My random claim to fame; I was the support act (juggler) for Norman Lovett (the red dwarf ships computer), for one night only in the Welsh town of Bangor.
Speaking of which I remember Chris Barrie (who played Rimmer) lamenting some of the filming of Red Dwarf and how he struggled to and gave up on hanging out with Craig Charles (Lister) and Danny John-Jules (Cat) because he'd be tired and ready for bed and they'd just be getting started. And then they'd show up sometimes straight from the clubs to shooting the next morning, or sometimes drunk still, or hungover.
As an American, Red Dwarf along with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy created a deep appreciation both for British humor and funny sci-fi in my adolescent self. I now own the box set on DVD and even have a random Red Dwarf novel I got at a yard sale (I forget which one of them wrote it though).
RIP Rob! Will be having a vindaloo, lager, and maybe some fish (Fish! Fish! Fish!) later in your honor
(EDIT: 100% talking about the UK version here, had no idea or forgot there _was_ an American version)
> Grant Naylor is a gestalt entity occupying two bodies, one of which lives in north London, the other in south London. The product of a horribly botched genetic-engineering experiment, which took place in Manchester in the late fifties, they try to eke out two existences with only one mind. They attended the same school and the same university, but, for tax reasons, have completely different wives.
> The first body is called Rob Grant, the second Doug Naylor. Among other things, they spent three years in the mid-eighties as head writers of Spitting Image; wrote Radio Four's award-winning series Son of Cliche; penned the lyrics to a number one single; and created and wrote Red Dwarf for BBC television.
> They have made a living variously by being ice-cream salesmen, shoe-shop assistants and by attempting to sell dodgy life-assurance policies to close friends. They also spent almost two years on the night shift loading paper into computer printers at a mail-order factory in Ardwick. They can still taste the cheese 'n' onion toasties.
Yeah the first two novels were credited to their "Grant Naylor" partnership, and they're both excellent.
After that, they each wrote an additional Red Dwarf novel individually / separately. Personally I've never come across those last two novels, although I always check for them whenever visiting a used book store. Maybe they were only released in the UK. They're available on Amazon in the US, but I haven't quite given up hope on stumbling across them naturally yet...
I’ve read both. It’s been years but Grant’s, Backwards, was notably better than Naylor’s, Last Human.
Backwards spent the first section of the book in the backwards universe, over years. It’s has an interesting exploration of the implications of that universe. By comparison Last Human wraps that up in a few pages and spends most of its time dealing with android assassins.
I have watched the American pilot, and one thing I found curious was that the two female characters were the most interesting (Cat and the Computer played by Terry Farrel and Jane Leeves who were both in major series - Deep Space Nine and Frasier). Holly/Computer has been female for much of the British series and Cat did work as a female character. Contrast with the British show which was very male except for computer (sometimes) and Kochanski when she became a regular character (Chloe Annette didn't really work. I wish Clare Grogan had been a regular instead.)
Clare Grogan is definitely who I think of. I couldn't really see Chloe Annette being Kochanski, she was miscast and I don't think she got good scripts.
I just don’t think it makes sense having Kochanski as a regular character. Lister’s yearning for a (largely imagined) version of her works so much better.
I agree with you. Kochanski was meant to be a fun loving girl who ended up working on a mining ship and made the best of it, not a stuck up snob who liked to crack bad jokes about the second city of Vietnam. If Kochanski had been the genius that Chloe Annette played then she probably would have found work elsewhere. They did fix CA's version of the character a bit later on.
There was nothing like Red Dwarf on TF (British or American) back then - a laugh-tracked show that could be simultaneously the most hilarious dry wit, not-so-dry bawdy humor, and a compelling and thought-provoking sci-fi action-adventure all at the same time.
I fell off it after they had that comeback season roughly in 2000 where the whole ship got revived. Then I saw a few clips from a later season where everyone was pretty schlubby. I'll need to track down some way to re-watch the whole thing.
Very on topic: Rob Grant left the show after the sixth series. I think the lack of his influence was immediately apparent, a lot of the depth was lost. Like how the transition from series 2 to series 3 got a lot more action-y, 6 to 7 started to lean more on established tropes etc (IMO).
Also of note: Grant and Naylor wrote a series of Red Dwarf novels that were surprisingly good. They really fleshed out a lot of the character behind Lister and Rimmer. One novel goes deep on the concept of Better than Life, a one episode throwaway in the show but expanded to true horror in the novel.
They split (same time as they split on the show) and wrote separate novels in different continuity in the end. IMO Grant’s was notably better.
I watched the whole lot thanks to lockdown. I used to like up until series six or so, but had a look at the later ones. Yes, the actors certainly all look more "lived in" nowadays.
The later series/seasons are very uneven, which surprised me. I stopped watching originally around when Chloe Annette's Kochanski was introduced but I was surprised that instead of a steady decline that the quality was very up and down.
I rewatch it a lot and the only season I skip is 9. There are a couple bad later episodes I'll skip but there are more than a few bangers in the later seasons.
No sci fi effect has ever given me the same sense of wonder that I got from the shot of the camera slowly travelling over the gigantic ship in the Season 1/2 intro.
Btw: @dang : Grant was the co-creator, alongside Doug Naylor, who is still kicking
Oh yes. I remember them talking about the script and how low budget everything was. Like even the script was written to try to convince BBC it wouldn't cost much money. I think (paraphrasing) things like:
"We open on the corridor of a space ship. Space Odyssey this is not, no high tech serenity here. No, the is very much an ordinary, boring corridor. It could even have been a corridor in a TV studio..."
I've said elsewhere on the "Babylon 5" discussion that Kubrick's "2001" has aged better in many ways than Hyams' "2010" which came out many years later. In the same vein, CGI has a nasty habit of aging more quickly than practical effects. There is stuff from the nineties which looks worse than the seventies as a result.
In the case of "Red Dwarf", the genius was in having the ship be an ugly industrial environment in the vein of "Dark Star", "Alien", "Outland" etc. That allowed for sets to be built easily and cheaply. I think some of it was even filmed in a BBC canteen/cafeteria.
The intro was actually strangely eerie/bleak. I felt sorry for Lister (I think it is) out there painting the ship. There was kind of a sadness because he had lost pretty much all his friends and you could feel the vastness of space.
As fresh immigrant to USA, watching it on local PBS on the gigantic back projection jumbotron TV someone offloaded on us back in mid-90es, it made a huge impact with its absurdity and silliness.
I sing "Drinking Fresh Mango Juice" every time I get it out of the fridge, and when my wife and I visited Egypt and got room service with fresh mango juices, it was in heavy rotation. And every time I leave and it's cold outside, I tend to sing "It's cold outside!".
RIP
For a brief period there it was fashionable to have fish nibbling at your feet (in the 2010s?). Not goldfish shoals although that is probably what Lister wanted to farm in Fiji.
It's a pretty funny sci-fi book, similar dry wit.. I picked it up at a yard sale only because it said "from the creator of Red Dwarf" even though I mostly only knew of the show through others..
You are. It's Arnold's first attempt at being/becoming Ace. He stumbles over the phrase, and the "old" Ace tells him he was once like him too, and "there's an Ace inside you, too" (Lister/Cat, I can't remember which: "Yeah, so deep he's been buried..." or something to that effect).
Robert Llewellyn is just a lovely person in general. He now produces a YouTube/TV show about electric cars, but his outtakes from Red Dwarf are delightful. He stays mostly in character during the outtakes (perhaps that's easy in the suit) and he's very funny.
What a life I’ve lived.
RIP Rob! Will be having a vindaloo, lager, and maybe some fish (Fish! Fish! Fish!) later in your honor
(EDIT: 100% talking about the UK version here, had no idea or forgot there _was_ an American version)
> Grant Naylor is a gestalt entity occupying two bodies, one of which lives in north London, the other in south London. The product of a horribly botched genetic-engineering experiment, which took place in Manchester in the late fifties, they try to eke out two existences with only one mind. They attended the same school and the same university, but, for tax reasons, have completely different wives.
> The first body is called Rob Grant, the second Doug Naylor. Among other things, they spent three years in the mid-eighties as head writers of Spitting Image; wrote Radio Four's award-winning series Son of Cliche; penned the lyrics to a number one single; and created and wrote Red Dwarf for BBC television.
> They have made a living variously by being ice-cream salesmen, shoe-shop assistants and by attempting to sell dodgy life-assurance policies to close friends. They also spent almost two years on the night shift loading paper into computer printers at a mail-order factory in Ardwick. They can still taste the cheese 'n' onion toasties.
> Their favourite colour is orange.
After that, they each wrote an additional Red Dwarf novel individually / separately. Personally I've never come across those last two novels, although I always check for them whenever visiting a used book store. Maybe they were only released in the UK. They're available on Amazon in the US, but I haven't quite given up hope on stumbling across them naturally yet...
Backwards spent the first section of the book in the backwards universe, over years. It’s has an interesting exploration of the implications of that universe. By comparison Last Human wraps that up in a few pages and spends most of its time dealing with android assassins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mlnntKi2no
Even the second attempt at it, with Star Trek DS9's Terry Farrell (as Cat), was a bad idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfJsViD9SjM
The original was lightning in a bottle.
I fell off it after they had that comeback season roughly in 2000 where the whole ship got revived. Then I saw a few clips from a later season where everyone was pretty schlubby. I'll need to track down some way to re-watch the whole thing.
Also of note: Grant and Naylor wrote a series of Red Dwarf novels that were surprisingly good. They really fleshed out a lot of the character behind Lister and Rimmer. One novel goes deep on the concept of Better than Life, a one episode throwaway in the show but expanded to true horror in the novel.
They split (same time as they split on the show) and wrote separate novels in different continuity in the end. IMO Grant’s was notably better.
The later series/seasons are very uneven, which surprised me. I stopped watching originally around when Chloe Annette's Kochanski was introduced but I was surprised that instead of a steady decline that the quality was very up and down.
Season 12 is particularly good though. In my opinion, the first and last episodes of that season are among the funniest they've ever done!
No sci fi effect has ever given me the same sense of wonder that I got from the shot of the camera slowly travelling over the gigantic ship in the Season 1/2 intro.
Btw: @dang : Grant was the co-creator, alongside Doug Naylor, who is still kicking
"We open on the corridor of a space ship. Space Odyssey this is not, no high tech serenity here. No, the is very much an ordinary, boring corridor. It could even have been a corridor in a TV studio..."
In the case of "Red Dwarf", the genius was in having the ship be an ugly industrial environment in the vein of "Dark Star", "Alien", "Outland" etc. That allowed for sets to be built easily and cheaply. I think some of it was even filmed in a BBC canteen/cafeteria.
There's no kind of atmosphere
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
and then there's tongue tied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3t3IKlXqFU (great bassline too)
> Shipwrecked and comatose
is how I have often felt.
It's a pretty funny sci-fi book, similar dry wit.. I picked it up at a yard sale only because it said "from the creator of Red Dwarf" even though I mostly only knew of the show through others..
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(Grant_novel)
Some random Red Dwarf outtakes: https://youtu.be/l6VTzq5N0Mo
I don't relate to Cat as much, although his character is great too.
Rest in peace.
Can we get a black bar?
On second thoughts, that would mean changing the CSS.
Bravo.