Costumes

It's a good thing that Howard Burden's costumes for the main crew were already in place from Series XI - because there were an awful lot of additional new ones to create or source for guest characters throughout Series XII's run.

Siliconia, of course, presented perhaps the biggest challenge. For the various droids aboard the Vespasian, a simpler version of the classic Kryten look was created that could be replicated multiple times - but for the three main crew members' transformation into mechs, more elaborate costumes were required. Once again, the existing stock of previously-used Kryten torsos came in particularly handy.

Timewave saw the repurposing of not one, but two costumes from previous comedy lore. The costume hired for Jamie Chapman as Ziggy had previously been worn by David Walliams in an episode of Channel 4 sitcom Spaced; while the pink policeman's outfits, as worn by Johnny Vegas among others, were originally made for an ultimately unmade Monty Python film!

The episode also required the creation of a new style of space suit - moving away from the brown version seen in Series X and the white/grey ones from previous series, the new ones sported by Lister and Cat on Planet Rimmer were instead in a fetching red, giving a distinctly Doctor Who-ish look.

Also sourced externally rather than being built fresh for the show was the infamous Rat costume - with Danny John-Jules having to adjust his performance to account for the giant head's unusual eye and mouth placement. And there was a marvellous piece of attention to detail in Cured's Hitler outfit, with the usual Nazi swastika on Ryan Gage's red armband instead replaced with a smiley face to reflect his apparently cured nature.

And Skipper, of course, gave Howard an opportunity to revisit some old costumes that even predated his lengthy time working on the show. Unlike in Series VIII, when the original khaki uniforms were redesigned, this time around it was about recreating something as faithfully as possible to the Series I look - even down to the massively-sized "H" that Chris Barrie declared as "giving the neck muscles something of a work-out..."