Moonlight

[Moonlight]

Filtering a more standard sitcom trope (an election episode) through a sci-fi lens is something I am totally on board with Red Dwarf doing on occasion alongside its more overtly sci-fi outings. I like that Mechocracy doesn’t feel like any other episode in XI / XII, and it’s got by far the highest density of skutters in that era which gives it a lot of points in my book. (I believe the only other skutters we see are the one at the beginning of Give & Take, and the two wearing hard hats in Officer Rimmer.)

It’s also worth noting that the election stuff doesn’t come in at all until around the halfway point.

[Moonlight]

Any day now the BBC are gonna pass on Series XIII, and hopefully they won’t release any tie-in merch either.

[Moonlight]

I would play the fuck out of this.

[Moonlight]

My thread has a better title so, in a cosmic sense, I was first.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

All these years we’ve missed that in addition to being his own father, Lister’s uncle is himself from the rich bastard timeline.

[Moonlight]

Series VI: space weevil for dinner

Series VII: 

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 30/05/2026 

I couldn’t remember what episode he wears that earring in but I remembered it’s brought up in The Last Day.

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 29/05/2026 

I’m so mad, I had the correct answer first and second guessed it with Skipper.

[Moonlight]

 

Did you mean wacky or were you imagining their act being this?

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 28/05/2026 

Emohawk

[Moonlight]

We could make a list of times Rimmer comes into minor contact with props / the set / other actors.

[Moonlight]

It fits into that classic comedy tradition of gently poking pun at your own audience.
I much prefer it to the stuff in Back to Earth Part 2 where they make fun of the guy who doesn’t like science fiction. That feels a lot more obvious.

I still feel like that joke is having it both ways and taking the piss out of the show as well.

[Moonlight]

It’s also a staggeringly better episode of television, too.

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 26/05/2026 


Can of Worms (pinkish lighting in a corridor?), Officer Rimmer (I mixed up a scene while thinking of the actual answer)

[Moonlight]

One of the stronger model shots in the early series.

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 26/05/2026 

[Moonlight]

TPL, Dear Dave (hadn’t woken up properly) Justice 

You have only yourself to blame if you’re presented with a 4:3 frame and you’re guessing Dave episodes. Turn in your badge and gun.

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 25/05/2026 

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

Please, I coined that law almost a decade ago.

Moonlight’s Corollary: Any G&T discussion, given enough time, will devolve into a series of nigh incomprehensible Smegadrive memes.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 24/05/2026 

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 23/05/2026 

I was SURE it was the Series 1/2 bunkroom monitor.

[Moonlight]

Late night with the devil is a black comedy, I don’t think they’re expecting you to buy it as real footage. It’s basically a feature length version of Gath Merenghi’s Dark Place or Inside No.9 The Devil of Christmas.

I might need to watch it again because I thought it was at its strongest when it was capturing the corniness of 70s television but it kinda lost that over the runtime and it just felt like it was being played straight but wasn’t that good.

I feel like if they were gonna break from the found footage framing device at the end they might as well have just done that for the “behind the scenes” sequences since there’s no reason in the world anyone would ever be filming that.

And when I say “real footage” I don’t mean in regards to being presented as real, just whether it believably mimicked real footage given it is a found footage film and those live and die for me based on how believable I find the technical side of them.
Even something as simple as the video quality didn’t look anything like the crappy 70s era video tape these shows would be filmed on. But I’d care way less if the actual movie clicked with me.

[Moonlight]

I can understand the desire to use less plastic, but maybe use less plastic in packaging that actually gets thrown away. I get tired of opening modern DVD / Blu-ray cases for the first time and finding one or more discs completely loose in the box. But then there’s those goddamn complete series sets where they stack the discs and you have to come within about 5% of snapping the discs in half to remove them.

[Moonlight]

American Blu-ray cases are so flimsy. Every time I import a BD/4KBD from Europe the case is so nice and solid and simply better made.

[Moonlight]

Vaguely RD related, but I showed my friend Ghostwatch with absolutely no context and they thought it was a real live thing from the time until shit started getting really crazy. Best possible outcome, no notes.

It never ceases to amaze me how perfect the illusion of it being a genuine live broadcast is. Late Night with the Devil, which is pretty derivative of Ghostwatch, has a lot of other issues but a primary one for me was that there was basically no point during its runtime that I actually bought it as real footage. Ghostwatch never has that problem.

[Moonlight]

I have gone to work hungover exactly twice in my life at which point I decided I was never going to let that happen again.

[Moonlight]

I think everyone just needs to admit they’re trying to get drunk and stop pretending they actually enjoy the flavor of alcohol.

[Moonlight]

but like a lot of 90s weekly sci-fi it doesn’t have a lot of internal logic or hold up to scrutiny

This is another point for the X-Files, since it’s full of magic and sea serpents and alien goo that ontologically don’t hold up to scrutiny.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

I just hit 3,603 with this post.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

I can’t, but Doug can.

[Moonlight]

Yeah, but later references to Lister going to art college only make sense if he didn’t immediately drop out.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

Lister WAS an art student.

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 21/05/2026 

So close to failure.

[Moonlight]

I’m pretty sure those were going to start being discarded a little while ago so it’s probably already done.

[Moonlight]

Tbf, I’m at a point now where I think if we get another episode, it might be the last one.

I’m well past the point where I even think there’s another series / special / TV whatever written by Doug with the main cast coming anymore. Which sucks because in early 2020 I was about as sure as I ever was that there’d be more after TPL.

[Moonlight]

I’m glad it is the way it is, it’s just that if we got Series XV next year I’d want it to be taking some chances. Add Mac to the main cast. Do a Kochanski episode. Shoot an entire episode single cam. Do something off-kilter and unexpected.

[Moonlight]

I kept reading people who said at the time that they didn’t think you could’ve followed the plot of Back to Earth without seeing Blade Runner, which is obviously bullshit. I never had a problem. What’s confusing is why it’s parodying Blade Runner in the first place. I might be immensely disappointed by BtE now if it was the only thing we got, but having gotten three series and a movie* since that I’ve broadly enjoyed a lot more it’s easy to appreciate it being really fucking weird and different. I just don’t put it on much.

I hunger for another Red Dwarf thing that takes this wild of a stylistic swing. Just, better. I adore Series XI in particular, but Dave Dwarf is definitely mostly the “safe” version of a Red Dwarf revival by sticking roughly to the model of III-V.

[Moonlight]

I uncritically loved Back to Earth because I had only just turned 13, VII and VIII were two of my favorite series and I would’ve liked anything they put out. Granted I am still a defender of VII and BtE, but not VIII. Coronation Street I only had any context for from reading people talking about everything on G&T because there is no reason in the world I ever would’ve been aware of it at the time otherwise.

2016 was a pretty shit year all around, but Series XI was probably my favourite thing about it.

Same.

[Moonlight]

I got into the Red Dwarf in 2007. As I’ve said many times but will reiterate for the newbies, my dad who had initially read the novels a decade earlier and seen an episode here and there on PBS was renting through DVDs on Netflix during the summer. I vaguely remember catching the Hol-rock bit but I know I started really actively watching in Series III. It became my new obsession, so you can imagine how pleased I was when it very quickly went from a long-dead to active property within two years.

As much as I loved it to begin with, I sincerely doubt the show would’ve been as big a part of my life as it has been if I hadn’t been getting new episodes every couple of years from about ages 13-24 while I followed and participated in the hype cycle on G&T each time. This site is by a fairly wide margin the online community I’ve been an active part of for the longest.

[Moonlight]

[Moonlight]

#RedDwarf #Smegle 20/05/2026 

I posted this already and it just disappeared.

[Author]

Replies