News Roundup – 03/11/2015

November 3, 2015 Alex News, News Roundups 0

4rswWj-gIt’s been a while since we’ve had to do a news round up, but news coming out faster than last nights vindaloo, and we’re here in our roll as a refrigerated toilet roll to mop it up. Yeah ok, we’re a bit late, and we’ve literally fallen back on toilet humour as a way in, but you try doing nothing for several months. It’s exhausting!

We’ve recently discussed through some of these topics on the latest edition of The Garbage Podcast, but for those of you that prefer to see your news written down or simply hate the sound of our smug condescending voices, allow us to lead you through the recent news highlights.

“You touched my logo!”

A new series means a new logo! Well, not always. In fact more often than not it doesn’t. Only a few times really. I’m not selling this well am I. Let’s try again; there’s a new logo!

sneak-peeks-large

Though of course while we say it’s new, what we are dealing with is a variation on a classic design. The sans serif version of the logo with it’s blockier text and surrounding purple ring was of course the version used on Series III and IV, and is the first time the show has returned to this classic logo since then.

Going back to this logo was certainly a surprise to us here at Gazpacho Soup, but also in no way an unwelcome one. The inclusion of the XI makes it seem that the logo was almost always desisgned with this purpose in mind, even though it is the first version of this particular variation to also include the roman numerals of the specific series it is for.

We’ve heard mention recently from Danny John Jules about trying to return to a classic feel for these new series, and while our first reaction was one of ‘but surely that’s what Series X was all about’, if this is the sort of thing he was getting at then it’s something we can all get on board with.

Short version: IT IS GOOD

“I got sick of CGI cutlery so I went to The Model Unit and nicked some gear”

While we are obviously delighted to see the return of the Bazookoids, there is a far bigger story here, as The Model Unit confirmed on Facebook that they had been producing these props, and thus confirming their return to working on the show. This is fantastic news that has gone down hugely well with us on the site as well as with fan in general. Aside from being fantastic model and prop makers, Mike Tucker’s team are also perhaps the best people around to film model footage, and their huge experience in this specialised field should not be underestimated.

Now, to be clear, though we have seen confirmation that they are working on the Bazookoid props, we presently have no confirmation that they are working on any further element of the show such as the actual model ships themselves. We would certainly hope that if they were working on the other elements that they would be used for the rest of the model work as their work has had a huge impact on the show over the years, but for now we can only cross our fingers and hope though.

We’re crossing them really hard and hoping quite a lot though.

“All those Rimmers…”

An interesting tweet, this one. As we know, Howard Goodall is returning this series to record brand new music for the show. It fantastic to have him back on board again after the couple of pieces that he added to Series X, and we’re certainly hoping that having him on from the start will have some excellent results once again. What we weren’t expecting was for him to be getting underway so soon. Seemingly, whatever the ‘Quartet-of-Rimmers’ refers to requires Howard to pre-record the music for the cast.

The first thing that obviously comes to mind is the Rimmer Experience, which would have required a similar pre-record for Chris to mime to. Could this be linked to the ‘everyone is Kryten’ episode? If everyone becomes everyone else, there is certainly scope for the four main cast to become said quartet. At this stage who knows, but it’ll be a lot of fun finding out. And on that note…

“No. No, no, please, no… I don’t wanna be Duane Dibbley”

Ah…

Oh…

I see.

Well no, let’s get things in perspective here. While we may not be the greatest fans of the way Duane Dibbley was used in Series VIII, there is no reason that the use of the character in a new series might not be very well done. Ultimately, it will all depend on the script, and if Doug has a good idea which uses the character then there is no reason that he shouldn’t try it. And whatever our feelings may be, we are aware that there are plenty of you out there that have enjoyed every appearance of the character and would love to see him back again.

Furthermore, we have nothing to suggest how much this would feature in an episode. We know there will be an episode where everyone gets to be Kryten somehow, so it’s entirely possible that this is meant for that episode, and could be as little as a throwaway gag. Or the cast might just be buggering about. Given all this, we would urge all of you not to jump to any conclusions about this and just wait and see as time goes on.

The Beginning

And with that, we are underway. The pre-record shooting and on set rehearsals have begun at Pinewood and the actual episode recordings draw excitingly closer. Pre-records are something that might not seem like the most trouser tightening of news, but we are particularly pleased to hear that it started a couple of weeks in advance of the studio audience coming in for the first recording.

There are always scenes that need to be shot before and audience comes n, whether for reasons of effects, the time a scene takes to shoot or the required set up or coverage needed to adiquectly capture the scene. As such, the  more of this material that is pre-recorded, the more that the studio audience has to react to. In Series X, the recording for Dear Dave consisted of three scenes and a screening of Trojan to fill in the time, and while this was also largely due to script issues, it did highlight the benefit of having as much ready in advance as possible; both for the audience on the night and for the laughter track as it is put before one consistent audience to react to.

It’s cold outside…

And finally, as revealed on Twitter yesterday, the cast and crew are currently based in the New Forrest for some location shooting as part of the pre-records. While we don’t yet want to divulge where they are filming and potentially cause disruption to the shoot, the location that our super secret undercover spy tells us they are filming at is one that has been used in TV and film before and sounds a perfect location for the show.

Yes, that’s right, we have super secret undercover spy feeding us information, that is in no way just my mother in law relating the story of how she saw the crew passing outside her house on the way to the location yesterday morning.

And that’s the lot for now. We’ll be back when more news breaks, and with episode one of Series XI a little under a week away from going in front of the cameras, we’re fairly certain you can expect more exciting news soon. In the meantime, keep an eye on our Twitter feed for the most up to date news from us, and you can find more on the The Garbage Podcast,