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28 Years A Smeghead: Red Dwarf Is Coming Back (theguardian.com)
BarbaraHudson writes: Unless you're a smeghead, you'll be excited to know that (after 28 years after the smash cult sitcom began) Red Dwarf seasons 11 and 12 are now in production. The Guardian reports: "'I've known these guys longer than I've known my wife,' says Charles (Lister). 'That was what it came down to -- a choice between staying in Coronation Street or doing this.' Last year, after 10 years on the cobbliest of soaps, Charles left. He missed comedy, and the opportunity to strap on the famous dreads came up. 'I was like 'I've got to do it.' It's a career-defining role.' As it was with Llewellyn's (Kryton) re-application of the rubber head: 'The only reason I do it now -- and I don't do any other acting, it drives me mad -- is because it's being with your mates for a few weeks.' 'There's nothing similar about us,' says John-Jules (Kat). 'Except we all have Red Dwarf.'"
I don't know - Back To Earth seemed a (mostly) fitting finale. Some times you just have to move on...
I remember watching Red Dwarf and Red Green on PBS a long time ago. As I remember, they were on back to back. I generally considered Red Green the better of the two just because Red Dwarf was so crude at times. Don't get me wrong, it was funny as hell at times, but the humor wasn't particularly clever or witty, just crude. I'm glad to see Red Dwarf come back, but I hope there's a little more going on than the crude humor I remember.
Keep quiet, otherwise J. J. Abrams will reboot it to season 1.
The last few series of RD were a bit inconsistent and thats being kind. And the recent special was ok , but not hilarious. I can't help thinking a revival is partly a retirement fund for the writers and actors rather than because they have any new ideas and comedy. Still, fingers crossed. Also lets hope Chloe Annette is back in. She can't act for shit but boy is she still fit even in her 40s ;)
what the heck is it?
How old is the source of the article? Filming on season 11 was in December 2015, with season 12 being filmed earlier this year. Season 11 airs on a weeks time in the UK, on the 22nd September...
Kat?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Unless you're a smeghead, you'll be excited to know that (after 28 years after the smash cult sitcom began) Red Dwarf seasons 11 and 12 are now in production.
You should also know, unless you're a smeghead, that Red Dwarf series (not seasons) are numbered with Roman numerals.
As it was with Llewellyn's (Kryton)
Kryten.
John-Jules (Kat).
Cat. Jesus. I mean, he's actually a bloody cat. That's how he got the name.
Also you make it sound like this is the first time it's coming back since going off air, which isn't so. It has been four years since series X, though.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
*kcon-kcon* ,frawd der"
"?ereht si ohw"
"!naiga
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Of course, the actual classic parts of the series was Series 2 to 5, and it lost a fair bit when Rob Grant left the series, so Seasons 6-9 were variable, what I've seen of Season 10 was good in the Season 6-9 scale.
Would have been nice for Rob Grant to have got back involved with it. I suppose some people just move on in the end.
But it does show that BBC cannot produce decent comedy nowadays. They don't seem to want to fund Red Dwarf, yet will fund appalling horrors such as Citizen Khan and Mrs Brown Boys (and My Hero, My Family and various substandard BBC3 'yoof' comedies). Any idea that the BBC was some sort of source of good comedy disappeared in the late 90's. Channel 4 produces something, sometimes (IT Crowd, for instance), but not that much.
No, I don't count panel shows as this. Scripted adlibs, unless containing Frankie Boyle, are just spacefillers. Been 20 years since Have I Got News For You had an actual joke in it.
Indeed, the TV Channel Dave, despite it being full of repeats, does produce this as well as Dave Gorman's Modern Life is Goodish, which is great.
Would anyone like any toast?
I used to have a smeghead, but then I discovered that if you pull back the foreskin and use just a little bit of soap, you can get rid of it.
.....YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS, I was waiting for this! I hope that they pull it off as this was one of my favorite shows ever!
Red Dwarf is one of my favourite shows, ever.
Yeah, series 8 was... well, bad, and most people are content to ignore (mini)series 9. But season 10 was pretty good and had some really, really funny moments (Lister's Father's Day thing, for example, took one of the more hilariously messed up aspects of the show and built on it).
So more Red Dwarf? I'll take it.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Is where the crew go back in time to accidentally mess up the JFK assassination, and, in order to reset the timeline, they take an older, more jaded and washed out JFK to assassinate himself.
Alternative fictional JFK assassins would include the Smoking Man from The X-Files and the Comedian in The Watchmen.
I would have preferred more seasons of Lexx or Blake's 7. What happens to the decimated, alien invaded universe after all the quasi-good guys accidentally kill themselves out of misguided mistrust? We need more series with bad-outcome endings.
I can attest that the special/pilot came off as a polished turd.
But that said: It was a polished turd mostly because someone crapped in the turtlewax. The actual episode once they got down to earth was awesome, if a bit hackneyed. I especially loved the science bar and all the jokes being spit by the lady scientist.
HOWEVER. Laugh tracks are so 80s, not in a good way, and the way they were used in that episode just made the bad jokes and slightly off chemistry during the spacepod scenes feel ackward, tired, and old. It also didn't improve the later earthbound scenes, which I genuinely laughed at.
That said: If the spacepod scenes were the first ones filmed for seasons XI/XII, and the earth scenes are indicative of them being 'back in the groove', it very well could be an enjoyable and entertaining pair of series, especially if they FUCKING DROP THE LAUGH TRACKS and let us decide which of the jokes are funny and not make us second guess if that last comment was funny because of prearranged laughs to try and force it to be.
As a P.P.S: Why the fuck aren't some of our nerdy but drama/lib arts oriented slashdot/soylentils podcasting their own series like this? The 80s required big budget recording equipment and stages, but we're in 2016, and every upstart with a couple cell phones, blender, and maybe a seperate linear video editing app can create their own shows of the same production value as Red Dwarf. Rather than lamenting the whims of big production houses, why not become your own and if necessary crowdfund episodes, or if you have time and computing resources, just do it with your friends as a hobby and a fuck you to the douchnozzles pushing copyright law from sick to insane?
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The show has been in production since the early part of the year, and the first episode has already dropped on Dave's On Demand channel. Just waiting for it to migrate to the states to watch it.
Series 10 was a bit jarring to see how old all the characters were (which is hard not to show since the actors are indeed 30 years older). Rimmer in particular appeared much older than the last time we saw him.
Even their movements and voices sounded older. In Series 11 so far it appears they have a lot better makeup as they appear younger than they did in series 10. They almost look like they could have hopped into the scene from series 8 and we might not have noticed.
The most important part is buried at the bottom of TFA:
Red Dwarf XI starts on 22 September at 9pm on Dave. It's available to preview on UKTV Play now.
I feel compelled to share my favorite episode: Better Than Life
I find Arnold Rimmer's plight in that episode to be absolutely hilarious. He can have anything he wants, simply by thinking of it.... and he ends up buried up to his neck in the ground with fire ants crawling all over his head.
The capacity for self sabotage is infinitely funny to me because it is my MO...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
To your P.P.S: The technical aspects of filming comedy has always been the easiest element of a production. The difficult part of creating a good comedy show, is the writing. I have not doubt that nerdy lib arts folks could film a Red Dwarf-like show with a tiny budget and end up with something that looks and sounds superior, from a technical standpoint. But who is going to write the script? The reality is, that quality comedy (or other genre) writers are quite rare.
The only Sci Fi series I want to see come back is Space: Above and Beyond. That show was awesome! They didn't cover the war properly though; taking some ridiculously short number of episodes to address the whole event (I think it was something like 3 episodes. Three!? Really?).
Not a British show of course but I stand by my choices!
Without him life would be much grimmer
After 28 years, you think they would be out of curry by now.
Duh. This is so old there is nothing here. Season 10. Did you watch that? Did you read for the past several years about series 10, 11, and 12 or are you just getting a computer for graduating from nursery school?
The last thing I heard before this was that they have all in motion and season 11 will air in fall 2016... What the hell happened?
Is there a way to watch it without the canned laughter? I downloaded the full serie but dropped at episode one because of that...