moments future echoes? Surely if it’s to do with the speed of travel, they’d either see the future constantly or not at all, not just odd moments that are almost all notable moments in the characters’ futures?

If they are following ghost “science,” more emotive moments could make a stronger impression on the precording.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Do we think that they will ever resolve the Kochanski plot thread set up in Back to Earth?

It’s weird because I’ve always felt that Chloe has earned the closure and I hope it happens but I also sort of don’t really want to see it and I imagine, if they do bring her back, she will be written off for good by the end. 

I wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t. It’s sort of the one plot strand I’m really not bothered about them returning to, because it came from and went nowhere. Kochanski was not a good character on the show. Leave it in the past and forget about it. 

[Dave]

I wouldn’t be averse to a special that wraps up the Kochanski plot. She’s an important part of the show’s story and history. But I think we need a different approach than the teenage crush stuff of the early years or the bickering of VII and VIII. Make her a more fully-realised character, delve into whether she actually wants to be part of Lister’s Fiji fantasy or whether she has her own hopes and dreams, give their relationship a bit more depth and dimension, and I think you could have an interesting story.

[Moonlight]

If they are following ghost “science,” more emotive moments could make a stronger impression on the precording.

That is entirely too few sarcastiquotes around “science.”

[Warbodog]

If you see a future who of a time you’re travelling faster than light again, would you see a future future echo?

The first few echoes take place during the timeline of the episode, when they and future!they are travelling faster than light, and are echoes of them experiencing the same future echoes as themselves in the first place, so to answer your question, exploding Kryten gif.

[Formica]

Stasis Leak was a triple single unecho

[tombow]

I thought Back to Earth WAS the resolution. I know she was mentioned in SX a few times, but…since they dropped that…she’s off doing her own stuff, like Ace..I thought it was left at that 

[Dave]

I think her story would feel more complete if BTE had been the end of Red Dwarf altogether – but even then, it leaves things fairly unresolved with her out there somewhere, not wanting to be with Lister.

But the multiple mentions in X definitely make it feel like something that the show planned to come back to. Which it obviously did at one point. 

[Flap Jack]

I thought Back to Earth WAS the resolution. I know she was mentioned in SX a few times, but…since they dropped that…she’s off doing her own stuff, like Ace..I thought it was left at that 

Definitely not, Back to Earth was a set up.

With Ace (whichever one), the idea was that the parting was on good terms, and he left with dimension-traversing technology and a heroic purpose, and nothing was established regarding wanting to find him again.

With Kochanski, the idea was that Lister was such a shitty friend that she eventually decided she’d had enough and she’d prefer to fuck off and wander the universe completely alone and without a particular purpose (and all of this happens off screen, no less). Then when Lister learns that she’s still alive in theory, he pledges to find her and make things right. With or without the Series X nods to this intention, it is textbook unresolved.

Back to Earth is essentially to Red Dwarf what The Day of the Doctor was for Doctor Who. Kochanski Falls No More.

[Dave]

I think you can see BTE as an attempt to reset Kochanski’s status to the old status quo of her being an unobtainable object of obsession for Lister, someone who’s more interesting when she’s not there (because of what it gives Lister to aspire to) than when she is.

The trouble is, in the early series Kochanski was dead and so was firmly out of Lister’s reach*. With her being alive and out there in space somewhere, it definitely feels like more of a loose end.

[*Yes, that’s if you ignore Stasis Leak which suggests they do actually get back together at some point.**]

[**Yes, that’s if you ignore Out Of Time which suggests that maybe the future seen in Stasis Leak doesn’t actually come to pass.***]

[***Although of course Lister then gets an alternative Kochanski to pursue from Ouroboros onwards, and doesn’t seem to care about ever finding a way back to his own Kochanski after that.]

[International Debris]

How is Red Dwarf able to pass through stellar bodies without anybody feeling it or there being any damage? 

I think they just missed them all.

I suppose this could be referring to areas of space, but in my head it was always planets and stuff, probably because it does in Infinity. This is ignoring the nonsense of seeing stuff after you’ve passed it – by that point you’ll be so far away from the light waves that enabled you to see it you’re way past where that light wave even is, surely? 

I thought Back to Earth WAS the resolution. I know she was mentioned in SX a few times, but…since they dropped that…she’s off doing her own stuff, like Ace..I thought it was left at that 

Nah, given that the X idea was intended to actually bring her back, BtE was clearly planned as a reintroduction. 

Personally I think if Doug knows he’s doing a last episode he’ll try and bring her back, allowing her and Lister to be together as they fly off into the distance at the end.

[Dave]

Personally I think if Doug knows he’s doing a last episode he’ll try and bring her back, allowing her and Lister to be together as they fly off into the distance at the end.

Or go and roll in the hay with a vial of the luck virus after a newly-sterile Lister’s balls have been fried by a ray-gun.

[tombow]

“is there any way we can get some grass on stage to begin to sway slowly but perceptibly at the end?” 

[Moonlight]

It’s been a few years but I’m trying to figure out how much of me getting bored midway through the Last Human audiobook the one time I consumed it that way was because of Craig’s reading and how much was because Last Human isn’t that good.

[Podey]

I think it’s good. But then I like dramady Dwarf. Gets lost in the middle a bit but I really like the premise.

[Moonlight]

I like dramedy Dwarf. My problem with Last Human is that it feels like dramedy something else a lot of the time.

Granted it’s been like 6 years since I’ve gone back to it.

[Unrumble]

[International Debris]

Sorry.

[Frank Smeghammer]

Stasis Leak introduces the concept of PD.

Question is, does that stand for “paint duty” or “punishment detail”?

[Dave]

Yes.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

He sentenced them to premature death. Rigged the drive plate to kill Rimmer and Lister. Then found himself in a situation where he had to out Lister in stasis. But only being a doughnut bit he fucked it up and killed everyone.  

That’s why he is laying into Rimmer so hard in the ME2 flashback. He is projecting. 

[Dave]

[International Debris]

Penis destruction.

[Warbodog]

They have to play the public domain Red Dwarf Amiga shoot-em-up.

[RainbowGazelle]

It’s not “painting Dwarf”?

[Ben Saunders]

they have to watch Pete on DVD

[pi r squared]

I’m sure this has probably been discussed before, but when exactly does the group hallucination begin in Back to Reality? I think I’d always assumed it was the moment the ink hit the ship and it then crashed, but then when ‘back to reality’ there’s no dialogue to suggest the ship is damaged or that Holly’s had to repair anything. So is the crash part of the hallucination? Does Holly just guide the ship down safely while she watches the hallucination until she can deploy the mood stabiliser? Or do they not actually even move and the attempt to escape is part of the hallucination too?

Or do they actually crash but Holly is somehow able to repair everything off-screen and without any need to reference it? But then if she could do that, why couldn’t she also deploy the lithium carbonate without Kryten having to do it?

Am I just overthinking it?!

[Warbodog]

They definitely don’t crash, because that’s a proper exploder.

[Dave]

I always think it must start just as they get into Starbug, before they’re shown with the mood stabiliser.

Although how the ink affects Rimmer, and especially so quickly, is anyone’s guess.

[Warbodog]

Although how the ink affects Rimmer, and especially so quickly, is anyone’s guess.

[Warbodog]

A related question is why it doesn’t affect Holly if it can affect Rimmer, but they stopped bothering with that by Camille (explicitly), or Polymorph. She’s so background in V that I’ve never even thought “what if Holly thought she’d been playing a game too?”

[Dave]

I mean, since Holly plays a role in generating Rimmer, surely she must be affected to some degree too. Rimmer doesn’t really have a mind to think for himself after all.

[Flap Jack]

Well, Holly generates Rimmer, but Rimmer is still a separate program. Just because an application gets corrupted, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the whole operating system – or other applications in the same network  – will.

I guess particles of despair ink got into Rimmer’s light bee, but not into whatever bit of Starbug circuitry is directly generating Holly.

[Warbodog]

I guess particles of despair ink got into Rimmer’s light bee, but not into whatever bit of Starbug circuitry is directly generating Holly.

I guess his light bee also has organic components like a bloodstream and bits of brain that can be affected by hallucinogenic venom, like the organic part of Kryten’s brain, otherwise the episode would risk being total nonsense.

[Flap Jack]

Now you’re getting it. 👍

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Back to Reality but there’s no Holly and there’s Rimmer stuck in his own trying to save the crew 

[Unrumble]

[Technopeasant]

I mean, presumably most of Holly’s actual programming is still on Red Dwarf whilst (most of) Rimmer is on Starbug?

That, or the screen was foggy.

[Moonlight]

I would always assume pre-VI that Rimmer’s program is running from a computer on Red Dwarf considering that’s a plot point in Thanks for the Memory,

[loadoftottnumb]

Regarding ‘PD’ I reckon it does mean the more specific ‘paint duty’ as Rimmer says something like ‘oh no, 8 weeks painting the smegging ship’ to Lister. 

[Author]

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