Dave

[Dave]

Season IX, I mean.

What is this ‘season IX’ you speak of?

[Dave]

Oh, and the VHS releases of the original unremastered series are labelled ‘Red Dwarf I’ etc., although not ‘Red Dwarf Series I’.

[Dave]

since, unless anyone wants to correct me, the first time “Series [Numeral]” was officially used to designate the series was on the DVD releases.

Interestingly (no, really), the Red Dwarf Remastered VHS release of all three series refers to ‘Series I-III’, and predates the DVDs.

The individual Remastered VHS releases refer to ‘Series One’, ‘Series Two’ and ‘Series Three’ though, without numerals.

[Dave]

Scoff all you want, but I’m greatly enjoying series 1,693 of Eastenders this week.

[Dave]

Not as easy as it looks, is it.

[Dave]

Resorting to

meme

arrows seems to be the way to go

[Dave]

No, it’s one part that was split into three episodes.

[Dave]

By all means. I think you’ll find that refers to it as ‘Saison IX’, so the statement is accurate.

[Dave]

Anyway, I think the easiest way to solve the Back To Earth dilemma is to acknowledge that there are some undisputed facts about the name of the series, but that what you call it really comes down to personal choice.

So:

– It is the ninth series of episodes of Red Dwarf.
– It has never been referred to officially as Series IX or Series 9.
– The two series either side of it are series VIII and series X.
– The official name of the series is Back To Earth.

Given that we should all be able to agree on those things, who really cares whether we refer to it as Series IX or BTE or whatever in casual conversation or on homemade DVD labels. We all know what we’re talking about.

Like the numbering of the Doctors, it only becomes an issue if overly-pedantic fans decide to make it one.

[Dave]

Also, John Hurt’s War Doctor means that all subsequent Doctors must now be referred to by different numbers than they were previously known as.

[Dave]

That technically isn’t your shelf.

[Dave]

CRASSANDRA

The Boys From The Dwarf encounter a computer that can foresee the future. She predicts that a discussion of imaginary episodes invented by a forum of Red Dwarf fans will be frequently peppered with crass, lewd and oddly explicitly sexual ideas by one forum member in particular, who seems to have some kind of sexual fixation with the show.

[Dave]

Exactly.

[Dave]

PRIME ORDEAL: SOUP

Lister gets a free trial membership of Amazon Prime, and uses it to order a few tins of Heinz Oxtail for his lunch with free next-day delivery. However, he’s in the shower when the delivery droid arrives at Red Dwarf with the order, so it ends up being left with a neighbour and a missed-delivery cardboard notice is posted through Red Dwarf’s letterbox.

Unfortunately, when Lister pops over to his neighbours, the GELFs, to collect his parcel, they’re out for the evening and he can’t get access to his lovely tins of soup, even though he can see the package clearly sitting there on their stairs, through the window of their front door.

Dejected, Lister returns to Red Dwarf, without his soup, and cancels the bloody Amazon Prime membership as being more trouble than it’s worth. Only for Rimmer to appear and taunt Lister with his own soup-based joke from the end of ME2.

[Dave]

BtE isn’t series IX in the same way that the Star Wars Holiday Special isn’t Star Wars Episode V.

That analogy would make more sense if The Empire Strikes Back had been billed as Episode VI when it came out.

[Dave]

CACK IN THE BED, FART TOO

After shitting all over the sleeping quarters following a drunken bender, Lister reveals that he has added insult to injury by also letting rip a ‘silent but deadly’ in the immediate aftermath.

[Dave]

Unfortunately, two consecutive posts about how the thread is underrated means that it is now overrated.

[Dave]

NODDYSWAP

When Noddy Holder suddenly finds himself wearing a blue hat with a bell on it and driving a red-and-yellow car through toytown, he realises that something has gone awry.

[Dave]

BACK TO RASTABILLY

Lister gets bored of Stormzy and J Hus records and goes back to listening to Rastabilly Skank.

[Dave]

THANKS FOR THE GRIMERY

Lister pens a fan-letter to Stormzy and J Hus.

[Dave]

GRIMENSION JUMP

Lister travels to parallel universes to see whether Stormzy and J Hus made any other records there.

[Dave]

GRIMESLIDES

Lister uses photos of Stormzy and J Hus to travel back in time and tell them how much he enjoyed their work, and to ask if there is any more of it.

[Dave]

OUT OF GRIME

Lister runs out of Stormzy and J Hus records to listen to.

[Dave]

GRIME WAVE

Lister gives up listening to Rastabilly Skank when he discovers the musical works of Stormzy and J Hus.

[Dave]

THYME WEEV

Searching for new ways to disguise the Space Weevil that he has been serving to Mr Lister for several days now, Kryten decides to flavour one with an aromatic perennial evergreen herb with culinary, medicinal, and ornamental uses.

[Dave]

GRANARCHY

The crew find Red Dwarf! It turns out that all along it had just been shrunk down to microscopic size by Kryten’s nan, who is called Granma Kryten and is also played by Robert Llewellyn.

Meanwhile, Norman Lovett turns up and everyone in the audience cheers because they see the face of a man they last remember seeing quite a few years ago. That will definitely never happen in the show again, will it? No.

[Dave]

OH, TOFF TIME

Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes leader of the Conservative Party.

[Dave]

OUT OF “OUT OF TIME” TIME

Posters on the Ganymede & Titan forum realise they have run out of every conceivable joke to make involving Out Of Time.

[Dave]

OUT OF TIME

Documentary about why Officer Rimmer had such a sudden

[Dave]

WETTER THAN LIFE

Lister, Rimmer and the Cat start playing an ultra-realistic videogame that simulates the player’s own real-world existence precisely, but with slightly higher levels of precipitation.

[Dave]

CAPTAIN BUTLER

When Kryten’s series-3000 nemesis turns up and decides to take control of Red Dwarf, everyone is pretty happy as the ship runs a lot better due to Butler’s various areas of expertise and his excellent people-management skills.

Everyone except Kryten, that is, who decides to kill his fellow mechanoid in a jealous fit of pique. The event is never mentioned again, but the shadow of Kryten being a murderer subsequently hangs over the entire series.

[Dave]

THE SILVER SURVEY

Rimmer insists on cataloguing the ship’s finest cutlery and candelabras as part of a stocktaking exercise. But no-one else can be arsed, so instead they sit around debating which are their favourite episodes of Tales Of The Riverbank: The Next Generation.

[Dave]

QUEEN

Holly tricks everybody by pretending that the ship has been taken over by a hard-edged computer who looks like Brian May.

[Dave]

PSI WRENS

Determined to finally answer Ace Rimmer’s enquiry, Rimmer hires a team of female naval officers to calculate what the PSI of Starbug’s engine is.

[Dave]

RED DWARF: INFANT ENTITY WELCOMES CAROL DANVERS

Crossover adventure in which the cosmic starchild from the end of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ teams up with the current Captain Marvel to rescue Red Dwarf after the crew accidentally discover the Infinity Gauntlet and use it to activate a dormant Monolith.

Guest-appearances from Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence lead reviewers to declare “My God… It’s Full Of Stars!”

[Dave]

AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE

Sequel to Out Of Time.

[Dave]

Well, they used to happily show “The Nanny” on TV before the watershed over here.

[Dave]

They’re not that exciting anywhere.

[Dave]

RACIST LEAK

When a Daily Mail review of one of the show’s earliest episodes that describes Craig Charles in unflattering racist and heightist terms is inadvertently sent back in time to the actor as a young man, it dissuades him from taking a starring role in the series.

But then a time-travelling Alan Rickman and Alfred Molina show up and convince him to do it after all, thus leaving their schedules clear to become Hollywood superstars.

[Dave]

RED DWARF: JUST THE SHOWERS

Oddly specific ‘vanilla’ DVD compilation collecting only those episodes of Red Dwarf in which a shower is seen or mentioned.

[Dave]

HANDWAVE

Criticism is banned. This means that all people posting on G&T are forbidden from moaning about the way Red Dwarf stories often set up key plot points only to later ignore them or resolve them in the flimsiest, most cursory way possible.

[Dave]

Binmen of the Apocalypse

When the garbage droids are corrupted by a computer virus, the Boys From The Dwarf have to learn how to dispose of their own rubbish.

Actually I could see that being a real plot for the show.

[Dave]

WAITING FOR DODD

Lister and Rimmer travel back in time to 20th-Century Earth and decide to go and see Ken Dodd live. Unfortunately he turns up late and an already-restless crowd turns ugly. Lister tries to use a Bazookoid to fight his way out, but in the chaos, Ken Dodd is killed. A dark chapter in Red Dwarf history.

[Dave]

RED DWARF DE-MASTERED

Unusual project through which old episodes of Red Dwarf have their model shots replaced with cruder and more dated-looking special effects, and also have a new digital film treatment applied to the entire episode to make the quality look if anything *shitter* than previously.

(Or was that REmastered? Yes, I think it was remastered wasn’t it.)

[Dave]

ONLY THE WOOD

Lister asks Rimmer what types of telegraph poles he is interested in.

[Dave]

BOLLYMORPH

Bollywood remake of the classic series III episode.

[Dave]

OUR ROB OR ROSS

The British Comedy Awards (at which Red Dwarf XII is nominated for Best Sitcom) are looking for a host. While they’re tempted to choose Rob Brydon, his exorbitant fee and inherent dislikability are putting them off. But when they realise that the only alternative is ‘safe pair of hands’ Jonathan Ross, they conclude that their choice must be the lesser of two evils.

[Dave]

I just want to see an episode where Todhunter finally catches Tod.

[Dave]

GUNMEN OF THE APOCALISP

Thtarbug encounterth a thimulant warthip while thearching for Wed Dwarf. After Kwyten contwacth a viwuth, he ith forthed to thave the day by fighting the nathty pwogwamme in a computer thimulation of the Wild Wetht.

[Dave]

BETTER DICKHEAD THAN CLEGG

Documentary about the UK’s 2010 General Election.

[Author]

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