What if Series 9 had been made immediately after 8?

[Jawscvmcdia]

As we all know, Series 8 ended in 1999 and was the last series that the BBC produced, before Back to Earth was shown a decade later on Dave. However, what if Doug had decided against pursuing the movie at that point and instead went straight into producing Series 9? Presumably it would have also been produced by the BBC, so what could it have been like?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

It would’ve been shit most likely

[Jawscvmcdia]

>It would’ve been shit most likely

Why?

[genericnerdyusername]

I thought the BBC was no longer interested in the kind of audience Red Dwarf blah blah blah’d? When did that memo go out? I have no fingers to check myself.

[Dax101]

The BBC put money aside for a series 9, Its just Doug took 7 or 8 years to show any interest that by the time he did the BBC lost interest.

Chances are series 9 would have been similar to series 8. mostly because people loved series 8 at the time for some reason.

[Ben Saunders]

I only really know folklore and hearsay but I was under the impression the “no longer interested” memo was at least after a good few years of trying to make the movie. Feel free to correct me. A Series IX in 2000 probably would have been about as good as VIII, which is not particularly. In the mid 2000s, who knows. I guess you could check the movie draft script from whatever year to check, but it wouldn’t be a very accurate representation of potential TV scripts of the time.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I guess you could check the movie draft script from whatever year to check

Are these available? I was unaware

[Ben Saunders]

Oh, I don’t think so. In a drawer at Doug Naylor’s house/GNP HQ maybe.

[Hamish]

> I only really know folklore and hearsay but I was under the impression the “no longer interested” memo was at least after a good few years of trying to make the movie.

September 2007:

BBC rejects Red Dwarf IX

[genericnerdyusername]

Thanks.

[Moonlight]

Doug said he wasn’t even interested in writing Red Dwarf for TV any more at the time. Why’d you think Series VIII turned out the way it did? It only existed to give us 52 episodes for that all-important American syndication package that never happened.

Thankfully, because cutting Red Dwarf down to 22 minutes for American TV would butcher it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Just trying to imagine what an edit version of The End would look like.

Probably lose the scene between Lister, Rimmer and Todhunter

The funeral scene would be cut down ala Remastered.

Todhunter’s stasis explanation would probably go, as would Rimmer in the exam room.

“Where is everybody Hol?”
“Dead Dave.”
*cut to drive room*

Maybe lose the Cat’s first scene and have the introduction being in the teaching room when he walks in on Lister and Rimmer.

It would be truly atrocious!

[Dave]

“Look out Earth!”

IT’S COLD OUTSIDE

[bloodteller]

>Thankfully, because cutting Red Dwarf down to 22 minutes for American TV would butcher it.

>Just trying to imagine what an edit version of The End would look like.

The Japanese edits of the episodes are all 24 minutes long, so if you watch those it could give you an idea of what it would’ve been like. As you’d expect , it doesn’t really work too well-cutting 6 whole minutes out of an episode is never going to be great, and some of the cuts are very noticeable.

The Blue Midget dance is heavily shortened in the Japanese version of BITR 3, though. So maybe it’s not all bad

[Moonlight]

The Inquisitor in Japan cuts the entire thread of the alternate version of Lister, even though this makes the final punchline of the episode into an inexplicable non-sequitur.

[Shoes Have Soles]

Series 8 is a bit strange as by that time Doug was very interested in making the RD film and yet 8 is probably the most mainstream ‘tv’ series of the whole cannon. Especially after series 7 was much more film like with no live audience. I suspect if they had stuck with the beeb it would have evolved into a Fools and Horses show with occasional special episodes

A bigger question would have been what if they actually made a film.

[tombow]

it just occurred to me that if the film was a reboot, Cat could be made a different way (if they didn’t want the time skip). He could be a nerdy technician who gets crossed with Lister’s cat by the DNA modifier or something.

[Dax101]

I assume Lister would still have got put into stasis in the rebooted film. there would just have been a few changes made after that point when it comes to stimulant type robots that wiped out the human race.

[bloodteller]

> stimulant type robots

I don’t remember stimulants being a villain in the Red Dwarf Movie…

[Ben Saunders]

Homesapienoids or something, basically Simulants

[Bargain Bin Holly]

First time trying to upload an image on here let’s see if it works

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Yep ok, yeah these’s things I could imagine being henchmen for the Homosapienoids or some shit

Say what you want about what you believe Red Dwarf should/shouldn’t be, I firmly believe this movie would’ve been entertaining

[International Debris]

Yeah but what about the stimulants?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

There weren’t going to be any as far as we know

[Pete Part Three]

Oh well, I’m sure it would have still been very exciting.

[Dax101]

If the movie was anything like BTE then it probably wouldn’t be the most well written movie IMO.

But looking at some of the visual ideas that they wanted to do with a movie budget i can’t help but wish we had got a movie to see that stuff.

[bloodteller]

If you want to know what the movie would’ve been like, you can just watch The Beginning since most of the stuff in that was copied from a version of the movie script .So it’s sort of Red Dwarf:The Abridged Movie.

[Pete Part Three]

Don’t forget the stimulants.

[Ian Symes]

I’m sure Craig could get them some.

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