Unintended recurring themes in episodes/series

[Warbodog]

Have you ever noticed a Red Dwarf episode being preoccupied with something, seemingly obliviously and random, that’s not the actual focus of the story? Here are some I catalogued before immediately losing interest in thinking about this after series 4.

Fish

Series 1

Theme: Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes
The End: I am a fish
Future Echoes: Robot goldfish / Little fishy song
Balance of Power: Trout a la créme / Fished to death
Confidence and Paranoia: Fish rain

Series 2-4

Better Than Life: Gone to the same place as me goldfish / Cat orders an aquarium and sings / Half woman, half fish mermaid
Polymorph: Silly old trout / Fish puns
Timeslides: Junior Angler / Luigi’s Fish ‘n’ Chip Emporium
Dimension Jump: Fishing holiday / Smoke me a kipper / Kippers

Chicken

Series 1

The End: Chicken soup machine (basis for most recurring chicken references in Red Dwarf) / No, it’s a chicken
Balance of Power: 140,000 rehydratable chickens
Waiting for God: Chicken vindaloo (recurring variant) / Quagaar Warrior
Confidence and Paranoia: Chicken Marengo

Series 2

Kryten: I think I’ll try the chicken / cleaned the gunk out of the chicken soup machine / Chicken __Nugget
Better Than Life: I’d prefer chicken

Stasis Leak (big time): You should apologise for the chicken / Half man, half chicken / Who’s eating this chicken?

Also prominent in DNA: Turned into a chicken / Boiled chicken ovulations / Changing a mutton vindaloo into a chicken vindaloo

Bodyswap: Sexual organs

– “Why have I got male sexual organs?” / in orbit around the nearest planet
– “It’s the sound you get when you get your sexual organs trapped in something.” / Mimes
– Rimmer shocked by Lister’s schlong
– “You’ve given me breasts.”

Dimension Jump: Salt

– “I’ll be down in the mess with the salt-of-the-earth engineering boys as per usual.”
– Salt, an Epicure’s Delight / Extracts x2
– “Series 4000 mechanoid, am I right? Salt of the Space Corps.”

Back to work.

[tombow]

someone who watched the show for the first time commented on how they like classic American culture, and how it kept popping up in subtle ways, Marilyn Monroe, noir VR games, etc

[Warbodog]

And all the Blade Runner references, before Back to Earth pointed out how influential it was.

Hudzen’s death. The aesthetic of Back to Reality. Nothing else. All the Blade Runner references.

[By Jove its holmes]

I’m surprised Backwards went with the reverse shit. surely the absolute worst would be reverse vomiting. Also, would a reverse blow-job s u c k for the woman?

[Dave]

They’ll never top Round The Twist for a reverse-vomit scenario.

[By Jove its holmes]

I love Round the Twist.

The poor kid whose just vomited screams “NO, NO, NO!” when Pete picks up the remote.

Pete, Linda and Bronson then simply say “Yes”, “Yes”, “Yes”.

[Warbodog]

I always assumed Round the Twist was a boring Byker Grove-style teen drama and would switch off when the theme started. I feel regret.

[International Debris]

Round the Twist used to really unsettle me as a kid. The mix of ‘every day’ and grotesque was so uncomfortably strange.

[clem]

Remember the one where Pete has a tiny mouth? Or the boy with extra fingernails growing on his hands? I’m not squeamish when it comes to bloody violence and gore but strange body horror stuff like that really rattles me.

[International Debris]

The one with the mouth is the one that stuck with me the most I think – wasn’t it caused by an evil Santa character or something?
Also I’m sure there was one with some yellow gunk that actually made me sick.

[clem]

Yes, the little mouth episode is the one with the wish-granting Santa. Another one that shat me up was the Eerie, Indiana where girls get a beauty treatment that turns their faces into weird doll-like plastic masks. Fucking horrifying.

[Dave]

I like the microwave pants one.

[Pete Part Three]

Round the Twist was brilliant without my pants. I used to love watching that without my pants. I really fancied the second Linda without my pants. I enjoyed staring at her without my pants without my pants.

[By Jove its holmes]

In the original Paul Jennings short story, the kid keeps adding “without my shirt” to every sentence.

Another Jennings short story is where a boy gets some wishes and he wishes his favourite young female singer was there. She appears in their Australian lounge room all right… teleported right from the middle of a concert, still holding her microphone! She’ has to be sent back when she starts screaming.

[bloodteller]

VIII has the recurring theme of Anal Penetration

Back In The Red
-Starbug goes up a rat’s arse
-“Well, considering what the future has in store for your jacksy, a couple of zillion volts is gonna be easy street”
-Anus Soothe Pile Cream
-That woman who does Rimmer up the arse
-Part 3 ends with Rimmer about to be fucked by a load of homosexual prisoners, who will presumably be doing anal with him

Krytie TV
– (When discussing Lister’s guitar) Didn’t you get a clue that time I tried to insert it in you?”

Pete
-Archie goes up the Cat’s arse (deleted scene)
-Archie goes up the Captain’s arse (deleted scene)

[Berlin]

So essentially, Red Dwarf is a nod and wink to Rob and Doug’s sexual perversions?

Oh we knew that for years.

[Moonlight]

VIII has the recurring theme of being vile and vapid.

[Berlin]

Let’s talk about Series VIII again!

I’ll start.

Series VIII is collectively shite but there are episodes in there that are arguably not shite, just very poorly executed.

[bloodteller]

>VIII has the recurring theme of being vile and vapid.

Well yeah, but if I were to list every time VIII mentions genitalia, semen, shit, toilets, sex etc. we’d be here all night, and I’m pretty sure nobody would read a list like that anyway

[Berlin]

Are toilets or toilet related bodily functions mentioned once in Marooned?

No cheating by looking at the script.

[Dave]

Dysentery springs to mind.

[Berlin]

I can accept that answer but only in spirit, you lose a point.

[bloodteller]

VIII and the Recurring Penis

Back In The Red
-Kryten is classified as a woman for his lack of penis
-Rimmer hits his penis with a hammer

Cassandra
-Warden Knot crushes Rimmer’s penis with his bare hands

Krytie TV
-Lister cuts some pubes off his penis to sprinkle on Ackerman’s soap

Pete
-Kryten creates Archie, a penis

Only The Good…
-Rimmer goes to a parallel universe and looks at his massive penis

What’s up with that? Was Doug just really horny when he was writing all the scripts for VIII or something? Unlike most people on this site I don’t entirely hate VIII, but thinking about it, it’s utterly bizarre that there are so many jokes about sex and toilets and penises etc.

[Warbodog]

Doug is ultimately responsible, but from the Red Dwarf wiki:

When the time came for Series 8, Naylor hired Alexander to be script editor and oversee all the writing. He also co-wrote the episodes Krytie TV and Pete II. Alexander submitted his own script, RD: Phwoaarr, which was never produced.

The episode was ultimately unproduced as Doug Naylor felt it was a little too inappropriate (in a series already criticized for its lewd tone).

[bloodteller]

Yeah, the VIII DVD booklet talks about Phwoaarr.

“Paul Alexander had submitted a first draft of a script with the working title of Phwoaarr. It told of a ship where a new perfume was being tested that was so effective it caused insatiable attraction between those who smelled it- the result being some nocturnal activity between Rimmer and Kochanski, and much subequent Lister jealousy. The tone and content of the story-including sight of piles of nude, dead bodies- was unsurprisingly considered inappropriate.”

To be honest, I don’t see how Doug thought that was any more inappropriate than all the sexual magnetism shit in Back In The Red. I mean, it’s basically the exact same thing

[Hamish]

Because of the nudity I guess.

[Flap Jack]

To be honest, I don’t see how Doug thought that was any more inappropriate than all the sexual magnetism shit in Back In The Red. I mean, it’s basically the exact same thing

Uh…

The tone and content of the story-including sight of piles of nude, dead bodies– was unsurprisingly considered inappropriate.

Yeah, no idea. Basically the same level of inappropriateness as Back in the Red. Mmhmm.

For real, though, would Phwoaarr have existed alongside the sexual magnetism virus subplot from BITR? Seems more like a Bodysnatcher/Me^2 situation to me.

Thank goodness it didn’t happen, anyway. There was quite enough magical rape and voyeurism in Series VIII as is. We didn’t need an entire episode dedicated to characters not-quite-consensually shagging each other. Respect to Doug for at least having that much sense.

[bloodteller]

>Yeah, no idea. Basically the same level of inappropriateness as Back in the Red. Mmhmm.

Well I was imagining it like Samsara, where the dead bodies were skeletons or something. Or maybe they’d just be lying face-down or something so you could only see their bums

Why are all the VIII episodes about sex though? Like surely there must have been some reason behind it, it can’t have been a coincidence

[Warbodog]

Why are all the VIII episodes about sex though? Like surely there must have been some reason behind it, it can’t have been a coincidence

I was proposing that Paul Alexander added it into every episode of the series he script-edited because he thought that stuff improved episodes, but there isn’t firm evidence to back up that libel. Lister cutting off his pubes in Krytie TV is such an un-Red-Dwarf thing though, I have to blame the co-writer.

[Ben Saunders]

I thought that in particular was pretty funny, though, and Lister has done similarly disgusting things previously. Definitely not the most egregious example of what we’re talking about, I would say

[bloodteller]

>I was proposing that Paul Alexander added it into every episode of the series he script-edited because he thought that stuff improved episodes, but there isn’t firm evidence to back up that libel. Lister cutting off his pubes in Krytie TV is such an un-Red-Dwarf thing though, I have to blame the co-writer.

The story behind Krytie TV is a complicated one, so it could have been either of them. According to the VIII scriptbook, Paul wrote the first two drafts, Doug did a third. Everyone involved (Doug and Ed included) thought the script was absolutely shit. About twelve drafts later he showed it to his wife, who told him “It’s stupid, immature, and mostly unfunny.” In response, Doug went off, holed himself up in a hotel for the weekend, threw out 80% of the original script and came up with the appeal subplot etc.

Honestly, that makes me kind of curious as to what exactly was in the earlier drafts of Krytie TV that disgusted everyone and Doug’s wife so much, especially considering the finished episode is still plenty crude and immature

[Warbodog]

Missing/synthetic body parts

I was going to speculate about the reason for this, but that was getting to a ???????? level of insensitive.

Future Echoes: future Lister’s false arm
Balance of Power: Rimmer’s rogue arm and breast
Thanks for the Memory: broken legs
Queeg: Rimmer’s legs detach
Parallel Universe: Lorraine’s metal nose
Polymorph etc.: Kryten’s groinal attachments
Bodyswap: Rimmer pretends to lose Lister’s arm
The Last Day: Marilyn Monroe droid kit
DNA: Kryten’s detachable heads and hands
Terrorform: Kryten’s legs are crushed beyond repair
Epideme/Nanarchy: Lister’s amputation, false arm and rebuilt body
Krytie TV: Ackerman’s glass eye
Pete: Kryten’s DIY cock

[Flap Jack]

Well I was imagining it like Samsara, where the dead bodies were skeletons or something. Or maybe they’d just be lying face-down or something so you could only see their bums

I mean, it’s possible it would have ended up that way, but in my experience if people are describing a skeleton, they say “skeleton”, not “dead body”, and they don’t usually need to explicity say that the skeletons aren’t wearing clothes.

Although even in Samsara the sexually suggestive skeletons were enough to up the DVD rating to 15. The BBC might have been OK with that level, but definitely wouldn’t have been OK with piles of naked, dead arse-cheeks.

Of course, they could have just not shown it or cut around that part, too, so it’s clear the whole story was just too disturbingly sexual and violent.

[Ben Saunders]

Should have thrown out 100% of Krytie TV and just made Appeal or No Deal. If anything, the title would have been prescient.

[Ben Saunders]

>I was going to speculate about the reason for this, but that was getting to a ???????? level of insensitive.
Is Rob Grant Obsessed With Synthetic Body Parts Because He Has A Tiny Cock?

[bloodteller]

>I was proposing that Paul Alexander added it into every episode of the series he script-edited because he thought that stuff improved episodes, but there isn’t firm evidence to back up that libel

Actually come to think of it, maybe it is Paul Alexander’s fault there’s so much sex in VIII? Both his VII scripts (Stoke Me A Clipper and Epideme) involve sex in some way (Lister fucks the Queen, and Caroline’s rotting corpse tries to fuck Lister). Whenever Paul is involved, there’s sex. That can’t be a coincidence, surely?

[Ben Saunders]

He does seem the type

[clem]

According to the recently updated VIII section of the Complete Guide on TOS, the appeal and guitar strings stuff came from a script Doug wrote called No Strings Attached based on discussions he had with Craig about Craig’s time in prison. That was combined with material from Paul Alexander’s Phwoaarr.

[Ben Saunders]

Phwoaarr Alexander.

I wonder what No Strings Attached was like. Incomplete, probably, and still an VIII episode, so it couldn’t have been that good. But income a world without Krytie TV……….

[Flap Jack]

Series IV: Stuff happening to Kryten

Camille – Kryten falls in love with a Pleasure GELF.

DNA – Kryten gets turned into a human.

Justice – Kryten becomes a lawyer.

White Hole – Kryten repairs Talkie Toaster.

Dimension Jump – Kryten becomes human again, and travels back in time and to a parallel universe, all for the opportunity to fuck Ace Rimmmer.

Meltdown – Kryten is conscripted into a wax droid war.

[Flap Jack]

“Rimmmer” is his name, yeah? 3 Ms. Pretty sure that’s right.

[International Debris]

V is a very Rimmer-oriented series, isn’t it? He’s the central character in Holoship, Terrorform and Quarantine, and even in Demons & Angels his low counterpart is the most striking and memorable. Rob and Doug were obviously having fun exploring his character at that point.

[Warbodog]

IV had Justice, Dimension Jump and Meltdown that I’d say are Rimmer episodes too, since he drives the plots. Maybe two of those count as more ensemble though, but he’s overtaken Lister in prominence by that point after III made a point of them co-starring.

[Warbodog]

I wonder if Kryten’s even overtaken Lister by IV & V, if you counted up screentime and lines. Lots of exposition about super-light-speed particles – tachyons – passing through wormholes and stargates and the like.

[bloodteller]

>V is a very Rimmer-oriented series, isn’t it?

Most episodes that aren’t ensemble episodes are Rimmer-oriented, aren’t they? I don’t think Lister ever really gets an episode that’s got him as the central focus. Timeslides, maybe? But even then Rimmer is very prominent in there, and Lister vanishes halfway through

[Dave]

Thanks For The Memory is arguably more about Lister than Rimmer, I think.

(Also, I’m guessing we’re just talking about the original 36 here, as obviously later you have stuff like Ouroboros.)

[bloodteller]

>(Also, I’m guessing we’re just talking about the original 36 here, as obviously later you have stuff like Ouroboros.)

Actually that was just me being an idiot and forgetting that Ouroboros existed

[International Debris]

Fathers and Suns and Dear Dave are also very Lister-oriented. As are Epideme and Nanarchy. Also Confidence & Paranoia. And Psirens and Back to Earth, to some extent. And Give & Take. And M-Corp.

[Warbodog]

Lister feels prominent again in the Starbug series, VIII and the Dave era. Doesn’t feel like he does that much in IV & V, apart from summing up what they’ve all learned today and saving the day in The Inquisitor. I always liked that one for the Lister/Kryten team-up too.

[Plastic Percy]

Even ‘Timeslides’, which opens as a Lister episode, ends up being a Rimmer episode.

[Author]

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