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  • in reply to: The Gallifrey Gals’ own thread #296738
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Among all the many, many issues with Pete Part I, somehow I always find myself most irritated by the fact that a quadratic equation is not actually particularly hard.

    Well, for Rimmer they probably are, given his long tradition of melting down on astronavigation exams

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #291985
    Stabbim
    Participant

    In Stasis Leak, does it simply never occur to Lister or Rimmer that they could theoretically go back in time and fix the faulty drive plate?
    Is it not damaged yet? Is it took risky to attempt to fix it so close to the accident? Will somebody notice (our) Lister fixing it when (past) Lister should be in stasis? (I guess if it breaks after Lister goes into stasis then (past) Rimmer would report him for trying to help.) 
    If Lister realises he could go back in time and fix the drive plate, does he then have a massive existential crisis about it? Would the Cat, having travelled through the magic door, continue to exist, or would fixing the drive plate essentially condemn him to certain death? Is one life more valuable than the entirety of the crew?
    Does it create a paradox where (our) Lister ceases to exist and is therefore unable to travel back to fix it? Does Lister cease to exist but the drive plate remains fixed? Does there end up being two Listers on board since he already left the version of Red Dwarf that now no longer exists? How do they break the news to Kochanski that there’s two of them? One for the week and one for Sunday best? 
    Does hologram Rimmer moan that, even though (old) Rimmer will continue to be alive, hologram Rimmer is now not only superfluous, but also outranked by McIntyre and therefore destined to be switched off regardless? 
    COME ON ROB AND/OR DOUG, WRITE A ONE-UNIVERSE-TO-THE-LEFT NOVEL ABOUT THIS, PLEASE. 

    Well, it’s not jut Cat’s life, it’s all of Felis Sapiens, wherever they are.  And Lister already feels bad enough about what has happened to them an account of his laundry list and the color of the cardboard hats.  I’m willing to accept he is unwilling to unmake their entire collective existence (even though he apparently is in Timeslides, but whatever). So perhaps he’s not picking 1 life over 1,169, but millions.

    Other than that I suppose you’d have to accept that there’s no way for Lister to actually experience the alternate timeline this creates: the stasis leak only allows travel in that 3 million year increment, so the saved crew would still all be long dead anyway and he, too, would instantly expire upon stepping back through the leak, because he and Kochanski/Rimmer would’ve been let out of the stasis pods at the normal time, 2,999,999 years ago and lived out their lives on Titan, Io, or wherever. [And that Lister realizes this somehow, I guess].

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #291026
    Stabbim
    Participant

    This is a bit off topic but I didn’t want to start a thread over it. I’ve broken my toe and am going to be limping around for up to 12 weeks.

    Please meme my injury, I need a laugh.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #290969
    Stabbim
    Participant

    between this and Young Ones co-writer Lise Mayer I was just convinced Lisa with an E was just one of those British English vs American English things that I didn’t know about yet

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #290875
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 27/11/2023

    🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟩

    meta theory that it wouldn’t be the same episode two days in a row effectively gave me the extra guess i needed to nail this one just in time

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #290764
    Stabbim
    Participant

    and not an accent mark to be found anywhere.  Umlauts?  Tildes? Forget about it.  You’re on your own (more or less).

    in reply to: Fan Theory Corner #290678
    Stabbim
    Participant

    well that’s kinda the point with Lister, I think.

    In some respects Lister would be a very terrible/frustrating friend to have (doubly so a roomate, Rimmer’s frustrations with being bunked with him are quite understandable and sympathetic).  He’s a drunk and a slob and a slacker and can be extremely gross in a lot of ways.

    On the other hand, if you’re really up against it and he considers you a friend he’ll do his absolute best to come through for you. 

    Partying with him would get tedious but it’d be worth it to have him have your back in a scrap.

    It occurred to me in the past few years that Lister had a pretty sad life when he joined the Dwarf. He didn’t have any family left or long term friends. His lazy, slobby life meant he only ever had drinking buddies and didn’t have many ties back on earth. Which is why he obsessed over Kochanski so much as she was his only anchor to the idea of having family or people to care about.

    I suppose this helps me answer my occasional question about why Lister doesn’t always seem to miss/mourn Petersen Selby & Chen as much as I often feel he should (beyond the meta-knowledge that it doesn’t make particularly good TV to repeatedly make the same references to them without ever showing them).  Great drinking buddies, but they were replaceable and replacements themselves.  With Kochanski being his brief taste of what that “normal” life he never really had could be like.

    Mining is a tough, dangerous, lonely job.  Space mining would be exponentially more so.  The Lister character pretty much needs to be the sort of lonely, directionless sad sack who “has no life”.  Enough of a “loser” that he’d actually be willing to sign up for several years of a dead-end shit job that has to pay well because it’s so miserable nobody would ever do it otherwise.  Outside of his actual literal life, he’s got nothing to lose; the one sort of person for whom signing on to do grunt work for the JMC/on The Red Dwarf might actually be worth it.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #290543
    Stabbim
    Participant

    remember when Cat talked about his dick with a drill on the end

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #290501
    Stabbim
    Participant

    When TPL aired I was fully prepared for it to potentially be the last one – well, as prepared as one can be. 
    Of course I hope it’s not, but if it were to be I feel it was a good ending.  We’ve left our characters in almost a new chapter of life, emotionally, they’ll be off having new adventures still, and as a bonus they may even have potential allies in the cats.

    I’ve long been very big on Red Dwarf ending with Lister technically fulfilling the promise of “Cloister The Stupid” and thus making the cats’ religion essentially true.  And while he hasn’t actually gotten a portion of the cat species back to Earth/Fiji/Fuschal yet, TPL does scratch the itch.  Returning in time of great need, inspiring rebellion and liberation.  He’s fulfilled a promise, he has in some ways made it up to them like he was so concerned about doing in “Waiting For God”, and Felis Sapiens is being left in a better place at the end of TPL than it was found at the start of TPL.  Lister has done his divine duty to his “creation”.

    it’s close enough for me.

    in reply to: Unanswered Questions #290141
    Stabbim
    Participant

    I’ve always wondered, did the drive plate accident vaporise their bodies and turn them into piles of dust, or did they just decompose into such after three million years?

    Rimmer’s death tribute video does seem to suggest they had enough time to utter last words, which would lead me towards them being overwhelmed by acute radiation poisoning, rather than being vaporized in the moment.  But of course, it also suggests Rimmer and Hollister got blown to opposite sides of the drive room when their respective piles of pathway grit are right next to each other, so who really knows.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #290140
    Stabbim
    Participant

    still feel like Low Holly’s name should be spelled with a gratuitous and mostly silent IOUX in the middle

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #290007
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 23/10/2023

    ⬛🟩

    looked early era, then realized it was very early, i.e. the first thing we ever saw

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #289827
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Queeg was Quagaar.

    A handsome alien man, with long green hair and six testicles

    in reply to: ‘Appropriate’ Red Dwarf #289691
    Stabbim
    Participant

     As a very basic example – race is front and centre in the show through the cast. Less of a big deal in this day and age where more diverse casting is seen in many shows, but I genuinely think that a show giving us a core cast containing two black guys and making zero deal of it was an amazing thing to expose young minds to. Now I’m not saying I would have become a massive racist dickhead if I hadn’t watched Red Dwarf as a kid, but having something like this in front of you when you’re starting to form your own world view can only have been a good thing I think!

    Well, Holly abruptly becoming a girl and the show/characters being completely blase about it still packs some of that punch, I suppose.

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #289560
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 07/10/2023

    ⬛⬛🟩

    Krysis, Ouroboros.  Surprisingly difficult for a Big Wall O’ Blue

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #289310
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 30/09/2023

    ⬛🟩

    doesn’t get much easier than getting a full view of the guest star’s face

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #289294
    Stabbim
    Participant

    It’s not meant to be anything specific.  It’s a schlocky melodrama, painted by the numbers.  A dime a dozen.  Trashy romance novel but in film form. There’s a hundred like that and it could be any of them because they’re all basically the same.  And Lister loves ’em all because he’s a sappy hopeless romantic way deep down (hence the impossible pining over the very dead Kristine Z. Kochanski.  Meant To Be and Can Never Be, just like in his stories.).

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #289035
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 19/09/2023

    ⬛🟨🟨🟨🟩

    can’t sneak a S1 past me.  As usual, Rimmer’s uniform is the key

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #289014
    Stabbim
    Participant

    suffice to say the crew of the Nova-5 was still alive in this version

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #288994
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 17/09/2023

    🟩

    i haven’t even seen this full episode and yet I know that’s too pink to be anything else

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288978
    Stabbim
    Participant

    speaking of Queeg, has anyone ever tried to actually play out the chess match, and did it work?  Just thought there might be an easter egg joke where that tense, dramatic music implies a tight back-and-forth contest but if you follow the moves closely you realize Holly’s completely getting his ass kicked or something.

    Or is it just a bunch of illegal move nonsense that lets Holly say “horsie” and “prawn” a lot.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288946
    Stabbim
    Participant

    There’s so many ways that the series could’ve been good if it’d done one thing or another, but at the end of the day, Doug chose just the wrong combination of ideas to use.
    Obviously that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but you get the point I’m trying to make.

    I think that’s my biggest frustration with S8.  So many relatively small adjustments that could’ve made it really really good, and yet what we got was so bad and “un-Dwarfy”.  So many bits that felt like something you’d see in Every Other Sitcom, Ever.

    Plus, S1 did a great job of giving just enough glimpses of the living crew for me to miss them along with Lister.  So on paper I was really looking forward to the crew being back.  Such potential!  And then…

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288891
    Stabbim
    Participant

    tbh I’m surprised now she wasn’t recast as a serious love interest for Rimmer in 8. Then it could have been a Men Behaving Badly set up.

    And best of all, with McGruder as a gal-pal for Kochanski, there’s no narrative need for Kryten to be classified as a woman, and thus we get something, anything, other than Krytie TV.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288889
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Given how Series 8 treats the women who did appear, I’d say McGruder got off lightly.

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #288886
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 14/09/2023

    ⬛⬛🟩

    as often is the case, either Rimmer’s uniform or Kryten’s head is the dead giveaway

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288876
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Well, yes, but I always interpreted that in more of a “she’s weird/crazy” way rather than a “she’s ugly” way.  The punchline being that she’d have to be weird/crazy to actually be attracted to Rimmer (with “punch drunk” as the ultimate explanation) because a “normal” woman would never give him the time of day.

    Though her BTL manifestation can be explained away as “how pretty she is in Rimmer’s eyes vs how she looks to everyone else” if necessary.  The real McGruder never actually appeared on-screen, did she? (Yet another of S8’s many missed opportunities).

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288870
    Stabbim
    Participant

    have always been amused that the one bit of fleshing out Yvonne McGruder gets is that she’s the ship’s boxing champion.

    such a fun throwaway gag.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288867
    Stabbim
    Participant

    I also think that the point is that we’re seeing the two absolute extremes of what Rimmer could be – Ace is the best possible version, and (from what the closing text tells us) “our” Rimmer is the worst.

    It would be interesting to see what the in-between Rimmers are like. What’s an average Rimmer?

    As a technician only half are better

    He looks okay in a Christmas sweater

    Your chicken soup will never taste better

    He does his job to the letter!

    Average, Average, Average Rimmer

    He’s smarter than some, than others he’s dimmer

    Yvonne McGruder’s cooking his dinner

    He’s Rimmer, Average Rimmer!

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288759
    Stabbim
    Participant

    And then the Cat destroys a hillbilly vagina. See, it all fits together.

    “If he’s you, and you’re him, am I still me?  Who’s eating this pussy?”

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #288691
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 09/09/2023

    🟨🟨🟩

    Back in the game with a relatively easy one, I could recognize that ocean grey in my sleep.

    Or is it military grey?

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288603
    Stabbim
    Participant

    A head canon I’ve been mulling over is that Holly actually needed Rimmer to stop drifting and head home, with Rimmer being the only single crew member with enough practical knowledge of the entire ship to direct the shutters, and that’s why Rimmer remains in Timeslides. Not sure it can make sense though. Maybe he’d already done the job and set the course when Lister was woken. Him being a good companion for Lister was just icing on the cake 

    Well, Holly’s had 3,000,000 years to himself.  I imagine he’s gone through the crew archive in succession many times in the interim, making sure each crewmember disk actually works.  Possibly even making backup copies to guard against disk corruption and the ravages of time.  He would have been able to practically test each one to see who could direct the skutters best.  And with Lister still in stasis, there’s even more systems that can be shut down as “non-essential” for the time being, so Holly could easily run countless 2 hologram experiments with Lister’s hologram as the control, to see who is in fact best at keeping him sane.

    As for Timeslides, been a while since I rewatched it but I do remember Holly mentioning that it takes time for the new timeline to sort itself out, and only after a brief delay do Kryten and Cat disappear.  Which gave me the idea:

    just as how the more faster than light you’re going the further into the future the future echoes are, the further back in time you go to alter history and/or the bigger change you try to make, the longer it takes for the timeline to “sort itself out”.  Thus why Holly has so much time to compare timelines and see what’s changed, and why Rimmer has so much time to remember what was and attempt another alteration.  it’s a 3,000,000 year trip; lots of stuff needs to resettle.

    in reply to: How was Craig Charles cast as Lister? #288487
    Stabbim
    Participant

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288449
    Stabbim
    Participant

    I’ve just realised Rimmer and Krissie being holograms would be a pretty dramatic situation. Because we know they dislike each other, but they’d also be eachother’s only chance of physical contact, even if they just wanted a hug. And Lister would know that Rimmer potentially could hold her in his arms but Lister can’t. Rimmer would be thinking of trying to impress her to get a date.

    Well, Kochanski was so far above both of them in rank that I doubt she really interacted with Rimmer or Lister often enough to have a strong opinion either way.  But just as Lister looks back on that small sample and hopes it might have been indicative of greater fondness, Rimmer is likewise convinced the few times he heard her pronounce his name “to rhyme with scum” is proof of greater resentment.  It was almost certainly actually just formal, professional indifference. She might have been vaguely aware of Rimmer’s reputation as a tryhard smeghead from overhearing other officers’ chatter about him, and he surely didn’t win any points with her when he hurled her purse across the dance floor in the Balance Of Power flashback scene, but Rimmer’s not nearly as important as he thinks he is, so neither Kochanski or the other officers likely think about him nearly as much as he assumes they do.

    But, Rimmer does respect his superior officers [to their face, anyway], does enjoy needling Lister, and is very aware that Lister is over the moon for Kochanski. So, in the hypothetical Plan A for S2 where both their holograms are active, it does seem like it would fit so well with the early “Odd Couple In Space” tone of the show to have a scenario where Rimmer is trying his best to ingratiate himself to Kochanski not out of any fondness for her, but to climb what’s left of the command ladder, and to throw that more significant connection (and his disinterest in having it) in Lister’s face

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288447
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Rimmer does say “can you imagine a society composed entirely of me?” in the prison cell, though, implying it’s a society of Rimmer clones. He then goes on to call them all Judases, which typically only men get called. 

    I’ll agree it’s not explicitly stated but it is, at least, heavily implied. 

    well, Judas is his middle name, maybe it’s a popular one there ;)

    in reply to: How was Craig Charles cast as Lister? #288335
    Stabbim
    Participant

    There’s also the fact that the Series I doc on the Bodysnatcher DVD revealed Craig thought the script wasn’t that funny or good, but he went for the part anyway because of Paul Jackson’s reputation for knowing a winning series when he sees one.
    And iirc Danny’s situation was a) the fact that he didn’t know he was late, so he played off being late completely cool without realising it, and b) a long-time professional stage dancer is exactly who you need for a Cat-like character, if he can pull off the dialogue “ooh-ee-ooh-ahh-wee how am I lookin” as well as Danny can
    EDIT: one thing I don’t recall ever being mentioned, apart from the Comedy Connections narrator joking about it, is whether Doug/Rob/Ed/Paul went out of their way to avoid casting “proper actors” like Alfred Molina and Alan Rickman, since it is odd how your main recurring cast in the first series consists of:– punk poet who’s never acted before– impressionist who’s mostly done voice-over for radio and Spitting Image– dancer– stand-up comedian– the guy who does the warm-up– the guy who was going to do the warm-up before the strike happened

    I think they were rather amused with the idea of killing off all the “famous” guest stars in the first episode and having all the survivors played by relative unknowns but I don’t know how early (or late) that became the idea

    in reply to: Dark observation dome #288226
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Do I recall a novel retcon somewhere too? I certainly got the feeling that Red Dwarf was going further than the solar system long before Skipper.

     If I recall, Infinity explicitly states that interstellar travel was dead due to its impracticality by the time the book takes place.

    It does, while explaining the stasis pods are vestigal from that era and now only used as brigs

    It’s one of my favorite conceits about the Red Dwarf universe, relative to almost all other space based sci-fi.

    It deftly solves the logistical problems of long-distance space travel by simply making it not worthwhile.  No aliens and nothing worth colonizing.  A fun anticlimax worthy of a sitcom approach to sci-fi.

    Slots in nicely with AI inevitably becoming neurotic rather than evil.

    in reply to: Dark observation dome #288199
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Presumably it’s a result of being written much later, but Me2 does seem to forget that they had to shut down all non-essential power systems to sustain a second hologram, doesn’t it? Do the video player and cinema qualify as “essential”?

    well, given that Holly/Red Dwarf’s new prime directive post-accident is “Keep Lister Sane” perhaps they do.

    in reply to: Dark observation dome #288153
    Stabbim
    Participant

    I’ve always been willing to accept (as per the Captain’s Remarks on Rimmer’s file in “Waiting For God”) that Rimmer is constantly begging/nagging Hollister for an opportunity to prove his worth and volunteered to fix the drive plate even though it was technically out of his normal field of responsibility.  We know taking the written exam always backfires for Rimmer, so perhaps Rimmer decides demonstrating some hands-on practical competence can compensate and leaps for a chance to do that.

    Hollister, then, lets Rimmer have the job A) to shut him up B) because Hollister underestimates how severe or immediate the problem is and/or thinks it’s so easy even Rimmer can get it done/can’t screw it up that badly C) if he does someone else can fix it in time. D) Perhaps Hollister is so distracted by the contamination threat posed by Lister’s unquarantined cat that he’s not thinking clearly about other dangers.

    Of course, this undermines the vibe of general competence Cpt. Hollister exudes in S1 & 2, but as mentioned Kryten’s defense in “Justice” kinda does that anyway, not to mention the luster Hollister loses in the general miasma of S8.  So Hollister underestimating the threat/foolishly giving the critical task to an unworthy subordinate isn’t too out of step with what his character becomes, in the end.

    in reply to: Dark observation dome #288100
    Stabbim
    Participant

    The Dream Recorder, and the Hologramatic Archive in general.

    Rimmer seems to remember his own death firsthand: ergo, there is a constantly active link in each JMC employee’s brain that keeps the hologramatic backup up to date.  How is this installed?

    In Confidence & Paranoia Lister checks the dream recorder and confirms that Kochanski dreamed about him three times. Thus, its possible to view someone else’s dream archive.

    Very disturbing lack of privacy.  In the Red Dwarf future, it’s possible for your very brain to no longer be your own Intellectual Property?

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #288099
    Stabbim
    Participant

    If Kochanski had been resurrected at the end of the first season, does that mean they go forward with two holograms aboard, full-time, or would they have contrived a reason to get rid of her again for the second series.

    I think this would have largely depended on if/when they got a 3rd series and beyond approved and how available Claire Grogan was.

    Here’s my guess:

    Grant and Naylor came in with a [only] 2 Series Plan for the story arc of Red Dwarf, because of the BBC custom of getting the second series (but not more) auto-approved.  With how many struggles they went through to get Red Dwarf on the air in the first place, they might well have thought 2 series/12 episodes is all they’re ever going to get, so they better make it count and rush to (presumably) their planned ending and whatever payoff for the Lister/Kochanski story they had in mind.  No 3rd Series to worry about, no Grogan scheduling headache to have.  Project finished, on to the next one.

    So, Holo-Kochanski gets booted up at the end of Series 1 and remains activated through Series 2. S2’s overarching plot/theme is Lister’s (hilarious) struggles to make it work with her (while a still-active Rimmer heckles him I suppose).  Or process his grief and move on.  Whatever’s funnier, I suppose.  Remember, early on Holograms not being able to touch things was a very big deal, with Rimmer’s limitations being either plot-relevant or gag-relevant at least once per episode.  I think this was going to be a pillar of their original plan for Series 2: Lister’s repeated frustration with Kochanski’s incorporealness and trying to have the best relationship he can with a for all intents and purposes ghost. Falling through her for laughs when Lister tries to hug or kiss her, etc.  Maybe Lister “grows” and “matures” by having to focus on the mental/emotional aspect of relationships without the physical.  Maybe “Stasis Leak” is now the finale and it poses a dilemma between the Kochanski he can touch and the Kochanski he’s actually built a “life” with in the interim.  Or maybe the finale is bBetter Than Life, now almost certainly more in line with the darker, more addictive version in the book, with Lister being able to touch Kochanski in the game and so refusing to leave. But one way or another, the end of Series 2 and the end of the show culminate Lister’s “quest” for Kochanski, because they don’t know they’re getting Series 3 and beyond until they actually do get them.

    But then there’s the delay of the electrician strike & the ME2 idea, Grogan’s shooting schedule having more conflicts than they perhaps originally anticipated, and most importantly of all Red Dwarf being a smash hit that will get way more than just the standard 2 series run.  So tying up the Kochanski plot-thread gets deferred.  And deferred.  So deferred she actually becomes forgotten in Series 3 thru 5. In the meantime the show undergoes several tonal shifts.  The limitations of Holographic crew-members lose their initial significance.  In fact it becomes such an albatross for Grant & Naylor in the Starbug/”Away Team” era they start selectively disregarding it until they ultimately just make Rimmer solid. And by the time the Kochanski Restoration idea finally pays off, she’s alive and so Lister must face a completely different struggle: she’s not that into him, after all.

    But it’s tough to truly say what “Plan A” for Series 2 was because they had to/got to pivot away from it so early on.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #287970
    Stabbim
    Participant

    I think there is a line to Hollister in Back In The Red about Red Dwarf unexpectedly being three million light years into deep space, isn’t there? 

    Well there certainly should be.  I don’t remember one, but I want there to be, and I’d have to rewatch Series 8 to confirm or refute that it’s actually there, so I guess I’ll just take your word that it’s in there somewhere.

    in reply to: Mundane observation dome #287967
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Just had a thought about VIII.
    Red Dwarf is recreated in orbit of the ocean planet from Back to Reality, so presumably the Dwarfers could’ve just directed the nanobot crew to the wreckage of the SSS Esperanto as evidence of their story.

    Don’t even need to go that far.  Should only have taken the resurrected crew about one second of actually looking at their navigation monitors to realize the ship is A) nowhere near the Solar System B) somewhere that completely doesn’t match any previously charted region of space C) they thus have no smegging idea where they are or how to get back to anywhere they recognize.  Hollister, Todhunter, etc. are played fairly straight/competent, something as obviously amiss as that should not be lost on them, especially in the wake of other weird stuff like Cat’s clearly “alien” physiology and Kryten being futuristic (relative to Red Dwarf’s launch date) technology. Whether they initially believe Lister and Kochanski’s “insane” cover story for why she’s apparently broken him out of stasis and snuck onto a starbug with him or not.

    Red Dwarf was never the USS Enterprise.  They weren’t supposed to be boldly going to bits of space no one had gone to before, they were just supposed to be going from Ganymede to Miranda and back to pick up expensive rocks.

    in reply to: Your Unpopular Red Dwarf Opinions #284628
    Stabbim
    Participant

    Not sure just how unpopular this is, but one of my all-time top ten Red Dwarf jokes actually comes from Red Dwarf USA. Kryten’s ‘fire exit’ gag. That must be a Rob & Doug line, surely?

    I’ll give the Red Dwarf USA pilots this:  one of them improved on the original “what if” of the Lister/Kochanski situation. Kochanski is impressed by Lister sacrificing himself for the sake of the cat and makes a point of telling him so before he goes into stasis.  Sure, he’s still left wondering “what if” about a hypothetical when he gets out and she’s 3,000,000 years dead along with everyone else, but having her go out of her way to come up to him and tell him she thinks more highly of him lets Lister (and us) feel more confident in his chances post-stasis.  Lister’s thus not haunted by “she might have” but by the more respectable “she would have”.

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #284573
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 01/05/2023

    🟩

    Sometimes you get really, really lucky

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #284281
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 24/04/2023

    🟨🟩

    you can’t sneak a Smegle from this series past me

    in reply to: Unanswered Questions #284232
    Stabbim
    Participant

    In the highly rated classic episode Beyond A Joke, why is Kryten upset by Lister’s request for ketchup?
    I get the idea that his negativity has been building up over a long time and the ketchup was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but Kryten has never shown any sign that Lister’s extremely limited taste in food has even slightly bothered him. I mean, he drinks beer milkshake and only eats pizza if it’s smothered in curry sauce. By Series VII standards especially, putting ketchup onto lobster is nothing.

    every otherwise negligible stressor is amplified to hazardous levels by Kryten activating “Jealousy Mode” (a couple notches on the dial past Smug Mode and Lie Mode) in response to Kochanski’s permanent presence, I guess.

    Alternately he’s been operating with a corrupted, malfunctioning spare head ever since the Tikka To Ride fiasco and it finally caught up with him.

    God, Series 7 Kryten is disappointing

    Stabbim
    Participant

    you know, if there’s anyone who could’ve been as great a Rimmer as Chris Barrie over the years, it would’ve been Rowan Atkinson.

    Can almost picture it

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #283870
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 14/04/2023

    ⬛🟨🟩

    as always, flying blind through the Dave era breaks my streak as often as not, but there’s no surer way to help me start a new one than going back to those early years.

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #283644
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 01/04/2023

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    as always with this season/series, I will claim I missed it on purpose because rewatching it regularly enough to instantly recognize it in Smegle is a Pyrrhic Victory

    in reply to: Smugle or Strugle? – Dispatches From Smegle #283632
    Stabbim
    Participant

    #RedDwarf #Smegle 31/03/2023

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    slow start, but pulled it out late.  Fortunately, Lister doesn’t read very often

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