Tonight is the exciting finalé of The First Three Million Years, entitled Playing Pool with Planets. We can expect some chat about guest stars, the brilliance of Timewave and apparently some coverage of Red Dwarf USA so there’ll be plenty more opportunities for the painstaking archiving work carried out by Andrew Ellard 15 years ago to stretch its legs again.

As always this is your place to natter on about the latest instalment in the comments and we’ll be joining the discussion in our own way soon enough.

We all really rather enjoyed the first instalment of Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years last week, despite some quibbles that mostly involve the treatment of 4:3 material. We will put our thoughts on the record properly at some point in the future, but while we’re still on compassionate leave from having to think about anything too much, here’s a little discussion thread for you in the meantime. This covers episode two, In Studio Space No-One Can Hear You Scream, which airs tonight at 9pm on Dave

While you shouldn’t expect much immediate in-depth coverage from us for obvious reasons, we thought we’d best provide a place for everyone to discuss The Boys from the Dwarf, the first of the three-part documentary series Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, which airs tonight at 9pm on DaveA few reviews and previews have started to emerge, from the likes of Radio Times, What’s On TV and Sci-Fi Bulletin, who reveal the unexpected but welcome news that the series is narrated by an actual Doctor Who, David Tennant. A fansite of his has what looks like the full press release.

There is also an additional reason to tune in tonight. The Patrick family have asked us to spread the news that there will be a tribute card to Seb included. It was too late to get it added to the programme itself, but thanks to Doug and the team at GNP, UKTV are doing it as part of their presentation. We’re told it’ll happen during an ad break at around 21:25.

We’re incredibly sorry to pass on the awful news that our friend Seb Patrick has died, aged just 37. If you’re part of the Red Dwarf fan community in any way, you’ll know Seb’s name, as the editor of reddwarf.co.uk since 2011, before which he was one of the original and most prolific members of the expanded G&T team when we merged with other fansites, including Seb’s Fuchal, in 2006.

The three of us all counted Seb among our very best friends, with rarely a day going by without speaking to each other, and we’re all in complete disbelief at the moment. All our planned G&T activity will be suspended for the time being while we begin to come to terms with what’s happened, and we know we can count on your patience and understanding at this time.

We can’t seem to find any meaningful words right now, so we’ll do what we did so often in our conversations with Seb, and adapt a suitable quote.

Seb was an excellent writer and as good a friend as anyone could ever hope to have. He’ll be missed more deeply and more greatly than he could ever know. Goodbye, Seb, we’ll miss you.

Cappsy, Danny and Ian

We’re raising funds in his memory to help his family in any way we can. If you’re able to spare anything, it would be greatly appreciated.

DwarfCast 113 - Book Club #2: IWCD (Part Two) featured image
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Well, strap in everyone, because this is a longun. Once again Jonathan Capps, Danny Stephenson and Ian Symes gather within the digital realm to discuss the fuck out of Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, specifically, Part Two: Alone in a Godless universe, and out of Shake'n'Vac. How many times can the book rob the TV show blind? What do Grant Naylor have against Brian Kidd, anyway? And was it Lister or the robot fish that broke the Cat's tuth? Endure all 2 hours, 12 minutes and 47 seconds of our chat to find out!

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G&TV logoYou can say what you like about the deadly global pandemic currently ruling our lives, but at least the little red spikey boi has opened up access to many public events that have been forced to move to a streaming model this year. The result is I've seen two San Diego Comic-Con panels live where I would've previously seen none. Firstly, the lovely Bill and Ted Face the Music panel on Saturday and then on Sunday Red Dwarf had what we believe is its first ever SDCC panel to promote the launch of The Promised Land on BritBox and in attendance were Doug Naylor, Craig Charles, Chris Barrie and Robert Llewellyn.

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It is now precisely two weeks until the first of three episodes of Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years airs on Dave, and so I suppose it's high time for a trailer. Expect to see this approximately a thousand times over the next fortnight if, like me, you're trapped watching Dave's nightly repeats of all episodes of Taskmaster ever on a loop, or here it is on Twitter:

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With the BBC episodes well and truly commentaried, we now turn our insatiable appetite to the Dave era, starting with Twentica. Danny Stephenson, Ian Symes and Jonathan Capps once again preside over discussions as they find out if one their favourite episodes from the series has stood the test of time before digging into another pile of Waffles.

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A brief but happy news story for you – we now have a TX date for Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, the three-part documentary series produced by North One for UKTV. Having heard the first rumblings of the publicity juggernaut a few weeks back, Dave has tweeted this morning to confirm that it will air on Thursday 6th August. That’s presumably just the first episode, like – no word yet on whether it will be weekly, daily or some other schedule, or indeed whether all or any of it will be available on UKTV Play in advance of broadcast. We’ll figure out the plans for our coverage of this coverage of the show when we have those details.

Also tucked away in that tweet is a new, much much improved title card for the series. When we joked in our previous article that they had time for another crack at the logo, we didn’t expect they actually would, so fair play. This is very much based on the look for The Promised Land, with its weather-beaten aesthetic and same sub-heading font, and it makes sense for Red Dwarf to have a consistent branding style. The powers that be clearly agree, given that both Dave and UKTV Play liked our tweet of the above meme…

UPDATE (17/07/20): Today’s TOS update answers pretty much everything that was as yet unanswered about these docs. The three episodes will air weekly on subsequent Thursdays from the 6th-20th August, and will appear on UKTV Play after broadcast. For the avoidance of doubt, all the interviews are brand new, and we’re promised “newly dug-up archive material”, which is implied to go beyond what’s featured on the DVDs. Exciting!

We also have titles for all three episodes: The Boys from the Dwarf, In Studio Space No-One Can Hear You Scream and Playing Pool With Planets. Weird to dedicate a third of the series to one brief scene from White Hole, but hey.