Red Dwarf, that oddball of a cool British sitcom:

[Deja Q]

"Red Dwarf" has a very strange history.

Series 1 sets up the whole piece. While unfortunately not very funny, it does have some interesting sci-fi points (the Cat species, going faster than light and its consequences, Holgram generator that Star Trek Voyager stole, and so on). Very interesting that only Dave Lister, a slob, survives via spending time in a statis cube at the time of the accident. But I'll admit, Cat was easily the best thing about series 1 and was probably why series 2 got commissioned at all. And Danny John-Jules was perfectly cast. Actually, the entire cast was perfectly casted...

Series 2 is when everything comes together. You have your typical sci-fi bits that are needed in a sci-fi show, but the humor generated by the situations is consistently pee-your-pants funny. And Kryten was just a one-off episode. They're all classics, but "Queeg" takes the cake.

Then comes series 3. The show gains a budget and looks sleek and expensive. Unfortuantely, Norman Lovett Leaves and Hattie Hayridge appears, as does Kryten but better for this change. The show's premise is the same (no aliens, barren universe) and the same level of creativity is prevelant throughout. Cat is different than before and I liked how the Cat originally was.

Series 4. Uh-oh. When the series has to change its premise to accomodate lots of other beings (namely Genetically Engineered Life Forms, or GELFs or Symbiants (think "Borg", folks)), you know they're starting to stretch things. Despite this change in format, the show remains as funny and fresh as ever, though I'm also noticing the show is also becoming more sci-fi than comedy. But the melding of both genres still works. But the series finale where they meet all the dead celebrities was a waste.

Series 5 is retooled again. Most of the action is set in Starbug and Holly's got very little to do... Look closely and you'll discover how little they wanted to dress the computer consoles as it seemed to be an advertisement for the Commodore Amiga personal computer (which generated many of the monitor display graphics for most of the first 6 years of the show.) Holly gets less and less screen time... More sci-fi is used, and the comedy is starting to wane and is even repetitive at times - though not as consistently or as badly as to what is to follow... There are more than just GELFs this time but at least there are episodes that don't deal with a guest cast for once ("Demons and Angels" most notably). And it's odd how the manacles in "The Inquisitor" crumble after being aged 500,000 years yet the Red Dwarf ship didn't after 3 million years... and how did Lister mk 2 in the same episode still manage to end up living the same slobby life which ended up creating the Cat species and saving Kryten? Even in "Timeslides", it took little to change histroy, preventing the Cat species from existing and Kryten not being rescued... oh well. It's still a great episode with an awesome premise. But it's definitely more sci-fi than comedy. And the strange part is, series 5 is the highlight of Red Dwarf's "second wind" - it's not series 2, but this is the zenith - it's all downhill after this.

Series 6. It's jumptheshark time. Many jokes are repetitive throughout, which is a shame as they weren't funny the first time around. There's no Holly because Hattie had enough of not getting enough screen time so she left. The show also relies on itself to make a new plot - this is not always a bad thing in principle, but in practice it was dismal and quite telling that the show's creativity has dried out. "Polymorph 2" was THE worst episode ever, period. "Legion" has a great sci-fi premise, but resorts to a level of humor that is cheap slapstick physical comedy, which is unfunny to the extreme. Rimmer is also no longer a tragic character but just a cardboard cutout jerk. (remember that...) The series should have ended here, but with 7 episodes instead of 6... Episodes which are passable are "Psirens" (which is a bit more 'adult' than previous episodes), "Legion", "Rimmerworld" (how'd Rimmer get the DNA to make a species consisting of clones of himself as biological beings?), and "Out of Time". As it stands, it's obvious that the cliffhanger in "Out of Time" came about because they were in an unreality bubble, though the writing and production does a remarkably good job of leaving the viewer confused and wanting more at the end. But I would rather have seen a proper closure to this than what we got... Oh yeah, that dimwitted jerk Patrick Stewart also saw a few minutes of one episode and decided it was a blatant ripoff of his own overhyped, often cheesy show, "Star Trek the Next Generation". He nearly called his laywer, too. I found the whole incident odd as, comparing the two shows, they're a universe apart. Comparing "Red Dwarf" to "Star Trek TNG" is like comparing delightful raspberry flavored chocolate with molding prune juice. Why prune juice would dare say it was the same as raspberry flavored chocolate is beyond me... Quite absurd and obtuse.

Then came a 4 year hiatus due to an accusation of sexual assault being commited by Craig Charles. He was, eventually, found not guilty (I personally don't think he's capable of such an act). During this time, Rob Grant (who proved to be the wittier of the writing duo) left, knowing the ship had sunk.

Series 7 was finally made. Big mistake. The series is now trying to be a drama with occasional comedic jokes. It tries to be serious in tone as well. The whole result is one big unfunny flop. The big cliffhanger in "Out of Time" is cheaply discarded because Doug Naylor couldn't think of anything creative. Sadly, nothing in series 7 shows any amount of creativity except for the acclaimed "Rimmer Song", which is a hoot and shows that Doug Naylor can still poke fun at his own creation and not be utterly serious with it. When Chris Barrie left (on the grounds he was tired of how his character had been treated in series 5 and especially 6), this series became even less watchable. And the new Kochanski is as bland, banal, and as tedious as they come. The drama also has sci-fi elements, but it's not funny. It even resorts to using a Star Trek TNG reference, "nanites", in the highly contrived series finale. It was nice to see Norman back, but it was all contrived. But without Rob Grant, the stories did suffer. Oh yeah, they shot this series on video but used a filter to make it LOOK as if it were shot on film. Didn't work... video has a sharpness that film lacks; you can reduce the amount of screen frames being displayed per second, but the sharpness betrays the reality of it all.

Series 8. Let's first ask that if the Nanites took all that time to rebuild the crew, how come we don't have TWO Kochanskis, in mention or otherwise?! Yet we apparently have TWO Hollies (the ship's computer and the one who hangs with Lister in the cell... will somebody explain that goof to me?) 1/3rd the season is devoted to needless explanations ("Back in the Red".) It got too silly and expanded on jokes, some of which were funny, and wore out their welcome (Dilbey family, Cat's heartbeat, et cetera). Kryten's also a female android, okaaaay... But they did create some HILARIOUS gags based of that revelation, namely in "Krytie TV" and "Only the Good". I also have to wonder why the atrocity "Pete" was a two-parter when it's quite obvious that series 8's finale "Only the Good" deserved to be a 2-parter as it had much more material to work with and was, quite frankly, a much much much better story; "Pete" was just more silly slapstick which went to waste after 15 minutes; it was a 15 minute story which had to be quadrupled in length to fill the space of 2 episodes! And you could tell how much of it was pointless padding just to keep it "moving along". ARGH!!! Now I do have to mention "Cassandra", easily the best of the bunch - but partly because it has some brainy concepts and manages to FEEL like an older episode. Shame Doug couldn't keep up this style for the other episodes, but getting it right 1 episode out of 15 proves he is not a total loss after all.

Do I want a red dwarf movie? The last I heard, it sounds like a mega-ripoff of "Battlestar Galactica". So, no, I don't want that to happen. Do I want a series 9? Well, they discarded the series 6 cliffhanger, so I bet they'll find a way to discard the latest cliffhanger too.

Dwarf is dead. Died during series 5 and kept beating itself into a worse condition ever since.

[whirlygigspin]

1. I don't give a smeg

yup, went downhill after they got a budget.