With the trailer having aired and less than a week left before the first episode debuts on UKTV Play, there isn’t a huge amount of new Series XII material to us to look at this week. However, while there may not be much, we do have some new pictures, some new promotional pieces and a new piece of merchandise.

Even Bargain Hunt has unintentionally gotten into the spirt of new Red Dwarf by today airing an episode where one of the contestants was Nigel Peever, who had appeared as an supporting artist in Series I/II, and who reminisced about his trousers from the show being auctioned.

But exciting trouser action aside, let’s take a look at the week’s Series XII happenings for the last time before the series is available to view. Firstly, we have this tweet that went up from Dave, and which features similar graphics to the ones used in the trailer.

Jupiter Mining Corporation is hiring. RT this message to apply. #RedDwarfXII pic.twitter.com/LExU27lbvm — Dave (@davechannel) September 28, 2017

Retweeting this then leads to an automated reply with the following picture:

Welcome aboard #RedDwarf. We wish you a long and pleasant career with us – Jupiter Mining Corporation #RedDwarfXII pic.twitter.com/MvkKmpzwt3 — Dave (@davechannel) September 28, 2017

While the reply is automated, it has three different responses, with the above and these two variations:

Welcome to # RedDwarf, a Jupiter Mining Corporation ship. Your rank will be assigned shortly. # RedDwarfXII

RedDwarf, a Jupiter Mining Corporation ship. Your rank will be assigned shortly. RedDwarfXII Congratulations and welcome to # RedDwarf. Your rank will soon follow. # RedDwarfXII

What the net stage of this is remains to be seen, but given there is an option to unsubscribe at the bottom of the image, we’re expecting there’ll be at least a reminder before each episode, but hopefully some original content too. For Series XI, a similar setup allowed people to get a short video with their name replacing the name on the side of the Dwarf, so we’re hoping for something along those lines, and certainly the mention of ranks might seem to support that.

For the regular Friday update meanwhile, we have another gallery of 4 images.

Less than 2 weeks until brand new #RedDwarfXII on @davechannel got us all like… pic.twitter.com/WWrVCJFrMK — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) September 29, 2017

Once again, as with the trailer and previously released pictures, we have a batch of images that build up hype while actually showing us very little that we haven’t seen before. Aside from all four looking exactly as we would want them to therefore, there isn’t much to note aside from a new tab in the bunk room and how good the lighting in the pump house looks. We’re all for revealing as little as possible in advance of the episodes, so this is excellent as far as we are concerned.

As to what the precise time the episodes will be available to watch will be, that remains somewhat unknown. Today’s update on The Official Site acknowledges this, stating that fans should ‘check the UKTV Play site on the day to see if and when it’s available’ as well as pointing out that there might be a lot of demand on the servers. We’re not going to go over our thoughts on releasing the episodes early as we’ve addressed that previously, but we would rather like a bit more of a finite suggestion as to when we can watch the episodes rather than waiting around all day until they are.

If we were being uncharitable, then we might slightly suspect that part of the reason for not giving a set time is to try and spread the amount of people trying to access the service by getting them to watch the episodes over a larger period of time. If that was the case then it doesn’t fit you with huge confidence in the service, which while it worked last time, we’d be lying if we said wasn’t slightly clunky. This is of course pure speculation and we hope we’re wrong, but based on the roll out last year, this is how we expect things to play out.

Finally to round things out, we have another new t-shirt that’s just been made available from The Official Store.

It's Bob! Or is it Madge? Anyway, it's the BRAND NEW official #RedDwarfXII SKUTTER t-shirt! Order it now: https://t.co/cNae0b2YML pic.twitter.com/EzkJOhGKxX — Red Dwarf (@RedDwarfHQ) September 29, 2017

As with two of the t-shirts released for Series XI, it’s another Haynes manual parody, but while the previous two featured ships, this one features a skutter. We rather like this design, and the fact that it’s being printed on blue rather than standard black is a most welcome touch. This may also be the first time that something official has explicitly stated that the skutters work on a levitation system. A genuinely nice addition to the range and we’d suspect it will likely be a popular one.