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They both have about 3 good episodes’ worth of material, so basically do you prefer 6 half-good episodes that let you down at the end or 8 mostly-bad episodes with the occasional spark of life

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I stand with Frank

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I like the time wand and some of the captain’s office stuff, the morse code bit, the first scene with the dinosaur. Honestly Pete doesn’t lose me until a little while into part 2 when the story gives up.

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Sure, but do they junk the AR unit after realizing it is so dangerous?

Lister knows it’s a hoax, Cat doesn’t care, and Kryten figures out it’s a hoax when Lister doesn’t make any attempt to replicate it with one of his AI girlfriends.

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Their intentions are in tension you see, it’s actually really clever 😑

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Try causing a paradox & see what happens. Might get some extra storage space out of it.

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It’s in the model footage on the DVD but not the actual episode

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Adding soy sauce to cheap ramen?

Hey it’s only like 40% of your salt RDA, there’s plenty of room for more!

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As a kid I saw part of an episode (p sure it was Legion) at someone else’s house & made a mental note to track down the show later. Caught some of VII as it came out, but I only really got into it when Remastered happened (around the same time I got a TV in my room!) & I watched through series 1 as it re-aired. My first “current” series was VIII, so I suppose it’s fortunate that I was an idiot teenager at the time.

For a long time my main sources for Red Dwarf were: taped copies of III & IV off UK Gold, the first byte of series 1 remastered, the last byte of VII with the A-Z on it, and the programme guide book. I had the Smeg Ups/Outs boxset as well so I know a lot of those better than the actual scenes. I never saw Stasis Leak or any of V until the DVDs.

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I asked Grok to help me peel a big pile of potatoes, you’ll never guess what happened

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Oh yeah I don’t believe for a second that they knew what the monster was until at least season 3 (first mention of Jacob iirc), but making it turn out to be just some guy means it all hangs together well enough, because any inconsistencies you can say he changed his mind, he got angry & lashed out, he was being arch & mysterious, etc.

I seem to remember the island moving being very explicit but I don’t think there’s a Lost Smegadrive to search up a quote.

No idea how they got back though. Island magic.

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The soapiness never gripped me and I wanted to know why a cabin was moving and why the smoke monster was showing people visions of their past and seemingly casting judgment on them and where the island went when it disappeared and what actually happened when the bomb went off and a load of other stuff and absolutely none of it was even given a handwavey answer, it was just completely ignored.

The smoke monster was poking around everyone’s memories looking for someone he could manipulate into killing Jacob. He’s also just generally kind of a dickhead, which can account for a lot. The island moved to one of the other places around the world that’s connected to the life/magnetic/whatever-it-is energy (on Eloise Hawking’s big pendulum map). The bomb cancelled out the meltdown at the dig site, or something like that (it’s vague but the gist of it is they saved the island by causing The Incident we heard about at the Swan, & ultimately caused their own crash). Idk why the cabin moved.

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They wanted to check out the giant ship & it’s too far to walk anywhere, seems pretty reasonable to me?

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I think he was the showrunner on Star Trek Picard.

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Maybe spelling just isn’t such a necessary skill in the future when everything can talk to you. Handwriting is already in decline. He probably couldn’t read an analog clock either.

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Yes it was a dot-to-dot he was doing in Pete. The colour-by-numbers was Thanks for the Memory.

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Thurfday

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Auntie’s Smeggers

TV’s Smeggiest Blunders

It’ll Be Sorted Out In the Dub

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I mean, we have no evidence that nano-humans don’t also degrade at a rapid rate.

Lister’s nano-human arm still seems to be holding up.

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Been reading volume 2 over the weekend, it’s unsurprisingly a lot like volume 1. I’m noticing a lot more little mistakes though, and cries of plot hole that could easily be reasoned away. Not enough to sink it or anything, & I can understand putting more thought & rewatches into something like Gunmen than Pete, but that’s why it’s a published book & not just some blog post, you’re supposed to full-ass it.

The photo section is actually Red Dwarf-related this time, so that’s cool. Fans of lists will enjoy the section at the back which has a load of broadcast dates, home media releases, video games (missing the java phone game though), & a brief summary of every Smegazine comic.

G&T (specifically the Coral Canvass) is cited a couple of times as evidence that certain episodes are shit. However the author did not seek a second opinion before giving 4.5 stars to Officer Rimmer, putting it on par with Marooned & Queeg.

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Maybe he’s doing the CBeebies thing? The original post just said he’s “acting”, could be voice acting

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I only recently noticed that the restaurant in Better Than Life is playing an arrangement of Tongue Tied. Did Cat already have that dream & the game pulled it from his memory? Or did the song originate in the game & he subconsciously appropriated it for his dream? Who’s dreaming this chicken?

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Sounds a bit silly but I’ll happily take a book if there’s one going

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Don’t forget to set some time aside to find & cast a lead actor who’s only available for one of those months

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Excited to see what RTD can do with a full year to work on a single script, plenty of time to really lock in & half-bake it to perfection.

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The release date for volume 2 has slipped a couple of times, now due at the end of November.

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Sorry, I didn’t want to start an argument… I’ll shut up

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… yes? If the text is “the JMC does things this way”, but there’s no commentary or jokes undercutting the idea actually in the show, then ultimately it’s just presenting it as something completely neutral and normal.

No, if the text says “the JMC does things this way”, & there’s nothing modifying that, then that’s all it’s said. You’ve conjured “works perfectly” out of thin air.

There is plenty modifying it of course, like that whole Kryten subplot it exists to serve in the first place. But then we’re just back at the first thing I said. Dickless man encounters flaw in dick-based policy. No one else interacts with the concept at all, it does one thing & it’s stupid & bad. Where is the ambiguity here.

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But it does say something about humans, that’s my point. It says “this penis based system of gender classification works perfectly when applied to humans”.

Does it?

Not just that it’s the standard applied by the JMC, but that it works? Perfectly?

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It is open to interpretation, but in my opinion, yes it is the Series VIII logic.

But if the joke is about robots & doesn’t say anything about humans either way

And if extrapolating the concept to humans leads you to an implication that’s good & correct

Then at what point did series VIII actually take a dodgy position on it?

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According to Series VIII logic (which is the only thing that was being discussed in the first place) you would in fact become a woman overnight.

Is that actually series VIII logic though, or is it the in-fiction bureaucratic logic that’s clearly understood by the characters & audience to be so farcical that it doesn’t even merit much discussion? Like at what point does literally anyone endorse it or take it seriously as an idea?

Sure it comes off a bit crass to joke about now because it’s become such a specific line of attack, but when Kryten says “I’ve been classified as a woman because I don’t have a penis”, & Kochanski looks baffled & the audience laughs, to me that’s a heartening reminder that when people weren’t actively having their minds poisoned with that kind of thinking, they saw it for the nonsense it is.

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I’m with Rushy on this one, VIII looks gr-VIII quite good most of the time. They managed to blend together the different aesthetics from the previous series really well, so you’ve got the brightly-lit officers’ areas from III-IV coexisting with the more spartan submariney bits from I-II, & then when they go on an away mission it’s all grimy like V-VII. All unified by splashes of orange & purple, be it from cartoonish coloured lighting (to suit the more broad tone when dealing with the crew) or from rust & prison jumpsuits. There’s maybe a bit of an intangible “BBC sitcom” vibe to it, but I think that’s fair given that it is one. The only real complaints that come to my mind would be the calculator font, & the bit where they try to show that Pete is asleep by just rotating him 180 degrees.

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Did he install them himself, or were they fitted at the ol’ factory?

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Government Response

“We have no plans to revive Red Dwarf’s 90 minute special at this time. The Government is committed to the arts and will continue working with the Home Office to monitor the situation closely.”

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I’m sparing Dr Lucas McClaren because despite only being in it for like a scene and a half & overdoing the chair screws thing a bit, he manages to have several funny & memorable lines that pop into my head all the time.

MP Thornton
Doc Newton
Doctor
Panel Woman Officer
Second Woman Officer
Last Woman Officer
First Ground Controller
Second Ground Controller
Ackerman
Guard (Cassandra)
Kill Crazy
Warden Knot
Man in Film
Woman in Film
Mex
Young Kochanski
Young Cat
Baxter
Birdman
Talia
Big Meat

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Quarantine, one of the best episodes not just of Red Dwarf but TV in general, eliminated because Series VIII and certain Smegazine comic strips are bad?

All true but mainly I just wanted White Hole to win 😇

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Knocking out Quarantine because VIII ruined the positive viruses & the Smegazine ruined Mr Flibble & I don’t like the bit where Rimmer goes “durrrr”

Waiting for God

White Hole

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Marooned is some of the finest character drama in the series, but Future Echoes does well at that too, while also having one of the tightest scifi plots. It gets the whole cast involved as well. I’m burning Marooned for the Winter.

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I’ve already voted this round, so I can’t be the one to make the decision. But if I could vote here I’d remove Holoship, just because I first saw the episode after I’d read the script and was disappointed that the Holly/Rimmer scene where he’s in a rush and she goes slowly through a polite version of their conversation was deleted.

But I can’t vote. So I beg whoever can to keep me in mind when they make this crucial choice.

I like both episodes but I do hate the meme quite a lot so yes I’ll knock out Holoship.

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Legion’s personality is influenced by the studio audience who watch passively and find it all very funny.

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The announcement is up on TOS now, with a press kit for Sin Bin Island.

There’s also a new pic (I think?) on the Amazon listing for the new box set:

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Definitely include the music though

[Author]

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