What would Red Dwarf’s “jumped the shark” expression be?

[Podey]

They “put a T-Rex on a spaceship”?

They “self-assassinated JFK”?

They “low-blowed the Reaper”?

Topic

[Rushy]

VIII is embarrassing for fans, Back to Earth is embarrassing for casuals. 

If you’re a filthy casual and you put on VIII, you’ll see some goofy characters on a goofy spaceship having a laugh. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

If you put on Back to Earth, you’ll see a movie length Red Nose skit. 

[Dave]

I remember a really long time ago reading somebody complain that “Back to Earth wasn’t funny because the audience wasn’t laughing” which implies there was a studio audience that was completely dead silent the entire time.

This idea has made me laugh out loud. Particularly the image of them during the sound mix desperately trying to identify any audience reaction whatsoever and coming up with absolutely nothing.

[Unrumble]

[Nick R]

This idea has made me laugh out loud. Particularly the image of them during the sound mix desperately trying to identify any audience reaction whatsoever and coming up with absolutely nothing.

THEY WERE GONNA SORT THAT OUT IN THE DUB

[Dax101]

There are a lot of people that feel that the audience gives the show personallity and maybe a feeling of warmth. But they also blame the lack of it on Back to earth not being what they consider funny. But what are we trying to say there? The show is only funny when we are told when something is funny?

[Warbodog]

I remember a really long time ago reading somebody complain that “Back to Earth wasn’t funny because the audience wasn’t laughing” which implies there was a studio audience that was completely dead silent the entire time.

I’ve also made that hilarious joke about VII Xtended or BTE before, so it might not have been serious.

[Dave]

VII Xtended is especially bad because the edit leaves gaps for the laughs to be there, and they’re not.

[Warbodog]

VII Xtended is especially bad because the edit leaves gaps for the laughs to be there, and they’re not.

[Ridley]

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All
those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to laugh.

[Turk Thrust]

There are a lot of people that feel that the audience gives the show personallity and maybe a feeling of warmth. But they also blame the lack of it on Back to earth not being what they consider funny. But what are we trying to say there? The show is only funny when we are told when something is funny?

I’ve also seen some comments in the past that have essentially been, “You need the audience to tell you when to laugh.”

Obviously, I don’t agree with that, but I will generously say that what some of those people were trying to say is more, “Red Dwarf is an audience sitcom. If you film an audience sitcom without an audience, you have a problem.”

I’m sure the debate has been had many times about what kind of humor will work in an audience sitcom, but won’t work without an audience. A debate that goes way over my head. ;) 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

There are a lot of people that feel that the audience gives the show personallity and maybe a feeling of warmth. But they also blame the lack of it on Back to earth not being what they consider funny. But what are we trying to say there? The show is only funny when we are told when something is funny?

I don’t think that’s the implication. I’ve definitely seen, I think, bad faith arguments that audience sitcoms put the laughs in to tell you when it’s funny. That’s also bull. 

Having a laugh track, whether from a live audience or from showing a recording to an audience, or using canned laughter is a creative choice. 

In making that choice you are affecting how the show is viewed by the audience. And often how it is written.

Laughter often underscores a punchline and heightens it. Remove it and it can feel like a joke falling flat. It’s not the jokes fault, but the punctuation is missing.

At its heart Red Dwarf is an audience sitcom and is written to be. It has punchlines and when those punchlines are missing their punctuation it feels weird. 

Compare that to single camera, non-audience sitcoms that are often written to be broadly funny in other ways, and have a different style and tone and the lack of laughter isn’t missed and the inclusion would feel weird. 

I think BTE is at its heart an audience sitcom that is missing part of what makes it that and it therefore feels a bit off. 

TPL on the other hand is probably closer to being written as a single camera non-audience sitcom and could probably get away without it, though I don’t think it suffers from its inclusion has an audience. 

[Dave]

Well put, Quinn.

I agree that Red Dwarf’s style of humour is designed to work with an audience, and feels a bit off without it. But I think you could do a version of it that works as a single-camera, non-audience show. The mythical imaginary HBO miniseries based on Infinity would be that.

[Ridley]

Blah blah cast react differently when they don’t have to ride a laugh blah

[Flap Jack]

In a similar vein to people thinking that audience sitcoms “tell you when to laugh”, I really hate that one YouTube video that edited the audience reactions out of a scene in The Big Bang Theory. Otherwise intelligent people shared that video around like wildfire, smugly claiming “see? If you edit out the audience laughter it’s just awkward and not funny. This proves how bad The Big Bang Theory is!”. No, it proves that adding multiple seconds of silence in between each line of dialogue makes the comedy worse. Not exactly a mind-blowing insight.

[Dax101]

Well if you make something without an audience, isnt the issue more that you filmed it as if there was one? Since If you made a film you wouldnt have those gaps because you couldnt. Its the expectation that people at home would be laughing so much you need these little quiet moments. 

As for the cast acting different with an audience. Yeah well they kinda act up to the audience, which they didnt do so much in the early run. While with Series 7 i don’t see much talk about their comedy acting even though there was no audience when they filmed

[Turk Thrust]

Well if you make something without an audience, isnt the issue more that you filmed it as if there was one? Since If you made a film you wouldnt have those gaps because you couldnt. Its the expectation that people at home would be laughing so much you need these little quiet moments. 

As for the cast acting different with an audience. Yeah well they kinda act up to the audience, which they didnt do so much in the early run. While with Series 7 i don’t see much talk about their comedy acting even though there was no audience when they filmed

There has been a lot of discussion about their performances in Series VII. Craig and Robert, in particular.

And Norman admitted that he struggled in his episode because of the absence of an audience.

[Jenuall]

Lack of audience doesn’t help VII for sure, especially when it doesn’t feel like it was properly made to accommodate that change. And I can fully understand how it has an impact on the casts performances – which I think is then exacerbated by the time jump since VI. There’s a world where you go straight from VI to VII and the cast handle it better because they’re still fresh off the back of playing those characters 6 years in a row – the absence of an audience would still have an impact but I’d imagine not as much as what we got in the end. (Not the episode)

Going back to the Emohawk discussion – I’ve always enjoyed the fan service of this more than many seem to. I don’t think revisiting old ideas necessarily screams “you’re out of ideas!” as much as some seem to – I think they use the call backs pretty well and that sequence of the episode still has enough good jokes for me to let any potential repetition slide. Ace preparing to snap Duane’s neck will never not be hilariously pitched to me. I’m a big fan of the opening ship crash and GELF sections of the episode so I’m carrying a lot of good will forward which helps. Also for the sake of accuracy – Duane doesn’t show up until minute 20 of a 28 minute episode so it’s not “half of the episode is just callbacks!!!” It’s not even a third! 

[Dax101]

Well if you make something without an audience, isnt the issue more that you filmed it as if there was one? Since If you made a film you wouldnt have those gaps because you couldnt. Its the expectation that people at home would be laughing so much you need these little quiet moments. 
As for the cast acting different with an audience. Yeah well they kinda act up to the audience, which they didnt do so much in the early run. While with Series 7 i don’t see much talk about their comedy acting even though there was no audience when they filmed

There has been a lot of discussion about their performances in Series VII. Craig and Robert, in particular.
And Norman admitted that he struggled in his episode because of the absence of an audience.

Thing is i never seen that as one of the major criticisms for series 7. Compared to Back to earth where its a major criticism. And id guess that its easy to forget there is no audience for series 7 because they added a laughter track to it so it still feels like there is an audience there. So no one is noticing the silences to think oh that performance wasn’t as good.

[Dave]

Also for the sake of accuracy – Duane doesn’t show up until minute 20 of a 28 minute episode so it’s not “half of the episode is just callbacks!!!” It’s not even a third! 

The Polymorph shows up a lot earlier than that, though. 

[Warbodog]

The cockpit scene also repeats Legion’s joke formula almost beat for beat.

[Dave]

The cockpit scene also repeats Legion’s joke formula almost beat for beat.

[Turk Thrust]

 Thing is i never seen that as one of the major criticisms for series 7. Compared to Back to earth where its a major criticism. And id guess that its easy to forget there is no audience for series 7 because they added a laughter track to it so it still feels like there is an audience there. So no one is noticing the silences to think oh that performance wasn’t as good.

The context is interesting.

During the decade between Series VIII and Back to Earth, one of the main discussions on the message boards was, “Are VII and VIII terrible?” The acting in VII got a huge amount of discussion as many felt there was a drop in quality compared to what had gone before. I seem to recall also that in the G&T commentary for ‘Tikka to Ride’ they talk about Lister and Kryten’s conversation early in the episode and it being apparent that the years since VI and the absence of an audience had affected Craig and Robert’s performances.

Now that we have had so many Dave episodes, the context is a little different. For example, I would say that Chris was a much better actor in VII than he was a decade or more later. That’s not exactly surprising as he has been semi-retired from acting for years. The same could be said for Robert. So, I can understand why the acting in VII wouldn’t be discussed so much nowadays when looking at the 74 (or so) episodes as a whole.

Plus, VII has 3 much more obvious things that grab the attention – the first episodes after Rob’s departure, the only episodes not featuring Rimmer, and the introduction of Kochanski as a main character. 

[Jenuall]

The Polymorph shows up a lot earlier than that, though. 

[Technopeasant]

The Polymorph shows up a lot earlier than that, though. 

It’s an emohawk. Totally different.

[Dave]

It’s an emohawk. Totally different.

An Emohawk is a Polymorph too.

Sorry, I mean a Polymorph II.

[Dave]

Interestingly (yes it is very interesting, shut up), despite the episode typically being stylised as Emohawk: Polymorph II, on-screen it doesn’t have the colon.

Which I guess makes the official title Emohawk Polymorph II.

[Warbodog]

As a stubborn ‘D.N.A.’ punctuator, I eat my full stops.

There was also quite a different approach to spoiler caution between Can of Worms: Polymorph III and the first 40 seconds of this episode.

[Dave]

It will also never not look like a football score.

[Unrumble]

[Ben Saunders]

I was going to ask why they didn’t just chop “Polymorph II” off the title to maintain the surprise, but then seeing they put it, Ace and Duane in the opening credits, they really didn’t give a fuck, did they

[Dave]

The score is even more unbelievable given that the Emohawk had the Emoh Egatnavda.

[Jenuall]

I’ve never got the “it looks like a football score” thing. Loads of stuff is titled “Something #: Other Thing” and it’s never caused confusion 

[International Debris]

Emohawk: Polymorph 11

[Dave]

I’ve never got the “it looks like a football score” thing. Loads of stuff is titled “Something #: Other Thing” and it’s never caused confusion 

I think it has something to do with the rhythm of the words, both having three syllables. It adds to that sense of hearing it read out over the teleprinter.

[Author]

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