Cutting Through

Deleted Scenes - by Andrew Ellard

6 June, 2003

Amidst the chaos of interviews, editing, menu design, cover design and a billion other things too silly to mention (those are mostly my bits), we have the unbridled joy of the deleted scenes.

I use the term ironically, of course. Because while there's plenty of good material around, some poor gimp has to track it down. Which means watching tape after tape of raw footage from the episode shoots. Thank God I know the episodes well enough to spot an unheard line at twenty paces, with a blindfold.

Detailed lists of the Series III and IV deleted scenes will appear on reddwarf.co.uk later in the editing process, but it seems we have a good collection. Among the favourites from III are a wonderful rant by the Cat on just how many time-wasting games he and Lister could be playing, a continuity fix to a moment in Backwards (explaining the real goings-on in the same way the 'erased Rimmer' error from Me2 was explained with a Series I scene), and huge swathes of material lost from a personal favourite episode, Bodyswap.

Series IV, meanwhile, shows just how much Red Dwarf has changed in style over the years. Very few full scenes were excised, but a large number of trims were made instead. Scenes were shaved down rather than removed outright. This does still leave us with a lot of material, though - including the reason Suzanne Rahtigan was credited as 'Kochanski Camille' in Camille, the original ending to Dimension Jump, and a curious exterior scene from Justice - no doubt removed because it looks so much like a park in London.

Oh, and Hattie Hayridge will be thrilled to know that her edited-out "What a guy" line from Dimension Jump - which she has often lamented - should also be making it onto DVD... along with a continuation of the maple syrup gag.

There's plenty more to come before the November release. Fans will no doubt have noticed the rough (i.e. far from complete) Series III cover art which has made its way into the Red Dwarf Shop, and soon we'll have more details from the cast and crew interviews - all the behind-the-scenes news will be right here on reddwarf.co.uk.

More DVD Details will follow soon...