Ian Symes

[Ian Symes]

Interesting that each and every one of those examples of Kryten killing (or attempting to kill) comes from after Lister’s line in The Inquisitor. Like how he learned to lie in Camille (ignoring the denouement of The Last Day) and could do it thereafter, maybe in The Inquisitor he learned that sometimes killing can be the right thing to do. It’s actually consistent with Asimov’s laws, not allowing humans to come to harm through his inaction. 

[Ian Symes]

Oh, that gobshite.

[Ian Symes]

One Dimension Jump whilst very tired, I thought it would be hilarious to keep calling him “Robot” to his face to see if he noticed. He either didn’t, or was too polite to mention it.

[Ian Symes]

Series VI has a fair few model shots augmented with computer graphics, but it’s still almost entirely physical models. It’s not until Series VII that CGI is used in place of model shots for the first time.

[Ian Symes]

VI is my favourite series. I think if I were to average out my scores for individual episodes, 2 and V might be above it, but in terms of the aesthetics, the vibe, the character dynamics, how it makes me feel when I watch it, VI is out in front. There’s a difference between “favourite” and “best”.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

M
e
l
t

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

There is another name from the credits of certain episodes that one might just apply the term “nepo baby” to.

[Ian Symes]

The One Where Everyone’s Kryten 2X4B 523P

[Ian Symes]

So basically, nobody had a fucking clue for the first three guesses, until the fourth clue made it really obvious.

[Ian Symes]

it’s painful to be reminded of the real world and actual events while watching something, like Kryten mentioning the then-recent FIFA scandal.

On the other hand, there have been about ten FIFA scandals in the years since, so it’s fairly timeless as far as references go. There’s always a recent FIFA scandal. Like Rupert Murdoch being namechecked as inherently evil in Cured – the phone hacking scandal may have been fresh in the mind at the time the line was written, but everything else he’s done before and since stops the joke from being linked specifically to that. Both of those examples pale into insignificance compared to the Ishtar and Run For Your Wife references.

[Ian Symes]

Imagine if they’d have started Series III with Marooned – introducing Kryten and the new Holly, then doing an episode where they’re only in it for about thirty seconds each. 

[Ian Symes]

Most of these are mediocre, but that one is pure shit. 

[Ian Symes]

It’s already on there: https://smegadrive.ganymede.tv/episodes/61

[Ian Symes]

When Kryten is crushed into a cube and said “I’m almost annoyed”, I thought he said “I’m almost a noyd”. For ages I wondered what a ‘noyd’ was; presumably some kind of cube thing.

I took it as “almost a ‘noid”, the joke being that he’d been crushed from a mechanoid into almost half a mechanoid.

[Ian Symes]

The fact that this has happened relatively quickly makes me wonder if there was something in the 2023 agreement about what would happen in the event of one of them dying. GNP post-kerfuffle is not really the same thing as it was before, it essentially existed to divvy up the rights to Red Dwarf between Rob and Doug. That function is redundant now. I would assume that Rob’s share of the intellectual property has been/will be inherited by his family, but I’m obviously not going to pry.

[Ian Symes]

I’m Grant Naylor Productions and so’s my wife. (and son)

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

Ooh, speaking of soap stars, Anita Dobson. That EastEnders Christmas episode where Den served Angie with divorce papers remains the most watched scripted programme in British TV history.

[Ian Symes]

From the same episode, but the opposite end of the legit scale, Reg Holdsworth.

[Ian Symes]

Ah yeah, the American remake of Coupling.

[Ian Symes]

He’d have been one of the more distractingly familiar faces that take me out of it, like Vegas, Eldon and how Mark Williams and David Gillespie used to be before I got used to them.

This post has got me pondering something. Mark Williams and David Gillespie weren’t hugely famous in 1988, they became better known later on. I wonder who could claim to be Red Dwarf’s best known guest star at the time of their appearance? Johnny Vegas is certainly a candidate, and off the top of my head I think you can add in Frances Barber, Jenny Agutter and Timothy Spall. But it might actually be Clare Grogan. She’s so definitively Kochanski for us that her pop career and Gregory’s Girl are secondary, but for anyone watching the initial broadcast, she’d surely be extremely “distractingly familiar”.

[Ian Symes]

We’ll never know for sure, but I think that’s very feasible. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Rob died, especially as we’ve been revisiting the build-up to the split in our Smegazine and Re-Disc-Overy casts, plus reading up on the Grant Naylor years for the obituary. If it is the case that Rob was unwell, then I can totally understand why he needed to suddenly break away. I can also totally understand how tough that would have been for Doug to be left to pick up the pieces. It would have perfectly reasonable for both of them to feel resentful towards the other, and it’s naturally going to damage a friendship. It’s just really, really sad that they never worked through it, and never got back what they once had.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

DwarfCasts turns 20 this year. I turn 40. I’ve been doing this nonsense for half of my life.

[Ian Symes]

Cat first pilots White Midget in Bodyswap

Except in Bodyswap Re-Mastered, where he pilots W…        Midget.

[Ian Symes]

I always assumed the Kevin Keegan book was real until very recently when googling it and only getting Red Dwarf results.

But confusingly, I did have this book when I was a kid:

[Ian Symes]

Amazing! I really like that one of the ship. Could be straight out of the Smegazine.

[Ian Symes]

Sorry, but this definitely doesn’t look like Norman.

[Ian Symes]

Yeah, but at least in yours, the light above Lister’s bunk didn’t read “IFC TOGA ANRONT []”

[Ian Symes]

Podey’s is sensational.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

Instead, here’s a new beige pug:

[Ian Symes]

He may not be fast, and he’s not even sure if he’s got there in the end.

[Ian Symes]

No idea til Tesco

[Ian Symes]

Thanks to Nick and Warbo for setting me up for those last two.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 01/04/2026 

April Fools!

This is genuinely unintentional. We have manually selected frames for certain days in the past, but this was picked at random. I go through the random selections and make sure they’re neither too easy nor impossible, and I remember clearing this one, but didn’t clock which day it was attached to. Basically, I think the Smega-Drive is becoming self aware. 

[Ian Symes]

Ben, you missed off The Time Meddler, which is the best Hartnell story IMO. I mean, logically it would have probably made more sense to end the season with Ian and Barbara’s departure and then have the exciting new companion, the first appearance of another of the Doctor’s race, and the first story to properly mix history and sci-fi as the start of the next season, but they did things differently back then.

[Ian Symes]

Lister of Smeg is far too attractive for a sci-fi convention. He wouldn’t need a chastity cheat.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

Just remembered that as a ten-year-old unfamiliar with The King and I, I had never heard of Yul Brynner, and thought that Rimmer had never been mistaken for “urine-a”.

[Ian Symes]

[Ian Symes]

Sydney Sweeney is probably in the “boobs” chair at the moment. And it’s almost certainly a Parker Knoll.

Every time I see the name “Sydney Sweeney”, I mix her up Sydney Stevenson, and assume people are talking about the Entangled guest star. It’s getting very confusing now, Sydney Sweeney is really famous.

[Ian Symes]

For fuck’s sake Dave, I thought of that one the other day while not in front of my computer, and then forgot. The exact same reference.

[Author]

Replies