Dear Johnny Fanboy,

While watching Series VI of Red Dwarf, I walked blindly into a nit-pick.

The crew of Starbug are intercepted by a battle cruiser commanded by rogue simulants. Because simulants despise all humanoid life, Lister comes up with a cunning plan to make them think Starbug is piloted by an alien called Tarka Dall, an ambassador of the great Vindallvian Empire.

To create this effect, Lister and the Cat are filmed upside down, from the top of the mouth to the chin, with one of Kryten's eyes stuck on each of their chins. This gives the impression of two one-eyed aliens.

Now that's fine, but Kryten is holding the camera and he needs to keep it zoomed in on the lower halves of their faces - otherwise it would give the game away. Kryten also moves the camera from side to side between Lister and the Cat. How is the mechanoid able to see what he is filming when his eyeballs are stuck on Lister and the Cat?

Ricardo Ferreira

Johnny Fanboy replies:

It's possible that the camera is feeding to a monitor screen situated somewhere behind Kryten, where his eyes can see them. He could co-ordinate his camera movements by looking at the screen.

Even if there is no screen, Kryten is an intelligent device, and could probably extrapolate how best to get the chins in shot based solely on his disembodied eyes' view of the camera that is pointed at them - a bit like the way we blokes have got used to looking at the reversed image in a mirror when we shave.

Well, most blokes anyway. I'm a committed beardy-weirdy myself.

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