Ian's Newsround - 09/01/04

Posted by Ian Symes on January 9, 2004 10:11 PM

This is quite a small newsround this week, seeing as John went and reported on all but one item from today's TOS update a couple of days ago. The big fanny.

Still, it's such a big item, it's worth mentioning twice. It's the Series IV DVD menus! It's the Series IV DVD menus! Yes folks, with the Region 1 release (BASTARDS) only three and a half weeks away, we get a nice gawp at what the Yanks (and Europeans with multi-region players) will be frantically navigating. And the first deviation from the previous release comes just after "you" get off Starbug - Series IV is written on the door. Then, when we get into the "science room/drive room/medi-bay/whatever", we see that the new artefacts on display are a parrot, some Leopard Lager, Rimmer's light bee, a massive fishing net and some sort of microphone. Now, forgive me if I'm being thicker than the offspring of a village idiot and a TV weather girl, but I can't place that microphone type thing. What's it from? Post what will inevitably be a ludicrously obvious answer below.

Let's have a goosey at the episode menu. All titles are spelt correctly, and are in the proper broadcast order. Huzzah! Not only that, there's a copy of "Up, Up and Away", the in-flight magazine from Dimension Jump. These menu shots also give us a sneak preview of the chapters for the first half of Dimension Jump - Ace In The Making, Rubber Shares, Gone Fishing and Front Seat Driver. So, the stuff set in Ace's dimension is being split in two. Hmm. Bit daft, but it's no use being cynical about something when it's note even going to be released in this country for another six weeks.

And that's Disc One sorted. On Disc Two, we come down the corridor, which has been decorated with a Titan Hilton towel; first seen back in Series I, and re-used when Lister is ill in Justice. Over in the bunkroom, some bugger has left the following items lying about: Lister's guitar (music cues?), Ace's helmet (Life In Lamé?), a curry (Can't Smeg Won't Smeg?), a pair of Justice boots, "Barbara Bellini"'s escape pod, Talkie Toaster, some polaroids (gallery?), Kryten's spare heads, a big red heart-shaped balloon and Talkie's start-up sequence on the vidscreen (trailers?). Excellently, the spare heads will move and talk, which I'm sure will be rather amusing. My one gripe is with the big red heart-shaped balloon. It's not a prop that's ever been used in the show. Mind you, what love-based props are there? Oh, and the polaroids should be of Robert Llewellyn's cock.

Don't forget, Series IV will feature the option of a text-based bonus features menu. News of a replacement disc for Series III is promised soon. I've not had problems with it myself, but there are still people who haven't seen the some of the extras, which is a pisser. Young Ellard also mentions that Series V will stick to the same shipbound formula as the last two releases, and VI will have a new menu system, set on Starbug. I imagine that V will have the same core menus as III and IV, then, with just the series-specific artefacts changed. Nowt at all wrong with that - why make two completely different menu systems, when the budget is tight enough as it is?

Oh, and let's deconstruct a paragraph from the listings report on TOS. In the bit about Britain's Best Sit-Com, Ellard lets slip that the three-hour show will feature "classic clips and Craig Charles's interview". So, Red Dwarf will be dealt with on the night, and not given it's own documentary. So, it's not in the top ten. Bah! Oh well; we weren't really expecting it to be. John will be doing a little report on the show this weekend.

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