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I think the nature of Parallel Universe is more that Deb, Arlene, Dog, and Kryten (?) would be turning their noses up at Ziggy Bricewoman wearing such a ridiculous pink dress.

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And on a similar theme, it should go out in 4 different time slots across BBC2, Dave, iplayer and UKTV Play. 

It should come out on CW Seed, PBS, Britbox, and the CW, in that order, before hitting any UK channels.

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Along with Drake Hollister, Drake Todhunter, Rimmer’s Aunt Drake, Rimmer’s Sister Drake, Cowgirl Drake, Drake from the Pub, and Drake the Washing Machine, of course.

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If I had a nickel for every time I consumed a piece of media featuring a clothes-fixated cat person who ravages someone’s rectum with his barbed penis, I’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Can we please get better at checking the markdown after we paste from external sources?

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I know I said several things Taskmaster is working against in recent series – and it absolutely works through them and puts out an incredible show consistently is spite of them, even though they are sometimes noticeable.

The only actually unbearable issue with modern Taskmaster is the fucking replay camera. Used constantly now and it’s shit editing. Rewatching the exact same moment endlessly isn’t that interesting. The fact that this replaces runtime that could be devoted to live reactions of the contestants – a real piece of charm in the old edits – boils me just about every fucking time.

(Note: this is only about when the one-second clip of a contestant Achieving Task is played like four or five times instantly when it happens. This is not about when they go back in review to show that the contestant broke the rules, which rocks every time.)

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And why the fuck is this hiding between the lines?

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I guessed where the joins were.

What were your guesses?

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The poll was based on the individual episodes

This was my only recent rewatch where I went in episodes, otherwise I usually go for Director’s Cut.

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I think the guy running the shop should’ve told them about how there’s an appliance brand called Smeg and they even make a red toaster

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That’s the score from when Marlon Brando farted so badly he passed out, I think.

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Marlon Brando’s Bottom 1:

Marlon Brando

[Formica]

Maybe it’s just me, but it does seem to read as though he calls his Grant Naylor favorites his overall top three.

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RED DWARF MEXICAN WEEK

Lister doesn’t want to eat any tack-ohs unless Kryten puts curry pico de gallow on them, Cat tries to figure out whether Mexico is a real place, and Rimmer resolves to not even make Juan Mexican joke.

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RED DWARF TREKS

Rimmer sets out to hike every last inch of Red Dwarf after finding a map of a complete walking trail covering every area of the ship.

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RED DWARF CHEX

After Doug inks a brand deal with a breakfast cereal, he only has 30 minutes to pen a story idea that justifies the cereal’s inclusion in a story. Can he make it in time?

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RED DWARF DECKS

Comprises one unbroken thirty-minute shot of Lister and Rimmer taking turns being hit by delayed beatings in Hollister’s office.

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RED DWARF DECKS

Spambot-generated playing card deck featuring 52 cash-grabbingly designed character cards with misquoted quotes and would you look at that somebody’s even misspelled Crytin

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RED DWARF SPECS

Fanboy-dream coffee table hardcover featuring blueprints and full technical details of all the spacecraft, gadgets, robots etc. in Red Dwarf.

VOLUME II: RED DWARF DECKS

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RED DWARF EX

Rimmer and Lister break up.

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RED DWARF BECK

I’m a Lister baby, so why don’t you kill me?

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What are some bits of Red Dwarf trivia/dialogue/whatever that you find yourself dropping into conversation or just thinking of in everyday life, elicited by the most tenuous of connections?

This answer gets a bit different as an American, where plenty of standard old British phrases have seeped into my vocabulary without even realizing, so subtly I couldn’t even tell you what they are – from watching not only too much RD but pieces of other British comedy too.

Oh, and Craig Charles’s pronunciation of “uz” slips out of my mouth once in a while.

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RED DWARF GECS

Lister and Cat become a successful pop duo as Rimmer plays manager. Meanwhile, Kryten is trying to use years upon years of human feces as manure to restart the ship’s botanical garden. It’s very funny when Rimmer and Cat are complaining about the horrible smell and Lister can’t smell the difference, trust me.

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RED DWARF PECKS

Lister and Cat whack, smash, and brutalize their willies until they’re shriveled and bruised. Meanwhile, Rimmer can’t stop accidentally being racist to Kryten.

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RED DWARF HEX

Rimmer’s studies into the occult go wrong as he puts Lister and Cat under a curse that causes them to start falling up. Meanwhile, Kryten can’t find the tomatoes.

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They had Bob and Suggs on episodes after I’d read their autobiographies, so I already knew that certain stories were true when they came up.

Well they have to get the stories from somewhere.

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Taskmaster was one of my favourite shows for a few years, a total joy, but when they went to 10-episode series it started to drag and I eventually had too much of a good thing.

There is something very lightning-in-a-bottle about the early short series, even in their duller moments. In my opinion that’s usually more to do with that almost every idea was completely fresh and they didn’t have to append seven conditions to each task because people weren’t all finding every single loophole yet than it is length of the series. (And that Greg was never phoning it in in the early days the way he sometimes does now.) Even still, probably 3 (or 4) of my 5 favorite series are 10-episode ones, and even the ones that are duller leave me with a great sense for more nuanced personalities and dynamics that the short ones couldn’t always.

[Formica]

one of the most satisfying aspects of it for me is Greg has – and explains – a reasoning for how he scores everything.

It has been disappointing in the last few years – although maybe it will trend the other way again soon – how flippant Greg sometimes gets with the scoring, but even then always having reasoning never really goes away.

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TFW you return

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Yes, H did, didn’t he.

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What are everyone’s thoughts on this latest post from Robert? What are its implications on the timeline? Does this open up any plot holes?

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Or maybe @ActualKryten is the result of a Despair Squid dream?

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It is, bafflingly, real.

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How is indecent exposure handled by the Justice Field? Do everybody else’s pants just fall off instead?

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THE AIRBNB I STAYED AT 4 MONTHS AGO

Had a red fucking Smeg fridge in it

[Formica]

You’ve created very troubling implications for the timeline with that comment. If we are supposed to interpret @ActualKryten posts as being actually being tweeted by Kryten in the Current Year, then does that mean that the character tweeting has been around since the time of Australopithecus?

[Formica]

Okay, now I REALLY don’t want to use that cutlery he was drying in Entangled…

You preferred it BEFORE you knew the air was blowing out a clean duct?

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KRYTIE STD

Archie learns he has contacted gonorrhea, and has to contact his previous sexual partners to advise them to get checked out. The studio audience finds this all hilarious, and perfectly fitting for an episode of Red Dwarf. Robert Llewellyn describes it as “some of the best Red Dwarf ever made”, and Chris Barrie declares it a “True return to form”. The media agrees when it makes it to air. Then everyone revises their opinions and declares it “a pile of shite” about 18 months later.

NINEELEVENTICA

Misjudged attempt to appeal to American viewers. When the guys accidentally prevent –

LISTER: I don’t want to know!

I nominate these Ideas for Hall of Episode status. Hall of Fame, too, I suppose.

[Formica]

Them forming a resistance is too obvious.

I’ll remind the audience that I myself called the idea ‘obvious’, not ‘good’.

[Formica]

What if… the positive viruses Rimmer finds in the ruins of Starbug in Back in the Red aren’t Luck and Sexual Magnetism, but the other two that Kryten mentioned, Inspiration and Charisma?

Rimmer is inspired to draw hentai and is so charming when giving it to hollister and the painting is so good hollister gets so honry he lets them all go

[Formica]

Look, I don’t know how well done it would be, but you couldn’t have Red Dwarf: What If…? without What if Back to Reality wasn’t just a hallucination?

The most obvious story for this would be something derailing the group suicide, the gang then return to their previous lives for some stretch of time, eventually either orchestrating a secret escape or joining in with some sort of resistance.

[Formica]

By the end, Captain Lister seems to know from the jump (weyyyyyyyy) that Rimmer is a visitor, no?

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What if Ace Rimmer’s first Dimension Jump had taken him to the Mr. Rat universe?

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Quinn’s post wasn’t loading for me, so for a moment I thought the blank post was an intentional joke (going nowhere)

[Formica]

we’re supposed to believe that three women who work on the same spaceship would just choose to take a picture with each other,

It is quite clearly taken during the same shoot as the crew’s individual photos. They must’ve known each other already before they signed up.

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They were the 3 female officers. The male officers died on impact. The non-officers Kryten didn’t give a shit about, might have died, might have survived. 

Isn’t all of that novel-exclusive lore?

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You’re saying Series VIII was a second despair squid illusion?

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Red Christmas, Parts I and II.

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Nearly missed my flight home to get my mom to watch this with me after we’d talked about her watching a lot of 4 reruns back in her day. King Goblin had her shouting at the TV for the Doctor to swing in and save the day.

[Author]

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