RunawayTrain

[RunawayTrain]

I always find it a bit sad coming across a forum set up in the traditional way that doesn’t have much activity (especially when it becomes clear it’s never had much activity!), and I personally rather like the unstructured nature here. The other two fora I frequent are in traditional form but they have thousands of users and at least a hundred active at any one time, covering a wide range within their main topic of interest so they really need it. Here very much does not – at most the useful categories would likely be Red Dwarf and Not Red Dwarf, with maybe a subcategory for cast/crew (non-Dwarf projects) and … I really don’t know. And that’s coming from someone who used to border on the obsessive when it came to categorising everything and anything!

[The thought of tags did cross my mind as a possible step towards categorising forum threads, but it may not be worth the effort and actually the search feature maybe makes that a redundant idea regardless.]

[RunawayTrain]

The choice of Barber’s Adagio for Strings in the final scene. I think a lot of that final scene worked very well – made me cry the first few times I saw it, even though it was after BTE so I already knew the characters would be back – but I’d have to rewatch to point out other specific bits. The music pulled everything together and really gave it that impact though.

[RunawayTrain]

oh yeah, and I thought Rimmer being “old Rimmer” again was fun.

I’ve not watched the series often enough to pinpoint what exactly changed, but to me he just seemed a lot more relaxed, happy at times, and smiled a lot more than we’d seen previously.

I’d have to rewatch to pinpoint much more, but one thing that does stands out is the ridiculously long salute to Hollister. I know there are people who don’t like it, but even seeing just that clip never fails to make me laugh :D

[RunawayTrain]

@Ben Saunders Ah, maybe that was the intended joke then: taking the virus backfired because he got far more than he bargained for.

[RunawayTrain]

If we’re being serious, the Blue Midget dance has to win surely? Dream/AR sequence or not, that’s just a waste of screen time.

Yup. Not much of VIII actually made me physically cringe, but that did. Yeesh.

The assaults on Rimmer still confuse me. He took the sexual magnetism virus to become irresistible to women, then when they can’t resist he tries to refuse? I’m not victim-blaming at all, but at the same time the women were not in control of themselves – we saw how it affected Kochanski, and how she felt disgusted and mortified once it wore off; her actions were not willing – so the women with Rimmer would feel similarly, and equally their actions were not willing either.

(Btw if the genders were reversed I would still be confused; it just would may have been more immediately recognised as problematic.)

I can only conclude that Rimmer trying to refuse was another thing for the sake of ‘oh this’ll be funny’ without thinking through the implications. The implications of the virus making someone actually irresistible – not just attractive – are problematic in themselves, too. I cannot see a way around the situation (e.g. Rimmer consenting) that would make it okay.

[RunawayTrain]

Meltdown I’m not sure I fully understand, I feel like there might be a layer to it that I’m missing? It also feels odd because there are so many extra characters which is unusual for the show – and we don’t actually get to know any of those characters at all (beyond knowing who they are, of course), unlike most others they meet throughout the rest of the show. There are still bits that make me laugh whenever I do watch the episode though.

Backwards was a real technical feat, but I don’t enjoy it as much after the first several viewings. There’s nothing wrong with it, and the attention to detail when they’re on the backwards earth is remarkable (occasional lapses in logic/chronology aside) – I enjoy watching it occasionally, but it’s not one I would necessarily choose to watch even once a month, whereas some episodes I would happily watch on repeat (no exaggeration).

I think I read a comment about Bodyswap not having the foley in with the overdubbed voices; if that’s the case then that would explain why I enjoy it less than I feel I should. When I do watch it I enjoy it more than the others on this list, but I’m never quite drawn in, and I think that might just be because of the missing foley. (Can fan edits rectify that sort of thing?) Everything else about it I enjoy which is why it feels odd to be including it in this list.

Back to Reality I don’t enjoy as much as it seems others do – but when looking at it in context in the original run, I absolutely get why it’s often cited as a fan favourite. It feels a bit like Backwards in that respect, that in context it’s much greater than what the episode does with the characters, for me. Again, enjoyed more with infrequent viewings rather than frequent.

I absolutely would not say any of them are ‘bad’ episodes, just … ones I overall enjoy less. They all have scenes or lines I really enjoy, and the beauty of watching some eps less frequently means I forget about some of the great lines in them and enjoy those all the more when I hear them :D

4 lesser out of 18, not bad. From the same 18 I would rate 6 of them as my favourites, leaving 8 of them in the ‘good’ area between favourites and … whatever this list is.

[RunawayTrain]

This was an online feed. There was no TV involved to set to anything.

Ah right. Yes I think someone mentioned on another thread that via UKTV Play it was a different aspect ratio – very odd. I know nothing about the software that goes into this but I do know they had issues in the past with subtitles for on-demand when the broadcast versions were fine (took them a couple of years to sort out), because of technical differences, so maybe there’s also a difference in what aspect ratio it can handle?

It’s frustrating to argue against, because the demographic that will actively complain about this are mostly the ones who have the DVDs/Blu rays on their shelves so don’t exactly need to watch Dave, and the casual viewers will just assume that it always looked like shit.

Ugh, yes that’s true :(

[RunawayTrain]

Dave is apparently broadcasting BBC-era Dwarf reruns stretched into 16:9. It sucks.

I watched BTL on Dave and it was 4:3. Actually I don’t remember seeing any stretching of BBC-era Dwarf on Dave in the last few months (except the cropping in the documentary).

The TVs in our house are set to ‘Auto’ for this reason, to show things in the actual aspect ratio broadcast rather than arbitrarily stretching everything. Yesterday – also part of UKTV – tend to show other old sitcoms in original aspect ratio too (e.g. ‘Allo ‘Allo).

[RunawayTrain]

The knight escaping from the VR machine makes no sense. its a joke that’s forgets its not a holodeck from star trek.

It was Lister dressed up, wasn’t it? To convince Rimmer he could become Ace. He was supposed to think it was an escaped knight from VR (which indeed wouldn’t have made sense, but as has been said before, stranger things have already happened so why should he not believe this?) but in reality it was Lister, who had also put the blanks in the bazookoids.

Unless I’m misremembering. Edit: someone also commented upthread that it was Lister, so I’m not going mad after all ;)

[RunawayTrain]

Do people like Lister really pronounce Michigan with a hard CH sound?

I’m very much not a person like Lister, but not having heard ‘Michigan’ pronounced until my 20s, before that I thought it had a hard CH. I don’t know whether Lister as a character would have had that reason though (nor Craig Charles as an actor – if he didn’t initially know, plenty of people around him for rehearsals and whilst recording would have known). Maybe a flub – just like I think “a whole lease of line” was – and for whatever reason just wasn’t picked up, or at least not picked up in time to do anything about it.

[RunawayTrain]

Well, he’s working on it:
a reply to the above tweet, in part said
“Please, Doug
Stop Tweeting and get on with it”

To which he simply responded, “I am”

I am.

— Doug Naylor (@DougRDNaylor) June 7, 2020

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