Red Dwarf Returns In a 3-Part Showing

Logrusweaver writes "It looks like Red Dwarf is finally returning! Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is airing in 3 parts in the UK starting this Friday. It seems to be a 3-parter followed by a 'Making Of' special. Not trying to give away any more of the plot than the title does, but it does involve the crew finally returning to Earth. (Just hope it's not a bombed out planet with 'space angels' running around...)"

Comments

They tried it once in 1992...

[Mad-Bassist]

There was an attempt at a Red Dwarf USA show on NBC, but the two pilots never went anywhere. They weren't too bad, but I don't think we were ready for such a thing. Since we have BBC America, I don't see a need for one anyway.

It's been a few years since I saw it, but I remember a pre-DS9 Terry Farrell playing Cat, and she had the killer line: "Maybe someday I'll find the right eight or nine guys, then I'll settle down." Classic!

Re:British TV and the feign of class

[_Shad0w_]

They already tried to remake it; they did a pilot - with Terry Farrell as the cat - and it tanked. It gets shown at UK Red Dwarf conventions as a sort of "look at the Americans screwing it up" thing.

Eh? BBC can't export?

[SmallFurryCreature]

It excells at exporting. Its nature series are famous around the world. Dutch and belgian tv can easily be used by those brits who have big enough atena's as re-run channels.

America however is a rather unique market. It doesn't need foreign imports the way smaller EU countries need it. It can afford to create all its own content.

But most important is that america is radically different from the EU.

Red Dwarf works in the EU because it is a bunch of losers losing out. American's don't like that and this can be clearly seen by their version of Red Dwarf, the red dwarf movie changes or for that matter the talks Terry Pratchett had about having his books turns into hollywood movies (loose death from Mort).

Other series are the same. Only Fools and Horses doesn't really translate either. Or for that matter Porridge. Both have had US versions and both times they were changed to suit the american taste which just doesn't seem to accept the underdog being the underdog and staying the underdog.

British humor I think is also different in another way. Just how many british comerdians went to Oxford vs how many US comedians to harvard?

Re:Eh? BBC can't export?

[meringuoid]

Red Dwarf works in the EU because it is a bunch of losers losing out. American's don't like that and this can be clearly seen by their version of Red Dwarf, the red dwarf movie changes or for that matter the talks Terry Pratchett had about having his books turns into hollywood movies (loose death from Mort).

This. I think Americans still believe in heroes. They tend to want a sympathetic protagonist who is a good person and who generally wins. This is not so much the case over here: we have a far more cynical outlook, whereby if presented with someone who fits the heroic archetype we start to wonder what his real agenda is because nobody is genuinely like that.

So when we do a character-driven comedy show, our protagonists aren't usually nice people. They don't live in a nice world. They don't generally win in the end. Basil Fawlty is burning up with frustrated ambition and bitter hate. David Brent is so utterly self-absorbed that he thinks he's a great guy, though he's one of the most dreadful people you'll ever meet. Edmund Blackadder is entirely selfish and unprincipled in all incarnations, whether he is a prince or nobleman scheming endlessly for advancement through deceits and lies, an unscrupulous butler manipulating his foolish master to his own ends, or a craven army officer with utter contempt for his superiors bent only on self-preservation. Steptoe and son are trapped in poverty with a business soon to be entirely forgotten, gnawing on each other for lack of anything else in sight to blame. James Hacker MP is well intentioned, but weak, and the show is stolen by Sir Humphrey Appleby who must have come straight from hell. Even the Trotter brothers, decent enough people on the whole, are petty criminals. Spreading the net a little wider we find the parish of Craggy Island served by a fraud, an idiot, and a violent drunk. And our topic here, Red Dwarf, is fundamentally about a few completely awful people trapped in each other's company and collectively making their own little nightmare world a little worse every day.

The nearest America gets to that is probably Homer Simpson. Yet despite the critics endlessly and lazily describing his family as 'dysfunctional', it isn't. He's a devoted family man who can be relied upon to do the right thing, if only after trying everything else first. Otherwise, well... remember Friends? Oh God it makes me want to puke.

Re:Eh? BBC can't export?

[MrHanky]

Good point, perhaps. The pilot for the American Red Dwarf turned Dave Lister into someone more like Snake Plissken than the Scouse space bum. But it's not because Americans hate losers, it's because some American producers are idiots and have the wrong ideas about their viewers, since they think like marketing people. Homer Simpson is a successful loser, for instance, and he's arguably one of the greatest successes of American TV, ever. Or Archie Bunker, for that matter.

Re:British TV and the feign of class

[Anonymous Coward]

" Not sure what you mean by "compete" either, if you mean in quality, then do point me to an American show that competes with Blackadder or A Bit of Fry & Laurie. If you judge how good a show is by how many viewers it would get on American television then I'm afraid few foreign shows are as "good" as say Scrubs ;-)"

Yup - there was only ever one show which managed to mix British quality with American commercial success - "The Avengers". Not to be confused with the American comic series.

And The Avengers was really only successful because of Diana Rigg......

Re:British TV and the feign of class

[elrous0]

A lot of American shows would have benefited with the "6-8 strong episodes a season for 2 seasons" BBC model. But a lot would have probably suffered too. Look, for example, at Star Trek: The Next Generation (and why I'm actually spelling that out on /. and not just using ST:TNG is beyond me). That show was ABYSMAL in its first season, pretty bad in its second season, but then it started to really hit its stride in the 3rd and later seasons. Can you imagine a ST:TNG with half the entire series run featuring an unbearded Riker? I shudder at the thought.

Not on BBC, it's on Dave...

[rklrkl]

Sadly, the BBC decided not to get involved in these new episodes, so it's ended up on the "tiny" channel Dave and won't get the multi-million viewing figures it might have had on BBC 1 or 2.

Unfortunately, the digital multplexes where I am (yes, I have 2 aerials to pick up Wales and Midlands) both don't have Dave, plus although I have a Sky Digital dish, I don't subscribe to anything on it, so Dave isn't available there either (it's encrypted on Sky for absolutely no good reason, especially when it's in the clear on Freeview if your multiplexes carry it).

So the irony is that despite living in the UK, having access to two Freeview digital regions *and* having a Sky Digital dish, I still can't see these new episodes. So I guess it's off to "other" avenues begining with the letter "B" to find the episodes then...sigh....

Re:British TV and the feign of class

[snspdaarf]

The problem with getting Actual British Shows on U.S. television is the Broadcast Standards, or whatever it is called now. With the way most people in America have a stick up their ass about sexual things, I can not see how things like the sign reading "Fawlty Towers" getting changed to read "Flowery Twats", or Mrs. Slocombe saying things like, "...look through the keyhole, and if you can see my pussy..." would ever make it onto commercial broadcasting. Public Broadcasting has a much more relaxed set of rules.

Re:British TV and the feign of class

[DigitalSorceress]

While some Americans seem to have trouble with some "Britishisms"; I think there's a rather large and dedicated "Brit-com" fan base here who either have no problem with them or to whom a bit of cultural "went over my head" doesn't detract from their enjoyment too much.

I grew up watching plenty of British TV including: Dr. Who; The Tomorrow People; Are You Being Served; Monty Python's Flying Circus; The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy; Fresh Fields; May to December; The Prisoner; Benny Hill (didn't like that one so much); Yes Minister; The Young Ones; and more. Maybe I didn't get all the references in terms of cultural significance (who the hell WAS Reginald Maulding; and why were the Pythons so convinced that his naughty bits were particularly naughty?)

As I grew older, I never lost my love of British television. (I think that Spaced is possibly the second funniest TV series I've ever watched ... next to Red Dwarf.

At any rate, I am by far not the only American who enjoys British television and humor (though I may be a bit on the extreme end, owning a region free dvd player with PAL to NTSC conversion and ordering regularly from amazon.co.uk). While I do understand that some folks may not quite get it or like it, my point was not to underestimate the size and loyalty of potential fan base here.