"We Have To Go!"

[Dave]

I can’t remember if this ultra-specific point has ever been addressed before, so here goes.

In ‘The Inquisitor’, Kryten’s line “we have to go!” (to Lister, as they escape from the Inquisitor after the judgement sequence) sounds exactly like his overdubbed “we have to go!” in ‘Back To Reality’ as they flee the Esperanto.

I know that the Esperanto sequence was cut down a bit to help fit the episode to length, so did they just bung Kryten’s dialogue from the earlier episode over the top to paper over the cracks and add a bit of urgency?

Apologies if this has come up before and I missed it.

Topic

[Warbodog]

Seems like it. The deleted scene it replaces has Kryten panicking and jabbering on while the others run on ahead and he eventually follows, so there’s not really room for him to decisively announce “we have to go!” in there as filmed.

I’ve seen Inquisitor many more times than BTR due to patchy Byte ownership, so noticed that lifted dialogue at some point but don’t think of it the other way around.

[Dave]

The sudden edit in BTR always felt a bit clunky to me because of the way the pace suddenly changes, but it was only when I rewatched Inquisitor last night that I realised the dialogue was recycled rather than specially recorded for the episode.

[Pete Part Three]

It always jars with me, but only because it felt like the dialogue was simply repeated in the other episode. If it is, in actual fact, the same sound clip dubbed in, that would explain it (and I wouldn’t be too surprised).

Interesting.

[Stephen Abootman]

From the series V DVD booklet:

“”We have to go!”
Kryten’s recorded line in The Inquisitor is actually re-used in the final edit of Back to Reality as the crew flee the Esperanto, replacing a longer section of Kryten dialogue.”

The original line of course being, “we have to go and purchase a Kembrook pressure cooker, sir”

[Pete Part Three]

Well, you can prove anything with facts.

[Dave]

Ah, that confirms it then. Thanks.

[tombow]

did Rob and Doug know what Lolita was, or did it just occur to them as a generic name for an erotic novel?

[Warbodog]

I guess the latter. I listened to the Lolita audiobook a few years ago and don’t think there are any actual sex scenes described, certainly nothing graphic, so I think “that bit”/”that’s disgusting [yum yum, I’ll save it for later]” is just treating it as a generic dirty book and not really caring about authenticity. The alternative is too unpleasant to consider.

When I was watching Timeslides with a girlfriend at uni in 2004, she was not impressed by Rimmer’s “teenage temptresses” line.

You could say Red Dwarf III is “a bit dodgy.”

My question: are they wearing flayed, dead GELF skins in Beyond a Joke? What else could those be?

[Ben Saunders]

This is Rimmer we’re talking about here. Series III Rimmer. Being “a bit dodgy” is in character. Teenage temptresses can be 18 or 19, anyway.

[Unrumble]

“are they wearing flayed, dead GELF skins in Beyond a Joke? What else could those be?”

In over 20 years I’ve never considered this…. makes sense I suppose.

They could’ve thrown in a line “let’s use that costume-synth gizmo we picked up back on the SS…”

[bloodteller]

>“are they wearing flayed, dead GELF skins in Beyond a Joke? What else could those be?”

I always thought it was implied they were just costumes Kochanski had made, given that when they’re putting them on she has a sewing machine next to her. However they look far too realistic, and much like the mirror universe machine in Only The Good, there kind of needs to be some explanation as to where exactly they came from

[bloodteller]

Maybe they just have an assortment of weird shit lying around for any scenario imaginable, given that in Emohawk they also just inexplicably happen to have Duane Dibbley’s exact outfit from a hallucination they once had.

[Plastic Percy]

My head canon has always been that Duane’s costume in Emohawk is from Rimmer’s belongings. The sort of casual clothes his mum would buy him.

[By Jove its holmes]

If actual girls/women don’t like the teenage temptresses line, that should carry more weight than a guy thinking it’s OK, surely?

It’s objectifying at the least.

[Taiwan Tony]

Rimmer and Lister are men and are thus bound by nature to have male thoughts. Also, some men are absolute bounders! I therefore don’t have a problem with it, in spite of it being a bit gross.
For the same reason I’m okay with Rik Mayall in Bottom gawping at a breastfeeding woman, or Rik Mayall in Blackadder being a sex pest.
But then I’m not a woman.

[Dave]

It’s the same argument as Rimmer’s line about wheelchair users in Cured, isn’t it? You’re meant to think he’s being an arsehole.

[Ben Saunders]

Aye, the idea that people on the telly aren’t allowed to be bad people or think bad thoughts and all have to be paragons of moral virtue, or that somehow a character’s morals have to be a reflection of its writer’s is totally barmy to me. And an instance like that isn’t making fun of the disabled, is deriving humour from a person who holds such an attitude

[Paul Muller]

I think it’s generally fine as long as the writing makes clear that the joke is on them, and doesn’t condone it. For much of Red Dwarf, this is the case, with a few jarring exceptions.

This is one of my main problems with Series VIII – a lot of it feels like we’re supposed to relate to the incredibly dodgy sexual politics on a sort of ‘blokey’ level, like “Come on lads, given the chance, who wouldn’t drug a woman to make them sexually suggestible or surreptitously film them in the shower, or try and coerce them into sex via emotional blackmail…”

It’s weird though, as the show has always had a large female audience. I suppose it’s just very much a product of the shitty pervasive lad culture of the time.

[bloodteller]

Although obviously people are allowed to be offended by something if it makes them uncomfortable, I think of all the stuff relating to objectifying women in Red Dwarf, the line in Timeslides about the “teenage temptresses” is incredibly tame. Like, it’s nothing compared to Lister doing an assault on Kochanski in VII, Lister doing an assualt on Kochanski in VIII, Rimmer’s transphobia in Dear Dave, Lister’s misogyny in Dear Dave, the casual asphyxiation of a woman in Entangled, that dodgy as fuck line in M-Corp about women talking too much etc.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

that dodgy as fuck line in M-Corp about women talking too much etc.

I very much hope that is just a case of ignorance on Doug’s part. The claim of women talking 20,000 words a day verse men 7,000 was based on a very poorly done study that was then widely publicised.

Shame on Doug for not checking the validity of it before using it, and it is certainly there to make a joke about women talking too much, I just hope it wasn’t as intentionally malicious as it seems.

[Taiwan Tony]

Cartoon violence like kicking Irene out the airlock is fine with me. It was a “comedy” moment.

[NoFro]

I’m forgetting the transphobia in Dear Dave? Maybe that’s a good thing…

[Hamish]

> I’m forgetting the transphobia in Dear Dave? Maybe that’s a good thing…

Rimmer: Bet she was a man … Well, you said yourself she liked zero-gee and curries. Bet you she was a man … Did she have big feet? … When you did the foxtrot, did you ever wonder why she was shaving?

[bloodteller]

The idea that Rimmer is a massive transphobe is unpleasant, to be honest. I mean yes, he behaves somewhat homophobic in Dimension Jump in regards to Lister and Ace, but that’s out of jealousy that Ace is better than him and is much more liked by Lister and the others etc. In Dear Dave he’s just transphobic for no reason at all towards a woman he knows literally nothing about

It’s the Series X equivalent of the “droopy ass titties” line, I think. It’s needlessly aggressive and mean-spirited for absolutely no reason whatsoever

[clem]

Interesting Twitter thread from just a few days ago pointing out that Rimmer was always a kind of ur-incel: https://mobile.twitter.com/SoozUK/status/1085102979441672192

I don’t remember that dialogue from Dear Dave either but yeah, sounds like you’d have a hard time arguing Rimmer’s somehow the butt of the joke there, compared to stuff like Picking Up Girls By Hypnosis.

[Ben Saunders]

>It’s WOKE AF
Yikes

I think rather than being malicious, much of VIII is just trying desperately to be funny, and crude sex jokes and bloke humour is just a pathetic attempt to mine the bottom of the barrel for easy laughs. Paul Alexander seems like the type who would find that stuff incredibly amusing.

I actually am somewhat affronted by the transphobic stuff in Dear Dave. That isn’t funny. I don’t remember any of it either, which is interesting. Not only is the line offensive, but it doesn’t even justify itself by being funny, even in a cheap way. I forgive the titties line because I find it outrageously funny, but there is no humour to be derived from “did you ever wonder why she was shaving during the foxtrot”

[Ben Saunders]

Also worth mentioning I find “he was a transvestite but at least we could have gone dancing” a bit iffy. And maybe the crossdressing stuff in Tikka, too. I guess now I have trans friends I’m more sensitive to this stuff, but it was always off to me.

[Warbodog]

The first novel says “drug-crazed Nazi transvestite,” which takes the edge off. I’ve always wondered whether that was in the Balance of Power script too and inexperienced actor Craig just forgot to say a rather key word, since his emphasis on transvestite makes it sound like that’s the bad part.

[Warbodog]

The person who objected to Timeslides’ “teenage” (which I know doesn’t mean underage) also really didn’t like Tim Bisley in Spaced fantasising about schoolgirl Amber or people at our uni dressing up in low-cut school uniforms on School Disco night. She did social work and I think she’d known people who’d been abused, so was extra sensitive about that.

Fuck.

Mind bleach!:

[Pete Part Three]

>compared to stuff like Picking Up Girls By Hypnosis.

Part of the reason I’m not keen on Parallel Universe is that the way it handles Rimmer is totally wrong. Rob and Doug wanted to explore misogyny, so they stacked a load of traits onto Rimmer’s character that doesn’t square with anything we’ve see of him before (or much of what we”ve seen since).

The opening few minutes isn’t Rimmer. It’s just a bunch of traits dumped on him to make the point of Arlene pouncing on him 20 minutes later “ironic”. I can believe Rimmer (and, by logic this goes for Arlene too) would read “Picking Up GIrls/Boys By Hypnosis”. I can’t believe that either of them would have the courage to actually use it. Same with the the chat-up lines.

Arlene is the female version of an Arnold that’s been hastily rewritten for that episode.

[clem]

Pretty much agree with that. I can imagine him trying it, but he’d panic and fuck it up. Arlene is far too sure of herself, is my main problem with it. By the same token, not sure I buy Lister taking the attitude that “it’s the [wo]man’s responsibility” etc. Rob and Doug got carried away with their right-on idea at the expense of the characterization.

[Ben Saunders]

You two might be right on that one. I think my fondness for Parallel Universe is focused mainly on bring obsessed with Tongue Tied as an actual song when I were a lad, and Lister belching. I’m not sure the test of the episode is all that great. Which episode has the line about Rimmer’s gf having a concussion? And then there’s the deleted stuff about elbow-titting from The End. Rimmer was always a bit of a sex-pest, but I do feel that line about it being “the woman’s responsibility” is not a Lister line, it’s a line trying to make a point.

[bloodteller]

>Rimmer was always a kind of ur-incel

Interestingly, as I’ve been rewatching the show with a friend, she made this exact same point. She also REALLY liked Parallel Universe because of the point it makes about gender roles and tying up the twin babies plot point from Future Echoes. As I recall, someone on the forum said it was their most hated episode of the whole show, so I guess it’s a rare example of a I-VI episode that’s fairly divisive.

>Also worth mentioning I find “he was a transvestite but at least we could have gone dancing” a bit iffy. And maybe the crossdressing stuff in Tikka, too. I guess now I have trans friends I’m more sensitive to this stuff, but it was always off to me.

As someone who’s trans, I find the stuff about J Edgar Hoover in Tikka fairly inoffensive. It never felt like it was trying to be a joke or anything, it’s just part of the story as to how the alternate 1966 ended up the way it did. The line in Balance Of Power I don’t particularly mind either, although that’s probably only because I find Craig’s delivery of “At least we could’ve gone dancing” to be really funny. Rimmer’s transphobia in Dear Dave is just fucking abysmal though, and it doesn’t even add anything to the plot (at least Cat’s droopy titties led to them getting arrested, which is part of the story) so it’s entirely unnecessary. It also feels like the kind of thing you’d read in a particularly nasty Facebook comment, not an Emmy-award winning sitcom

[bloodteller]

Timewave made me feel genuinely deeply uncomfortable the first two times I watched it, but now I can look at it and it’s just really really crap. I wish Doug would stop trying to do bizarre social commentary on current events and issues and just write some funny jokes. I was about to say “At least it hasn’t stooped as low to be making jokes about the US presidency” but then I remembered Mechocracy was a thing

[Warbodog]

Parallel Universe has always been my worst of I-VI and the only one I’d say I dislike. I just found it weak (after the solid opening scenes), generally unpleasant, and I didn’t like Arlene “Rimmer” or Dog at all. Is there really a scene where a pink “female” Skutter wearing lipstick and a doily has little baby Skutters that are dragged along on a string, or did I imagine that VIII-level shite?

[si]

Oh, I never liked The Dog. I realise it’s comedy fiction, but he just seems like too much of a cartoon.

[clem]

I like the Rimmers’ uncomfortable conversation, before Arlene tries to hypnotise Arnold. That’s when she’s believable as a female version of Rimmer. The odd moment like that plus Tongue Tied, the Holly Hop Drive, the Dog, Holly and Hilly, and Rimmer’s glee at Lister being pregnant elevates it above ‘poor’ for me, but 36 in the Pearl Poll is much too high. The pink/baby skutters are crap.

[Dave]

Oh, I never liked The Dog. I realise it’s comedy fiction, but he just seems like too much of a cartoon.

And yet when they push it much further into cartoon territory with Mr Rat, it works.

[Pete Part Three]

>I like the Rimmers’ uncomfortable conversation, before Arlene tries to hypnotise Arnold.

Yeah, I’d like to point out that I love the jiggling, nervy legs under the table – as that’s totally right. I just don’t get why Arlene suddenly gets all rapey when a) they’re supposed to be the SAME person and b) they’re supposed to be RIMMER.

Tongue Tied bores the shit out of me, though. I just don’t think it works as a comedy song. It’s just this weird skit with the cast showing off and some lyrics which are just, um, comical but not actually funny Doug is quite critical of Danny taking Tongue Tied away from its intended purpose, but I don’t really get what that was. It’s just…odd.

[Lily]

I’ve never really found that scene odd. I think the main problem is that Arlene is meant to be drunk and isn’t really showing it. Rimmer says “I’m the same when I’m tanked up” and I’m quite prepared to believe that.

As for him being a bit rapey, is that not the charge thrown at him for most of VIII? Given the mix of social awkwardness, sexual frustration and plenty of booze I’ve known too many guys that take polite conversation as “asking for it” and getting too handsy. Fits his profile perfectly really.

But yeah, she didn’t play it ‘drunk’, so a lot of that just makes her look over confident instead.

[Flap Jack]

The idea that Rimmer is a massive transphobe is unpleasant, to be honest. I mean yes, he behaves somewhat homophobic in Dimension Jump in regards to Lister and Ace, but that’s out of jealousy that Ace is better than him and is much more liked by Lister and the others etc. In Dear Dave he’s just transphobic for no reason at all towards a woman he knows literally nothing about

The most major bit of transphobia in Red Dwarf that sticks in my mind is the ‘Kryten gets sent to women’s prison’ Series VIII sub-plot, which doesn’t turn any of the principal six characters into a bigot but does infect the actual plots of 2 episodes.

The implication of Red Dwarf’s nonsensical “no penis == woman” judgement is just so bleak. It means that at the very least, every single transgender prisoner in the JMC (as of 3m years in the past anyway) is subjected to the same bigotry and oppression as trans prisoners are now, or possibly even worse. There might even be some others on Red Dwarf during VIII. I mean, damn.

Perhaps if they’d played it differently, the fact that they would even apply such regressive logic to a futuristic robot could have just about qualified as satire, but the way they actually did it, it just comes across as ignorant.

Yes, obviously Doug isn’t painting JMC as being in the right in their decision to classify Kryten as a woman, but the joke is clearly “they’re too stupid to understand that mechanoids can’t be gendered by their Penis Count, or they’re just too rigidly bureaucratic to make an exception for Kryten”, but this makes no sense because (A) that kind of logic already doesn’t apply to lots of ordinary humans and this should in no way be a revelation to them, and (B) THEY LITERALLY HAVE CREWMEMBERS ENTIRELY COMPOSED OF LIGHT.

Anyway, just 2 months until we get to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Krytie TV! ;-)

[Pete Part Three]

>As for him being a bit rapey, is that not the charge thrown at him for most of VIII?

Um, if you’re looking for a defence of the characterisation of Rimmer in VIII, I’ll have to stand aside. I don’t even know who that guy is.

>As for him being a bit rapey

No, I’m saying it’s *her* who’s being rapey; which in turn is making a comment that this is how he is with women. She’s the one basically groping her equivalent, claiming he’s begging for it and making him scupper away to find somewhere to hide/sleep so he won’t have to put up with her advances. We never see Arnold act like that to a woman (not even in *that* scene) so showing his female equivalent acting like that to say “Ha ha; see how HE likes it”, is just a bit crap and shows how contrived all that seeded stuff in the bunkroom discussing chat-up lines and hypnosis is earlier. It’s not that it’s not funny, it’s just that it’s not the Rimmer we’ve seen. Not because Rimmer is a man of great moral standing who knows how to relate to women (he’s not and he doesn’t); just because he’s a weasley guy who wouldn’t have the guts to try and stick his tongue down someone’s ear while they were conscious. The “I’m the same when I’m drunk” line is a frantic handwave to persuade us that this is telling us something about Rimmer (the times we have seen Rimmer drunk, he ends up rather sad and self-relective).. It’s just making a general point about sexism and misogyny. Badly.

[clem]

> I’d like to point out that I love the jiggling, nervy legs under the table – as that’s totally right.

It’s very nicely played, and ‘Mind you, we’ve got a pretty good conversation going on here’ is an excellent line.

> Doug is quite critical of Danny taking Tongue Tied away from its intended purpose

I remember Doug and Howard Goodall talking about how it got out of hand or whatever, but what it ended up as in the episode rings true for me as something the Cat would dream. I could have done without the single, that video and so on, and why is it such a big deal on Smeg Outs? But within Parallel Universe I like it, and Craig squeezing his balls to get the high note and pulling that face amuses me.

[clem]

> the times we have seen Rimmer drunk, he ends up rather sad and self-relective

I find it easier to imagine a drunk Rimmer having a bitter, self-pitying rant (or indeed posting on incel forums) about all the women who ever turned him down, than being all lairy like Arlene. VIII does muddle things, though.

[Warbodog]

Always thought Deb Lister / Angela Bruce was a good fit, just don’t really like those scenes. Part of the reason I don’t like Arlene / Suzanne Bertish is that she’s just not the right height, ffs. Dog makes me cringe.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

We never see Arnold act like that to a woman (not even in *that* scene) so showing his female equivalent acting like that to say “Ha ha; see how HE likes it”, is just a bit crap and shows how contrived all that seeded stuff in the bunkroom discussing chat-up lines and hypnosis is earlier.

I’m watching this episode now and it is pointed out in the first bunk room scene between the 2 Lister’s and Rimmer’s that sexual attitudes are opposite as well. So whilst Arlene is very forward and sexually aggressive towards Arnold, he’d never behave in that way. I think the hypnosis stuff show’s his lack of confidence in that he has to use cheesy chat up lines and trickery, but even then we all know he probably wouldn’t go through with it, in that he wouldn’t build up the nerve to try, whereas Arlene has no such inhibitions.

[pi r squared]

I was about to say “At least it hasn’t stooped as low to be making jokes about the US presidency” but then I remembered Mechocracy was a thing

While we certainly feared this was going to be the case when we initially read the synopsis for Mechocracy, I don’t really feel that the actual episode ended up being a particularly overt commentary on US elections or presidencies. I don’t think there’s anything in the episode that’s meant to be a dig or parody of a particular president or even a particular style of president. It ended up being a much, much stronger and less ‘political’ episode than predicted – unlike Timewave, which ended up being everything people feared from the synopsis and more!

[clem]

> it is pointed out in the first bunk room scene between the 2 Lister’s and Rimmer’s that sexual attitudes are opposite as well.

Meaning that society’s attitudes to men and women are switched in their universe. So an individual’s opposite-gender counterpart would have exactly *the same* sexual attitudes as said individual.

[Warbodog]

Part of the reason I don’t like Arlene / Suzanne Bertish is that she’s just not the right height, ffs. Dog makes me cringe.

I just want to clarify that “Dog” is a separate character in the episode.

[Ben Saunders]

I would hope the no penis = woman thing only applied to mechanoids, but I’m not really that concerned with the JMC being depicted as transphobic, really, especially because they aren’t depicted as being in the right for it. This isn’t Star Trek.

>I just want to clarify that “Dog” is a separate character in the episode.
Those of us who haven’t seen Parallel Universe appreciate the clarification.

[Author]

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