Just a quick one to note that, as reported by TOS, the second recording date for the Red Dwarf Special (which was, of course, originally the first recording date) has finally been confirmed for Saturday 11th January. That’s just eight days away, and it marks a rare return to an audience recording taking place at a weekend, for the first time since Lemons went before the cameras on what was pretty much the equivalent Saturday in early 2012. Apparently ticket holders will have already been informed, but none of the ticket holders that we know were, so do note that you need to reconfirm your booking by Monday 6th if you’re one of them. Due to the extremely short notice, and given that they were still giving away tickets for the first session at the last possible minute, it’s well worth putting your name down for standby tickets if you’re able to get yourself to the vicinity of Pinewood on the night; the link will appear on Lost In TV’s Twitter next Friday (10th Jan) at 5pm. See you there.

…since Red Dwarf had a studio audience recording. Well, they’re back at it from 6pm tonight. And it’s undoubtedly the biggest, most important thing happening in the UK right now.

We noticed when looking back at some old “it’s been x days” posts that this is a pretty similar gap to the one between X and XI’s studio dates, coming in at just nine days shorter. What is unique, however, is that this will be the first time that only part of an episode is being shot in a single audience session, barring oddities like Dear Dave‘s incompleteness, or the extra dates to pick up material for The End and Back In The Red. This Friday 13th date was initially supposed to be the concluding session for the Special of course, until the original first date was pushed back until the new year. We’d assume that tonight’s audience will see what will roughly amount to the first half of the final episode in order, although they might need to mix it up for whatever reason, and the percentages might change depending on the proportion of pre-recorded and live scenes.

Either way, we’ll have a spy in the audience, and so we’ll let you know everything our recently updated Spoiler Policy allows us to with one of our patented set reports over the weekend. We expect there’ll be some action on social media and TOS today too, so keep an eye out.

Bad news, everyone. Ticket holders for the Red Dwarf Special recording scheduled for Friday 6th December have received the following message from Doug Naylor, via ticketing company Lost In TV:

Oh smeg!
We’re so sorry to have to do this, but due to one of our cast members suffering from illness, we’re going to have to reschedule your live audience recording of the Red Dwarf Special.

There are so many elements to coordinate when filming a complicated show like Red Dwarf that it’s extremely difficult to pick up lost filming days within a schedule. I know many of you will be disappointed, but we hope that you can all join us at a later date.

We are currently awaiting confirmation of the rescheduled date – although we can say this is likely to be in January 2020. As soon as we have news we will be in touch to arrange your replacement tickets. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused and we look forward to seeing you at the studio soon.

Yours Sincerely,
Doug Naylor

Oh smeg indeed, matey. This must be extremely frustrating for all concerned, and disruptive for fans who would have already booked travel/accommodation/time off work. The delay could also have a knock-on effect on the broadcast date, and will require more praying to the gods of cast availability, especially if the recording on the 13th also ends up getting pushed back. But that’s not really the important thing here – whichever of the cast members it is that’s ill, please get well soon.

We must say, this whack-a-mole game of spotting details about the Red Dwarf Special is proving to be rather fun. There was a time when major production decisions were revealed slowly and calculatedly in co-ordinated releases, but now you just have to wait for someone to chuck it all on social media, probably not realising that analysing the contents of their otherwise benign posts is incredibly interesting to the hardest of hardcore fans like us. Let's enjoy it while it lasts and take a look at the short video posted by Danny John-Jules this morning. It's of him, Chris and Robert strolling through Pinewood and chatting about the filming they've just completed. But Chris is in full costume and Robert is in full make-up.

Anyone seen ⁦@CCfunkandsoul⁩ He was last seen ordering a cab and a curry in Iver Heath near ⁦@PinewoodStudios⁩ “We’re a man down!!” If you see him do not approach him. He’s dangerous, armed with a box full of CD’s and he’s not afraid to use them!! ???? pic.twitter.com/1CsRRciiAK

— Danny John-Jules???????? (@DannyJohnJules) November 9, 2019

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Well, we weren't expecting to do another front page post so quickly, but it's not every day you get your first official glimpse of a new Red Dwarf production. The Official Twitter (TOT) has released a still from yesterday's first day of filming, showing a bit of Kryten, an obscured Lister and a big old clapperboard:

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Yes folks, after a break of two years and eight months since the Series XII shoot wrapped, Red Dwarf is back in production once more. That’s as of pretty much right now, according to a tweet from a freshly-shaved Robert Llewellyn, who confusingly continues to refer to the special as Series XIII:

Just about to get rubbered up, make up test for Red Dwarf 13. We start shooting early Monday morning. #shaving #rash pic.twitter.com/xI4iTrnvnk

— Robert Llewellyn (@bobbyllew) November 1, 2019

In fact, this post should appear at the exact moment that rehearsal starts on the first scene. The cast will get ready afterwards, while the rest of the crew set up. That’s according to a note on the call sheet, as tweeted by Linda Glover:

Fingers crossed that it is indeed a fantastic shoot – break several legs, guys. And of course, there’s bound to be a fair few further updates from cast and crew on social media over the coming days and weeks ahead of December’s studio dates, so please help us keep on top of them all by using the comments on this post as a repository for anything interesting you’ve spotted.