Dave

[Dave]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/21/larry-david-lisa-simpson-life-lessons-from-tv-top-role-models

Scroll about halfway down for the Red Dwarf-relevant part.

[Dave]

That’s the thing. The Guardian piece skimmed over the Dave era because it didn’t quite fit with the conclusion they wanted to reach – the Den of Geek piece takes this into account and adjusts the conclusion accordingly. That makes a huge difference.

I agree entirely.

I don’t know if the Guardian piece was truncated because it had to fit a wordcount for the physical copy of the paper, but it felt a bit half-arsed and I think they did the Dave era a real disservice by giving it a cursory mention but not really discussing it in any detail.

Because I think it would reshape the piece considerably if it did, and make the argument that they should end the show look a bit silly – if it hit its low point a long time ago (with VIII and BTE) and then started to improve again, why would you cancel something that’s starting to get better and better again?

[Dave]

Interestingly it says much the same things overall, but comes to the opposite conclusion at the end. And the tone is much friendlier.

I expect people will like it a lot more.

[Dave]

Exactly.

[Dave]

Yes, I assumed that the word “they” was deliberately and carefully chosen to not indicate either way, in which case maybe it’s something that would be polite not to discuss at length.

[Dave]

To play Devil’s Advocate for a minute, the article says nothing about Barrie deciding to leave after he started on series VII.

It addresses the old saw about Rob being seen as ‘the funny one’, but suggests that the reason the show got less funny after the partnership broke up “may simply have been the result of a drought of comic invention”. Then it says that Barrie left the show as he was “disillusioned”.

The idea that he was “disillusioned” by the quality of series VII might be implied (depending on how you read that paragraph) but I don’t think it’s necessarily the writer’s intention. It’s just as easy to read that as Barrie being disillusioned with the decline in quality in general – which seems like a fairly reasonable characterisation of some of his comments on the scripts for series VI.

[Dave]

At the same time it would be worth shooting Pauline Quirk

In fairness I can’t think of any situations where this *isn’t* the case.

[Dave]

More RD factoids:

Red Dwarf has the same number of letters in its name as Porridge, but if you count the space between the two words as a character then it has one more.

With the transmission of “Backwards”, Red Dwarf surpassed Fawlty Towers in terms of the number of episodes broadcast.

If you watched every episode of Red Dwarf back-to-back in one sitting then you’d probably be really tired by the end.

[Dave]

Ja, ja, scimitar.

[Dave]

And secondly, Red Dwarf didn’t have a pilot.

Now I realise that technically speaking that’s only one flaw but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice.

[Dave]

Yes, but in that universe My Hero is now on series 17.

[Dave]

I meant ‘lost’ in the sense of ‘there isn’t a series with that official number’, just like BTE being effectively 9 even though it’s not called that.

[Dave]

Not any more. Coincidentally, six lost episodes of Red Dwarf have just been discovered.

[Dave]

A 2009 special would focus on however many years had passed since Series 5 rather than since Series 8, and Series 10, 11 and 12 would be called Series 6, 7 and 8 respectively.

Surely they’d be called 7, 8 and 9, with 6 serving as the “lost” series instead of 9.

[Dave]

Everybody’s Dave, Dave.

[Dave]

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/features/fiction/killcrazy/

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/features/fiction/captain-voorhese/

[Dave]

That’s the only way I’d get them all, I think. I didn’t think the final Special Stage was that bad, but number five was an absolute bastard.

I’m very close to the end of my Knuckles run (and I have four emeralds so far on that save) – like you, I’ve saved Tails for last.

[Dave]

I do wish they’d been able to add transition animations between all the Zones – looks like they ran out of time in that regard, as some have them and others don’t, and a few leftover graphics found within the game suggest a couple might have been abandoned in-progress.

I’ve seen suggestions that the zone order was rejigged a little bit, fairly late into the process, which would maybe account for this (as well as the slightly erratic difficulty curve).

I’m not sure how much truth there is to that, though.

[Dave]

I read those comics at the time but never made those connections, despite being a Red Dwarf fan at that time too. Great!

(I always loved the way that ‘Sonic Terminator’ story reuses that page. I should have thought of Future Echoes!)

[Dave]

[Dave]

I think Sonic 1 is very much the first series of Red Dwarf and Sonic CD the second. Sonic 2 acts as the III-IV era and Sonic & Knuckles is V, with Sonic Adventure playing the part of series VI.

Not sure what would be VII but Sonic ’06 would have to be VIII.

BtE would probably be Generations or something.

[Dave]

It’s far too good for that.

[Dave]

In that case can I trade 10 episodes of Eastenders for a new Red Dwarf novel?

[Dave]

Ultimately though Lister didn’t go back into stasis because of the future echoes, not because of Rimmer.

(At one point he was going to go back into stasis and Rimmer was going to be left on.)

[Dave]

Because of the radiation leak.

[Dave]

Who knows, if there was even a slight defect in Red Dwarf that meant there was a slight curve to its ‘flight path’, they might have actually gone in a huge circle and not be far from the solar system again.

[Dave]

Erk. I mean this.

https://www.sonicstadium.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/tailsgetswet.gif

[Dave]

This is interesting.

7 Amazing Things That Went Unused In Sonic Mania

Why didn’t they go with this?

https://www.sonicstadium.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/tailsgetswet.gif</img&gt;

[Dave]

Also we don’t know that Holly hightailed it out of the solar system in a straight line. There might have been lots of zigzagging about or something.

[Dave]

Oh, but it’s more than ten years since Lister came out of stasis, what with the stasis sleeps in Psirens and Krysis and everything. Can you start your working-out all over again please?

[Dave]

As long as he does it after Streets Of Mania.

[Dave]

On second thoughts, it’s Oil Ocean Zone, isn’t it?

[Dave]

A great interview with Christian Whitehead on Sonic Mania:

http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/a-chat-with-fan-turned-creator-of-sonic-mania-w501581

(I wonder which Zone he’s talking about when he refers to the one that a lot of fans typically dislike?)

[Dave]

It’s no good, I can’t resist it.

Parents have been told that only clothes of a particular colour and bought from one supplier are allowed.

“I love the uniform but it would be nice if parents could have a choice where to go for the uniform.”

Clearly the parents would prefer more thrifty shades of grey.

[Dave]

I’m just amazed that they haven’t gone with an ‘X shades of grey’ headline.

[Dave]

Plus, Karnie’s Homecoming fanfic ties a few of them up and has been my head canon since I read it.

Yes, this.

[Dave]

Yes! There are so many moments throughout the game where one classic level incorporated elements of another in ways that seemed obvious in hindsight. Making the exterior of Flying Battery based on Wing Fortress; giving Oil Ocean aspects of Sandopolis.

Yes, exactly. On top of those, the addition of Hill Top elements to Lava Reef worked really well for me. And some of the redeployment of certain badniks (like the bats from Marble Zone cropping up in the caves of Green Hill) and gimmicks (like the Marble Garden pulleys and speed-dash wheels in Stardust Speedway) felt so natural that it took me a minute to remember that they weren’t originally like that.

Even though only a handful of original levels were included by name in Mania, I think every single one was represented to some degree in this way.

[Dave]

“It’s cold outside, there’s no winning that Blue Sphere…”

[Dave]

Hah, yeah, that was fantastic.

[Dave]

It transports me back to that time, and it’s a lovely feeling.

I agree absolutely. And somehow – unlike some empty nostalgia exercises that actually highlight the flaws in old things that you enjoyed, and make you question your earlier experiences – this feels just as good as (if not better than) it was at the time.

It was a smart choice to combine existing and fresh levels and to remix the existing stages in the way that Mania does. It’s the perfect combination of old and new: familiar enough to feel cosy and comfortable, but inventive enough that it can still surprise you and remind you how enjoyable the element of discovery was with those old games.

[Dave]

I went into Mania not knowing which zones were included, so now that I’ve been through it a few times I can share my disappointment that we didn’t get a remix of Starlight Zone.

I call thee brother.

I did exactly the same thing and had exactly the same feeling when it didn’t show up. For some reason I was sure they would do it, too. Only having Green Hill from Sonic 1 was a bit of a disappointment – hopefully something they can remedy if they do a follow-up. I’d be happy with Marble and Labyrinth too.

[Dave]

Lister isn’t unemployed, he’s a third technician for the Jupiter Mining Corporation with a commission on their mining ship Red Dwarf.

Not in this imaginary Channel 5 version, it seems.

[Dave]

And that soundtrack is almost obnoxiously good.

Favourite tracks? I love what they’ve done with Lava Reef Act 2. And Press Garden Act 2 is lovely.

(Flying Battery Act 2 is also pretty cool.)

[Dave]

Got four Chaos Emeralds! But…frankly, I don’t know how I’ll ever get all eight without using Knuckles. I feel as though the giant rings I found were almost exclusively due to my ability to explore with him.

You can actually go back and add emeralds to a completed save file by replaying a level and finding an special stage and completing it. So you can build up a completed save file with only a few emeralds (or none!) to a save file with all emeralds pretty easily, by replaying levels with easy-to-find giant rings.

The great part is that the giant rings come back each time you go back into the save file on a completed save, and emeralds register to your save file as soon as the Special Stage is completed – you don’t even need to finish the Act. So if you (say) play through Green Hill, go to the first giant ring, and then come out of the game, you can keep reloading the level and doing the same thing until you’ve got them all.

[Dave]

Hitler would be in it more regularly.

[Dave]

I think a big part of the problem is that high-speed gameplay and 3D often don’t easily mix – too many opportunities to go off-course in a way that doesn’t happen with more linear 2D games by their very nature – and Sonic’s appeal has always required an element of that in a way that Mario doesn’t. I don’t think a Sonic game has ever really made the high-speed sections totally satisfying in true 3D.

That’s not to say that Sonic is just about speed, of course – I often see (especially recently with the release of Mania) Sonic’s original 2D games written off as on-rails speed games where you have to do little more than push right to succeed. Sonic has always been a mean platformer as well as a thrillingly fast speed ride, with lots more to it than running quickly. But the speed parts are important.

[Dave]

Sonic Adventure is arguably the best of the 3D Sonic games and it was the first proper 3D game in the series.

[Dave]

Lanstrom?

[Dave]

No worries, it took me a while to get my head round it too.

I ran very close to the time limit on my first run through too. Luckily the stage timer resets for the boss fight!

[Dave]

The word “portal”, there.

[Author]

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