Captain No-Name

[Captain No-Name]

To be fair, if you were tuning into Doctor Who for a serious emotional story then the year probably wasn’t 1965.

[Captain No-Name]

Yeah Paradise Towers works best if you start from the idea it’s MEANT for the 3.45PM CBBC slot and the producer’s said “look, we’re supposed to be making 4 episodes of Grange Hill, but fuck it, I want to film Junior JG Ballard with cannibal grannies and a zombie caretaker and a killer robot in the swimming pool instead.”

I’d totally watch that after school.

I remember my enthusiasm for the show suddenly dropped dramatically at the start of Hinchcliff’s second series

But isn’t that… Terror of the Zygons? One of my all time favourite stories. I can’t imagine not loving that.

I will defend the McCoy era against many of its criticisms, but I concede most of the incidental music is irredeemable. It’s testament to quite how good Remembrance of the Daleks is in almost every single regard that it is somehow not diminished by its shit score.

I’m currently reading all the novels and novelisations in internal chronological order.

Wow you’ve got some stamina. There are so many of those books. SO MANY BOOKS.

I tried to read all the Virgin NAs but I wasn’t man enough. Got as far as First Frontier and felt exhausted. There is quality in those books, but blimey sometimes it’s like panning for gold.

[Captain No-Name]

Norfolk library has a healthy collection of DVDs that I can get sent to my little bit of no-where. They appear to be mainly the Tom Baker years, so I guess I’ll start with him first.

Ah this makes me happy. Good old libraries. Good thinking Hamish.

We might argue about the various merits of one story over another, but it’s hard to deny that Tom Baker, the vast majority of the time, just brings a special something to the role that is utterly watchable.

Hope you enjoy, Lily.

[Captain No-Name]

Not sure what you’re talking about GlenTokyo. Something to do with Red Dwarf? With the vampire dude and the bloke with an R on his forehead.

Never seen it, I heard it was shit.

[Captain No-Name]

Listen to Dave. He speaks wisely.

Ah, why the hell don’t the BBC repeat old classic episodes on BBC4? I know they randomly repeated one (was it Hand of Fear?) a few years back…

If I was in charge, this Christmas BBC4 would be showing both the new version of Shada AND all 4 episodes of The Tenth Planet (with a mini documentary to explain why the hell Part 4 is animated).

I can’t help thinking a number of viewers will be wanting to see The Tenth Planet as a result of Twice Upon A Time…

[Captain No-Name]

Your Who opinions interest me, Captain No-Name, because I think Paradise Towers and Kinda are mediocre, but I like Delta and the Bannermen. I think McCoy is overrated by die-hards. At least we can agree Time and the Rani is shite.

This may well be an age thing, but for many years whenever I met a Doctor Who fan (which was rare) they would always get onto the topic of how shit the McCoy era allegedly was. Repeating that Bonnie Langford was an embarrassment and saying Sylvester McCoy couldn’t act. Occasionally, in amongst the incoherent ranting I would hear the odd recognisable phrase… “Bertie Bassett”… “care bears on horseback”… “danglng off a cliff!”

I’ve never been very heavily involved in Doctor Who fandom, and these days it is a considerably broader church than it was when I was a lad. But I’m pleased to hear that someone is sticking up for McCoy nowadays, even if it is to the point where you are finding him “overrated.”

Paradise Towers feels like something I should enjoy, but there’s something… off… about it. The performance of that zombie dude doesn’t help, certainly. I love Tegan. And Rory!

There is *definitely* something off about Paradise Towers. And I think that is what obstructs so many people from enjoying it. But fortunately for me I have little difficulty squinting through its shortcomings. Also, even with its stagey execution, there is something I just love about the bonkers-ness of doing this re-telling of High Rise with theatrical feral punk children, and bloody CANNIBAL GRANNIES… It helps that I have a fascination with Brutalist architecture and the failed utopian idealism of post-war redevelopment schemes.

Yes, I wish the cleaning robots had brushes and sponges and things so they actually looked like cleaning robots; and yes the Kangs are a bit too much like earnest Peter Pans, but… I just can’t help loving it.

It amuses me how people always blanche at Richard Briers’ zombie performance. It’s over the top and silly, but I remember mimicking it when I was about 7 years old, and for me it’s all part of the delirious high camp grotesquerie of the piece.

Everybody loves Tegan. It’s an opinion I have heard loads. I wish I did, but I just can’t see it. I would’ve turfed her out of the TARDIS at the first available opportunity.

[Captain No-Name]

I’m a bit of a philistine who doesn’t enjoy the Hinchcliffe era that much, though.

Ooh bucking the trend there, International Debris. I love a controversial viewpoint. Myself, I can’t help but fall in line when it comes to the Hinchcliffe era, it’s great. I’m also a big fan of weird and amusing though (Carnival of Monsters, Happiness Patrol etc.)

my impressions going into Destiny of the Daleks many years ago was “Douglas Adams basically wrote this.”

That has always been my impression too. I can’t remember if I’m right but I have a vague memory that Douglas Adams said Terry Nation handed in 5 pages of running down corridors and a couple of explosions, and Douglas Adams padded it out. He was comically exaggerating, but perhaps not by much.

Oh hang on, it might have been Anthony Read

This, from Wikipedia: “Fisher was… unable to perform the rewrites. This meant that script editor Douglas Adams, aided by Graham Williams, had to perform a complete rewrite of the story over the course of a weekend. According to Adams, Graham Williams ‘took me back to his place, locked me in his study and hosed me down with whisky and black coffee for a few days, and there was the script.'”

Tom Baker also had the benefit of being the best known Doctor in America as he was the most played on PBS back in the day.

That’s right, but Tom had the most amount of colour DW episodes for PBS to repeat. Hence a greater opportunity to work his way into public consciousness, hence the Simpsons cameo. Although I confess I wasn’t really thinking about America.

I’m too poor to buy DVDs and too paranoid to torrent. How do you actually get to see all this without breaking the bank?

Ah Lily you have my utmost sympathy. This makes me realise how lucky I was seeing loads of Classic Who on UKGold in the 90s, and hoovering up VHS tapes in the early 2000s when they were discounted (I bought City of Death for about 99p circa 2003).

Comments like yours really make me wish the BBC had the money and resources for a subscription-based Netflix-style streaming archive with ALL of Classic Who on. Imagine that, if you could pay £20 and have a month to binge on old BBC content. I’d get a year’s membership definitely. But I totally understand it’s not a realistic notion, sadly.

So Lily, I guess your best option is cherry-picking a few classic DVDs which you can get cheap on e-bay. As for which ones, I’d say personal taste varies widely…

[Captain No-Name]

i couldn’t really get into it and there was some annoying nob called Rory who wouldn’t go away.

Ha ha!

Throughout the Amy/Rory years I felt like the programme was actively trying to get me to dislike it. I’m not surprised to hear some newer viewers found it hard to get into. If that was my first exposure to Doctor Who I think I would’ve run a mile.

The advice I give to anyone who is new to Doctor Who is: wait for a new Doctor and start with their first episode. If you like what you see, then think about going cherry-picking some older episodes.

So really, all that matters now is Jodie Whitaker.

Eccleston/Tom Baker/the rest are all water under the bridge.

[Captain No-Name]

the general consensus on what’s good seems to be pretty spot on honestly.

It’s all a matter of opinion of course, but I find some parts of accepted Who fan wisdom to be misleading personally.

The McCoy era is better than a lot of fans claim. I genuinely think Time and the Rani is the only poor McCoy story. People write off Season 24 but Paradise Towers is glorious, so long as you don’t get hung up on the stagey-ness of its execution.

Conversley, Davison’s era seems to be held in higher regard than it deserves. I mean yeah, Kinda is very good (although if we’re docking points for stagey-ness, what the hell is that forest!?) but I just do not understand the love for Tegan. Tegan’s presence automatically makes me like a story less.

Wow we’re really off topic now aren’t we?

[Captain No-Name]

Warbodog – yeah, it’s curious how Douglas Adams is made to look like the sole author. I think Ben’s account sounds right, and Adams didn’t use any of David Fisher’s original script, but wrote something new which was superficially similar, and Graham Williams had a hand in guiding it. I doubt Williams’s contribution to City of Death was as significant as Adams’s was to Destiny of the Daleks for example. And Adams is never credited as co-author of that story.

I was surprised when I learnt the third Hitch-Hiker book was a rewrite of Adams’s unmade “Doctor Who and the Krikketmen” script. I can’t quite image it. Presumably you know there is a Krikkitmen novelisation coming out next month, adapted by James Goss? I’ll be getting that. I thought he did a decent job of novelising Pirate Planet.

Ben – there are a load of reasons why I’m not a massive fan of the 5th Doctor’s era, but boredom isn’t really one of them. There are very few DW stories which are actually boring. The Space Museum (from episode 2 onwards) jumps to mind. What little exists of the Celestial Toymaker tested my patience too.

bloodteller – Tom Baker is generally considered the best, yes. But in part this is simply because he did more years than the other Doctors, so he worked his way into the public consciousness. In addition, the long run means his era encompasses quite a broad range of styles and approaches (and several companions) so there is something for everyone to like. But Tom has clunkers and classics, it’s true.

[Captain No-Name]

he had to have his hair permed

Yeah that’s what I meant. I said straightened. I meant the exact opposite.

Peter and Colin have utterly dreadful costumes. McCoy’s is good, but spoilt by the pullover, which should have been confined to Season 24. If he’d had a waistcoat from Remembrance onwards that would’ve been perfect. The TV Movie 7th Doctor looks a bit too “English gent.” He should be more like a slightly threadbare academic to my mind.

[Captain No-Name]

I dunno. I get what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced it is that sombre. The high socks, the snazzy diamond waistcoat, the question marks on the collar, the purpley palette… I see it more as JNT’s first attempt at creating an iconic “costume” look for the Doctor, rather than as a reflection of the character’s mortality. I think the 5th/6th/7th Doctors all suffered sartorially because of a similar approach.

You’re tight Tom’s mood is sombre for much of season 18. He looks unwell, his hair is greyer and needed straightening. The scripts keep referencing entropy and decay. But I find it hard to imagine this version of the 4th Doctor going “I’m due a fabulous iconic wine-coloured makeover!” It seems more likely he would just look like an increasingly dishevelled and shabby version of his younger self. As if he’s let himself go and needs a new lease of life.

I don’t have the individual DVDs of 1-8, yet. When I do, I’ll probably try to make them all look lovely and nice together.

Good luck with that endeavour. Many before you have tried and failed, as this thread attests.

[Captain No-Name]

Incidentally I don’t yet own a DVD of Red Dwarf XII (that’s coming at Christmas) so I have yet to face the dilemma of which spine will allow me to sleep easiest at night.

[Captain No-Name]

Here’s a bombshell for you: I don’t think Douglas Adams is good at writing Doctor Who.

I gather that was in fact the consensus view of Doctor Who fandom circa about 1980.

Personally, while I love a bit of Warrior’s Gate, I also love a bit of Shada. I see the shift from Season 17 to 18 as just a change from one type of Who (which I enjoy) to another type of Who (which I enjoy). There’s good and bad in both. Tom Baker’s Season 18 burgundy costume is definitely a trade-off for the worse, but the opening titles are all spangly and new so…

The one thing I take issue with when people criticise Douglas Adams Who is this idea that comedy is a bad thing that needed stamping out of the programme. I just can’t understand that. Give me “undergraduate” one-liners over dialogue about Charged Vacuum Emboitments any day.

[Captain No-Name]

Network Access Storage?

Ah right. Not a disc format then.

Oh apparently you can have SD DVD content on Blu-ray, they’re just called SD Blu-ray.

Interesting. Didn’t know that.

its all mixed in with weird Flash animation. surely that won’t gel together well?

I bought this yesterday, and am looking forward to watching it over Christmas.

A few years ago I saw the legendary unofficial Levine version (which was similarly part-animated) and I found it to be a perfectly satisfying way of completing the story. As Ben says, the only real alternative is that 1990s version with Tom Baker narrating across the gaps, which I’m not a fan of.

I enjoyed the McGann webcast, but it had a completely different cast (apart from Lalla Ward) so it’s very much it’s own beast.

The Gareth Roberts novelisation is without doubt the most I have ever enjoyed a Doctor Who novel, and is probably the best version of the story. Not least because it gives Douglas Adams’s script that final polish which it needed.

But you know what, I can’t join in with the naysayers who reckon Shada is only well-regarded because of its incomplete status. I think it’s Douglas Adams’s best DW story. I know it’s sacrilege but I prefer it to City of Death, which I is all good fun but curiously overrated.

Douglas Adams didn’t think highly of Shada, but then he didn’t think highly of the TV version of H2G2, and I think that is a joy from beginning to end, personally. Sometimes creators can’t see how good their stuff is, because they are fixated on the gap between their imagination and the (imperfectly-realised) version that actually got made.

[Captain No-Name]

*coughcough* what does NAS mean?

[Captain No-Name]

The BDA doesn’t allow pure SD content (i.e. not upscaled) on Bluray discs.

I always think it’s a shame they don’t just release SD content on Bluray disc but marketed under a different name. Exactly the same technology, but market them as super-duper DVDs with lots of space. Only the boffins would know it was a bluray disc with SD content on. Normal people would just think of them as DVDXs or whatever.

I mean a disc’s a disc. They contrive the boxes to look slightly different and stick a bluray logo on it, but the actual plastic disc just looks like a CD or a DVD.

I suppose it’s not a sound marketing idea. You can sell me 12 series of Red Dwarf across multiple discs, with a release per series, or you can sell me all 8 series of BBC Dwarf on a single disc, and all 4 Dave series on a second disc…

[Captain No-Name]

I’m intrigued. Example of “wacky” editing..?

[Captain No-Name]

Also, Upstart Crow is set in the same continuity as Blackadder II, so maybe that wants bunging in too..?

[Captain No-Name]

Surely

The Blackadder the Third Goes Back and Forth II: The Cavalier Years

[Captain No-Name]

To be fair, they outright said a Key To Time re-release *wasn’t* happening and later changed their minds.

Ah, that completely explains my uncharacteristic haste in picking it up!

I must’ve read that it was definitely limited edition. No wonder I was cross when I saw it re-released with a different cardboard outer, even if it was 2 years later.

Crazy bastards indeed. Or at least I think that’s what the Watcher called them…

[Captain No-Name]

Intriguing. I remember thinking VI was really good when I was a kid. Maybe it will shine less brightly when viewed through adult eye.

I’ve only just bought VI on DVD actually (doing this blog brought it home to me that I only owned 3 classic Red Dwarf DVDs!) but I shan’t be watching it just yet, as obviously I’ve got Series II lined up next.

[Captain No-Name]

Actually, the releases were 26 months apart.

Was it as long as that? Blimey. That said, Doctor Who fans are used to waiting years and years for specific classic series DVDs so 26 months doesn’t sound that long in the grand scheme of things. Especially as DWM probably explained the situation ages in advance. Why you’d shell out 3-figures rather than just waiting is beyond me.

I mean, if Grant Naylor announced a reissue of Bodysnatcher was due to come out in 26 months I’d rejoice.

Maybe I’m just old, but time goes so quickly.

I swear Back to Earth was only about 26 months ago…

[Captain No-Name]

I can’t fathom why they made it so limited.

I didn’t take its limited edition status seriously unfortunately. I thought it would be one of those instances where they make a bazillion units with shiny numbered stickers on.

The only time I rushed to buy a limited edition Doctor Who DVD boxset was when the Key to Time set was originally released, because I love that season and I was horrified by the prospect of it selling out. Guess what, once it sold out they re-released it in a not-limited edition version that had THE EXACT SAME DISCS IN but came in a different cardboard outer.

This experience meant I basically thought I could take my sweet time picking up a 50th boxset. I was wrong.

I was but a young lad with little money to my name and so I couldn’t justify the cost. However, one day I just thought fuck it – and I’m glad that I did. So much amazing stuff in that collection.

Sadly I fear I wouldn’t have had the pennies for it back then, even if I had known it existed. Certainly I’m fascinated by the sound of all the extras, but I’d want to have them all in a physical box on my shelf rather than rummaging around on YouTube or elsewhere for fragments.

[Captain No-Name]

You’re right that Red Dwarf regularly experiments, and this is part of the reason for its longevity. Although I think (from what I remember; not having seen it in years) that Series VI is only superficially different from Series V. Losing Red Dwarf and Holly look like a huge shift, but in terms of the format of the show I’m not sure it had that big an impact. Maybe I’d feel differently if I watched it again now.

I suspect there’s not much for the audience to learn during Series IV-VI. From what I remember the show takes a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach during that period, and not much changes after Series III really.

VII, VIII and BtE are three distinct experiments.

But there’s a reason the main Dave era (X-XII) becomes an exercise in recreating that middle period of BBC Dwarf.

[Captain No-Name]

I wonder how many other less-news-following fans passed over The Bodysnatcher Collection like I did?

I never even saw one in the shops. Didn’t know it existed until fairly recently.

The Bodysnatcher Collection is one of those sets like that 2013 Doctor Who boxset (with Day of the Doctor, The Five(ish) Doctors, An Adventure in Space and Time and Night of the Doctor) that I really wish I’d picked up at the time.

I’m not fussy about covers, but I’ve got a DVD player that spits out some Region 2 discs when it’s not in the mood, so I’m not optimistic about it playing an Australian one!

[Captain No-Name]

Thank you bloodteller. And thank you everybody else further up the thread who have said similarly.

It was my intention only to do a close reading of Series I. My reasoning being that it is the only series where the audience has to completely learn everything about what the programme is from scratch. Whereas everything from Series II onwards acts as a kind of sequel series, and there is much less to learn.

That said, the unexpectedly positive reaction these reviews have received has been very encouraging. I only expected one or two people to have a look, so this has been a really nice surprise. It’s inspired me to think about carrying it on further.

The thought of doing all 12 series is a bit daunting at this stage. But I’m open to cautiously extending the project further, so long as it maintains interest among people.

I can well imagine that Series III would be well-suited to my blog’s approach, due to it being an effective reimagining of the show. So I ought to do Series II just to bridge the gap really.

So that’s my announcement tonight: I’m thinking of taking a “Re-mastered” kind of approach to my blog – by which I mean pouring a needlessly large amount of energy into a niche marmite project that probably won’t get as far as Camille!

Cheers for the encouragement guys. It’s much appreciated.

[Captain No-Name]

We’ve reached the final episode already.

So if you’re in the mood for more of my long-winded & subjective ramblings, be my guest and click below…

ME²

Red Dwarf I – Me²

[Captain No-Name]

That’s wonderful, Captain Bollocks.

I bet you sighed before you stuck “Blue” in the DVD player, knowing what was coming.

Just goes to show there are as many ways to view a programme as there are people in the audience. More in fact.

P.S. As a fellow Captain we really should be discussing this in some sort of Officers’ Lounge away from hoi polloi.

[Captain No-Name]

Thank you very much International Debris!

It is of course entirely impossible to tell whether or not I would have reacted this way in 1988 without the foreknowledge I now have. But it’s a fun game to play.

That said, I genuinely do think the impending return of Kochanski feels seeded. And from what others have recently told me in the comments, Kochanski was possibly going to appear in one of the drafts of Episode 6 (which I didn’t know) so it’s feasible I’m picking up on some kind of faint trace of what Rob & Doug were actually planning at some point.

[Captain No-Name]

Well done flanI3

[Captain No-Name]

At long last I feel like this is a proper G&T thread!

It’s been running for days and I haven’t yet had a single person ask me why I combined three separate cloches into one though. Finally people are doing the decent thing and derailing the thread to talk about hotdogs.

All is well with the world.

[Captain No-Name]

People boil hotdogs!? I had no idea.

[Captain No-Name]

With just under 2 hours to go until I watch M-Corp for the first time (and on the evening some of you will be watching Skipper) I thought I’d fill the gap with this…

CONFIDENCE AND PARANOIA

Red Dwarf I – Confidence and Paranoia

[Captain No-Name]

Yeah, I think Ben is right.

[Captain No-Name]

I think the image of Lister dressed in a golden doughnut with a golden sausage in his hand just kills the whole thing for some people.

What strange reasoning these people must have. Religion in the real world is full of strange stuff about specific foodstuffs and plenty of outlandish costumes. Wine turns into the blood of Christ you know, I was once confidently told this by a Priest in an unlikely hat.

[Captain No-Name]

If my blog only achieves one thing, let it be that lovers of Waiting For God no longer feel the need to hide in the shadows, but can find the courage to speak out against the oppressive consensus, come out of the closet, and say with pride:

“I think on balance I might prefer this to Future Echoes.”

[Captain No-Name]

That’s made me happy. I really, really like Waiting for God, and never understood why it’s often rated among the – if not THE – worst of the original 36.

Really!? It has a poor reputation? Worst of the original 36 you say??? You see, this is where it benefits me not having a thorough knowledge of Red Dwarf fan consensus. I’m astounded. It’s clearly an outstanding episode!

On your hot dog point, I think Lister’s comment is more at the quality of cinema hot dogs in particular, not hot dogs in general.

Ha ha! Fair enough. I’m no hotdog connoisseur. They’re just crap rubbery sausages aren’t they? I’m sure Lister’s donut diner would have divine hotdogs better than I can imagine.

[Captain No-Name]

Hot off the press…

WAITING FOR GOD: “There is an absolutely pivotal moment that happens right at the beginning of this episode. It will fundamentally change the viewer’s expectations of the remainder of the series, and yet it it is such a small and fleeting thing that it is actually invisible if you watch the episode in isolation. It only reveals itself when watched in sequence with the previous episodes. And that moment is this…”
Red Dwarf I – Waiting for God

[Captain No-Name]

what are your thoughts on continuing this onwards after I?

I’d consider it, but I guess we need to wait and see whether the show gets commissioned for a second series ;)

Is he being thick, or is he is being incredulous?

Oh he’s being incredulous definitely. That’s clearly the intention of the script, and that’s obviously the reaction that makes sense in the wider context of Lister as a character. He’s not a stupid man at all.

I’m just suggesting that Craig Charles’s acting is a bit lacking in this scene. Later on in the series his acting improves considerably, but this early on I don’t think he nails it I’m afraid. It’s the only scene in The End where he’s required to really impress us dramatically… and he doesn’t.

If you gave Craig Charles a scene like that nowadays he’d pull it off, for sure.

bloodteller, I know what you mean. I personally would prefer a bit more of an emotional reaction from Lister. In my headcanon, it really hits him between The End and Future Echoes. Any normal person would do a fair bit of crying and panicking, but that wouldn’t make for good sitcom scenes!

Dollarpound, your point about hologram personalities being downloaded into robot bodies is an excellent one. (Kind of reminds me of the question of why Davros doesn’t build himself mechanical legs, instead of that cumbersome chariot).

But I don’t think it’s a plot hole yet, because there don’t appear to be any humanoid robots in this fictional universe. Obviously if a humanoid robot turned up, that would change things. But for now, the service robots with the good union mentioned in The End are seemingly the skutters; while Holly, the vending machines and the Talkie Toaster are all distinctly non-humanoid.

[Captain No-Name]

Sounds very intriguing. I didn’t even know about the existence of The Bodysnatcher Collection until I read about it on this forum! Shame it’s so obscure.

[Captain No-Name]

Maybe worth a look if you haven’t seen it, Captain No-Name. It’s on YouTube.

I have not seen it Pete Part Three. I shall make sure to avoid it for a good while yet, it sounds ghastly!

Neither have I seen the original assembly, Dax101. Was that on the elusive Bodysnatcher collection?

[Captain No-Name]

You’re right, it’s certainly important to give the audience a sense of Lister’s loss. I just don’t think you need to do it right at the beginning of episode one. Especially not for half the run time.

And I’m not even sure that’s what the opening of The End really achieves. The trolley scene and the first bunkroom scene for example, neither of those are really concerned with depicting what Lister will lose. I’ll give you the coin scene, and the fleeting few seconds with Kochanksi, but that’s about it.

For my money, the disco scene in Balance of Power, and the various lovely scenes in Series II where Lister and Rimmer talk about their respective families are considerably more effective at evoking what Lister has lost. Demonstrating that you don’t need to tell this story in a linear fashion.

See also, not starting Doctor Who in 2005 with Gallifrey being destroyed in the Time War. A sense of tragic loss is crucial to the character of Eccleston’s Doctor just like it is to Lister, but the episode “Rose” busies itself with showing you what a standard Doctor Who episode will be like, before mining all that emotional backstory.

I hate to admit it, but the “Everybody’s dead” scene frustrates me. It could’ve been executed so much better. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it on the page. It just frustrates me on the screen. Especially “are you trying to tell me everybody’s dead?” which I would have preferred Craig Charles to deliver shell-shocked rather than like he’s thick and he’s only just worked out what Holly means (I think Norman Lovett’s wonderful delivery of the punchline would have worked brilliantly regardless of how Craig Charles set it up).

[Captain No-Name]

It’s interesting, A Touch of Class doesn’t (for example) feature Basil and Sybil viewing the hotel with an estate agent and optimistically deciding to buy it because it will be a lovely relaxing lifestyle. It doesn’t feature Manuel being interviewed for the job, or Polly arriving fresh off the plane from Canada, or other such dreadful ideas. It just… starts. It just does Fawlty Towers from the off.

I don’t know whether it’s just easy for me to say this from the perspective of roughly 30 years of TV storytelling later, but wouldn’t it be better for Red Dwarf to just jump in the deep end and start with a standard episode of Red Dwarf, and fill in the details via backstory? I’m not sure George McIntyre is needed at all, for example. You should surely establish and explore the hologram concept via Rimmer, rather than a random one-off character.

Like I say, I admire The End’s bold eccentricity and its ballsy rug-bull. But, yeah, there’s something about showing an audience an approximation of a standard episode ASAP that seems like the wisest way to go when putting a new sitcom in front of people. Especially an atypical sitcom like Red Dwarf.

[Captain No-Name]

P.S. The nonsense about Basil and Manuel being on the run after the Torquay Inferno was meant to demonstrate how much you’d have to bend Fawlty Towers out of shape in order to make it give the viewer a similar feeling of unpredictability to that of the first few episodes of Red Dwarf. Like I say, rambling.

[Captain No-Name]

The Fawlty Towers analogy is just me rambling, Pete Part Three. If I had an editor, it would have quite rightly been cut, but it amused me so it stayed.

Allow me to have one more stab at re-phrasing the point I was clumsily trying to make…

If you watch any episode of Fawlty Towers, it gives you a good idea of what any other given episode of Fawlty Towers is like. Each episode has the same format, which is to say each episode is a tightly-constructed farce that winds towards a catastrophic crescendo, without any overall story arc of serialised plotting. Which means you can watch the episodes in any order.

But if you watch The End, it doesn’t give you a good idea of what any other given episode of Red Dwarf is like at all. And that means that if you watch Future Echoes afterwards, you *still* don’t know what a standard episode will be like, because you only have The End to compare it to, and you’re not sure which is the more representative (as it turns out it’s Future Echoes, obviously).

So, yeah, I think we’re in agreement, but I made a pig’s ear of explaining myself first time round!

Ta for checking out the blog. Interesting to hear you saw Future Echoes first. I think that would be my preferred route into the series, rather than The End.

[Captain No-Name]

Cheers Ian, I really appreciate you saying that. I’m pleasantly surprised my ramblings have had such a warm reception.

I gorged on Red Dwarf in the 1990s, but have barely touched it since about 2002, aside from watching all the Dave episodes obviously. So whilst I have seen literally every episode, and read 3 of the novels, and used to draw Red Dwarf comics when I was a kid, it’s all so long ago that it’s not fresh in my memory. And I’ve never properly swotted up on the behind-the-scenes stuff; I’ve picked up the odd detail from an ancient Smegazine here, or a half-forgotten DVD extra there, but compared to my knowledge of, say, 1980s Doctor Who, I am relatively uneducated.

Which makes it easier for me to synthesise the “I’ve never seen Red Dwarf” mind-frame, compared to a more knowledgeable fan.

I would recommend the audiobooks on audible as a great way to revisit the novels.

I’ve heard extracts from these (I’m sure my dad had BTL on cassette tape actually) and Chris Barrie does a great job, as you’d expect. But (whilst I’m a fan of audio, and I love a good Big Finish) I think I’d rather have the physical books, truth be told.

[Captain No-Name]

I read Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers when I was at secondary school and I remember really liking the way it fleshed out things about Series I & II, but it’s been years and I don’t own a copy, so I don’t remember how it justifies Holly’s resurrection of Rimmer.

I have a dim recollection that Lister traipsed around the ship feeling depressed, wearing nothing but a duvet or something…

I’d like to own a copy of those first two books. I probably ought to read The Last Human as well (I only got about a quarter of the way through that one and gave up, but I was only about 14).

I really wish that the Omnibus of those first two books had been re-released with a snazzy cover design to tie-in with the Dave series. The Omnibus has such an appallingly bland cover, I think I’d rather track down second-hand copies of the individual books, even though all copies I’ve ever seen are dog-eared and tatty.

[Captain No-Name]

the “parental advisory” sticker had just become a thing to much fanfare, so stepping it up to health warnings seemed totally right for the future.

Ah, of course! It’s obvious now you’ve pointed it out, Lily. It’s a satire of parental advisory stickers, of course it is. Thank you for pointing this out.

The changing room saloon doors one resonated with my chubby teenager self, who hated them only fractionally less than the horror of communal changing rooms that were trendy at the time.

Right, I see. That makes me wonder whether one of the writers (Rob Grant?) had a similarly passionate hatred of the things, and so the joke had a hilarious resonance to him which is lost on me. Also, I spend very little time in clothes shops, so I was actually braced for people to say “what are you talking about, it’s not an 80s thing, Top Shop is full of them!” or something…

nudging Future Echoes to after Waiting For God (as originally intended) works so much better.

I didn’t know this was the intention, that’s interesting. I’ve perversely decided not to do any research around the production, on the basis that I am trying to recreate the perspective of someone watching the episodes on TV with no wider (or future) knowledge. I welcome people educating me along the way.

Perhaps controversially, I think Future Echoes makes for a better and more confident Episode One than The End. Although I admire The End’s eccentricity and boldness.

Dave Wallace, you’re right that the question “why doesn’t Holly just turn round and leave Lister in stasis until they are back at Earth” is one that flags up pretty early, and Future Echoes has more of a stab at addressing this than either Balance of Power or Waiting for God, so I can see why they would put Future Echoes before those two. But, you know, the question “why Rimmer’s hologram?” was really prominent in my mind on this re-watch and I was surprised that is left unaddressed until Episode 3.

[Captain No-Name]

More reviews…

FUTURE ECHOES: In which I look for signs that a format might be starting to emerge, after the deliberately wrong-footing nature of The End. There’s also talk of why future echoes are not a Sci-Fi idea; how long-running sitcoms have a guarantee of eventual crapness; and a clumsy simile involving a bizarre alternate universe version of Fawlty Towers…
Red Dwarf I – Future Echoes

BALANCE OF POWER: In which I debate the music of comedy; Holly’s monitoring of conversation word-counts; the nostalgic power of disco dance floors; and the presence of women in the series. Incidentally, I really like Balance of Power. It is better than Future Echoes, so there.
Red Dwarf I – Balance of Power

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