Episode 2: Future Echoes

[10:41] tclintoncunningham
Season 1, Episode 2. I dont remember the title

[10:45] xtrebe
hello buddy

[10:45] xtrebe
Future Echoes

[10:46] tclintoncunningham
That is right. It is also the introduction to one of characters that I completely forgot about: The Toaster

[10:46] xtrebe
Ah, good ol' Toasty the Toaster.

[10:47] tclintoncunningham
It was like they wanted to make sure to have some secondary characters but realized killing all the humans limited their options

[10:47] xtrebe
Yeah

[10:47] xtrebe
I remember hearing in an interview that the writers were determined to not have one of the character be a robot

[10:47] xtrebe
because it was so cliche

[10:48] xtrebe
which is a goal they gave up on after 2 seasons.

[10:48] tclintoncunningham
Yeah, you would hate for a show that was so amazingly high budgeted to fall into the traps of cliches

[10:49] tclintoncunningham
Were both his fish robots then? or just 1?

[10:49] tclintoncunningham
or is it just 1 and a mirror or something

[10:49] xtrebe
I think it was a reflection

[10:49] xtrebe
I could be wrong though

[10:49] xtrebe
Maybe the number of fish changed from scene to scene

[10:49] xtrebe
because when he grabs the fish it looks like two

[10:49] tclintoncunningham
It would make sense if it was a reflection for many reasons

[10:49] xtrebe
but when he puts it back it was the only one

[10:50] tclintoncunningham
This analysis has taken an odd turn

[10:50] tclintoncunningham
Changing direction - humor is improving. Rimmer's little dance when he talks about Channel 27 made me laugh

[10:50] xtrebe
Well, the robot fish is memorable, what cna I say.

[10:50] xtrebe
ha ha, yeah

[10:51] xtrebe
Yeah, this is definitely one of the best episodes of season 2.

[10:51] xtrebe
One of my all-time favorite scenes of the whole show is when Lister and Rimmer have the double conversation in the drive room.

[10:51] xtrebe
That was so brilliantly done.

[10:52] tclintoncunningham
It was a good one. Like we talked about last time, it showcased their dynamic well

[10:53] tclintoncunningham
Even though there was a marked improvement in the humor, it also was worth noticing that they were committed to jokes good or bad. There were a few that were not funny but they kept at them

[10:53] tclintoncunningham
Rimmer exploring them curing death was a trainwreck but it just kept going

[10:53] xtrebe
Yeah

[10:54] xtrebe
The other thing I noticed was the weird little grimmace Rimmer does a couple of times.

[10:54] tclintoncunningham
I hadnt noticed, I will look for that

[10:54] xtrebe
It seems like they thought that might be some signature thing Rimmer does

[10:54] xtrebe
But they backed off.

[10:54] xtrebe
He never does that again, if I recall.

[10:54] tclintoncunningham
quick in season adjustments

[10:55] tclintoncunningham
I love how some stuff is meant to be futuristic while other stuff is complete garbage. Like Lister's camera

[10:55] tclintoncunningham
even then, they couldnt imagine a camera that wasnt the size of a shoe

[10:56] xtrebe
Ha, I hadn't noticed that.

[10:56] xtrebe
I did notice how Holly is all pixelated in season 1.

[10:56] xtrebe
A mile-long spaceship is easy, but high resolution screens? No way

[10:57] tclintoncunningham
haha, I had noticed that too. They have nailed making a hologram of a person but not a 2D image

[10:57] xtrebe
Ha ha, yeah

[10:57] xtrebe
Yeah, the hologram comparison is more apt

[10:58] tclintoncunningham
Now as I watch the show as an older person, I appreciate that Lister really is disgusting

[10:58] tclintoncunningham
Very few redeeming qualities

[10:58] tclintoncunningham
Neither him nor Rimmer are people I want to root for

[10:59] xtrebe
Man, neither Rimmer nor Lister are particularly great people.

[10:59] xtrebe
yeah

[10:59] xtrebe
Lister is basically a homeless person living on a spaceship.

[11:01] tclintoncunningham
Somehow that makes him an "everyman"

[11:02] tclintoncunningham
filth, excuses and zero ambition make him relatable to early 1990's Englanders I guess

[11:02] xtrebe
Kind of a depressing message when you think about it

[11:02] xtrebe
The "hero" is a disgusting bum with no aspirations

[11:03] xtrebe
And his frenemy is a talentless hack who has ambition but not the wherewithal to achieve anything.

[11:03] xtrebe
The message is that you can either not try and fail, or try and still fail.

[11:03] xtrebe
There is no example of success anywhere to be rind.

[11:03] xtrebe
found

[11:03] xtrebe
Except on the Holoship in season 5

[11:03] xtrebe
where everyone is an a-hole

[11:03] tclintoncunningham
Even Cat is a blundering idiot

[11:04] xtrebe
Yeah, and Kryten, who is the only competent one, is virtually a slave to the incompetents.

[11:04] tclintoncunningham
I wonder if they planned it that way. Like did they think Lister truly was relatable?

[11:04] tclintoncunningham
or were they trying to make it extremes?

[11:04] tclintoncunningham
or was it just an accident

[11:05] xtrebe
Man, I don't know.

[11:05] xtrebe
I guess that's one of the big ironies of the show:

[11:05] xtrebe
In a universe governed by the principal of survival of the fittest, at the end of time, the only survivors are the least fit of the species.

[11:06] xtrebe
It gives us hope :)

[11:07] tclintoncunningham
The cockroach theory

[11:07] tclintoncunningham
or that one movie where the idiots keep breeding and rule the world. Idiocracy or whatever it is called

[11:07] tclintoncunningham
Really depressing underlining messages

[11:07] xtrebe
:)

[11:08] xtrebe
Wow, we even managed to take a review of a sitcom and turn it into a depressing conversation.

[11:08] xtrebe
Go us!

[11:14] tclintoncunningham
Well we did experience a good portion of it while in junior high and high school. Isnt that the definition of depressing?

[11:18] xtrebe
I suppose so.

[11:21] tclintoncunningham
Yes! 2 conversations in and I want to jump off a building.

[11:22] xtrebe
Well, just wait until the Better Than Life episode

[11:22] tclintoncunningham
Haha

[11:22] tclintoncunningham
yeah

[11:22] xtrebe
Ha ha, in conclusion, Future Echoes was a good episode.

[11:22] xtrebe
:)

[11:23] tclintoncunningham
Yes, and we should stop looking too deeply into these at the risk of reverting back to our high school/stay up all night/listening to Korn/Hating everyone selves

[11:24] xtrebe
Hey, at least we were never cutters.

[11:25] tclintoncunningham
True, I found other ways of expressing it, never went down that path

Episode 1: The End

[09:41] xtrebe
hey there buddy!

[09:41] tclintoncunningham
Howdy Amigo

[09:42] xtrebe
Watching Red Dwarf last night made me realize that it's impossible for me to talk about the show objectively.

[09:44] tclintoncunningham
I definitely have a soft spot for it. I actually thought to myself that it was impossible not to think of the series as a whole when watching the early episodes

[09:44] tclintoncunningham
namely how skinny they are

[09:44] xtrebe
Yeah, ha ha

[09:44] xtrebe
And how young they look.

[09:44] xtrebe
Even Captain Hollister looks young.

[09:45] xtrebe
Yeah, it's hard to talk about it without comparing it to future episodes, so I'm not going to bother trying.

[09:45] tclintoncunningham
We shouldnt try to limit our discussion in that way. We both love the series so why not compare/constrast?

[09:45] xtrebe
True

[09:45] xtrebe
First off, the first episode felt fairly slow-paced compared to later episodes.

[09:46] tclintoncunningham
the jokes were more forced

[09:46] tclintoncunningham
I couldnt tell if it was a laugh track or not because there were a few scattered random laughs at odd moments

[09:46] tclintoncunningham
like during the funeral scene

[09:46] xtrebe
Yeah, and there were times where there were no laughs, like in the mess hall or whatever when there were a ton of people everyone

[09:47] xtrebe
Well, not a total lack of laughter, but some jokes didn't get a laugh.

[09:47] xtrebe
The first episode felt like they just had to get all the setup out of the way.

[09:47] tclintoncunningham
Whats an Iguana?

[09:47] tclintoncunningham
That one was pretty bad

[09:48] xtrebe
Yeah

[09:48] xtrebe
Pause, then laughter right when he starts talking again

[09:48] tclintoncunningham
I enjoyed the attempt to explain in scientific terms the way the chamber worked to freeze him in time.

[09:49] tclintoncunningham
I am pretty good at suspending belief, primarily because that is required to enjoy most shows but I always wondered how someone that runs the ship for several years can't manage to advance at all (Referring to Lister)

[09:49] tclintoncunningham
then i think that the ship survived for 3 million years with no crew

[09:50] tclintoncunningham
so perhaps he doesnt end up doing that much

[09:50] tclintoncunningham
I only bring that up in this context because I had forgotten that it had been that long since everyone died

[09:53] xtrebe
My guess would be that Holly does and did all maintenance via the scutters, and the crew did all the mining stuff, cargo handling, whatever else they do.

[09:53] xtrebe
The part that I had missed for years was that the radiation killed the entire crew, yet Cat and the entire Cat race survived for millions of years.

[09:54] xtrebe
Of course, Red Dwarf was never concerned too much about logical consistencies.

[09:55] tclintoncunningham
yeah, not high on their priority list

[09:55] tclintoncunningham
Where did the cat get a pink suit?

[09:55] xtrebe
Some silk worms survived in the cargo bay.

[09:55] xtrebe
j/k I don't know

[09:56] tclintoncunningham
How did the original cat colony survive? Was there a storage of food and milk there too?

[09:56] tclintoncunningham
tell me!!!

[09:56] xtrebe
Also, you'd think that an entire race of cat people would have gone through all the supplies over the course of 3 million years.

[09:56] xtrebe
Ha, exactly

[09:56] xtrebe
That's it, this show sucks.  I quit.

[09:57] tclintoncunningham
Does the ship convert stuff into food?

[09:57] tclintoncunningham
I assume it does that to a degree

[09:57] xtrebe
If it does, it's never mentioned.

[09:57] tclintoncunningham
That is because all intelligent people assume it

[09:58] tclintoncunningham
Us intellectuals like to fill in the gaps of logic and reason with our own plausible answers

[09:58] tclintoncunningham
unfortunately we cant simply override parts of the story and make zero sense like what we have already discussed

[10:00] xtrebe
My favorite is between season 2 and 3

[10:00] xtrebe
where they have the big scrolling text that explains all the changes in the series.

[10:00] xtrebe
But it scrolls by too fast to read unless your care enough about the storyline to record it and watch in slow motion.

[10:01] tclintoncunningham
ha, I dont remember that but it has been over 5 years since I have gone through the series

[10:01] xtrebe
You'll have to go through it slowly and read the whole thing.  It's pretty funny.

[10:01] xtrebe
It's there as lip service to the hardcore nerd fans.

[10:01] tclintoncunningham
i vaguely recall it, just not the details

[10:01] xtrebe
And the writers clearly don't give a crap.

[10:01] tclintoncunningham
i will pay close attention when we get there

[10:04] xtrebe
One thing that I hadn't really noticed before was how they nail the relationship between Lister and Rimmer right from the start.

[10:05] xtrebe
How they interact in ep 1 is pretty much how they interact through the entire show.

[10:05] tclintoncunningham
That is true, there is no drastic shift in that dynamic like a lot of shows have happen

[10:05] tclintoncunningham
expecially after the first season

[10:06] xtrebe
Yeah

[10:06] xtrebe
Ha ha

[10:06] tclintoncunningham
Does it ever clarify the year that the show is meant to start in?

[10:06] xtrebe
A lot of shows have the characters slowly evolve over time

[10:07] xtrebe
But the only real character development that occurs in Red Dwarf is that you get to know them a little bit better in each episode, and in each season they are a little bit more pessimistic and bitter than the previous season.

[10:07] xtrebe
Just like real life :)

[10:07] xtrebe
I think it's 21XX

[10:07] xtrebe
I can't remember, though.

[10:34] tclintoncunningham
My favorite part of any show that deals with the future is when they make the decision: Do we try to anticipate fashion or simply have it be the same as now

[10:34] tclintoncunningham
They opted to leave it in the now

[10:34] xtrebe
Yeah

[10:35] xtrebe
which actually ends up being fine because it's old Euro fashion, which seems alien

[10:35] tclintoncunningham
lol, yes

[10:35] tclintoncunningham
I also like the relaxed dress code of the crew

[10:35] tclintoncunningham
wear this outfit

[10:35] tclintoncunningham
but be cavalier about it

[10:35] tclintoncunningham
have it completely untucked and unbuttoned

[10:36] xtrebe
yeah

[10:36] xtrebe
We'll have to watch for when Lister makes the transition from uniform to badass leather jacket

[10:36] xtrebe
I don't think it's until season 5, but I can't remember

[10:38] tclintoncunningham
I also want to see when the cats suddenly learns how to operate the ship

[10:38] xtrebe
Ha ha, yeah, I think that's season 2.

[10:38] xtrebe
Whenever they start regularly using Starbug.