Red Dwarf rewatch

[thr0b]

They never quite decided how to play the Holly graphics.

By the time of series 3, Holly was back to pixellated, I think solarised in series 4 and without effects in series 5. Then when Norm returns, he's always unpixellated, even in scenes set before the disaster. Tsk.

[JamesTC]

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:

Doug Naylor wanted an android to be a permanent character but Rob Grant felt it took away from the concept of the show. They compromised on a single episode but it convinced Rob Grant that he should be part of the main gang which led to his inclusion in Series III.

[Replies From View]

Rob Grant didn't want a robot/android (because he felt they were overused in sci fi) and he also insisted on no aliens. 

But both writers realised they were running out of ideas for the characters in their series 1-2 form.  Rimmer had no physical presence and never shared Lister's agenda, Cat wouldn't integrate in any meaningful way and Holly was a head on a screen.  Kryten could open up the world a bit more, drive the adventures and bring exposition, but we immediately saw Holly's own purpose fade in the process.

I do feel they could have gone further with the show's series 1-2 model.  The writers were forced to look inwards at the psychology of the characters a lot more when they didn't have a wealth of other sci fi cliches to fall back on.  "No aliens" was never strictly broken but only because they had "of Earth origin" as a handy fallback excuse.

[markburgle]

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...

...What the fuck is up with the music in that scene? Love it...

Been watching all the docos and commentaries as I go along. I think the budget for S2 was not much bigger or maybe even the same, but because they already had a bunch of sets and models in hand from S1, they had more cash spare to expand and add things.

Re the music, the cast apparently pushed for inclusion of some "rockier" stuff, so that's an example of that I suppose, plus the stuff they're dancing to at Rimmer's birthday, and I remember more guitar shredding happening in S3.

[Replies From View]

Been watching all the docos and commentaries as I go along. I think the budget for S2 was not much bigger or maybe even the same, but because they already had a bunch of sets and models in hand from S1, they had more cash spare to expand and add things.

Correct.  The budget for series 2 didn't need to go on the sets and motion-controlled beauty shots of Red Dwarf (surprisingly expensive footage), so the budget could go elsewhere, allowing the characters to venture off-ship, use Blue Midget, discover the Nova 5 and plonk around on Rhyll beach.

[Utter Shit]

Just watched Better Than Life - is the music guy having a little meta BBC sitcom joke with his choices? There's one bit that sounds a lot like the Blackadder theme tune, and another that sounds almost identical to the Fawlty Towers theme tune.

[thr0b]

Given that the music guy also did the Blackadder theme, not entirely unlikely. He does like his in-jokes.

The opening theme tune containing lyrics not being discovered for thirty-odd years being one of them.

https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/mindblowing-thing-ive-just-noticed-about-the-opening-theme/

[Utter Shit]

Given that the music guy also did the Blackadder theme, not entirely unlikely. He does like his in-jokes.

The opening theme tune containing lyrics not being discovered for thirty-odd years being one of them.

https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/mindblowing-thing-ive-just-noticed-about-the-opening-theme/

Oh it's Howard Goodall isn't it...not the Fawlty Towers theme though, presumably.

I can't hear the bit they are referring to on that website, assuming this is the right version (there is a link on there but it's broken)...what time does it come in at?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTEpiFcn0wI

[thr0b]

NEVER that version. VOMIT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIh7PjcqQw

Try this one - around 20 seconds in, if you listen carefully what sounds like two instrumental notes is in fact a heavily vocodered "Red Dwarf"

[H-O-W-L]

I think the S3 theme and intro sequence is my favorite of all of them. The music and every chosen shot is just so perfect and iconic IMO. I started watching the show with S3 repeats so maybe that's what makes me biased, but still. S1/S2's painting-the-ship intro is my immediate second, but the S3 intro is just so nice.

[Chriddof]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIh7PjcqQw

Try this one - around 20 seconds in, if you listen carefully what sounds like two instrumental notes is in fact a heavily vocodered "Red Dwarf"

And it's repeated a bunch of times for the rest of the track. I always thought it was a guitar going through loads of effects pedals.

[Replies From View]

I think the S3 theme and intro sequence is my favorite of all of them. The music and every chosen shot is just so perfect and iconic IMO. I started watching the show with S3 repeats so maybe that's what makes me biased, but still. S1/S2's painting-the-ship intro is my immediate second, but the S3 intro is just so nice.

A shot from Thanks for the Memory is in the series 3 intro for some reason.

[FredNurke]

Ed Bye said in one of the recent lockdown commentaries that he was short of footage when he had to put that together, so in it went.

[H-O-W-L]

Ed Bye said in one of the recent lockdown commentaries that he was short of footage when he had to put that together, so in it went.

A shot from Thanks for the Memory is in the series 3 intro for some reason.

It's not like it's alone anyway, shots from Marooned and other S3 episodes are in the S4 intro titles.

[Hey Kidz]

I have the expression 'up up up the ziggurat, lickety split' stuck in my head after rewatching S1

[Hey Kidz]

The rimmerism I always seem to have in my head is 'all you need to know about Yvonne McGruder is... *erect cock motion* I gave her one!'

[Utter Shit]

Just watched Thanks For The Memory - possibly the closest Lister and Rimmed ever get? I know it goes to shit in the end, but Lister attempts to do Rimmer an incredible kindness in giving him one of his memories.

[rue the polywhirl]

Upon rewatching Thanks For The Memories I picked up on the phrase 'it's only shallow' when they find the grave of the memory and I wondered if that was My Bloody Valentine's source of inspiration for the title of their Loveless opener.

[Consignia]

In my recent rewatch, I didn't do series 2 bar Kryten and Queeg. Inspired by this thread I just watched Better Than Life, and it's brilliant. Far more gags than I remember but still with all the melancholy of it's setting. Absolutely loved the whole build up with Rimmer's dad which gets completely pierced with a throwaway gag. The cartoon style lean in from Cat is just sublime.

It's interesting how they made Better than Life so sinister in the books. What's really just a vehicle for being able to explore Rimmer's psyche in the show is made into an addictive drug that you play until you die of starvation. I mean the books are a bit darker in general, but BTL is way beyond.

[H-O-W-L]

I think I vastly prefer female Holly. The writing is better for Lovett's era but Hattie Hayridge just feels more reactive and interesting. The little expression tweaks she does are far more evocative than Lovett's.

[Dead Soon]

I think I vastly prefer female Holly. The writing is better for Lovett's era but Hattie Hayridge just feels more reactive and interesting. The little expression tweaks she does are far more evocative than Lovett's.

You want to make her expressively tweak, you mean

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

NEVER that version. VOMIT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIh7PjcqQw

Try this one - around 20 seconds in, if you listen carefully what sounds like two instrumental notes is in fact a heavily vocodered "Red Dwarf"

mmmmmm i dunno, this is a all bit back-masky-subliminal-message-y

like I can kiiiinda hear it now that you say it but maybe I can only hear it because you said where to listen and what to listen for

[H-O-W-L]

mmmmmm i dunno, this is a all bit back-masky-subliminal-message-y

like I can kiiiinda hear it now that you say it but maybe I can only hear it because you said where to listen and what to listen for

It's definitely there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SF7aRXC5Nk

[Lemming]

S02E02 Better Than Life

"Please rush me my portable walrus-polishing kit. Four super brushes that will clean even the trickiest of seabound mammals. Yes, I am over 18, although my IQ isn't."

That Observation Dome scene is fantastic. Virtually every line is a joke of some kind and yet the scene works perfectly on a dramatic level. There's a great sense of progress in the Lister/Rimmer relationship too, this is the kind of moment they could never have had together in early series one.

Love the continuity in the holographic newsreader on Funky Groovy Channel 27, mentioned all the way back in Future Echoes I think.

The weird corridor that leads into Better Than Life is something that should logically be total shit in a very low-budget-80s-BBC-production sort of way, but somehow ends up being really effectively surreal, especially with the guitar track. In fact there's so many other weird visuals in this episode - the strange costumes of the patrons at the bar, the inverse mermaid, the gang stuck in the sand smeared with jam and about to be eaten alive, Rimmer's appearance degrading as he starts to destroy the game... notice also that his hologram "H" returns to his forehead very suddenly during the cascading series of fuckups that ruins the game.

One great subtle joke - so subtle I'm not even 100% sure it was intentional - is that when Rimmer's telling his shitty anecdote to the gathered admirals - "well, I can't remember exactly what I said" - they all freeze and look at each other confused for a minute before responding with laughter. They're videogame characters programmed to react to Rimmer's desires... and they still think he's a weird twat, or he's just so boring that he managed to break the AI. Oh, and I love everything about the book cover for MY INCREDIBLE CAREER, right down to the shot of Rimmer that appears to be just a screengrab from Me2.

The big concept of the episode, that Rimmer's so fucked in the head that he has the capability to ruin the game not just for himself but for everyone else, is funny, especially as his self-hatred is so extreme that it contaminates and warps the entire game, and there's just no way for Lister or Cat to override it and fix the game, even with both of them trying. I like the weakness that Rimmer gets to show here too, to the point of literally begging Lister for help as the game starts to go completely tits up around them. Like with the Observation Dome, it's something that never could have happened through the whole first series.

"Where's all me money gone?"
"OH NO, I JUST FANTASISED IT ALL AWAY!"

I got a laugh out of the ending. Lister and Cat are sort of prick-y in the final scenes, but they did just get eaten alive by ants, so it's all fair. Who fantasised the letter of promotion for Rimmer? It could of course be Rimmer himself, trying to build his hopes up just to have them crushed along with his thumbs, but maybe you could interpret it as Lister subconsciously doing Rimmer a favour, if you want to read him as being really nice. I mean, Lister picks it up out of nowhere, so it does seem to be something the game has added in response to his desires rather than Rimmer's (who's too busy frantically apologising to be adding anything to the game at all). Welcome to another round of the Red Dwarf Overthinking Zone.

GAME OVER

[Old Nehamkin]

"So I get blown up?"
"Bits of you do".

[FredNurke]

It's definitely there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SF7aRXC5Nk

Howard Goodall confirms

[markburgle]

Lister, of course, has a dad in this episode. It used to bug me how they never bothered with that (or any) continuity in the later seasons. It only occurred me this time round that they can't even be arsed to maintain it as far as the next episode (where Rimmer, putting the implanted-memory pieces together, says "That's why I was an orphan, even though my parents were alive").

I always assumed Rimmer fantasised the letter. Something to do with him thinking he was out of the game, which released him from the feedback loop of panic that he got into at the end of it, and he was returning to his more normal state, where he's capable of idly wishing for things.

[Lemming]

Lister, of course, has a dad in this episode. It used to bug me how they never bothered with that (or any) continuity in the later seasons. It only occurred me this time round that they can't even be arsed to maintain it as far as the next episode (where Rimmer, putting the implanted-memory pieces together, says "That's why I was an orphan, even though my parents were alive").

There might be a way around this one - Lister's mother could have died not long after his father, leaving him an orphan at some point as a child. Presumably he was over 18 during the Lise Yates memories, so Rimmer gets a memory of a memory of him being orphaned at some point.

I noticed another similar fuckup, though - in the bar in Better Than Life, after Rimmer comes back from having sex with the terrifying McGruder golem the game generates in the car, he excitedly tells Lister "twice in one lifetime! I'm turning into Hugh Hefner!" - ie, he directly tells Lister that he's only ever had sex once before. Then, in the very next episode, they make a huge thing of him revealing this exact same fact to Lister again, who reacts with surprise.

[Replies From View]

There might be a way around this one - Lister's mother could have died not long after his father, leaving him an orphan at some point as a child. Presumably he was over 18 during the Lise Yates memories, so Rimmer gets a memory of a memory of him being orphaned at some point.

I choose to completely ignore the horrible revelation from series 7 that he is his own dad (and presumably therefore infinitely inbred as a result).

There was going to be an episode called Dad in series 3 that would have looked into Lister's parentage a little, and he would have discovered his dad to be an ordinary and somewhat pathetic bloke.  The episode was abandoned because it was principally about Lister raising Jim and Bexley, and Rob wasn't interested in it.  Doug was a new dad for the first time, was becoming obsessed with cleanliness around his baby, and wanted to explore how Lister would change under the same circumstances.  Rob wasn't in the same place so the concept was abandoned.

It would have probably been a boring episode, but it's a shame it was abandoned because in series 7 mode Doug started eating into unexplained backstory and giving sci fi spins to everything.  Thus Lister and Kochanski are the parents of Lister in the shittest and unneeded twist in the show's history to that point.

[Replies From View]

I suppose that when Lister mentions his parents he could be talking about his adoptive parents?  When was it established that he was found as a baby in a box under a pool table?