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

[Toxteth O-Grady]

>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

At the time at least, there were genuine discussions by physicists about the effects of ‘The Big Crunch’ including time itself possibly running backwards as a result of the contraction of the universe. I think this is both what inspired the episode, and might even be the explanation given by Kryten within it? (haven’t seen it for while).
There’s been subsequent arguments that the suggest this is impossible, but for an episode of Red Dwarf the “science” of it is perfectly acceptable.

It only become bollocks when they have stuff written backwards i.e. “Nodnol”. There’s no reason for that, given that it’s supposed to be our own universe with our own languages. Even if for some reason text WAS backwards, the letters should be mirrored, not just written in reverse order.
And the whole newspaper story about a bank robbery that happens “tomorrow”, with guns sucking bullets – none of that makes any sense. The story would be normal, referring to a robbery yesterday, it’s just printed before it happens.

If time really were running backwards nobody would know, except the Dwarf crew (this is the case in the episode, but the newspaper kinda contradicts it).
Heck, time could be running backwards for us right now and we’d be completely unaware of it. I think that’s the most interesting part of the concept, but they don’t really explore it in the episode.

[International Debris]

Indeed. There’s no real way they could have done a ‘proper’ backwards episode, so instead they just used backwards ideas to make jokes and a generally coherent forwards plot, which is kind of forgivable. An idea of what should have happened in the backwards universe is explored brilliantly in Rob’s novel, too, for those wanting better science there. I love that section of the book, particularly Kryten trying to persuade Rimmer that because the engine parts were rusted, their being stranded there was inevitable.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I think Backwards as a concept is done well-enough in the episode, there’s not much to add upon in my opinion. If you’re looking for a more realistic approach I guess the backwards section in Rob Grant’s Backwards does it good, though I can’t remember if they read anything or not. I thought the bit where Rimmer spoke to the lady and the conversation started at the end and ended when the conversation started was pretty funny.

[Ben Saunders]

The logic of backwards is basically totally fucked, but it is a classic, inspired, hilarious exploration of a concept. I got the Impression that the psi-moon was a natural phenomena when I was young, but I don’t know if there’s a line in the episode to contradict that.

Fucking hell I just realised why the episode is called Terrorform. Another one of those things you just sort of accept when you’re young and never really put any thought into it.

I don’t think the Mini Critic is a bad concept or worse than Confidence & Paranoia, it just all happens so fast. A speedier opening with less Planet Rimmer stuff and more time spent on the critic would not go amiss.

[Ben Saunders]

Also the backwards universe is *a* backwards universe, not *our* universe backwards, so some inconsistencies can easily be handwaved

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

They don’t go to another universe though, they specifically go through a timehole, meaning they end up at some point trillions of years in the universes future, which happens to be our 1993 with time running in reverse.

[Ben Saunders]

But… that… if time… then…

I don’t want to think too hard about that one

(If time eventually goes backwards how can they travel to a time past when it all goes in reverse)

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve heard a lot of people say “the backwards universe” so assumed it was another ‘verse. Is it a universe in the book?

[Dave]

Don’t they access it the books by travelling to a sort of nexus of universes around the event horizon of a black hole (the same one that causes all the problems that the white hole does in the TV show)? It’s been a while since I read them.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Fuck me I can’t remember it and I only finished reading it a month ago, if I had to guess I think it involved something to do with Holly’s high IQ finding a way to get the crew there.

[Dave]

Yeah, Holly pops out the computer disc that gives them the coordinates of Backwards world after Lister dies, doesn’t he?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Something like that I imagine, if I recall correctly I think we go from Lister dying to Lister immediately waking up on the Backwards Earth and then we get a flashback to the crew doing Holly’s tasks before Rimmer figures it out.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

BTW, I always thought Better Than Life had the best ending of the four novels; I mean it ends with Lister setting his eyes on the love of his life for the first time in 3 million years thanks to the people he has thought he hated.

[bloodteller]

>I’ve heard a lot of people say “the backwards universe” so assumed it was another ‘verse.

rimmer calls it “a backwards universe” in VIII as well, when he’s explaining his “theories” to the woman who wants to shag him

[bloodteller]

>BTW, I always thought Better Than Life had the best ending of the four novels; I mean it ends with Lister setting his eyes on the love of his life for the first time in 3 million years thanks to the people he has thought he hated.

yes, the ending to Better Than Life is lovely.

[Toxteth O-Grady]

In the TV episode, I always assumed they’d passed through a time-hole and reached a point in the (relative) far far future, after the universe had exhausted all energy and began to contract (big crunch). Everything that had happened prior to the end of the universe’s expansion was now happening again but in reverse.
So 2018 went into 2017, which went into 2016 and so on.
They arrived via the time-hole in (backwards) 1993.

Perhaps this mean the same time hole originally existed in the real (forwards) 1993 linking it to a backwards ‘year 3million+’, somewhere nearer the beginning of the of the Big Crunch?

In other words the time hole exists within our universe, and it links 1993 with a point in the year 3million+ but at the opposite side of Big Crunch. Traversing the time-hole takes you to a point in the life of the universe where time runs in the opposite direction from where you entered.

I’m pretty sure this is more thought than Rob and Doug ever put into, mind you.

[clem]

They do the backwards writing thing in the novels, at least in BTL. The name on Lister’s driving licence is ‘Retsil Divad’. Kryten says the universe they take him to is “almost a mirror image of our own universe, except that time moves backwards there”.

[Ben Saunders]

Convenient that there is a time hole basically inside the atmosphere of Earth in that universe/the future/past. You’d think people would (have) know(n) about it (and then forgot) and there would be numerous backwards people coming out of the hole three million years in deep space. Would they even know time was running backwards if they were that far out? And if it’s a short-lived phenomena, how lucky that it lasted long enough for our crew to return to their universe/time.

[Ben Saunders]

Backward universes and talking to the universe sort of fucks the concept of free will, doesn’t it?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

>Backward universes and talking to the universe sort of fucks the concept of free will, doesn’t it?

Eh, idk

The talking to the universe thing in Krysis tho, they did leave that kinda ambiguous if that was the actual universe or not since, as Rimmer points out, “says you”

Meaning there’s nothing proving it was actually the universe and not like an AI gone computer senile or something, least that’s my interpretation of it anyway

[bloodteller]

>Backward universes and talking to the universe sort of fucks the concept of free will, doesn’t it?

so do future echoes. lister is inescapably fated to live to 171 and dress all in yellow, and there’s nothing he can do about it

[GlenTokyo]

The thing I hate most about the universe is that they went with the shit Morgan Freeman impression.

It’s sort of ambiguous whether or not it is the universe, I think a past Red Dwarf would have made it U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E and thought of something those letters could stand for or a Space Corps research program called Universe and then have the crew fuck it up and then it tries to kill them before they blow it up but that’s not to say that’s better. It’s similar to the Futurama universe, but I didn’t mind that so much because of the more Star Trek feel of Futurama, with all the aliens and stuff. A sentient nebula isn’t unusual in those universes, stands out a bit more in Red Dwarf though.

[bloodteller]

bit of an underreaction if it actually is the universe. you’d think he could just send them back to earth or tell them where kochanski is or do literally Anything.

instead they use the most powerful being in existence to get Kryten to stop being a bit sad

[Toxteth O-Grady]

> You’d think people would (have) know(n) about it (and then forgot) and there would be numerous backwards people coming out of the hole three million years in deep space.

We don’t know how long the time-hole was open for, though. It may have just been a couple of weeks or months, rather than a permanent fixture.

It’s safe to say that nobody else was flying around the edge of Earth’s atmosphere in that particular region in 1993. And it’s even safer bet that nobody else was flying around that other point in deep space millions of years later.

[Ben Saunders]

Is the universe really all Powerful, though, in the way god is, or is it just all knowing? What can it do?

I wonder how they would have voiced the universe in a universe without Bruce almighty. I enjoyed the reference but it is a bit questionable

[bloodteller]

>What can it do?

well it says in the episode it made the Earth

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Side-note, you think the crew are using Hogey’s cloth map during Series XI and XII?

[Pete Part Three]

I hope Hogey used that to navigate his way to the fucking exit.

[GlenTokyo]

Unpopular opinion. I really like Hogey the Roguey. I liked the relationship.

[International Debris]

well it says in the episode it made the Earth

It never states that it intentionally made it, though.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Hogey the Roguey was quite good. If they overused him than the joke would’ve gotten old pretty quick, but they keep him limited and the times he is on-screen he is pretty funny.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah Hogey is fine. I love the idea of them having this relationship with a bored sim who just wants to play some games in the 9 year period we haven’t seen. If we were to actually see any more it’d be ruined, but it was a nice little “fill in the blank” bit of back story that was quite nice.

Not sure if this is controversial or not, but I struggle with liking Bodyswap as much as other episodes because of the dubbed voices. Its a bit of a naff effect and really, implanting a mind into someone elses shouldn’t change their voice.

Though I do love the frantic opening to that episode. How often are you thrown into the action like that with RD?

[GlenTokyo]

I do really like Bodyswap but I bet they could improve it a lot with more time and modern audio engineering or whatever it’d be. Just make it sound more like it’s coming out of that mouth in that room with that stuff going on in the background.

[Taiwan Tony]

Another arm raised for Hogey being dreadful.

[International Debris]

The whole different voice coming out of the body thing is a pretty common trope with body swapping / possession / etc. stories, and I agree that it’s mostly nonsense (the individual sound of your voice being entirely down to the physical structure of your throat and the particular size and shape of your larynx), the realistic route would be if they each did an impression of each other, but I think that would only work well with Chris doing his Craig impersonation.
That said, it’s something that’s done so often that it doesn’t actually bother me so much. Also I enjoy how well Craig’s voice coming out of Chris’s mouth works, and with the fact that Lister’s outfit actually really suits Chris, whenever I watch it I completely believe that he’s Lister in those scenes.

Here’s one of those tedious questions we’ve been revelling in lately: where does Rimmer-in-Lister’s physical Captain Emerald costume come from?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

>Here’s one of those tedious questions we’ve been revelling in lately: where does Rimmer-in-Lister’s physical Captain Emerald costume come from?

I always assumed Rimmer wears a standard, high-ranking Space Corps uniform. That said, is the JMC a subsidiary of the Space Corps? Has the relationship ever been fully explained?

[International Debris]

It’s been discussed several times in the past, and the answer has always been some variation on ‘we don’t really know’.

[Hamish]

> I got the Impression that the psi-moon was a natural phenomena when I was young, but I don’t know if there’s a line in the episode to contradict that.

KRYTEN: My guess: this is a Psi-moon.
CAT: Psi-moon?
KRYTEN: An artificial planetoid. It tunes into an individual psyche and adapts its terrain to mimic his mental state

Which is about all the explanation for the Psi-moon’s existence that we get. While some of the theories for its existence in this thread are plausible, the episode itself clearly does not give two fucks about this, as all it wants is indeed an admittedly interesting way to explore Rimmer’s personality.

I still think it is a bit wank though. Just to put this thread back on topic.

[GlenTokyo]

I always thought the JMC were the merchant navy of the Red Dwarf universe and the Space Corps were the actual Navy, but there’s not really a military in Red Dwarf, so in my head canon you apply to the Space Corps and if you’re officer class or really good you join the SC and work your way up in a field, and if you’re a bit shit, or need work or harbor no ambitions of joining the Space Corps Navy types or advancing a career then you can just work for the JMC on a contract, in the Red Dwarf Dollar Poundland or whatever.

[GlenTokyo]

There’d probably be a cross over too. Like a navigation officer in the JMC could apply for a post in navigation with the Space Corps, but it’d be a bit like going to uni with a vocational qualification instead of A-levels, possible but not as straightforward.

I imagine there’s other trade and mining companies too, or was, Red Dwarf doesn’t have many brands and M Corp seems to imply its quite easy to own everything.

[Dax101]

I think a sense of mystery can be a good thing, so not having to explain everything that exists in the Red Dwarf universe isn’t a bad thing.

Its just when you do explain it and it stupid explanation then that doesn’t help.

As for Hogey i remember after that episode was shown there were people saying how Hogey should be a show regular… yikes.

[GlenTokyo]

Just for the fact that they covered Richard O’Callaghan in what was I think wood filler and grey primer I’m glad he’s not a regular for his sake.

[bloodteller]

>As for Hogey i remember after that episode was shown there were people saying how Hogey should be a show regular… yikes.

he only works in The Beginning really, because there’s the gag of what looks like a lethal simulant onboard and everyone having a severe underreaction to him until it eventually becomes apparent he’s just some mad old git who’s been pestering the posse for the last decade. also them suggesting a cooking contest a la Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg really made me laugh.

aside from that, there’s nothing you can really do with the character. he only functions as a one-off joke

[bloodteller]

hoguey always wins the cooking contests with the help of an angry rice stealing droid called AI-nsley Harriot

[GlenTokyo]

Ainsley Harribot surely.

[Ben Paddon]

Hoguey the Roguey was a brilliant idea undermined by a daffy accent and less-than-ideal costume design.

[bloodteller]

opinion- that “tales of the riverbank: the next generation” bit in Camille is a lot funnier than the much more oft-quoted Wilma Flinstone conversation from Backwards.

[Pete Part Three]

I like it just for Danny’s fluffed delivery.

Whatever happened
Whatever happened to old Hammy?

[Dax101]

Doug likes his funny accents.

[International Debris]

Still think Hogey’s map should return. Touches like that, hints at a larger arc – like the quantum rod – are lovely, but seem to just die off. C’mon Doug.

[Author]

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