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

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The best that particular interior has looked or the best interior they series has ever had?

I’ve said this before, but I’m not a fan of the updated techy feel to the RD interior. It’s a big bulky mining ship, it should feel more like an industrial submarine or a oil rig, not a fancy futuristic space ship. Starbug suffers from this more then the Dwarf does too (well the cockpit anyway). The medical/science bay in the last series is just far too Star Trek for my liking for example.

However, I think the sets for the last 3 series look best in series X, though that is mostly down to the lighting and the lack of ruddy great big bunk numbers painted on the walls … out of no-where. WHY?

[Dax101]

The Driveroom in Series X was shit. it looks like a Cockpit that they didn’t do a good enough job hiding.

Krytens Costume in X and XII is also Shit. not very flattering on Robert and looks cheap

[GlenTokyo]

I thought the boilersuit and chestplate mechs of Siliconia looked better than Kryten did to be honest. Robert needs less costume because the costume makes him look like like he’s a XXXL and he’s probably an L. The cyberman legs have got to go. I think a series V esque redesign could be more flattering.

[Flap Jack]

The best that particular interior has looked or the best interior they series has ever had?

The best the collection of Interior sets for Red Dwarf has looked overall.

I don’t mind the more Star Trek-esque aesthetics of certain sets or series – mining or no, it IS a giant, high-tech, futuristic spaceship with a lot of varied facilities – but I just really like the red/orange colour scheme of X in particular.

[bloodteller]

>The Driveroom in Series X was shit. it looks like a Cockpit that they didn’t do a good enough job hiding.

i didn’t mind it- technology is advanced enough now that you have these tiny portable phones that you can do all kinds of assorted stuff with. it seems reasonable enough that you could control a big mining ship with a very small room.

[International Debris]

Hard light made Rimmer less interesting.

I’d agree if they’d done anything interesting with him as a hologram since Bodyswap, but other than a couple of light bee jokes his character might as well be human by the time Legion comes along.

Series VII isn’t comedy drama. The gag quotient is just as regular as most of the earlier series, they just don’t land as often and there’s no studio audience to bounce off.

Agreed. I think at some point somebody must have mentioned it moved in a ‘slightly more dramatic direction’ – which I’d say is true, overall it feels less overtly sitcommy and it does have a few scenes that are played completely straight – and then that got turned into ‘it’s a comedy drama’ through Chinese Whiskers. It’s still very much a comedy throughout, just with different production values.

I enjoyed the running gags when I was a kid, but these days they feel really cheap. I can almost forgive the Space Corps Directives though, because I absolutely love the Timewave line.

Ok, here’s an unpopular one for sure: Timewave is a funny episode. The plot is shit, there are several problematic elements, some of the performances are terrible, but there are a lot of very funny jokes. It makes me laugh loads more than Cured and Twentica for a start.

[flanl3]

…there were funny jokes in Timewave?

[bloodteller]

…there were jokes in Timewave?

[Dave]

…there was Timewave?

[Dax101]

…Timewave?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> I enjoyed the running gags when I was a kid, but these days they feel really cheap. I can almost forgive the Space Corps Directives though

I see the Space Corps running gags as a character development of Rimmer’s. He gets the Space Corp Directive book in Quarantine, he studies it, becomes obsessed with it and tries to fold it into his “acting captain head of the crew” position he have sort of made for himself. Problem with Rimmer though is that he is crap, and as much as he may study them, and sort of remember what some of them are, he has no fucking clue really and so he tries to use this new found knowledge and just fucks it up time and time again.

It is one of the running gags that actually makes in universe character sense.

The others are literally just repeating the same old joke for no real reason other than the laugh.

Even Cat’s disdain for Rimmer to the point he’d like to ditch him leave him behind, which is a character trait, would be funnier if it was done once. The more it happens the less affect it has because its just the same joke.

At least the space corps directive jokes allow for some funny and utterly ridiculous directives.

What DOES bother me however, why are things like parking spaces right next to POW rules?

[Ben Saunders]

One of the things I noticed about VII when I re-watched it is the apparent sudden re-emphasis on character after the action-heavy VI. Kennedy dying, Rimmer leaving, Kryten thinking he’s being replaced etc are all touching, character-heavy moments. Coupled with the lack of laughter and the film effect, and the fact that literally nothing at all happens in Blue, it does feel more like comedy drama and/or mindless action than what immediately preceded it.

[Ben Saunders]

Oops, that should read “less like mindless action”, obviously. Not that VI is mindless.

[Dax101]

Jokes about the cats distain for Rimmer are something that’s been happening since series 1. But I agree that they shouldn’t become a regular habit in 1 series alone.

[Ben Saunders]

“Timewave… [has some] very funny jokes… I laugh(ed) loads more than Cured and Twentica….”
Absolutely. Cat being hostile to Johnny Vegas and completely oblivious to why he shouldn’t be was very funny. Captain Asshole made me snigger, and I have to say I find the droopy titties line a real rib ticker. Sorry, everyone.

[Dax101]

or *disdain even.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

His disdain for him I’ll allow, that is part of his character. It’s the jokes about leaving him behind, letting him die etc are over done and lose something each time a new one is rolled out

[bloodteller]

“Quick, let’s get outta here before they bring him back!” was funny because it’s a subversion of the typical reaction you’d have to someone being kidnapped, it’s a good character joke as it fits into the crew’s dislike for Rimmer, and generally the structure and delivery of the gag is excellent.

after that, they haven’t been funny. and when Cat rolls out 4 of them in one episode in Timewave, you’re just internally thinking “shut the fuck up already!”

[International Debris]

I like those jokes, but I agree they should be few and far between. I wouldn’t mind any of the running jokes if they turned up once or twice a series and were instead spread out over a longer period of time. Timewave is a particularly bad one for Cat wanting to leave Rimmer to die.

…there were funny jokes in Timewave?

Next time I watch it, I’ll make a list.

[Ben Saunders]

“We’re all deeply sorry, bud. Apart from me and him and him” is classic too, if overplayed in the trailers

[Flap Jack]

I suppose it’s inevitable that an ‘Unpopular Opinion’ thread would ultimately lead to “Timewave is good, actually.” but… sorry, I… seriously though?

Really we could close the thread at this point, but I would like to at least see if anyone’s going to come out as a fan of Pete Part 2.

[Piplup2003]

I honestly didn’t realise how much hate the fandom has for Timewave.

[bloodteller]

> I would like to at least see if anyone’s going to come out as a fan of Pete Part 2.

i don’t think it’s a great episode, but i don’t really think it’s bad either- it’s rather funny; the delayed fight sequence, “we’re not going in ’til we know what we’re doing.” “…that could take years…”, “dinosaur bowel movement frequency tables” and “you’re finished/bye” were particular highlights of it. i definitely wouldn’t call it an amazing episode, but i think it’s at least good. i couldn’t really hate a Red Dwarf episode that makes me laugh so much. the “see you in 10 minutes” bit is shit though, i can’t defend that. why does that scene exist?

imo, Back In The Red Part 3 is the only VIII episode i’d consider to be bad. 8 minutes of bloody recap, dennis the donut boy, irrelevant claymation sequence, conehead Holly were particular disappointments.

[International Debris]

I still don’t think Timewave is good – the bad elements outweigh the good – but there are plenty of jokes that make me laugh in there, which is why I rate it above, say, all of VIII.

[GlenTokyo]

Timewave made me actually angry and should be deleted from history, though for my relationship with Red Dwarf it wasn’t as bad generally as the double whammy of Krysis and Can of Worms which made me not touch anything Red Dwarf related for months and had me questioning whether Red Dwarf was ever going to be worth watching again.

[bloodteller]

Timewave made me feel sad :(

[Dax101]

I have only watched Timewave once and sadly I still remember parts of it.

Once the pink policeman started rubbing his nipples I felt a little part of me die.

[flanl3]

…there were funny jokes in Timewave?

Next time I watch it, I’ll make a list.

Don’t bother, I’ll do it for you right here in this very post.

[flanl3]

I honestly didn’t realise how much hate the fandom has for Timewave.

Oh, don’t worry, there are all sorts of pro-Timewave groups on Facebook and Reddit. Although even they were at least mildly disappointed.

[flanl3]

I honestly think most of the people saying “Red Dwarf ought to be done soon” are just tired of XII being, like, 60% recycled material. If it had been more original, even if less good, I doubt as many of you would be on about “don’t give it more than a couple new series”.

[Hamish]

> Krytens Costume in X and XII is also Shit. not very flattering on Robert and looks cheap

The one in XI however must be excellent.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

tbh, I re-watched Timewave since my first viewing and I quite enjoyed it really.

Sure, some of the jokes don’t land like the spit of the wrist or the save planet Rimmer ones, but others I found to be pretty humorous.

The lieutenant asshole, the kryten shut up, Chris Barrie’s performance as Rimmer’s Inner Critic, I think Ziggy and the Crit Cop are well-acted with the material they have and they put good effort in.

The sets might look ridiculous but they are supposed to, the lighting is the best for the two series in my honest opinion. Watching too many XI and XII episodes hurts my eyes after a while due to the blue lighting they have; but the lighting they have on the criticism ship is a nice breather. When the crew are walking through Red Dwarf’s corridors there are always the fans that give off these green reflections; none on other ship. I like the set design, nice costumes all around, none of the characters make me really cringe. The scene on Planet Rimmer looked really good too, the flag and the spacesuits, nice touch.

If I voted on the Pearl Poll I’d have ranked Timewave a good mid-40s spot. I disliked Cured more; but really I don’t hate any Red Dwarf episode minus maybe Duct Soup which bores me to death.

Series XIII I hope they do more drama, yeah, but XI and XII had good moments of comedy in-between what I feel are BTE which was drama-centric and X which had an undercurrent of melancholy I can’t describe well. So XIII being similar to that would make XI and XII good for me watching the whole series again just to lift the weight off me.

[Pete Part Three]

>Chris Barrie’s performance as Rimmer’s Inner Critic

This is just a rehash, both in voice and character. The only new thing is the make-up.

[GlenTokyo]

>This is just a rehash, both in voice and character. The only new thing is the make-up.

And a Psi-moon is so much more interesting than a sci-fi contraption that pulls a little version of you dressed as Blofeld out and puts it in a bell jar.

[International Debris]

Yes, the ‘science’ behind the critic remover thing is really fucking bollocks. “We’ll make criticism illegal, and also invent a machine that turns an abstract concept in people’s minds into a small person”.

[Ben Saunders]

You have to have the same issue with self-loathing, confidence and paranoia, surely

[flanl3]

No, at least the explanations for those either make some sense or are interesting enough of concepts to forgive

[bloodteller]

i think complaints about the “science” are a bit bollocks, really. red dwarf has had lots of concepts that don’t at all make sense-Backwards World, the Triplicator, the Matter Paddle, the Mirror Universe etc. are all basically magic explained with some brief technobabble, no? and even with the technobabble they sometimes still don’t make sense- the Matter Paddle transports you at the speed of light, they then instantly proceed to go to a planet 200,000 light years away and yet it doesn’t take them 200,000 years to get there.

that said, the Critiscism Extractor isn’t explored at all in any way and it’s a bit daft and nothing funny comes of it anyway, so it’s still worse. at least all the other stuff was used for good laughs or an interesting exploration of the idea. what’s done with the Critiscism Extractor? turns Rimmer into Bloefeld and they have a bit of a tiff which winds up having no real relevance to the plot.

[Lily]

I liked Can of Worms and really don’t know why people hate it so much.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Can of Worms was a fine episode, nothing particularly wrong with it

[Dax101]

Its an episode that reminds you why you shouldn’t make a cat episode. If degrading the cat to an insecure Duane Dibbley-esk dumbass is the only way to do it then it might be worth being left alone.

Although thats probably just my unpopular opinion.

[Pete Part Three]

I have a list as long as my arm with things that are wrong with it, but there are a couple of bits that I really like.

[International Debris]

I tend to be fine with the nonsense science normally explored, but the criticism extractor is both a bit too nonsensical (why a person?) and also, my real issue, is why it exists at all. It must have come along after the ship decided to outlaw criticism, which means that it was made by people on that ship – difficult to accept without the fact that the ship was run incompetently. Plus, if you could extract people’s inner critic, why not just do that instead of making a law against it? It’s just really lazy plotting – taking a human social concept as the basis of 20 minutes of plot and then just going “oh yeah there’s a sci-fi machine that does that too”.

[Dax101]

>i think complaints about the “science” are a bit bollocks, really. red dwarf has had lots of concepts that don’t at all make sense-Backwards World

Well there were articles going round back in 2016 that said “Scientists Propose a ‘Mirror Universe’ Where Time Moves Backwards”

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-propose-a-mirror-universe-where-time-moves-backwards

Now whether or not thats bollocks or not i’l be shocked if i ever hear scientists feel we can have our inner critic removed and shrunk down into a jar ;p

[Bargain Bin Holly]

You must feel pretty stupid now, eh?

https://www.cnn.com/yale-students-to-further-research-extraction-of-abstract-emotions

[Ben Saunders]

Well if they just used the criticism extractor on everybody you’d end up with a load of little critics running around which you’d need to look after, imprison or kill, which has moral implications, on top of the moral implications of basically lobotomising people who call you names

[Hamish]

The things is, despite all of the problems mentioned, there is actually a motive behind the creation of the criticism extractor. I am still more baffled with why anyone would ever go to the trouble of creating a psi moon to be honest. What purpose does it serve other than as an admittedly interesting way to explore Rimmer’s personality?

[Warbodog]

Instant psychic terraforming is incredibly labour-saving. If it’s set up to only mentally link with the first person who comes along (it only seemed to be using Rimmer’s mind), you could send down your expert who’s mentally prepared and create a paradise or whatever you need. Assuming you need ironic personifications of your personality traits.

There’s a precedent in sci-fi with the worldscapers in Roger Zelazny’s 1969 book Isle of the Dead, maybe others.

[International Debris]

I am still more baffled with why anyone would ever go to the trouble of creating a psi moon to be honest.

Because rich people would pay for it. The ultimate leisure experience: going to live in your own personalised paradise. Bear in mind that Rimmer does not know what the moon is, and is therefore mentally unprepared and thus his subconscious takes over. I’m sure if you pay to go there, you’d have a lot more control over the sort of things you’d want to have there.

[bloodteller]

plus presumably psi-moons save a lot of money. if you live on one you could construct houses, buildings, even entire cities just by thinking about them. you’d also be able to create living beings instantly too though, and maybe that raises all sorts of moral implications.

psi-moons are a bit overpowered then, surely? you’d basically be God on there, and constructing all those buildings free of charge probs wouldn’t be good for the economy either because you could rent them out to friends for a really cheap price

[Author]

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