Your Unpopular Red Dwarf Opinions

[Piplup2003]

The title says it all. What opinions do you have about Red Dwarf that no-one else seems to agree on?

For me, it’s that VIII is my second favourite series (behind V) and that I prefer Chloë over Claire as Kochanski (this may be partially influenced by the fact that I’ve met Chloë).

And please, no arguing.

Topic

[Renegade Rob]

Another unpopular opinion: As someone who’s enjoyed multiple versions of Pride and Prejudice, the AR sequence in Beyond a Joke still cracks me up, even if the episode falls off in quality after that. But even though it’s rightly placed low on everyone’s rankings, I think there are still a couple things to enjoy. Cat’s reaction when Kryten’s head explodes and bits fall onto the table is pretty fantastic and continues to be fantastic even after having seen it in the VII intro montage a bazillion times. And maybe it’s just me, but I also sort of enjoy the “cartoonivore” line, stupid as it is, and Lister saying “you smell nice” under the tarp and Cat replying “thanks!” And then Cat speaking English during the haggling with the Simulant (which is otherwise a dumb concept because he deals with Gelfs all the time, you can’t bullshit your way through that with fake Gelf-speak). So yeah, I guess my unpopular opinion is that, due mostly to some okay Cat bits, I might place Beyond a Joke… (*looks around nervously*) one rank higher than the average.

[Pete Part Three]

My favourite bit of dialogue in Beyond a Joke is the choking noise one of the Bennett sisters makes when Kryten murders her with a blow-pipe.

[Ben Saunders]

The shots of especially Red Dwarf itself in Series X are just a lot more visually interesting and creative than anything in XI onwards. Fathers & Suns is a particular standout for me. I know they are a little bit ropey and shaky due to not being done motion control, but they just feel so much more like people genuinely trying, while XI onwards feels a bit like just getting it done. The other shots in XI and XII are a real mixed bag of good and bad, all of the CGI stuff looks great but unfortunately particularly some of the Starbug model stuff just looks incredibly spotty, and, like KT said, as if the people working on it were just guessing. I think we’re ready for CGI to be used for at least Starbug. Perhaps the Dwarf itself would be too ambitious.

Kryten’s head exploding because lister asked for some tomato sauce is such a genuinely classic moment, to me. My favourite part is when it happens again. I think the fact that you can see the dummy Kryten head for far too long before it cuts to the explosion makes it funnier, too. And it opened my young mind up to the reality of how that kind of shot is done, you can see a dummy Greedo for a couple of frames in Star Wars too. It’s my phone background.

[Moonlight]

I think the fact that you can see the dummy Kryten head for far too long before it cuts to the explosion makes it funnier, too.

I can’t decide if I fucking hate this or love it. I can’t imagine it’s unintentional on account of the fact that I’ve gone into my expensive visual effects studio with that scene and worked out that you can easily remove the frames of the dummy head and make the explosion basically seamless.

Then I added about three more explosions and some bluescreen skutters whizzing by, converted the mono audio to 5.1, and 3D motion tracked a fedora onto Kryten, because I really need to justify the expense of that software license.

[evilmorwen]

The fact that that dodgy head explosion is in the opening credits montage doesn’t help, I think. By the time you see it for real you’ve seen it how many times?

[Ben Saunders]

Six times. But I’ve seen most episodes of classic Dwarf in excess of 30 times and they’re still funny.

[Renegade Rob]

I never see Psirens high up on many lists and it doesn’t seem to get talked about that much since I guess it’s not like staggeringly great or stupid so it falls through a lot of cracks by just being decent.

And that’s fair enough. But whenever I revisit it, I’m always impressed by how well it serves its role as a soft reboot episode. As someone who studies story structure a lot, when a show wants to readjust and reset a bit, having a premiere that balances overarching plot and episode of the week is tricky, and Psirens deserves props for executing that well (whether or not you agree with the actual changing of setting and tone).

The show’s always been well structured (give or take Series VIII), but devoting the first act to reestablishing the characters and establishing a new status quo, and then getting down to business and hitting the ground running for the next two acts, it’s just well done.

So, yeah, I think my unpopular opinion is that Psirens is a little underrated or at least falls through the cracks of popular opinion in a way that it shouldn’t, though maybe I’ve misread popular opinion on this, which would then make my take on the popular opinion of Psirens my unpopular opinion.

[Hamish]

Again, that is kind of how I feel about Cured. In terms of competent structure it excels no matter what you think of the actual ideas or jokes. At least for the messy production of the Dave era.

[Ben Saunders]

Psirens is good but ever since I was young I thought it was just a bit throwaway really, a bit “oh it’s like Polymorph”. And the soft reboot thing is like, alright cool, but I don’t need a soft reboot, I just watched all of Series IV-V earlier today, I know all this stuff. It’s full of good stuff, but its wonky structure and retreading of old ground means it can only ever be in the middle for me. Maybe it’s better for a new viewer or to re-introduce somebody who hasn’t seen it for a while, but that’s not me.

Hypocritically, I really enjoyed Doctor Who’s The Pilot for the same reasons you like Psirens – it introduces new viewers to the show but also reminds you of everything you love about it.

Never thought about Cured in those terms. Given that Twentica was supposed to be the first episode anyway I never would have thought about Cured even trying to do that. Cured does have a really good structure, now you mention it.

[Renegade Rob]

The Pilot was weird because it was Moffat and Capaldi’s third and last season, so they could’ve just doubled down on what was already established, like a trilogy. Even with a new companion it didn’t need a reboot, especially since there was about to be a creative overhaul with a new Doctor. It always struck me as weird when they’re like, oh it’s a reboot, because did anyone ask for that?

I guess no one asked for the Series VI reboot either, but one could see how it was headed that way with Kryten and Holly fighting for the exposition role and it becoming more of an action adventure each week. Hell, Series V has them starting out on Starbug half the time anyway for no particular reason. Always kind of thought it was interesting how Series I through VI was a gradient of 100% Red Dwarf/Bunkroom, 0% Starbug/New Locations in Series I to 0% Red Dwarf/Bunkroom to 100% Starbug/New Locations, with II-V being an almost perfect gradient from I to VI. Cutting the Red Dwarf cord completely for Series VI sort of made sense even if I preferred the earlier series.

[Ben Saunders]

It’s worth noting that Doctor Who is absolutely full of soft reboots, it’s just The Pilot was the one where they decided to make it incredibly obvious, and even market it as such – possibly because some people took issue with the continuity-laden, Clara-heavy Series’ 8 and 9 (I didn’t).

Smith and Jones is a soft reboot, Partners in Crime is a soft reboot. Eleventh Hour is a very obvious soft reboot. Deep Breath is a soft reboot. They take the “seeing through the eyes of the new companion” thing and as they introduce elements of the Doctor’s world to the companion, so do they re-introduce those elements to the audience.

It is a pretty smooth transition from I-VI, although I’m sure II-III was a lot more jarring at the time than it appears now. But the fact that it’s such a smooth transition makes the re-introduction of everything somewhat more redundant. The Pilot is “forget all that continuity nonsense for now, forget Clara, here’s a few episodes of good old Doctor Who.” Psirens is “here’s things you know already, honestly.”

[GlenTokyo]

I love Psirens.

It’s got so much going for it, it’s one of the most visually impressive episodes ever made.

Got some classic gags.

Actual peril and good villain.

Quality guest star in Jenny Agutter, which is the equivalent of Dave Dwarf getting Kate Winslet or something.

Up near the top of my list, Anita Dobson and Clare Grogan don’t even do it that much damage haha

[Ben Saunders]

I had no idea Jenny Agutter was famous.

The strangest thing about Clare Grogan’s appearance is knowing that just nine episodes later, she’ll be somebody else. Given that VII and VI are so similar in setting (mainly Starbug), she pops out rather anachronistically whenever I watch.

I like Kryten as a cube.

[Ben Saunders]

The fun thing about Red Dwarf is that describing something as “a middling episode of Red Dwarf” is essentially extremely high praise, compared to basically anything else.

[Dave]

The strangest thing about Clare Grogan’s appearance is knowing that just nine episodes later, she’ll be somebody else. Given that VII and VI are so similar in setting (mainly Starbug), she pops out rather anachronistically whenever I watch.

Yes, I’ve always felt this. In the context of the whole run it’s really odd for her to pop up again so late, after such a big gap, and in such a short cameo, only for KK to return in such a different and more prominent way so soon after.

[Hamish]

Yes, I’ve always felt this. In the context of the whole run it’s really odd for her to pop up again so late, after such a big gap, and in such a short cameo, only for KK to return in such a different and more prominent way so soon after.

Canonically, yes, but of course from a production standpoint the distance from Clare to Chloë was not much shorter than the distance from Clare’s last appearance in Stasis Leak to Psirens.

[Dave]

That’s true if you think of distance in terms of years, I suppose – but not in terms of the feel of the show (there was a massive evolution in all sorts of ways between Grogan’s last appearance in Stasis Leak and her showing up in Psirens – but not so much between Psirens and Ouroboros).

In general though, you’re right that it’s easy to forget how compressed those first six series were in terms of production time compared to everything that came after.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Bring back any crew member post series II feels really odd doesn’t it (until you hit VIII of course). From III onwards they sort of cleanly break with everything that came before, and move forward, so for Claire’s Kochanski to suddenly have a cameo 4 series later after no flash backs or what not can feel a little jarring. Especially, as Ben says, only a few episodes later the character is back played by someone else anyway even if the the gaps between character appears are similar in terms of actual Earth years.

[clem]

Psirens is an odd one for me because I read the script in Primordial Soup before I saw the episode. That would have been the case for quite a few people because the book came out before the episode originally aired, but for me it was because Psirens was missing from the ’94 repeat run, which was when I became a fan. Thinking about it, I must have seen the Psirens smeg ups before I saw the episode as well, as Smeg Ups came out before the VI videos. Anyway, I don’t remember being disappointed when I eventually saw it but maybe I built it up too much as this fabled “lost” episode because it’s never been a favourite either and feels less familiar than the rest of the Grant Naylor era. Time for a reappraisal.

[evilmorwen]

and like, they also recast Kochanski with Suzanne Rhatigan a couple of years before that anyway (that’s what the credits say: don’t @ me)

did they actually try and book Claire for series 7? i mean, i know some people have issues with her performance but like, also, she didn’t really have an actual part. todhunter got more lines than her in “The End”, and she’s great in “Balance of Power”.

[evilmorwen]

yeah Psirens was a weird one – as i recall the script came out /ages/ before the first broadcast. i think it was the first television script i’d ever read (well, i mean, i guess i’d have read the other five in the book first); so i found it quite disappointing? and then that sort of soured the episode.

it seems mad now how compressed that all was. i know the first one I watched was the original broadcast of “Holoship” in February 1992; and then by Red Dwarf VI i’d acquired basically all media it was possible to obtain at that point (the novels, the smegazines as they came out, Soup, i guess taping repeat runs, and the never-to-be-repeated series 1 tapes). by September 1993 i’m writing fanfiction, drawing fan art, and taping the Gunmen version of the theme tune (pictured in my icon there). that all occurred in 18 months! we hadn’t even got a video player at the start of it.

[RunawayTrain]

I actually like the long, remastered version of the ship. I don’t prefer it, and it’s established throughout I-VI (and VII? Can’t remember if we see any picture of the ship at all) that Red Dwarf *is* a short, squat ship so it would be a bit stupid to try to change it, but I think as a design and model it’s actually pretty good. I like some of the shots of it, especially all the lights. It was just designed at the wrong time (and in the wrong place, ending up too long for motion control).

If it were the original Red Dwarf instead of having been foisted upon the programme as a replacement, I don’t think anyone would have an issue with it. If the model had still been built too long for motion control, that would likely have been dealt with and absorbed into the show’s history, just like everything else that went wrong and had to be accommodated/worked around in those early years and still gave us what we see as classic Red Dwarf.

[Dave]

That movie test shot makes it look pretty good I think.

I think the primitive CGI of VIII and Remastered was a big part of the problem people had with it.

[GlenTokyo]

Yeah it’s a good ship, I mean, it’s a BBC VFX/ Model Unit design so it’s quality. Was it Rocky?

It’s just too slick for a Red Dwarf, that’s the issue.

Series VIII at least tried to explain that with its “to original spec” retcon, when it just turned up in Remastered it was just too big a departure and didn’t match the material.

[International Debris]

You get a brief shot of the original model at the end of Nanarchy, so yes, it’s still the correct version up to the end of VII.

The movie test shot does look bloody excellent, but as said, it still feels a bit too slick. The idea of it just being a block, something put together without any thought for aesthetic, is what gives it its identifiable look, and fits in really well with everything on the inside.

The ‘original spec’ aspect of VIII always seemed pretty desperate, given that the entire shape and size of the ship has changed so utterly radically that it’s barely recognisable as the same thing. I think the use of the pencil ship in VIII was a huge mistake. It’s perfectly fine in Remastered, it fits the rest of the shit updates there, but it shouldn’t have been in VIII.

[GlenTokyo]

The original and as it’s described in the books, it seems like an inside out moon. In my head the rock isn’t an asteroid that collided, it’s what they captured and hollowed out to provide the materials to make the rest of the ship and the untouched lump at the bottom is what provides the mass to keep some gravity pointing in the right direction.

So it should be cavernous and all over the place, no uniformity whatsoever.

The redesign is more like what would actually occur if humans wanted to build a 5 mile long ship, it’d be modular, but it’s not as interesting.

[Ben Saunders]

I think as a design it looks really nice and makes sense narratively for VIII, it’s just the CGI is really rather poor and the shade of red they choose is nightmarishly ugly.

Putting it in Remastered does not make one lick of sense, because VIII establishes that the ship looks different because it’s been changed to its original design… if Remastered went all the way to VIII, they’d have to change the ship again or else that line wouldn’t make any sense.

[RunawayTrain]

I think as a design it looks really nice and makes sense narratively for VIII, it’s just the CGI is really rather poor and the shade of red they choose is nightmarishly ugly.

Putting it in Remastered does not make one lick of sense, because VIII establishes that the ship looks different because it’s been changed to its original design… if Remastered went all the way to VIII, they’d have to change the ship again or else that line wouldn’t make any sense.

They took out lines and changed scene orders in Remastered, so if it had gone to all the way they would likely have just taken the pertinent lines out.

Absolutely agree about the CGI. I would love to see a modern, sympathetic remastering, making use of infinitely better CGI and reining in the excessive changes. [Just out of curiosity mind you, not as a replacement!] I really like the clearer audio and some of the sound effects such as the hum of the ship. It’s just a shame they went too far with so many of the changes.

[International Debris]

if Remastered went all the way to VIII, they’d have to change the ship again or else that line wouldn’t make any sense.

Why? The line is “We now have a quark-level matter/anti-matter generator, ship-wide bio-organic computer networking, and a karaoke bar on C-deck.” There’s no actual reference to the shape of the ship changing, some some interior things. If it changed as dramatically as the models suggest, everybody would get lost because the dimensions of the ship are totally different.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You’re forgetting the line prior to that

“What’s this rumour that we’re three million light years into Deep Space,
and Red Dwarf’s changed shape?”

[clem]

Does anyone mention the length of the ship in the first three series? I can only think of Cat in DNA saying it’s five miles long. If they’d Remastered IV and left that line in, that would mean the Remastered ship was actually a lot smaller than the original, given its proportions relative to the length.

[GlenTokyo]

The only early reference to the size of the ship I can think of is in Future Echoes when Holly says it’s the size of a city.

[International Debris]

You’re forgetting the line prior to that

Whoops.

[evilmorwen]

at what point does Red Dwarf definitely become a ship designed for interstellar travel? to begin with it’s definitely supposed to be a hard science fiction slow-moving hulk that goes between moons and planets in the solar system, but by later series they’re jetting between planets that are surely not all just within a few AUs of where they started.

i wrote a whole bunch of text looking at the various incidents of contact with derelicts and research stations and such, it’s just the sheer /number/ of them that’s the problem. i wonder if in fact they never left the solar system – i mean, why would Holly do that? is that the underlying gag of Garbage World, that never really paid off in the book, that they /are/ in the right place, it’s just that Earth’s gone now.

[evilmorwen]

at what point does Red Dwarf definitely become a ship designed for interstellar travel? to begin with it’s definitely supposed to be a hard science fiction slow-moving hulk that goes between moons and planets in the solar system (“The End” and “Future Echoes” prove that), but by later series they’re jetting between planets that are surely not all just within a few AUs of where they started.

i wrote a whole bunch of text looking at the various incidents of contact with derelicts and research stations and such but there’s not really a smoking gun, it’s just the sheer /number/ of them that’s the problem. i wonder if in fact they never left the solar system – i mean, why would Holly do that? is that the underlying gag of Garbage World, that never really paid off in the book, that they /are/ in the right place, it’s just that Earth’s gone now.

[Ben Saunders]

Speaking of shades and red and stuff, the Dave era ship is the wrong shade of red, and Starbug is the wrong shade of Green and too glossy and reflective now, both of which make the show uglier than it needs to be. Starbug also looks tiny these days, and some of the model work is shall we say less than stellar.

[International Debris]

at what point does Red Dwarf definitely become a ship designed for interstellar travel?

From the start, surely? When talking about stasis in The End, Todhunter asks if Lister if he’s never travelled interstellar, which is then expanded on in Infinity, by stating stasis was designed for interstellar travel, but then after discovering it was a waste of time, the existing stasis booths just got used for punishment.

[evilmorwen]

let’s pretend i wrote “faster-than-light” there.

[Flap Jack]

Funny how casually Todhunter asks Lister whether he’s travelled interstellar like it’s something everyone does. Because if interstellar travel is slow enough that going into suspended animation is a normal/required part of it, then presumably it takes decades or centuries. That’s potentially a lot of loved ones who’ll die of old age before you get back home.

Then again, maybe interstellar space travel actually just takes months or single digit years, and passengers go into stasis anyway to alleviate the boredom, or because it’s cheaper. There’s room for head canon.

[Hamish]

Speaking of shades and red and stuff, the Dave era ship is the wrong shade of red, and Starbug is the wrong shade of Green and too glossy and reflective now, both of which make the show uglier than it needs to be. Starbug also looks tiny these days, and some of the model work is shall we say less than stellar.

Wrong opinion thread there, Ben.

[Dave]

Funny how casually Todhunter asks Lister whether he’s travelled interstellar like it’s something everyone does. Because if interstellar travel is slow enough that going into suspended animation is a normal/required part of it, then presumably it takes decades or centuries. That’s potentially a lot of loved ones who’ll die of old age before you get back home.

They should make a big-budget sci-fi movie about this phenomenon. But what to call it?

[Flap Jack]

They should make a big-budget sci-fi movie about this phenomenon. But what to call it?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

[Ben Saunders]

Wrong opinion thread there, Ben.

Well it would be a bit strange to carry on a conversation from this thread with “speaking of x”, in another thread.

The Dwarf goes faster than light but then slows down again in Episode 2, coming to a complete stop many times. Red Dwarf, like basically every other ship in science fiction, travels as quickly as the plot needs it to. If it has to visit a planet a week then it will, even though at sublight speeds that would take *checks notes* forever

[Flap Jack]

I was quite amused when I first watched Blake’s 7, and Zen asks Blake what speed to make the Liberator go, and he basically just goes “uh… standard? I guess, idk” and not only does Zen understand this as a colloquial instruction, but every character quotes speed as multiples of “Standard” for the whole rest of the show, and it never actually gets defined.

I kind of respect that Nation, Boucher et al knew that making spaceship speeds actually quantifiable (even if only vaguely and/or relative to light speed) would inevitably lead to fans obsessing over whether every journey makes sense, so they just didn’t try.

[International Debris]

let’s pretend i wrote “faster-than-light” there.

The only time it travels faster than light is in Future Echoes. If we assume it still travels very fast indeed, then coming across a new planet, station, etc., every few weeks shouldn’t be quite so hard to believe, if we consider that humanity managed to get almost as far out as Red Dwarf and then stop.
There is also the issue of how long it supposedly takes for the ship to turn around…

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I don’t think the stasis booths on Red Dwarf are intended for interstellar travel though are they? There are only 3 of them so obviously not enough to service the whole crew.

Red Dwarf, in the show and in the books, is designed to go up and down the solar system over the course of months/years.

Even though RD is seen to hop from planet to planet each week in later series, they still talk about it travelling relatively slowly.

It is only in Skipper that the idea that Red Dwarf goes up and down the Milky Way (the galaxy) is mentioned and that to me has always felt like a ret-con. Although one that makes sense, but does imply Red Dwarf is intended to travel at fast speeds as the “jags” are 6 months long.

So there’s some contradictory fuckery going on, especially as stasis booths are used on other ships to travel interstellar (as per Todhunter) but then it wouldn’t be Red Dwarf if it all added up.

[Dave]

It is only in Skipper that the idea that Red Dwarf goes up and down the Milky Way (the galaxy) is mentioned and that to me has always felt like a ret-con. Although one that makes sense, but does imply Red Dwarf is intended to travel at fast speeds as the “jags” are 6 months long.

Either way though, alternate universe.

[GlenTokyo]

Speaking of shades and red and stuff, the Dave era ship is the wrong shade of red, and Starbug is the wrong shade of Green and too glossy and reflective now, both of which make the show uglier than it needs to be. Starbug also looks tiny these days, and some of the model work is shall we say less than stellar.

Starbug looks cack nowadays because it’s made from a material that doesn’t take the paints used for the originals (Ford Signal Green car paint, and airbrushing). It’s the sintered 3D print stuff. Anything too wet soaks in.

It’s painted with a latex or similar based acrylic paint, so it’s shiny (and crap)

[Ben Saunders]

According to Katydid, the only Starbugs that were 3D-printed were the ones they crashed, and imo they actually looked decent. It’s the flying through space stuff that looks worst. So you might be right about it being a material which doesn’t take the paint, but wrong about them being 3D-printed. Unless they’re wrong. In which case fuck.

[GlenTokyo]

That’d mean they’ve paid a model maker to make them out of more suitable model materials like ABS and resin parts, and if they’ve done that, why wouldn’t they just pay The Model Unit to rent out their proper Starbugs and scan those in? You’d imagine that’d be cheaper than paying someone to make some even if The Model Unit are pricey per hour.

If they were 3D printed for crashing purposes, then that’s a bit daft mechanically and financially, you wouldn’t make it with binder jetting, because it just breaks (as the behind the scenes stuff shows, where it crashed and the arse fell off).

There’s a video of them scanning a Starbug on their website and that has the sort of sandy texture of that kind of 3D print so who knows.

[Author]

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