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March 28, 2024, 08:46:13 PM

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Red Dwarf rewatch

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

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Quote from: markburgle on December 14, 2020, 12:49:46 PM
Where are you getting these extra 3 million years from?

Well if you want to arrive in the solar system around the same time you left it, you need to go back six million, no?

If you only go back three million years, then travel towards earth for three million years, you're going to end up getting there with everyone extinct.  Unless that's what you're after, and I have somehow misunderstood.

Replies From View

The point is a bit moot though, since they have contradicting time-space travel abilities in Rimmerworld.  It's all a bit unthought through.

markburgle

Quote from: Replies From View on December 14, 2020, 12:54:53 PM
Well if you want to arrive in the solar system around the same time you left it, you need to go back six million, no?

If you only go back three million years, then travel towards earth for three million years, you're going to end up getting there with everyone extinct.  Unless that's what you're after, and I have somehow misunderstood.

Oh yeah I get you now. U r krrkt (but my pride is dented so I can only admit it using misspellings)

petril

Legion and Gunmen are my two big highlights of the series, then the midcard is like Emohawk and Out of Time(solely because of the big plot and alternate crew). Psirens and Rimmerworld are at the bottom for me.

Something never fully clicked with Rimmerworld for me, on the surface it's a variation of Terrorform, and there's some good gags, but there was very little of a sense of horror or fear in it. Maybe it would've worked better if proper Rimmer can't be killed so gets put in charge of the military where he's happy to have a status, but there's no enemy and no work to be done. Makes the whole second half more philosophical about happiness and status over function, Lister can say some Star Trek Crap or something. An ending reveal where he's come round, but on the way out has kicked off a bloody civil war for his own convenience because he's Rimmer

Lemming

Thought I'd do a short write-up of each series, and then a ranking, since Red Dwarf fans love ranking the series.

Series 1: I don't understand the consensus that Series 1 is light on comedy - I honestly think it's more frequently laugh-out-loud funny than most of the rest of the show, even Series 2. The characterisation is great, pretty much every single line spoken by Rimmer or Lister could only be spoken by that character, because they both have such strong personalities. There are less one-liner jokes than in other series, but just the things the characters do and say make me laugh. Rimmer's "daily goal list" scene still has me wheezing every time. Comedy is very subjective, I guess. Love the focus on the relationship between Rimmer and Lister, which is always at the forefront, and does tangibly develop over the course of the six episodes. Cat works well as a background character - and he's actually a cat, an alien creature with his own cultural norms and attitudes which are frequently incomprehensible or outrageous by our standards. Holly is superb, an outstanding character and really kind of menacing at times, especially since he's got full control of the ship and Rimmer and Lister are utterly helpless to go against his whims. Fantastic stuff all the way through.
BEST EPISODE: Me2 - just a great character piece for Rimmer
WORST EPISODE: Confidence and Paranoia - perfectly good episode, just had to put something in this category

Series 2: Seems to be a common choice for best series, and it's definitely my pick. Most of the strengths of the first series remain, but the show allows itself to have a few more involved plots (while most of the first series is about roaming around the ship). The crew's camaraderie is great, Rimmer and Lister's relationship is still the main attraction but Holly and Cat are more integrated now, with good results. Better Than Life, Thanks For The Memory, Queeg and Parallel Universe all make my personal Top 10 Red Dwarf episodes, and they're all in this series!
BEST EPISODE: Thanks For The Memory - this is my favourite episode of Red Dwarf. Without wanting to sound like too much of a wanker, I think this one really transcends the usual quality for Red Dwarf, even the generally high quality of Series 2. Uses the show's setting and concept to its fullest, reveals so much about both Rimmer and Lister, and tells a deeply tragic and haunting story, while still being gutbustingly funny. It's fantastic.
WORST EPISODE: Kryten - again, a fine episode, but it's not paced too well. It was a toss-up between this and Stasis Leak, which loses a lot of points for making virtually no sense, but Stasis Leak is more fun

Series 3: First reboot! The tone and the characters have changed, for the worse in my opinion. Regardless, the series still has plenty of top jokes and continues to come up with some clever sci fi plots. The addition of Kryten adds a new texture to the show, but the character is pretty underused for most of the series. Backwards and The Last Day are a bit on the dull side (again, though, no shortage of laughs in either of them), and Timeslides falls into the Stasis Leak category of "lots of fun but makes no fucking sense at all". That leaves us with the outstanding Marooned and Bodyswap, and the stupid but extremely entertaining Polymorph, three great episodes.
BEST EPISODE: The obvious choice is Marooned, but I really like Bodyswap as well
WORST EPISODE: The Last Day. Nothing outright wrong with it, just not particularly gripping

Series 4: Is this a reboot of Series 3? I'd say so. Characters and tone feel like they've shifted significantly again. Of the first six series, there's an argument to be made that this one is the weakest. Camille and Meltdown are weak, Dimension Jump is fine but not great. Justice and DNA are two very good sci fi concepts. The scripts of both episodes sort of flirt with doing something interesting, then back out - DNA almost gives us a very interesting conversation on Kryten only wanting to become human as a result of (without wanting to sound like too much of a wanker again) internalised anti-mechanoid attitudes, but doesn't go too deep into it beyond Lister talking about wine bars. Justice offers a solid character study of Rimmer, but the character is starting to become shallow at this point IMO, so it doesn't quite come off for me. The idea that he blames himself for the accident is a fantastic one to explore, and the episode delves into it a bit, but it feels like they missed a greater opportunity to me - though I can't really say what I'd have done different. That leaves us with White Hole, which I love. It's obvious throughout how thin the setting and characters are becoming, and yet it's so funny that you go along with it anyway.
BEST EPISODE: White Hole, for the reasons just mentioned
WORST EPISODE: Toss-up between Camille and Meltdown, didn't enjoy either for various reasons. I'll give it to Camille, because Meltdown at least has the scene where Caligula slaps the shit out of Lister

Series 5: Another soft reboot, I'd argue. Decisive shift towards horror and more serious plots, less joke-heavy, and it's mostly a very compelling experience. Holoship is a more traditional mid-series Red Dwarf episode, but after that, it's five episodes of unnerving, creepy horror stories involving long-dead scientists, wrecks full of corpses, insane crewmembers, existentially threatening androids and being tortured by your own inner torment. Cool!
BEST EPISODE: Either The Inquisitor or Back To Reality. On balance, probably Back to Reality
WORST EPISODE: Logically, Holoship since it's the odd one out, but I really like it. I'll say Terrorform, even though it's a perfectly good episode (still hate the ending though...)

Series 6: Definitely a reboot. Tone and characters change so fast that you almost get whiplash if you're coming at it straight from Series 5. I'm very ambivalent on this series - I think the sci-fi side of the show has gone out the window and the plots are transparent nonsense half the time, the one-liner model produces as much total shit as it produces gold, the characters are broad caricatures... but for the first time in ages, it felt like the overall tone was much closer to being back where I wanted it to be. It's upbeat and optimistic in a sort of similar way to Series 1 and 2 (yes, I think series 1 was optimistic and upbeat and that the common view that it's very bleak and depressing is WRONG), Lister and Rimmer feel a bit more like their Series 2 incarnations, and the crew are mostly kind of friendly again. Plus, there are some episodes that are just good without reservations - Legion and Gunmen. Overall, the show is kind of going to shit, but it's going to shit in a very fun way that makes me sort of prefer this series to some of the objectively better written ones.
BEST EPISODE: Gunmen of the Apocalypse - toss-up between this and Legion
WORST EPISODE: Psirens - the jokes just weren't landing on this one, and the plot is rather stupid

The grand ranking:
2 > 1 > 5 > 6 > 3 > 4

Surprised at that, going by my expectations/memories when I started the rewatch. Didn't expect to enjoy Series 5 and 6 that much, especially 6, and expected to like Series 3 quite a bit more than I did. Series 4 feeling comparatively weak is surprising as well, because, going into the rewatch, I was essentially of the opinion that the show just gets gradually worse from Series 3 onwards. But Series 4 starts and ends on weak notes, and probably the biggest problem for me was that the characters had become really frigging annoying. They remain so until Series 6 remedies a lot of that, but Series 5 is so plot-focused that it was easier to deal with. Justice, DNA and White Hole are all sound, though.

Anyone agree? Anyone going to be transparently insane and put Series 4 on top?


thr0b

Fun thing about Out Of Time - it was pretty much written on the night as they didn't have an ending. Hence Rimmer's panicked run probably looks all the more panicked as it's unrehearsed.

You've got series 7 to come, another reboot, and one which I like a lot. A couple of clunkers, but some really strong stuff as well. Definitely edged the show closer to a drama with jokes, rather than a comedy with dramatic elements. Then the backlash caused Series 8. Which had jokes, and could be funny, but was closer to a 1990s CBBC comedy than Red Dwarf.

Phil_A

Quote from: thr0b on December 14, 2020, 04:25:00 PM
Fun thing about Out Of Time - it was pretty much written on the night as they didn't have an ending. Hence Rimmer's panicked run probably looks all the more panicked as it's unrehearsed.


Yes - famously, the script pages came in so late the cast ended up reading their lines off monitors in the final scenes. It's incredible it works as well as it does, really.

JamesTC

It actually works quite well the way the cast read from the hidden teleprompters at points where it would make sense for the character to be reading it off a screen. Kryten usually rattles off exposition off the top of his head but it still works for him to read the exposition from a computer screen.

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Quote from: petrilTanaka on December 14, 2020, 02:54:27 PM
Something never fully clicked with Rimmerworld for me, on the surface it's a variation of Terrorform, and there's some good gags, but there was very little of a sense of horror or fear in it.

It always struck me as odd that they did another Planet of Rimmer's Psyche when the Cat had been overlooked for so long.

Replies From View

Quote from: thr0b on December 14, 2020, 04:25:00 PM
Fun thing about Out Of Time - it was pretty much written on the night as they didn't have an ending. Hence Rimmer's panicked run probably looks all the more panicked as it's unrehearsed.

There are outtakes showing they did multiple takes of that scene, so it wasn't exactly unrehearsed.  It was only a few lines so I don't think Chris Barrie was particularly panicking for that reason.  It's just a well performed scene, albeit probably a fluke (the other takes show he didn't capture the same energy before or again).  The music obviously gives the sequence dramatic weight as well, plus 'to be continued' suddenly leaving you hanging.

The scenes where they were reading from autocues are quite obvious; their eyes have that telltale flick back-and-forth.  Robert Llewellyn does a good impression of it in the series 6 documentary.

the

Quote from: thr0b on December 14, 2020, 04:25:00 PMFun thing about Out Of Time - it was pretty much written on the night as they didn't have an ending. Hence Rimmer's panicked run probably looks all the more panicked as it's unrehearsed.

The end had props and effects and stunts and blocked-out camera moves in it, it certainly wouldn't have been 'written on the night'.

I think it's more plausible that they had the structure/main belly of the script in place, and where it needed to go (prior to the week of filming), but that the ins and outs of the more 'group dialogue' scenes were being (re)written through the week and up to the last moment.

Replies From View

Some of those autocues were actually being written while the recording itself was going on. 

On the series 6 documentary, Llewellyn recalls some lines being deleted and rewritten while he was in the process of reading them in front of the audience, while Doug and Rob sat at their keyboard going 'yeah, no'.

johnlogan

Interesting ranking, and well argued, Lemming.

Prior to my rewatch off this thread, I would always flip between 2 and 5 as the best series, depending on the type of episode I wanted to watch. However, I always seem to forget how much I actually enjoy series 1, so I'd definitely agree with your top 3.

The other 3 series all suffer from thin characterisation quite badly, but I'd rank series 4 in 4th place myself. I think nostalgia will always be on it's side, as it's the first one I saw as a kid, but even on rewatch, I found it to be solid. Although credit ro your write ups, it never really occurred to me that Lister was rebooted into a leather clad, moody superhero with this series. , which is entirely correct. The main problem I had, in this series in particular, is that he's used in every episode to hector the audience with the moral of the story. It can't have been a very rewarding role, at that point.

Series 3 would be in 5th place for me. The drop in writing quality from series 2 is really quite remarkable. In fact, without Marooned, I'd be tempted to put it in last place.

Leaving series 6 in last place. I fully understand why people would like it - it's probably the most popular the show was when Rob Grant was still there, it won the Emmy, it seems like the series that the BBC pushed the most (maybe I'm wrong on that, but it felt the series that was most favoured by repeats in the 1990s - almost certainly because of the Emmy). None of it really lands for me. Whilst it's likely Chris Barrie was probably getting bored or annoyed around series 3 or 4, he doesn't even try to hide it here, and it completely hobbles the show. Yes, Gunmen of the Apocalypse is top class stuff, but it only serves to shame the rest of the series on comparison. Compare it to Back to Reality in series 5 - apparently an unshakeable fan favourite, but you couldn't claim that it's got as much of a lead over the rest of the series.

An example that I always think of is the cliffhanger ending. Quite well done and memorable, but I had no memory of anything else that happened in that episode until watching it again years later. Series 5 had many moments that shook me as a child (Kryten getting killed in The Inquisitor in particular), but I could always actually recall the funny stuff at the same time. I'm not thoughtful enough to really clarify why I think so fondly of one, and not the other, but there it is.

Also, I seem to be the only person who doesn't like the Blue Alert joke, and that's usually one of the most liked jokes from 6. I feel like it's drifted too far from what I liked in the first place, and replaced it all with jokes that I find to be fairly lame, more often than not.

Of course, it's  a towering achievement compared to what's coming up, but no spoilers.

the

Quote from: Replies From View on December 14, 2020, 10:36:41 PMSome of those autocues were actually being written while the recording itself was going on. 

On the series 6 documentary, Llewellyn recalls some lines being deleted and rewritten while he was in the process of reading them in front of the audience, while Doug and Rob sat at their keyboard going 'yeah, no'.

Yeah. I know.

Replies From View

Quote from: the on December 15, 2020, 01:17:22 AM
Yeah. I know.

Sorry, I was just adding facts into the thread, in response to what you said, rather than trying to inform you personally as a direct reply.

Mobbd

Quote from: markburgle on December 14, 2020, 12:49:46 PM
Where are you getting these extra 3 million years from?

You forgot to carry the two.

Mobbd

Quote from: Lemming on December 14, 2020, 01:39:48 AM
Join me as we enter DOUG NAYLOR territory. We're in his world, now, and the only way out is through.

In a Mike Stoklasa voice: Oh no.

Mobbd

Quote from: Lemming on December 14, 2020, 01:39:48 AM
the future crew are a laugh, and I really like the scene where the present-day crew are looking through the security cameras to see what's happened to future Lister - "ohhhhhhh dear".

I really like the future crew. The way they dress, the tackiness, the inauthenticity, the struggle with age, hanging with the Hitlers. Just brilliant. I love it when you see their feet and legs as they enter the airlock. All those terrible polyester trousers! It's such a 1996 English sense of tackiness and I love it. I love Red Dwarf's parochial moments; it's one of the things that makes it for me. And I love the gleeful stalling to reach the woofer of Kryten's toupee at just the right moment.

I remember thinking that the Act 1 stuff about the unreality pockets felt like a different episode to the story of the future selves. I realise now, after Lemming's rewatch and analysis, that "the different episode" it felt like was Psirens. It's the same fucking thing!

I also remember trying to come up with ways that the boys might have saved themselves. My best one: it was an unreality pocket. i.e. it never happened.

Replies From View

Yeah I remember at the time everyone assumed it would be an unreality pocket.  I especially recall somebody saying "if you listen carefully you can hear the 'reality bubble' sound effect immediately after the explosion".  What a bullshitter.  He was so sure of himself.  I do hope he died.

Series 6 was 1993 by the way, not 1996.  Don't know if that changes your argument at all.  They dress in the same kinds of materials we hear Dwayne Dibbley listing in Emohawk.  It feels like there are only about ten distinct ideas of any kind in series 6 and they're in tight circulation.

petril

I hope the final episode is them finally leaving the unreality pocket and it turns out that beating the despair squid was just another part of the game, and it's an example of why the game is so so good

Catalogue Trousers

A quick aside, but I really like the way that Out Of Time presents the ultimate evil version of the crew, not as the obvious hard-nut/psycho/perve caricatures of Demons And Angels, but as elderly, decrepit, profit-fixated bastards whose only obsessions are their own survival and the health of their bank balance. It's that good old thing of the banality of evil, and it works surprisingly well. These doddery old bastards could have the 'demons' for breakfast.

Mobbd

Quote from: Replies From View on December 16, 2020, 05:35:15 PM
Series 6 was 1993 by the way, not 1996.  Don%u2019t know if that changes your argument at all.

It obviously doesn't. And it isn't an argument. It was just a quick comment about what I like on Red Dwarf. On the Internet.

JamesTC

Realised it is a year this week to when I was in the audience for The Promised Land.

Aside from thinking about how weird it was to be crammed in with so many people, it has made me think about how weird it is detaching my night in the audience with what I see on screen. It was a worry I had before I went that I wouldn't be able to immerse myself in the show once I'd seen it recorded but even though they were doing it right in front of me, I still think that this is Lister's bunk room on Red Dwarf and not Pinewood studios on a cold December night.

Replies From View

Quote from: Mobbd on December 16, 2020, 10:25:11 PM
It obviously doesn't. And it isn't an argument. It was just a quick comment about what I like on Red Dwarf. On the Internet.

I only meant 'argument' like 'point you were making'.  Not 'disagreement'.

McDead

Quote from: Replies From View on December 16, 2020, 05:35:15 PM
Yeah I remember at the time everyone assumed it would be an unreality pocket.  I especially recall somebody saying "if you listen carefully you can hear the 'reality bubble' sound effect immediately after the explosion".  What a bullshitter.  He was so sure of himself.  I do hope he died.

It isn't just a pop sound, though, you see the screen "warp" in exactly the same way as the reality bubbles when the first missile from the other Starbug hits. They had definitely seeded that in as a backdoor for the end sequence. And if there hadn't been such a long gap between this series and the woeful series 7 (spoiler), I bet they would have used it.

Mobbd

Quote from: Replies From View on December 16, 2020, 10:47:40 PM
I only meant 'argument' like 'point you were making'.  Not 'disagreement'.

I know what you meant. I never thought you meant disagreement. You meant the case I was making. But I wasn't doing anything so lofty as making a case. I was just saying what I like about Red Dwarf. You tried to make what I was saying sound overly lofty and self-important and then you pounced on how I'd got the date wrong despite it not mattering a jot. I could have looked it up, I suppose, but I didn't care to because this is just a chat about a thing we all like.

markburgle

Quote from: Mobbd on December 17, 2020, 10:45:50 AM
...this is just a chat about a thing we all like.

Not for much longer it ain't! Lolz

Replies From View

Quote from: Mobbd on December 17, 2020, 10:45:50 AM
I know what you meant. I never thought you meant disagreement. You meant the case I was making. But I wasn't doing anything so lofty as making a case. I was just saying what I like about Red Dwarf. You tried to make what I was saying sound overly lofty and self-important and then you pounced on how I'd got the date wrong despite it not mattering a jot. I could have looked it up, I suppose, but I didn't care to because this is just a chat about a thing we all like.

Nah I wasn't trying to cast you as being lofty and self-important and I wasn't pouncing on you for anything.  There must be something about my writing in this thread that is giving off a tone, as someone else seemed irked by me sharing information they already knew from the series 6 documentary.  But my tone is being misread if that's the case.

I knew that series 6 was 1993 (because of an autistic fixation with detail) and I wondered whether it changed your point about a 1996 perspective on tackiness (I wondered what the other reference points would be, for example).  Now I know the answer is "no".  There were no other intentions attached, especially not mean-spirited ones.

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Quote from: McDead on December 17, 2020, 02:43:13 AM
It isn't just a pop sound, though, you see the screen "warp" in exactly the same way as the reality bubbles when the first missile from the other Starbug hits. They had definitely seeded that in as a backdoor for the end sequence. And if there hadn't been such a long gap between this series and the woeful series 7 (spoiler), I bet they would have used it.

Interesting point.  It was a thoughtful edit, in that case, as originally they had the scene with them all celebrating their survival after Rimmer destroyed the time drive, with no mention of reality pockets ever again.

They only ever describe the process as one of backing up a couple of minutes rather than ending on the celebration scene, and sticking "to be continued" on at the end.  But I guess the reality pocket effect would have happened at a later stage, when all the post-production effects were being added?  So what may have been a last-minute editing change probably was never as last-minute as, say, the one ending series 8.

JamesTC

I think Grant Naylor always saw the resolution as they filmed on the night (and likely would have reused the explanation in order to write off the cliffhanger to begin the originally planned 93 Christmas special).

Naylor took too much time resolving it in Tikka to Ride but at least it led to him not feeling obligated to resolve it in Back to Earth and then making a meta joke about it in The Beginning.