Red Dwarf first aired on February 1988, about five months after Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered and a year before Doctor Who went on its long hiatus. Next Gen was the biggest fish in the TV sci-fi pond in America but it took three years to air on the BBC so Red Dwarf had plenty of time to establish itself as the top sci-fi show in the UK. The End got 4-5 million viewers, which is about what Doctor Who manages at its worst, but it was pretty good for a low-budget UK sitcom and the ratings grew over time. In fact Red Dwarf is still being made to this day (assuming they can get the legal problems sorted out) and would be Britain's longest running sci-fi series if Doctor Who didn't have the unfair advantage of starting 25 years earlier.
Anyway, if you're looking for the first half of this article, CLICK HERE. If you're looking for the conclusion you're already in the right place. Be warned though, there are SPOILERS ahead (for this one episode, not the whole series).
Previously, in The End:
Dave Lister had a plan. He was going to earn a bunch of money working on a mining vessel, then buy a farm on Fiji. Unfortunately the captain discovered the cat he'd smuggled on board and he was punished by spending the rest of the trip in a stasis chamber with no pay. The door slammed shut and he was frozen in time.
And now, the conclusion:
It seems like the creators took a while to make up their mind on whether to give away the big reveal here, as in the final aired version there's no hint of how much time has passed, but in the original assembly cut it flashes up "3 MILLION YEARS LATER" on screen. They changed the sequence again for the Re-Mastered version, as it shows the ship flying through various space scenes, giving viewers a hint that it's been on a much longer trip than planned.
Oh, according to VFX guy Peter Wragg, that rock embedded in the bottom of the ship is supposed to be a meteorite that's crashed into it and gotten stuck. Even though it was already there before its 3 million year trip. To me it looks more like they've attached it deliberately to do a bit of mining, which would make sense for a mining ship.
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| Re-Mastered version |
Despite its flaws (such as not looking like Red Dwarf), this model replaced the original ship for series 8 as well. It was also brought back for series 10, 11 and 12... well, kind of. They went back to that giant physical model of it they built and never used, cut the middle of it out, and then glued the ends together so that it matched the dimensions of the original Red Dwarf model.
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| 10-01 - Trojan |
Oh by the way, that massive antenna-looking arrangement on the front of the ship looks like it might be there to collect asteroids or pick up transmissions or something, but it's actually supposed to be a ramscoop to gather hydrogen from space. This explains how the ship never runs out of fuel... or at least it would if the series had ever mentioned what it was and what it did.
Holly asks Lister to report to the Drive Room for debriefing when he leaves stasis. But no one's around to meet him so he goes wandering into one of the teaching rooms to have a look around and finds piles of white powder on all the desks. Weird that they're only on the desks, not on the chairs, or just scattered everywhere.
Lister asks Holly where everyone is and Holly calmly informs him that they're dead. Lister can't quite get his head around what he's hearing and keeps listing the names of people he knows, with Holly repeating that they are also dead.
Holly has a very deadpan manner of speech, as you'd expect from a starship's super-intelligent main computer, but it's clear that he's starting to get sick of repeating himself by this point. The line "He's dead, Dave. Everybody is dead. Everybody is dead, Dave!" is a clue.
The writers have managed to wring a surprising amount of comedy out of Lister struggling to process the horrifying concept that everyone he knows and cares about has died in an instant. All those people we liked from the first half of the episode, Peterson, Todhunter, Kochanski, they're all gone, and right now that's funny somehow. Rimmer's gone too. Even the hologram who can't be killed is gone! They've killed the entire cast of a sitcom in episode one.
Holly explains that the drive plate was inefficiently repaired, releasing lethal cadmium II radiation into the ship which killed everyone. I guess a skutter must have gotten it fixed at some point in the meantime. Holly couldn't release Lister until the radiation had reached a safe level though, so he's been stuck in stasis for 3 million years, and the ship's been flying in a straight line away from Earth the whole time. That's big reveal #2. He also reveals that it was Rimmer who hadn't sealed the drive plate properly!
Oh I forgot! There's actually another version of the episode in addition to all those other versions I've mentioned: the first US Red Dwarf pilot.
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| US pilot #1 |
There have been a few suggestions for why the US show never went to series, despite two attempts at a pilot, but my own theory is it's because the script was made out of anti-humour, which annihilates comedy when it comes into contact with it. The episode made me hate Kryten, so what chance did the new actors have?
Plus the original episode takes its drama more seriously, with the characters actually caring about their situation. It's really obvious in this scene in particular as there's a massive difference in the way the two Listers react to the news from Holly. Both make a joke, but UK Lister continues being shocked and distraught even as he realises he still has a library book out, while US Lister's just thinking about how much he can make off his baseball cards.
Holly helpfully informs him that she won't be much use to him on Fiji now, unless it snows and he needs something to grit the path with. There have been some hints that Holly's gone a bit weird, but now they're drawing attention to it. 3 million years of solitude hasn't done his sanity any favours. Fortunately Lister's not going to be stuck here alone, not technically anyway...
Rimmer's more of a Star Wars hologram than a Star Trek one, as he's just a projection of light without any force fields to allow him to touch things. Though ironically Lister's the one that not really there in this shot. He was composited in with 1987 BBC blue screen chroma keying, so it's kind of surprising it turned out looking this good.
For years I'd been wondering how they did this effect. Then I watched that Red Dwarf: First Three Million Years documentary while I was doing my research and it gave the trick away!
Anyway, it turns out that the hologram copy of Rimmer actually blames Lister for killing the entire crew, as if he hadn't been sent to stasis he would've had some help with the repairs. Man, what the hell even happened that left Rimmer sealing the drive plate alone? The dude hadn't even passed his engineering exam yet! Personally I'm blaming Hollister for all this.
I probably used to notice the H they've stuck on Chris Barrie's head, but I've known the character for so long now that it doesn't even register with me anymore. I'm more distracted by those monitors in the background of every shot. Did they record a minute of Norman Lovett staring at the camera and loop it, or was he there in another part of the stage keeping his head still for the entire scene?
By the way, the ash disposal console originally got used again in the episode to give the crew a proper space burial.
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| Deleted scene |
Eventually a man in a suit with vampire teeth comes in and starts doing a whole routine. Though Lister only notices he's there about a minute in and doesn't even bother to get up off his chair when he does. I'm not surprised they replaced this whole scene to be honest, it's kind of bad.
He rolls to his feet, does a twirl, and then whips out a mirror to check out how nice he's looking. Then he gets distracted by how nice his shadow looks. The guy seems a bit vain and a bit dumb, but I'm impressed with how the actor did the whole thing without a cut.
Danny John-Jules was a dancer before Red Dwarf, though it wasn't his first time in front of a camera (he'd been a singer in the Little Shop of Horrors movie for one thing). He based the character of The Cat on a few people, like Richard Pryor, Little Richard and James Brown, so the guy's constantly putting on a performance even when he's the only one around to see it. Because he's the best audience he could ever want anyway.
Hang on, we're in Level 454 now? That's a fair few floors below 159. Is this where the Drive Room is?
The Cat runs into Rimmer and Lister and they're all a bit confused. Cat decides to make himself look big and the other two just make a run for it. They end up back in the teaching room again (on Level 159?) and Holly explains that The Cat is descended from Lister's cat Frankenstein, who ended up safely sealed in the hold where she gave birth to kittens. Three million years of inbreeding later and her offspring are now walking around on two legs wearing suits.
And he didn't think to mention this until now?
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| Re-Mastered version |
Cat shows up again and Rimmer suddenly acts out of character, heroically charging at him to take him down with a karate move. He just fades right through him though... because they've already spent time on two proper 'hologram goes through something' effects this episode, and this one would've been even more awkward to pull off.
"The Holy Mother, saved by Cloister the Stupid, who was frozen in time, and gaveth of his life that we might live. Who shall returneth to lead us to Fuchal, the Promised Land."Uh, how did the cats find out that Lister went into stasis to protect them? I suppose Holly might have told them.
Rimmer thinks humanity has probably evolved into a new form of life by this point as well and Lister's the last of an extinct species, but that doesn't discourage him. He's got a cat, he's got a plan, and he tells Holly to set a course for Fiji.
We eventually got an episode actually called The Beginning, but it took a while. In fact it took 24 years, as it was the last episode of series 10. With a title like that it seemed like there was a danger of it being the final episode of the whole series, but that was 12 episodes and a movie ago now and no one's saying Red Dwarf's over yet.
The song apparently describes Lister's situation and his goal to reach sunny tropical Fiji (which was slightly underwater last time he checked).
"It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere.I said I wouldn't spoil later episodes, but I will mention that it's had the same ending theme the whole way through. We've never gotten a new version from Rimmer's perspective or Cat's perspective. Though it was sung by Elvis Presley one time.
I'm all alone, more or less.
Let me fly far away from here.
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun."
"I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose.
Drinking fresh mango juice.
Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes.
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun.
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun."
CONCLUSION
If The End proves anything, it's that that remakes can be good, as Grant and Naylor's first try at making the episode was a bit rubbish. It really needed that second attempt. Though the US reimagining demonstrates that remakes can also be terrible! Remasters are a bit of a mixed bag as well it turns out. There wasn't an original film master for them to work from as the episode was shot on video, so they just took that and made it look worse.
Anyway, the episode basically tells the story of two men with their own plans each facing a fairly major setback. If that wasn't bad enough, they also find themselves three million years in the future and three million years from home, and their ship is covered with the powdered remains of everyone they know. Also one of them dies and is replaced with a computer simulation. And this is a comedy.
It's funny how the episode spends most of its runtime setting itself up to be a perfectly decent 'lower decks' comedy, about the two people on the lowest rung of the ship who hate each other, and then blows up that premise along with most of its characters. In fact both the episode's plots rely on there being other characters for Lister and Rimmer to interact with, money to make, and promotions to attain, and the episode flushes all of that away, leaving you with just four characters and a ship, wondering where it can go from here. But it makes it clear that whatever happens, this is a series about Rimmer and Lister driving each other mad, and being trapped alone in deep space is only going to make it worse. Their conversations are the core of this story and they're also the moments when it shines the brightest... partly because those are the scenes that were reshot, but also because the dialogue is great and the two actors are fantastic together. More fantastic than you'd expect considering this was their first acting job! I think we actually got lucky they didn't end up casting Alan Rickman and Alfred Molina in the end, and it's not often I get to say that.
The episode doesn't have a lot of time to establish the characters, so it's efficient about it. We're shown that Lister is a lazy slob that everyone generally likes, who'd give up 18 months' pay to save his cat. Meanwhile Rimmer is a career-focused joyless git who desperately wants to hang out with the top ranks and look down at everyone else but never will; all arrogance and persistence but no ability. But even though they're both losers, we're encouraged to sympathise with them instead of just laughing at their expense. It's not like Blackadder or Bottom where the characters are unsympathetic cartoon bastards; the story gives Lister and Rimmer some real humanity and despite all the jokes they're obviously affected by all of the miserable things that happen to them here. In fact they're absolutely devastated as all their dreams are destroyed and everyone they know dies. By all rights the episode should end on a real downer, but it pulls a clever trick by introducing a weird non sequitur man in a bright pink suit at the last minute. The Cat's appearance serves three important purposes:
- It gives Lister's sacrifice some meaning.
- It hints at all the sci-fi strangeness they're going to encounter three million years in the future.
- It re-energizes Lister and lets the episode end on a positive note.
Though the thing is, this isn't my Red Dwarf. The series has transformed a few times during its run, and I came in during the season 3-5 era which had a very different look and feel. Plus I was a tiny baby at the time I watched them and they've been imprinted onto my soul as The Way Red Dwarf Should Be. Series 1 and 2 are like an 80s prequel to the 90s series I love, just like how seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation feel like an 80s prequel to that series I love... except in this case the writing was good from the start. Also Red Dwarf started off a lot more grounded than it ended up and I much prefer it when it's taking its setting halfway seriously like this. The series really started to lose me in series 8 when it basically became a cartoon (no disrespect intended to actual cartoons like Lower Decks), but there's nothing really dumb or exaggerated about the ship or the world at this point. The comedy comes from the characters, not the absurdity of their reality, which actually feels pretty down to earth and realistic. So this episode isn't entirely what I'm after from the series but it's still pretty decent I think. Some extra colours would've been nice though.
COMING SOON
In fact next on Sci-Fi Adventures it's the final ever Sci-Fi Adventures Awards! Why is it the last? Because keeping track of everything that happened in everything I wrote about over a whole year is really hard and I don't want to do it anymore. But I'll put in the work one last time for you.
I started watching this show from the beginning, so this will always be the definitive era of Red Dwarf to me. It's like you said, the core of these early episodes is the idea that these two idiots are trapped in space all alone, with no one but each other to talk to (more or less.) IMO the show lost a little something when they introduced Kryten and the Cat became more of a real character. I feel like that made the show easier to write, but the pervading sense of isolation was lost.
ReplyDeleteThe opening sequence of these early seasons really spells out the appeal of the show, I think: you see Dave in a spacesuit painting the side of the ship, and then the camera zooms out... and out... and out on this massive, empty ship that goes on for miles on which he's the only living soul, and it really drives home the idea that he's utterly, completely, alone. Everybody's dead, Dave.
Should just add I have nothing against anyone who prefers the seasons after the first two (they're pretty good too!), just that these early episodes carry a certain je ne sais quoi for me. To each their own.
DeleteSeries 3-5 might be my Red Dwarf, but series 1-2 is maybe my second favourite era. It might be very grey but Lister and Rimmer are more... real at this point. In fact it's all more real, aside from the occasional reverse mermaid.
DeleteI only came across Red Dwarf after season right was over and the series was in the midst of its long, looong hiatus. I started watching from episode one and binged the entire series in a couple of weeks... But my impression still reflects the overall consensus: seasons 1 & 2 are pretty good, but feel locked down and cramped, and entirely hinge on Lister's and Rimmer's interactions (thankfully the dialog is great and the actors manage to carry the series), with cat as the occasional (usually delightful) distraction. With seasons 3-5 the series got to be at its strongest, opening up the universe and expanding the plots but still with the characters mostly grounded in reality. Season 6 still is pretty good (in fact "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" is one of my favorite episodes overall), but it was also the season where the writing partnership of Grant and Naylor started to break down, and it really shows. 7 struggled to find an identity of its own, and 8 was just... Bad. I'm glad the series still lives on nowadays, but these later seasons never quite managed to reach the heights of the first five seasons. But they are usually better than season 7 or 8 episodes, so I don't really complain. 😎
ReplyDeleteDamn, you've got all the same opinions I have!
DeleteI actually bought the scripts book for series 8 just because I wanted to know what they were thinking and what went wrong. Turns out it was pretty much all scripts and no commentary though.
I think it was just a culmination of smaller issues mounting up:
Delete- The rather moody, more dramatic series 7 wasn't that well received, so Doug Naylor tried to steer the comedy hard back in the opposite direction and overshot the mark, ending up with humor that was more cartoonist and at times quite cringeworthy ("See you in ten minutes" or "Have a fantastic period!")
- Apparently the decision was made to extend the series from the usual 6 to 8 episodes, so they had to scramble to somehow extend it on short notice, leading to a weaker three-part season premiere and the borefest that was "Pete/Pete 2" (Though KrytieTV is almost as bad).
- The show was shot at a different studio and the cast was much expanded, both things the producers weren't used to, which apparently led to a more chaotic production.
- This one I'm not 100% sure of, but I think I read somewhere that even though Chris Barrie had agreed to return as Rimmer, his heart wasn't really into it, as he had tried to disassociate himself from being identified just for this character. As a result, his performance was weaker and wearier than before.
- Finally, moving the premise away from "Last Human Being Alive", "All alone (more or less)" to a much more expanded cast of spacefaring human travellers, robbing the show of it's most unique selling point. Why that decision was made though I have no idea (I would like to hear the reasoning behind that one day) - thankfully the series that came after that simply jettisoned the idea, without even bothering to explain, and reverted to the "Boys from the Dwarf" setup. (I wouldn't have minded Kochansky returning - apparently that was even planned at some point in Series X, but abandoned due to scheduling issues).
I should've left the book on the shelf and given you the money instead.
DeleteI love the "He's dead, Dave. They're all dead." sequence. It's a lovely bit of dialogue that's up there with Blackadder.
ReplyDeleteor was he there in another part of the stage keeping his head still for the entire scene?
He was sat on a stool in another room for most of his appearances, so his reactions could be live (I watched something last year in which he explained how they did Holly) but whether that was the case for these bits where Holly isn't doing anything, I don't know.
Danny John-Jules was also in Labyrinth in 1986. In 1989 he turns up in Maid Marian as Barrington, so for a few years we get Double Danny! Although, technically I probably shouldn't have been watching Red Dwarf at the age of 9/10. Although we all did, of course.
What I like about the ending theme is that it is the same tune as the opening, but just more jolly. It's like how Super Mario World only has one bit of level music.
I've got one of those TV themes CDs that has an extended version of the Red Dwarf song, with extra verses. I have no idea if they are official, but as far as I'm aware they were never used on the actual programme.
"I've got one of those TV themes CDs that has an extended version of the Red Dwarf song, with extra verses."
DeleteIn think in one of the Smeg Off videos Robert Llewellyn (in character as Kryten) reads the entirety of the theme song lyrics, which has two verses then, so at the very least they were used in some sort of semi-official capacity at least once.
You mentioning Danny John-Jules' career as well as the Red Dwarf opening in one comment posting somehow made me think of that one Red Dwarf episode that, instead of the regular opening, had the show start with the cast performing a rendition of "Tongue Tied", the song that was meant to help launch John-Jules'pop career (which never really took off to my knowledge), which the in-episode excuse being that the Cat was somehow browsing through recordings of a dream of his. That was a weird way to start an episode (and the only time I can remember that they strayed from a season's usual structure).
They did play around with the format a couple of times. In "Waiting for God" the end credits get interrupted by Rimmer as he realises what the "alien spacecraft" is. And you get "Elvis" singing the end theme in "Meltdown" and the skutters' organ version in "Dimension Jump". I'm sure there are others.
DeleteI don't remember the opening getting changed apart from the "Tongue Tied" dream sequence though, so that's unique, I think.