- Series X
It seems that as we get closer to the new series airing our weekly roundup of news about is will get longer and longer. This week is no exception, so brace yourselves for a large one (oo-er Mrs, say no more, say no more etc).
Perhaps the biggest news of the week has been the release of the episode titles following the BBFC passing the new series. We’re sure you’ve all seen them by now, but all the same here is a recap of what they are:
- Episode 1 – Trojan
- Episode 2 – Fathers and Suns
- Episode 3 – Lemons
- Episode 4 – Entangled
- Episode 5 – Dear Dave
- Episode 6 – The Beginning
Pleasingly, this has been widely reported across the internet from more specialist websites like The British Comedy Guide as well as more sites with a greater public image such as the one for the Radio times. One thing that has helped this of course is the title for episode 6 which has led many to speculate Series X will be the last series of the show as the first episode was called the End. Let us take this opportunity to remind everyone that Doug has been quite open about wanting to make more and said as much at the recordings for this series, so you can probably avoid throws of panic at this stage. However, kudos to him for coming up with a title that will receive a lot of press as this one has by suggesting that this could well be the end for the show; a tradition that has been going since Series V.
On the subject of episode 6, an article for Broadcast this week covered the making of the new series and featured some particularly interesting quotes from Doug. The one that grabbed the largest degree of attention was this one about what to expect from the scripts:
“Most of the ideas are fresh but for the last episode I borrow things from the very early drafts of the film and explain what happened after the conclusion of series eight. That final episode also features a spectacular dogfight. Well, spectacular for Red Dwarf.”
Having been at the recording for this episode it’s great to be able to be able to discuss this at last. Obviously, for the sake of not spoiling anyone I won’t go into any details of what has been adapted for the episode, but I will say that on the basis of what we saw that night the film would have astoundingly good. You can however see speculation from James as to what might have migrated from the original film script to this episode here, where he examines the original synopsis and trailer to look for any clues.
In terms of official updates, Dave’s on Friday came in two parts. First of all was this new clip of Kryten and The Cat which features some lovely interplay between Danny and Robert; a partnership that has perhaps previously not been explored to a great degree. We can’t say which episode it is from at this point, but one glance at the episode titles should give it away. It also shows Doug once again taking a real scientific concept as a basis for a plot, something we heartily commend.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYBcMjxgo_M&feature=g-all-u]
Dave also updated with a mini site; ‘Go #Vindalunar‘ where people are encouraged to add ‘tweet fuel to launch a lager and curry into space & reveal the start date of #RedDwarfX on Dave.’ The site originally had a clock counting down to 9PM yesterday leading us to believe that this is when the air date would be revealed. As it turned out, this was then replaced with a live stream of a slowly inflating weather balloon, a sign that flashes up the user names of people that tweet the hashtag #vindalunar and a progress bar. At a guess, we imagine that this will reach 100% on Friday, just in time for Dave’s weekly update. If you haven’t visited the #vindalunar site yet, here is an example of what you see on the live feed:
However, it seems that they may have accidently revealed the air date already as their Red Dwarf section originally listed the show as next airing on October 4th at 9PM. It wouldn’t be the first time Dave have made this kind of cock up; just this week they accidently released the Friday update on Thursday. This date was of course listed on a Series VIII page, and as such could refer to the air date of a repeat, but this tweet from Doug would seem to suggest that October 4th is indeed the air date:
What an afternoon. Smooth with a capital Smoo. May the 4th be with you 🙂
As such, perhaps the real point of interest on the #vindalunar site is the promotional image used on the countdown. From what Richard Naylor says, it appears that we will be seeing this image a lot in the next couple of months, so here’s a good opportunity to get familiar with it.
The slogan ‘a brand new smegging series’ appears to be the one that will be used on all of the promotional materials. Aside from this picture, it also appears at the end of the TV trailer which started to be shown in advert breaks from yesterday afternoon on Watch. The Trailer is almost exactly the same as the one that was released online a few weeks ago, but features a new Dave logo at the start and a voiceover with the address of the #vindalunar site at the end. It’s great to see it finally make it to air and it’ll hopefully reach a few of those annoying people who keep writing in comment sections on YouTube that they haven’t heard anything of the new series despite being big fans of the show. If you haven’t seen the TV version yet, you can watch it here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYSnB3q6auc]
For those of you waiting impatiently for a new trailer, it seems that there are a few on the way going by this tweet from Richard Naylor:
You’ll definitely see Rimmer in one of the next two trailers.
Richard has also tweeted a couple of new behind the scenes pictures this week. The first features the cast and Doug crowded around a monitor watching a play back, while the second interestingly shows the new Red Dwarf model being put back together. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again; this looks fantastic and goes to prove why models are preferable to CGI.
Finally, SFX magazine are currently running a feature on Series X that has an interview with Doug. Here’s what Doug had to say on why he decided to go with a live audience again.
“I think Red Dwarf was at its funniest with an audience,” Naylor told SFX. “The only reason the audience was dropped on series seven was because we were looking at doing a movie, and Ed Bye who was directing suggested we should do it that way because it was good practice for the film – it would be a different vibe. I totally bought that idea, so we did it like that and then played it to an audience and it was a bit of a mess, because you can’t really gap it for laughs – you can’t expect the cast to accurately guess every gap. Then we went for the slightly different format with the prison on series eight, but I brought the audience back, and that was a bit raucous that audience, it was like having a rock and roll night. Despite that the cast love working with an audience, it brings them alive. It’s show night so they produce this energy that you don’t necessarily get if you’re shooting five days a week with single camera. It’s a different skill.”
- Title Statistics: What’s In A Name?
If you missed it earlier in the week, we updated our features section with a new article from Andrew all about just how much information can be drawn from a Red Dwarf episode title based on past example. He also takes some time to look at the recently released titles for Series X and speculates as to what they might tell us about the content of the episodes. You can find the article here or in our features section along with various other in depth articles.
- Rejected VHS Covers
Here’s a little curiosity that appeared on Ganymede & Titan’s forums that might be of interest to you. Forum user Jimboid uploaded some photos of some rejected mock up video covers for box sets that were rejected by Doug. It’s not hard to see why; the design isn’t wonderful to start with but more importantly many of the photos used are from the wrong corresponding series. All the same, it’s interesting to see that there was once an idea to release the videos in this manner, even if (thankfully) it never happened. Here’s what Jimboid has to say about them:
Bought them several years ago from eBay. They’re mock-ups of video covers for an unreleased line of “complete series” double video box sets, i.e. combining Bytes 1 and 2 of each series into one big brick of analogue entertainment.
They’re rather nice because they have been rejected by Doug Naylor’s own critical hand, as evidenced by the marker pen scrawl over each.
I seem to remember reading a little piece by Doug (possibly somewhere in the hardback making of series VIII book…maybe someone can confirm??) that he’d spent the morning rejecting a bunch of video covers as they had pictures from the wrong series on them (i.e. Series 1 on Series 2 cover)….so thinking that these may well be them as the cock-ups on the covers are aplenty.
- The Red Dwarf Introcast
A new episode of The Red Dwarf Introcast featuring an overview of Series I has been released. There was an issue with the recording of the episode covering Me2 going haywire, so that review is recovered and incorporated into this podcast. If you are unfamiliar with the podcast of the concept, it follows in the format of other introcasts by having 4 people watching Red Dwarf and then talking about it; two of whom haven’t seen any of it previously. The episode is available to download and you can find them on the podcast’s website and is also available on iTunes.
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