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TPM

The Promised Mand

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Perhaps I should make myself clearer.

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Harnold Rimmer

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“Bogeys”, weirdly, is the indicator to me that Disney isn’t micromanaging to make sure everything appeals in the US. Clear what it means in context but nobody would normally recognize you calling them that here. If they were being really tight on catering to the American Audience, they would’ve asked for the boogeyman to be made of boogie and be beaten through another little song and dance number.

Devil’s Chord’s number was good, by the way? Last two were flashier but this one had me squirming at poor lyrics far less.

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what the fuck

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Let’s Talk About Give & Take (on UKTV Play)

Was maybe cheating to name two series.

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TFBWCM and KBTSQP

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Stasis Leak was a triple single unecho

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Maybe I’m the only one, but there were definitely a lot of moments to VIII that were funny the first time or two but faded quickly – well more than previous series did. (Also more elements that were shit instantly.) The point to that just being that they could enjoy it more than we expect just because the weaker jokes haven’t worn off yet – even though I do still expect to see them uncomfortable with the poorly-aged/always-poor elements.

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If only I was a pair of women…I would get a thread too

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So, uh, has anybody watched any of GGs’ other series? Worth it or does the novelty drop when they’re not doing RD?

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Watching this week’s GG reminded me of this little line:

Now I’m not going to act like it’s definitive – “a few weeks” could mean anything, it could be literal or it could be a facetious way about talk about a long time, plus not everybody always tells the truth in dreams, but it does put something of a slight crimp on any Eighteen Months Later explanations that fall between Ouroboros and Blue.

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There might be sort of a self-selection in the physics of the dimensional linkway in that there wouldn’t even be a connection to dimensions where the alternate crew wasn’t around to link with, so all the many other dimensions where the ship went a different way or where the crew didn’t go into deep sleep for the same period of time, those wouldn’t have connected at all. 

Those two spots in parallel spacetime were just super fucking Entangled

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It’s possible they went into stasis (or rather deep sleep) for some or all of the 18 months, but I can’t think of any particular reason why they would.

I think you’ll find they chose to go into deep sleep in Nanarchy in order to be alive when they returned to the Esperanto/the last known site of Red Dwarf (this is what I was referring to in my last post)

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There’s suspended animation to figure in too, right? It’s plausible for them to have started the tube right after Ouroboros, they go into suspended animation before it’s done, and Kryten raises the child for nine months once it hatches, waking up Lister to bring the baby back in time.

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I’ve fired a question to my phone’s predictive text (prompts underlined) and this is what it has come out with (I have not verified which of these are accurate or not):

Red Dwarf is a good one of the best ones yet.

In 2022, Red Dwarf is a good one for me to be in.

In 2020, a poll right now and I have a lot of the time to get to the end.

A 2004 Channel 4 poll saw the headlino and was in the middle of the first time I was in the middle of the first time.

In a 1999 poll, Red Dwarf is a good one for me to do it for a while.

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Well, G&T left it pretty late in the day to get all serious about typing Red Dwarf stuff into AI content generators and laughing at what comes out.

I don’t mind typing some gunk into AI and having a laugh at what comes out. (It wasn’t exactly framed that way.) I also didn’t even mind the original post enough to point out the issues – I was irritated by the smirky “nuh-uh”ishness of the whole response after a pretty reasonable point was made.

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Holy shit. You catch a tiny bit of flak for presenting something in a slightly misleading way – and we rightly point out how little effort it would take to actually turn it into a more interesting contribution – and instead of taking it and moving on you start acting out a dick about it.

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Premise was clearly set out that it was an experiment, not my problem.

Typically, in an experiment, you do some analysis/draw conclusions with the data. Instead you made Flap Jack finish writing your lab report for you.

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Should be “pedants on both sides”, surely?

Well, are we referencing the tactics or the participants?

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* Too many shows included where, lets be honest, a significant chunk of their output is poor and the remainder doesn’t justify the inflated ranking. Lost is shit for about 75% of it’s runtime. Twin Peaks has almost an entire season, more than a 1/3 of the entire show, that is a dumpster fire. Buffy, lets face it was pretty dire after they left high school. ER shouldn’t have made it out of the 90s. The Walking Dead another one – so many like this that evaluated on their total output just aren’t that impressive. I’ve got much more time for something that tells the story it wants to, does it really well, and the gets out of there – rather than just dragging something out longer than the concept or writers are able to sustain it

Also – I don’t know that that should be a disqualifying factor. I think with Red Dwarf, we can at least all agree that it was shit for 10% of its run (VIII). Many will tell you 20% (VII as well). There’s plenty who will tell you that more than half – everything past VI – is shit. And some of them will still tell you that Red Dwarf is one of the best/their favorite shows of all time.

I suppose there is a question of: where’s the line? If the best episode of television ever produced was in an otherwise dogshit show, would it be one of the best of all time? What about one that proves itself capable of being great and picks up a large following in one season, then takes a dive? Would several sustained years of quality do it? Does a show’s entire run really have to be taken into consideration to judge whether it’s a “good show”?

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Better Call Saul was always too uneven with its gang side that didn’t interest me when it wasn’t directly interacting

This feels wild to hear for me. The gang drama side of the show was equally important to the lawyering, and usually at least as good if not better.

(I’m also baffled to hear dismissals of The Sopranos. I’m mid-Season 3 and finding it excellent. Not sure whether it deserves #1 status but a high ranking is definitely earned.)

Also – this was from a poll, right? That’s what the article seems to say. I feel like some responses here were written as though this were an edited/curated list.

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– Glad to see BoJack Horseman making lists, but it always deserves higher.

“We left no stone unturned, no show unwatched. Well, apart from anime, eww.”

– Every entry here is English-language, right? (I didn’t read the whole list, only most of it, could’ve missed one.) Surprised to see no mention of Squid Game, but hell, even skipping a few anime as well, Dark and The Rain are both shows that instantly jump into my mind as better than some entries here. I think lists of this sort are always tailored to (or in this case defined by) their audience in a way that makes any old foreign-language show unlikely to show up on the radar. Still gonna loop back to Squid Game, though. That one seems like it absolutely should’ve met the cross-section of popular enough and good enough that people should have voted it in. Never mind, just looked back and seen Broen at No. 86. I have no idea whether this belongs on the list.

– I had a great time watching Succession, so I don’t want anybody to think this comment comes from a place of disliking it. But I’m tired of seeing it revered at the top of every list like this. If it were just for the fact that the show is somewhat shallower than many make it out to be, I could live with that. Happens all the time. But the degree of recognition it received in the face of Better Call Saul‘s many snubs and general lack of attention is ridiculous. We all know by this point that Saul outdid Succession every single year. What’s even stranger is that Succession was even in that category. How was it the best drama when it was, more than anything, a comedy? It’s fucking hilarious. And the plotlines exist in that show to serve the comedy, not the other way around. (It’s also interesting how the opposite is happening with its “comedy” counterpart, The Bear, which is a drama that is sometimes, incidentally, funny.)

– Also, a little tired of seeing Better Call Saul above Breaking Bad. This is clearly an effect of more people watching Bad than any sort of superiority.

– Holy fuck, I need to watch Normal People.

– Is Friends too easy a punching bag? I don’t think Family Guy is remotely deserving of making this list, but it does far moreso than fucking Friends.

– No Darkplace :(

– I haven’t seen it, but I feel like I usually see Firefly on these sorts of lists. Either I’m imagining that or the following for it has really died out of late.

– The Expanse is not better than Dwarf.

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I wonder if there’s an element of mansplaining as to just how big a percentage of their comments are of that nature.

It seems part mansplanation, part sort-of-warranted correction when they do actually get something wrong, and part just that a natural response to seeing people enjoy something you enjoy is to tell them little things about it. Also, it does seem like they encouraged it at a couple points across the run, it’s probably pretty good for boosting their channel even if sometimes irritating.

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Add VI and XI to the soft reboot series pile while we’re at it, I think.

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Has anybody ever tried to get the cast to vote in the five-year polls? Feels unlikely to work but would be funny if they were casting ballots this whole time

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Fell from the ceiling when the camera wasn’t looking

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We can’t forget that Holly’s presumably also computer senile in the other universe. Means any choice only really needs to be half justified.

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On watching the GG White Hole video, I finally noticed the tiny detail of just how much shitter that incarnation of Talkie Toaster is.

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Theory: The hard light drive is powered by the blue alert bulb, which is why Rimmer’s jacket becomes blue. They put the red bulb in the alert box just for safekeeping.

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What’s a savory donut?

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Stoke is my 6th worst, which is some achievement considering there are more episodes than that in VIII alone.

The crocodile sequence alone is better than anything in VIII. I can’t fathom the extreme negative value you must place on the rest of the episode for it to drop that low.

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I can do you one worse – many worse, actually, as I’m in 1,362 Facebook groups.

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I’ll admit, i giggled for a little bit at H / RED DWARF FAN, as much as my enjoyment was completely coincidental to the original point of the meme

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It’s microscopically interesting to me that casual RD circles see VII as such a low point (even moreso than we do around here) and yet maybe the ninth or tenth most common lazy red dwarf facebook post is somebody showing their salad cream in or out of the fridge.

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Blue: Lister has a wet dream.

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Backwards: Lister faces the impending threat of being unwanked into himself.

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Future Echoes, Balance of Power, Waiting for God, Confidence & Paranoia, Me², Kryten, Better Than Life, Thanks for the Memory, Stasis Leak, Queeg, Parallel Universe, Backwards, Marooned, Polymorph, Bodyswap, Timeslides, The Last Day, Camille, DNA, Justice, White Hole, Dimension Jump, Meltdown, Holoship, The Inquisitor, Terrorform, Quarantine, Demons & Angels, Back to Reality, Psirens, Legion, Gunmen of the Apocalypse, Emohawk – Polymorph II, Rimmerworld, Out of Time, Tikka to Ride, Stoke Me a Clipper, Ouroboros, Blue, Back in the Red – Part I, Back in the Red – Part II, Back in the Red – Part III, Cassandra, Krytie TV, Pete – Part I, Pete – Part II, Only the Good…, Back to Earth – Part I, Back to Earth – Part II, Back to Earth – Part III, Trojan, Fathers & Suns, Lemons, Entangled, Dear Dave, The Beginning, Twentica, Samsara, Give & Take, Officer Rimmer, Krysis, Can of Worms, Cured, Siliconia, Timewave, Mechocracy, M-Corp, Skipper, and The Promised Land are all The End episodes because there is Lister and Rimmer.

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Is the Inquisitor a Polymorph episode, or are the trials in some kind of simulation?

Is Camille a Polymorph episode?

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When Lister masturbates after learning he’s his own son, is that weird?

Also, why is he so concerned with his dad’s sex life?

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Timewave: is bad.

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Me²: Cat does a shit.
Backwards: Cat is reunited with his missing shit.
Dear Dave: Cat does a shit again.

And if you instead put these chronologically, it sounds like he’s just had one shit that cycled in and out over the course of 20 years.

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Trojan: Rimmer’s astronavigation prep includes a question about mooses for some reason.

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Lemons: The boys conduct a Caesarean operation.

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I can’t decide if Rob and Doug didn’t realize how fucking horrendous of an idea marijuana gin is or if they absolutely knew.

Had a bad night, did we? Should I try some too?

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Timewave: The Dwarfers compassionately save a ship from its collision course by helping a diverse crew learn a lesson about their sense of self-worth.

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