Asclepius

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Future Echoes were just holograms all along.
(They wouldn’t take up nearly as much power if they’re just recordings and not sentient)

Ooh, I like that!

*But* the purpose of the holograms is to persuade Lister to not go into stasis. What’s to be gained by that? Is Holly prioritising his own sanity by doing this, maybe…?

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maybe George’s light bee got burned in the incident 

They didn’t have light bees back then though, did they? It was all discs and hologram projection suites. None of the tech got damaged during the explosion.

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Lots of opinions here. It’s an interesting one, and was a late night thought of mine the other night. I think it boils down to – does Holly have the authority to do whatever he wants? Or does he need to consult with the Captain or JMC before making a decision? Is he allowed to make massive decisions like “Turn this guy off” or “Accelerate out of the solar system” without consulting with a high ranking human?

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It’s more believable than blue hats vs red hats, or the Cats mistaking Lister’s laundry list for coordinates. 

The conciet there is the Cats’ development was selected not by nature but an artificial environment, so every minor detail left them takes on untold significance. One of my favorite details from the novel was explicitly saying the Cats evolved bipedalism in order to get into the ship’s cargo containers. Full Circle in Doctor Who explored a similar idea.

The novels are *so* good at this aren’t they? The day the starvation falls on the cats. They come to pray at their metal tower and one cat – committing heresy – holds up the sacred object, ignores the screaming cats, places the object on one of the metal cans, turns it, and out pops the food.

So well written. The ‘voice of the narrators’ in the first two books is outstanding, tbh. Not as funny as the TV show, but absolute classics.

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Isn’t the point that Red Dwarf as a brand is bigger than either Rob or Doug? In the UK, a lot of people know the show who don’t connect the name to Grant Naylor. Isn’t that the general audience potential commissioners would be thinking of?

It’s a big brand, but any broadcasters buying into it are going to look at how they’re dealing with. Look at the fuss Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn made in 2013 when they tried to bring Yes Prime Ministers back to TV by adapting their stage play. The BBC still wanted a pilot even though it was the same writers, but different actors. I imagine that Doug – the man who has written or co-written every episode of Red Dwarf, and has directed the bulk of the last 10/15 years of it, is going to fare better in those negotiations than Rob who hasn’t written for the show on TV in a third of a century.

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Literally every official Red Dwarf product and project since the Backwards novel has been created at the instigation of Doug alone.
How soon we forget Into The Gloop

My therapist suggests that doing just that is the best way forward.

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Totally agree with Rushy on this one. Doug mightn’t have done anything than Red Dwarf for the past twenty years, but in that time he was produced Dave’s biggest ratings winners, and all of those episodes are also freely available on i-player.

Rob’s done a couple of books that are presumably now out of print, and some Radio 4 series that aren’t accessible online, as far as I can tell. His last TV work was, when, 25 years ago? He’s going to have a long, uphill battle to get anything made.

Doug, with his track record of managing to make 18 episodes of Red Dwarf and two specials since 2009, his ability to rely on the cast to still be involved, and his ability to rely on the well regarded Baby Cow to do some of the tricky bits means that he’s in a whole different world to Rob on this. And he’s *still* having trouble getting anything out.

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‘sucking off’ really is one of those phrases that stops looking like actual words if you repeatedly type it. As well as making no biological sense whatsoever.

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Had a dream last night that an entire series of Red Dwarf was made in secret without any of us knowing. They somehow managed to keep it quiet throughout production, but then when it was ready, the BBC accidentally put it all on iPlayer. My main reaction was complete panic and stress, trying to figure out how G&T should cover six episodes that release simultaneously.
As for the series itself, it was controversially called Series XIII, and it was absolutely shit. The second episode was about Cat trying to convince Lister to suck him off, and was called The One Where Everyone Gets Sucked Off. There was also a musical episode, which was rubbish, but Danny got his keyboard out and did some amazing music theory analysis on the Live DwarfCast, so it was all worth it for that.

Also…

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The second episode was about Cat trying to convince Lister to suck him off, and was called The One Where Everyone Gets Sucked Off. 

Two points here. A) a wet dream?

Had a dream last night that an entire series of Red Dwarf was made in secret without any of us knowing. They somehow managed to keep it quiet throughout production…

Second point. I let myself hopelessly, pathetically believe that ‘The War Between The Land and the Sea’ was going to be similar – a ‘secret’ third Ncuti season of Dr. Who. Why would it be secret? Because I thought RTD might have masterminded an amazing 4-D chess scenario where he keeps telling us the show is ending (as he did on Newsround), that Disney hadn’t confirmed any new series yet, and that the whole of last series was suggesting it was coming to an end (With the various Mrs. Flood references to that sort of thing) etc. So I hoped against hope that he was going to pull an amazing rabbit out of his hat. But he didn’t. He really didn’t. 

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I really like both Marooned and Polymorph….but the book versions of both are so much better. You never get the real sense of peril in Marooned that Lister actually *is* that cold or that hungry. Having Rimmer disappearing…”I’ll be baacck truuuuust meeeeeee” etc. is very effective and quite emotional.

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And we continue with Series 3. Marooned was on the other night.

The youngest child’s opinion: “Is this where it dips?”

Oh, you sweet Summer child, it is not, no. He wasn’t a fan.

“What’s virginity?” being a good line. Following that discussion, I decided to talk all over the end of the ‘Committee for the Liberation and Integration….’ scene in Polymorph.

The eldest had to shield her face that she was laughing so hard at the Lister/Kryten scene. The youngest having previously misunderstood (or not listened hard enough to) the scenes where Kryten is plugging in his vacuum attachment and discussing his other potential groinal attachments.

“Is that meant to be his penis?”

Anyway, Polymorph very successful. I think his favourite’s still ‘Better Than Life’ though. 

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Does anyone know whether Fiona Sharp liked it? Keen to find out before I buy a copy.

Any help appreciated.

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The Americanisation of Red Dwarf is really in line with the general Americanisation of British culture anyway, it’s seeping into every crevice of British life and by the 23rd century we’ll probably be virtually indistinguishable.

Guy who’s really concerned with British Culture but not in an anti-POC way, he’s just anti-American. Which is based.

I love the idea of you mistakenly turning up to a ‘Protect Are British Culture’ protest with your views and opinions 😀 

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Thanks, all. Really interesting!

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Doug, G+T have finished having a laugh at Chris’ health issues, and now they’re having a go at fannies. Can you get them to stop, please?

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I’d quite like a spinoff. A prequel showing life on ship before the accident. Maybe show how Rimmer ended up in the Corps despite his incompetence and how Lister woke up on Titan after a night out and signed up to get back to Earth. I’d like to get some more info on the JMC, how Red Dwarf was viewed by others as one of the oldest and largest ships in service etc.

Rob Grant’s buttski starts grumbling ominously, and the money’s paw closes one finger.

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Heard a rumour that what’s happened is that Chris tuned into the wrong radio station last week and ended up with the catchy chorus of ‘Dream Big’ by Bob Vylan stuck in his head.

Subsequently Chris now thinks that he’s caught the woke mind virus and is undergoing treatment involving heavy audio doses of James Whale, Eamonn Holmes and Mike Graham.

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Well, I’ve still got high hopes for Series XIV starting filming soon 🤞 

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Watching that movie is like a waking simulation of one of those quasi-lucid nightmares where you’re aware this is just a dream but you can’t wake up or influence it in a more pleasant direction so you’re trapped in this bizarre mind prison.
I might have been too high to remember I could turn it off and do something else.

My only experience of watching is was at a friend’s house after a night out. I kept nodding off and he kept kicking me awake to watch it. I can’t imagine a better atmosphere for appreciating its creepiness, dream-like qualities, nightmare fuel etc.

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They are fans of mass death huh?

They knew nothing of the show and, I think, the general increasing air of ‘what is happening?!’ coupled with a few good comedy lines got them in the right mood for the Cat’s appearance which put them in hysterics.

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Rimmer to look fuzzy and opaque in every episode and put the effect in all previous episodes

CGI Taiwan Tony spliced into previous episodes.

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I rewatched Trojan with my mum, and noticed that the ringtone on Lister’s phone is from the cyanide ad in the lift, from Stasis Leak. 

You know how to treat a lady.

Currently reached the half-way point in Series 2 with my kids. Favourite episodes so far have been The End and Better Than Life. But Thanks for the Memory was judged ‘very clever’. That is, of course, what we want with our comedy.

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…a bit rough…so precarious…you need to show her…she did watch….in its entirety…still wanted to continue…it’s hard…. imagine anyone who’s done that…. “fuck it, I’m out” after…. 

I think you owe a serious fucking apology to Rushy’s Mum. This is slander. And filth.

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I’m still surprised that Doug didn’t think to make her the permanent computer

That’s true. Rebecca would do the role for cash. Norman will do it for train fare and some sandwiches (nowadays).

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Mum finished Back to Earth. It was a bit rough.
*(points at the Creator) “Is that Doug Naylor?”
*”What does Blade Runner have to do with this?”
*(re: Lister/Kochanski scene) “Why is this show so eclectic in tone??”
*”What was the actual story? It just felt like bits and pieces.”
Hopefully series 10 will return some of her series 7 era enthusiasm… 

Tbf her journey through Red Dwarf is like an epic “Let’s Listen to all the Beatles records” marathon where you start on the first LP, turn it off after Side A, and then fly straight to the late 1970s for Ringo’s disco-theme solo records.

It’s not that there isn’t some good stuff still to come – there is (but not from Ringo) – but you’ve landed in an area that fans struggle to justify, and you’ve also missed about 95% of the really massive moments that are a huge part of fandom.

So many iconic scenes and phrases, anything that it’ll be calling back to etc. I don’t know how you’d watch Back to Earth without having watched Back to Reality, for example.

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Met him once at a really odd event at Manchester’s Fab Cafe. He took part in a script read-through of a couple of audio stories, with a small cast. They were connected to the city/planet in the Doctor Who story, Robots of Death. It wasn’t great, but he was wonderfully pithy about the script and seemed to be having fun playing to the small audience.

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I guess not every project has the benefit of Robert leaking it for them.

I suppose Robert’s silence on the matter of other projects means we can assume that Rob Grant hasn’t emptied his buttski yet.

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Kryten and Rimmer forbid further time travel at the end of Tikka to Ride Xtended. Earlier in the episode, Rimmer warns that it could lead to them becoming like their future selves, so it’s covered.

Wow. So they kept in Lister being beaten up by his friends, but removed a plot point about why they wouldn’t be doing this again? Hmm…

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In Tikka to Ride, instead of beating Lister to death, why didn’t the crew choose to stay on 1963 Earth? It’s not a bad year, all told, and the 60s in general aren’t too bad.

In future adventures, why didn’t they ever re-use whatever device they used to get them to Dallas 1963?

The logic and plotting of Series 1 – which I’m rewatching – is so tight that massive ‘it all resolves at the end of the episode’ stuff like this is more painful.

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Both Sophie Winkleman and Rebecca Blackstone were good enough to be regulars. 

If you’ve got Winkleman on board, then you’re also going to have similar vibes and threads to “Chris Barrie has updated his website”, but slightly more fash.

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The BBC have announced 52 new episodes of Doctor Who.

Just replying to the monkeys paw gif which gave me a massive lol. Thank you!

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I despise series 1 Cat with the passion of a thousand suns. The way he keeps singing and screaming random nonsense, that stupid jaunty music cue, the fourth wall breaks… it’s like watching a crap CBBC character. I think Dennis the Donut Boy is more respectable to Hollister than series 1 was to the Cat. 

My kids think Series 1 Cat is the absolute funniest thing about the entirety of Series 1. All of Waiting for God and Confidence and Paranoia passed without a single laugh, apart from for Cat. “S.E.X. I think I found it” broke decibel levels for them.

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The main thing is they planned to make like a billion movies all interconnected like the MCU but after a divisive response to Episode 8 and a largely disinterested response to Solo they abandoned movies almost entirely in favour of ludicrously expensive streaming shows. Half the audience hated 8, nobody cared about Solo and Episode 9 was a shocking mess of trying to please everybody and in the end pleasing nobody. Episode 9 is one of those rare moments like the final season of Game of Thrones where it seems like basically everybody thinks it’s shit. Usually it’s 50/50 or there’s a very vocal group of fans who defend it to the death, and obviously there are still a small number of those who do, but the overwhelming response just seemed to be “what the fuck?”

Most people seem to dislike the Obi Wan show which feels poorly made especially for the amount of money dumped into it, and they managed to fuck up The Mandalorian by turning it into something it never was. Season 3 of The Mandalorian and that Book of Boba Fett show all got pretty negative responses. It seems like people didn’t like the Ashoka show either, but I did, you bastards. And I never even watched Rebels.

Sure on the surface SW content still makes a lot of money, but it was clear to everybody with a brain that there was no direction behind the sequel trilogy, and them completely bowing out of movies so quickly is a clear sign it didn’t go as well as they planned. 

Andor is a big success, which is annoying because by the time they started making it I couldn’t give two fucks about a spin-off show about a secondary character from a just-OK movie I barely remember anything about. The Obi-Wan show eviscerated any faith I had left in the Star Wars IP, completely bungling the return of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to give us some of the most bland, uninteresting storylines, embarrassing action and like a couple good moments. It was supposed to be a movie but they changed it to a streaming show at one point and then they filmed it all on that big screen but did it so badly. 

I don’t pay attention to MCU stuff but they do seem to currently be in the desperately bringing back a beloved old face to convince people to bother with their new installment phase just like Who.

Thanks for the precis. I’ve always been curious, but never enough to dig deeper! You say that ‘Solo’ was a series that failed? Was that a recasting of Harrison Ford, I presume? Does that partly mean that, like Red Dwarf, Star Wars fans have a love for the actors playing the characters, as opposed to just the characters existing? 

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Really, really odd way to run something.

This is from the company who managed to bungle Star Wars, one of the most profitable media franchises ever to exist, to the point that they stopped making movies after a whopping five entries. Regardless of your opinions on the output, their management does seem truly bizarre at times. But then I’m not a multi-billion dollar shareholder and maybe if I was I’d be worse at it.

Not trying to be obtuse, but I don’t know what the Star Wars stuff relates to. What happened? I’ve seen the original three and one of the prequels. I’m aware there’s another two prequels, and then three “Ooh, aren’t they old!” films – the last being made after Carrie Fisher’s death. What happened to break it?

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I read Into The Gloop.
I know it’s only a few minutes’ long script, but it made me cringe about as much as Timewave managed over its entire 25 minute length.

I fully agree. I still can’t believe Rob thought that was ok. The whole thing is just an immature jab at Doug. 

I don’t see it so much as a jab at Doug. It’s just some of the cringey lines that come straight out of the late 80s/early 90s and should have stayed there.

Yes, Timewave and the infamous end of Dear Dave are not ok with what they’re telling us about the writer, but they’re quite isolated moments . Into the Gloop might be a one-off, but it’s a 100% hit-rate for cringe.

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I think it might all have been very different if Disney had been confident enough after that first season to renew the partnership deal straight away. Had that happened, they could have moved ahead with making season 3 and Gatwa would probably have stayed with the show for a third year as originally intended.
It seems to be the lateness of that decision that left the show in limbo and encouraged him to leave (and I don’t blame him If the alternative was to have to turn down other work without knowing whether his work on Doctor Who would actually be going ahead).

I’m intrigued to know what Disney wanted to see from the show that they would renew it. The ratings were generally UK Top 10 and, I believe, Top 10 for Disney in a lot of its worldwide territories. They knew that, by delaying renewal, they risked losing the lead actor. And so they did. Really, really odd way to run something.

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In Entangled, the fact that Lister’s oxygen tube is just flapping about unattached when he’s supposed to be in space bothers me so much

Confidence made him do it.

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Who knows what a Rob solo TV series might have looked like though

Judging from what he’s written, I think he’d have a much easier job nailing the overall tone and feel of Red Dwarf. His scripts would have much tighter quality control, and the jokes would be great. 
However, one thing Rob seems to lack is ambition. It’s Doug who had to push for the show to evolve at every stage of its development. Rob admitted that if it had been up to him, Series III would have just carried on from Series II with no real change. I think that says a lot. 
And as others have pointed out, Rob is much more grim, so the stories would be far less kinder to the characters, and they themselves would probably be more bitter, neurotic and cynical. 

I read Into The Gloop.

I know it’s only a few minutes’ long script, but it made me cringe about as much as Timewave managed over its entire 25 minute length.

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Season Sixteen Episode One: New Trailer Dropped.

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Just point out the typo in the burn, undercuts it wonderfully

Ha! If only I read things properly rather than scan-reading everything…!

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I think they’re exactly like that, exact for the bit about loving to hang out, have a meal together or jam on ukuleles. 

I have very little way of responding to this valid and fairly epic burn. I’ve even searched for an insult, but instead I’m going with:

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I’m not sure the Silence arc could have been improved with 3-4 additional episodes across a series 8 (surrounded by random adventures), especially after floundering and then stalling for ages, which already killed the momentum. Time of the Doctor is rushed, but it still works (apart from the too-random Pope woman who it seems we’re already supposed to know) and I like it a lot.

The pay-off of it all for me:

Cybermen transport down onto the planet’s surface and begin firing on the people.

TASHA: (v.o.)
And so, to the fields of Trenzalore came all the Time Lord’s enemies. For this was the winter of the Doctor.

The Silence and the Militants of the Church fire against the Cybermen.

TASHA: (v.o.)
In time, when all other races had retreated or burned, only the Church of the Mainframe remained in the path of the Daleks. And so those ancient enemies, the Doctor and the Silence, stood back-to-back on the fields of Trenzalore.

The DOCTOR walks down the street, twirling his cane, the Silence walking behind him.

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That is spectacular, emotional voice-over dialogue. Sends a tingle down my arms reading it again.

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I squeed a bit when Anita popped into the Live Chess match because I have a real soft spot for the first two thirds of The Wedding of River Song. Having the Series 6 callback and Whittaker and the Rani and Omega in one episode does create very welcome connective tissue in my brain to help cohese together a show with quite disparate eras and elements. 

Same. I loved it how they picked two random Doctors to do it with, rather than feeling obliged to do them all. The Pertwee one was particularly good as it was fun to watch Ncuti ‘see’ a Dalek!

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But the Silence arc was so seamlessly executed tho

Silence arc was also cut a season short by the lead actor suddenly deciding to leave a series early.

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I think that’s occurred to a lot of people. Something needed to tie it all together and that kid would have made the most sense. 
The 7th son of a 7th son of a 7th son is actually a girl named ~~Bob~~ Ruby

Massive hole punctured straight through that theory. Ouch. You broke my dreams.

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“Every time I revisit the commentaries on the Bodysnatcher DVD, I’m left asking what smegging bee does Rob have in his bonnet. He seems to get along great with Doug, why not just chill and write something? 

Obviously I don’t know the guy and I’m not saying he has any obligation to write more, but it just seems a bit surreal to me that they still have this natural camaraderie and love for their past work, and seem to have no issue writing new material for Bodysnatcher.

But somehow, a new script is completely out of the question. That just doesn’t compute with my brain lol. 

I think Doug’s even said that he has no idea why Rob won’t work with him. Is Doug really that difficult that Rob cannot bear the thought of doing more than a few scenes with him? “

I think I broke the quote/reply button. So I’ve improvised.

Could be like Harrison with McCartney? Love hanging out, having a meal together, jamming on ukuleles, but wouldn’t go near a recording studio with him or anything in a professional capacity whatsoever.

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I think Back to Earth is pretty fab. I enjoyed it at the time, and I enjoyed it on a re-watch. I like the tomato scene. I like the scenes with the replacement Hologram. The Coronation Street stuff is great. I like the stuff in the sci-fi shop. It has quite a few funny lines.

Considering the challenges they were up against, it’s a good piece of work.

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That’s a really solid theory actually. It could have all tied up very nicely.

It was probably meant to.

The snow thing as Rob pointed out above is a really good point too.

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