In the novel 'Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers', Lister _deliberately_ photographs himself with the cat to get himself put into stasis to shorten his time on Red Dwarf. He didn't care about the money he stood to lose, he was just sick of being on the ship. However, he made sure that Frankenstein was inoculated against every disease and hid her in the ventilation system so she wouldn't get caught and dissected.
Thanks for covering this show, which is so near and dear to my heart. I remember having to watch shitty bootlegged versions of seasons 1-5 that had been copied so many times that each frame looked like a horrible JPEG mishap! Even so, I fell in love with this show and it's brightened my soul on some particularly dark days when I needed it most. If you haven't checked them out already, Cyborcat has been doing some terrific vlogs for each episode over on her channel.
God I love this show! I remember first seeing it on a PBS marathon here in the US sometime in...I want to say 96 or so. Later I found VHS of the show for sale in a Suncoast Video at a local mall and seeing as how I had mostly seen Series 5 or 6 and hadn't seen it from the start, I picked up the first tape of Series 1 and just went from there. I still have all my original VHS from series 1-8 and the Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs.
love this show, awesome rundown of the first series. I geeked out when I saw The Cat in Blade II. I grew up on shows like this, Photon and Space Precinct.
Cool info and review, thanks! The background of Craig Charles and proving to the creators that typecasting doesn't always work is huge. I can't imagine anyone else being Lister.
Really great video. Red Dwarf was a fixture of my local PBS affiliate back in the 90s and 00s and was my gateway drug into British sci-fi. I actually came into the show with series 3, but I've always had a deep and surprisingly nostalgic love for series 1 and 2. I'm looking forward to seeing you go through the rest of the show's run, especially the more divisive later years.
For what it's worth, my head canon id that Lister DOES use the stasis chamber between episodes. Remember how the mail pod caught up with them because they'd turned around a few episodes later despite it supposedly taking 4000 years?
I love this show. I got the then-whole series on DVD for either my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember, and I'll have to rewatch it again soon. Great work! I'm so happy you're doing this show in this format.
The Crimson Short-One! I have no idea what was wrong with my parents that i was allowed to watch this show religiously from the pilot onwards (I was nine when it kicked off, for smeg's sake!) This show ruined any chance my Sec-Ed teachers had of browbeating recieved pronunciation into my head, making it legendary by my biased standards. 29 years later I'm drinking a store-brand lager, feet on the desk, in a London Jets T-shirt and humming "Lunar City Seven" and see this video scroll by in the feed. Instant nostalgia made my day! Thank you for this video! And if you plan to make more of these, stoke me a clipper, i'll be back for Kryten!
Fantastic overview! My only problem is I agree with you too much. Waiting for God was the best episode and you picked one of my top three favourite lines to deliver for the stinger. Looking forward to the rest of them.
I love how early on all of the computer input terminals were presumably broken Commodore 64s. Not dressed up or painted grey or anything, just out in the open in their brown glory. It actually works a lot better now but when those things were in every third household it's a pretty clear indication that they had a bunch of high minded ideas about what the sets should look like, and a fraction of the budget required to realize them.
feck and naff aren't really made up swear words though they already existed as words, whereas smeg was original even if did just come from smegma. Naff already means something crap and feck has long been part of the Irish lexicon as a substitute for fuck. As well as being a genuine definition of someone clueless as in feckless.
I actually viewed the reruns of Red Dwarf so saw it out of order, even by American standards. So I think I viewed series 1 somewhere in the middle and was kind of confused lol
I think the ship's design changed twice. The ship in the pilot or possibly series 1 was changed in series 2, or possibly after the pilot. I think they changed the ship in video releases though.
Even though Lister didn't believe he still ended up making the older cat's prophecy come true. So, it was an actual prophecy that predicted future events. Sure Lister knew he was lying but either way the prophecy came true, so maybe that's what he was supposed to believe.
Red Dwarf is just one long "trapped in the elevator" episode, and an admitted Black Star ripoff. But dammit it works! One of my favorites? What about Hyperdrive?
I'd like to believe that the last ship full of cats became the cats in the video game series Monster Hunter. Mostly because if they were lucky enough not to hit an astroroid while following something Lister wrote, they must have enough luck to survive having Godzilla and his friends as neighbors.
Interesting to hear such a different perspective from my own, if I had to pick a favorite episode of red dwarf overall it'd be Future Echoes, possibly entirely on the merits of one scene where Lister gets confused by a future echo of Rimmer, and then immediately tells Rimmer about it and plays out the other half of the echo. It's hard to describe out of context, but the writing in that scene amazes me, and series 1 and 2 in general have some of the most entertaining small moments to me in ways that carry the episodes. Waiting for god on the other hand I recall always finding a bit uncomfortable and less enjoyable for it, the religion commentary in it, while I don't necessarily disagree with it, is fairly trite stuff to me. Not much new to see there.
this was astonishingly calm...WHO GAVE DIAMANDA NORMIE PILLS??? lol srsly though this is a well arranged and considered retospective worth sending to anyone confused about why we like it so much
I'm curious to hear if you have any theories about what happened to the original Kochanski since depending on how time travel rules work there could be at least 3 of them
Feck wasn't a "made up word for Fr. Ted", it is word that MUCH older than the show. Ask any Irish person. Naff was in common parlance outside of Porridge, it might have been made well known, but it was there apart from the show. Also regarding Fr. Ted was made ever before it was brought to England. So some more research there is good.
(Looks at Irish passport with tears in eyes) Okay, looks like I was wrong and Naff predated Porridge but Father Ted was produced by Hat Trick, a British company.
Ah no no, no need to cry, oh dear oh dear no. That's true, Father Ted was produced by Hat Trick, a British company, but it was offered to Irish television first, but unfortunately those dozy bastards in Irish media don't know a good thing when they see it. There is sadly a lot of cases of that where Irish talent has gone to pastures new and down very well.
As an Irish person I asked myself and decided I was right :) (:P) It being produced by a British company (and airing on Channel 4) is why I feel Father Ted can be either called Irish or British, depending on what your talking about. When it comes to talent- Irish, when it comes to production- British.
Naff was part of Polari, a 'secret' language used by carnival showmen, con artists and (due to their legal status at the time) gay people. It was eventually fully "gayified", and usually pronounced in really camp accents. "Naff" itseld meant "not very good", and can often by heard in the Julian And Sandy sketches on the 1960's radio show Round The Horne, which also introduced Polari as a whole to a wider audience (and got no end of muck past the censors).
I'll probably briefly mention them in a video, not much detail though because 'They fucked up the early series's by adding shit CGI, rerecording random stuff and cutTING jokes because DUMB!' wont take too long to say.
Thank you Is there any episodes that are the worst since it's a difficult thing since very few are and it's more just less favoured then the others around it?
I would say to skip the Back to Earth mini-season, which was series 9. That was so cringy that I dreaded them starting the show back up again. Luckily series 10 and 11 rebounded and felt much more like classic series 3-5 Red Dwarf. IMHO, at least.
AHH! Why do you screw with the aspect ratio?! Hagan, please leave old 4:3 ratio episodes in their original format. It looks terrible when you stretch them to widescreen!
Or what about 'feck off' or ' I hate that feckin bus driver' or 'I'd feck the arse off her' or 'for feck sake' or 'I'd smash the feckin head off ye'... It's well known that it's a 'cleaner' corruption of fuck. Different to feckless of course. Live and learn eh?
Pretty good, but I don't think Lister is anything like Rick from the Young Ones. He's from a different class, has zero interest in politics and is generally good-natured. I know you said "Rick without the negative qualities", but that's basically no Rick at all.
Well, this is about as clear an introduction as anyone could ask for! By the way, I'd have to vote Me-squared as worst episode just because you have to deal with Rimmer way too much. One is fine, annoying but enough to get by. Two is just terrible..... although, props to them for getting a deliberately annoying character right!
You don't sound like you even like Red Dwarf. Me2 is one of my all time favourite episodes. Waiting for God is one of the worst..I makes no logic sense.
I wasn't sure what else could be said in another series about Red Dwarf since Cyborcat's guides seem so thorough, but you managed it. I suppose having prior-knowledge of british actors and culture helps. Oh, and to me Lee Cornes will always be Dick Head the barman.
In the novel 'Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers', Lister _deliberately_ photographs himself with the cat to get himself put into stasis to shorten his time on Red Dwarf. He didn't care about the money he stood to lose, he was just sick of being on the ship. However, he made sure that Frankenstein was inoculated against every disease and hid her in the ventilation system so she wouldn't get caught and dissected.
Currently reading it. Love that little detail and how it builds on the characters backstory.
@kronik denny Actually, Diamanda's a she.
Thanks for covering this show, which is so near and dear to my heart. I remember having to watch shitty bootlegged versions of seasons 1-5 that had been copied so many times that each frame looked like a horrible JPEG mishap! Even so, I fell in love with this show and it's brightened my soul on some particularly dark days when I needed it most.
If you haven't checked them out already, Cyborcat has been doing some terrific vlogs for each episode over on her channel.
Best show ever, little known fact Danny John Jules who played Cat voiced 2 of the Fireys in the movie Labyrinth
Don't lose your head!
juraii80 what can’t he do
He was also in the video to Edge of Heaven by Wham!
Chilly down with the Fire-gang!😂✌️🤘🍻
Oh fuck I've got some catching up to do, this show is my absolute favourite and I would love to see how you take on the highs and lows of Red Dwarf!
God I love this show! I remember first seeing it on a PBS marathon here in the US sometime in...I want to say 96 or so. Later I found VHS of the show for sale in a Suncoast Video at a local mall and seeing as how I had mostly seen Series 5 or 6 and hadn't seen it from the start, I picked up the first tape of Series 1 and just went from there. I still have all my original VHS from series 1-8 and the Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs.
Waiting for God is maybe my favourite episode of Red Dwarf I've always just found it to be hilarious and incredibly interesting.
love this show, awesome rundown of the first series. I geeked out when I saw The Cat in Blade II. I grew up on shows like this, Photon and Space Precinct.
Cool info and review, thanks! The background of Craig Charles and proving to the creators that typecasting doesn't always work is huge. I can't imagine anyone else being Lister.
Really great video. Red Dwarf was a fixture of my local PBS affiliate back in the 90s and 00s and was my gateway drug into British sci-fi. I actually came into the show with series 3, but I've always had a deep and surprisingly nostalgic love for series 1 and 2. I'm looking forward to seeing you go through the rest of the show's run, especially the more divisive later years.
Cat ordering fish from the food machine, and the raining fish can mean only one thing:
"That's a lot of fish." - Godzilla
For what it's worth, my head canon id that Lister DOES use the stasis chamber between episodes. Remember how the mail pod caught up with them because they'd turned around a few episodes later despite it supposedly taking 4000 years?
I have now 2 sources for Red Dwarf guide glory.
...was the other one SFDebris?
You can never have too many.
Is the other Cyborcat?
I love this show. I got the then-whole series on DVD for either my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember, and I'll have to rewatch it again soon. Great work! I'm so happy you're doing this show in this format.
Classic who, the first 8 series of red dwarf and porridge are my favourite TV shows ever!
The Crimson Short-One! I have no idea what was wrong with my parents that i was allowed to watch this show religiously from the pilot onwards (I was nine when it kicked off, for smeg's sake!) This show ruined any chance my Sec-Ed teachers had of browbeating recieved pronunciation into my head, making it legendary by my biased standards.
29 years later I'm drinking a store-brand lager, feet on the desk, in a London Jets T-shirt and humming "Lunar City Seven" and see this video scroll by in the feed. Instant nostalgia made my day!
Thank you for this video! And if you plan to make more of these, stoke me a clipper, i'll be back for Kryten!
You guys should check out Cyborcat's Red Dwarf series, she goes through it episode by episode and is up to series 6.
Just watched them all yesterday, she has great insights.
Fantastic overview! My only problem is I agree with you too much. Waiting for God was the best episode and you picked one of my top three favourite lines to deliver for the stinger. Looking forward to the rest of them.
Please... More!!!!!!!!!!!
This is sooooooooooo good, plus, not a lot of folks here really know about this amazing show.
righttt
I remember discovering this show on PBS of all things with the Young Ones, lol a hell of a combo for an 10 year old to take in lol
Looking forward to you covering Series 2 soon
I love how early on all of the computer input terminals were presumably broken Commodore 64s.
Not dressed up or painted grey or anything, just out in the open in their brown glory. It actually works a lot better now but when those things were in every third household it's a pretty clear indication that they had a bunch of high minded ideas about what the sets should look like, and a fraction of the budget required to realize them.
Now I get why my 7th grade teacher called us all a bunch Smegheads back some three decades ago.
We never knew what he meant and he never explained it.
Great vid, despite the missed opportunity to point out that the Blackadder characters are stuck together through time (through the various series).
I love you! This is the best combination ever: my favorite British comedy and my favorite female reviewer! :D!
6:07, to any headscratchers the guy was in Director's Cut Aliens. Not Theatrical release.
I watched Father Ted. Loved it to bits. Though I can't select a favorite Priest.
feck and naff aren't really made up swear words though they already existed as words, whereas smeg was original even if did just come from smegma. Naff already means something crap and feck has long been part of the Irish lexicon as a substitute for fuck. As well as being a genuine definition of someone clueless as in feckless.
I keep watching this because I am never not amazed when I find out other people have seen Red Dwarf.
I always wondered who did the art in the cat bible, its actually really nice.
I actually viewed the reruns of Red Dwarf so saw it out of order, even by American standards. So I think I viewed series 1 somewhere in the middle and was kind of confused lol
Yay, so happy you're reviewing red dwarf.
I think the ship's design changed twice. The ship in the pilot or possibly series 1 was changed in series 2, or possibly after the pilot. I think they changed the ship in video releases though.
Even though Lister didn't believe he still ended up making the older cat's prophecy come true. So, it was an actual prophecy that predicted future events. Sure Lister knew he was lying but either way the prophecy came true, so maybe that's what he was supposed to believe.
Never realised until recently but the cat priest is one of villains from Patrick Troughton's last story The War Games.
Red Dwarf is just one long "trapped in the elevator" episode, and an admitted Black Star ripoff. But dammit it works! One of my favorites? What about Hyperdrive?
Sweet. Was looking forward to this.
I'd like to believe that the last ship full of cats became the cats in the video game series Monster Hunter. Mostly because if they were lucky enough not to hit an astroroid while following something Lister wrote, they must have enough luck to survive having Godzilla and his friends as neighbors.
Only seen one episode of Red Dwarf.
Maybe this will actually make me get into it.
SMEG = Start Making England Great!
Interesting to hear such a different perspective from my own, if I had to pick a favorite episode of red dwarf overall it'd be Future Echoes, possibly entirely on the merits of one scene where Lister gets confused by a future echo of Rimmer, and then immediately tells Rimmer about it and plays out the other half of the echo. It's hard to describe out of context, but the writing in that scene amazes me, and series 1 and 2 in general have some of the most entertaining small moments to me in ways that carry the episodes. Waiting for god on the other hand I recall always finding a bit uncomfortable and less enjoyable for it, the religion commentary in it, while I don't necessarily disagree with it, is fairly trite stuff to me. Not much new to see there.
hope to see series 2 soon.
this was astonishingly calm...WHO GAVE DIAMANDA NORMIE PILLS??? lol srsly though this is a well arranged and considered retospective worth sending to anyone confused about why we like it so much
I'm curious to hear if you have any theories about what happened to the original Kochanski since depending on how time travel rules work there could be at least 3 of them
What a great video :D
15:19 That he will. Over 13 seasons later!!!!!
Feck wasn't a "made up word for Fr. Ted", it is word that MUCH older than the show. Ask any Irish person.
Naff was in common parlance outside of Porridge, it might have been made well known, but it was there apart from the show.
Also regarding Fr. Ted was made ever before it was brought to England. So some more research there is good.
(Looks at Irish passport with tears in eyes)
Okay, looks like I was wrong and Naff predated Porridge but Father Ted was produced by Hat Trick, a British company.
Ah no no, no need to cry, oh dear oh dear no.
That's true, Father Ted was produced by Hat Trick, a British company, but it was offered to Irish television first, but unfortunately those dozy bastards in Irish media don't know a good thing when they see it.
There is sadly a lot of cases of that where Irish talent has gone to pastures new and down very well.
As an Irish person I asked myself and decided I was right :) (:P)
It being produced by a British company (and airing on Channel 4) is why I feel Father Ted can be either called Irish or British, depending on what your talking about. When it comes to talent- Irish, when it comes to production- British.
Naff was part of Polari, a 'secret' language used by carnival showmen, con artists and (due to their legal status at the time) gay people. It was eventually fully "gayified", and usually pronounced in really camp accents. "Naff" itseld meant "not very good", and can often by heard in the Julian And Sandy sketches on the 1960's radio show Round The Horne, which also introduced Polari as a whole to a wider audience (and got no end of muck past the censors).
Also Craig Charles hosted robot wars
Porridge also gave us nerk and scrote.
Yay, Red Dwarf!
Do you plan on covering the remastered Series 1-3? Those were the versions on Netflix for a long time.
I'll probably briefly mention them in a video, not much detail though because 'They fucked up the early series's by adding shit CGI, rerecording random stuff and cutTING jokes because DUMB!' wont take too long to say.
Smee heee!
Thank you
Is there any episodes that are the worst since it's a difficult thing since very few are and it's more just less favoured then the others around it?
if any season goes I'm really not big on series 8, any of those episodes.
I would say to skip the Back to Earth mini-season, which was series 9. That was so cringy that I dreaded them starting the show back up again. Luckily series 10 and 11 rebounded and felt much more like classic series 3-5 Red Dwarf. IMHO, at least.
Series 7 - Beyond a Joke. And most of series 8...
Apropos of nothing: damn, McIntyre's *cute*.
lights blunt
Approves !
British or Irish sitcom? Okay, you could call it a Brirish sitcom or a Iretish sitcom.
Probably be least controversial if Father Ted was called Anglo-Irish, though even that might invite some small backlash.
do i detect a bit of a norn iron accent?
Yup!
I honestly have friends called goit, gimazoid and smeeeeee! All named my me and my best mate honestly called Dwayne (not dibley) who were dwarfers!
When is the twatty classic who of the underwater menace coming?
Are you Irish or American?
Gonna settle on Irish - thanks for the vid
Northern Irish but I have a weird accent.
Cheers!
AHH! Why do you screw with the aspect ratio?!
Hagan, please leave old 4:3 ratio episodes in their original format. It looks terrible when you stretch them to widescreen!
"Feck" does actually mean something, it means "to throw something", as in "I fecked it out the window." Live and learn, eh?
Or what about 'feck off' or ' I hate that feckin bus driver' or 'I'd feck the arse off her' or 'for feck sake' or 'I'd smash the feckin head off ye'... It's well known that it's a 'cleaner' corruption of fuck. Different to feckless of course. Live and learn eh?
yay
Git!
Pretty good, but I don't think Lister is anything like Rick from the Young Ones. He's from a different class, has zero interest in politics and is generally good-natured. I know you said "Rick without the negative qualities", but that's basically no Rick at all.
You misunderstand, it was pre-Red Dwarf Craig Charles that was like Rick (he was an angry punk poet who did work about social issues).
Ah sorry, my mistake.
Well, this is about as clear an introduction as anyone could ask for! By the way, I'd have to vote Me-squared as worst episode just because you have to deal with Rimmer way too much. One is fine, annoying but enough to get by. Two is just terrible..... although, props to them for getting a deliberately annoying character right!
You don't sound like you even like Red Dwarf. Me2 is one of my all time favourite episodes. Waiting for God is one of the worst..I makes no logic sense.
I wasn't sure what else could be said in another series about Red Dwarf since Cyborcat's guides seem so thorough, but you managed it. I suppose having prior-knowledge of british actors and culture helps.
Oh, and to me Lee Cornes will always be Dick Head the barman.