Red Dwarf To Return, Find Earth

Lawrence Person writes "Everyone's favorite live-action science fiction comedy series will finally return to TV, with Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat all making it to Earth. The new two-part series Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will appear on digital channel Dave, will be written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor, and will reunite the line-up. 'It will sit alongside two further new episodes — the improvised Red Dwarf: Unplugged, which will feature the cast dealing with no sets, effects or autocue, and Red Dwarf: the Making of Back to Earth, a behind the scenes look at the new production.' Personally, I think this is pretty smegging fantastic."

Comments

Aged badly

[Anonymous Coward]

This series aged badly. Watched a few episodes last year and found them deeply unfunny.

Re:Aged badly

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you live in the country, the frame of reference for a lot of the gags is meaningless. Same ol' same slapstick translates to the US market very well. Although the so-called comedy shows we have are pretty tame compared to what BBC2 puts out. Anything we remake is always ridiculously watered down. You see, BBC2 doesn't have to worry about audience figures like BBC1, so almost anything goes. Huzzah! C4 used to go for the penis gags rather more than it should have, and ITV has never made a decent comedy other than The New Statesman.

Re:Aged badly

[jabithew]

I find the biggest difference is that Britcoms are normally about losers. Compare with the US, say 'Friends'. The main characters are very successful; they have lovely flats near Central Park. I find it hard to have empathy with them. Whenever they have a 'problem' I wish they'd just shut up and catch themselves on. They seem like whiney, spoilt, brats.

Lister, on the other hand, is a slob who lives in an interstellar slum. Yet he always seems pretty chirpy about it. You should check out the US version of Red Dwarf, where some moron at the networks replaced Lister with a super-jock. None of the jokes made sense afterwards.

Of course, there are good US comedies (normally the cartoons) and there are *loads* of really, really bad Britcoms.

Re:Aged badly

[JasterBobaMereel]

This is summed up by the never made Red Dwarf USA .... ...Rewritten by Grant and Naylor .. and a team of American writers and producers ...Lister is heroic, and handsome (but still a slob)

Most British comedies are still written by a very small team (usually 2 or 3) people rather than the joke committee system they have in the states, it is noticeable that the US comedy shows that work in the UK are the ones with the smaller teams of writers ....

Re:Aged badly

[jeffhoy]

Comparing Red Dwarf to Monty Python, HHGG or The Office is an insult to Red Dwarf. The Office is best watched on a weekday evening after a hard day of work. Monty Python is great entertainment with friends on a Saturday afternoon. Red Dwarf is something entirely different.

Like many Americans I first encountered Red Dwarf on PBS late Saturday evenings. After seeing one episode (Demons & Angels) I was hooked. I was thrilled when Season 1 released on DVD and I watched it through that Saturday afternoon. However, it didn't seem to hold up over the years. I was watching a mediocre British comedy, and quite confused.

Eventually I realized that Red Dwarf needs to be enjoyed late at night. Like ATHF, it's bizarrely hysterical but only when in a certain mood. Red Dwarf is not meant to be analyzed for plot holes or comedic merit. It's meant to be watched in a dark room, late at night, and alone. Only then does it become a spectacle of incomprehensible British slang, something far greater than it was meant to be.

Red Dwarf is the only TV series I've purchased on DVD. I've seen the episodes so many times that I remember the audience's laughter. It's no exaggeration to say that it's the best show I've ever seen. But, I can understand that many consider it a mediocre sci-fi comedy. It needs to come with a warning label, "Only watch after 10:00 PM".

Re:Aged badly

[Monty Worm]

That said, I have to agree with GPP - It aged badly. When I go back to watch the episodes over, it's rare that I watch anything beyond the ship being reconstructed. It was still fun, but lacked a lot of the charm that the early episodes had.

Not a matter of aging imho. Something weird happened after season 6. I still deeply love seasons 1-6.

This is something I really don't agree with.
Some things can be said to age or go downhill, others simply change.

Believe it or not (and I hope you would, given the demographic of the SD crowd), people don't like doing the same stuff all the time. They like change. They like to be challenged. They like to learn new things.

Sometimes, new things aren't quite the same as the old. Some better, some worse. You have to allow for possible failure if you want the good stuff.

Early Dwarf was primarily an odd-couple comedy, the inter-relation between diametrically opposed characters in a confined environment. After a while (series 3?) it became an ensemble piece. Then it veered in another difference for a while.

Seriously, if Rob + Doug had wanted to do the same thing, they'd be writing for soaps.

Yech, I sound like some of my old teachers.

Re:Indeed

[gnick]

I don't recall the Earth being destroyed. Lister was in stasis for a long, long time as the ship drifted further and further away, but IIRC, Earth was still there - just unreachable in any reasonable length of time (kind of like Dark Star). (Feel free to correct my bad memory.)

But, there was at least one episode where the crew does go back in time to visit Earth. I liked it just because it was so terribly un-P.C. to suggest that JFK needed to be assassinated in order to save the U.S. (Not unrealistic, just not P.C.)

Re:Written by Doug Naylor. So expect crap.

[prelelat]

Even if it's crap it's not worth missing. Even when the stories got a little stale I thought that it was still good I liked that caliber of dedication by the actors and the fact that they are all excited to come back so many years later to finish it off is great. Though I thought that it wasn't going to be written by just doug nailer in the coffin :(

But it will be a good farewell I think, and I won't have to sit around thinking "but what next" for the next 40 years(even if it's not like the original I still sit down and watch the whole series some weekends). Hands down on of my top 5 favorite shows.

Craig Charles == drug problem

[Yuioup]

I wonder if Craig Charles has dealt with his serious drug problem

Re:Craig Charles == drug problem

[Rune69]

Also, Craig Charles and Chris Barrie admitted to hating one another for most of the series. They didn't even speak off-camera until Series 7.

hmm...let's bring back that hate!

Re:Written by Doug Naylor. So expect crap.

[rhyder128k]

"even if it's not like the original I still sit down and watch the whole series some weekends"

What I wouldn't give to have a machine that erases the memory of things like RD, so that I could sit and watch it all again. Sometimes it would be nice to be like Holly in that regard.

Re:Written by Doug Naylor. So expect crap.

[drinkypoo]

I thought Rimmer kicking death in the yabos was a great moment. The show was always corny. What makes it great is the interplay between the actors. There have always been times in the show when the writing wasn't what carried it. Not the same show? Okay. Still funny for most of the same reasons? Yes. Looking forward to this new stuff? Ab-so-smegging-lutely.

Re:Written by Doug Naylor. So expect crap.

[HTH NE1]

Rimmer kicking the anthropomorphic version of Death in the nuts? WTF?

It's a great counter to his (original self's) earlier exchange with Lister in "Future Echoes":

Lister: Come in number 169, your time is up. OK, what was I wearing?
Rimmer: Ahhh... that jacket, and that red T-shirt.
[Lister pulls out his hat and replaces it on his head, then yanks a hefty length of piping off the wall.]
Lister: You said yourself, I can't stop it. Let's get it over with.
Rimmer: Ah, Lister, what's that for?
Lister: I'm goin' out like I came in: screaming and kicking.
Rimmer: You can't whack death on the head!
Lister: If he comes near me I'm gonna rip his nipples off!

Re:They did the same thing on Lexx

[Dogtanian]

Wasn't that part of the humour too? You could see the wires holding up the spaceship sometimes!

I always thought that was intentional as well. Sort of a "screw it; nobody has to worry about suspension of disbelief here" moment to poke fun at the special effects based shows/movies.

While they may have done something like that on occasion- probably to poke fun at an old monster movie they were parodying as you imply, for the most part it was just a symptom of the budget and I'm sure they did their best without worrying excessively about it.

Red Dwarf was never *that* bad by the standards of the time (except possibly in the first series, and even that was more minimalist than cheap because they weren't *trying* to do expensive effects). It probably just looked like it to Americans spoiled by Battlestar Galactica type budgeted shows.

I know a lot of people find the low-budget look to shows like Doctor Who amusing in retrospect, but while they were probably on a visibly low budget even then, that wasn't the point at the time. Certainly wasn't when I was watching it as a kid- it was only during the original series' final year or two when a combination of me growing up and the budget being cut even further (apparently) made at least one cheap prop obvious, and it wasn't that funny.

Colin Baker said pretty much the same thing, that all the smartasses going on about how they loved the cheap effects and stuff never thought that at the time.

Do they have to spend less because it's not "finished" or perhaps more because that un-finished look takes more effort or what?

No, that's a BBC sci-fi budget for you. Seriously.