little things about red dwarf that make me overwhelmed with affection for this doofy ass sci fi britcom:
- the dramatic 80s contouring that appears sporadically on the characters
- the sometimes questionable special effects
- the holy shit actually pretty great effects??? (polymorph, i’m talking about polymorph)
- the fact that it’s set in the future but premiered in the late 80s and continued on for 13 seasons well into the 2010s meaning technology got continuously more and more advanced as the show remained in production, so they have to make up reasons why people in the 22nd century had been shown using already outdated technology, like vhs tapes.
- THE LIVE AUDIENCES. i know a lot of people hate when a sitcom has laughter in it and I’m not fond of canned laughter myself but I’m so thoroughly charmed by live audience reactions. Like when you can hear one person in particular just fucking losing it at a certain joke. Or, in one episode that I watched yesterday (i don’t remember which, my mind is mush) you could hear one guy do an awkward clap when nobody else did, and I just love that.
- when Cat accidentally drops his american accent and turns posh for a second (i’m thinking about polymorph again)
- the episodes that get surprisingly, deeply, psychological in their exploration of the characters’ minds while still being really funny and totally stupid at the same time
- THE COSTUME DESIGNS for Cat and Lister specifically
- when they use Chris Barrie’s experience as an impressionist in episodes #oddlysatisfying
anyway that’s all for the moment thanks for attending my TED talk