Both lengths I mentioned are without ads. Really the humor hasn't been quite the same since Naylor left, but XI and XII haven't even felt as good as X.
In the cases of Rimmer & Lister, I would just like to say that the last 30 years have been a lot kinder to them than they have been to a lot of other people. For example, just look at most of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast. And while Rimmer looks a bit older, since his ostensible purpose is to keep Lister sane, maybe he's programmed to age roughly parallel to Lister. As for Kryten, the big jump in weight was from Seasons X to XI. I'm wondering if it's not just the actor's weight though but if they've also designed the suit to be a lot roomier and have a lot more give. I seem to recall Robert Llewellyn saying on the Season XI DVD that this is the most comfortable version of the suit that he's ever worn. It used to be that Rimmer got most of the best lines while Cat got a few bits here & there but often seemed to be the most forgotten of the regular characters. But ever since Season X, I've felt that Cat has usually been the highlight of the show. Nice! People were probably so sick of the election that they wouldn't have wanted to see it last year. My theory about Rimmer is that the current version is some kind of digital fusion between the Seasons I-VII version and the Season VIII version.
Skipper just came online. Decent anniversary episode: nice redressing of the sets to look like season one with better lighting, some (over-applauded) cameos of old favourites, and a whole chunk of not-quite quotes from The End. Nothing massively new after past alternate universe episodes, but fun. On the whole, I'd say this has been the best of the Dave series.
Great episode. I had thought that the title of the episode might have seen the return of Ace but alas... This was pretty funny one too. I think this series was overall stronger than the last. Agreed, I think Danny John Jules is just owning it with the Cat these past few series. I thought so too. Would love it if they actually explained it.
I just finished watching the season twelve finale. Here are my thoughts on it. WARNING: This is SPOILER heavy. It seems rather useless and quite frankly annoying to have to wrap everything in spoiler coding, so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't read any further. SMEGGIN' SPOILERS AHOY! Kryton invents a device that can transport a person into parallel universes. Cat doesn't go, and Lister and Kryten have to stay behind (resulting in one the funniest lines in years), so Rimmer decides to go hunting for a universe better than this one. I think you all know how that goes. Perhaps one of the most solid episodes in a number of seasons (only hindered by minor things, including some sub par acting Chris Barrie in the opening), it's thoroughly entertaining. And yes -- we get to see Holly again! I don't know why the make-up budget wasn't used to make him look younger instead of an old wrinkled Holly set in the past before the radiation leak, but at least we got to see him again. And he has good lines, though it's not long (unfortunately, only one alternate universe has Holly). I kept hoping he might try to download a copy of Holly's program and take him with him back to the prime-Dwarf universe, but alas. We also get to see another family face. Also, Kochanski is mentioned in passing (maybe she'll make a return next season, who knows; rather have Holly though!). (Why can't we have Holly again exactly? We got back Talky the Toaster! Perhaps the biggest complaint -- Rimmer comes home and the program with the space anomaly appears to be over and there's zero explanation. It's like the writers forgot about that. These last two season have been very strong and satisfying. I hope there are another two season up ahead.
Maybe it has something to do with Norman Lovett having a dispute over unpaid make up tests for the movie or the fact that he has been vocal about things not working out for him with 'Back To Earth'. I thought it's because it's not the past, it's present day. Rimmer skipped realities. Not time.
It's not easy to use makeup to make an older actor look younger (otherwise people would do it all the time). The only way to do that at all convincingly is with digital effects, as with Michael Douglas in the opening of Ant-Man or Kurt Russell in the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. It would've been tough to do on Red Dwarf's budget.
No, Holly said Lister was in stasis for bringing an un-quarantined animal onboard and the radiation leak hadn't happened yet, so it was a time jump as well. But we already know Kryten didn't really know what he was doing since he caused that space swirly-thing alert thingy.
You have a strange definition of 'convincingly'. Digital youthification and resurrection freaks me the hell out. There was a time when they used to cast other actors to play younger versions of stars or recast for dead actors.
Everything's relative. While it may not be perfect, it's a damn sight better than anything you can do with prosthetic makeup to de-age an actor. I actually found the Michael Douglas de-aging in Ant-Man startlingly convincing. They made him just like he had in real life at that age. The Kurt Russell de-aging in GOTG was less convincing -- he did look younger, but he didn't look quite like Russell actually had at that age. And his voice had changed quite a bit too. Oh, there's also the de-aged Robert Downey, Jr. hologram in Civil War -- that was also quite convincing. They still do -- just ask James MacAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence, or the young actresses from last week's Supergirl flashback episode. Digital de-aging is complex and expensive and generally only done for brief flashback scenes in big-budget productions. After all, it's not like you just click an icon in a graphics program and the computer magically does the rest; it requires the FX artists to carefully study reference films and photos of the actors at that age and try to recreate the way they looked and moved as accurately as possible, while also capturing the performance they give in the present day. It's probably one of the hardest effects to get right, because you're trying to recreate something real that the audience knows and remembers, so any imperfections will stand out much more than if you're creating an alien monster or something.
Keep in mind that more or less every series is a separate continuity rather then it all being a single continuity. Skipper gives the impression that the Ace stuff didn't happen in the series XII continuity. The second death mentioned in "Mechocracy" could be when he blew himself up by slamming his fists into explosives crates in "Timeslides" instead of an off screen death after series VIII. Also in the XII continuity they've never read the confidential crew files. The Series I Rimmer read them as well as the Series VIII Rimmer and crew (That's why they get sent to The Tank for smeg sake!).
Doesn't mean it was a time jump. Rimmer was already dead in this Universe. It could be that events happened much later. I disagree. Every series does play fast and loose with continuity but it's not a separate continuity. It has never been stated that it's separate. The actors have also talked of hopefully bringing Ace back in future.
No, Holly greeted him by name, as well as another officer and Captain Hollister. Nobody was aware of him being dead. Or to quote Holly, "Nobody's dead."
Yes, but Holly is senile, so he didn't notice. Plus, the radiation leak hadn't occurred so that verse Rimmer isn't dead yet.
Finally got to watch series XII as the Blu-ray was released here in the States. I definitely enjoyed the series. The quality of the last two episodes (M Corp and Skipper) would fit in comfortably with the best seasons of RD. The other 4 episodes were a step behind but still very enjoyable and better than the worst seasons of RD. It was definitely a wise move to return to the early format of the guys on the Dwarf! And, it's nice to have a mix of episodes that take place on RD versus Starbug outings. I too wish that Holly would return for good. I was hoping that when they rebooted the ship's systems in that one episode that Holly would appear then. Would be nice to see Ace again as well. Not sure why he hasn't even been mentioned. Skipper would've been a logical episode to mention or even have him appear again. But, it was great to see the return of both Holly and Talkie Toaster for at least one episode. Hollister too! I hope that whenever they decide to end the show that they close it with some special, like maybe a series long arc about getting back to Earth. Naylor has certainly had a long enough time to think up a satisfactory conclusion when that time eventually arrives . . . but hopefully that's not too soon! Agree with the sentiment that it would be nice if Grant returned to write . . . at least for an episode. But, sounds like creative disagreements will prevent that. Grant/Naylor were a great combination that Naylor alone can't quite match.
Why would Holly be senile before the radiation leak happened? He only got that way because he was alone for 3 million years. So before the accident he should be in tip top shape.
He is dead, he has a H on his head meaning he was a hologram in that Universe also. In the last Universe where Lister is Captain Rimmer is alive and has no H on his forehead. I think it's pretty clear he is dead in the first Universe, people can see him because he is a Hologram.
I think that Rimmer's status, much like the end of Series VIII, is like the Klingon forehead issue from Star Trek. We already know the IRL reasons for them, and any in-universe explanation for them is bound to be less fun than the endless fan speculation about them. (I'll still never quite forgive the 4th season of Enterprise for that.) With Robert Downey Jr., it helps that, when he was younger, he really did have a certain unfinished plasticy look to his face, which does a great job of matching current CGI technology. Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 certainly looks a bit beefier than the actor really did in 1980 but it looks convincingly human and it gets the point across. Michael Douglas in Ant-Man wasn't perfect but worked well enough for such a short scene. Certainly the technology has come a long way from what they did with Patrick Stewart & Ian McKellen in X-Men: The Last Stand or the often unrecognizable Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy. Maybe he hasn't come back yet because they can't get the actor back. ... ...Oh, wait... I doubt it. I think he's just making it up as he goes and, like a lot of writers, does his best work when he's working from desperation, not because he's got some grand idea planned out. I doubt the show could ever end on a better punchline than "Only the Good." As for bringing back Holly, much as I love the character, I suspect that they just don't bring him back because they don't have enough good material for him to justify his full time presence. We saw the gradual decline of Holly's screentime during Seasons III-V. The whole reason why they wrote her out of the show in Season VI was because they didn't think it was fair to have Hattie Hayridge hanging around all the time if they were going to give her so little to do. And when they brought Holly back for Series VIII, the same problem occurred and his material petered out pretty quickly. He's just not a vital cog to the comedy machine since they already have Kryten to do all the technical stuff and Cat to do all the dumb jokes. (And given the age of the cast, they can do all their own senile jokes now. )