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Having just re-watched X again, I would rank Lemons as the strongest by a fair distance. A solid plot, some laughs, and they did a good job with the look considering the budget constraints.

Twentica and Give & Take would certainly also be in my top 6 Dave episodes, but I need to have a re-watch of the rest as my memory is atrocious.

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With regard to the bubble, I think when you are enjoying episodes, you can overlook some of the faults. There are some bad jokes and production issues are occasionally apparent (eg. Demons and Angels), but you could still rely on it to be a generally good show.

After the bubble, there are good jokes and ideas, but it feels like there is no quality control. There are in and out of character moments and the idea of being alone in a godless universe is long gone. Not just in terms of the number of guest stars, but also Kryten collecting all of the toilet paper in the ship to make expenditure cuts! (yes, I just rewatched Dear Dave).

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 06/05/2026 

I always get XI and XII mixed up.

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Watching X again now, Chris Barrie’s performance is way below what it was during the BBC days and also below what it became in XI.

I can understand people enjoying having just the 4 main characters on the ship and that aspect was undoubtedly an improvement over VIII. But the vast majority of guest characters and vending machines are ridiculously OTT in the same way that Kill Crazy and Baxter had been.

There are several good ideas in the plots, but also lots of rushed ideas that don’t go anywhere. 

And Doug’s writing for women hadn’t really improved since VIII.

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Is that really an unpopular opinion? Most people seem to think Back to Earth is a weird one-off with various opinions on its quality, and X is a noticeably low-budget, slightly generic-sitcom series we were just happy to have on, which has moments of brilliance and moments of absolute shit.

Well, in the polls the Series X episodes do quite well.

I agree that the low-budget is very apparent upon repeated viewings. 

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Another unpopular opinion: Back to Earth and Series X were not returns to form or a significant improvement over VII and VIII.

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05/05/2026 

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If they were going to use talking vending machines again, they really could have brought Tony Hawks back.

I wonder whether part of the reason why they have been used quite a lot in Dave Dwarf is down to Rob and Doug completing the Bodysnatcher script. In the commentary, Doug mentions that they initially planned to use talking machines a lot more but that it was a shame that got lost as the years went by.

My unpopular opinion would be that Talkie Toaster should not have returned. It’s a one joke character and they basically just got David Ross to say the same lines he had 20+ years earlier.

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 04/05/2026 

Balance of Power.

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When Gunmen of the Apocalypse was first broadcast, I was 13 years old and my small hometown didn’t have a curry restaurant.

So, when Lister used the names Tarka Dal and Bhindi Bhaji, I had no idea they were curries and just thought they were amusing comedy names. It didn’t spoil the comedy at all.

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Given he brought her in with a view to having a more diverse cast for the movie (not a bad idea imho), I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just thinking short term in terms of the series, since the movie was intended to have been a reboot, so it didn’t matter at the time if he didn’t have too much of a plan.
I am genuinely kind of gutted that her story will never be resolved, though. I don’t really want to see Kochanski back on the show full-time, but Chloe deserves better than that and I feel like she always got short swift from a lot of the fandom. It would have been nice to have had an episode to tie it off.

While I can understand someone suggested to Doug that having a woman in the movie would help to get funding, I don’t think casting Chloe was the right choice. If they’d had a woman part in the script and been able to say to investors, they could get a known face to appear, that might have been more appealing for people.

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 02/05/2026 

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All the material from Ouroboros Extended was in there too.

In that case I wonder why it has no laugh track. 

I guess maybe they had a 28 minute version with a laugh track that had gone through the full editing process.

And they had a 31 minute version with no laugh track, so went with that instead.

I seem to recall that one of the crew members in the documentary mentioned that it was a really tricky edit to balance the audience laughs with the performances.

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Also, was anyone here at the series 7 audience viewings? I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about those sessions.

Yup, I went to the first session at Teddington Studios, which showed mostly finished cuts of Stoke Me A Clipper, Ouroboros, and Blue.
Stoke’s teaser was shown as is. First reaction to Ace was more subdued because we were all expecting to see the first episode and the resolution to the cliffhanger, not jump straight to episode 2… So when the ep started proper and we’d adjusted a bit, that’s why Ace gets more response second time around in the ep.

What was the reaction to Rimmer leaving and then only making cameo appearances in the next two eps? Did it seem like it was expected by most people?

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As I’ve been watching Series VIII with the commentaries, I thought I’d mention how good Geraldine McEwan is as Cassandra. She adds a touch of class that isn’t always present in that series and even Norman only has positive things to say about her!

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Thanks to everyone for mentioning the Series VIII commentaries because I’ve gone back to listen to the first 3. 

I think it’s only the second time I’ve listened and they’re a lot of fun. Especially Norman, of course.

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I’ve always felt that bringing Norman back at the start of Series VII would have been one of the best chances to utilize Holly. Not that he could have been a direct replacement for Rimmer, but it might have cushioned the blow of Chris leaving a little. Plus, having both Holly and Kochanski on board might have been a better bet than what was seen as the straight swap of Kochanski for Rimmer.

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And yet Rob and Doug really struggled.

True.

I wonder what would have happened if Norman had stayed. Something tells me that he would have fought hard for his character and maybe Holly wouldn’t have become quite so sidelined.

I know that later on Holly was just a bit part, but that was when Norman was returning to the show as almost a guest actor.

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I wonder how much attention the casting of Koo Stark got at the time. 

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I wouldn’t have said that Clare Grogan was that big a name in 1988. Altered Images had split a few years previously and Gregory’s Girl was back in 1980. She’d had a few small acting roles, but was probably grateful for the work when Red Dwarf came about.

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From the same episode, but the opposite end of the legit scale, Reg Holdsworth.

A good call. 

In the U.K., I would guess that almost anyone over the age of 18 would have recognized him.

So, I suppose maybe Simon Gregson is even more well known because he has been in Coronation Street for much longer.

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I don’t really know how you fit Holly in on a show with Kryten in it, which was part of the reason the character was axed, as I recall. I feel for him being underused in that series but I don’t know how he could have been better employed. In fact, it’s a miracle he got in at all given they’re in prison. 
Any ideas?

While it’s true that Kryten took away some of Holly’s role, I think it would be possible to give Norman’s Holly a reasonable amount to do. 

He and Lister shared plenty of funny conversations in the first couple of series that weren’t simply about exposition. 

But Series VIII had far too many characters (and I think there are also far too many voices on the DVD commentary).

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Interesting. I like Lee Mack a lot, but in much of his acting he seems to be playing a version of himself (there were exceptions in The Sketch Show).

Sorry to crowbar in an anecdote, but I remember watching him do his stand up at a village hall in North Wales at the start of his career. “This is the only gig I’ve ever done where people are having a karate lesson downstairs. And there’s more people down there than there are up here!!!” :)

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#RedDwarf #Smegle 29/04/2026 

I haven’t watched VII for a long time, but still should have got that one.

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When ‘Out of Time’ was broadcast, I remember my older brother immediately saying, “Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Rimmer shot the time drive and destroyed the other Starbug.”

Then, when Smeg Ups was released, that was confirmed to be the case.

When ‘Tikka to Ride’ was broadcast, my reaction was, “That’s clearly not what happened,” and it didn’t feel like the same Red Dwarf to me. That feeling kept coming back throughout VII and beyond. 

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Since Doug was writing, directing and producing the show
So Ed Bye really wasn’t needed. 
Tbh, once the major budget issues of Back to Earth/X were resolved, I feel it was a huge mistake not to draw Ed back in. 
Doug has directed, but he’s not a professional director. 

Hard agree. He might have had more success with all of the last-minute-rewrites (how many episodes did that happen to?!) if he hadn’t been directing at the same time. But I gather the directing and writing aspect was partly to save money, wasn’t it?

From what I remember, Doug was also planning to direct the movie, so I don’t think it was primarily about money.

And Doug said he loved directing Back to Earth, so I doubt he would have considered handing the job to someone else.

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Well, yeah, I think there is a grain of truth in that Doug does tend to try to absolve himself from blame. I can only remember once in the DVD documentaries where he says, “That was me.” (Putting the skutter into the Remastered ‘The End’)

Not that I’m judging Doug for this specific interview as his feelings must have been very raw at the time.

I agree that it is very feasible that Rob was feeling the pressure in 1993/4. Especially considering how many projects he and Doug were linked to.

And it did seem a little odd a few years ago that from the outside Rob, Ed, and Paul seemed to be the ones representing Red Dwarf with Doug alone in the wilderness. I think there was a Paul Jackson interview about 10 years ago that was discussed on here where he talked about Doug and Ed having a problem with each other. The response was, “Eh? But they recorded the Bodysnatcher commentaries together?”

I’m sure the whole thing is very nuanced and is much more complicated than one person being wrong or right. I guess, generally speaking, it’s difficult to work with other people and it’s not really natural to have working relationships that last for decades. It’s almost inevitable that there will be bumps in the road.

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It is indeed an interesting interview.
Obviously Rob and Doug had their issues over the years, but I was a little surprised that this is probably the most negative that I have heard him be about Rob and the breakup.

I think thats because Doug always just said go ask Rob when asked about it, but now you can’t just go ask Rob so Doug really is the only person who can reflect on that period.
Maybe he is a bit frustrated that he will likely never know what was going on with Rob at the time.

Yes, that could certainly be true. Especially as Rob later formed a writing partnership with Andrew Marshall.

Plus, as Rob and Doug broke up while working on The 10%ers, it can’t really have primarily been down to Rob wanting to work on things other than Red Dwarf (as he sometimes said in interviews).

I can understand that Doug’s emotions must have been all over the place when he did this interview.

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It is indeed an interesting interview.

Obviously Rob and Doug had their issues over the years, but I was a little surprised that this is probably the most negative that I have heard him be about Rob and the breakup. Not that I’m saying that anything he said was untrue (and maybe he was filter free the day after he learned about Rob’s death).

A little bit of a shame that Sinbin Island 2 won’t be published until 2027, but looking forward to it nevertheless.

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 Thing is i never seen that as one of the major criticisms for series 7. Compared to Back to earth where its a major criticism. And id guess that its easy to forget there is no audience for series 7 because they added a laughter track to it so it still feels like there is an audience there. So no one is noticing the silences to think oh that performance wasn’t as good.

The context is interesting.

During the decade between Series VIII and Back to Earth, one of the main discussions on the message boards was, “Are VII and VIII terrible?” The acting in VII got a huge amount of discussion as many felt there was a drop in quality compared to what had gone before. I seem to recall also that in the G&T commentary for ‘Tikka to Ride’ they talk about Lister and Kryten’s conversation early in the episode and it being apparent that the years since VI and the absence of an audience had affected Craig and Robert’s performances.

Now that we have had so many Dave episodes, the context is a little different. For example, I would say that Chris was a much better actor in VII than he was a decade or more later. That’s not exactly surprising as he has been semi-retired from acting for years. The same could be said for Robert. So, I can understand why the acting in VII wouldn’t be discussed so much nowadays when looking at the 74 (or so) episodes as a whole.

Plus, VII has 3 much more obvious things that grab the attention – the first episodes after Rob’s departure, the only episodes not featuring Rimmer, and the introduction of Kochanski as a main character. 

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Well if you make something without an audience, isnt the issue more that you filmed it as if there was one? Since If you made a film you wouldnt have those gaps because you couldnt. Its the expectation that people at home would be laughing so much you need these little quiet moments. 

As for the cast acting different with an audience. Yeah well they kinda act up to the audience, which they didnt do so much in the early run. While with Series 7 i don’t see much talk about their comedy acting even though there was no audience when they filmed

There has been a lot of discussion about their performances in Series VII. Craig and Robert, in particular.

And Norman admitted that he struggled in his episode because of the absence of an audience.

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There are a lot of people that feel that the audience gives the show personallity and maybe a feeling of warmth. But they also blame the lack of it on Back to earth not being what they consider funny. But what are we trying to say there? The show is only funny when we are told when something is funny?

I’ve also seen some comments in the past that have essentially been, “You need the audience to tell you when to laugh.”

Obviously, I don’t agree with that, but I will generously say that what some of those people were trying to say is more, “Red Dwarf is an audience sitcom. If you film an audience sitcom without an audience, you have a problem.”

I’m sure the debate has been had many times about what kind of humor will work in an audience sitcom, but won’t work without an audience. A debate that goes way over my head. ;) 

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I can enjoy Emohawk as there are plenty of laughs there, but I think it’s always worrying when a show starts trading on its former glories. Of course, we will never know whether this would have been a one off if Rob and Doug had stayed together.

As it turned out, almost all of the first 36 episodes ended up being referenced during Doug’s solo stuff (The Dibbley  family, the Om song, Talkie Toaster, Can of Worms etc.), so Emohawk seems a bad omen for what came later.

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Whoa there, please don’t put words in my mouth.
I didn’t! That’s why I used the word “implicit”. But if your comment is very much suggesting that Lister’s actions in Krytie TV are at least slightly less of a stretch because Lister watched porn once, I’m not sure how else to take your meaning. Obviously the important context is that you don’t think Krytie TV reflects nearly as badly on Lister as I do, but I’m just disagreeing with the notion that watching hot oil wrestling is problematic in and of itself.
I can completely get that people would say Lister should have stopped
watching immediately. I just don’t think that Doug (or anyone upon first
viewing) thought, “Lister is complicit in a nonconsensual pornography
scheme.”
Doug and many first time viewers may well have thought that, but they’re wrong. This is the literal plot of the episode. Not walking out immediately is a debatable aspect, but watching for the entire evening and not reporting it or otherwise trying to stop it and waiting so long to tell Kochanski about it? That is textbook complicity. Granted, Lister is better than Rimmer and all the other male prisoners because he did tell Kochanski eventually, but that is a low bar. It’s clear from the way it plays out that if Kryten hadn’t made “shower night live” a recurring event and belittled Kochanski further with the pogo stick idea – or if none of the female prisoners had a personal connection with Lister – then he never would have told anyone about it.
What’s more interesting to me is why Doug took those choices. Kryten was
classified as a woman because Doug needed to pair someone up with
Kochanski. I guess this episode was another way of trying to include
her. I certainly don’t consider it great writing or particularly
imaginative, but if you have a men’s and women’s prison in a show, the
men trying to spy on or get close to the women is a likely storyline.
I have serious doubts that the only way to include Kochanski in Series VIII plots was to make her a victim of criminal perversion (for a start, she’s in the Canaries with everyone else), but if it’s true then it’s just another reason not to do this prison storyline in the first place. Doug’s hand wasn’t forced here. Every major aspect of Series VIII was his decision.

Nobody has said that, “the only way to include Kochanski in Series VIII plots was to make her a victim of criminal perversion.” 
Thank you for mentioning the pogo stick, though. It made me chuckle and reminded me that Series VIII is Carry On Red Dwarf. All of the characters are exaggerated versions of themselves and even the guest characters are missing an eyeball or have never previously seen a woman naked.
I don’t think Lister would credibly behave in the way he did in this episode, but I don’t believe a huge number of the character moments in Series VIII. It’s a weak series in terms of plotting and characterization, but has some laughs here and there.
I can respect if some people feel offended, but I can’t really get too worked up about a Beadle’s About knockoff. ;)

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The recast Holly, the addition of Kryten, Danny’s more casual performance style and the separation of Rimmer/Lister for large stretches completely change how the show works. 

That’s why it’s an evolution. Marooned, Bodyswap, Timeslides and The Last Day could very well be series 2 episodes (had Kryten been in series 2 for The Last Day). 
They have that distinct, stuck on a ship and or character driven episode quality that, whilst still present in later series is taken over by bigger sci-fi themes and more action

I remember watching Tikka to Ride at the time and I was stunned by how weak the ending to that episode was. The opening resolution to the cliffhanger from Series VI was also deeply underwhelming.
There were some highlights in Series VII, but that’s certainly where the quality severely dipped imo.

Kennedy assassinating himself to reset the timeline is weak?
Whilst the opening resolution to the cliffhanger and the assassination contradict themselves, the resolution exists as a way to quickly get the show moving again and is at least based on common paradox theory/understanding. 
I maintain Tikka is the best of VII and one of the best of Dwarf. It’s certainly an example of the show doing audienceless episodes really well, and ought to have been BTE/TPL length.

Each to their own.

Craig says in the commentary that they didn’t have an ending for Tikka to Ride and came up with something on the day (it shows). I presume Doug also wasn’t happy with it, as they recorded an additional scene a year or so later.

I have many issues with that episode, including Craig and Robert’s performances not being quite ‘right’. Probably partly due to the absence of an audience and partly due to the gap between VI and VII. 

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If you’ll permit a silly thought from a new person (hello all):
Camille. Before this point, we don’t know that there other communities in the universe. After Camille, we know that Camille and Hector are off somewhere, living with each other. Before this point, there is the possibility that the crew is completely alone (in this universe, at this point in time). After Camille, the series doesn’t feel as bleak anymore. I like the bleakness. 

Welcome and I can understand this perspective.

Sometimes people have said in the past that they enjoyed the “loneliness” of the early series and that has been interpreted (wrongly imo) as the characters feeling lonely.

Personally, I loved the sense in those early years that they were alone in space and relatively rarely encountered other lifeforms. As a child, it seemed like the coolest thing that they were essentially on their own and had the whole of space as their playground.

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Obviously, it has gone down in people’s estimations since, but I don’t
feel as strongly about it as some do. Rimmer and the Cat have never
shown any respect for women and Lister has sometimes been portrayed as
imperfect in that regard (eg.hot oil wrestling).
OK, but there’s a pretty massive difference between being casually sexist/objectifying about women and being actively complicit in a nonconsensual pornography scheme. There’s basically no precedent for Lister and Rimmer behaving so abominably, and if there were then I likely wouldn’t be a fan of Red Dwarf to begin with.
The closest thing for Rimmer is him sleeping with Yvonne McGruder when she was possibly concussed, but that is at least ambiguous (both in the possibility that she was actually fine and Lister just says that to wind Rimmer up, and in the possibility that Rimmer himself didn’t know at the time).
And the closest thing for Lister is the bit about him putting mirrors on his shoes so he could look up women’s skirts, which I absolutely hated too, for the same core reason I hate how he is in Krytie TV.
Also, I am a little concerned by your implicit suggestion that men who enjoy watching softcore porn are more believable as people who’d sexually exploit women. I’m pretty sure we’re a few waves of feminism beyond the point where consent was a non-factor in these judgements.

Whoa there, please don’t put words in my mouth.

I can completely get that people would say Lister should have stopped watching immediately. I just don’t think that Doug (or anyone upon first viewing) thought, “Lister is complicit in a nonconsensual pornography scheme.”

What’s more interesting to me is why Doug took those choices. Kryten was classified as a woman because Doug needed to pair someone up with Kochanski. I guess this episode was another way of trying to include her. I certainly don’t consider it great writing or particularly imaginative, but if you have a men’s and women’s prison in a show, the men trying to spy on or get close to the women is a likely storyline.

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I remember watching that episode with my uncle and my dad (who actively dislikes Red Dwarf) sometime soon after it was on and them both laughing their heads off. My perception at the time (which was probably wrong) was that series 8 was well-received with the general public, I was surprised when I picked up the book and read Doug talking about people hating stuff from it.

Yeah, there were certainly some positive reviews for VIII and it got a better reception than VII in the main.

I think in the book Doug talks about people hating the Blue Midget dance which has probably always been true.

Until the DVD releases and maybe even a little later, the company line from Doug and everyone seemed to be that VII was a challenge but VIII was the show pretty much back close to its best.

It was only when the Dave era came around that Doug acknowledged that maybe things changed too much with VIII.

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As people discussed Krytie TV fairly recently, I decided to give it another watch today.

Looking for positives, I would say that if you forget that it’s Red Dwarf, there are some reasonable comedy ideas. The men crossing their legs isn’t exactly subtle, but is quite well done; Chris delivers his comedy rule of three dialogue very well (‘They’re mine.’ ‘They’re mine’ ‘Have you been going through my things?’); and there are a couple of reasonable puns. 

It’s all turned up to 11, though, and lurches all over the place. You get the feeling that with Rob no longer around, there was nobody to sift out the bad ideas from the good. 

It’s interesting that when the DVD was released that this episode was talked about by Robert and one or two others as being a classic.

Obviously, it has gone down in people’s estimations since, but I don’t feel as strongly about it as some do. Rimmer and the Cat have never shown any respect for women and Lister has sometimes been portrayed as imperfect in that regard (eg.hot oil wrestling). It’s lazy writing to have Kryten classified as a woman and to have so much of the comedy focused on shower night, but I don’t see it as anything more sinister than that. 

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I remember watching Tikka to Ride at the time and I was stunned by how weak the ending to that episode was. The opening resolution to the cliffhanger from Series VI was also deeply underwhelming.

There were some highlights in Series VII, but that’s certainly where the quality severely dipped imo.

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I really hope he gets well soon.

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10/06/2024 

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I think that scene with the Cat talking about being attacked is the only one with any serious edits. Many cuts were very wisely made and it probably could have done with being trimmed still further.

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Underwhelming would be my first reaction…

Maybe that’s due to having been spoilt by the Alan Partridge shows though.

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I watched Meltdown again last night and noticed that even occasionally in Series IV Holly wasn’t needed in an episode.

I guess that it’s not too surprising that bringing Norman back to the show would go on to cause problems.

Due to his moaning nature, Norman obviously fought hard for the character in those first two series and turned it from a voiceover into a very important part of the show (certainly as important as the Cat I would argue). Therefore when he came back, I’m sure that Norman would have hoped for something vaguely substantial to do and I think there was an article on this site that stated that the way that he’d been treated at the time was a disgrace. That’s putting it too strongly though I think…

From Doug’s perspective it makes complete sense that as Holly had done so little the last time the character was in the show, that Norman should just pop up for the occasional one-liner.

Again when the movie was a possibility and then Back to Earth was announced, Norman must have felt that he was certain to be a part of things. So to find out that he wasn’t in the original script and that (at best) he might get a few lines at the end of one episode (maybe at the start of the next) it was bound to anger him.

Once more understandable though that Doug sees Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat as the main characters and the others as optional extras.

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I don’t actually have a problem with the Q&A.

Both Chris and Norman look uncomfortable at times but they must have expected that when they agreed to do it. Norman has always been critical of Series VIII and Chris makes a strong defence of Doug’s writing. I’m sure there are millions of actors who have criticised their former employers and as long as it doesn’t descend into personal insults, that’s no big deal really…

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And many of those lines could have been spoken by Kryten…

I guess the budget will be low again so something will have to give. If Holly were to be a major part of the plot then it would be sensible to bring the character back but otherwise, the money could probably be better spent elsewhere…

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Due to the fact that Rob and Doug couldn’t find anything for her to do…

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Personally I will always be grateful to him for fighting to get the character seen on screen in the very beginning. For that reason, he did play a big part in the success of the show for the first 5 series (albeit Hattie may as well not have been in Series V).

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The last I heard they were accepting new members anyway so, if that’s still the case, shouldn’t be a problem signing up.

On the subject of The 10%ers, I had always foolishly assumed that Doug wrote or co-wrote each episode as he did in Dwarf Series VII and VIII. I didn’t realise that there are many episodes that he doesn’t have a writing credit on at all and a couple of others where he was one of three writers. I’m glad that he didn’t go down the same route with Dwarf.

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