Ghost's Arcade: The Pokemon Go Radar Shitshow

Welcome to a special extra edition of Ghost's Arcade... and boy do we have some garbage to talk about today.

As if you couldn't tell from the title of this post, just a fair warning that the content of this particular article will most likely include some harsher language than normal.

It's been almost a month since the mobile app Pokemon Go was released in the United States.  Since then it has become the most downloaded app ever and has accounted for over half (if not more) of in-app purchases on multiple days.  The game perfectly grabs our nostalgia and love of the pokemon franchise in the way that many of us had wished for years.  Yet despite all of this, the app itself is buggy, unfinished, unpolished, and downright mediocre at best.  As stated in my review of the game, if this game were anything other than pokemon it would have flopped and flopped hard. 

Chief among this app's sins is the malfunctioning of the pokemon radar  When the app first launched we were treated to a radar that showed us what pokemon were nearby and how far away they were as indicated by footprints.  If you were getting closer to the pokemon you were trying to find it would move up the list then the footprints would reduce until you were right on top of it.  It didn't work all that well but, at least, you could sort of figure out if you were heading in the right direction or not and adjust your walk to try to find the pokemon in question... sometimes  However after a week or so, a glitch entered the game permanently and left every pokemon with three footprints beside them even if you were almost on top of the thing.  While this made the radar kind of worthless, our hope came in two different places.   First of which were the various apps and websites that began showing up.  These websites such as PokeVision were allowing people to scan their area and it would populate what pokemon were located where in your physical location and how long before it disappeared since the in-game ability to track pokemon was broken.  Also we had the hope that Niantic would fix the issue at hand making the need for these websites obsolete.

On July 30th, the shitshow began as Niantic did, in fact, issue an update to address some of the problems with the game... and of course...

Players were greeted on this day with a new update for the game.  Among the list of changes were things like being able to re-customize the avatar you use, adjusting battle damage, improved memory usage, bug fixes and display fixes.  All of these things are nice and/or needed.  The game began to boot more quickly.  Some people on iOS experienced their profiles screwing up with this update but I didn't experience that as an android user... I only saw what seemed to be a nice improvement on the app as a whole.  However...hidden in the middle of the update was something that caused concern.  "Removed footprints of nearby pokemon."  .... I'm sorry I must have read that incorrectly.  Let me double check before I report something stupid.   "Removed footprints of... nearby... pokemon."  I..... WHAT??

You mean to tell me that they noticed the three footprint glitch and the way they chose to fix the glitch was to just remove the footprints???  That's like having an engine fault in your vehicle and your fix is to just remove the bulb from the Check Engine light.  The radar went from being something bad and confusing but functional at first, to having a glitch making it almost worthless, to the development team PURPOSELY making it worthless.  Now you can see what's sort of around you but you can't actually track down anything or see if you're actually any closer to your goal.  But that's ok... that's fine because we still have the sites like Pokevision to help us pinpoint those rare or needed pokemon near us since Niantic made the tracker even worse right....right????  Well on the morning of July 31st we got the answer to that in the form of this message.

So, to be clear, at the same time as this update that ruined the pokemon tracker was put out, these assholes went behind everyone's backs and shut down every third party tracking tool that we were using.  May I remind you that these third party tracking sites that were enhancing the game FOR FREE were only being utilized because the product we were given didn't fucking work.  Now thanks to these clowns not only does the tracker not work, but the ability to track anything in any manner is gone.  To top it off, what did the Pokemon Go team have to say about this?  Piss all.... or at least piss all for several days but I'll get to THAT later.

Now I'm not a games developer by any stretch of the imagination.  My single foray into "game development" consisted of attempting to create a custom rom hack of Pokemon Fire Red and due to the confusion, lack of experience, and lack of adequate tools we basically got nowhere with it.  So I understand that developing a game is hard work and I never want to come across as belittling the hard work that has actually been done.  However I also understand something else.  There are certain things you simply don't do when you have a game out there for the public to consume...you just don't do them.  Unfortunately these guys started gravitating towards the pile of "don't do."

The first thing you don't do is fundamentally destroy the most important portion of your gaming experience and expect people to not become angry.  With friend battling, trading, or wild pokemon battling not existing in this game at the current time, there are literally two things you can do with this game.  You can go out to find and capture pokemon or you can spend time at a gym.  Since you need to go out and capture pokemon to obtain the stardust and candy necessary to even stand a chance at a gym, this makes gym battles dependent on the location and capture of pokemon.  Whether or not you choose to involve yourself in the digital dick waving contest that is gym battles, you cannot deny that the location and capture of pokemon is the most essential part of the game... and now the location of pokemon has become broken, non-functional, and completely luck based.  That's not how pokemon works; that's not how any of this works.  The radar is essential for this type of game and should have either been fixed or an alternative should have been provided not just removing the cocking thing all together.  As the creator of pokevision said on his twitter account, "You don't create Marco Polo then take away the Polo and expect people to play."  Speaking of Pokevision...

The second thing you don't do is shit on your fanbase.  This is something the gaming industry as a whole needs to learn not to do between the take-down strikes, content id claiming, cease and desist on fan-made projects.... the list could go on.  While most of the gaming industry sees fan-made projects and videos as a harm to their company they should really stop being dickheads and realize that the whole reason fans do this is because the company had made something great and the fans want to share and live in that greatness.  They may even gain some unique perspectives or ideas that they could add to the franchise officially.  However to focus in solely on Pokemon Go, the greatest thing to have happened with this game was the third-party tracking sites.  These wonderful people took time out of their days for free and within a couple weeks had a functional product that would help us locate the pokemon that were alluding us.  Yet when people turned to these necessary websites, the Pokemon Go people decided to show utter disdain and aggression towards their own fans just trying to help them out and shut the sites down.  Let me just repeat that point for the people in the cheap seats...  These non-professionals were able to provide us with a very much needed product for free within 2-3 weeks of the game launching when professional developers who have been working on this game for months/years couldn't get it done.  Then when the professionals learned that a few people had been able to provide a free service to assist them...they didn't reach out with camaraderie or understanding.  Instead, the impression they left was that of a malicious attack on these fans and websites as they forced them to shut down.  That is bullshit

You don't have to be this way, Pokemon Go team; you shouldn't be this way!  It's only natural that if the product you are offering is inferior in a certain way, people will look to outside sources to help fill the gap in any way possible, especially if they enjoy the product.  You don't shut these sites down you absolute imbeciles.  You partner with one of them to take the load off your developers.  Perhaps you offer one or two of them a job with the company to do something like this in-app... you sure have the money to do this based on the amount of micro-transactions alone.  You give a thumbs up or turn a blind eye to these sites until your functionality has actually been fixed.  You don't destroy your own functionality and then remove the only other means that the public has.  By doing this you've taken a loving community who was willing to deal with your broken and incomplete game because of the love and nostalgia behind it, and turned it into a group of very angry people.  Angry people who are only angry because they are passionate about your product and are only resorting to anger, uninstalling, and refusal to engage in micro-transactions because that's the only way most companies will ever actually listen to their fanbase.

Now people can have their own opinions on these tracking sites.  They can believe that they take away the point of the game or they are equivalent to cheating.  John Hanke, CEO of Niantic can be "not a fan of third-party sites" all he damn well pleases.  Fact remains that they are all entitled to their own opinion even though their opinion is 100% wrong... and they ARE wrong.  Tracking sites don't take away the point of the game as the game originally came with a tracker... it just didn't work but these sites did.  There are ways of cheating such as GPS spoofing and installing that Chinese tap and walk mod that allows you to move around even though you aren't physically moving... that is cheating.  Utilizing a tool to tell us where a pokemon is located so that we know which direction to walk in is NOT cheating especially since, again, the game originally had a form of tracker.  What people and the Pokemon Go team seem to be unable to realize is that these sites ENHANCED the gameplay.  They didn't take any revenue or playability away from the actual game, it simply enhanced our playing and made the entire experience much much better.

I know this from personal experience.  In the world before these sites came to be, I was with a group of guys downtown and a Meowth appeared on the radar.  Meowth are fairly uncommon here so we went out in search for the elusive cat.  Thirty minutes later (as we had no idea about the 15 minute spawn time) we hadn't found a single inclination of where Meowth could have been.  We all ended up tired, annoyed, disgusted, and completely disappointed because we had no idea how to locate this pokemon we all wanted.  Later, once pokevision and other sites were active, I was also downtown with a large group of people.  A Kadabra, which are as rare as the holy grail here, appeared on our radar.  Within seconds I and several others went to these tracking sites and found exactly where it had spawned.  We all informed everyone around us where the Kadabra was and a large group of 50+ trainers all marched together laughing, speaking with new people, and enjoying our time.  Everyone who wanted to find Kadabra that night was given the opportunity to find and capture him.  This left everyone with nothing but pure happiness and satisfaction as well as a neat story to tell of the community moment we all shared.  From this story alone, if you don't see the necessity of a working tracker or a third-party tracker then you have serious problems.  Based on Niantic's latest actions... it appears as though a large multitude of people have some serious problems.

The third and most damning thing of all that you simply don't do is remain silent.  The Pokemon Go team has maintained a suspicious amount of silence both in-game and on social media.  The whole reason that the pokemon radar was such a confusing mess at launch was because nobody took the time to include an explanation of how it works in the game...or anywhere for that matter.  We just sort of had to figure everything about the game out for ourselves and even then we couldn't quite figure it all out.  This wouldn't have been a problem if there was some communication going on about the features of the game.  Outside of the game, however, there has been just as much lack of communication.  Since the launch of the game, the Niantic blog has not been updated once, and both the twitter and facebook pages of both Pokemon Go and Niantic have almost exclusively only mentioned when the game is available in a new country.  In fact, before this shitshow went down, the only exception to this was the July 16th total meltdown of the servers.  Past that, there has been silence about the game freezing constantly, the servers being offline non-stop, and the general poor quality of the game at launch.  Of course you don't want to publicly air your dirty laundry despite the fact that the public already knows it...but just some confirmation that things are being worked on would go a long way.  Silence breeds anxiety and contempt.  If we don't know what you're doing we (as human nature always dictates) will assume the worst and that you all really don't care... regardless if you actually do care.  Communication goes along way no matter if you are in a relationship, a partnership, or a producer/consumer relationship.  Lack of communication will always result in confusion.

However, four days after the update went out, the Pokemon Go team finally responded on their official Facebook page.  While I have no idea as to the intentions of this message, I have a certain feeling that it has less to do with keeping an open line of communication and more to do with the extreme amount of fan anger at the company potentially putting their profitability at risk.... which is why they waited four days to say anything.  Let's take a look at what they actually had to say.

*sigh* Just a few things here...

1. To open on something positive, I do legitimately appreciate the Pokemon Go team openly admitting that their radar was confusing and poorly executed.  In a gaming world where even the worst ideas are paraded around as glorious triumphs regardless of consumer opinion this is a wonderful thing.

It's just too bad the rest of the post is well... kind of shit.

2. "We will keep you posted as we strive to improve this feature."  This effectively means nothing to the majority of us.  Now they may actually be genuine here and are intending to keep us informed once a decision is made, however I've grown far too cynical to believe that for a second.  The state of the gaming industry as a whole, especially from big name producers has driven such a level of bullshit and distrust that I can't help but believe this to be yet another vague empty promise from another developer with the wrong priorities.  I genuinely hope that I am incorrect here as Niantic has no real reason to not fix its product, I just can't help shake the last 10+ years of game studios promising things and either not delivering at all, or delivering something even worse.  Also, I work in IT... I know that things don't get rolled out on a whim.  Things are planned out with target dates.  Hell, I've been working on a project with my job due to come out in October.  In June we knew our target dates for deployment.  Let us know a target date or something.  That would instill far more confidence than  "we will keep you posted."

3. "third-party services which were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service"

I've played this game since launch.  Your "quality of service" was pretty fucking terrible before the third-party sites even came to be.  Have we forgotten the almost constant crashing and freezing that the game had to offer at launch?  Are we just ignoring all of the countless hours that the servers were unavailable before these sites were even around?  In fact, when these sites started popping up, the servers were already leagues more stable and the game was crashing far far less.  The third-party sites didn't hinder anything; it didn't seem to have an effect whatsoever!  One can claim that the servers are staying up and the game isn't crashing anywhere near as badly now but.... they were doing pretty damn fine BEFORE July 30th when this all went down.  I can't remember the last time the server went down or my game froze within the last coupe of weeks.  The quality of service from all indications is completely independent of any third-parties doing anything.

4. 5-10 minutes, guys... that's all it takes.  You mean to tell me that your silence on Facebook and Twitter is because everyone is working heads down?  I honestly don't believe that for a second.  That Facebook post probably took no longer than 10 minutes to write just to make sure everything was "approved by management."  Twitter would take even less time to update.  While I'm sure everyone there is working hard, you can't tell me that everyone is working SO hard that nobody can give us a quick 30 seconds or 5 minutes of their time to update us?   End a meeting early and spend the last 3 minutes giving us insight into what is going on, what is being planned, how are you intending to fix this. COMMUNICATE!

Now there are some people who would say that I'm being too harsh.  Some would say that this is a free to play game so we shouldn't feel as entitled as we should with something we had to purchase.  Others would say this is Niantic's game and they can modify/change whatever they want to whenever they want because it's their game and their investment.  Some would also say that no company owes us transparency with their dealings.  Other hopeful babes in the digital woods would just say to be patient as they are positive this will all sort itself out eventually.  Despite my reluctance to admit this or side with any degree of optimism... these people are technically correct or at least have an iota of truth to their statements.  Yes I regularly treat things too harshly.  Yes this is a free game, though many have participated funds in the micro-transactions.. it's still free to play.  Yes, this is Niantic's game and if they wanted to add or remove any functionality on a whim it's theirs to do whatever with it.  They just have to be prepared to deal with the fallout those decisions make.  There is absolutely no reason for Niantic to not fix this and there very well may be a fix or change being planned...they certainly indicated that they are at least thinking about it.  No, a company does not owe anyone transparency with their dealings.

However, in this day and age of video games, transparency is a saving grace.  Fans have been used to dealing with companies who keep their secrets, make vague comments and then don't deliver or produce inferior products.  By not being transparent, it's only natural that a fan's mind would lump Niantic in with the likes of Ubisoft and Konami who are still commercially profitable but in all honesty are starting to gain a bit of a Public Relations stigma with several people.  By being transparent with the consumers, the fear, rage, and confusion would go away.  What should have happened was a post somewhere to explain what was happening as it was happening.  Something like" Hey trainers, the pokemon radar isn't working so we have removed it's functionality for now.  We are currently planning its replacement and hope to have it out for you by October or November.  I hope you will stick around with us as we go through this adjustment period to ensure a better game for you"  And then you should have just let the third-party sites do their thing until that fix is rolled out. I can almost assure you that people would not be angry at all because we have clear indication of progress and a clear goal in mind.  Even if you still went ahead with the third-party take downs, we wouldn't be anywhere near AS angry because of that clear goal and clear timeline of how long we will possibly be waiting for that functionality to return.

Without this transparency we are left to imply from vague statements and to focus on actions alone.  As always, actions are far more important than words especially when the words are sparse.  In terms of actions alone, Niantic has removed an essential part of their functionality from the game with no clear date as to when this functionality will return.  They have turned on fans simply trying to assist them with supposed/possible legal action against them if they didn't shut down the site's function.  (I do not have proof that a legal cease-and-desist was issued but I highly doubt they just simply emailed the creators and asked them nicely to stop.)  Then they didn't bother to comment on this change until the fans were incredibly upset and threatening to uninstall/stop supporting the game financially.  Now, whether this was the intention or not, the impression given off by these actions is that they don't care what is needed for the game they are just going to do whatever whenever, they have disdain for fans trying to help make the game a better experience, they hoped to sweep this under the rug, and they have a greater emphasis on making sure that Brazil and other countries can play this game in it's still broken and unfinished state than actually finishing the game.  Again that's just the impression I can gain from their actions.

It is this same impression that many people have gotten.  Most of my friends are not really playing the game at all anymore.  If they are playing, they are becoming increasingly frustrated and angry at Niantic when a Dragonite appears on their nearby list with no clear way to find him...just a fleeting hope that will end with disappointment.  With that tracking functionality gone and the ability to use third-party sites gone, the game as just become a random guessing game of "maybe you'll find something over here" and that's no fun at all.  These actions have cause some of my friends and acquaintances to actively seek out the true cheats for the game like GPS spoofing and tap to walk mods just so they can actually have a chance at finding something and enjoying the game once again; they don't want to play "You Probably Won't Find That Pokemon GO."  I and several others who were opening and playing the game multiple times during the day have maybe turned it on once or twice since this debacle happened.  The game that brought me such joy, that made me want to get out and socialize, that made me get out and exercise, that made losing weight fun and enjoyable was ripped apart by two simple actions.  Now, all I want to do is the exact opposite of this game's goals.

Sitting on my ass, not playing the game because it's not worth it currently.

Niantic has almost lost my trust and the trust of hundreds of others.  It hasn't quite lost all of my trust because I haven't dealt with this company in the past... I'm trying to remain hopeful but bracing for disappointment.  The game is far from being in the grave but it's definitely stepped into the cemetery property.  People aren't playing the game because of how royally they fucked up just now.  If they were to come out and be transparent about what they are doing or give us a timeline for a tracker fix that would help ease part of our minds, but to be completely honest even an eased mind wouldn't make me want to play this game until you can track down where pokemon are again.  If something isn't announced or changed within the next month I'll probably just uninstall the whole thing and forget it ever happened.  I'm done.  I started off this post angry but now I can't even muster annoyance anymore.  Something that was my wildest imagination as a child was finally realized but it became a pain on my heart.  Some people may say "it's better than nothing" but I'd honestly rather have nothing than a tainted version of what could be a dream come true.  I'm just... numb and done.

Pokemon GO?  More like

...or at least until this is all sorted out and behind us.

This is Ghost, fading into the darkness.

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If you want to see my other Video Game discussions and reviews, click here!

Ghost in the Case: Red Dwarf Retrospective

I tell you one thing.  I've been to a parallel universe, I've seen time running backwards, I've played pool with planets and I've given birth to twins, but I never thought in my entire life I'd taste an edible pot noodle.

Ghost here!  Thanks for joining me today for yet another

I have always been and shall always be a fan of science fiction.  While I cannot be certain which was my entry point into the genre, I can comfortably say that my earliest memories of science fiction were thanks to the influence of my father who introduced me ET, Star Wars and Star Trek the Next Generation around the same time (give or take a year.)  I was hooked early and hooked hard.  This love of science fiction has lead me down the pathway to innumerable entertainment from America, the UK, and Japan alike.  If it involves space, strange gadgets, aliens, and the future you can certainly find me soaking up every second.  However there is one particular show that has always been dear to my heart that many people "on this side of the pond" have no knowledge of... Red Dwarf.

Red Dwarf is a British science fiction comedy series that began in the late 80's and actually continues on till this day though not consecutively.  Why haven't most Americans heard of this wonderful series?  Well, for the longest time the only way to watch British Television was on PBS British Comedy on Saturday nights which only featured 4-6 different shows.  That changed in March 1998 when BBC America came to satellite providers and gave us a window into British television.  Red Dwarf was one of the shows they brought over, however it was about to enter it's eighth and (what we thought at the time would be) final season that very next year.  So BBC America played these episodes while season eight was going but once that came to an end they pulled the program from the lineup.  To my knowledge they haven't played it ever since.  Most streaming sites don't even have the show available to watch.

I was lucky enough to have satellite with my parents at that time and caught Red Dwarf in all of it's glory before it was pulled from the programming lineup.  Slowly over the years I would order a season on DVD  directly from the BBC and finally had every single episode.  So let's take a look at the last 28 years of this show's existence and why it's good to be a Dwarfer!

The Premise

Dave Lister is a third technician on the mining ship Red Dwarf.  It is Dave's dream to save up enough money to buy a farm on Fiji and move there with the girl of his dreams Kristine Kochanski.  However when Dave brings an unquarantined pregnant cat on board, the captain gives him two options; Dave can hand over the cat to be destroyed or he can go into suspended animation for the rest of that particular voyage.  Dave can't possibly hand over the cat and chooses to be frozen in time for eighteen months.  During his time in statis, his roommate Arnold J. Rimmer attempted to fix a drive plate and failed to do so properly causing a radiation leak that wiped out all organic life except those things which were sealed away in the cargo hold, and Dave who was suspended in time.

When the radiation reached a perfectly safe background level, the ship's computer Holly released Dave from stasis. Unfortunately, it had taken three million years for the radiation to decrease and the ship had continued drifting all of that time.  Dave, who is most likely the last human being, decides to beat the odds and try to return to Earth despite it being three million years away.  Holly then revives Rimmer as a hologram to help keep Dave sane in the loneliness of space, which is humorous because neither of them actually like each other and consistently go out of their way to drive the other crazy.  They are also joined by a man simply named Cat who is the last remaining descendant of Dave's pet cat and her kittens.  They had been breeding and evolving in the ship's cargo hold for three million years and now had a human appearance.  In later seasons, the Red Dwarf Crew would also pick up a robot named Kryten, and Dave's romantic interest Kristine Kochanski from an alternate universe where she survived the events on Red Dwarf.

The rest of the show mostly deals with daily life on board the ship, running into strange individuals, bizarre locations, and insane situations along the way all while simply trying to get Dave back home to ensure the human race survives.

The Characters

Dave Lister
Played by: Craig Charles
Dave is a bum with a heart of gold.  Although he does prefer to lie around, be a slob, and eat copious amounts of Indian food, when push comes to shove he can be extremely brave and sacrificial.  He's a very messy version of the every man.  Dave is just a normal guy who has dreams but remains mostly content in his life.  He'll do whatever he can to help make a situation better unless it involves doing the washing.  Dave also believes himself to be a master at the guitar: he most certainly is NOT.  Throughout his years on Red Dwarf he slowly matures to make (some) better decisions and help lead the group out of danger.  He doesn't have an extreme change in any way as he's still effectively the same person... just a bit more mature... well sometimes.

Arnold Rimmer
Played by Chris Barrie
Arnold Rimmer is kind of the pure embodiment of the qualities most people despise or are annoyed with. He's very anal, a strict follower of the rules, pompous, neurotic, weaselly, self-centered, and a coward.  He constantly tries to pass his officer examinations and always fails them.  However this doesn't make him an unlikable character.  Despite all of these qualities he is still funny and charming; in fact he's my favorite character of the series.  He still goes along with the crew and helps out whenever possible despite all of his shortcomings.  You also learn that many of these negative traits are the result of a rough childhood.  Throughout his years on Red Dwarf, Rimmer made several significant changes.  He and Lister were constantly at each others' throats throughout many of the early seasons which partially stemmed from the actors not really liking each other at first (this thankfully changed.)  Rimmer slowly started to mellow out a bit and really became an active member of the crew when his hologram projection unit was upgraded to "hard light" in Season 5 meaning he now had a physical presence instead of just being there as a projection.  That Rimmer also accepted his role in becoming the personality of Ace Rimmer, adventurer and hero across the galaxy and across various dimensions which resulted in his absence for the majority of Season 7.  However when nanobots brought everyone back to life everyone who was on Red Dwarf a the time of the radiation leak, that meant Rimmer was back as a human and back to his old antics... though he mellowed out far quicker than his hologramatic counterpart did. 

The Cat
Played by Danny John-Jules
Cat is basically the end result of placing the mind of a cat inside the body of a human as he shares many personality traits with his feline ancestors.  He is instinctive, a show off, cares for himself more than others, obsessed with his personal image and style, and not overly abundant in intelligence.  He'd be more likely to organize his sock drawer than volunteer to help someone else on the ship.  When Lister went into suspended animation, his cat gave birth to her kittens and over 3 million years they evolved into this humanoid shape.  However warring religious factions who believed Lister's laundry list was a star chart to the promised land decided to leave the ship in search for "Fushal" (Fiji) and left the sick and elderly behind.  Cat was born from two of these individuals and eventually became the last member of the cat race on board.  Cat did change throughout his time on Red Dwarf, however his was a bit more subtle.  At first he showed very cat-like tendencies like licking his clothes clean, lapping up milk, and having an obsession with shiny things and fish.  These tended to fade away as he acclimated himself to being more like a human and act similar to Lister and Rimmer.  Many of these more extreme cat-like behaviors stopped though his love of fashion and being cool never stopped.  Eventually he became the crew's pilot as his keen nose was able to detect things around them.

Kryten
Played by David Ross (1 episode), and 
Robert Llewellyn (rest of series)
Kryten is an android who serves many functions on the ship including cook, maid, and scientific authority as knowledge of almost everything has been uploaded into his memory banks. He is programmed to serve any human and will do anything Lister or Rimmer ask of him even if he knows it's insane (usually in Rimmer's case.)  When they first met Kryten he was a service bot on a crashed vessel.  At that point he was a very obedient and quiet robot who was basically a doormat.  Lister decided to break his programming to give him independence and eventually was successful.  This resulted in Kryten leaving Red Dwarf, taking Lister's space bike, and eventually crashing and having to be rescued/rebuilt by Lister.  Lister, however was not able to do a full restore and as such Kryten was left with a pleasant but fairly neurotic and obsessive personality.  When Rimmer left and Kochanski became a permanent crew member, his neurosis escalated highly resulting in quite a few meltdowns.  Thankfully with Rimmer's return he also snapped back to his senses.

Holly
Played by Norman Lovett (Seasons 1-2, 7-8)
and Hattie Hayridge (Seasons 3-5)
Holly is the Red Dwarf computer which has an IQ of 6000, though most people question the validity of that statement.  Why is this questioned?  Well that's because Holly tends to be a bit of an idiot and a goof.  When the radiation leak occurred, Holly made it his goal to ensure Lister's safety and sanity and as such was left on his own for three million years...which probably explains his lack of IQ.  After meeting with his female counterpart in a parallel universe, he decided to change his face to that of his female self for seasons 3-5.  At the beginning of Season 6, Red Dwarf is lost and with it went Holly, however when Red Dwarf was restored by nanobots at the end of Season 7, the original Holly was re-created and stuck around till the end of Season 8.  I can't say a whole lot about Holly because while he/she is a funny part of the show that's mostly Holly's entire purpose.  They just show up, maybe explain something that Kryten explains further, and be a goof.

Kristine Kochanski
Played by Clare Grogan (Seasons 1, 2, & 6)
and Chloe Annett (Seasons 7-9)
Clare Grogan's Kochanski you never really get to know.  We see her in the first episode as being generally nice but then when she returns for Season 2 and 6 it's not actually her.  Her season 2 appearance is actually Rimmer using her body scan, and Season 6 is a mental projection trying to fake out Lister.  Chloe Annett however plays the alternate universe Kochanski and we do get to know her.  Kochanski joins in Season 7 and is from a parallel world where she was placed into suspended animation for not reporting Lister's cat.  As such, she survived the radiation, and Lister was brought back as a hologram and became her lover.  Kochanski is a woman of class and just wants things to be a little more civilized.  She hates the fact that she has been stuck in this dimension with a slobby and somewhat reckless version of the man she loved.  Despite this she definitely pulls her weight as the navigator for the crew and gets used to life on board.  Some time after Season 8 she leaves Red Dwarf unable to stand seeing Lister in the rut he has allowed himself to be in.

The Seasons

Season One - 1988
The beginnings of this show are a little rough.  The budget was practically non-existent for this show and you can really tell it.  The costumes seemed like stuff people just had in their own personal wardrobe with the exception of Cat.  The sets had an astounding amount of gray in it; basically everywhere you looked everything was gray.  Not to mention that sometimes doors would stick or walls would shift ever so slightly.  It's definitely noticeable.  Every single story this season also took place on Red Dwarf alone and involved internal issues/ideas/struggles.  However the scripts were solid, funny, and imaginative so these things can be ignored for the most part.  They also decided to record the series live in front of a studio audience so that you could get real feedback on the performances and jokes.  They continued to film in front of a live audience for the majority of the series.  During this season we meet our main three, see echoes of future events, watch as Lister tries to be a higher rank than Rimmer, learn about the cat people, Lister contracts a mutated cold virus, and Rimmer duplicates himself.

Season Two - 1988
Season Two had just about as pitiful of a budget, however they had noticed the gray on gray problem and started adding brightly colored props to help offset it.  This season was more of the same, but with a little more adventurous stories.  Most of the stories involved things on the ship still but they were able to venture out to a few locations and other places outside the ship a couple times.  This season we briefly meet Kryten before he runs off, go inside a video game that makes dreams reality, see Lister tamper with Rimmer's memories, find a leak in stasis allowing them back on the ship before the radiation leak, deal with a hardened alternate personality for Holly, and jump to a parallel universe where genders are reversed and Lister ends up pregnant because he slept with his female self in their world.

Season Three - 1989
Season Three brought a lot of changes and ushers in the 4-season "golden era" of the show.  It starts off with a Star Wars style text scroll (that goes faster than you can read) which explains Lister had twins then took them to the alternate universe to live then they picked up Kryten who had a new personality.  The budget must have been significantly increased as the show began using more locations and started exploring worlds, realities, and having outside forces affect their lives more often.  Also the gray corridors and rooms of the ship were gone as in between seasons they moved on up to the Officer's Quarters which meant all new sets with varying colors and contrasts.  It was a very good look for the show and the overall quality surged from all the changes.   This season we find a reality where time runs backwards, Lister and Rimmer are stuck on an Ice planet, a shapeshifting alien steals the crew's negative emotions, Rimmer swaps minds with Lister in order to get himself a body, Kryten discovers the photography fluid has mutated allowing them to walk into pictures and interact with the past, and Kryten's warranty period is up and his replacement is coming soon...with a shotgun.

Season Four - 1991
Season four is basically more of season three and is the 2nd season of what I consider the best years of the show.  The quality of the show is still high as well as the creativity and humor.  It's basically so close to "more of the same" that I don't think you can really tell a difference between this season and the previous season.  With only six episodes per season that isn't a bad thing because there is no way you can run out of original ideas or original modifications of ideas.  This season Kryten falls in love with a chameleonic life-form, Kryten temporarily turns into a human while Lister fights off a Curry monster, Rimmer is wrongly sentenced to several lifetimes in prison and the crew prove his innocence by proving he's an idiot, the crew encounter a white hole spewing out time, an alternative version of Rimmer named Ace Rimmer shows up, and the crew find themselves on a planet filled with wax robotic duplicates of famous figures from history who are involved in a war.

Season Five - 1992
While season five is still along the same levels of quality and humor, the stories have suddenly taken a much darker tone for this season.  It's yet again "more of the same" but just with a bit of a psychotic twist to it.   This season Rimmer joins a hologramatic ship's crew because a crewmate of that ship fell in love with him.  When he finds this out he returns to Red Dwarf so that she can exist once more.  We also meet the Inquisitor who travels through time erasing people who have wasted their life's potential putting Kryten and Lister in danger.  The crew lands on a psychic moon who becomes the manifestation of Rimmer's diseased mind.  Rimmer contracts a hologramatic plague and not only quarantines the others but tries to kill them.  The ship is triplicated by accident with the original, one containing everything bad about the ship and the last containing everything good about the ship.  When the original explodes they must find the pieces on the good and bad ship to make it whole again...and deal with the good and bad versions of themselves.  Finally, the crew find an underwater base and end up victim to The Despair Squid whose psychic ink makes the crew think they have actually been playing a Red Dwarf video game for years and are actually people whom they despise.

Season Six - 1993
The creators decided to make some changes for this season to shake things up.  Immediately following the final episode, Red Dwarf goes missing and the crew are stuck on the small ship Starbug as they try to track down the main ship.  Rimmer also receives a hard-light drive during this season which gives him a physical presence and the ability to actually do things.  Whether or not this was intentional, the show also became a sort of "monster of the week" type thing with each episode having them dealing with a new enemy from outside the tiny vessel.  This season we meet some psychic life-forms that want to eat everyone's brains, find a creature made up of the collective consciousness of the people around, jump into Kryten's brain via a video game to fight off a virus in Starbug's mainframe, encounter a second polymorph sent after the crew when they double cross a tribe, Rimmer gets sucked into a black hole and terraforms a world filled with thousands of clones of himself, and after finding a time travel device, they are flagged down by themselves from the future for help.  When the current crew meet the future crew and see what depravity the time drive has caused they send the future crew away who decide to kill everyone on the current day's Starbug.

Season Seven - 1997
The series co-creator Rob Grant decided to leave the show to pursue other options.   This left Naylor to write the series by himself and caused the four year delay.  The filming of season six was apparently so hectic that not only did Naylor want to change the show, but Chris Barrie wanted to only be part of a small number of episodes.  As such, the show was tailored to have Rimmer exit Starbug and have Kochanski from an alternate universe join the team.  This and next season would be 8 episodes long instead of 6.  The show was also not filmed live for this season and was shown to an audience later to record the laughter... this resulted in some laughter being longer than the pause given and some lines being hard to hear.  The tone of the show was very different as some episodes kept the science fiction but others sort of went to the type of thing you would see on a normal family sitcom like Everybody Loves Raymond.  The actors loved this change but the tone shift was very odd and made the show somewhat less enjoyable.  I say somewhat because although I like other seasons as a whole better than this one... this also has probably my favorite episode and two of my favorite individual jokes of the entire series.

The explanation for why the Dwafers were ok is kind of great.  Their deaths in the previous season created a paradox which reset time to before they got the time drive.  Because if the future crew killed the past crew, they wouldn't be around to grow old and turn into the future crew to kill themselves.  This season the crew accidentally saves JFK and has to fix history so that he is assassinated, We see Rimmer leave Starbug to save people around the universe as the new Ace Rimmer, they pick up Kochanski from an alternate universe and Dave finds out that he is his own father, They get stuck in the air ducts when Kryten gets jealous of Kochanski, Lister reminisces about Rimmer and misses him, Kryten's head explodes after Lister asks to put ketchup on a lobster, the crew find a person with some sort of zombie virus that results in Lister losing his arm, and finally Kryten is searching for his nanobots to build Lister a new arm but can't find them.  Why can't Kryten find his nanobots?  They deserted him around the time of the despair squid from season 5, hopped on Red Dwarf, Junked everything they didn't need onto a made-up planet, and traveled the area of starbug in a microscopic version of Red Dwarf.  When Kryten makes them rebuild Red Dwarf and Lister's arm things don't go according to plan.

Season Eight - 1999
Seson Eight is a little more like a mixture between Seasons 7 and 5 honestly.  The show returned to being recorded in front of a live audience.  The cast was expanded greatly and the sets were completely different.  Why?  When the nanobots returned Red Dwarf, the DNA from the dust piles where people had died was still on the ship and therefore everyone, including the hardened criminals being transported to a secure facility, were revived as well.  The Starbug crew enter Red Dwarf and are taken into custody for stealing Starbug.  They are placed under a hypnotic state for their trial (as well as the revived Rimmer who was acting strangely.)  Eventually they are cleared of the charges as they accept they died and were revived...however they were found guilty of using the ship's confidential files and sentenced to 2 years in the ship's prison.  The rest of the season they spend in prison and doing various jobs while there.  This season the crew is on trial and sentenced to jail.  While on prison exploration duty, Lister finds a computer who can accurately predict the future and it tries to ruin his life/happiness.  Kryten starts hijacking the prison TVs to produce his own shows and be a sort of mob boss, the dwarfers find a time stick which eventually turns a bird into a T-Rex, and a metal eating virus appears on Red Dwarf and begins destroying it forcing Rimmer to find a cure in an alternate universe.  This ends in a cliffhanger where everyone but Rimmer is gone/has died and Rimmer kicks the grim reaper between the legs.

Side Note: If you're hoping for an explanation of how they get out of this situation... yeah you won't find it.  They just chose not to provide an answer and even tease it towards the end of Season 10 but don't actually reveal anything.

Back to Earth - 2009
It had been ten years since the cliffhanger ending of Season 8.  With an ending quite like that fans assumed the series was dead but here came Back to Earth.  Now Back to Earth supposedly takes place after season ten though it was released before what would be season ten.  They also constantly make references to season 9.  There is no Season nine.  This is actually sort of season nine though it's supposed to be something after ten and

sorry... let's try this again.

Ten years after season 8, the movie Back to Earth was presented to us in three episodes.  The original four returned to their roles and were on a highly upgraded Red Dwarf.  Kochanski is assumed dead, Rimmer is a hologram again, and there is no explanation for how they escaped the ending of season 8.  When a dimension jumping creature somehow finds it's way on Red Dwarf, the science officer of Red Dwarf's hologram appears and intends to delete Rimmer while helping Lister restore the human race.  However when she uses the technology harnessed from the creature it states their reality is not valid and they are thrust through a wormhole into our reality where they are just characters on a TV show.  Eventually they track down Craig Charles and find their creator.  While there, Lister gets the help of some children who help him realize Kochanski is still alive; Kryten confirms she had only left Red Dwarf and told him not to tell anyone.  After meeting with their creator and killing him, they discover that this reality is actually an illusion.  The creature on Red Dwarf was actually the female version of the despair squid and her ink creates joy.  Eventually they all come back to their senses and decide to continue on their quest for Earth.

Season Ten - 2012
The Dwarfers were back for another full season after thirteen years!  The show was able to have a good budget with decent effects and a high production value.  It was once again filmed in front of a live audience.  I truly believe that this was supposed to be the final run for the crew as certain plot points from the entire show are concluded and while the first episode of Season 1 was called "The End"  the last episode of this season was called "The Beginning."  During this season, Rimmer finally catches up with his brother Howard and tries to one-up him, Lister gets drunk and deals with him being his own father in the worst way possible which almost ends in his death, the crew get teleported and stuck in 23 AD where they meet up with Jesus...though it turns out he's not THAT Jesus, Lister gets attached to an explosive device when he loses Rimmer in a bet, Lister becomes involved in a love triangle with two vending machines, and Rimmer finally learns about who his real father is and is able to overcome his neurosis to help the Dwarfers win a seemingly losing battle.

This would have been a good bookend to the series as a whole and if no other episodes were created I would have been fine with that.  It ended on a wonderful note.  However as luck would have it, we are getting at least two more seasons of this fantastic show!

Unique Attributes

So, I know what you may be saying.  With so many other options for science fiction out there, what makes Red Dwarf stand out?  What makes it unique?  Well there are a couple things.

The first thing of note about this series is that it has a strict "no aliens" policy.  This is very bizarre for a science fiction show based in outer space.  However for this series, everything is based off Earth and humanity in general.  Yes we do run across several strange and bizarre creatures, however all of them are the result of human experimentation, human augmentation, evolution of an existing creature found on earth, or genetic projects gone wrong.  Nothing exists in the vastness of space that doesn't have it's origin from Earth in this series.  You would think this might limit the show, but it just meant that they needed to make things a bit more inventive.

One other thing to note is the use of a created curse word.  It should come as no surprise to anybody that a group of only men hanging around for years together would most likely be a bit more crude than a group of mixed gendered company.  The creators either wanted to portray this fact while being able to keep the show viewable to most audiences or they just wanted to have a funny sounding word being said occassionally; it's hard to tell which.  That brought about the creation of the word "smeg."  Smeg is used in this series as a substitute for words that couldn't be uttered on prime time television to increasing hilarity.  You will often hear insults such as smeg head, shut the smeg up, and he's taking the smeg.  On the rare occasion you'll get Season three line  "What the smegging smeg's he smegging done?  He's smegging killed me!"

Conclusion

If you haven't had the wonderful opportunity to check this show out then I would highly suggest finding a way to do so.  The first two seasons can be a little rough if you aren't used to dealing with low budget productions but the comedy value and imagination are always present no matter what season you pick up.   Now, I have been told by others that this show sounds more funny than it actually is once you start watching it by a couple people who I have recommended it to in the past.  However they were only able to watch part of the first season before Netflix pulled the show from its lineup.  I was serious when I said Season 3 started it's golden era, so if you're having difficulty, feel free to jump forward to season three.  This show is a gem and something I hold dear to me.  The characters are wonderful, the comedy is on point, and the mixture of science fiction and goofing around is perfect.  This will always be one of my favorite shows and I hope that you too get to experience this for yourself.

This is Ghost, fading into the darkness.

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Whovian Chatter: The McGann Years The Movie

Ghost here, thanks for joining.

I'm going to be examining Doctor Who... every single episode.  I'm going to take you on a journey through the 50+ years worth of this show, showcasing the good and the bad along the way.  For each episode I'm going to give you a very brief rundown of the plot, how good/bad the story is, and anything interesting about the episode.  Basically I'll just talk about whatever comes to mind for each of them.  These will be a more in-depth overview of the series as a whole so you can see which stories or episodes (if any) you want to check out for yourself.  Today I'm going to be talking about

The Eighth Doctor

Paul McGann

Doctor Who: The Movie

Doctor Who: The Movie (A.K.A Doctor Who, A.K.A. The Enemy Within) aired in May 1996 in Canada, the US, and the UK though on different dates.  It had been seven years since Doctor Who was cancelled on the BBC and fans of the show had never stopped lobbying for it to come back.  While the fan outcry caused the BBC to bring back the show during Colin Baker's run, the same was not true here.  In fact, there was so much hatred for Doctor Who in the BBC that it was almost a taboo subject.  British-born American Producer, Philip Segal had been dreaming of bringing the show back to life and spent many years trying to get a new series of Doctor Who produced between both the BBC and (at the time) Amblin Productions under Steven Spielberg.  It was a hard road to pave and still almost didn't happen.

Philip Segal

There were many road bumps along the way such as another section of the BBC commissioning a Doctor Who Movie, Spielberg wishing to be removed from the project, and Segal moving to Paramount but working with Fox.  Segal was finally given the go-ahead to create a television movie that could be used as a pilot for a new series.  However, balancing Segal's wishes, the BBC's demands, the studio's demands, and Fox's demands became almost impossible.  Segal wished to honor the classic show by having the 7th Doctor regenerate but the BBC didn't want McCoy present at all.  Fox demanded that the villain be an American actor regardless of who might have been best to play The Master.  There were also so many hands in the pie when it came to the script that the final agreed-upon script was nowhere near as great as it was originally intended.   Eventually the BBC caved and allowed McCoy to regenerate but required that he remain mostly silent and the regeneration happen quickly.  Eric Roberts was also cast as The Master.

So why didn't this become a TV show?  Well, at the time Doctor Who was basically an unknown to the American community.  Fox did an absolutely horrible job of promoting the movie and placed it in the same time slot as the series finale of Roseanne.  While the UK viewership was high, the US viewership was lower than Fox wanted to deal with and backed out of the option to continue a series with the BBC.  So, this one movie is the only official piece of Doctor Who which we have between the old and new series. 

Doctor Who: The Movie

The Master has been sentenced to death on Skaro and his final wish is that the Doctor return his remains to Gallifrey.  The Seventh Doctor does so and settles down in an easy chair when the box containing the Master's remains beings to shake and a strange ooze-like snake wanders into the TARDIS console and forces an emergency landing.  The TARDIS lands in San Fransisco on December 30th 1999 and the ooze slithers out the keyhole.  The Doctor exits the TARDIS but it shot down by a group of gang members after a young Chinese-American man, Chang Lee.  Lee calls an ambulance who takes the Doctor to the local hospital to remove the bullets and sooth his rapidly beating heart (which is a normal heartbeat for a Time Lord.)  Cardiologist Grace Holloway is called in but due to the Doctor's strange anatomy she becomes lost and damages the Doctor's circulatory system killing him.  The Doctor is rolled to the morgue and Chang steals the Doctor's possessions including the TARDIS key.  Elsewhere, the ooze has stowed away inside the ambulance driver, Bruce's coat and later attacks then takes over his body.  The Doctor's regeneration, slowed by the human anesthesia takes place and the Eighth Doctor emerges having lost his memories.  Chang enters the TARDIS but the Master is close behind.  The Master convinces Chang that the Doctor stole the TARDIS from him and stole his body.  He then asks for Chang's help in tracking down the Doctor.

The Doctor finds some clothing items in the hospital and the next morning convinces Grace that he is the same man by pulling out the cardiac probe from his body.  The Master uses Chang's human eye to open the TARDIS' Eye of Harmony in order to track down the Doctor.   The Doctor's memories return from this experience and he realizes he must have an atomic clock to fix the TARDIS and close the Eye of Harmony before Earth is sucked into it.  Grace and the Doctor find an atomic clock while avoiding the Master and Chang and return to the TARDIS.  On board the TARDIS, the Master takes control of Grace's mind and knocks the Doctor unconscious.  The Master then starts his plan to utilize the Eye of Harmony to extract the Doctor's remaining regenerations from him.  The Doctor convinces Chang that the Master has used him but the Master kills him and uses Grace's eye pattern to initiate the Eye of Harmony leaving her free from his control.  Grace runs to the console room and finishes the final wire connecting the atomic clock part to the console which makes the TARDIS shift in time.  With the shift in time, the Doctor is able to free himself and fights with the Master who kills Grace in the scuffle.  The Doctor knocks the Master into the Eye of Harmony supposedly killing him.  Due to this, the Eye closes and causes Chang and Grace's bodies to go back in time causing them to come back to life.  Chang returns the Doctor's possessions and the Doctor offers for Grace to be his companion which she refuses.  The Doctor then hops back into his TARDIS and flies away.

While there are several things which are very good about this movie there are a lot more what are bad or confusing.

Paul McGann is a great Doctor.  He's just sort of charmingly befuddled and I love every second he's on screen.  I've said it in my introduction to the series as a whole, and I'll say it again now.  If we had gotten a full season of Eight, he would probably be my favorite Doctor.  The production value of this movie is gorgeous especially in contrast to the Classic Show.  Many parts of this are quite beautiful.  Also the TARDIS interior is the greatest that it has been...ever.  No TARDIS interior has looked this good before or since.  It was also good to see McCoy again, and his regeneration is really brutal with him screaming on the surgery table trying to explain that he would be OK and that he's not human but then dying in such a painful way.  Grace and Chang were fine... I don't feel strongly either way about them so I guess I would lump that under "good."  This also saw the brief return of the sonic screwdriver.

What's bad?  Basically everything else.  I try not to harp on individual actors, especially ones who have done a LOT of work... but Eric Roberts is a terrible Master.  He's easily the worst incarnation of the Master that we've ever seen.  Though that's partially because I actually enjoy the insanity they gave him in the new show... many Classic Who fans don't agree.  Roberts has two modes in this film.  In the words of Diamanda Hagan "He spends the first half trying to be the Terminator, and the second half hamming it up to almost superhuman levels."  This is NOT the Master... at all.

The reason for McCoy's regeneration makes me laugh/upset.  The Seventh Doctor, the man who perfectly organized the self-inflicted genocide of two separate races several years before the events actually took place ended up ultimately losing his life because he forgot to look at the TARDIS scanner to see what was standing right outside?  There are also many many other small points that are out of touch with continuity or just make absolutely no sense.  The Eye of Harmony was always a black hole that was hidden away on Gallifrey to power their whole lifestyle, not a small individual one on every TARDIS...though the new show tends to agree with the logic of this movie so maybe I missed something.  Why would the Eye of Harmony need a human eye to open it?  This is especially confusing when you realize that during The Deadly Assassin, Tom Baker had to leave Sarah Jane behind because humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey....so why wold they design something around human anatomy?   Why does the Eye of Harmony being open allow the Master to look out of the Doctor's own eyes?  How would Grace have known how to attach the atomic clock component to the TARDIS console in a few minutes when most of the Doctors didn't even know how the TARDIS console worked that well?  Don't even get me started on the TARDIS just randomly having Grace and Chang's bodies be taken back in time to right before they died so that they could live.... Freaking what??  This movie also makes the ludicrous claim that the Doctor is half-human...something that most people say is post-regeneration madness and the new show chose wisely to jettison that.

Conclusion

This is an excellent place for fans of the new show to launch into an older incarnation of the Doctor as it's probably the more accessible and easily bridges the gap between the two styles of the show and theories on the Doctor.  That said, this film is a mess, but it really didn't have any other choice than to be a mess.  With close to five different companies/individuals all making demands on the project and forcing the script to be re-written on the spot, what else would you expect?  It's gorgeous, Paul McGann is fantastic but most of the rest of this makes little to no sense.  I still suggest watching it but just be warned of the lack of coherency.  We will see Paul McGann once more but not until the end of the 11th Doctor's era.  Please join me again as we continue to examine all of Doctor Who.

This is Ghost, fading into the darkness

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You can click here if you wish to see my introduction to Doctor Who
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