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And so, last night, we reached Psirens as the kids watch RD for the first time, and me for the umpteenth.

It’s at this point that the lovely model shots turn into CGI for quite a few of the action scenes, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting it, and it came as a bit of a surprise. It’s some of the most dated stuff we’ve seen so far! What was the thinking at the time? It’s cheaper? It’ll look better…?

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I see increasing popularity of Cured over the years and feel it’s my duty to stop it. It’s a poor episode. Some good gags, but a really saggy plot. Fathers and Suns has the whole Taiwan Tony plot which stops it being perfect, too.
My Dave era best-of would be:
Lemons, The Beginning, Give & Take, Krysis, M-Corp, Skipper, The Promised Land (feature length finale). 

I think Cured’s the strongest episode of that last series. I do like it, but I do recognise its crappy plot. But it is fun. I enjoyed it watching it, I’ve enjoyed rewatching it.
I’d forgotten that Taiwan Tony featured in ‘Fathers and Suns’. I just remembered the Lister stuff and Pree. They were good bits.
I’ll take your list too, tbh. The Beginning has a cringe moment for me where Rimmer’s gardening father has the ridiculous name ‘Dungo’ or something, and Rimmer carries out the antique lamp that’s just appeared out of nowhere. Argh. I have trouble getting past those moments!

Krysis – yeah, good call. That’s a good story, and Butler is great.

M-Corp I’ve struggled with too. It’s an interesting idea, but as my young child says about various Doctor Who episodes – you know that what’s happened (Lister’s ageing) isn’t really real and is just going to be reset at the end of the episode.

Skipper is a good laugh, but those laughs are almost entirely through “Oh, look who this is from the olden days” or “Here’s that joke again”. It would have been amazing to watch being recorded though, I imagine. But yeah, it is funny!

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Lemons really grinds my gears because all the Red dwarf fans on Reddit absolutely love it. You’d think there had never been a better episode the way they clap like seals whenever it is mentioned. It must appeal to American sense of humour or something. Whereas I loath it. Full of all the wak gags, out-of-character behaviour, and bad Chris acting that is familiar to us. Moreover, I could just about buy it if Lister and Cat were the ones who needed a battery, but having Kryten there (who somehow now has less knowledge of DIY batteries than my mum), just makes the whole premise of *walking to India* eye-wateringly dumb. The whole episode reads like fan fic. Bad fan fic, not even good fan fic.

I hadn’t spotted the plot hole about the battery before. Argh! You’ve killed it for me now! Boooo….!

But I do like the episode. The Geordie Jesus is brilliantly well written and well played. The parts where he discovers what “he” is responsible for re: Christianity, the initial ‘Jesus! Yes?’ gag. It’s all good stuff. Without a good Jesus actor, I think the whole thing would collapse massively. But it has got a good Jesus, and I do like it. It’s fun, it’s funny and it’s a little bit moving at times. Feels like a lesser Series III/IV episode to me.

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I am sure he’s actually lovely in person but the way he wears his glasses lately always makes Chris look like he’s about to say something cuttingly sarcastic.

Presumably he puts his glasses on to type. Hence the scary shit he types.

I’ve heard and read from many fans that, in real life, he’s been absolutely lovely to you all. I suppose a lot of people are like that – it’s easy to hate and dislike a group of people, but one-by-one it’s impossible to be rude to them.

My Dad’s passed on now, but he was a self-identified racist, and he was clearly also misogynistic. But I never once heard him be rude to anyone in person.

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My favourite bits of the Dave era are up there with some bubble stuff, and I definitely felt the joy of it feeling like Red Dwarf whenever it returned. The cracks are also a lot more obvious on rewatches, though, and despite the major upturn in writing, it’s clear that Doug’s worst impulses in both VII and VIII never fully went away.

Trojan, Fathers and Suns, Lemons, Give & Take, Officer Rimmer, Cured, The Promised Land (feature length finale).

One perfect Dave-era season of seven. You can remove whichever one you want to make it six.

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Chris to his wife when he gets home: “Crikey. Bobby’s let himself go.”

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So, a history of the Directors:

Feb ’90: Grant Naylor Productions founded
by Dec ’90: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Kevin Jackson, Christopher Bell (secretary)

Nov ’91: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Christopher Bell (secretary) [Kevin gone]

Jan ’94: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Charles Armitage, Christopher Bell (secretary) [Charles joins]

Aug ’00: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Charles Armitage (Director and secretary) [and Charles becomes Secretary as Christopher goes]

May ’14: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Charles Armitage (Director and secretary), Lesley Armitage [the first spouse joins the board!]

Feb ’17: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Lesley Armitage [Charles passes away]

Oct ’17: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Lesley Armitage, Kevin Jackson [Kevin rejoins]

Mar ’20: Rob Grant, Lesley Armitage, Kevin Jackson [ the ‘coup’ – and Doug is gone]

Mar ’23: Rob Grant, Doug Naylor [ after all the legal stuff, Doug returns, and Lesley and Kevin go]

Feb ’26: Doug Naylor

Apr 26: Doug Naylor, Linda Naylor, Richard Naylor

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I can get behind series 13, but let’s not get into seasons

I’ll let you have that.

Procrastinating with some work that I can’t be bothered to do, I had a nose at your profile as I recognise your name from lots of Dwarfcasts..and I’ve been going through your Bandcamp since. I really, really like your work. I couldn’t even begin to explain why (I’m not good at writing about music, and I particularly don’t get why I like some ambient work but not others), but it’s really good stuff.

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I see what you mean about the later directing. I don’t mind it tbh, and it recreates a bit of the feel of early Dwarf. To me, anyway.

The thing I *don’t* like about it is the effort it clearly took Doug to write and direct at the same time. I think it’s to the show’s detriment. I don’t know the order Series 11 and 12 were filmed in, but certainly the stinkers are in the second half of that pack suggesting a) that he was running out of ideas/time and b) that he remains not the best judge of his own best work, or he’d have staggered the episodes differently (see also the ‘Moonlight’ speech at the halfway point in Season 13, which he wasn’t going to originally include)*

*I included the phrase “the ‘Moonlight’ speech at the halfway point in Season 13″ purely to encourage angry coughing fits in its readers. I provide no apologies :D

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Since Doug was writing, directing and producing the show
So Ed Bye really wasn’t needed. 

Tbh, once the major budget issues of Back to Earth/X were resolved, I feel it was a huge mistake not to draw Ed back in. 
Doug has directed, but he’s not a professional director. 

Hard agree. He might have had more success with all of the last-minute-rewrites (how many episodes did that happen to?!) if he hadn’t been directing at the same time. But I gather the directing and writing aspect was partly to save money, wasn’t it?

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We’ll never know for sure, but I think that’s very feasible. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Rob died, especially as we’ve been revisiting the build-up to the split in our Smegazine and Re-Disc-Overy casts, plus reading up on the Grant Naylor years for the obituary. If it is the case that Rob was unwell, then I can totally understand why he needed to suddenly break away. I can also totally understand how tough that would have been for Doug to be left to pick up the pieces. It would have perfectly reasonable for both of them to feel resentful towards the other, and it’s naturally going to damage a friendship. It’s just really, really sad that they never worked through it, and never got back what they once had.

A tiny, tiny bit of solace, and they’re not things I’m massively familiar with, but they didn’t they bat around – and completely? – an old script – Bodysnatcher? – some years back. And do some tie-in DVD commentaries? Hopefully that was a pleasant memory for Doug. But obviously whatever legal issued occurred more recently with GNP (and Doug stating he much he spent on legal fees in that interview) may have spoiled thar small bit of niceness…

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The idea that Doug was having to write individual episodes The 10%ers to have them approved by Rob and the manager (?) seems a) really mad but also b) does suggest that there may have been some writer’s block going on with Rob at the time. Someone above suggested the pressure of being successful and needing to keep being so. Easier to disguise writer’s block if you’re working on your own than with others.

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Would definitely listen to a Dwarfcast where the Boys From the Dwarf(cast) are listening to that recent Doug Naylor interview, and pausing every few sentences to give commentary on it.

Please.

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What did he say about the break up?

Give it a listen. The relationship with Rob is a theme throughout, and it’s well worth 45 minutes of your time.

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P.s. do listen to the interview. It’s really interesting, partly from a writing point of view, but also because I’ve never heard him going into so much detail about the time and the machinations if the break up.

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I’m frankly gobsmacked that Richard had to convince Doug to keep the moonlight scene. From the way Doug describes it, he had written it in a vacuum with no clue as to where it will fit in, and didn’t realise it was the integral moment of pathos between the two characters until Richard said so. 
God, this man needs an editor so badly. 

Doug is a brilliant writer whose chief flaw is not being the best judge of his own work.

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Additionally, Doug said in the Writers’ Gym podcast linked today that he and Rob didn’t split due to creative differences as is often claimed. But “musical differences” was another common Rob quote, as seen in this interview with someone called Johathan Capps on a website that my browser thinks isn’t safe: http://www.robgrant.co.uk/Rob_Grant/Interviews/Entries/2007/5/12_Interview_for_a_fan_website_run_by_Jonathan_Capps.html

There’s a frustration to Doug’s voice around that moment. Like he realises that now he’ll genuinely never know why Rob wouldn’t work with him any more.

Such a raw podcast. I’ve only listened to the first 20 minutes or so, but the timing is unreal. It’s amazing they went ahead with it tbh.

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I think leaving the ship was inevitable, but transitioning into an action series was not.
Part of the appeal of I and II is that Rimmer and Lister are the lowest of the low. They don’t know how to run the ship. They don’t know how to fix anything more important than a vending machine. They can barely grasp Blue Midget, a tiny shuttle that probably has the most idiot-proof controls. 

Given how much of technology we ourselves do not understand, it feels very appropriate and realistic. In so much of sci-fi, the characters inexplicably know things beyond their professional remit because “it’s the future” or “they probably learned it off-screen”.
But in early Red Dwarf, they’re completely reliant on Holly. We see this especially well in Queeg, where they can’t even get any proper food without him. 

White Hole still pays lip service to this concept, but I don’t believe Rimmer/Lister could ever comprehend Starbug or even the bazookoids (the latter based on my own personal experience with having to learn how to handle a bazooka in the army… long story short, I didn’t). 

Even Kryten shouldn’t know how to do these things, he’s a cleaning bot. It’d honestly be funnier if he was enthusiastic to be the science officer, but kept making mistakes. 

100% agree. It was like we were as lost as the rest of them. As a teenager I definitely preferred S3-S6, but my own kid dramatically lost interest as we transitioned from S2-S3. We’re towards the end of S5 now, but it’s definitely been more at more instigation than his!

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I think the last time America did anything with trains we were crashing them into each other in the 30s as spectator events that killed many onlookers.

Hah, this reminds me of a piece I wrote of one of these very events, but from the late 1800s. A different time!
https://kriscarter.co.uk/2017/11/12/crush/

I loved reading that. Thank you!

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I think Rimmer was being sincere? The gag being that present Rimmer and past Lister got on great. 

Oops. I always thought this, too. Other posters seem to have corrected me/us…

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Cassandra is the only VIII episode I could ever see myself casually throwing on but Timewave is the only XII episode I couldn’t.

That said, I generally prefer XI. I’ve been having a hot, steamy love affair with Officer Rimmer since it aired regardless of how it kinda falls apart in the last couple minutes. There’s no other episode post-VI that I like as much as it.

Love Officer Rimmer. The starting point with the printed Captain with the deformed face is perfect early-Dwarf. Absolutely hilarious, yet dripping with pathos and a weird sort of dignity. Amazing.

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After the 2nd or 3rd time why did you think the next viewing would be any better. Let alone 3 more!

Only completionism. I do a watch through of all Red Dwarf episodes now and again and Timewave was a Red Dwarf episode. So I’d just omit to skip it and just sit through it. After a few times, enough was enough.
There are no bad Red Dwarf episodes, all are on a scale somewhere between passable and outstanding
…except Timewave, which doesn’t count

I mean, Series 12 isn’t strong. Of the twelve episodes of Series 11/12, most of the stinkers do fall into Series 12. Cured, as you say, is brilliant fun. Skipper is also fun, is entirely daft and entirely dependent on fan service. M-Corp is reasonable. Mechocracy isn’t strong (and is a little problematic), Siliconia is boring as fuck, and Timewave is about as bad as the show got.

But Series 8 has only Cassandra, I think, to recommend it. Krytie TV might have more plot than, say, Skipper or Mechocracy, but that’s not necessarily a positive. I do like ‘Only the Good’, but all three parts of ‘Back in the Red’ and both parts of ‘Pete’ induce cringe. I think each of those five are as bad as Timewave. Siliconia might be boring, but it’s more watchable than those five.

To summarise: Series 12 – One episode great, one good, two reasonable, one weak, one awful.

Series 8 – Two episodes good, one weak, and five awful.

Series 12 has it.

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Posted 16 days ago, and *still* no-one’s turned this into a photo of Danny wanking off an overjoyed Rob? Frankly, it’s disappointing.

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The weirdest thing about the Dave Dee etc reference is that the song was over 20 years old by the time it was referenced in Red Dwarf, but there was another song called Xanadu that got to Number 1 in the UK less than ten years prior. If it was Olivia Newton-John instead of Dave Dee et al, it would have been a more accessible reference to a 1989 audience, but then that would make it the second Olivia Newton-John reference in as many series, and “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich” is a much funnier set of sounds.

Just worth mentioning at this point that, following the death of Dave Dee in 2009, Beaky – now aged 81 – is plodding along with the remains of the band, including the second Dozy (who joined in 2015 following the death of the first Dozy), the third Mick (who joined in the 1980s) and the third Titch (who joined in 2000).
They’ll play their hit. And also ‘Last Night in Soho’ which is a banger that soundtracks the excellent film of the same name by Edgar Wright from a few years back.

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Levine is clearly deluded if he thinks that anyone is going to do a side by side comparison between his AI recons and the real broadcast episodes and conclude “wow, they’re almost perfect!”.
Even if his recons genuinely were that good, somehow, him acting like the return of the real episodes is only mildly exciting because he and his small clique of paying sycophants already have access to recons they’re satisfied with is nauseatingly selfish. He can pretend his reconstructions are perfect replacements or he can keep them to himself, but not both.

The paying thing is odd. I joined his Facebook group for a time, and he’d get so exciting about his recons that he’d end up posting them there anyway. I was curious about what they looked like…until I watched a few.

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Yeah, he’s one of those people who dislikes most of the modern series but keeps not watching it, not through hate watching, but because he actually wants to like it, which is kind of admirable.
I mean he’s still a pompous twat who’s gone down a bit of an anti-woke rabbit hole so he can fuck off, but yeah, he’s still leagues above Morris in the terrible human being stakes.

He’s always been pretty transparent about what he’s found too, seemingly. And that’s borne out over 45 or so years of doing that. Morris found 12 episodes, and one went ‘missing’. And then the place where they were found burnt down. It’s all just…odd.

If you think Levine’s a bit bad on the old ‘woke’ issue, then don’t even begin to read anything relating to Zionism etc. You could be dealing with Luke Akehurst.

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Levine’s been positive about most of the modern show, and even some episodes of Jodie and Ncuti.
I thought he said the show was dead to him after they cast a woman.

I think he may have. But he’s a temperamental toddler type, and carried on watching. I remember him liking Rosa and Fugitive of the Judoon for starters.

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1978: Ian Levine organised a trip to the film vault at Villiers House in London, He found 79 episodes, most of which didn’t exist in the newly formed Film & Videotape Library. Ian’s quick reactions saved these film prints from destruction, as, according to the story, they were sitting there just waiting to be junked.

Lol at your picture quote. I’d taken the quote from the amazing timeline hosted by ‘Destruction of Time’. I’d actually taken a lot of the guff from the quote, but now you can have it in full as you mocked me so.

Once the restrictions for purchasing old Doctor Who episodes had been lifted, Ian Levine followed up on a rumour that more Dr Who episodes existed elsewhere, and organised a trip down to the film vault at Villiers House in London, where BBC Enterprises kept all their footage for overseas sales. What Ian found was a staggering 79 episodes, most of which didn’t exist in the newly formed Film & Videotape Library. Ian’s quick reactions saved these film prints from destruction, as, according to the story, they were sitting there just waiting to be junked. Ian had located…

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Ian Levine, then. A prick, yes. Worse than Morris? No. Levine’s been positive about most of the modern show, and even some episodes of Jodie and Ncuti. Let’s look at his credit.

1978: Ian Levine organised a trip to the film vault at Villiers House in London, He found 79 episodes, most of which didn’t exist in the newly formed Film & Videotape Library. Ian’s quick reactions saved these film prints from destruction, as, according to the story, they were sitting there just waiting to be junked. Ian had located An Unearthly Child 1 2 3 4, The Daleks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, The Edge of Destruction 1 2, The Keys of Marinus 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Aztecs 1 2 3 4, The Sensorites 1 2 3 4 5 6, Planet of Giants 1 2 3, The Dalek Invasion of Earth 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Rescue 1 2, The Romans 1 2 3 4, The Web Planet 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Space Museum 1 2 3 4, The Chase 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Ark 1 2 3 4, The Gunfighters 1 2 3 4, The Mind Robber 1 2 3 4 5 & The Seeds of Death 1 2 3 4 5 6.

Some of these already existed in the archives. So what he’d found were unique prints of: The Daleks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, The Edge of Destruction 1 2, The Keys of Marinus 1 2 3 4 6, The Aztecs 1 2 3 4, The Sensorites 1 2 3 4 5 6, Planet of Giants 1 2 3, The Dalek Invasion of Earth 1 2 3 4 6, The Rescue 1 2, The Romans 2 4, The Web Planet 1 3 4 5 6, The Space Museum 1 3 4, The Chase 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Ark 1 2 4, The Gunfighters 1 2 3, The Mind Robber 1 2 3 4 5 & The Seeds of Death 3 5.

How many of these had dupe prints found in the years to come? Well, probably better to do vice versa. Of these 79 that Ian found, how many have *never* had a dupe found?
The Daleks 1 2 3 4 6 7, The Edge of Destruction 1 2, The Keys of Marinus 1 2 3 4 6 (a dupe was found of this Ep 6 – but it was by Ian. And it mightn’t be real), The Aztecs 1 2 3 4, The Sensorites 1 2 3 4 5 6, Planet of Giants 1 2 3, The Dalek Invasion of Earth 1 2 3 4 6, The Rescue 1 2, The Romans 2 4, The Space Museum 3 4, The Chase 1 2 3 4 5 6, The Ark 1 2 4, The Gunfighters 1 2 3, The Mind Robber 1 2 3 4 5 & The Seeds of Death 3.

So, in the grand scheme of things, I’ll cope with his crap. Far outstrips Morris’ own hauls. Imagine not having The Daleks, for starters…

 

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I was so psyched to wake up to this news!
And no Technopeasant, it’s now at 5/12 episodes recovered. We already had episodes 2, 5 and 10, and now we have 1 and 3. Animating 7 episodes for a release would be a big ask, but they did do it for The Evil of the Daleks, so maybe? It would be a bit different though because for most animation releases they animated every episode including ones that didn’t need it, just for consistency.
Honestly I was optimistically assuming they’d animate all missing episodes eventually anyway, but this definitely helps things.

Always look at the serials that *haven’t* been animated yet. As it suggests that people ‘high up’ may know of the existence of certain episodes. That’s why I’m holding out how that the Smugglers exists in some form or other, with it not having been animated yet…

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Amazing work. Thank you!

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I have an incredible fondness for anything Darrow wrote, because while his talent as a writer is minimal, his ability as a storyteller is beyond compare. There’s so many wonderful tangents, quips and personal idiosyncrasies put in. It’s very rich in his unique personality and humor. 

Yeah, an absolute one-off. I’ve not read anything he actually wrote – those things came along after my Blake’s 7 phase, sadly. I did get to see him do a script-read of two things. I think one was Kaldor City related. Might the other have been a re-writing of Robots of Death with him in it? I struggle to remember. It was a seated script-read, but there was one seen acted out. Paul, standing with script in hand, eating up every single one of the chairs in the room. Brilliant. Must have been late 2000s. There were some bits where Paul didn’t really know what was going in. He spared no extent in gesticulating and demonstrating this to the audience.

Edit: It was this – Manchester Fringe 2012: Robots of Death & Storm Mine Premiere | Speaker to Animals

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I have .epub files which I then converted into .txt files, basically so I could search them for mentions of dates when I first put the On This Day In Red Dwarf twitter bot together. They are in my Google Drive but I don’t want to post a public link and I don’t think there’s a DM system on G&T.
So I think this is maybe the best way to do it… remove the spaces and replace the smeghead with: JAr689DFnIcvOz

d r i v e . g o o g l e .com/drive/folders/1Kw_tlxSMEGHEADChNaBqjZPiKs

Amazing. Thank you!

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Annas-archive.li has txt files of the first two, the others might be in suitable formats.

Thanks! I’ll take a look…

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This page is intentionally left blank

Is this Titan? It looks like Titan.

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That reminds me of the time I typed out an entire Paul Darrow novel because there weren’t any digital copies of it at all. Only took me a year. 

Haha. I remember as a child when I had a computer, but we didn’t have a printer. I bought a typewriter at a jumble sale so that anything I wanted printed, I would type. Including my complete history of Dr. Who that I was writing.

Which Darrow novel was it? I went to a really mad script reading with him many years back He seemed utterly bemused by the place, the audience, his fellow actors, the concept…

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It’s a list of the first mention in the British press of all of the main Dwarfers. I should have stated that!

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 in a list of Blake’s best Seven
1. Blake
2. Avon
3. Vila
4. Soolin
5. Cally
6. Orac
7. Zen

Two men. Two women. Two computers. One psychopath.

Good list. No notes.

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I guess you could argue that the “Core Core” of Lister, Cat, Rimmer, Kryten is a significant part of 3 of those breakdowns which totals up at over three quarters of the entire run, so probably fair to say that the “boys from the Dwarf” have earned their status as “Core Cast”.

Additionally I think its important to consider the impact or involvement of those “beyond the core” in each setup. Hattie’s Holly remains my favourite iteration, but she was so poorly served for stretches of her run – there’s episodes where you could argue removing her and transferring the dialogue elsewhere would have negligible impact and therefore question whether she was truly “Core” to those experiences. I mean I haven’t looked into it but there’s probably episodes of VIII where someone like fucking Baxter or Kill Crazy has more lines in an episode than Hattie’s Holly does in some of her outings! (side note – looking at the TOS cast list of Series VIII has Baxter listed twice as Ricky Grover and Ricki Grover – I’ve never noticed before, was that a genuine fuck up in the show credits that they’ve maintained for authenticity or just a TOS fuck up?) You could say the same for other breakdowns too – Cat does fuck all in VIII, Kochanski is often on the periphery as well – you could argue that they aren’t “Core” at times

Yes. On rewatching the series with my own kids, you realise that Series 1 and 2 have a real magic to them. And a cohesiveness. Once the Fast Music starts in Backwards, and suddenly Kryten’s there…it’s all a bit different. My kids went from wanting an episode a night with S1 and S2 to having lost interest altogether somewhere in early Series 4.

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Series Eight brings us our ‘new’ core of…deep breath…Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten, Kochanski and Norman’s Holly. Eight episodes. That’s the same count as the canon core of the four male leads.
Could you argue that Hollister is just as much a part of the core cast in VIII as Holly?

Absolutely. I was thinking that. But he’s an antagonist, isn’t he? He’s working against them. You wouldn’t include Servalan in a list of Blake’s best Seven or anything, would you?

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I asked Grok to write an episode of Red Dwarf and it began generating illegal pornography en masse, interspersed with diatribes about white genocide. 

I’m kidding but I think we are well past the point where “I asked AI to write something and look at the crazy results” is still fun. Using it for a joke is still using it.

Coffee keyboard moment. Good start to the day. Thank you!

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Few things on the internet are documented as thoroughly as CaB has documented Glinner’s behaviour since around 2019.

Few things on the internet are documented as thoroughly as GTV has documented Rimmer’s behaviour since around 2020.

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This place and that place keep my sanity levels in a place that keeps me ticking along in a relatively sustainable fashion. Is it that people grew up? Speaking as someone who was a colossal prick of an edgelord from my first forays onto the Internet in the mid 1990s until about, well, when was it? Tories getting in in 2010, I think, it’s encouraging to see these places that used to thrive on cheap laughs, punching down, mocking everything, become havens of kindness and tolerance.

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I  Haha! Yes. Very! Btw I have now researched it. It’s very close to where I currently live, but was a long way from where I actually bought my copy. Weird! I have no memory of ever thinking “Well, I need another copy of this book…”
Not quite a receipt, but I was looking at a 1920s edition of a late 1800s book in a charity shop a few weeks back, and the owner had cut out and kept a late 1930s centennial newspaper article on it being 100 years since the author’s birth and what they had been about. Me and my £5 were soon parted…

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Jeez. Rob takes a look at the three Red Dwarf novels he was involved in and thinks “the only good world-building I can do involves Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten. I was never capable of just writing for Lister and Rimmer…”

He managed page 1-11 of ‘Infinity Welcomes’ without *any* of them. Then pages 11-ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN without the Cat or Kryten. And then a further 46 pages without Kryten either.

Also, weirdly, I’ve just opened what I always thought was ‘my’ copy of ‘Infinity Welcomes…’ but I know it isn’t mine. Mine was bought from a jumble sale at a stall run by a Physics Teacher at my school. The barcode had been removed. (Barcode battlers?) ANYWAY, this copy on my shelf has a barcode. It also, *madly* has a feel of being barely read (the spine isn’t broken in multiple places like mine is). And, just now, searching for the bit where Kryten appears, I’ve found a receipt being used as a bookmark!!

My copy was bought for £3.99 at WH Smith No. 6616 (anyone wanna research that?) A fiver was handed over. £1.01 given back. The date was 23rd September 1991.

I wonder where I got this from? I wonder where mine is? I love the receipt, though! Especially as the book was meant to be £4.50! Obviously it might be a receipt from a different thing…

[Asclepius]

Doug put this picture on his IG. Could this be something new, or is it just some memory?

I don’t think it’s something new. Looks like the character ‘Kryten’ from an old sci-fi sitcom of the 80s and 90s on the BBC?

[Asclepius]

Damning his second reply with a back-handed complimented there…

Well, I would go with his second reply. But I’d be thinking of the first

Genuine lol at that.

[Asclepius]

Warbodog’s first reply is the funniest thing I’ve seen on here in months

Damning his second reply with a back-handed complimented there…

[Asclepius]

I asked AI to help us out. And it actually made some amusing suggestions.

4. Waiting for God

Lister discovers he may be the god of the Cat people and searches for the truth in ancient artefacts.

Meanwhile, he takes the Chef’s Exam again to prove he’s going somewhere in life — and flunks once more.

Even the Cat is embarrassed for him.

5. Confidence and Paranoia

A mutated virus causes Lister’s personality traits to manifest as hallucinations.

Between hallucinations, he attempts the Chef’s Exam again with inflated self-confidence — but forgets what a roux is.

He blames Paranoia for whispering “add custard” during the test.

6. Me²

Two Rimmers onboard quickly become one too many.

Lister tries to pass the Chef’s Exam to get a room with a decent oven, but confuses “julienne” with “just wing it.”

Rimmer’s smugness multiplies.

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Series II

1. Kryten

The crew discover a mechanoid serving long-dead officers.

Lister inspires Kryten to rebel and later ropes him into helping prep for the Chef’s Exam.

Despite robotic help, Lister overcooks toast and fails again.

2. Better Than Life

A virtual reality game gives the crew their heart’s desires.

In the fantasy, Lister is a five-star chef — but even in VR he burns the soup and fails his exam.

He wakes up devastated and hungry.

3. Thanks for the Memory

The crew awaken with missing memories and broken bones.

They piece together events involving a gravestone, drunken antics — and Lister’s “guaranteed pass” Chef’s Exam.

Turns out he just served pot noodles and still failed.

4. Stasis Leak

A temporal anomaly offers a chance to alter the past and perhaps save Kochanski.

Lister uses it to retake the Chef’s Exam in the past — only to discover he was always terrible.

Time travel can’t cook competence.

5. Queeg

The ship’s backup computer enforces harsh discipline.

Lister attempts the Chef’s Exam under Queeg’s brutal training regimen — but ends up banned from the galley.

Even Rimmer gets promoted to sous-chef in comparison.

6. Parallel Universe

The crew meet their female counterparts in an alternate dimension.

Lister’s alternate self is a successful chef — but this Lister fails the Chef’s Exam again, even after cheating off himself.

He claims the exam is sexist.

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Series III

1. Backwards

The crew find a planet where time runs in reverse.

Lister eats an entire chicken backwards and tries to unfail the Chef’s Exam.

Somehow he manages to fail it forwards and backwards.

2. Marooned

Lister and Rimmer are trapped on an icy planet with dwindling supplies.

Lister uses the time to study for the Chef’s Exam but ends up burning the last sausage.

Rimmer says he’d rather eat his own foot than Lister’s cooking.

3. Polymorph

A shape-shifting creature feeds on emotions.

Lister loses fear, attempts the Chef’s Exam again with reckless gusto — and flambés the table.

The Polymorph retreats, disgusted by his cooking.

4. Bodyswap

Rimmer and Lister swap bodies; chaos ensues.

Lister uses Rimmer’s body to retake the Chef’s Exam, claiming his hands were the problem.

He still fails — and blames Rimmer’s taste buds.

5. Timeslides

Photographs that allow time travel let Lister try to change his past.

He tries to pass the Chef’s Exam in his youth, coaching his younger self.

But young Lister also fails — catastrophically — and decides to become a rock star instead.

6. The Last Day

Kryten’s expiry date arrives, and the crew throw him a wild farewell party.

Lister attempts one final Chef’s Exam to honour his friend with a gourmet send-off.

He fails so hard, even Kryten prefers microwave curry.

[Asclepius]

That’s a big worm unearthed there, isn’t it? Kochanski’s disc exists. Why doesn’t Lister do everything he can do find it and use it? As you say, why doesn’t he retake the Chef’s exam? Or why doesn’t he just find the discs?

Feels like R+D wrote themselves into a corner with that one!

[Author]

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