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It’s reassuring to know the season holds out strong. I’m only up to Episode 5 and am really enjoying it so far – the writing feels very OG Futurama, the dialogue all feels really in-character (“it’s a good job those spikes retracted at the last minute as far as I know” was used in the trailers I think, but is pretty typical of the voices being recaptured well), and I think the move away from super-topical ideas has benefited this season so far – not that I hated the crypto / MeToo / COVID / NFT stuff, but I think Futurama’s at it’s best when it’s at its most random. 

The gags seem to be landing well, as well. Even the ones that are absolutely telegraphed a mile off – the punchline to the “wean-ee” setup, for instance – are still being played effectively.

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The arrogant and elitist crew who believe that concepts of “love” are beneath them – sure. But there’s nothing to suggest Stocky wouldn’t have factored it in or considered it inconceivable – in fact, given that it (presumably) knew Nirvanah’s IQ and could make a pretty educated guess at Rimmer’s, it must be factoring something in that gives it that 4% possibility of success, given that all other things being equal Nirvanah would have a 100% chance of trouncing him in any battle of wits.

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They still should have been a bit surprised that Stocky got it all so wrong, though.

I don’t know that we can say Stocky got it “wrong”. It offered a probability of failure, which was very high but not impossible. 4% is about the same odds as getting a straight in Texas Hold’em – it’s not inconceivable that Nirvanah sacrificing her life and Rimmer winning by default was factored into the calculations.

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Assuming that IQ remains normalised around 100 points in the future, an IQ of 12,000 means that there must also be something walking around (or not) with an IQ of -11,800, which seems improbable. Almost as improbable, of course, as the very short remaining runtime being discovered, discussed, and acted upon all within that same very short remaining runtime…

The equally obvious question is, when the fuck are they going to hold Kryten to account for his major fuck ups? He’s reduced Holly’s runtime to just a few minutes here; he can barely operate the matter transporter correctly; he doesn’t install the device Legion gives him correctly and nearly gets everyone sucked into deep space; he bangs on about the importance of never meeting your future selves, conveniently forgetting that only last week he fucked up the teleporter so badly he managed to somehow transport them through time; and blew up the ship because he carelessly tries to reverse the triplicator. Surely you’d have powered him down by now or certainly be very selective about what you let him touch?!

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But in Red Dwarf, usually the rule is that the comedy trumps the sci-fi – so aren’t we better off with one or two more gags, than some shoehorned-in exposition closing down a relatively minor plot hole?

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A more recent example is Krysis, when Kryten spins his whole body around but his head stays in place, and it gets a laugh.

I seem to recall someone saying on here after it aired, that in the audience recording they did some rough live VFX on this for the audience – essentially paused Kryten’s/Robert’s head on the monitors while he span his body around. Obviously not as slick as the final edit would have been, but presumably still enough to be amusing and give a good indication of what they were going for.

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Oh. So did I!

I think our version is actually funnier…

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“Breaking news” is a stretch even for the Daily Star on that story.

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I’m looking forward to the new season. The last season I enjoyed, apart from maybe one or two duff episodes I probably won’t revisit, and it was not as on-the-nose as the episode titles and synopses may have suggested. “Zapp Gets Cancelled” could have been disastrously handled, but was actually clever, funny and one of the better episodes of the show. And the “COVID” episode quickly became not that at all, albeit a few of the COVID-esque jokes were a couple of years too late. They are definitely worth a watch, and I think the slightly tighter order of 10 episodes probably benefits the quality over the 13-episode Comedy Central runs – which were mostly good or great but definitely had episodes that felt like they were completely out of ideas and just making up shit around a pun-ny episode title (looking at you, “Assie Come Home”).

I think Futurama suffers much like Dwarf, with potentially some rose-tinted nostalgia of the ‘bubble’ – despite those episodes also containing some duffers – and the freshness and novelty and personal zeitgeist from twenty years ago are impossible to recreate no matter how good the quality of current episodes. At least Futurama has some ‘Dave-era’-equivalent episodes that are universally considered classics even though outside of the bubble (“The Late Philip J Fry”, etc.) whereas I don’t think we have that with Dwarf yet.

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I’m sure this has probably been discussed before, but when exactly does the group hallucination begin in Back to Reality? I think I’d always assumed it was the moment the ink hit the ship and it then crashed, but then when ‘back to reality’ there’s no dialogue to suggest the ship is damaged or that Holly’s had to repair anything. So is the crash part of the hallucination? Does Holly just guide the ship down safely while she watches the hallucination until she can deploy the mood stabiliser? Or do they not actually even move and the attempt to escape is part of the hallucination too?

Or do they actually crash but Holly is somehow able to repair everything off-screen and without any need to reference it? But then if she could do that, why couldn’t she also deploy the lithium carbonate without Kryten having to do it?

Am I just overthinking it?!

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In Psirens, there is a whole minute and six seconds between Cat first smelling the huge meteor heading towards them, and it being destroyed by the explosive rubbish… surely more than enough time to just go over or under the damn thing?! Why would you waste your apparently single explosive missile on that?

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An Albanian Shepherd sounds like a lonely figure, and with a wool allergy, he can’t even get his rocks off the way other Albanian Shepherds do (it’s not a joke that aged very well when you extrapolate the stereotype it picks on) so even for that level of sexless man, 3 million years is a long time.

I don’t think that quite works as the antithesis to Lister in the way you describe – in fact, I’d probably argue that the shepherd would be even more sexually frustrated than Lister after 3 million years given that he’s got the temptation of sheep in front of him all the time, where Lister has barely seen a woman. Not to mention that it hasn’t really been 3 million years from Lister’s perspective, even if that time may have passed – it’s only been a few years.
I appreciate that unpicking any joke pretty much kills it, but I definitely think it’s the delivery of the line, and I guess the absurdity of what is said, that makes it funny regardless – albeit not as screamingly hilarious as the audience make it out to be on that occasion!

While we’re here – I have always assumed that “Psirens” as an episode title is a play on “Psi-” and (obviously) “sirens”, but why would they be spelt that way, even with intestines, in-universe?

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Isn’t it just one of those Red Dwarf non-sequiturs that have the beats, rhythms and delivery of a joke – so it feels funny and you laugh, but actually doesn’t make much sense when you unpick it? I put it in the same category as “a long time for an Albanian shepherd who’s allergic to wool” or “lucky you didn’t order a double cheeseburger!”

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In Skipper, Rimmer makes a reference to Lister putting a bit of Doner kebab on his profile pic to make him “look like Freddie Mercury”. Is the joke supposed to be that Lister is actually trying to make him look like Hitler, and Rimmer’s too oblivious to realise he’s being compared to a Fascist… or is it literally Lister trying to make him look like Freddie?

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Until today, I was vaguely aware that Doug McClure was a real person but had not really been bothered enough to find out who he was – I assumed only having heard of him through Red Dwarf and The Simpsons I would not be familiar with anything he’d been in.

Then today, I heard the song “Swinging on a Star” in the pub…

…which reminded me of the TV show Out of this World, which I used to love as a kid…

…which prompted me to watch the opening credits from the show on YouTube…

…which revealed that Doug McClure was in that show and I did know who he was!

Possibly old/insignificant news to people on here – I don’t know how big the Venn diagram overlap is between RD fans and Out of this World fans – but it was a little moment of “Ahh!” in my life today.

I don’t think I dare go back and watch any episodes of Out of this World, as almost certainly it would be nowhere near my childhood memories…

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Agree that the Magic Marker and Formica stuff is contrived – has anyone even called them “magic markers” these days except when you’re trying to crowbar in a “wizard pen” gag? – but the scene on the whole is amusing. I do like seeing increasingly-frustrated Lister – starting with “have you heard the terrible news about Miss Kochanski and her ex-boyfriend Tim?” in VIII, through this scene in Samsara, and played to perfection in “I do have one small fear” in M-Corp.

 

Lister has always had surprising knowledge and surprising gaps, so it doesn’t bother me that he knows an obscure inventor in order to set up a gag. He knows Hitler’s cronies and the origins of “Mayday” but doesn’t know what an iguana is or who Shakespeare was, except when he does. For a sitcom I would rather get the comedy than perfect characterisation, within limits.

 

The direction on the flashbacks in Samsara – particular the transitions from ‘now’ to ‘then’ – is really delightful. I think I’ve said it before but it really reminded me of the way Futurama does its flashback transitions – but to do it in live action rather than animation is really impressive.

 

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Oh yeah Heidegger I get, although his presence in the list as “the straight one” was another thing which threw the joke off for me

It’s an unusual comedic structure, thinking about it: straight, funny, funny, funny. Normally you’d expect it to go funny, funny, funny; or straight, straight, (straight), funny.

I don’t think I’d ever listened properly to the names as I didn’t realise Davro was one of them! Certainly never linked it to Bobby. I’d always assumed only the last name was the funny one – and didn’t know until this thread or similar why “Quayle” was humorous.

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What, like “Legion”, which is another biblical reference (and was originally titled “Call Me Legion”)? Surely the interesting thing about titles are letting people have preconceptions about what the stories could entail, and then surprising them by taking a core idea and giving it a sci-fi spin?

With the added knowledge of how the episode pans out, “Legion” is obviously a biblical reference, but I’m not sure that would be anyone’s first go-to assumption based on title alone. “<…>men of the Apocalypse” clearly is a more overt reference.

I have never really seen the term “horsemen” used in any other context than the “of the Apocalypse” one, but surely at best we would say that cowboys (with guns) are a subset of horsemen – a horseman does not automatically imply guns, and the more overt reference clearly does not suggest guns either, so I don’t think the “gunmen” wordplay is bashing its audience over the head in the way you think it is.

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I’m with GlenTokyo – the joke works regardless of wider context/knowledge. The way it’s phrased, including the use of “quarterback”, makes it immediately obvious it’s a reference to American Football (or Zero-G within the show) and the team reference – which up until now I’d always heard as the “Bangles” – could easily be a made-up team.

I guess by knowing the reference, you get the extra layer of comedy of specificity, but like all good gags it works well without it too.

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That brilliant “I” speech. “I…” something something something. It’s brilliant writing, it really is. Unforgettable.

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I liked Cassandra’s facial expression as Lister’s accidentally setting off the chain reaction that kills her. Just that look of tired contempt.

Truly brilliant. I also love her similar, weary look earlier in the episode in response to Rimmer’s “Have you seen this?” and flipping her the bird.

Even though it’s not a series I go back to very often, it’s nice that we can list some positives at least. The Brylcreem gag itself (minus its explanation), cell inspection, the video editing, the delayed fight, the second ground controller (some great work from Jeillo Edwards) – all superb moments. Even the “heard the news about Miss Kochanski?” conversation in Krytie TV is a rare Series VIII of a joke becoming funnier as it continues rather than outstaying its welcome.

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I know it’s sacrilege to say so but I do actually prefer the additional lyrics (“hyperspace” and whatnot) to some of the additional verses written by Goodall himself. Don’t get me wrong, the arrangement on that other version is hideous, the singing is not great, and the ending is just too weird for words, but I still find it difficult to believe that the genius of Goodall also came up with:

I’d like to have
Red blotches on my face
Make a mess
Of my nose
I’d love to peel
In every awkward place
Fun, Fun, Fun in the Sun, Sun, Sun

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…but the line reading is so good.

It really is. On the night of recording, they did that bit a good 5 or 6 times (with, if I recall correctly, variations of the ‘A’ names used instead of Andy and Ainsley) and the “it is mine” line and delivery got a huge laugh every single time.

Also from a guest performance, the brilliant “I’m sure there’s no cause for oh dear” in M-Corp is also one of my favourites.

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I actually thought this week’s was the strongest so far – we must look for slightly different things in a Partridge episode! Genuinely laughing out loud throughout, from the satellite-delay frustration with Ruth (and I had to rewind a couple of times to truly enjoy the perfectly-portrayed confusion when the delay disappeared entirely for Jennie), to the “CPR”-but-clearly-sex doll, through to the brilliant “who the hell is that?!”. The lookalike was so well performed; even though it is clearly Coogan playing both roles, you quickly believe there’s two separate people there – so much so that I didn’t spot until a second watch that there’s a really nice bit of camera-trickery/body-double work going on when Martin hands Alan the box with Alun.

The only thing I don’t really get is what the ‘in-universe’ explanation is for the “low-budget” stuff that sometimes appears – for example, the weird Partridge-produced jingle for “through the backdoor”. I get the shitty jingles on Radio Norwich, a tin-pot station with no budget for real ones so Alan has to make his own, and certainly for North Norfolk Digital, but this is supposedly primetime BBC. I don’t remember Adrian Chiles ever making his own jingles for The One Show. It just seems a bit incongruous in a show where pretty much all of the other parody falls perfectly.

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I thought that even in the mid-70s, the purpose of the Major’s speech is to demonstrate how out of date his views are rather than to be an hilarious gag. Even the audience response to it at the time is the lukest of warm. As a mixed-race person I do not find the lines offensive but neither particularly funny.

I don’t know if John Cleese has ever made comments about the inclusion of the N-word and whether he stands by its use or would remove them if writing again (a bit like Steve Coogan’s regret at using a particular word in I’m Alan Partridge).

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I was about to say “At least it hasn’t stooped as low to be making jokes about the US presidency” but then I remembered Mechocracy was a thing

While we certainly feared this was going to be the case when we initially read the synopsis for Mechocracy, I don’t really feel that the actual episode ended up being a particularly overt commentary on US elections or presidencies. I don’t think there’s anything in the episode that’s meant to be a dig or parody of a particular president or even a particular style of president. It ended up being a much, much stronger and less ‘political’ episode than predicted – unlike Timewave, which ended up being everything people feared from the synopsis and more!

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It was never the same after they added that extra ‘1’ at the start.

Indeed not. Compare and contrast for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNPyQ-OOp0

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It’s a nice touch that the thirty-one is emphasised by the reinforcement “three one”. There’s no real reason why you would do that (where you might for, say, thirty which may be confused with thirteen), so it just subtly places the number a little more prominently in your short-term memory, to be paid off quite delightfully by the thirty-two. All jokes are ruined when over-explained, but the construct of that whole gag is so nice that it is worth seeing it broken down.

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Whilst I’m sure the sentence would be rephrased if written in 2018, it is worth pointing out that Kryten refers to Rimmer as an “emotional retard” (ie. emotionally-stunted, which is reasonably apt) rather than calling him a “retard” outright. Not ideal but at least marginally less offensive, and I’m sure – like Steve Coogan famously regretting using “spastic” in I’m Alan Partridge – that Doug and Rob would probably rewrite it if they could.

As a half-black person, I don’t enjoy the Major’s niggers and wogs “joke” in Fawlty Towers, but I appreciate that (a) it’s a product of its time, (b) the point is supposed to be demonstrating the Major’s senility and outdated (even for 1974) values and is therefore meant to be uncomfortable, and (c) even in those days it only gets a pretty lukewarm response from the audience.

Judging a 1991 episode by 2018 sensibilities is always going to be tough and acceptable language and behaviour will inevitably change. Growing up, our family would happily use the terms “half-caste” and “coloured” to describe ourselves (leading to my toddler sister happily describing herself as “coloured-in” to people!) but this would be frowned upon nowadays, even though our mixed race little unit was anything but racist.

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Me too, I think it’s that the stressed syllable is wrong for it to be two different names. Todd Hunter would be TODD-HUNT-er, whereas Tod(d)hunter is more like TODD-hunt-ER. Difficult to explain phonetically (and without going down the route of “what do you want me to call you, rim-MER!?”) but a subtle enough distinction that I think my brain just processed it as one word without me realising. And, you’re right, everyone else is just one name – no-one thinks there’s a guy called Peter Son.

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in fact, i still don’t know what she’s saying there tbh

Zdravstvuyte – a polite hello in Russian.

On a related note, there doesn’t seem to have been any news on how Sophie Winkleman is getting on after her car accident a few months back. I wonder how she is doing.

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Just one sentence and I still fucked it up.

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Any plotline that gave us the exceptional Luster double-header scene as both father and son is a winner in my eyes.

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I don’t think anyone would claim that a stage show is what Red Dwarf has been missing all of these years, but equally there’s no reason why the ‘odd couple in space’ approach can’t lean towards a stage show – I certainly don’t think it’s any less suited than Bottom was. A massive and passionate fan base; a show that has already broken the fourth-wall numerous times, such as an in-character Kryten leading the Smeg-Ups tapes; and a cast that more than know how to play to an audience.

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I think it’s cynical to suggest that money is a primary driver for wanting to do a stage show. You have four actors, most of whom come from a ‘live performance’ background and all of whom say they much prefer working with an audience, who would likely relish a stage show. Anyone who’s been to a recording know how much the cast enjoy playing up to a crowd, which also brings us to another probable key driver: they KNOW how many people apply for Red Dwarf tickets when they are released, and only a fraction get them. To put on a show in a bigger venue means that more people are able to see Red Dwarf live, so to speak.

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What is the actual extent of the “no aliens” badge? Is it that nothing shown in the show is alien, or that aliens do not exist in the Red Dwarf universe full stop? I get that the GELFs, Simulants, viruses etc. are all of Earth descent, but things that are referred to – such as the pan-dimensional liquid beast from the Mogodon complex that attacked them on Christmas Day – seem distinctly alien to me. So too the Vidal Beast of Sharmut 2, although admittedly that’s Series VII and I don’t know if the rules have changed since then. You would also argue the Universe in Krysis is ‘alien’ by any definition of the word.

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It’s also because you have 4 guys who, let’s be frank, like showing off in front of an audience.

But isn’t that more of a point in favour of the live shows, not against them?

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> isn’t Robert Llewellyn notoriously dreadful at knowing his lines?

Fair to say there is a difference between learning lines for a stage play with lots of lead time and rehearsals, and learning lines for a Friday evening record that is substantially different from last Friday’s record, and alongside learning lines for midweek filming as well.

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> Did he post his portfolio?

Hopefully not, we wouldn’t want Better Dead Than Smeg having to spend three hours on the phone to Robert in another round of Things That Definitely Happened And Make Perfect Sense, Honest Guv.

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I always start my compliments with “hopefully it will be better than…”.

All those people that said “hopefully Mechocracy/M-Corp/Skipper is better than Timewave” were really just giving Timewave the highest possible praise.

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Jeillo Edwards

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Red Dwarf is the only show I engage in any form of online discussion about. I may occasionally read reviews or have a look at forums to see what people thought of a particular episode of another show, but here is the only place I ever post an opinion or discuss a show online. So for me, spaffing all episodes onto an on-demand service in one go is perfect, because as others have said here it means I have complete control over when I watch them – six in one go, one a day, one a week, I control.

But for Red Dwarf I *want* to be waiting a week, and having the discussion and the anticipation and the community spirit that comes with all watching on the same day (preferably at the same time, but I didn’t feel it was a massive hindrance last year with people joining the Let’s Talk About… threads as and when they had watched). I would definitely not be keen for all six episodes to go up in one hit.

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For me, it is the combination of the way Robert says “bollocks”, the complete unexpectedness of the nickname (bearing in mind we have also just come straight out of the excellent “and you are…?” gag), and the whole Kryten-insults-Rimmer-even-further-whilst-trying-to-apologise-a-la-Polymorph situation that makes the Captain Bollocks gag a definite highlight.

It’s not really any more puerile than the likes of “Ace hole, maybe” or similar from the earlier series.

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Oh wow it seems Cured could turn out pretty controversial

It is the one Andrew Ellard described before the shoot as potentially divisive. That said, it was the one I was in the audience for and I thought it was some of the best Dwarf I’d seen. I acknowledge that watching it live with hundreds of other RD fans can skew an opinion, but the set reports – both here and elsewhere – was all very positive. Plus, the feedback from those who saw the episode in Edinburgh is pretty positive too, although again I acknowledge that watching it on a big screen amongst hundreds of other RD fans can skew an opinion.

I am mostly confident that what we will have in two weeks’ time is one belter of an opener for the new series.

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Although she is (they are) a “she” in the very first paragraph…

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3. The whole “Reality sucks!” bit is actually hilarious when you are eight.

Apropos of barely anything, but I was touched by the way the cast (Robert in particular, I think) responded in the commentary for that episode when they discovered that Jeillo Edwards had passed away. And while I wouldn’t claim “reality sucks” is the best joke ever, Jeillo’s infectious laugh about it did make it a bit funnier.

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Someone called 11, I said, “Oh. Shit.” and we watched “Twentica”, which didn’t go over particularly well. I wonder if that was my fault?

Did you project your own negativity about it while you were watching it? <i>Twentica</i> is a strong RD episode that, aside from the weird coda at the end (and even then it’s not like RD hasn’t done weird codas before), would comfortably have sat amongst the ‘golden 36’. Like any RD episode (including I-VI), if you pick hard enough at it there are reasons to pull it apart, but as an episode to demonstrate the essence of the show it would and should succeed. If it didn’t go down well then the mood and reaction was likely either led by yourself, or chances are your friends simply wouldn’t like RD anyway – there is nothing about that episode that makes it a “bad” representation of the show.

Given that this thread is essentially a proxy for “everything from VIII onwards is shit”, I’m surprised you even gave a choice of all eleven series if you doubt the quality of a third of the episodes.

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As for Officer Rimmer, I’m not 100% certain but I now think the scene was reshot and not recorded on the night for this episode.

Yeah the plot is thickening on this one. Naylor Jr’s tweet implies that bits were cut and stuck in other episodes rather than reshot, but unless Cat and Lister have identical outfits in XII.1 as XI.4, I don’t see how it could not be a reshoot given that their outfits stick for the entire episode.

Certainly to my recall, only the ‘flying’ scene has made its way into an episode we’ve seen, so the use of “eps” plural in Richard’s tweet suggests that maybe some episodes of XII have also received some donor material.

October? Really..?!

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And for anyone that was at the recording, they cut that stinker of an old joke so good news all round.

Is that (likely) the one Ian referred to in the set report as a punchline mocked by Lee & Herring? (If so, I actually quite liked that gag, cliched as it was – hoping it reappears in the Deleted Scenes).

Given that we know that the ‘flying-as-a-euphemism-for-wanking’ stuff recorded for this episode actually made its way into Officer Rimmer, without spoiling anything are you able to say if anything was added to this episode to replace it, or did it just run to time even without that scene?

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> I was pleased to see in the Howard Goodall DVD feature that he wasn’t responsible for those shit lyrics, and even had a second verse of his own.

Whilst I have no doubts about the genius of Howard Goodall, I would argue that the “shit” lyrics of Ian Hu’s alternative version are still better than some of the additional verses that Goodall wrote, according to the same DVD feature. Can you honestly say that the Hu lyrics are worse than:

I’d like to have
Red blotches on my face
Make a mess
Of my nose
I’d love to peel
In every awkward place
Fun, Fun, Fun in the Sun, Sun, Sun

‘cos, you know… they’re kind of dreadful lyrics that barely even scan properly,

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