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I think kiss can be considered as “on the right track”

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Let’s open up The Last Day and Ouroboros. Is it a fair hint to say that I think people will try to tell me that more episodes fit the category once I reveal it?

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Good guess, but that also happens in Timeslides.

I don’t think that fits into the very specific bounds set out, as Lister the speaker and Lister the listener are performing their respective actions at the same point in time

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I totally get the perspective. Red Dwarf getting stuck on one concept isn’t usually a good formula for adventure episodes. Officer Rimmer also made the massive error of pretty much spilling its whole plot in its original synopsis, so there was never as much of a sense of discovering something unfolding in front of you on the first watch. That said, I think it’s overall got very tight jokewriting, which holds it together against a lot of other episodes.

Always good to have fresh opinions around here regardless. Keeps us from getting too stuck in consensus.

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At this stage, I imagine they’ll be diplomatic about what Timewave is trying to do since Taiwan Tony came and went without comment (to the best of my recollection).

I do wonder if comments have primed them enough to not feel bad about disliking it. It is all-around an inexcusable episode.

I’m more expecting the episode to be followed by one of their lectures-to-camera, which can be one of my least favorite elements of their reactions. They are almost always correct, it’s just I find the style to be

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except maybe during the Formica scene.

I’ll be the first to admit my brief foray into porno was a mistake but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in

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They’re also the only two in which the crew put money in

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Backwards and Samsara

Going with a probably-not-it guess of: are these the only times we see someone outside of the core & recurring cast eating?

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Backwards and Meltdown.

Santa Claus/Father Christmas

And what about Red Christmas?

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Some other notes about the Senate:

– It’s intentionally a body that creates more inertia. Only a third of the Senators being elected each cycle means that it will usually take longer to represent massive swings in opinion, meaning political fads won’t show up there as strongly.

– Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures until about 100 years ago. I believe the thinking here included that this would make the Senate less likely to gobble up the states’ powers, and again to not instantly capture political fads.

– The Senate was the compromise to get some smaller states to sign on to the Constitution, as without it they had more power under the prior document, the Articles of Confederation (not the really bad Confederation), where Congress was a unicameral body where each state delegation got one vote. As with a lot of the worst structures of US government, slavery plays a bit of a role here but not as much as some others (see the electoral college).

I do think the Senate was a bad idea! But there’s some more context to the reasoning behind it, regardless.

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Warbodog-poos

Please remember to pick it up rather than leaving it on the sidewalk or grass

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TIME³

After Lister accidentally activates second and third Rimmer holograms, the three work together to spread the truth of Time Cube to the rest of the ship.

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Would somebody care to give us another recap of which ones are still open or unconfirmed?

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MECCACRACY

When Rimmer decides to attend the Hajj, the crew must hold an election amongst themselves to determine who will be the vacation captain.

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Nanarchy and Twentica

Portmanteau titles?

Mechocrocy is the first counterexample to mind for me

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but forgot it again by Qurantine.

The episode in which Rimmer converts to Islam?

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Me2 & Quarantine

Episode #6 and Episode #28 are both perfect numbers.

The factors of Me² are The End, Future Echoes, and Balance of Power, which all sum to Me². The factors of Quarantine are The End, Future Echoes, Waiting for God, Kryten, and Marooned, which all sum to Quarantine.

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Landstrum

I believe it’s called an earthquake.

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D&A and Timewave. Are they the only episodes with portions of a personality extracted and personified? (Deliberately phrased to exclude Polymorph.) Surely it’s a more obscure answer

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“Things which feel like they came up loads but actually only came up twice” has been an eye-opening aspect of this.

The opposite too – having these guesses that you figure can’t be far off then realizing Red Dwarf actually uses this minor trope like once a series is its own brand of revealing. Like, oh, Red Dwarf really does rely extremely heavily on them coses of mistaken identity. You’d think the boys would’ve learned to quit making those mistakes by now

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Clem is right, my two episodes are the only two where Cat eats human without realising.

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I expect they’ll reach Earth soon in a reveal that Snacky was steadily upgrading the ship’s engine all along.

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Danny forgot to lean and it made the final cut!

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Lister go[es] down to a planet / moon and something bad happens

Thanks for the Memory, Backwards, Marooned, Justice, Meltdown, Terrorform, Quarantine, Back to Reality, Legion, Emohawk, Tikka to Ride, Epideme/Nanarchy, Cassandra, Lemons, Entangled, Twentica, Samsara, Timewave, The Promised Land.

Kryten is debateable if anything “bad” happens. Psirens is in an asteroid field. The bad stuff has mainly already happened by the time Lister gets to Rimmerworld.

Do you think nothing bad happened in Here No Evil?

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Kryten is debateable if anything “bad” happens.

They don’t get to have sex

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Series 3 Grant Naylor: Let’s light these sets so dark it looks like it’s in black & black.

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In both episodes Lister looks at Man in Shower’s willy. In Marooned he looks off-camera at a picture he keeps of it

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Is the parallel food in Beyond a Joke <-> fire in Marooned?

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Which Psiren is played by the most actors? Presumably this answer is unknowable, as it’s impossible to tell which were on the phone calls?

Were the video calls (1) collective psychic projections by many Psirens, (2) a psychic projection by one individual Psiren, or (3) an actual video call in which each individual woman was really in fact one Psiren.

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I’m game. Marooned and Beyond a Joke

Even after thinking all day, this is my full suite of impressive ideas:

– Only two episode titles where the first word ends with the sound /nd/. Probably not what you’re after but I’m more confident in it at least being true than I was last time.

– Dunno, is it something to do with Maroon 5 and Beyonce?

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The Inquisitor “lets” everybody he visits “kill” him, in a calculated manner such that it inspires his “victims” to live their lives to the most justifiable once he leaves.

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That doesn’t apply to Marooned… ?

Big old genius me. About five different things came to my head while thinking, and every time, I realized it was Backwards I was thinking of. Somehow forgot to run that check for my final answer.

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Maybe we could try the Bret Easton Ellis method and write an idea for an episode where we finally kill the thread for good.

The fatal flaw here is that these are only ideas for episodes, so you’d have to wait for the episode to actually be produced to get that outcome.

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I’m game. Marooned and Beyond a Joke 

Only two where a mechanoid is at the helm for a Starbug crash?

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Are Bodyswap and Timeslides the only two episodes in which somebody is shown to be presumed dead shortly after eating food on-screen?

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SUCK-CONE-IA

The crew become concerned for Lister when they catch him simulating oral sex on a traffic cone. They take him to meet DILF (Devices for traffIc which Lister has Fucked), a support group for all the traffic control items Lister has sucked silly. They put him into the body of a stop sign and suck him off to make their point I guess

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The resurrected crew in Series VIII are net really, in fact, the original crew

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GIZMOCRACY

After Lister accidentally downloads a virus on to Red Dwarf’s hard drive, the crew are forced to abandon ship. When the vending machines discover they are to be left behind, they band together to defeat the virus, but with the emergency over they go on strike in protest at their treatment. Both Kryten and Rimmer think they can solve the dispute, so an election is called to determine which of them will become Machine President, with Lister and Cat as their respective running mates. After an ill-tempered campaign, the results are neck-and-neck, so Lister reboots Talkie Toaster to cast the deciding vote. Kryten wins the election, the machines return to work, and Rimmer is locked in a room with Talkie.

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GIZMODGRA

Lister can’t believe his luck when a future-telling computer tells him that he will one day quite enjoy listening to a rock album written entirely on toy instruments.

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GIZ ME A MODGER

In an alternate dimension where Rimmer is a member of the band sElf, he gets shot. Before he dies, he has to recruit our Rimmer to join the band and help them write a rock album entirely on toy instruments.

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GIZMODGANTINE

Rimmer locks the other three in a room until they write a rock album entirely on toy instruments. The boys accidentally inject the album with sexual magnetism virus and fuck the CD

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WAITING FOR GIZMODGERY

Lister discovers that, in the cat bible, it is prophesied that he will one day return to write a rock album entirely on toy instruments.

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THANKS FOR THE GIZMEMORY

As a birthday present, Lister gives Rimmer the implanted memory of writing a rock album entirely on toy instruments.

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PASTE MY GLUE WE’RE ON PAGE TWO

After months of withering neglect, the boys find that the Idea for an Episode thread has fallen all the way to the second page on the list of threads. Working together, can they get it back to the front and save the day? Or Talkie Toaster has fallen all the way to the second garbage hold if you want the idea to be a real RD plot idea I fucking suppose

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Are Twentica and Cured the only two episodes in which an assumed historical figure later turns out not to be?

Do we ever do setup/reply-style forum games around here? Giving two episodes and trying to guess a thing that they and only they have in common seems like it could have a bit of fun in it.

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It invokes the right feel in the imagination but it still may well be the worst episode title in the whole run.

[Author]

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