SertainDeaf

[SertainDeaf]

>> But we all know that ratings, whilst great, and applause whilst fun at the time doesn?t really cut the mustard.
>In other words ?It?s the opinions of people like me that really matter??

I carefully explained what I meant by that later on. If my criticisms are not interesting or useful then they will be disregarded, I’m fine with that. The mustard I was referring needing to be cut is quite clear – and that is with the influential. Equally clearly that does not equal me.

>> Telling someone like Doug, who by this stage will doubtless have scripts ready, what individuals want to see is pointless. Telling him what to avoid still gives him creative freedom, if he wants to listen.
>So ?I?d love to see this? is damaging, but ?don?t include this? is liberating?
>No offence, but I think this kinda illustrates my point – ?My form of criticism is useful and should be taken on board?not like those other forms.?

No offence, but that is just your spin on my point. I’m sure I don’t have to break it down further for you, or do I? Try not to conflate “pointless” with “damaging”.

>> The defensiveness about Series 8 and the criticisms worry me slightly; I wonder does Andrew know something we don?t?
>Do you have any idea how offensive this is?

I suspect no more or no less offensive than anything you have said that others don’t want to hear. I’m sorry you feel offended by it, but tough. It is the impression you are giving me. I have to ask why you are wandering around with a high pressure anti-critic firehose in your hand.

[SertainDeaf]

>>I loved Tikka To Ride
>It?s bizarre, but that?s the only thing you said that I agree with

Thats just dandy.

[SertainDeaf]

> it?s the ?and therefore the brand should listen to us as we insist on changes? thing that bugs me.
> Well, that and the ?people who like this are deluded? thing.

Or that “people who disagree with me are have psychological defect x/y/z” or are suffering from delusions of grandeur. Apart from our natural need to eat and shit one other immutable law of human beings is that we all have opinions. Not every criticism is a threat along the juvenile “lets boycott Bond” line.

“Sorry, I didn?t mean to kick off a whole VII/VIII thing. It was meant to be about the way fandom can often see its criticism as ?more valid? than Joe Soap?s. And then I lost it a bit.”

Who thinks that, on this board? Is it required?

I joined this board because people on it didn’t seem up their arses like your average fan board does.

Telling someone like Doug, who by this stage will doubtless have scripts ready, what individuals want to see is pointless. Telling him what to avoid still gives him creative freedom, if he wants to listen.

“Yay, I want to see Daleks! I want to see 1000 elephants! I want to see the back of Krytens head in every shot! I want to see nostril hair close camera work and high contrast lighting! I want more boobs and knob gags! Lets have monster of the week back again!”

Why? Because he already has his ideas, and I don’t want to watch a bunch of crap that any person on the street can come up with, I want something from the superb imagination of Doug Naylor (if he wants to run it by Rob Grant then its up to him, I don’t get the mystical power that people seem to give the combination as together they made as many mistakes as apart).

If you leave the creativity up to the writer/actors/directors what does that leave you with? What feedback should an audience ever give? Well they get enough plaudits on fan sites to keep them warm to the end of eternity. They could just rub their hands at their ratings. But we all know that ratings, whilst great, and applause whilst fun at the time doesn’t really cut the mustard.

If you are in the precarious position of Grant Naylor Productions, needing to build momentum up again in order to have another swing at a series, a movie et al you are surely in the business of building up goodwill and a reputation. You want your last chance (and this is surely it) to relaunch the brand you are trying to sell to set the right message.

You want people to say, “fuck me, that Red Dwarf 9, we want to see more than that, they really nailed it!”.

And who are the they?

No more than the word of mouth opinion, the views of influential critics like Charlie Brooker whose opinions are more or less tuned in with the 20 and 30, and not your average 5 line TV quick review. Want you don’t want heard is people pissing in the tent from outside afterwards about some twatty Rimmer song or how the show just found puny excuses to re-run old gags and old characters being extra Zany. Stuff that you could just as easily -if you had known or listened to your inner voice after slaving over far too many scripts this year – have dropped in favour of other material.

Pretending that Series VII and VIII were shining examples of Red Dwarf and its just self elevated fans being uber snobby about it might help Doug Naylor sleep at night and give VII and VIII fans a warm fuzzy glow of self righteousness, but it is needlessly dismissive if not a bit snotty.

For my part, I tried to watch series VIII again last night with Andrews’ comments in mind. Thinking perhaps, like Series VII which I happen to find quite watchable, I’d been influenced against it.

I got part the way through episode two before having to switch it off in disgust. I made a list of what was wrong, surprisingly it wasn’t the script (although it had problems):

1. The camera work & scene lighting eyestrain irritating.
2. Too close to characters in scenes. Pull the camera back a foot for fucks sake!
3. The music was just offputting.
4. Some of the extra actors just hammed it up in the most stupid way.

I even made a note at what time my appreciation of the episodes started to drop.

That comes down to, what, direction and production problems right? Perhaps Red Dwarf 8 just wasn’t aimed at me or all the others who have major problems with it. I can accept that. The writers can chase whatever audience they want, nothing special about me!

The defensiveness about Series 8 and the criticisms worry me slightly; I wonder does Andrew know something we don’t? Is he trying to short circuit criticism about it … perhaps because series 9 is more of the same? Eeek.

Bollocks to art, it just has to be funny, good, and re-establish the rep. It has to respect the audience or it will get the audience demographic it deserves and go nowhere. Red Dwarf had to fight an uphill battle against bigotry first time around, that obnoxious Guardian article shows that it has to do it again and fight against the damage it did to its own reputation and the Benny Hill in Space image that people who should know better seem to want to give it. You want it to gain advocates.

I don’t want Red Dwarf Series 9 to just succeed because of my own selfish nature – although I admit thats there – I want it to succeed because it has left a big gaping hole in the side of British comedy (and not just sci-fi comedy), and because I know Doug Naylor can do it.

[SertainDeaf]

Well, we all take different things from comedy I suppose. There might even be some people out there who liked Gimme Gimme and Dinner Ladies, or think that Is It Legal is the ACME of comedy. Just because they are diametrically opposed to my tastes doesn’t make them wrong.

(yes it does ;-) ).

[SertainDeaf]

>VIII is very popular just not so much with the community here.

Funny, I’ve never encountered anyone, when Red Dwarf comes up, who had a good thing to say about Series VIII. Not having seen it until relatively recently I wondered if it was Red Dwarf fatigue setting in but no, it really was a stinker in places. Perhaps if you only came to the series around 5 or 6 you wouldn’t think it stuck out like a sore thumb.

I quite like parts of 7. It just needed tighter direction, tighter editing and a better script for Kochanski.

[SertainDeaf]

But you like VIII and VII more than most seem to?

[SertainDeaf]

Andrew, were you involved in series 7 or 8 somehow?

[SertainDeaf]

Oh dear.

Moving on…

Series1 : High points – characterisation, script, taking its time to set things up before delivering the gag. Low points – cat was incredibly irritating in this series, no more so than in Waiting for God.

Series2 : High points – most of Kryten, all of Thanks For The Memory, Stasis Leak, and Queeg. The use of Holly was brilliant in the latter and the series were just about the right blend of sci-fi and exposition. Cat wasn’t so irritating, and apart from a few yawn inducing scenes in Better Than Life and Parallel Universe – those two just don’t work for reasons I haven’t worked out yet.

Series3 : Low points – Backwards. This was just shit. Sorry. I fail to get what is supposed to be so funny and great about this. The stupid stuff with the Reagan mask. Some clever bits but honestly, compare it with High Points: Marooned (brilliant in almost every way – bar two scenes with Kryten and Cat), Timeslides (masterstroke) and The Last Day (apart from the scene in the officers club where the characterisation starts to slip), the latter shows a “good” use of a monster. Polymorph was also pretty good in my view, forcing the actors to show a bit of range.

Series4 :
Lot to say here, as this to me represented a tipping point for Red Dwarf.

For me this is patchy at best. Camille was just yawn inducing, a second bad start to the series and I remember when I first watching it cringing. What was good in that episode was the use of different women(and cat) for the different crew members, using it to mirror their personalities. DNA was so-so, the return of monsters to run around against was a bit tedious. Justice was slightly better but again, monster. I remember watching this one with my brother and we were saying “surely if the monster shoots at them he will die” and waiting for Lister (i.e. the script) to catch up. White Hole, hmm. Good gag with the time jumps but the whole bit with Lister in the Aigburth Arms had me shifting in the seat waiting for the episode to end. Bit more friction between the characters in this episode. Dimension Jump was about as far as I would have liked Red Dwarf to take this “Dan Dare” parody, and the trousers of time/dimension stuff. The way it contrasted Rimmer with Ace Rimmer was great, and you could ignore the GPH problems because it was entertaining. Meltdown for me was a low point, apart from Listers’ speech. But when an episode contains hardly any comedy and loads of pathos you know its gone wrong.

Series 5: Holoship, Inquisitor, Quarantine and Back To Reality. Very much the highpoints and I remember at the time thinking “great, they have started going in the right direction”. Low points were Terrorform (snore, apart from the scene with Krytens’ eyeball at the start) and Demons & Angels.

Series 6: Psirens, well, hmm. It was going so well, any part beyond detecting the Real Lister was just tedious. Legion, excellent, even though the characters and their interaction start to become secondary to the plot (again) everything else about this episode makes up for it. Gunmen of the Apolcalypse was a steaming pile of dogturd, for me. I know everyone else loves it but I skip it these days. Polymorph II. See what I said about Series 3 Polymorph: “the latter shows a “good” use of a monster. Polymorph was also pretty good in my view, forcing the actors to show a bit of range.”. This didn’t happen in this episode. Rimmerworld was quite good, as a sci-fi episode and had some great scenes with Rimmer trying to deal with his stress. It was all a bit “obvious” somehow. Out Of Time was quite entertaining, and had some great scenes in it. Some of the gags were mere put-downs, but the ending made up for it. Better smeg than dead, indeed.

Series 6 worried me at the time.

Series 7. I loved Tikka To Ride, vaguely intelligent, some dodgy acting but the camera work and production values were great. But throughout this series the cut scenes and animations look very dodgy. Highlights: Tikka To Ride, Duct Soup (and I can say why I like this one) and the “hand, pick up the ball” gag. Low points: Blue, Stoke Me A Clipper (yawn, Ace Rimmer revisited).

Series 7 was the last one I saw, and I’m not sure I saw all of it first time around.

Series 8 I saw for the first time at Christmas, and came to it with no expectations. I hated Back in the Red. The gag with the ship going up the arse of a rat made my heart sink, it would be easier to say what I liked about those three. Erm. Hmm. The Cassandra episode was refreshing and I remember thinking, OK, so they took a while to get into it. Krytie TV was a bit broad but had some genuinely great lampoons in it. Pete and Pete II were best forgotten. Only the Good, well, if they had launched a series 9 off the back of that I think we could have safetly said that Series 8 was just an abheration.

So it isn’t a Red Dwarf is great apart from 7 + 8. It is that I was attracted to Red Dwarf in Series 1 and Series 2, and the elements of this series, apart from series 5 gradually diminish. The difference between 1,2,3,4,5 and 6,7,8 is like the difference between Extras and When the Whistle Blows. OK, not that bad, it just stopped being aimed at me.

(fixed some typos)

[SertainDeaf]

I also preferred the dry humour of Holly in series (1) and (2) than the ditzy humour of Hilly/Holly series (3) onwards, or even the pompous quips of Kryten standing in for that role. So my view, either drop Holly/Hilly altogether or use Norman (under careful direction).

[SertainDeaf]

I thought seeings Andrew felt that this was “everything is great but series 7+8” that I’d give more detail about what I saw as problematic. I could have just written that the later series got too lazy, but then he’d have asked me to justify myself. Catchphrases.. nuff said.

[SertainDeaf]

Yeah, it made me laugh, but you couldn’t repeat that type of gag. It was just about appropriate as a bon-voyage to ace-hole. Too much winking at the viewer and it becomes yawn inducing (screen saver).

[SertainDeaf]

Well to me it means “If it?s ?a long-awaited return to form?, then I don?t think anyone would mind.”.

I just want to name the broad comedy crap that was making Red Dwarf 8 head towards ?extremely popular but shit?.

[SertainDeaf]

I figure if I said all of us someone would say “I don’t”.

[Author]

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