Pete Part Three

[Pete Part Three]

Never Say Alan Again has clearly been chosen to reference Bond 60. Maybe Quarantine has been chosen as it’s also relatively topical.

[Pete Part Three]

You probably won’t get much love for that one round here, but excellent work.

[Pete Part Three]

TWENTY? BAH!

G&T turns twenty and succeeds in making everyone else feel fucking ancient. 

[Pete Part Three]

 How did you make this text invisible in dark mode, and why.

[Shrug]
I pasted it from my comment in the Idea for an Episode thread*, so maybe it contains some kind of special powers. 

*Yes, I am that lazy.

[Pete Part Three]

Sound hilarious. Here; have some money.

[Pete Part Three]

Look, I think we’ve all got something to bring to this conversation, but I think that from now on what Chris Barrie should bring is silence.

[Pete Part Three]

NO THANKS FOR THE SOCIAL COMMENTARY 

Fans react unfavourably to the latest ChrisBarrie.co.uk update.

[Pete Part Three]

ETA

The new Go Live date for TOS is set for the 32nd of Geldof.

[Pete Part Three]

TIMELINE SLIDE

The migration of TOS goes awry, leading to a suddenly postponement of the Go Live date. 

[Pete Part Three]

EGOTALK

Norman discusses his frequent disagreements with GNP. 

[Pete Part Three]

One for the week, and one for Sunday best.

[Pete Part Three]

Maybe he’s literally on his death bed and Holly tells him he’s only got minutes to live. He realises that the future echo is unfulfilled so it must be time to do his little speech. This could be why he “doesn’t have much time”. It also means the Lister dies laughing at Rimmer, and Rimmer does actually see Lister die in a future echo.

[Pete Part Three]

You’ll all stop being so concerned when the site comes back with a funky flash animation of Doug and Mr Flibble.

Web 2.0 baby!

[Pete Part Three]

Oh well. New Tax Year now, innit? See what happens Friday.

We’re going to be taxed for the official site? 

Fuck you, Boris.

[Pete Part Three]

Despite Goalpost Head’s lack of medical expertise, I do like the idea that he is correct in diagnosing C&P as an active obstacle to Lister’s recovery; i.e. the 3 million years of mutation has caused pneumonia to develop this extra resiliance/resistance to treatment where it manifests hallucinations that persuade the host against getting cured (i.e. killing the pneumonia).  In the same spirit as the smart viruses referenced later in the show (and ultimately depicted in the Epideme episode).  The big problem with this, however, is that by this logic it makes no sense for Confidence to kill Paranoia; despite all appearances and playing of their roles, they’d work in concert to keep Lister from getting over it/them.

The other problem with this is that C&P aren’t the only hallucinations that Lister has, and neither of the other two have the means or opportunity to convince him not to get cured. At least half of his hallucinations are just his imagination running wild and drawing on things he’s recently thought about, rather than malevolent to the point of wanting him to stay sick, so it’s a bit of a stretch to conclude that the final two are, just because (by their very nature), they either dwell in sickness or ignore the feeling. 

In terms of the smart viruses (Quarantine), I see a slight parallel, but Epideme and the depiction of an *intelligent* virus (not a symptom) that wanted to replicate, was based ona Paul Alexander idea, so it’s not as organic an evolution of the idea as it appears. Confidence and Paranoia have more in common with the alter~egos that Rob and Doug were always playing with to explore the characters, rather than a straight sci-fi “monster of the week” idea..

Confidence kills Paranoia because Paranoia holds Lister back, not because the pair of them keep him sick. I think the medicomp being destroyed is Confidence actually working to the same logic; why should Lister listen to anyone else (even a machine) to tell him how he is ever again, when he’s got Confidence? 

[Pete Part Three]

FWIW, Rimmer’s reasoning doesn’t make sense even on a surface level. If the hallucinations are “symptoms”, as he says,, then you don’t treat the symptoms (or, er, kill them) to get better, you treat the illness (the pneumonia). 

The stuff with the medicomp is really interesting, as it’s obviously destroyed by Confidence…but the only time it’s used is earlier in the episode where it’s shown to be inefficient at diagnosing Lister.

[Pete Part Three]

Are Confidence and Paranoia symptoms of Lister’s illness, or are they manifestastions of the illness itself?
It’s interesting that although both Rimmer and Confidence believe that Lister getting well will cause C&P to simply disappear, because they die in ways that would kill any human, we never get that confirmed. It’s plausible to me that if they’re just byproducts of sickness, they could continue to exist after Lister recovers. They are flesh and blood after all.
On the other side of the coin, if Confidence would have disappeared when Lister was better, did he think he could keep Lister ill but alive permanently, or was he just trying to give himself a few extra days of life?

Rimmer refers to them as “symptoms”, but I’d propose a third option; they’re the byproducts of the *symptoms*, much like snotty tissues when you’ve got the flu.
The Major of Warsaw conveniently combusts, and the Cat eats the fish… and then seems to slip into a food coma.  They are flesh and blood, and appear to be “real” fish, meaning that the hallucinations need to “die” to cease to exist, rather than fading out like they faded in.
Lister’s fever passes and he feels “great”. He stops hallucinating new stuff. 

It doesn’t appear that Lister’s health is dependant on the hallucinations sticking around or otherwise, despite Rimmer’s claims (and Confidence’s fears). It would have probably made a bit more sense if Lister was still feeling a bit poorly, and Confidence was cajoling him into taking spacewalks and whatnot, despite this.  As it is, it just seems that Rimmer is jumping to conclusions because he doesn’t like them, and Confidence is aware of that.

[Pete Part Three]

E-CANGO

Ian jettisons all the Red Dwarf episodes which begin with the letter E from the Smegle servers. Fortunately, none of these episodes are very good, so no one cares. Much.

[Pete Part Three]

E-CORP

The letter E is brought by Disney, causing any media which contains the letter and are not owned by them to be come invisible.

[Pete Part Three]

MOHAWK: POLYMORPH II

Th crw ncountr a chamlonic lifform who givs thm all mohawks. Lading to hystrical circumstancs. 

[Pete Part Three]

THANKS FOR THE MISSING E

Ian Symes thanks people for pointing out his scandalous error without making a big fuss.

[Pete Part Three]

KNICKERS TOO WIDE

After an unfortunate foaming twat incident, Kochanski’s underpantskis become misshapen.  

[Pete Part Three]

I nominate this thread for…

Nah. Nvm.

[Pete Part Three]

RIDLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT

A forum regular offers the dubious claim that he didn’t intentionally plagiarise an existing Red Dwarf episode idea from 8 years ago.

[Pete Part Three]

OUT OF VALENTINES

Lister get depressed when he realises that his valentine is his mum.

[Pete Part Three]

Motion activated.

[Pete Part Three]

I think Kryten’s ability to lie is as much to do with the way his programming punishes him; the synthetic version of “guilt” that he has (illustrated by his behaviour with the Polymorph removes it). It’s this that he needs to overcome to “break his programming”. It’s not so much his ability to “lie’, it’s how to move past the guilt that he will feel.

So he can lie to Hudzen about Silicon Heaven, as he can’t feel guilty about saving the others from certain death. And he can easily insult Rimmer (without the usual problems with enunciation) when the time line is about to be deleted in White Hole, as he knows his guilt will be instantly removed.

Likewise, he doesn’t feel any guilt about lying to Camille, as he knows that she’s better off with Hector.

[Pete Part Three]

It’s a bit odd, I agree. Her changing appearance to the desires of the beholder appears to be completely instinctual, but she can seemingly also “override” this.

They could have potentially had overriding the instinct something quite painful for her to do, to clear this up. That would also have made sense for why Hector is looking for a “cure”.  (As the episode presents it, it doesn’t seem to be much of an ailment – and what would the cure be anyway?).

The fact that Hector also seems to appear as a blob to the crew muddies the waters ever further.

[Pete Part Three]

INSANITY WELCOMES CARELESS SMEGADRIVERS

A forum poster considers travelling back in time and destroying the smegadrive before it can ever be invented, to stop the wall of images that is hidden under every “Recent Comments” link.

 

[Pete Part Three]

BETTER THAN AFTERLIFE

Doug is reassured by the news that Series VIII is at least marginally better than Ricky Gervais’s latest shitcom.

[Pete Part Three]

I assume that the condom was just delaying the orgasm by saying stuff to turn the wearer off.

“Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day!” and so forth.

[Pete Part Three]

CHEAT PARTY TWO

After bending the rules of their incarceration with the help of the time wand, Rimmer and Lister hold a party.

[Pete Part Three]

Trojan is great.  Lemons is reasonable. The Beginning is pretty good.  I appreciate these episodes.

The rest of it can go in a big bin.

[Pete Part Three]

BACK ISSUE TO REALITY

A group of Red Dwarf fans venture into a wood and find some smeggy magazines in an old carrier bag.

[Pete Part Three]

In my head, The Matrix had such a profound effect of me back in ‘99. I credit it with inspiring me to look at at writings on the nature of reality, and asking big questions.

And then I remember that I saw Back to Reality about five years earlier and I don’t know what to believe.

FWIW, The Matrix Resurrections actually has more fun with the meta stuff than Back to Earth, which really extends no further than “Craig Charles did drugs and is also in Coronation Street”.

 

[Pete Part Three]

9. They’re both shit.

(I don’t like to disappoint… unlike both The Matrix Resurrections and Back to Earth).

 

[Pete Part Three]

[Pete Part Three]

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[Pete Part Three]

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[Pete Part Three]

REPETE PART ONE

A forum poster bemoans the familiarity of the Xmas-themed ideas for episodes and complains to Points of View.

[Pete Part Three]

I basically saw it as an extended dick or prick, close to arsehole.

Was this in a double Polaroid?

[Pete Part Three]

HOME ALONE IN A GODLESS UNIVERSE AND OUT OF SHAKE ‘N’ VAC

In this Disney+ exclusive,  it’s Christmas Eve and Djuhn’Keep, the little agonoid that Santa Claus forgot, is all alone on Red Dwarf.  When he hears that some humans are due to arrive, he decides to booby trap the ship, hopeful to inflict as much pain as possible.  Hilarious slapstick for all the family. Plus some other scenes only suitable for Rob Grant.

 

[Pete Part Three]

Andrew Ridgeley never gets any credit.

 

[Pete Part Three]

Both of the Listers in Psirens are fake.  The real Lister was killed shortly after shooting the Kryten psiren.  The one that does a better job of imitating Lister ultimately realises that Cat’s brain won’t be much of a meal, so he hangs around for the next thirty years and goes method.

Craig Charles’s really strange line-reading of “What about Red Dwarf?” at the end of the episode hints at this.

This is also why Lister has reacquired an appendix in Legion.

[Pete Part Three]

If you look closely, you can see Kryten’s actually looking at the camera.  This was the pilot episode of Krytie TV.

[Pete Part Three]

[Pete Part Three]

[Pete Part Three]

Where does the other Holly go when the crew abandon ship in Only The Good? What’s going on with the other Holly’s head?  How does Kryten’s hand inflate in Back in the Red?  Why is Cat’s biology “cool”? Why is it not anarchy on board Red Dwarf, when the crew discover they’d been dead and the ship is now in deep space?  Why is a mining ship being used as a prison ship? What happened to putting people into stasis as punishment?  Why does no one do any mining? Why don’t they have self-adhesive envelopes in the future? Why are envelopes being used in the future? Where is the other Kochanski? Why does there seem to be an acknowledgement that the show needs to write out the revived crew, but it takes 8 episodes of tediously bad television to get to that?  Why is the Grim Reaper in the show? Why?

 

[Pete Part Three]

Initial reaction to Series VIII was positive – mainly, I believe, because of aesthetic choices rather than anything more nuanced such as looking at the quality of the writing or characterisation. Rimmer and Holly are back full time! The studio audience are back! Red Dwarf is back! The filming style is no longer single-camera! Let’s overlook the fact that it’s a pile of absolute wank!

I think Chris being remaining absent would have dented the “back to the good old day” mindset or, at the very least, hurried along the mainstream reappraisal.

[Pete Part Three]

Red Dwarf VIII takes are so hot right now.

[Author]

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