Another Phil

[Another Phil]

The order as it went out did have the odd but I think effective result of putting 3 Kryten-centric episodes in a row (The Last Day, Camille, DNA). That might seem a little concentrated, especially as they’re arguably the only Kryten-centric episodes in III-VI, but they flow well from one to the next, and I think of them as the ‘Kryten Trilogy’. The Last Day is about Kryten discovering he wants more from life than being a mere mechanoid, Camille is about him trying to break his programming to gain that experience, and DNA is about him finding he can take it too far and that he is still at heart a mechanoid, just not as limited as he was. Together they turn Kryten from the secondary character he was in much of III into a key part of the team, which benefits the rest of IV, so ultimately I’m glad we got the order we got.

[Another Phil]

The first episode I have any memory of seeing was Meltdown, though I surely must have seen some of IV before it. I was definitely a regular viewer from V on. Oddly, the last episode of the first 36 I ever saw was Bodyswap, as it was the only episode I missed on the post-VI repeat run, for some reason or another. It was ages before I ended up actually seeing it and it became my ‘lost episode’ for a while.

[Another Phil]

1 – Back to Reality
2 – Marooned
3 – Gunmen of the Apocalypse
4 – Dimension Jump
5 – Me2
6 – Quarantine
7 – Queeg
8 – Polymorph
9 – White Hole
10 – Justice

52 – Ouroboros
53 – Nanarchy
54 – Only the Good…
55 – Pete Part 1
56 – Back in the Red Part 3
57 – Beyond a Joke
58 – Krytie TV
59 – Duct Soup
60 – Pete Part 2
61 – Epideme

Plus, for reference, dead middle (31st) was Lemons. Looking at the original Phil’s list it seems all we can agree on is that Queeg is 7th best. Plus Duct Soup sucks, but that’s hardly a revolutionary opinion. I hope when the final grand result is revealed we’ll get lots of random statistics to go along with it. I like random statistics.

[Another Phil]

Least favourites:

1. Waiting for God
2. Better Than Life
3. Bodyswap
4. Meltdown (*)
5. Demons and Angels
6. Emohawk: Polymorph 2
7. Epideme (worst of all time)
8. Pete Part 2
BtE: Part One

(*)Tough one though, all of 4 is in my top half. Most consistent series for me.

[Another Phil]

1. Me2
2. Queeg
3. Marooned
4. Dimension Jump
5. Back to Reality
6. Gunmen of the Apocalypse
7. Blue
8. Cassandra
BtE: Part 2

[Another Phil]

Hattie, and if she wasn’t available I’d recast.

[Another Phil]

>> I have provisionally placed BtE 28th (after only one viewing) in my personal all-time list. That puts it above the following Series 1-6 eps: The End, Demons and Angels, Bodyswap, Rimmerworld, Parallel Universe, Confidence and Paranoia, Better Than Life, Waiting for God and Emohawk: Polymorph 2.

>As these eps were broadcast individually though, shouldn`t they be judged individually really? In the same way that G&T recently compiled a list of their favourite 52 eps a while ago considering BitR and Pete to be multi-parters.

Fine, in that case, Part 1 goes in 37th out of 55 (between Rimmerworld and Parallel Universe), Part 3 goes in 29th (between Stasis Leak and The End, just like the whole 3-parter originally did) and Part 2 goes in 26th (between Out of Time and Backwards. Yes G&T, I have OOT in 25th place. Apart from that, though, our lists aren’t massively different.)

[Another Phil]

I have provisionally placed BtE 28th (after only one viewing) in my personal all-time list. That puts it above the following Series 1-6 eps: The End, Demons and Angels, Bodyswap, Rimmerworld, Parallel Universe, Confidence and Paranoia, Better Than Life, Waiting for God and Emohawk: Polymorph 2.

By series, it goes 4>5>3>2>6>1>BtE>7>8.

[Another Phil]

Speaking of continuity holes: it seems BtE renders Prelude to Nanarchy definitively non-canonical. According to Prelude (IIRC), the crew never got back to Red Dwarf after visiting the Esperanto. So Cat would never have got the chance to get the Joy Squid back on board.

[Another Phil]

Yeah, I’ve always had the feeling that one of the problems with Series 8 in particular was that Doug, with a good but not massive budget, let his imagination outstrip the limits of the budget, coming up with stuff that simply couldn’t be done (like the aborted ‘Earth’) or could only be done poorly (like ‘Pete’), and the series ended up being a compromise that didn’t really work. The solution seems to be either to give him a proper big budget (like the movie would be) and give his imagination free rein, or to give him a really small budget (like BtE) so as to force him to think more carefully about what he is doing.

[Another Phil]

Well, surely the first question is: what should we call this thread? Should it be the Series IX Speculation Thread, the Series X Speculation Thread or (given the revelations in BtE) the Series XI Speculation Thread? Or my personal favourite, the Convention for Looking Into the Tenth Original Run In Speculation? Uh, one drawback with that…

Edited since I can’t spell.

[Another Phil]

>So here?s the thing? if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on? does that mean we?re all doomed?

Nah, the Doctor and about a dozen companions will come along and stop it.

[Another Phil]

One thing that occured to me while watching Confidential on iplayer: given the trouble they went to getting the bus to Dubai and filming in a sandstorm, why didn’t they just do it on a beach in Rhyl? It could hardly have been worse…

[Another Phil]

I am aware of that, I only meant that the fact that I was watching it at 1120 was how the question occured to me in the first place.

[Another Phil]

Does anyone know whether only the 9pm showing gets included when calculating the ratings? I only ask because I watched Part 3 on the 11:20pm repeat, and it made me wonder if those figures got included too.

[Another Phil]

You think a 30 minute edit would make BtE better?! If anything, IMO, the main problem with BtE is that it needs to be longer, not shorter (the show feels a bit too fast-paced at times, and certain plot points are rather rushed over). Personally, I’m definitely looking forward to the inevitable extended cut on the DVD.

BTW, since this is one of my first posts, I’d better point out that my username is not any sort of comment or dig, it’s just the product of having an inconveniently common name.

[Another Phil]

I agree, Chris. There are definite points where part one suffers from a lack of a laugh track (I think it’s the weakest of the 3 eps) but in 2 and 3 there are large parts where it would if anything have got in the way.

And of course the main argument for not putting it in front of an audience beforehand was that it would have led to the ending being blown for all of us, guaranteed.

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