weekend questions on BTL and BTE

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I don't care if this has been done before, I wasn't here, and we haven't had a discussion in a while, so what-ever. :-P


Better Than Life is a game that gives you what you most want, or at least elements of it if you're sharing with other users, correct? Rimmer had a psuedo-McGruder; even the Cat had a mermaid girlfriend and boinked Marilyn Monroe in there. SO - WHERE WAS KRISTINE KOCHANSKI?? Inquiring minds and all that. (I'll grant you it's been a while since I saw BTL, but I don't think she was in it, or mentioned ...)


Related but separately, I could ask a few questions about Back to Earth. At least a few. Related - if it was a pleasure squid they encountered, why did Kochanski not make an appearance sooner in the hallucination? (I'd ask why it didn't turn out well with her in there, but I can guess easily enough that Lister still knew it wasn't real and he didn't want the fantasy.) But earlier, none of them knew it was merely a vision - and Lister has been chomping at the bit to get back to Earth all these years - so why does he spend his time running around trying to find this Creator, instead of enjoying his surroundings, going outside, talking to other people just for conversation ... all that good stuff?


I feel like these are fair questions to group together, since one is at the beginning of the series and the other is at the end, and neither makes sense, given that one of Lister's primary motivators throughout is his lost lover (in this case, I mean Kochanski, not Rimmer ;-) ). In fact, he so aggressively misses her that you'd think in "fantasy" or "dream" scenarios, she'd be right up there every time - or at least in the early episode I mentioned!


(Oh, and it's been over 2 years since BTE aired, so I don't really need a spoiler cut, do I?)

Comments

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Agree with you that BTE was pretty sombre. I still like bits of it, but I hadn't realised before how used I am to Lister being cheery and optimistic. I love that about him, although if I was actually stuck in that situation with him it would no doubt start to grate eventually. Hopefully the new series will be more upbeat (it is possible to be mature and upbeat at the same time, IMO).

Look forward to reading your story. :)

[kronette.livejournal.com]

At times, Lister's cheerfulness did seem unbelievable, but this was a comedy series, not a drama. I think that's where BtE went a little sideways. The writers were trying to be a bit of both with such an absurd storyline, but have Lister react to it without his natural humor. It didn't straddle the line well, like Buffy did, for instance.

If the new series is more like season 6 (isn't that what's been reported?), then I'll be happy. After rewatching the entire series, I remembered through some of S7, but I didn't recall the ending at all, and certainly not the ending to S8. I know I was disappointed that Chris left in S7, and that may have taxed my younger self's attachment to the show.