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Red Dwarf rewatch

Started by Lemming, September 12, 2020, 07:09:51 PM

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SavageHedgehog


mippy

Started reading the first novel as a friend had a copy (it's out of print and not available on eBook). The future is incredibly bleak. I'm generally fascinated by what different eras think the future is like, and the description of Better Than Life taking over the player's life to the point that they starve to death made me think, for some reason, of those six months when everyone thought Second Life would destroy everyday life as we knew it. (Now, of course, it's a giant cyber-brothel - there's a great RPS video on it - and we never, ever log off.)

Lemming

S01E06 Me2

"You hummed. Maliciously and persistently for two years."

One of the best episodes of the first series for sheer laughs, but also one of the best character pieces too. Mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I always read this as showing the growth that Rimmer has undergone over the course of the series. The second Rimmer (hereafter Rimmer2) doesn't have the experience of being alone with Lister and Cat for however many months have elapsed, and therefore has experienced none of the softening that Rimmer has, and has developed none of the shaky cameraderie with Lister. The episode doesn't really make this explicit, so I'm not sure if it was the intention of the writers or not, but Rimmer does have a line about how he should be the hologram to remain online because of his relationship with Lister.

Rimmer2 therefore gives Rimmer a unique chance to see what life was like for Lister in the first days since he emerged from stasis. And, of course, it's hellish - being awoken at 4:30 AM with the "sonic boom extra loud emergency" alarm, being criticised and screamed at over the most minor shit, being subjected to all kinds of deranged rants.

It's not long before Rimmer returns to his original bunkroom with Lister. This has already been a constant unsaid thing in the background of the show - there's no real reason for them to share the same bunkroom since the entire ship is vacant, and yet they do anyway. After his argument with Rimmer2, Rimmer doesn't just leave to find somewhere else to sleep, he goes directly back to Lister. One of the big focuses of the show early on is Holly's logic of reviving Rimmer to "keep Lister sane", and you can see how well it works here. And this episode shows how it works inversely, too - Rimmer needs Lister as much as Lister needs Rimmer.

While Rimmer gets shown very sympathetically by this episode, and starts to treat Lister far more nicely, Lister gets a moment of sheer cuntiness that the character hasn't really been cable of before this point. He literally threatens to kill Rimmer (and stages an entire mock execution) just to force himto reveal the secret of Gazpacho Soup. The episode doesn't even really call him out on this, but regardless, there's a brief and rare moment of sincerity between Rimmer and Lister after Rimmer discovers that he's not going to be killed. The ending scene itself is a great way to end the first series - Lister, Rimmer and Cat, all far closer than they were at the start of the series, going for a drink. SOUPER

Speaking of Cat, he spends most of the episode wandering around as usual, and gets one line that says a lot about the character.
QuoteLISTER: I told you before. There's no other cats on board.

CAT: If I believed that for one minute, I'd go crazy!
I'd forgotten about this line and it struck me as something that probably ought to be a lot more important than it actually is. As far as I remember, doesn't ever really get followed up on, yet it's apparently Cat's entire motivation for... existing. Holly also gets a good scene in which he relates to Lister an elaborate tale of two "hyperspeed fighters" pursuing the ship. "They're from the NORWEB Federation. Northwestern Electricity Board. They want you, Dave." As with Cat, Holly spends most of the first series staying out of the main plots and only coming in to troll Lister and Rimmer. Like with the Cat, I really like this early version of the character - there's something appealing about a genius supercomputer that's so bored of its existence that it just decides to occasionally torment the people trapped under its supervision. Queeg is obviously the best incarnation of this.

Anyway, that's the first series. Overall I thought it was great and held up very well on a rewatch. Giving "The End" leeway for being a pilot episode and having to get everything established, my least favourite episode was probably Confidence and Paranoia, which is still a good, solid episode. Best episode for me was Balance of Power, just because of the laser focus on Rimmer and Lister bickering. Also, funnily enough, it's the only episode that doesn't have much of a science fiction angle, even though the science fiction is half the reason to watch the show.

Oh yeah, one thing. Me2 is "Me Squared". One Rimmer Squared = One Rimmer, because 1 squared = 1. Not 2. Come ON, Doug. Yes, I'm blaming Doug for everything I don't like and crediting Rob with everything I do like, regardless of how true or fair that is. Come the FUCK on, Doug.

H-O-W-L

Can I just note how much of a pisser how it is how they stopped reducing the color depth on Holly's face in later seasons?

markburgle

Quote from: Lemming on September 22, 2020, 02:56:55 AM
S01E06 Me2
Lister gets a moment of sheer cuntiness that the character hasn't really been cable of before this point. He literally threatens to kill Rimmer (and stages an entire mock execution) just to force himto reveal the secret of Gazpacho Soup

I don't think that's entirely fair, given that Lister is owed a moment of comeuppance for Rimmer's general behaviour ("That blu tak is mine!"), and there's another one of Rimmer, so he's not really going to be dead, and he's also dead already so can't really be killed, and also that it's ultimately a show of loyalty because Lister picks him, and not the other Rimmer that tormented him.

Lemming

He's definitely owed some payback for everything Rimmer's done, but staging the whole "execution" was a step too far, I thought. Especially since Future Echoes and Balance of Power both establish that being deactivated is something Rimmer is terrified of, to the point he'd rather be left on alone for another three million years. As for him not being really dead, I don't know - there's every suggestion that the deactivation will be permanent, and Rimmer refers to it as his "death" and "execution" a few times.

I can believe that Lister is capable of it, and that their relationship could recover from it fairly quickly (especially since Rimmer's character is somewhat softened from this point onwards) but it does still always strike me as an unusually brutal thing for Lister to do, especially since up until now he's mostly been absurdly calm/passive in response to Rimmer's bullying.

rue the polywhirl

Definitely agree that series 1 held up super well on rewatch. Waiting For God was probably episode I was least keen on. Very weird seeing another humanoid board the ship especially in the form of big ghastly dying fat man who likes donut hats and not especially funny. Balance Of Power possibly my favourite because of pathos of the party sequence, appearance of 'Kochanski' and because I felt it had the best dialogue between Lister and Rimmer. Cat and Holly are both brilliant this season and never failed to amuse with any of their lines. The only other odd things about the series is how blurred Holly is and how The Toaster wasn't integrated into the main cast for the rest of show's run because that would have been terrific. He should be there with the other four characters sat in the Starbug, seatbelt secured, saying 'we're toast!' every time they're about to crash or saying 'would anyone like a piece of toast' every five minutes.

H-O-W-L

I rewatched Better Than Life tonight and I actually fucking hated it, honestly. I think the tumult of the ending was just all sorts of nasty and not in a funny way. The concept was funny but the gratuity of it wasn't overextended enough to be farcical, the elements of the horridness that happens to Rimmer was all-too-grounded in a lot of ways, if that makes sense? The ending was Bottom level nastiness and yet Rimmer is nowhere near as pathetic or deserving as Eddie or Richie, and Rimmer is not really a slapstick character -- nor does he bound toward the camera and make a humorous eye-popping gurn right as the hammer's about to come down, it just feels disturbingly realized and I fucking hated it. I sort of shrugged it off and then as the credits were midway I thought about it for a single second and realized I actually fucking despised what I'd just watched.

Maybe this is just me and BTL is a classic, but I don't know. I think it went too far without actually going cartoonishly far enough.

Lemming

Quote from: rue the polywhirl on September 22, 2020, 08:55:20 AMHe should be there with the other four characters sat in the Starbug, seatbelt secured, saying 'we're toast!' every time they're about to crash

Sublime.

It is weird that there's a number of human-level AI around the ship in the form of the vending machines, the toaster, the toilet etc and they rarely come up.

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 22, 2020, 09:47:43 AM
I rewatched Better Than Life tonight and I actually fucking hated it, honestly. I think the tumult of the ending was just all sorts of nasty and not in a funny way. The concept was funny but the gratuity of it wasn't overextended enough to be farcical, the elements of the horridness that happens to Rimmer was all-too-grounded in a lot of ways, if that makes sense? The ending was Bottom level nastiness and yet Rimmer is nowhere near as pathetic or deserving as Eddie or Richie, and Rimmer is not really a slapstick character -- nor does he bound toward the camera and make a humorous eye-popping gurn right as the hammer's about to come down, it just feels disturbingly realized and I fucking hated it. I sort of shrugged it off and then as the credits were midway I thought about it for a single second and realized I actually fucking despised what I'd just watched.

Maybe this is just me and BTL is a classic, but I don't know. I think it went too far without actually going cartoonishly far enough.

It'll be interesting to rewatch it, but I remember the ending to Better Than Life making me laugh because of the ridiculousness of the thumb-breaker guy appearing out of fucking nowhere, and the nastiness is offset a little by Lister being generally alright to Rimmer even after he accidentally fucks up the game. I can't remember the exact line, but after Rimmer receives the in-game officer's promotion, Lister reminds him that he's not a loser, something like that. The show does get tonally pretty weird when it tries slapstick, due to otherwise being relatively grounded. Rimmer getting hit in the nuts by Petersen's arm in Balance of Power made me wince, especially since the violence and his reaction are devastatingly real, and not at all played up Bottom-style.

There is one ending in Red Dwarf that I really hate though, and that's Terrorform. Just grim nastiness with nothing to offset it and not even a hint of slapstick-y silliness to take the edge off.

On the whole Better Than Life's incredibly clumsy but does feature what I think's probably my favourite scene out of the whole programme's run, when Rimmer and Lister are in the observation dome. I love the combination of Rimmer only just coming to terms with their reality after receiving the letter about his dad - the implication being that he had no personal relationships with anybody on board - Lister genuinely trying to make him feel better, two utterly ridiculous stories about their dads and then Cat blundering in at the end to get a big laugh from an accidentally insensitive comment. I think it sum up 'good' Red Dwarf perfectly in one three & a half minute package; lightly bleak morbidity undercut by perfectly rationed silliness.

BeardFaceMan

The worst ending was (Stasis Leak?) the one with multiple everyones in a room and Rimmers "go away!" shout fades out. There have been more than a few clunky endings though, it's not Dougs forte (I say Doug because I seem to remember a few abrupt endings in the later series too).

JamesTC

Quote from: Lemming on September 22, 2020, 02:56:55 AM
S01E06 Me2
Oh yeah, one thing. Me2 is "Me Squared". One Rimmer Squared = One Rimmer, because 1 squared = 1. Not 2. Come ON, Doug. Yes, I'm blaming Doug for everything I don't like and crediting Rob with everything I do like, regardless of how true or fair that is. Come the FUCK on, Doug.

If you consider the hologram Rimmer to be the second Rimmer following the living one then he is Rimmer 2. So 2 squared is four and the new Rimmer is likewise a second Rimmer following the living one.

Lemming

^ Maths was never my strong suit and this is blowing my mind.

S02E01 Kryten

"Fear not, I'm the bloke who used to clean the gunk out of the chicken soup machine!"

First off, I really love the set design and the way the quarters are decorated. The big banana, the postcards, any old shit they could find just thrown into the room. It's great because it's pretty much exactly what you'd be bored enough to do if you were in Lister and Rimmer's position - just spend hours walking around the ship grabbing anything that looks decent and use it to decorate your room to try and forget that you're trapped aboard an ocean-gray coloured metal tomb. There's a bigger budget or something, because there's a much better Drive Room set now, as well as some model shots - the crashed Nova 5 looks fucking cool. We've got the Blue Midget now, too, which has its own cool model, cockpit set, and allows the crew to finally leave the ship. That greenscreen in the hangar bay was, however, utter dogshit.

The opening Esperanto-learning scene is funny as fuck and also establishes the new dynamic between Rimmer and Lister. They're friendly enough now to willingly hang out together, but still antagonistic enough to be constantly getting in jabs at each other. It's easily the best incarnation of the two characters and part of the reason series 2 is the best of them all IMO.

Fantastic bit of micro-acting from Chris Barrie as well:
QuoteRIMMER: How did you get into Art College?
LISTER: The normal way you get into Art College.  The same old, usual, normal, boring way you get in. Failed me exams and applied. They snatched me up.
RIMMER: Ah, but you didn't get a degree. Did you?
Watch the brief moment of panic and apprehension he experiences when he says "did you?", almost pleading Lister to say no. His ego requires Lister to have fewer qualifications than him, and even the possibility of Lister having a shitty art college degree poses a nigh-existential threat to Rimmer's self-worth.

Holly gets a great intro scene (but why did they remove the cool Holly effect from series 1?) and then we get reminded that Rimmer's big thing is "ALIENS!!!". The crew's reaction to the Nova 5 distress call is perfectly written - Cat does exactly what you'd expect, Rimmer immediately tries to assert himself, and Lister insists that "this is a mission of mercy, we're taking them urgently needed medical supplies. We are not on the pull." Then races off to wear all his "least smeggy things". What the fuck is up with the music in that scene? Love it.

For the rest of the episode, we see the effect that command has on Rimmer - even completely bullshit command. After asserting himself as Captain of the ship and Kryten's "master", he immediately slips into authoritarian madness all over again, and starts speaking in a weird received pronunciation that made me laugh on pretty much every line he had. I wish there'd been a little more time to explore this before Kryten "rebels", but the episode was already packed. In fact, the titular Kryten is probably the weakest part of the episode - not necessarily due to writing or performance, but just because the way the episode is structured leaves almost no time for Kryten's character arc to go anywhere. He gets his great introductory scene aboard the Nova 5, then he's back on Red Dwarf and has a cleaning montage, then he has one short conversation with Lister, then it's all over. I'm not 100% sure why, of all the available options, this was the character they decided to bring back. Llewelyn's Kryten obviously gets a lot more room to grow and Llewelyn can be properly funny when given good material, so maybe they just saw a lot of potential to build on the character.

So that's the start of series 2. The previous hostility between Lister and Rimmer has thawed out a little, and the Cat is more integrated into the gang. They're still stuck alone in a lifeless universe where the only other humans they'll find are skeletal remains, but somehow it already feels much more upbeat than series 1. Maybe drifting alone 3 million years into deep space isn't that bad.

Oh, and I got a proper laugh out of the shoddy censoring of "Chicken McNugget" to "Chicken --Nugget" on the version I watched. Absolute hack-job that made an already funny joke even better.

jenna appleseed

Quote from: Lemming on September 23, 2020, 02:15:22 AM
Oh, and I got a proper laugh out of the shoddy censoring of "Chicken McNugget" to "Chicken --Nugget" on the version I watched. Absolute hack-job that made an already funny joke even better.

Did anyone ever actually find out if they genuinely really did say/broadcast Chicken McNugget on the first edit/broadcast or if everybody just assumed it was censored because that version of the joke's in the book (or something).

H-O-W-L

Quote from: jenna appleseed on September 23, 2020, 04:36:20 AM
Did anyone ever actually find out if they genuinely really did say/broadcast Chicken McNugget on the first edit/broadcast or if everybody just assumed it was censored because that version of the joke's in the book (or something).

I watched it earlier, he visibly says 'Mc', and the entire audio track goes mute during it, even the ambient noise and laughter.

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: jenna appleseed on September 23, 2020, 04:36:20 AM
Did anyone ever actually find out if they genuinely really did say/broadcast Chicken McNugget on the first edit/broadcast or if everybody just assumed it was censored because that version of the joke's in the book (or something).

Yeah I recorded it off-air, I definitely remember hearing the word in full.

DrGreggles

It was definitely dipped on the original broadcast, as I had the whole series recorded off-air. Always assumed that it was a glitch on my E180 tape until I saw it again on a repeat.
Not sure if they removed the dip for other repeats though.

BeardFaceMan

God, this isn't a Mandela Effect thing is it? I'm sure I've heard the full version of it before. I thought they aired it, got into/got threatened with trouble and it was dipped from then on?

QuoteListen, girls.  I don't know whether this is the time or place to
  say this but my mate, Ace, here is incredibly, 'credibly brave!
...
And he's got just tons and tons of girlfriends!

This was on the other day on Dave with Better than Life and Thanks for the Memory, and enjoyed all three heartily.

JamesTC

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on September 23, 2020, 09:22:56 AM
God, this isn't a Mandela Effect thing is it? I'm sure I've heard the full version of it before. I thought they aired it, got into/got threatened with trouble and it was dipped from then on?

It was removed before being aired.

It was restored for the Remastered version.

BeardFaceMan

Thank fuck for that, I was sure I had heard it somewhere.

the

Yeah, the "Mc-" was reinstated on the Remastered version. There's a commentary on the Bodysnatcher Collection DVD where Ed Bye explains the situation, but what he said sounds a bit wrong. He said that the "Mc-" version was a trademark so they had to take it out, but then later it was pointed out that "Chicken Nugget" was actually a trademark, so they put it the "Mc-" back in. Which sounds like bollocks. More plausible would be that they scrutinised the legal argument for having to censor "Chicken McNugget" and found that there wasn't one, so reinstated the line.

Utter Shit

Isn't it weird that Kryten is taken in, but then doesn't appear again until the next series?

I wondered if I'd misremembered that and he was in the rest of series 2 just with less screen time. Went to Wiki to look it up - I was right that he isn't involved again, but it was still a worthwhile check because it led me to this, from the Kryten wiki:

QuoteThis episode also marks a 'first' in science-fiction history in which an android deliberately gives a human being the 'finger'.

I don't know what makes me laugh more, the idea that this is a noteworthy 'first', or the idea that it comes in the wake of numerous examples of androids giving human beings the finger by accident.

markburgle

Quote from: Evian Mousemat on September 22, 2020, 12:51:50 PM
Better Than Life...does feature what I think's probably my favourite scene out of the whole programme's run, when Rimmer and Lister are in the observation dome.

I was waiting for the ep to come round to say more or less the same thing. These moments of pathos are why 1-2 are my favourite series', and this is the best of those. When I re-watched it the other day, Rimmer's off-handed "I knew he was dead... I mean they're all dead aren't they" struck me as much more brutal than it did when I was a kid.

Makes me really crave a reboot or something that holds fast to the alone-in-an-empty-universe angle, although in reality any such venture would almost certainly be awful.

markburgle


Utter Shit

Quote from: markburgle on September 23, 2020, 11:19:47 AM
I was waiting for the ep to come round to say more or less the same thing. These moments of pathos are why 1-2 are my favourite series', and this is the best of those. When I re-watched it the other day, Rimmer's off-handed "I knew he was dead... I mean they're all dead aren't they" struck me as much more brutal than it did when I was a kid.

Makes me really crave a reboot or something that holds fast to the alone-in-an-empty-universe angle, although in reality any such venture would almost certainly be awful.

A more realistic reboot of Red Dwarf that explores those themes from the first two series without going too sci-fi mad could be fantastic. In a way Red Dwarf is kind of similar to Lost for me - the initial premise of "normal people get torn from society and have to create their own society from their new surroundings" is so interesting, but as it adds more bizarre threats and sci-fi concepts to try to keep things exciting, it loses the things I liked about it in the first place. When Lost was still (give or take the odd smoke attack or unexpected polar bear) fundamentally about people trying to build a society from scratch on the island, I absolutely loved it. Obviously the fact that Red Dwarf has a crew of four/five rather than the tens of people that were on the Lost island makes it more difficult to keep things interesting without going all wacky and introducing new characters all the time.

Endicott

Quote from: Lemming on September 23, 2020, 02:15:22 AM
Holly gets a great intro scene (but why did they remove the cool Holly effect from series 1?)

Didn't Norman Lovett ask them to? I have a vague memory this is the case from watching the S1 and S2 documentaries, but could be wrong.

i don't know how to hide images under spoiler tags so this post is a disastrous failure

Pink Gregory

Rimmer trying to imagine a flash car in Better than Life and getting the mustard coloured three-wheeler is accompanied by the greatest sound effect in tv comedy history.

mmm-wop

idunnosomename

I kinda prefer Holly being a photorealistic floating bald head than any computer effect. Less is more imo.