HOLLY: Emergency. Emergency. There’s an emergency going on.
LISTER: What is it, Hol?
HOLLY: There’s an emergency, Dave. The navicomp’s overheating, and I need your help in the drive room.
RIMMER: Oooh-ooh-ooh!
LISTER: Come in number 169, your time is up. OK, what was I wearing?
RIMMER: Ahhh… that jacket, and that red T-shirt.Lister pulls out his hat and places it back on his head, then yanks a hefty length of piping off the wall.
LISTER: You said yourself, I can’t stop it. Let’s get it over with.
RIMMER: (Pointing at the pipe) Ah, Lister, what’s that for?
LISTER: I’m going out like I came in – screaming and kicking.
RIMMER: You can’t whack Death on the head!
LISTER: If he comes near me I’m gonna rip his nipples off.
Poor old David Lister. “Future Echoes” (RX: 17-18/10/87) is a particularly unpleasant business for him. But as he plugs in the drive computer into the navicomp and faces down Death – with or without nipples – he can at least be sure that he’s starting off a chain of events which makes a sad old Red Dwarf fan very happy.
Let’s back up a bit. Last time we looked at the wonderful word of Red Dwarf props and sets, we managed to trace a couple of EXCITING PANELS from Series 1 in 1987, right through to Series VII in 1996. Frankly, this was a bit too exciting, and I had to have a lie down for a bit.
But when I recovered, I was left sweaty and dissatisfied. To trace part of a set through nearly the entirety of the BBC years, but missing out Series VIII, was absolutely infuriating. Surely there must be something which made the trip through the whole eight series?
Reader… say hello to this little box of tricks.
At first glance, this doesn’t seem an especially good candidate for our self-imposed challenge. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t appear in Series 2 at all.1 It seems destined to become a one-off appearance.
But come Series III, and it shows up again in a rather surprising place. Yet again, it’s on Starbug – but not the mid-section this time. We need to take a look at the cockpit. The first episode of Series III shot, “Marooned” (RX: 4-5/9/89), gives us a glimpse.
There it is, as part of the cockpit controls to the left of Lister.
As before, these pictures are clickable/tappable, and you may need to do that for some of the more hard-to-spot instances throughout this article.
A couple of weeks later, “Backwards” (18-19/9/89) gives us another, slightly better look:
Come 1990, and it’s time for this set to take the trip down to Shepperton. And peculiarly enough, I can’t find any instances of this panel in Series IV. I’m fairly certain it’s there, but just lurking slightly out-of-shot. The cockpit set in IV tends to be shot head-on, rather than from the side like Series III, which means we just can’t get the required angle.
Fear not. Come Series V, and it makes a triumphant return. “The Inquisitor” (7-8/11/91) and “Terrorform” (21-22/11/91) give us the best views:
The bits of paper have gone missing, but it’s definitely the same panel. Also note that it’s clear from these pictures that the section with the 5×4 blue buttons is missing the keycap for the bottom right button. This will shortly become very important.2
But by far the best example in this series is in “Quarantine” (28-29/11/91), where it gets a starring role during the shot where Dr Hildegard Landstrom transmits the holovirus to Rimmer:
And so we reach Series VI. At first, it seems we’re out of luck. The panel seems to have disappeared from the cockpit controls of the expanded set entirely. Oh well. I presume it had got a bit grotty, and they decided to chuck it. Never mind…
…wait a minute. Take a look at “Psirens” (RX: 18+20/2/93) and “Emohawk – Polymorph II” (RX: 18+20/3/93) What’s that on the wall behind Rimmer?
The complete drive computer panel might be dead and gone… but they rescued part of it. Those blue buttons – 5×4, with a distinctive gap in the middle – have been ripped out of the old prop, and stuck on the wall behind Rimmer. And for final proof that it’s definitely the same buttons… the bottom right one is still missing!
Come Series VII, and it remains in exactly the same place. “Tikka to Ride” and “Epideme” (RX: May-June 1996) give the best view – the set is lit rather darker and so it can be difficult to spot, but it’s definitely there:
Look in the top left corner of the first picture, and just to the left of Kochanski’s head in the second.
And so we reach Series VIII. The series which foiled us last time. And frankly, looks set to fail us again this time. There is precisely one scene set in Starbug’s undamaged cockpit, before it crashes in a ball of flame. That’s at the start of “Back in the Red: Part One” (RX: 28/9/98).
Can we see our buttons?
They’re present. They’re not obvious – the set is darkly lit, and for most of the scene the camera is violently shaking – but they’re there. Take a look at the top-right of that picture. Just above the light, where they’ve been since Series VI.
Which means, we’ve traced something seen in Series 1 of Red Dwarf, right through to Series VIII. And there is something very, very pleasing about that. Through all the changes the show had over the 11 years which spanned the BBC era, a tiny scrap of something actually survived them.
The End
Back in the Red: Part One
Recreated bunkroom sets? Screw that, we make our own nostalgia around here.
Seriously, I’ve spent far more time than is healthy trying to find it, to no avail. I thought it’d show up in Blue Midget somewhere, but I don’t think it does. ↩
I mean, important for this article. In the general scheme of things, I guess it’s pretty much the least significant thing which has ever happened. ↩