VIDEO. BROADCAST DATE. MODEL SHOT. ONLINE? News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 12th August 2016, 10:45 Well, there really is quite a bit to take in here. The official social media accounts have all, in one way or another, revealed the Dave *broadcast* date for Twentica to be Thursday, 22nd September at 9pm, placing it roughly around the same time as most people’s best guesses. We are all certainly very pleased that UKTV were considerate enough to fit things into our Series X DwarfCast schedule so neatly. This will presumably put Series XI among the illustrious company of 31 previous episodes to premiere on a Thursday. Wednesday remains as the only day of the week to not hold that particular honour. Continue reading →
DwarfCast 73 – Trojan Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 6th August 2016, 23:20 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes We estimate that we're about six to seven weeks away from the first broadcast of Red Dwarf XI. What better way to clear the decks ahead of the new series than by wrapping up our coverage of the last one? Over the next six weekends, we'll be marking the countdown to new Dwarf by releasing weekly commentaries for all six episodes of Series X. Unless XI starts earlier than we're anticipating, in which case we'll either rush them all out or pretend the whole thing never happened. Read more →
Red Dwarf XI episode list and synopses released News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 5th August 2016, 12:27 Well, this is a relief. After almost a week of ignoring the massive elephant in the room (an elephant that is now back online), Red Dwarf XI‘s full episode list has been officially sent out into the wild. Episode titles, synopses, they’re all there. Despite the unfortunate early release, it’s nice to get this information in this way rather than the previous method of rooting through BBFC’s bins. So, let’s take a look, shall we? Continue reading →
Hancock’s Half Hour: The Tycoon Features Posted by John Hoare on 3rd August 2016, 12:34 When people talk about antecedents to Red Dwarf, it's often science fiction which is endlessly referenced. Films like Dark Star, in terms of the situation and portraying working class people in space, or Alien, which amongst other things directly influenced many sets in the show, to Blade Runner, which... erm... I got nothing. When it comes to sitcoms, there's the classic "Steptoe and Son in space", which is often thrown around as an early concept for the show. Porridge is also mentioned, in terms of the claustrophobic trapped situation between characters which the show was trying to evoke. All of this is certainly true, but typically there's very little analysis beyond mentioning a TV show or film, along with a one line description. Recently, I've had the utter delight of watching Hancock's Half Hour for the first time. And the episode The Tycoon (TX: 13/11/59) has a number of remarkable similarities to the Dwarf episode Better Than Life, broadcast nearly thirty years later. Moreover, I don't just mean in terms of character work - the main plot beats of the episode are broadly identical, despite Better Than Life seemingly hanging off a science fiction idea which Hancock would find impossible to replicate. Rather than vague hand-waving or simplistic single line reductions, let's take a look at the episode in detail, shall we? Read more →
Medi-Bot v2.0 News Posted by Ian Symes on 29th July 2016, 12:19 Friday lunchtime rolls around, and once again provides an intriguing tweet treat to keep us going throughout the weekend. It’s hard to find a decent Doctor in deep space…#RedDwarfXI, coming to Dave this September! pic.twitter.com/a8OCEmAJek — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) July 29, 2016 Well, it certainly seems to me like Lister will wake up to discover a deranged droid has stolen some of his body parts. That seems to be the droid in question – the scaredy-cat Seb Patrick’s tweet suggests so – and it looks brilliant. Unusual, creepy, and not unlike an evil fish. The only way this can go wrong is if it turns out that it’s Kerry Shale under the costume.
“We’ve found a stasis leak on Floor 16…” Features Posted by John Hoare on 26th July 2016, 14:23 Hanging around on a deep, dark, unloved corner of the internet is an old version of Ganymede & Titan. The reasons for this are long and complex, but essentially amount to laziness: during one of our relaunches many years ago, we didn't move all of our stuff over to the new version of the site. We thought until we did, the least we could do would be to leave all that stuff online. We never did get round to moving it, of course, which means you can insert a certain Mickey Mouse operation quote here at your leisure. But clicking around on that old version of the site can be fun, especially for old-time G&T visitors. And one page in particular fascinates me: our links page, last updated in mid-2004. It's an interesting snapshot of online Red Dwarf fandom at the time; a list of the sites we thought were important back then. 12 years later, how many of them are even still online, let alone important? I thought it'd be fun to go through the list and take a look at the fate of that slice of Dwarf fandom. And dare I say that it might shed a bit of light on the development of the web over the past decade? Tune in at the end to see whether I manage to tie that one up at all convincingly. So, let's start with... Read more →
What Kryten actually looks like in Series XI News Posted by Ian Symes on 22nd July 2016, 11:57 Following yesterday's big old press campaign, which had, shall we say, a "mixed" response, TOS has followed up with a second cast picture in as many days. And ahhhhh, that's much better. Read more →
First Red Dwarf XI Official Photo! News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 21st July 2016, 01:33 From, of all places, The Telegraph: So yeah, thanks for that, The Telegraph. When you decided to leak the picture all of G&T were either at work or fast asleep. Never-the-less, see our (or rather my) belated thoughts after the jump, as I mercilessly rip ownership of this placeholder post from John for my own nefarious purposes. Continue reading →
Fool’s Gold Quickies Posted by John Hoare on 19th July 2016, 09:55 As we ramp up inevitably towards September, there's probably some news we should be reporting. Like, for instance, this early screening at Edinburgh of the first episode of XI on the 24th August. (With a strict embargo on spoilers, and it ruining the first watch of the show as a shared experience, it's not really worth it for us even if we could wheedle ourselves in.) Or as noticed in our forums, it seems the DVD for XI has a provisional release date of the 8th November in Region 1. (We deliberately haven't reported on Craig Charles's foot injury, because nobody needs a tedious stream of Thanks for the Memory quotes.) Anyway, we don't care about all that. What interests us is the repeats of Series III, which started on Gold last night. Which is perhaps a bit of an odd thing in itself. If UKTV are trying to cement Dwarf as a Dave show, how does it make sense to start a repeat run on Gold? If it confuses hardcore fans, however dumb we are, surely it's also confusing to the more casual viewer? I can't help but feel this repeat run would be far better suited to just being on Dave. Still, Dave, Gold, whatever - a repeat of Series III on a UKTV channel means only one thing: the never-ending game of Marooned Remastered. We previously reported on this last year - with the inevitable disappointment - but we've been talking about it for years. (Bonus points to anyone who can be arsed going through G&T's archives and finding out when we first talked about it.) Well, Marooned has its latest repeat showing tonight at 11:30pm, and whilst it's possible that the correct version of the episode may be shown, past experience shows that this is exceedingly unlikely. Which means more wailing from us, more gnashing of teeth, more abusing our genitals in dismay, and PRECISELY NOTHING CHANGING. Read more →
Cool story, board News Posted by Ian Symes on 15th July 2016, 13:02 It’s Friday, it’s round about lunchtime, it’s three near-identical tweets from various official accounts time! This week, as they got there first by a matter of seconds, let’s embed @RedDwarfHQ’s: Today’s sneak peek at #RedDwarfXI is an exclusive storyboard, by the brilliant Nik Afia! pic.twitter.com/WkGFUgWrXs — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) July 15, 2016 It’s a storyboard! A storyboard with actual dialogue on it! When it’s fully embiggened, you can see that the establishing shot looks somewhat similar to the recce that Richard tweeted ages ago, which, when combined with the desired angle being so high, suggests that this is a location sequence. We also now know that in one episode, the Dwarfers board a space station (I’m assuming space, as opposed to railway) amidst an asteroid storm, and split off into pairs. There’s also a joke that, while far from unpredictable, is undeniably Rimmer-ish. This is very exciting. Credit also to Nik Afia for the brilliant artwork, proving that he’s just as adept at capturing the likenesses of our main characters as he is at spaceships. I hope we get to see a lot more of this work at some point, either in the form of teasers ahead of broadcast, or a more substantial gallery when it’s all done and dusted.
