Hamish

[Hamish]

Well, I did first get an account on here because John Hoare derided something stupid someone wrote on a Wiki I have admin rights on.

Does that count as being attacked? Because otherwise I feel left out.

[Hamish]

> The Third just isn’t in the zeitgeist. Even if I couldn’t help casting Hugh Laurie as the stupid prince, and presumably will for life.

Blackadder II and Blackadder Goes Fourth are definitely the most accessible for people, but Blackadder the Third has really become a favourite of mine on rewatch. It just does not get as much attention due to the Regency era not being as well remembered as the time of Shakespeare or the First World War.

Having worked as a poll clerk and just being fascinated by the history and workings of parliamentary democracy in general makes “Dish and Dishonesty” a particular highlight for me. I still shout “Sausage!” from “Ink and Incapability” to the point of annoyance every chance I get though.

Oh wait, you mean this is not a Blackadder thread?

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My brother did the whole “Archie Duke shot an ostrich ’cause he was hungry” bit from “Goodbyeee” in High School. Still the best scene Ben Elton wrote (well, co-wrote) outside of Inspector Grim’s Ism routine from Thin Blue Line.

And yes, it was the “‘Do you do it doggy-doggy?’ in Swahili” line that got the biggest laugh.

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> ”I’m a snack dispenser” repeated over and over because it gets less funny each time he says it.

Personally I think Mark Quartley’s performance really saves it from being the tedious bore you feel it to be to actually being quite hilarious.

“I’m just a snack dispenser, I just dispense snacks” is certainly the line from XI that I find myself quoting the most in regular conversation, which also feeds into one of my lingering doubts about the series – that unlike even with VII and VIII, it just does not have that many quotable lines for me. X was chock full of them, especially the ones about Lemons.

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I perfectly accept that I could just be wildly ignorant though.

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It’s okay, I am a Canadian anyway.

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> I also can’t wait for The Death Of Stalin.

It’s been over sixty years, I think you are good. :-P

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I guess we must be the audience the Orville wishes to attract.

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While I know I must have been introduced to the concept at some point in my life, just seeing a reference to Arbour Day here did not immediately register it in my head.

Maybe it would have registered in the context of the show though. I have never seen it.

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I was going to make a joke about how she actually has some real life horrible condition that is only brought up off screen, but then my good taste chip activated, and I thought “fuck that”.

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Possibly even in my top two after Give & Take and duelling with Samsara. As you can see I am also an indecisive idiot.

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Both Lemons and Krysis scared me before broadcast, and yet Lemons is my favourite from X and Krysis is in my top three for XI. So I am also a fucking idiot.

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I still don’t get all of the hate for Beyond a Joke. By VII standards, it’s fine.

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When Doug talks of killing things…

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Red Dwarf has certainly affected my vocabulary if nothing else.

[Hamish]

> If she was a robot or a computer the idea would be easier to swallow, and her death and the blasé attitude to it wouldn’t be as problematic. Rimmer wanting to shag her might be, though.

“She didn’t think men were better than machines.” ;-)

[Hamish]

> Eh, in the wider scheme of social issues, and also in context of a TV show in which women haven’t always been portrayed brilliantly, there’s something a bit dodgy about blokes not caring that an unintelligent woman has just fallen out of an airlock

But Rimmer does care, in so far as it ends his chances of getting laid, which was part of the joke if you will remember. Ha ha, nothing ever goes right for Rimmer. Which is actually the same joke from Timeslides, only here someone else dies because of it.

“Have you got a pen” is still a good line though.

[Hamish]

> Red Dwarf jumped the shark when they brought Rimmer back to life in Timeslides, only to kill him off again immediately. How can you play with someone’s life like that, for a cheap gag – imagine ending an episode with the death of a character. As a gag.. Like if someone fell out of an airlock. A woman, for example. Possibly named Irene. It’s shocking, really.

Much like the Guardian article, this is a technically valid comparison that misses or deliberately obscures most of the finer points. Such as that laughing about Rimmer’s death in Timeslides is earned to a degree by his actions earlier in the episode, that his death in TImeslides does not bring with it unpleasant connotations about the treatment of women, and that the joke in Timeslides does fit in with the overarching theme of the episode in a way that Irene’s death really does not in Entangled.

I will grant that it is still a bit naff though.

[Hamish]

Thinking on it though, I will grant that by the end of Series VII a momentum is built up where, in spite of all of the dodgy bits that came before it, I at least do start to feel that the show is finding its feet again, and you want to see it carried on from there. This is a feeling I take with me into Back in the Red right through to the end of Cassandra, before dying a terrible death once I hit Krytie TV.

So there is a problem that you need to manage your expectations with VIII, no doubt.

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Yeah, because the (awful) lines “some things were never meant to make sense” and “may the farce by with you” imply such high drama. I am sorry, but I am still not seeing it. Maybe it is just almost twenty years of hindsight getting in the way.

I would also say in VIII’s defence that Back in the Red and Cassandra do fulfill most of the dramatic potential shown in that trailer, with the only dodgy bit being the implication about Miss Kochanski that does not really pan out. You also do see a real CGI dinosaur.

It does not leave me feeling deceived.

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You know, I just watched that trailer, having been not all that familiar with it before, and I have to say it actually captures Series VIII rather well. I also do not find it to be all that funny.

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What International Debris said.

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Or the diving bell thereof.

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The Canary drop ship, rather.

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Because he hit his head before leaving the ship.

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> This is excellent, Mr Dog.

A roverostomy, they called it.

…sorry, I will go sit quietly in the corner now.

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I still think IWCD is the best thing Grant Naylor ever produced, although I will agree that none of the later novels reached the same heights.

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But what if you actually could trade all of the television episodes for ten Red Dwarf novels?

I must admit, it is kind of tempting.

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Ever notice how cast members often like the ones with a lot of THEM in it though?

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Somebody punch him out.

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This thread definitely reads a bit differently ten years on doesn’t it?

Especially with today’s announcement.

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>Which may also be why I am still willing to defend the Blue Midget dance to this day.
“It was a dream sequence!”

Actually if you really want to know:
1. It is about the only thing they did to justify the use of CGI.
2. It is about the only thing they gave the Cat to do in the entire season.
3. The whole “Reality sucks!” bit is actually hilarious when you are eight.

I still also rather like the Cat’s pulse and heartbeat gag, for the record. See #2.

[Hamish]

An impressive use of berating synonyms.

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> the greatest change to VIII remastered will be a really crap CGI prisoner

Which was actually filmed on a bluescreen and composited in of course.

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I had both IV and VI on VHS tape – but VI was definitely my favourite as a kid. Every time I saw Gunmen I would put on my cowboy boots.

The rest of the show I saw from scattered television recordings and library VHS tapes, including one from when Showcase was showing VII and VIII in Canada that only went up to Cassandra much like the one Ben Saunders had, which does definitely improve your view of the series as a whole.

Which may also be why I am still willing to defend the Blue Midget dance to this day.

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I have to say that my own enthusiasm for XI dipped after seeing Twentica, only to be lifted again somewhat when Samsara aired the following week.

Please, don’t hit me.

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You mean I’m not alone?

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For me as a kid it was a joke from Hitchhiker’s Guide that threw me, the one where Ford says that going through Hyperspace is “unpleasantly like being drunk”, and when Arthur questions this, Ford says “Ask a glass of water.”

I thought it had something to do with a glass of water not being alcoholic, and perhaps having a rivalry with drinks that are, rather than twigging the wordplay. In fairness I was about six when I first heard it.

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> given the prevalence and vehemence of the spite against it online, full of projection, hyperbole and nihilism

Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Family Guy, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.

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RDXII be damned, Observation Dome is back.

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And isn’t there something odd about the nose on the new Rimmer mask?

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More than happy to be the butter of a joke.

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Now, if only I could tell width from height…

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If only death really was not the handicap it used to be in the olden days.

RIP Paul.

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Oh, is that a thing now? I vaguely remember something about Szechuan Sauce.

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> Probably the second best doctor ending in aker

Yeah, Colin Baker is awesome.

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Just hit the Random button and this came up:

PIP PIP Hooray

“The author, Annette, doesn’t want the actual document altering in any way”

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Did the KKK ever reach the UK? I think they only made it to Canada.

Of course Rimmer is from Io, so I guess it does not really matter.

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I have no idea why I am encouraging this…

LISTER: 1929? Isn’t that when all the banks went belly up and money became useless?
RIMMER: I read about that in history.

LISTER: Well, come with us back to Buffalo September 1901, be a second gunman.
MCKINLEY: You mean, assassinate myself?
LISTER: Yeah! It’ll drive the conspiracy nuts crazy, but they’ll never figure it out.

[Author]

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