Red Dwarf

[Robert Frazer]

I've been enjoying the new Red Dwarf throughout, but I felt that the last episode did end on a bit of a bum note. Rimmer carrying his father's message with him was a bit contrived from the outset, and while you could say that after 58 episodes of being the butt of every joke Rimmer was due some character development, but I'm not entirely sure that this was the best way of going about it. I felt that he could have stepped out of his father's long shadow without the revelation about his real parent - now that he's "just another slob", it knocks out the props from his antagonistic relationship with Lister, and that's what drives the series in the first place. I hope that by this "shock twist" (and do we really need those in a sitcom anyway?) Naylor isn't shooting himself in the foot.

Still, though, it's been a fun ride throughout and it's been good to have the Dwarfers back with us.

[Mardroid]

I liked that last episode a lot.

I don't mind those changes in Rimmer. [spoiler]I doubt he'll completely change just like that, and his relationship with Lister is already a lot less antagonistic than it was in the early run. I actually hope they don't reset him too much in series XI (should it get made) as that's quite common in these types of story arc. The conflicts can come from a more subtle place. Or something else entirely. Difference need not be a bad thing, and the show ceased to be just about Rimmer and Lister's conflict a good while ago.[/spoiler]

I wasn't too sure of the Hoagy the Roagie stuff at the start, [spoiler]mainly as I a) thought he was a simulant and b) thought Cat* and Kryten were rather too callous in giving up Lister to an enemy. But then we got the gag that this is a reoccurring thing and the character isn't nearly as dangerous as he makes out. We should remember there is 9+ years of time between Series VIII and BtE/X.  I wonder if we'll see more of Hoagy in the next series?

In case you don't know, Hoagie was a character from the (un-made) Red Dwarf movie. In fact a lot of stuff in The Beginning was taken from an earlier script of the film!

The real simulants had a bit of a camp Burtonesqe aristocratic thing going on. I prefer them a bit more nasty like the versions from previous series. That being said, I'll admit the sword scene made me laugh, sick puppy that I am. (I read on another site, that joke is a lift from a Mitchell and Webb sketch. While it rings a bell, I don't remember it, so I can't really say, but I like to think it's more a case of 'great minds think alike', rather than an intentional copy.)

Wonderful model footage and a good story, I thought. Some of it was a bit contrived [spoiler](super new gadget turning up to be used later, etc.) [/spoiler]but, I don't mind that too much. [spoiler]I guessed what Rimmer's plan was, but it was still thrilling to see. Lets face it, they could have done something similar by having Blue Midget at right angles to the ship, and having it blast away at the last minute so the missiles miss and hit their new target, but this way was so much more impressive.[/spoiler]

Oh, and that map! [spoiler]It's easy to forget with all the other stuff that happens in the episode, but could that be a seed for the new series? Possibly a way home?[/spoiler]

Series as a whole, while I found the tone of the new series a bit OTT and silly and would have preferred it to be closer to the original run, tonally speaking, it was a decent come-back, and I suspect I'll like it even better on a re-watch. I'll definitely get the DVD. The general one with the reversable cover not the fancy HMV steelbook edition.

*Okay, it's not exactly surprising in his case, as he was always self-centred, but it did seem much, even for him. Incidentally, I really liked that new more insightful side the Cat showed this episode. I like the fact that while he is an idiot in a lot of ways, that's not all he is.

[strontium_dog_90]

Did anyone else notice the subtle stuff about [which Rimmer is currently on the crew? The nods back to the end of Series Eight that seem to suggest he is the second, previously alive Rimmer?]  Loved all of that!

[Dark Jimbo]

I so wanted to like this series, but I was secretly convinced it would be a bit rubbish and not really very good. So glad it ended up better than I think anyone expected it to be. That said - and much as I adore this little slice of my childhood years - I don't want to see too much more. Another series seems like a given, but a twelth series (at most) really ought to be the end.

Did anyone else notice the subtle stuff about [which Rimmer is currently on the crew? The nods back to the end of Series Eight that seem to suggest he is the second, previously alive Rimmer?]  Loved all of that!

Yeah, the gags about series 8's cliffhanger ending were great.

Back to Earth had already hinted that this was the original Rimmer, and it has to be if you think about it; earlier in the same episode he remembers dying along with the rest of the crew in the infamous radiation leak, whereas the ressurected crew (including Rimmer II) had no memories of an event that, in their eyes, had never happened. One of the four possible endings to series VIII had Rimmer I (as Ace) return to pull Arnie II's fat out of the fire, and the fact that current-Rimmer talks about the cliffhanger suggest that some variation of this is what happened. Which means that there may have been two Rimmer's kicking about for a while in those lost nine years.

[Greg M.]

One of the four possible endings to series VIII had Rimmer I (as Ace) return to pull Arnie II's fat out of the fire, and the fact that current-Rimmer talks about the cliffhanger suggest that some variation of this is what happened.

That's exactly what I was thinking, and very much what I assume to have happened - it was a 'total fluke' because he happened to turn up at exactly the right time, or something like that. (I suspect original Rimmer then trained up Series 8 Rimmer to take over from him as Ace, because he'd had enough of it.) However, I am quite happy for this bit of continuity to be forever unexplored (apart from in the realms of fan theories) and left to our imaginations.

[Professor Bear]

That would explain why no-one wants to credit Rimmer with saving the day even though he seems to think he - or at least another version of him - was responsible, though thanks to time-travel shenanigans with magic photographs, Rimmer mk1 didn't actually die in the radiation leak, he died when he got so excited at the thought of sex with a rubber lady he slapped some explosive crates too hard.

[Dark Jimbo]

Rimmer mk1 didn't actually die in the radiation leak, he died when he got so excited at the thought of sex with a rubber lady he slapped some explosive crates too hard.

Nice try, but Rimmer still needs to have died in the leak - if only because, on being alive once more, he's overjoyed to find that he's no longer a hologram of a dead man who died in a radiation leak (i.e. he still remembers it). The Timeslides theory runs that because Rimmer meets a future version of himself while a child, the later pre-radiaiton leak version reacts better than originally when the same thing happens in Stasis Leak, heeds his future self's warning and puts himself in stasis during the leak (and so survives). But of course if he doesn't die in the accident, his future hologram version would never warn his younger self in Stasis Leak, and so he'd never go into stasis, so...

Probably for the best this is never addressed in the programme! I favour a 'the devil will have his due'-type thing; that no matter what mucking around with time and alternate universes Rimmer does, he is destined always to have died in that radiation leak.

[Greg M.]

Thankfully, virtually every Red Dwarf continuity issue can be explained by the disruption to the space-time continuum between series 6 and 7 (caused by them blowing themselves up, and resulting in the merging of two parallel continuums) to which everything can be retroactively ascribed, including the revisions to Lister's personal history with Kochanski from series 3 onwards.