Red Dwarf (And its smeggin' return!)
So I did a quick forum search and was shocked to find out the last Red Dwarf topic was made in 2003. Surely there must be some more fans of this iconic comedy series on the forum?
A summary for those who have no idea what it is, The show revolves around Dave Lister, a scummy liverpuddlian who spends most of his time eating curries and irritating his jobsworth of a roommate, Arnold Rimmer who both work as low-level technicians on a huge mining ship called 'Red Dwarf'. (A ship as in space ship.. yes it's a sci-fi sitcom!) and basically, the shitstain on life Lister ends up becoming the last surviving member of the human race, thanks to a radiation leak wiping out the entire crew. bar Lister, who was in Stasis for sneaking a cat on board. The ships computer, releases Lister from stasis where he is informed of the catastrophe, and that he has been kept in stasis until the radiation was at a safe level... which was about 3 million years, during which the ship (controlled the now senile computer) has been drifting away from Earth. The computer revives Rimmer as a hologram to keep him sane, although he ends up doing quite the opposite. The stowaway cat has evolved into a fashion-obsessed, moronic humanoid cat! The show recounts their adventures as they try to return to Earth, and Lister's attempts to just get a decent curry and a larger!
I personally loved the show. It's clever mix of witty and sharp comedy and science fiction made it the perfect watch for a great big fucking nerd like myself. Of course you always seem to get this divide between the die hard fans about the waning quality of series' VII and VIII, but I personally can tolerate watching them. I'd agree the quality of the jokes isn't up there with the previous seasons, but it's still a damn fine watch. It's evident from this that Red Dwarf's comedy side was at it's finest when Grant and Naylor were still writing together.
And of course there is Back To Earth. I didn't mind it, but that's it. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. I bought the DVD, but it's not something i'd choose to sit down and watch immediately. There's not much more I can say about those episodes, although some parts truly do make me cringe. I think the episodes suffer too from the lack of an audience laughter track, there are some rancid jokes strewn throughout the episode that just don't work, and flop even more because you can't even hear some middle aged woman howling at it on your tv (God knows why I seem to think that would make it any funnier.)
I guess some good came of BTE, however, as we are receiving a brand new Series X, courtesy of Dave. I've read spoiler-free reviews from people who have been lucky enough to attend the filming of various episodes (Which will continue throughout January) and i've seen a few glimpses of the set. I must say I am both intrigued and hopeful about this new series, as the general consensus from the fans is that we're back to good and proper 'True Dwarf' I suppose time will tell when the boys from the Dwarf make their way back onto our screens in September!
Anyone got any opinions on this show or is my whole post going to be in vain?
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In Odd We Trust.
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