Ben Saunders

[Ben Saunders]

(played by Robert Llewellyn)

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve always wondered how people would react if Rob Grant returned to Red Dwarf, and it was shite. That would throw a real spanner in the works.

[Ben Saunders]

If you read The Writer’s Tale and some interviews with RTD, it’s very clear that the late McCoy/New Adventures era is what influences RTD’s era the most – but he does take it in his own direction and do his own thing with it. There’s some good articles, I think on the AVClub for instance, about how Rose as a companion is very much in the mould of Ace.

Sereis 8 is the best series of New Who and Moffat was a godsend but tbh he had a very long run and its time to see what somebody else can do with the show – I’m aware a lot of people don’t like him but who cares what other people think (^:

Anyway, yeah, Red Dwarf

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah, there are a couple moments listed here as faves that just leave me thinking… THAT’S your favourite moment from Dave Dwarf?! What a world.

Moose is great, obviously. And Kryten explaining the ERRA institute I really appreciated, as well as Rimmer turning softlight.

[Ben Saunders]

The Strangerers was shite but I think he did Dark Ages after that so maybe it’s better, I didn’t care enough to find out

[Ben Saunders]

>(I seriously hate the retconning of why The Doctor left Gallifrey
Rule one: The Doctor lies

Also they were already trying to retcon the Doctor into the reincarnation of one of Time Lord society’s founders called The Other or something stupid in the Sylvester McCoy/Virgin New Adventures era, which RTD and Moffat both draw heavy influence from, moreso than other eras of Who, especially since RTD actually wrote for the range

[Ben Saunders]

>if Doug Naylor was confectionary, he’d be a bag of Revels
Pretty good, but every now and then you get a coffee one and want to die? Good analogy

[Ben Saunders]

Doctor Who doesn’t have continuity, until it wants to. The Daleks and Genesis of the Daleks are completely incongruous with one another.

[Ben Saunders]

I had a dream about Red Dwarf last night.

That’s all I remember.

[Ben Saunders]

If I went back in time to the 90s to talk to Rob and Doug, Additional 001 would be the last thing on my list to talk to them about/demand

[Ben Saunders]

It’s a debate between Old Farts and Kids These Days.

[Ben Saunders]

Kryten enabled Best Guess Mode

[Ben Saunders]

We should try combining three old jokes into one to create a whole new superjoke.

[Ben Saunders]

>So it would appear that there’s no need to be registered to be able to fly any of the shops.

Well, I for one would sure prefer it fs my local Sainsbury’s weren’t careening out of control through space with absolutely zero expertise at the helm.

[Ben Saunders]

>I bet that adds an extra dimension to White Hole
Yes, it now takes a full three weeks for Fat Kryten to finish a sentence.

It also means we now see three dimensions in Dimension Jump.

[Ben Saunders]

1) Rob Grant wanted to leave
2) Rob Grant left

[Ben Saunders]

Watching episodes on broadcast is a great communal experience for us old-timers, a special feeling I agree, but modern audiences are very much likely to bing-watch, and many people love to do so/love ot have the option to do so, so any broadcaster that wants to appear modern and with it should be seriously considering it.

I like one-per-week for Dwarf, and I’d prefer if we all got to watch/discuss is together, but hey ho, here’s to the future.

[Ben Saunders]

I binge-watch quite a lot. It’s very popular amongst the yung ‘uns. I watched all of American Dad several episodes per day one summer (when there were only five seasons), I stormed through all of Peep Show in a month or so, watched an insane amount of Bruiser/Mitchell and Webb Situation/Look/Would I Lie To You one year (it was non-stop) and with the exception of Twentica, which I watched when it dropped on UKTV Play, I watched all of XI an episode per day.

When I was younger I had all of the Red Dwarf series on VHS, and I’d often watch an entire series in a day. Our IV VHS is seriously warped and plays in slow-motion now. VI is suffering some wear, too.

[Ben Saunders]

>The model is so much shitter than some CGI.
Well 2D is better than 3D

Is what some people would say.
Horrible, sick, twisted people.
Would say that.

[Ben Saunders]

You had to get your birth certificate? Hahahahaha.
I once tried to buy Halo Reach in Argos but they denied me, and I had to get my mum to get it for me.

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve been lurking for like three years but I think somebody had an opinion so genuinely wrong I had to make an account just to shout at them, or something, I can’t remember

[Ben Saunders]

>I don’t think Dwarf is any more adult than The Big Bang Theory

It is
Red Dwarf is a 12 (up to a 15 at one point) and features quite a lot of (mild) swearing.

I just checked and TBBT is a 12 as well… but why?! I guess there are sex references and people are prudes. Definitely a light 12 vs. RD’s strong 12.

[Ben Saunders]

Correct but idiotic is my favourite kind of correct

[Ben Saunders]

Doctor Who is a family show. It started off as an out-and-out kid’s show, but that didn’t last very long. It has dealt with some very adult themes such as suicide and cremation, and gotten quite dark, but it does so without foul language and in a household environment. There’s nothing in it I wouldn’t expose my kids to, but Moffat’s two Cyberman finales have featured some pretty grim stuff that honestly surprised me in how far it went.

[Ben Saunders]

Hahahahahahaha

[Ben Saunders]

please stop oh god

[Ben Saunders]

Ascension Sunday, Ascension Sunday

[Ben Saunders]

Tbh I don’t know what Labour Day is, either. So explaining the joke is necessary for a non-US audience. God knows that Americans could do good for themselves by remembering that other countries exist too and not everybody is American.

[Ben Saunders]

I mean if the audience are laughing at it, at least some people at home must be too. And iirc other people thought it was a highlight of the episode, so it’s whatever.

I wonder if every single maargh was scripted, like how the cast claim the GELFspeak in VI was to be followed verbatim, or if the cast milked it a little.

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah for me it never became funny again, but I laughed at first.

Speaking of edits, I noticed a lot of odd continuity/edits in Justice when I watched it today. Sometimes I’ll notice the odd one in an episode, but there were a good few in Justice, they must have done several takes then.

[Ben Saunders]

I never thought the Snacky jokes were run into the ground, but I thought Butler teaching Kryten GELF speak was. Interesting how different people have different opinions on the same thing, innit.

[Ben Saunders]

I got me and one of my mates to act out a scene from Bad Dog and the Curse of the President’s Knee in the style of Malcolm in the Middle for a primary school talent show, but that’s not Red Dwarf related. I used the word thusly in an essay once because I heard Kryten say it.

[Ben Saunders]

Thanks. I’m aware I could have just googled it but this was more fun.

i think we planted trees in primary school for national tree week

[Ben Saunders]

I never said it wasn’t funny, I just said it wasn’t t-shirt worthy. It -is- funny

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve seen a couple fan edits but tbh they always go too far or remove stuff I think is funny/important so they just end up annoying me. I’m a purist anyway and want the original versions, warts and all.

Stuff like the VIII edits you mention might be more interesting though, because the one’s I’m talking about are just “I took out three gags I didn’t laugh very hard at and messed around with the saturation”

[Ben Saunders]

I’m only going to ask one more time

[Ben Saunders]

WHAT’S ARBOR DAY?!

[Ben Saunders]

The three separate opinions joke was never funny

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah the Kryten thing caught me off guard on my rewatch – would it have been funnier if they held the reveal then, too? I don’t think so, I think they’re both played perfectly. And revealing Snacky at that moment is really unexpected, and I like to be surprised by shows that have been going for 20 years

[Ben Saunders]

>I’d be surprised if it ever came out of Doctor Who’s mouth
Honestly, hearing the Doctor say “go to hell” at the end of Series 8 was shocking enough. His language is extraordinarily tame, except when he’s telling Daleks to spack off

[Ben Saunders]

Captain Bollocks was funny, but not t-shirt worthy imho. It’s not a classic line. Nor is it out if character. Butler trying to teach Kryten how to speak Gelf was overplayed as well. It was kind of amusing but not much beyond that.

Revealing Snacky’s identity early is important because it provides the dramatic irony which makes Rimmer’s counselling session hilarious. Revealing him so early is also an interesting change of pace, something different. The joke is just as funny if they put it at the start as if they put it nearer the end, imo.

Bollocks is barely even a swear word in the UK. It just means testicles.

[Ben Saunders]

I’m currently onto Series IV of my rewatch which I started a couple of weeks ago. What struck me immediately is how slow the pace is compared to XI, especially the pace of gags. The laughs are fewer and further between, and, sometimes, quieter. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen these episodes so many times as a child.

I thought modern day cultural references were an issue with Dave Dwarf – but 80s references are everywhere in the early series, and almost all of them fly right over my head. What’s Ishtar? I only know who Carmen Miranda is because I googled it after watching Dwarf as a child. I don’t really know who Glenn Miller is, either, etc etc. It puts things like the FIFA joke, which irked me, into perspective.

Danny John Jules really talks more Cat-y now than he did in the olden days. I don’t know if he overdoes it or underdid it.

Robert Lewellyn’s fucking accent in Series III is horrific and all over the place. He is an instant improvement for IV.

Large swathes of backstory are ignored and rewritten between II and IV but tbh I’m fine with it.

There’s an awful lot of corpsing I never noticed when I was young, and Robert Lewellyn reading all his speeches off of idiot boards is really obvious and distracting. The piscene routine and “droid meets droid” are memorable examples of this.

Craig acting in the background of shots trying to outdo Chris is hilarious.

[Ben Saunders]

What’s Arbor Day?

[Ben Saunders]

What if WWIII involves time travel and is actually going to happen in the past in the future and we’re living in an aborted timeline?

[Ben Saunders]

My initial comment about WWIII should have been more clear that it was mocking the idea that we are closer to it now

[Ben Saunders]

The closest we’ve been (officially) to armageddon was the Cuban Missile Crisis, no?

North Korea couldn’t nuke America (and don’t seem to care about anywhere else) and America would be foolish to nuke North Korea, so right now it’s just sanctions and grandstanding.

[Ben Saunders]

[satirical comment about how full of holes the plot is, how we shouldn’t have to come up for our own explanations for shit, how doug is the laziest writer on the planet who should die and how my gran could write better than these bozos eve though she just died]

Good point, well made.

[Ben Saunders]

Don’t give me any of that three opinions crap, it’s too early in the morning

[Ben Saunders]

>Closer to WWIII than we were during the cold war

Granted I had to google when the cold war ended

[Ben Saunders]

R***t w*****s are still c***s, though, so we can still laugh at their expense, even if they’re in p***r

[Author]

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