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This man is closer to Dennis The Donut Boy than the firm-but-fair, relaxed-but-competent Captain of S1 and 2.

I’m not necessarily defending the VIII version, but I would argue that the moment you start trying to make Hollister a funny character who has quirks and delivers jokes you’re automatically breaking from his initial characterization in the early series anyway. The only true comedic scene he has pre-VIII is in Stasis Leak where he’s still acting the same straight-laced captain as he always does early on, but there’s the farcical elements of the silly costume and Rimmer misunderstanding it against him acting like a totally normal, reasonable guy.

I’m not convinced Hollister would be that engaging of the character or produce that many jokes if you expanded his role but then tried to rigidly adhere to the original depiction that has all of four apperances in which he is mostly taking disciplinary action against his subordinates, one of which lasting about 15 seconds.

I’m fine with making him a little bit of a weirdo like every other character if you’re planning to do anything more with him than just have him be a somewhat stern authority figure. It’s not that you can’t make comedy with this personality, but he doesn’t seem to be the type to deliver quippy dialogue or have strange quirks that can be mined for jokes.

I know this is probably a bit sacrilegious on G&T but I think I would be fine with the direction VIII takes Hollister if he just had better material (which also includes not constantly making fat jokes). I also can’t imagine simply trying to revert to his original characterization improving his Skipper cameo, either, because what jokes would he deliver? Mac is a really funny actor and I like when he has more to do than be stern. It’s just that I don’t think he was given very strong material when he was a focal character of the show.

Titan Hollister is a lot more subtle in terms of being a weirdo than Captain Dennis, too.

Anyway, my main argument is just that I don’t think the original characterization of Hollister has enough comedic meat on it to sustain a role much larger than the limited appearances he has in The End, Me2 and Stasis Leak, and I understand why both Doug and now Rob made him a bit silly in their solo efforts. Your mileage may vary as to the success of these attempts.

(My spell check seems to have fucked off so I sincerely hope I fixed everything.)

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I speak the Queen’s English, American, where raw and roar sound nothing alike but merry, marry and Mary are all homophones.

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My favourite hilarious/annoying running gag is that if someone mentions “raw chicken”, I then loudly roar the word chicken.

I’m going to trust that this makes sense with your accent because those are wildly different sounding words to me.

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Please, I love The X-Files. I’ve been showing it in order to my girlfriend and we’re having a great time with it. I feel like I’m a kid waiting for Christmas with the season 2 finale looming like 18 episodes away with the astronomical rampage Agent Mulder goes on in that episode.

I still unironically enjoy the show a lot but I do get some ironic fun out of the cheesier or more unhinged elements. Took everything dead seriously as a 15 year old watching it for the first time. Scully may have fundamentally rewired my brain.

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The real fun of the X-Files is that Mulder is still a maniac who is completely out of control in some episodes, the world just contrives to make him right.

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if Rob & Doug can forget that Rimmer is supposed to be blue when he’s hard light then so can this guy

What did Rob Grant write for Blue?

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Not a real quote.

In fairness I’m not sure the real quote would fit.

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Thanks for telling me because I would’ve dumped the GIFs into my VFX editor, done it manually and then converted the results back to a GIF (or started with the original video clips).

Which to be fair I could do to involve more complex manipulations.

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I first watched Eraserhead in high school while robotripping at 2 AM and I’m still not sure if it was the best or worst movie-watching experience I’ve ever had.

I need to watch more Lynch stuff.

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I always wished that show went full comedy like that and toned down the bleak gang stuff, but I know that’s a minority view.

If you want a show with Vince Gilligan on the writing staff doing straight comedy you should watch The X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen. Or, on second thought, stop after you’ve watched the first episode and then looked up when it aired. That date is much funnier than the show.

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Because you didn’t cheat by doing a bunch of manual work to crop the 4:3 frame.

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You win the prize* for first to notice!
*there is no prize

I was complaining out loud to my friend that the GIF will probably turn out badly and then it was perfect.

My prize is that I grew up with the SEGA Dreamcast.

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Chapter 29

I like that Rob and Andrew cleverly explain how Carzon is happier than Rimmer and Lister because he accepts his lot. It also rings true.

This also feels a bit like Rimmer’s fish speech in Siliconia.

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I’m still waiting for him to get into a feud with Robert over electric cars. It’s 2026, the closest thing we have left to new Red Dwarf is Chris fully transforming into Rimmer and spouting alliterative insults at the other cast.

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I am so pleased that mixing aspect ratios on the Smegadrive works correctly now.

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I didn’t assume he was Cat’s dad, on account of him referring to Cat’s dad as a separate person.

I need to stop making sarcastic comments after being at work for 10 hours because I don’t think I correctly read the post at all.

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I didn’t assume he was Cat’s dad, on account of him referring to Cat’s dad as a separate person.

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I still can’t believe they let Bill Watterson get away with formatting Sunday strips like that later in the run. They’re always so visually interesting in a way no comics were usually allowed to be.

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I never played Chaotix, but I played some beta thing that had that elastic effect with Sonic and Tails.

One turned into the other. The gimmick is shit. I have much to say about it but this is a thread about Red Dwarf.

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As opposed for Waiting for God, which features God.

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No, encased in dung.

As opposed to the Dave era, which is encased in Doug.

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 30/07/2026 

White Hole (is that Cat’s hair in a dark corridor?), Backwards (is that Lister in the green room?)

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The reaction is because it happened suddenly on the set without being planned.

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His key scene toward the end is probably the comedic highlight of the whole special considering how novel it was just to have an extended sequence of really good new Norman shtick on the show.

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The lighting and the grade are 90% of what makes him look corpsey in Skipper.

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I’m interested in how the longer specials will play out considering they probably won’t be designed to be carved into multiple complete regular episodes like the old “movies” were, which gave all of them except for Bender’s Big Score a weird structure. But I also need this next season to continue the upward trajectory of the last or I’m going to have to consider the Hulu run to be fairly mid in its totality. There’s been a number of episodes I liked but I haven’t felt the need to rewatch most of the run even once, which bugs me considering I watched the FOX episodes to fucking death in the 2000s and even the Comedy Central ones to a lesser extent in the 2010s.

I also really need to this next last-episode-ever-but-we-already-know-it-isn’t to land, because Otherwise was honestly kind of a fucking mess.

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XI and XII were in regular rotation with the Bubble for a while on my end.

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I have realised in recent years that my recollection of a lot of the Dave era is very low compared to classic Dwarf (which isn’t a surprise, I’ve maybe watched them 3 times each versus dozens for the classics) so I am looking forward to a rewatch where a lot of the jokes will probably feel fresh to me. 

I watched the ever-loving shit out of X-XII in the 2010s so I remember them all pretty well. There was actually a period I was watching mostly XI and XII just because they were fresh.

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Somebody explain that to me, because I just see Manuel from Fawlty Towers who is Spanish.

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I’m feeling that 2020s Red Dwarf Fan Malaise where I really want to put on an episode to casually kill 30 minutes but every one I consider gets a “Eh, I’ve seen that recently,” from my brain. What happened to us? We used to be a proper fandom and got a new series maybe two, three times a decade. What of Snacky? WHAT OF SNACKY?

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That and Rimmer accidentally walking back into the bridge are the two things I think are a genuinely tragic loss.

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Considering this episode famously overran its timeslot by 8-10 minutes I’m not at all surprised there’s really good material on the cutting room floor.

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I mean, I dislike 2001 and Solaris too so it’s certainly partly a me problem (I do like 2010 though). The subtext of my last post was that I appreciate TMP but I don’t enjoy it.

I love all three of these movies (and 2010 is pretty good too).

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 19/07/2026 

The Inquisitor, Holoship

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Hollister does specify it was cow vindaloo. Three times.

He doesn’t specify if it was a real cow though, which it clearly isn’t.

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Officer Rimmer is good, it just falls to fucking pieces a couple minutes before it ends.

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 15/07/2026 

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This is what I would consider a Gilligan’s Island Moment where they have a clear opportunity to escape the setting of the show by doing something obvious and the force of the status quo will not allow them.

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I’ll overlook the Officer Rimmer placement

I won’t.

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I continue to hope that the cow was meant to be as fake as it looked.

As a kid I tried to rationalize that it was a shit prop cow in-universe to act as bait. Now I think it’s probably just a shit prop.

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I never rated Polymorph that much

“Your Unpopular Red Dwarf Opinions”

I enjoy Polymorph well enough but it’s dropped singificantly from its former status as my favorite episode when I was like 12. I maintain that it is easily the cartooniest the show ever got pre-Stoke, which is probably a big reason why it appealed to me so much as a kid.

I also think at one point around that time my favorite episode was Ouroboros which is probably an inferior choice.

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