Sandy Denny once wrote and sang the song ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’ and it’s a feeling that I can only sympathise with. Yes, our first anniversary has sneaked up on us somewhat and with Dwarf’s 25th last week we nearly missed it altogether. We’ve all been delighted that so many of you have taken an interest in the site and regularly visit it. When I started the site last February after a nudge from Seb Patrick and Andrew Ellard, I didn’t really think that it’d still be going one year on, especially as I found myself spending several hours every Sunday trawling the internet and press for a roundup of the week’s Dwarf news.
This would all have fallen apart fairly quickly of course were it not for James and Andrew, who’s work on the site has been invaluable from the moment they joined and improved our coverage of Series X greatly. Certainly, The Garbage Podcast wouldn’t exist without them on board, so I thank them both for their contributions and hope that you’ve appreciated their efforts too. Also, a massive thanks to Rich Lawden for the Series X logo we used in the run up to the series and Danny Stephenson for providing us with an updated logo and banner when we realised that we had accidentally ended up with something very similar to the prog band Gazpacho. Opps…
So thanks to all of you that keep coming back to the site and downloading the podcast. Having done this for a year now I can’t see us stopping anytime soon. It’s been really interesting to see how much interest and love there still is for Red Dwarf. It’s almost been as interesting as seeing how many people can’t spell Gazpacho, proving that we chose an EXCELLENT name for the site that made us easy to find. My sincere thanks to all of you that have read or linked to Gazpacho Soup or for that matter Gazspacho Soup, Gatspatso Soup, Gaspacho Soup, Gatpacho Soup or any other such variation. It all got back to us in the end. However, in the same way Seb and Andrew suggested to me last year, I would encourage fans out there to set up their own fan sites. With the show back on form this is there perfect time to do so and Red Dwarf fandom would certainly be improved by a greater range of fan voiced sites for people to visit.
Although most of our efforts are in keeping you abreast of the latest Red Dwarf news with our weekly roundups and more in depth news pieces, we do also like to bring you items from time to time that offer a bit more, so we thought we’d just leave you with a recap of some of the better things that we’ve done over the last year that you may have missed.
Series X
It would be remiss of us not to talk about Series X of course, seeing as it’s provided us with so much to talk about. I’m highly pleased that a flick back through our news archive should be able to provide you with a look at the reactions to the twists and turns of the troubled post production on the series.
Aside from this though, James’ coverage of the overnight ratings for each episode and Andrew’s roundup of the post airing reactions on Twitter helped to provide a good sense of how each episode was going down with the public as the series progressed. Hopefully these little bits and pieces helped add to the excitement of the brand new series for you and rest assured, should another one be recorded you can be certain that we’ll be doing it all over again.
The Garbage Podcast
The past year has seen a fantasic resurgence of Red Dwarf fan activity and one of the places this has been most noticible is in fan produced podcasts. The Dwarfcast and Scuttercast have continued with some excellent output while the The Red Dwarf Introcast has brought an intresting new format to Red Dwarf podcasts. We have been thrilled to oin alongside them with our own podcast, The Garbage Podcast, which may well be my favourite thing that we’ve done.
So far we’ve covered every minutia of Series X in our episode reviews, interviewed some of the cast in our retrospective and sounded worryingly like Alan Partridge in our opening episode. We are currently in the depths of our 25th anniversary series of commentaries for Series I and we hope you’re enjoying them. Here’s a roundup of all of the podcasts so far.
Series X Reviews: Fathers & Suns
You can download the podcast from The Garbage Podcast site, via iTunes
The intension of the site has always been to be a resource for the sometimes overwhelming amount of Red Dwarf news, especially during the run up to and airing of Series X. However, we have tried from time to time to provide something a little more in depth too, whether it be an in depth roundup of facts and figures, a review or an essay on a particular aspect of the show. We have also been particularly pleased to shed some light on parts of the show in the case of Bill Pearson’s Red Dwarf Xmas, for which we once again thank Bill immensely for his help. Here’s a collection of the longer pieces of writting:
Norman Lovett – Outside The Box (DVD Review)
Alex takes a look at the latest DVD from Norman Lovett and discusses the problems of reviewing a comedian whose act is to appear not to have one.
A Diary of Red Dwarf X:
With nearly a year worth of information out there for Series X, it might be hard to keep up or even remember it all. Here, James presents a group of features that follow the production of Series X from the initial announcement in April to March 2012
The World Loves A Bastard: Morality & Rimmer
One of the elements of Back to Earth that unexpectedly divided the fans was Rimmer’s dispatching of Katarina by pushing her in front of a bus. For many, it was a totally logical decision to have the character do this, but for others it was utterly out of keeping with the character they knew. Alex examines to what extent Rimmer is an irredeemably ruthless man of skewed morals, and to what extent is he a creature of circumstance?
Back to Earth Ratings
James takes a look back at the ratings for ‘Back to Earth’ as well as Dave as a whole to see if a ballpark figure for success can be found for the new series.
Bunking Off: How Important Are Bunk Scenes To Red Dwarf?
The bunk scenes in Red Dwarf have often been referred to as the heart of the show, and will often come high on fans wish lists when asked what they’d like to see in a new series of the show. Alex examines if this wish is misplaced by looking at just how important the scenes are to show, and indeed if they ever really went away.
Obituary – Peter Wragg (1947-2012)
With the incredibly sad news of the death of Peter Wragg, Alex looks back at the life and work of a man that was a crucial element in the look and success of Red Dwarf as well as various other popular and influential shows.
“We don’t exactly do that much salvaging” : The Derelicts of Red Dwarf
For a bunch of guys that don’t do that much salvaging, they sure do a whole lot of salvaging. It’s amazing just how many ships are there 3 million years from Earth. Andrew takes an in depth look at all the ships encountered by the Red Dwarf crew and questions, just how advanced did the human race get? And how far into space are the boys really?
Psychology in Red Dwarf:
Through Red Dwarf we have seen the psychology of the characters analysed and twisted in ways that no other sci-fi series has ever attempted. James looks at some of the standout use of psychological exploration to tell a good story or to explore the characters in Red Dwarf.
Title Statistics: What’s in a Name?
With the episode titles for Series X having just been announced, Andrew speculates on what they might say about the episodes, and just how revealing the episode titles have been in previous series.
Jane Killick – Stasis Leaked Complete: The Unofficial Behind The Scenes Guide To Red Dwarf (Book Review)
Alex takes a look at the latest book from Jane Killick which documents the entire history of the show through interviews, behind the scenes stories and articles originally published in the like of the Smegazine.
Red Dwarf X: DVD Review
Andrew takes a look at the DVD release of Series X and discusses both the show itself and the extras presented on the second disc, with particular attention given to the 2 hour documentary ‘We’re Smegged’.
Bill Pearson’s Red Dwarf Xmas
Bill Pearson sheds some light on the origins of the Annihilator model used in The Beginning with details of his proposal for a Red Dwarf Christmas special. This curio includes the full script, the edited version that appeared in issue 33 of Better Than Life, model photos, design sketches and Bill’s pitch video.
Red Dwarf 25: Back To The End
With the show reaching it’s 25th anniversary, Alex takes a look back at the origins of the show. What is it about the show that’s made it endure? Where did Rob and Doug get their ideas? Will this article be answering any of these questions? Well, no, but we’ll make jokes about Jimmy Tarbuck and take great pleasure in seeing Grant Naylor’s little sci-fi comedy rightfully reach the quarter of a century mark.
(This is a transcript of the introductory piece on The Garbage Podcast’s commentary for The End.)
Odds and Sods
There have been a few little things here and there that we have been quite pleased with. The reaction to our Gazpacho Soup Day competition took us all by surprise, though not as much as how many of you were taken in by our April Fool that Series X had been delayed so that Craig could film a reboot of Last of the Summer Wine. There are two things that we’ve been particularly pleased with though.
The first is the recording of Lunar City Seven that I rushed together last year which would go on to be massively useful in providing us with a theme tune for The Garbage Podcast. It seems surprising that the song Craig wanders around singing to himself in the early series of the show hadn’t been recorded or fleshed out before. However it was fun to put it together, even if it was done quickly on an iPad during a very boring train journey. I took certain liberties with the tune hummed by Craig, but tried to keep it relatively close to what people know. So on the off chance it’s of interest then fill your boots. It’s also worth having a look at this radically different version of the same song by G&T user HelloMabel.
You can view my recording below and it can be downloaded here.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1IDAR19-5A]
And while we’re looking at videos, I also greatly enjoyed this very silly video that we did to promote The Garbage Podcast’s commentaries and mark Red Dwarf’s 25th anniversary. Our apologies to those of you that were annoyed to discover that it didn’t in fact feature Patrick Stewart, but if we’d made it obvious it would have spoiled the joke a bit. For those of you that enjoyed this slice of self indulgence though, my thanks.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZZqS5sDOVE]
So that’s been our year. We hope you’ve enjoyed visiting the site and we’ll endeavour to keep up with whatever Red Dwarf related activity is thrown our way in the coming years.