Red Dwarf

[Loki]

I don't like the episodes where they go to Earth or whatever. Particularly time travel, it's such a lame excuse to put them in situations that are easier for them to write. It'd be good if they didn't do it in every series.

 

Red Dwarf is funny because they're the last people left alive, and they're confined to their ship. You didn't see episodes of Porridge where they all went on an away day to Brighton or somesuch. The comedy is derived from the situation, hence the phrase situation-comedy.

[lambyUK]

I don't like the episodes where they go to Earth or whatever. Particularly time travel, it's such a lame excuse to put them in situations that are easier for them to write. It'd be good if they didn't do it in every series.

 

Red Dwarf is funny because they're the last people left alive, and they're confined to their ship. You didn't see episodes of Porridge where they all went on an away day to Brighton or somesuch. The comedy is derived from the situation, hence the phrase situation-comedy.

 

Sorry Loki but that's absolute shite.

 

Perhaps the most genius of seasons for Red Dwarf is series 5 and if they were confined to their ship none of that series would have materialised.

[Prince Nana]

I can understand the objecton of going to earth ( but even then I think you could make back to earth an exception) but objecting to them leaving the ship at all is a bit odd. Red dwarth isn't a prison so visiting other planets and salvaging from ships is completly consistent with their "situation".

 

Season 1 was the first and only season where they never left the ship, but if it stuck to that formula I don't think it would have lasted as long as it did.

[Surf Digby]

Loki's actually got a good point (even if Porridge did have the odd episode set outside the prison). Other sitcoms have suffered when they're bought a pre-written script and adapted it to fit, and by sticking the Red Dwarf crew on 20th century Earth it resembles this.

[Dr Pepper]

Lister mentioned that Kristine Kochanski was 31 in last nights episode. Shouldn't she be in her late 40's/early 50's by now?

[Prince Nana]

This was mentioned on the website fourm some people think it's a sugesstion that "things arn't quite what they seem". We'll see though.

[air_raid]

Re : last nights episode - it was alright. That's the series in a nutshell - it's been alright. But that's good, because "alright" is better than I expected. I'll end up buying the DVD, and I'd look forward to watching it again. It's been alright, with one or two great jokes. The build they gave in last nights episode for the origins of ERRA for the pay off of "Did it work?" "No." That was lovely.

 

I must admit, anything that flies in the face of Dave Lister (3 million years in the future) being the last human being alive* always rubs me up the wrong way, and I was astonished at how they let her be accidentally flushed out the window. As soon as Lister got out of his groinal explosive, he should have been smashing her pasty like the future of the species depended on it. Which it would have.

 

* Yes, I realize that we've got to accept the chance Kochanski is still around. FUCK Kochanski.

 

Lister mentioned that Kristine Kochanski was 31 in last nights episode. Shouldn't she be in her late 40's/early 50's by now?

 

To be fair, as pointed out earlier we don't really know if in story Lister is supposed to be fifteen years older than he was in series 8, although it's convenient to assume so since the actors all look older apart from Kryten who just looks like he put his head in a hot wash by mistake.

 

Let's double check the rules :

 

Seriously, anything that seems off-kilter / out of synch with previous episodes needs to consult with one of the following deus ex machina :

(1) they traded with GELFs for it ; (2) that didn't count, it was a parallel universe ; (3) nanobots ; (4) a wizard did it.

 

Let's go with (2). This is a parallel universe that "our" Dwarf crew have entered where Kochanski is 31. After all, Ace Rimmer left his own dimension 3 million years before the year it is when he meets "our" Rimmer in Dimension Jump. Alternatively, she was frozen in stasis and abducted by a lifeform or lifeforms unknown, like Boba Fett stealing Han. Or how about (3) - at some point Kochanski died and the crew asked nanobots to rebuild her, but they have managed to lose the lot of them.

 

Fuck it, I'm actually going with (4) on this one. In addition, FUCK Kochanski.

 

Their is even websites dedicated to providing answers to such things

 

john conners dad being his mate from the fruture it's the same kind of thing.

 

Red dwarth isn't a prison

 

"things arn't quite what they seem".

 

Have you been drinking?

 

If you have a problem with that you must allso have a problem with john conners dad being his mate from the fruture it's the same kind of thing.

 

It's really not. If you're making the assumption that traveling backwards in time is possible (which both Terminator and Ouroboros clearly both do), then there is nothing impossible about Kyle Reese arriving in the past and while he's there impregnating Sarah Connor. Nothing at all.

 

Conversely, it's clunky and horribly messy for Dave Lister to travel back into his own past and leave his child in the past which magically will grow up into him. It's terribly inexplicable. What force formed the Lister paradox? Ignore "birth" in the sense of fertilization, chromosomes and so on - how did this circle begin? Never mind the issue that the baby that is born is only half the chromosomes from Lister and half Kochanski, not a clone, so it's equally impossible for the child to become the same David Lister as initially left him under the pool table to begin with. When he grows up and then reaches the "invitro tube/Ouroboros" point of his life, the DNA of the baby changes again and so on. I imagine after a few cycles, the child will grow up to be less Dave Lister, smeghead, and more like Smeg & The Heads.

 

It's bollocks, it's ridiculous, and it's one of the biggest reasons full-on Dwarfers have had to retcon and develop their own heightened tolerance to continuity errors and the unexplainable. My own answer to how the Lister paradox started :

 

(4) a wizard did it.

 

 

 

P.S. Please stop saying "season" when you mean "series", all of you. It's a terrible Americanism and we don't need it.

[Prince Nana]

Considering you were ranting against people geting caught up with things making sence, isn't the fact it dosen't bother me in the slightest a good thing?.

 

I don't feel the need to invoke wizards if really needed can you not just revert too it's a comedy?

 

I also don't understand why you don't have "the past was changed via time travel" as an option.

 

In case I've made any mistakes I'm a dyslexic on a blackberry with no spellcheck so shut it.

 

Considering I have actually been making an effot to spellcheck things over recently, I found that more anoying than normal.

 

Geting techy of "season" really?

[air_raid]

Considering you were ranting against people geting caught up with things making sence, isn't the fact it dosen't bother me in the slightest a good thing?

 

Doesn't bother you, good thing. Bothers others, bad thing.

 

I don't feel the need to invoke wizards if really needed can you not just revert too it's a comedy?

 

 

"A wizard did it" is an idiom for "something completely unexplainable happened so here's a pathetic deus ex machina to explain away FUCKING ANYTHING", please get over it, it's just a sitcom" like the other three.

 

I also don't understand why you don't have "the past was changed via time travel" as an option.

 

Because I thought four was plenty.

 

In case I've made any mistakes I'm a dyslexic on a blackberry

 

Understandable....

 

 

so shut it.

 

....oh, but you're also a bellend. Fair game then.

 

Geting techy of "season" really?

 

Yes.

[Prince Nana]

That's unfair you were being the bellend first so it's understanderble for be to be anoyed lilke that. But if you going to be lke that that makes season also fair game.

 

I hope the rest of the season is good

[Loki]

I can understand the objecton of going to earth ( but even then I think you could make back to earth an exception) but objecting to them leaving the ship at all is a bit odd. Red dwarth isn't a prison so visiting other planets and salvaging from ships is completly consistent with their "situation".

 

Season 1 was the first and only season where they never left the ship, but if it stuck to that formula I don't think it would have lasted as long as it did.

 

I don't mind them leaving the ship, obviously. It's leaving the situation I dislike. When they go salvaging or their post catches up with them, or whatever, that's fine. It's when they find Aliens, Gelfs, space stations full of people in deep feeze, transport back to earth, all that. Those episodes always suffer.

 

Look, Stasis was brilliant. But they've subsequently done that story in every series since. The whole series set on board the recreated Red Dwarf with all the crew was an utter, utter disaster. Better Than Life was also good, but again it was clearly NOT meant to be real people or real Earth.

 

The show is at its best when it's the 4 of them mistaking a rotten chicken carcass for a Quagar, or erasing their memories because Lister gave Rimer his memories.

[Dirty Eddie]

The show is at its best when it's the 4 of them mistaking a rotten chicken carcass for a Quagar, or erasing their memories because Lister gave Rimer his memories.

 

It's Quagaar actually, double a. It's a name I invented.

[air_raid]

Look, Stasis was brilliant. But they've subsequently done that story in every series since. The whole series set on board the recreated Red Dwarf with all the crew was an utter, utter disaster. Better Than Life was also good, but again it was clearly NOT meant to be real people or real Earth.

 

The show is at its best when it's the 4 of them mistaking a rotten chicken carcass for a Quagar, or erasing their memories because Lister gave Rimer his memories.

 

[pedant]3 blokes, unless you count Holly. Kryten wasn't a regular until after they dug out the 'Bug and spread their wings.[/pedant]

 

Unfortunately they had a limited number of storylines they could run in that exact setup. Hence the facelift in series 3 where they introduced Kryten and let them explore the universe via Starbug a bit more. The original episode they drafted for the end of series 1 where Rimmer plans to build a new body from bits he "steals from Lister while he sleeps" was already a bit of a warning sign that even in the mid eighties the series in its original incarnation had a very limited shelf life.

 

I've got no problem whatsoever with GELFS, simulants, whatever random shit they discover in the deep darkness of uncharted deep space. 3 million years have passed, all bets are off. The time travel stuff, fine. It's a sci-fi comedy, if I didn't like sci-fi I'd have never given it a chance. I absolutely detest the notion held by man of the self-appointed hardcore fans that the "monster of the week" accusation levied against series 3-6 makes it a weaker sitcom, mostly because the funniest episodes all come from that run. That's the bloody point of comedy, to make you laugh, yes? I honestly consider series 6 the best. Series 7-8 were mostly bollocks because they got caught up in the situation (i.e. the sci-fi element) and neglected the fact it was meant to be funny.

[WWFChilli]

Great point Raid. Lots of fans of the show seem to dwell far too much Red Dwarf's continuinty. It really shouldn't matter. Nearly every comedy show features shit loads of inconsistencies.

[Dr.PeterVenkman]

I didn't like the actress that played Ireene, but aside from that a good episode.

 

She was alright, and amazingly bonny