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The companion is the “check” for the Doctor, not the Time Lords. While I think the opening to Key to Time is phenomenal and spooky, essentially God himself intervening in the Doctor’s life, that arc works best when Robert Holmes and Douglas Adams are subtly deconstructing it, or David Fisher is blatantly ignoring it.

Companion is more of the audience surrogate than specifically a check for the Doctor though. Overall I don’t really agree with the concept the the Doctor needs a check for the show to work. A few of the writers could have benefitted from one on a few occasions though! 

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I think Moffat’s way of writing alternates between being dynamic and insufferable. Particularly I’m not keen on the way he writes side characters. The best Doctor Who he’d written for me is probably either The Curse of Fatal Death or A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol is basically a perfect episode of television, every aspect of the production absolutely knocked it out of the park there.

Series 5 followed by that special is what cements Moffat as the best showrunner for me. He may have lost consistency over time but that run is just so good I can forgive the some of the later wonky moments

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I had the 1993 yearbook! It was fun but yeah, not exactly the most imaginative Sonic content ever

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I’ll take this version over that Sally Acorn bullshit any day 😩

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If the person doing the airbrushing was anything like me they would have removed them for being unevenly attached. I can’t unsee that now!

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The implication being that for the rest of the week they aren’t just relaxing, so what exactly are they doing on the other days then? A strenuous schedule of hard work? Seeking opportunities for personal development? Spiritual fulfilment?!

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I did wonder if people would be rubbed the wrong way by Andrew’s comments in that video.

I took it much more as a comment on how a professional/creative in an industry sees things differently to how the consumers do in terms of being a “fan” of something. Him as a comedy writer saying he is an admirer of Dwarf is high praise in my opinion and not at all something to be seen as a slight.

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Also, it’s wonderful how this thread has really come to life since we stopped talking about Red Dwarf.

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There definitely is a spectrum that runs from “biscuit” to “chocolate bar” and some of the things in consideration here and from that picture do, in my opinion, start to drift from pure chocolate bar territory.

A Penguin or a Rocky is definitely something that stands in a different category to the likes of Mars or Snickers. I’d put a penguin in my kids lunchbox but I wouldn’t stick a Mars bar in there for example. They definitely aren’t just biscuits (you wouldn’t put them in the biscuit tin/jar for a start!) but neither would I consider them a full chocolate bar.

Caramel Wafers and/or Blue Riband are what your Nan would put out on a tray when you went around for a visit. Posher than a basic biscuit like a custard cream or bourbon but not quite as exciting as someone giving you a Twix.

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40 secs – “they have a cave trowle”

This is definitely closer to the hard “tr-oll” than the softer, more drawn out “tr-ole”

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I mean, as mentioned previously this is an accent/region/class distinction scenario – there isn’t a right and wrong. You can’t prove something that varies!

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I think we’re entering into accent/class distinction territory here.

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In The Inquisitor Holly locks down the ship and sounds the alarm when Lister and Kryten try to pass through a door and are unable to identify themselves as members of the crew. This seems a lot more organised and/or sane than some of her behaviour we’ve seen up to this point. Sure we’ve had invaders and/or other unexpected people on board before and Holly never seemed to give that much of a shit.

Perhaps the Inquisitor’s act of replacing Lister and Kryten did actually have some benefit and in this timeline Holly is still a bit more competent!

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Yeah those .ram files are literally just a pointer to where the real audio stream/source is located, which sadly would appear not to exist any more

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Finished the book today, definitely not perfect but overall it was really bloody enjoyable!

Which almost makes it worse – some weird part of me was kind of hoping it would be shit as then the fact we’re not getting any more from Grant Marshall would be a much easier pill to swallow. But it was a lot of fun and so now I am sad. Thanks a lot Rob you dead bastard!

It doesn’t have the depth of character and introspection that Infinity and BTL have but the dialogue, situations and heart (and importantly laughs!) are all here in spades and it’s just a lot of fun to read. It “feels” like Dwarf despite doing its own thing and putting a twist on the status quo. There’s a lot of solo Rob vibes here as well, which is to be expected of course. Quite a few sections made me think of Colony and Incompetence in terms of the narrative style and tone. 

Lister and Rimmer are both excellent and their sniping was a lot of fun, as was the blossoming relationship we get to see between both of them and the MVP newcomer Carzon who truly embodies the “one universe to the left” billing as this outings excellent remix of Kryten. Themis and Konchaski were also excellent and I was invested in both of their stories. I do get where the “why does Konchaski pursue the mystery so much?” question is coming from, but in my head it tracked that she had built up a relationship with her, was just genuinely a good person at her core, and also she was clearly on some level running away from an impending marriage she wasn’t properly committed to! 

Also the Petersen side story was superb – 10/10 content

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I rewatched most of season 1 of the X-Files a few years back and the thing that really struck me was how explicit and undeniable it is almost right out of the gate about aliens being real – in my head the whole “is Mulder just making this shit up, Skully is there to be the voice of valid doubt/reason against his mad-cap theories” element of the show was much stronger early on. But no, it’s basically like “yep, it’s aliens. They’re everywhere doing shit. There’s loads of evidence for it. Skully just needs to get the fuck on board”

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Given that Red Dwarf is meant to be a flying city, I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume it had decks for farming food. 

It’s meant to be the size of a city, that doesn’t mean it’s the functional equivalent of one

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Always find it interesting that these kinds of articles always attract the sort who go with the view that it went downhill a lot earlier than the fan consensus would say (if such a thing exists of course!)

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Lister broke his programming so he doesn’t like doing it anymore.

Except for the times when he does like doing it.

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To be fair you do get those voltage tester screwdrivers which have that kind of clip on them so it’s not too crazy:

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“Why, it’s sharper than a page of Oscar Wilde witticisms that have been rolled up into a point, sprinkled with lemon juice and jabbed into someone’s eye!”

Always hated this line, it’s way too overwrought and feels like Doug trying equal parts to replicate some of the better simile jokes from the bubble era and ape Blackadder

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Yeah he definitely looks leaner in VII for sure. VI probably stands out as the point where he was porkiest. The long johns really don’t do him any favours either…

Chris has chunked up a little bit in VI as well, especially compared to his trim look in V. Definitely some middle aged spread going on as the 90s progressed.

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Not in the episodes themselves but if we’re looking for positives then the box art was nice on the releases themselves

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Gatwa has been superb in my opinion, just a shame he’s been shackled to a very wonky era for the show.

Assuming this isn’t the actual death of the show (which I can’t believe they will allow to happen, pretty sure Doctor Who is still far and away their most commercially lucrative show worldwide) I think it will ultimately be a good thing.

The show needs a break and a reset. Come back with new teams and new ideas, stop tying everything in continuity knots and constantly backreferencing and retconning things, just give us some good stories and performances, with a decent arc and I’ll be happy

 

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Quite like this one as it looks ever so slightly like Lister is having a cheeky wank right in front of Pete Tranter’s sister

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They blew up the previous science room with their neutron bomb juggling routine in Demons & Angels so obviously had to find somewhere new!

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Barely a nostril in sight on that Rimmer sprite. Can see why Doug passed.

Joking aside though this is a real shame, alongside novels this kind of thing feels like it could be one of the better and more achievable ways of keeping the show alive

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Fucking hell, you’re right. Rimmerworld has always felt a bit Terrorform to me. This just shows by how much.

Bit late to the party on this one but never let a meme opportunity pass you by I guess:

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This kind of thing has been discussed many times in the past and I still think the show itself goes against the “holograms memories are a capture of the last brain scan of their subject” theory.

In C&P we see a second Rimmer activated who clearly has knowledge of what has happened literally moments before his activation:

Like everything in the show the logic and rules flex to what is most entertaining in the moment, but I think holograms as established across C&P and Me2 must have the information of things that have happened beyond the point their subject died or their last brain scan – but knowing something and living something are not the same thing, hence why Rimmer 2 is that much more of a cunt that the first one activated. He had knowledge of what had happened in the weeks/months since the first was activated and Lister came out of stasis but he hadn’t lived through it and experienced it first had to gain the life experience and personal development directly

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10 best sci-fi TV series ever – according to Radio Times readers

archive link to get around paywall/registration: https://archive.ph/kQRON

Pretty respectable showing for the rouge one

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In this day and age those other cops would have unloaded their guns into McClane within seconds of him drawing!

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He seems to really enjoy working with the cast and I won’t be surprised if by hook or by crook he manages to get something off the ground.

I look forward to a new episode of Stellar Rescue

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VI was the first I watched go out live so it’s still in a certain way “default” Dwarf for me and I could comfortably make an argument for it being my favourite series. It’s not the best (that’s II or V) but it’s so settled in my affections that I find it hard to look beyond in many ways

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So many Bothans.

In just over seven months, every one of them would be dead. 

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Saw this clip from and episode of Columbo where he’s going around an art gallery today:

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VI does start to show a little strain, not a lot – but a little. But I always find I have quite a lot of grace for it as it was coming off the back of V->USA which seems like it was an incredibly intense and stressful time for GNP generally and Rob and Doug individually, then they were thrown to the lions a bit by the BBC pushing for a spring release of VI necessitating a very quick turnaround for scripts. 

I think if they’d had a bit more time to recover between V and VI they’d have ironed out the few kinks VI had.

But it’s hard to be too upset when we still got a series as incredible as VI was!

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The Last Jedi is comfortably the second best Star Wars film for me – Empire being the obvious champ. The backlash it got was so bizarre.

But then as Warbo points out, I’ve never been that much of a Star Wars person so the fact I never held the series in such high regard generally probably helps me appreciate it rather than be upset by it. (although I fundamentally don’t agree that there’s anything to be upset about in the first place!)

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Peter: Part 2
Dear David
Kryten TV

Thank You for the Memory 

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But Rimmer in the JMC uniform, with his conspiracy theories, insane routines, necrophobics, pointless loyalty to protocol (“4691 irradiated haggis!”) etc 

Just to say it’s necrobics that Rimmer was into rather than necrophobics. I think most people have a fear of the dead, apart from Lister who likes to fuck them 

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