Battle Plans

Last month, I wrote about the 1993 Red Dwarf script book Primordial Soup, and how it gave us a little insight into the production of “Psirens”.

But there’s plenty else of interest in that book. I always rather liked the introduction Grant Naylor wrote for it; an introduction which is sadly missing from the version uploaded to the Internet Archive. My copy is currently lost in a house move, so many thanks to Dan Cooper for sending me a few snaps. It’s just as much fun to read as it was all those years ago.

“Fundamentally, a Red Dwarf script is a battle plan for making a TV show, and as Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked, ‘No battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy.’ Actually, he didn’t say that at all, but he did say something remarkably similar in French, and his point was not lost. In Red Dwarf’s case the enemy is what is possible, given a tight budget, a short production period and the physical laws of the natural universe.

The enemy is a prop that doesn’t work. A guest star who can’t say the word ‘soup’. Another who can’t say ‘phenomenon’. Writing the stage direction ‘Beach in Paradise’, and finding yourself on a wet winter day in Rhyl¹, watching the rapidly bluing cast gratefully guzzling hot toddies in between takes, so their teeth don’t hammer together like copulating woodpeckers, as the director wanders among the frozen crew, confidently announcing he can make it look sunny in the edit. The enemy is two radio-controlled skutters who pick up mini-cab transmissions half way through a scene in front of the studio audience and spontaneously attack Rimmer with a flurry of vicious pecks to his lower torso. The enemy is reality, and reality is, unfortunately, everywhere.

Contained herein are the battle plans for six episodes of Red Dwarf. From the third season², ‘Polymorph’ and ‘Marooned’; from the fourth, ‘Dimension Jump’ and ‘Justice’; from the fifth, ‘Back to Reality’; and from the sixth, ‘Psirens’. The reason for this apparently random selection is that these were all, at some point, our favourite battle plans.

The army of technicians and artists responsible for making the plan work are too numerous to name individually here, but without their indefatigable contribution we’d just be standing alone in a field somewhere waving a rather limp sword.

This book is dedicated to them.

Grant Naylor, February 1993″

The idea of a script being a “battle plan” I find to be a highly pleasurable one, and the reason I find it pleasurable is because it doesn’t infuse writing with some kind of glamourous mystique. It’s a relentlessly prosaic idea. It’s the kind of idea which I find far more inspiring than waving your arms around and announcing that you’re doing magic. The kind of idea that, just maybe, might inspire future TV writers.

Which makes it all the more irritating that the book then… cheats.

Here’s an example. In Primordial Soup, the opening of the episode “Marooned”³ (TX: 21/11/89) goes as follows:

1. Model shot. Cargo bay
Starbug stands in the cargo bay. Red alert lights flash, and a siren is wailing.

HOLLY: Abandon ship! Black Hole approaching. Abandon ship…

The siren stops.

HOLLY: Oh God, now the siren’s broken. Awooga, awooga. Abandon ship…

This is, more or less, what happens at the start of the actual episode, although that adds a ridiculous “drill” joke. The kind of joke which shouldn’t work, but does.

Either way, that’s not the opening of the episode as originally shot. Instead, we were supposed to spy on a strip poker scene between Lister, Cat, and… erm, Kryten. This was first seen on the Red Dwarf commercial video Smeg Outs from 1995, and later on the Red Dwarf III DVD release in 2003.

Here it is, in all its unpleasant glory.

The reason it didn’t make it into the episode is obvious; the effects are absolutely terrible. In particular, it is faintly ludicrous that the team managed to do “Rimmer’s head on a table” brilliantly the previous year in “Stasis Leak” (TX: 27/9/88), but failed to make Kryten’s head here convincing in any way whatsoever.

Let’s face it though, every special effect in that sequence doesn’t work, right down to the badly-painted-out background on the shot of Kryten’s headless body. It gives the whole thing a slightly unpleasant air; almost a hauntological one. For all that, it’s a shame that it didn’t work. It’s certainly the kind of sequence the viewing public would never have seen before, at least.

But here’s the annoying thing. Rob and Doug wrote the battle plan for that scene… and it failed. Here, the “enemy” wasn’t a prop that wouldn’t work, or an actor who can’t say his lines, or terrible weather. The enemy was simply bad special effects work. Not because the people trying to create it were bad – a quick glance at the rest of “Marooned” proves that – but simply that circumstances conspired against them. I highly suspect there was simply too little prep time for a very complicated scene.

It’s thus frustrating that Grant Naylor set up the “battle plan” metaphor… and then refuse to see it through to its conclusion. There is no better way to prove their point than to include the original, cut version of the episode opening, and they don’t take it.

It’s difficult to figure out exactly what the script as printed in Primordial Soup actually is, in fact. It seems to be an odd mix of what was taken into the studio, and something conformed to being vaguely close to the final edit. Let’s take an example. As broadcast, we get the brilliant Starbug crash here:

But Primordial Soup preserves the original intended joke after the crash:

LISTER steps up to the cockpit. Stars glint through the front-view window behind him.

LISTER: It’s because you’re unhappy with your own
weasely, humdrum existence. You’re looking for something with a bit more… I don’t know… glamour.

Behind him, we see a flaming meteor hurtling towards them. RIMMER‘s eyes widen slightly as panic robs him of the power of speech.

LISTER: Now is what counts – you’ve got to live life today. Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? Who knows what’s going to happen in the next five minutes? That’s what makes life so exciting.

The meteor smashes into them.

7. Model shot
Meteor collides with Starbug, sending it spinning into the atmosphere of the moon below.

8. Model shot
Starbug overheating as it plummets through cloud.

9. Model shot
Starbug crash-lands on snowy landscape and screams to a halt.

LISTER: (VO) You see what I mean?

That final, deliberately bathetic line is unnecessary; the viewer is fully aware of the irony. We didn’t need the show to yell “GEDDIT?!” in our ear. Here, our battle plan tweaked for the better in the broadcast version.

But at other times, the treatment of the published script seems to take an entirely different tack. Here’s another example. Again, first seen in the Smeg Ups video from 1995, it’s a blooper from “Marooned” containing dialogue on drinking urine, which doesn’t appear in the episode as broadcast:

But crucially, this dialogue is nowhere to be seen in the script as published in Primordial Soup either. And you’d really expect it to be.

It’s all well and good to describe your scripts as a battle plan. But if you sneakily go back and cut parts of them for publication, then it’s a bit like Napoleon going back and changing the plan for the Battle of Austerlitz after the fact. And clearly, that would be the worst thing you could ever accuse Napoleon of.

*   *   *

All of which makes what happened next so interesting.

Primordial Soup was published in 1993, with the above introduction by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. They then split in 1994. In 1996, a sequel to Primordial Soup was published: Son of Soup⁴, “a second serving of the least worst scripts”. Those least worst scripts were for “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”, “Holoship”, “Camille”, “Backwards”, “Kryten”, and “Me²“. Notable in that selection was one script each from the first two series of the show; Primordial Soup had, slightly oddly, only concentrated on Series III onwards.⁵

As befitting the split between Grant Naylor, Son of Soup is specifically marked as “Compiled and annotated by Rob Grant”. He writes yet another a fascinating introduction to the book, and this time around there seems to have been a change in approach:

“Holoship from season five, was the longest recorded Red Dwarf script ever – ten minutes had to be cut for transmission. The script is presented here in its original, over-long form, full of sequences and scenes now rotting in the Home for Unwanted Magnetic Tape.”

Sure enough, the script for “Holoship” (TX: 20/2/92) in Son of Soup contains huge chunks of dialogue which never made it to the broadcast episode, many of them adding relationship material between Rimmer and Nirvana Crane. To take just one example of many, the start of this scene did make it into the final episode:

17. Int. Holoship corridor. Day

RIMMER and NIRVANA, walking back to departure point.

RIMMER: Well, Commander, thank you for a most fascinating afternoon. It’s been most… fascinating.
NIRVANA: Perhaps, if you’re not in any great rush, Mr Rimmer, we could retire to my quarters and have sex for a few hours?

RIMMER looks at his watch.

But the rest of the scene was entirely cut:

RIMMER: Well, I mean, uh… I had… (Laughs) Is that the time? God!
NIRVANA: Perhaps you find me unattractive?
RIMMER: Absolutely not, no. It’s just… I had this thing to do, back on… (indicates Red Dwarf with his thumb) and, uh (holds up his watch and taps it), look, it’s nearly half-past already, and, uuh… perhaps some other…

She takes his hand and leads him off.

RIMMER: Where are we going? (She doesn’t answer.) Look, I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Well, as far as I know. I have experience of course, but, uh… Oh look, is that the table tennis room? I haven’t played that in ages. Don’t suppose you’d like a quick couple of sets…

But she leads him, meekly, off.

In 1996, the above was the only way of accessing the above material to the average Red Dwarf fan, and most non-average ones. In 2004, when Series V was released on DVD, we finally got to see it for real, in the deleted scenes:

But things get even more interesting for the episode “Me²” (TX: 21/3/88), where Rimmer tries living with his doppelganger, with predictably terrible results. Back to Rob Grant’s introduction:

“Of course, the only way to have two Arnold Rimmers in one scene is to record it twice. Chris Barrie would play one half of the scene, then the tape would be rolled back, and he would play Rimmer 2 on the other side. This is a very difficult process for the actor – Chris almost killed himself in the scene where the two Rimmers are exercising. After take five, he was beginning to ask for a priest, and he isn’t even Catholic – and very time-consuming for the technical bods. So, in order to render the script shootable in the available shooting time, a couple of the double Rimmer scenes had to be trimmed, and one dropped completely. Those scenes are reproduced here for the first time.”

I shall leave figuring out the trimmed double Rimmer scenes as an exercise for the reader, but the scene which was cut entirely seems worth reproducing here. Among all the cut material from Red Dwarf which has been officially released, it’s surely one of the most obscure bits of all, at least in 2024.

15. Int. The Rimmers’ quarters. Day.
RIMMER enters, looking totally exhausted. He sits on the bed, groans and stretches.

RIMMER: Look, Holly, I think I may have a quick nap for ten minutes or so. Can you wake me up in two hours?
HOLLY: Yes, Arnold, I’ll put that on your Goal List. New item 3: sleep all day.
RIMMER: Shut up.

RIMMER lies back, thankfully, and closes his eyes. RIMMER 2 comes in, equally exhausted. He sees the supine RIMMER and gets a new burst of energy.

RIMMER 2: What are you doing?
RIMMER: (Eyes still closed) …and, in conclusion, we have seen throughout this essay how very important, nay, essential, invisible numbers are in engineering structures.

RIMMER leaps off the bunk.

RIMMER: Oh, hi, Arnie. (Gives Rimmer salute.) On to item numbero five. Can’t hang about.
RIMMER 2: You were having a nap, weren’t you?
RIMMER: No, I was doing an essay.
RIMMER 2: The old ‘pretending to finish an essay’ routine won’t work with me, miladdo.
RIMMER: No, I was. Honestly. Truly.
RIMMER 2: You’re forgetting – I am you.
RIMMER: I swear the most sacred oath, on my mother’s eyes.
RIMMER 2: You can’t lie to me.
RIMMER: You’re right – I was lying.
RIMMER 2: What is the point of getting up at four-thirty and then going to bed halfway through the morning?
RIMMER: You’re right, you’re right.
RIMMER 2: You wanted to be driven.
RIMMER: I did, I did…
RIMMER 2: Then get out there and on to the next item.

They salute.

RIMMER: Thank you.

RIMMER goes. RIMMER 2 sits on the bunk, stretches out and groans. RIMMER returns.

RIMMER: Hang on. What are you doing in here?
RIMMER 2: …and, in summation, the Laws of Thermodynamics… You’re right, you’re right.
RIMMER: You can’t fool me, and I can’t fool you. On to the next item. Push yourself.
RIMMER 2: Through the pain barrier.
RIMMER & RIMMER 2: (Together, weakly) Fantastic.

As they both turn to leave, we see behind their backs: they are secretly flicking V-signs at each other.

Holly’s “New item 3: sleep all day” is extremely funny, and a sad loss from the episode. But perhaps what I find most interesting is that the scene feels absolutely pivotal when reading it – it’s the moment where the two Rimmers really start getting on each other’s nerves. It feels like a key part of the episode has been lost.

And yet, in the episode as broadcast, it doesn’t feel like the episode is really missing anything at all. Rimmer is such a terrible man, that you believe things would escalate quickly, and violently. The scene may have been cut for production reasons, but creatively, you didn’t really need it either.

What can feel like vital strategic groundwork in your battle plan… ends up not being very important at all. Which is a very useful thing to learn about writing. Primordial Soup, with the odd honourable exception, obscures this lesson. Son of Soup revels in it.

And that’s why it’s great. Now come on, isn’t it about time we got Grandson of Soup? And no, the Red Dwarf VIII script book doesn’t count…

1. Spelt as “Rhyll” in the book, which is an odd error to slip through, and I don’t blame Grant Naylor. Some editor at Penguin wasn’t on the ball that day. ↩

2. Use of “season” here is proof that British people didn’t just spontaneously start using the word as soon as The Sopranos started airing. ↩

3. Called “Men of Honour” during production. ↩

4. A clear reference to Grant Naylor’s radio show Son of Cliché. ↩

5. Grant Naylor’s dislike of most of Series 1 is well-known; the lack of script for Series 2 in Primordial Soup is a little more difficult to understand. ↩

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