Red Dwarf (IX): Back to Earth

Nine years have passed since the crew of Red Dwarf saved their ship from destruction at the hands of a matter-destroying microbial virus. In the meantime, Kristine Kochanski has apparently died in an airlock accident, Holly was offlined due to a water tank malfunction and the aging crewmembers have had to face the probability of them dying in deep space due to dwindling supplies. However, a sequence of unusual events seems them return to Earth...and gives Lister hope of a reunion with Kochanski.

Back in 1999, Red Dwarf VIII aired. Although the most critically-lambasted season to date, it also matched Red Dwarf VII's extremely high ratings (well over six million for some episodes, unheard of for a sitcom airing on BBC2). Fans could be excused for expecting the show to continue for many years to come. Instead, they got nothing.

The reasons why the show went off the air seem obtuse, but it seems to have been a combination of the enormous workload on Doug Naylor for writing and producing the series almost single-handedly (after the departure of his co-creator Rob Grant after Season 6) and his insistence, likely not coincidentally, on making a Red Dwarf feature film instead. Funding had apparently been sourced for a larger-budgeted theatrical theatre, only for this to fall through at the last moment. Additional funding was secured but again collapsed. By the time Naylor had gotten tired of this dance and gone back to the BBC, the BBC had lost interest. More bemusingly, they remained resolutely uninterested even after Doctor Who returned in 2005 and became a monster hit, and the BBC started looking for other genre TV ideas (such as Merlin) whilst ignoring their other proven, long-running SF success.

It fell to cable channel Dave to give the show its long-awaited resurrection. Made with what initially appeared to be a reasonable budget, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (the "IX" is a retcon, applied solely to make the ordering of the seasons make more sense on streaming services and on media releases) was a surprise hit for Dave and led to the commissioning of further series. Critically, however, Back to Earth was mauled on release in 2009 and time has not been much kinder to it.

The mini-season starts promisingly, with some solid Rimmer/Lister gags in the bunk room on Red Dwarf. You may be wondering how the crew survived the events of the Red Dwarf VIII cliffhanger and how Rimmer is back again as a hologram and what happened to the hundreds of crewmembers who evacuated the ship...and you can go on wondering, as you'll get no answers here (to be fair, the wiki has a reasonable guess). More important to the plot is that Kochanski is apparently dead and Holly decommissioned due to a malfunction. There's some very solid CGI at work here, including some half-decent virtual sets and an excellent CG model of Red Dwarf itself, and the show's first move into high-definition is reasonably impressive.

The plot kicks in when the ship's science officer Katerina Bartokovsky is resurrected and promptly decides to retire Rimmer, whom she deems has failed in his mission to keep Lister sane. A sequence of events results in our familiar crew travelling to a parallel universe where their lives exist solely in a television series called Red Dwarf. In an increasingly metafictional story, the crew meet one of the actors playing them on the show and have to find their creator before he decides to write a final episode in which everyone dies, which would kill them in their reality as well.

This metafictional idea isn't necessarily a bad idea, and in fact has been explored in Red Dwarf before, particularly in the likes of Better Than Life and Back to Reality, but those episodes were co-written with Rob Grant. The Grant-Naylor partnership made those meta episodes work, but Naylor by himself struggles. Especially weird is that he latches onto the idea of basing some story ideas on the 1982 movie Blade Runner, a very fine film, but also quite an old one by that point with no guarantee that the general audience knew what he was referencing. The special also relies a lot on knowing that Craig Charles plays a character on soap opera Coronation Street and knowing whom some of the incidental actors were on that show, which dates it painfully. It's also not particularly funny, the direction (also by Naylor) is not great and the pacing is terrible. The lack of a laughter track also hurts the show's timing, with the actors visibly struggling at times with not getting any feedback.

However, the story does perk up whenever Lister has to confront the spectre of Kochanski's death and the parallel world giving him the opportunity to possibly meet her again. Red Dwarf is at its best when it mixes comedy with pathos, something it forgot in the last couple of seasons, and it does bring that element back here with some great scenes of emotional intensity for Craig Charles, which he rises to.

Beyond that, the special is, well, not very special. Some good ideas and great vfx are undermined by poor storytelling. Sophie Winkleman as Katerina is saddled with a terrible accent and sound mixing that makes her unintelligible in some sequences. For every joke that lands, there are at least three that do not.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (**½) is not totally without merit, with some impressive visual set-pieces and at least a few gags that land well. But poor pacing and direction undermine its better parts. After this special, fans started pondering if it was better for the show to simply end forever. Fortunately, the Dave channel had other ideas.

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Red Dwarf VIII

Due to a bit of a cock-up in the nanotechnology department, the missing mining ship Red Dwarf has been recreated, along with its thousand plus crew. Lister, the Cat, Kryten and Kochanski find themselves locked up for misuse of classified information and are joined in the slammer by the ship's own version of Arnold Rimmer, restored along with the rest of the crew. Lister and the team have to work out how survive life inside and work out how to escape, or if they even want to.

The history of British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf is pretty well-known at this point. A patchy but promising first season was followed by a tightly-written and brilliantly funny second season which overcame ropey production values. The third, fourth and fifth seasons saw steadily increasing production values and ever-more-clever science fiction ideas merging with eye-wateringly hilarious scripts and just a touch of character pathos, to create an "imperial period" most TV shows can only dream about. The sixth season was almost as good, but behind-the-scenes tensions between writers Doug Naylor and Rob Grant made it a difficult season to write and shoot, and a growing overreliance on running gags and returning characters and references. A four-year break, due to some of the actors having other commitments or legal problems, and the writing team divorcing for good, was followed by the weakest season yet.

Red Dwarf VII was, with the best will in the world, something of a creative misfire, with Doug Naylor both overstretched in writing or co-writing the entire season with less-experienced writing partners (the idea to lighten the load on him was undercut by him having to rewrite the scripts by those less-experienced teammates, negating the advantages in the first place). The departure of Chris Barrie as Rimmer was a blow, but the addition of Chloe Annett to the cast as Kochanski worked much better than expected. However, the season-long subplot of Kryten being jealous of Kochanski was horrendous and kept dragging down even the better episodes of the season, and the overreliance on running gags and returning concepts was an even bigger problem than in the sixth season.

Red Dwarf VIII starts with Naylor completely revamping the premise of the show, a bold move which was probably necessary for the purposes of trying to find some fresh ideas. The season opens with our regular heroes' ship, the redoubtable Starbug which they've been living in since the end of Season 5, being blown into a million pieces as it crash-lands on Red Dwarf in one of the show's more spectacular set pieces. The return of the recurring cast of Season 1 is initially a great thing, giving our heroes more characters to bounce off, and the idea they've been wasting time and screwing around quite irresponsibly and have to answer for this is interesting, for the five seconds the show spends on it before instead dumping the characters in jail for the rest of the season on decidedly spurious grounds.

The "Red Dwarf crew in the slammer" concept is good but not, I fear, good enough to fill eight episodes. Pacing this season is completely out the window with each episode relying on a few Rimmer & Lister bunk scenes to make them work. This was one of the stronger elements of the first few seasons, eventually phased out due to Craig Charles and Chris Barrie getting on one another's nerves, and here returns because Charles and Barrie had reconnected on the convention circuit and found themselves in a better place. To be fair, these conversations are quite amusing and, though not a patch on the imperial period's exchanges (especially the episode-long laugh-fest that was Marooned in Season 3), are often the highlight of their episodes.

The limitation of the concept is rapidly exposed by the fact that although this season has eight episodes, it only has five stories. The opening episode is split into three parts and a later episode in two, with only three stand-alone episodes resulting, and these struggle to move beyond standard prison cliches. All the gags you'd expect from a lesser series about not picking up the soap, being desperate for any hint of female company etc are here, no cliche is overturned and no long-hanging fruit is left unpicked. The question of why Red Dwarf would do a prison season when it didn't have even a tenth of the wit or charm as say, dedicated prison sitcom Porridge arises, and is left unanswered.

The season suffers hugely from wasted potential. Captain Hollister (Mac McDonald) was a fine comic character in the first two seasons and he gets by on his charisma here, but he is the butt of far too many fat jokes. Fair enough that apparently McDonald himself relished making the jokes far harsher than they had been in the original scripts, but one episode of non-stop fat jokes is maybe pushing it, and by the end of eight you'll have tuned right out of them. Most of the other original cast were unavailable (Selby and Chen get one scene and then never reappear) and Kochanski has been back for a season already (though recast) so the benefit of reuniting our main crewmembers with the OG crew is pretty much lost after the first episode. The return of the original Holly (Norman Lovett) is initially welcome and he gets a few good laughs, but quickly the same problem that caused Holly's departure in the first place reasserts itself: with Kryten around, Holly's standard role as a font of exposition is no longer necessary, and with the addition of Kryten and Kochanski and the returning ship full of characters, it's a struggle for Holly to get any screentime, let alone lines. The fact there are also two Hollies around (the original, left powered down when Red Dwarf was stolen, and a new version rebuilt by Kryten's nanodroids) is an interesting idea thrown up in the first story and instantly forgotten.

There's also little or no interest by Hollister or the other crewmembers in what Lister and co. have been up to for the prior two centuries, which beggars belief. In fact, basic plot logic, already under severe strain in Season 7, goes out the window completely here. Naylor didn't seem to consider that having just four characters stuck in a tiny ship constantly scavenging for supplies was a source of tension, but having (at least) a thousand characters on a voluminous and newly-rebuilt-and-repaired five-mile-long ship is a massive advantage that can overcome almost all threats instantly. The idea of having our regulars joining the suicide squad of the prisoners, going head-first into danger in return for some prison privileges, is great, but ceases being a major plot point pretty quickly.

In terms of the episodes, Back in the Red starts off quite well but by its third part has become almost unwatchable. Cassandra is a potential classic, and easily the strongest episode of the season, with the introduction of an AI that can predict the future with 100% accuracy causing havoc as Rimmer tries to out-logic her. Krytie TV is simply the worst episode of the first eight seasons of Red Dwarf and a strong contender for the worst one ever. The inexplicably extended two-parter Pete has some good ideas (the recurring gag of Rimmer and Lister being dragged repeatedly before the Captain for increasingly insane reasons can actually be quite funny) but mostly appalling execution, with too much toilet humour - albeit of the dinosaur variety - and some vfx calls the show is only barely able to answer.

The season finale, Only the Good..., is promising with Rimmer travelling to a mirror universe where everything is reversed and he gets everything he ever wanted, with the inevitable comedown being quite crushing. However, the cliffhanger ending is inexplicable and weird, and this time the audience had to wait even longer for the resolution (technically they still are, since it has never been answered).

Red Dwarf VIII (**½) starts strong with a lot of potential, but generally fails to execute. The much-improved production values and at-last decent CGI seem to have come at the expense of characterisation, laughs and pathos, with lowest-common-denominator humour and predictable plot twists. The season is helped by a strong guest cast, including Geraldine McEwan and a young Graham McTavish, and Cassandra and Only the Good... at least have some good ideas.

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Red Dwarf XII

The mining ship Red Dwarf continues on its long quest to return home, its dysfunctional crew consisting of the last human being alive, a hologram of his superior officer, a neurotic cleaning droid and a lifeform descended from the ship's cat.

In 2018 Red Dwarf will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary, making it comfortably the longest-running SF comedy show of all time (and one of the longest-running SF shows full stop, with only Doctor Who and Star Trek now outliving it). There are several reasons for its longevity: a core cast of four charismatic performers, a strong sense of humour that riffs on both human nature and cutting-edge scientific ideas and multi-year breaks between seasons that allow both the cast and writers to refresh themselves and come back with renewed energy. So whilst the show started thirty years ago, it's only now concluding its twelfth season.

The twelfth season is of a pair with last year's eleventh, written and filmed alongside it and recorded at the same time. This raised the spectre that writer Doug Naylor (alas, co-creator and co-writer of the show's golden age Rob Grant remains absent) might be burned out or tired, but this is not the case. Season 12 is, if anything, slightly better than Season 11, with fewer weaker moments and some much funnier moments rooted in both character (always Naylor's weak spot compared to Grant) and SF.

The season starts off well with Cured, which asks the question if people can be "cured" of evil and results in a classic Red Dwarf story beat where Lister jams on electric guitar with a "good" clone of Adolf Hitler. Siliconia, where Kryten is "rescued" from slavery by fellow mechanoids, is a bit throwaway but does have some great sight gags and does lean into the SF trope of the "happy slave" who is programmed to enjoy their treatment (something it'd be interested to see Star Wars address at some point).

The season's weakest episode is Timewave, set on a ship where criticism has been outlawed, which isn't as funny as it wants to be and has some very lazy gags. Mechocracy, in which the machines on Red Dwarf go on strike and Rimmer and Kryten stage an election to win back their loyalty, is solid if forgettable.

The season saves the best for last: M-Corp is a satirical take on Apple which could have felt lazy but actually steps up to being amusing and also makes some nice, intelligent points about (literally) blind brand loyalty and giving corporations ownership of everything. Skipper, the best episode of the season and possibly the last six seasons, taps into the well of Rimmer's self-loathing and disappointment in a way that hasn't been done since Grant was still on board. Although the episode suffers from some continuity issues (the show apparently forgetting that the events of Seasons 7 and 8 happened, and the existence of Ace Rimmer), it is extremely funny and brings back some fan-favourite characters without overusing them to boot.

The cast are a well-oiled machine at this point, the guest stars do a good job (although Johnny Vegas's guest appearance feels a bit incongruous) and the show does a lot with what is clearly a limited budget, a "problem" which I suspect has resulted in the show's improved quality since the relatively high-budget days of Seasons 7-9, since it forces a reliance on better dialogue and ideas rather than flashy visual effects.

For a TV show about to enter its fourth decade, Red Dwarf (****) is in surprisingly rude health. Superior to the previous two seasons (which were okay, if not outstanding) and certainly far better than the three weak seasons before that, the twelfth season of the show sees it getting back to, if not its best, certainly not far off. The season will be available from 21 November 2017 on Blu-Ray (UK, USA) and DVD (UK, USA).

Red Dwarf XI

The mining ship Red Dwarf, lost in deep space for three million years, is continuing its long voyage home. The four-man (well, one-man, one-hologram, one-android and one-bipedal-cat) crew continue to get into unusual scrapes as they seek to survive.

Red Dwarf began way back in 1988, making it easily the longest-running science fiction sitcom in history. Part of the show's success is its mixing of real SF ideas with funny gags and character development rooted in tragedy and pathos: Red Dwarf at its best is not afraid to make its audience feel sorry or even upset as it even makes them laugh.

Unfortunately, the more detailed characterisation and tragedy mostly left the show along with co-creator and writer Rob Grant after the sixth season. Since that time Red Dwarf has, under its other co-writer Doug Naylor, become a much more conventional sitcom with running gags, recurring characters and ideas and topical humour that may be outdated in a few years' time but raises a smile now.

This eleventh season airs four years after the tenth, itself a low-budget attempt to get the show back on the air via the UK cable channel Dave. That was very successful, hence a noticeable budget increase for this season with more visual effects, location filming and more elaborate sets. It's still a long way from the show at the height of its biggest success on the BBC at the end of the nineties (during the seventh and eighth seasons, when the humour risked taking a back seat to the spectacle), but it definitely frees the show up to open up the scale and employ some more highbrow and expensive ideas.

For the most part, it works. Without Grant or another more character-focused writer, the show is never going to be as good as it was back in its brilliant second through fifth seasons (and the only-marginally-weaker sixth), but we're also a long way from the more tedious episodes of the seventh through ninth seasons as well. Naylor seems to be writing within his limitations, knowing that what he's good at is channelling SF ideas for laughs. Some of these misfire - season opener Twentica hits a series of dud gags - but things rapidly improve from there. A vending droid is mistaken for a genius medical bot and is given the task of carrying out vital surgery, Kryten has a mid-life crisis and finds a way of communing with the universe, and - in easily the best episode of the entire series since Season 6 - Rimmer is promoted by a 3D-printed Space Corps officer and finally gets his dream job only for it to all go spectacularly wrong. There's also a couple of Cat-centric episodes which work pretty well.

Continuity is, as usual, treated as something optional, so there's no mention of the missing Kochanski or Holly, which will likely annoy some long-term fans, and the show is a little bit too eager to use simulants and GELFs again rather than creating some new concepts. But the cast is on fine form, even if their age is starting to tell, and even in its weaker moments the season remains firmly entertaining.

No, it's not the show at its best and some of its worst post-Grant indulgences do occasionally resurface, but the eleventh season of Red Dwarf (***½) is overall fun and watchable. It will be released on Blu-Ray (UK, USA) and DVD (UK, USA) in November. Season 12 has already been filmed, is currently in post-production and will air on Dave in mid-to-late 2017.

Red Dwarf VII

As mentioned in the previous review, Red Dwarf abruptly went off the air following transmission of its sixth season at the end of 1993. A criminal case involving actor Craig Charles and the breakdown of the working relationship between writer-producers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor proved disastrous, and although both problems were eventually overcome (Charles was fully exonerated; Rob Grant departed to become a novelist leaving Naylor in charge) it took a long time to sort it all out.


Other problems also seemed to conspire against Red Dwarf's return. As of the sixth season, Red Dwarf was pretty much the sole reason for the continued existence of the BBC's special effects and miniatures department, and with the show on indefinite hiatus the department was closed down, meaning that future special effects requirements would have to be handled by private firms and thus on a far more expensive basis. Actor Chris Barrie had also gone on to enjoy even greater success as the title character in BBC-1 sitcom The Brittas Empire, which was a much simpler and faster show to shoot than Dwarf. As a result, he decided not to appear in Red Dwarf on a full-time basis in the next series. Possibly even a bigger change was the removal of the studio audience, with the show now being fully pre-recorded and only the tape being shown to a studio audience later on. This clearly throws off the rhythms of the actors in the show, with some lines obscured by audience laughter and a few out-of-place pauses for laughs that weren't as big as was hoped for.

Despite these problems, the show's ultimate return was not in doubt. It was BBC-2's single highest-rated TV programme, it was one of the biggest-selling BBC series on video (of any kind) in the 1990s and during the years it was off the air the BBC received numerous enquiries as to when the show would return.

Season VII aired on BBC-2 in early 1997 and it was immediately clear that this was a different show to what had come before. Chris Barrie's character of Rimmer departed in the second episode, though he appeared in several further episodes in brief flashbacks or cameos. Despite a higher budget, the show also struggled with its special effects requirements, with very primitive CGI and some seriously shoddy model work replacing the very accomplished miniature filming and digital effects of Seasons 5-6.

To help secure funding for the long-planned Red Dwarf movie (the prospective backers for which had asked for a major female character to be added to the roster), Naylor decided to add the character of Kristine Kochanksi to the crew on a full-time basis. Kochanski had appeared in several previous episodes in Seasons 1, 2 and 6 played by Clare Grogan, but with Grogan unavailable the role was recast with Chloe Annett. This move wasn't initially popular with the fans, as Annett's previous role had been in the quite spectacularly awful Crime Traveller, but Annett actually turned in a good performance and eventually won over many of the fanbase.

With all of these behind-the-scenes changes it is perhaps inevitable that the quality of the scripts suffered quite badly. Season VII isn't quite the unwatchable pile of cack some hardcore fans describe it as, but it clearly hasn't had the same care and attention paid to the writing as in previous seasons. The extremely rapid dismissal of the Season VI cliffhanger is a little disappointing, but the completely nonsensical technobabble reasons given to explain why Starbug is now many times its former size are very strange indeed. That said, the rest of the opener, Tikka to Ride, in which the Red Dwarf crew inadvertently change history when they travel to Dallas in November 1963, actually has quite a clever premise and a strangely affecting conclusion. It also just about manages to fall on the right side of good taste.

The second episode, Stoke Me a Clipper, is a bit of a disaster. A James Bond-style opening sequence featuring Ace Rimmer sky-surfing on the back of a crocodile is quite entertaining, but the rest of the episode is weak, illogical, badly contrived and deeply unfunny. The third episode, Ouroboros, re-introduces Kochanksi (or rather, a version of Kochanski from an alternate reality) and sees Lister's ex-wife (from Emohawk) showing up again. It's a little bit funnier, but still not up to the standards we expect from the show. Duct Soup, a 'bottle' show set in Starbug's flooded engineering decks, is probably the highlight of the season with some good dialogue and a few good laughs reminiscent of earlier seasons. Blue, in which Lister realises that he misses Rimmer, is also quite amusing as Kryten sets out to remind him precisely what Rimmer was like.

Beyond a Joke starts with a great sequence in which Kryten, annoyed with the crew for missing supper due to being in a VR 'Jane Austen World' simulation, invades the simulation in a Russian T-73 tank and kills everyone (resulting in the largest explosion ever filmed for the series, due to over-eager army demolitions experts who were fans of the show trying to impress the actors). After this it nosedives into the ground with a lot of guff about 'nega-drives', more rogue simulants, more GELFs and a second 4000 series mechanoid who isn't very funny. Epideme has a good premise - a sentient virus that chats to its host whilst it tries to kill him - but the virus has a very annoying voice and the script doesn't really go anywhere after establishing the initial idea.

Nanarchy, the Season VII finale, finally has the crew locating Red Dwarf and learning what happened to the ship when it disappeared. It's a mixed bag of an explanation, being amusing and SF-oriented, dealing with the hitherto unexplored-on-the-show science of nanotechnology, but it's also reliant on the idea that Kryten, a robot whom we have been reminded many times as having being built for the express purpose of cleaning lavatories and was extremely cheap, also had inside him billions of nanobots capable of rearranging atoms. It doesn't really make any sense. Anyway, there's another cliffhanger ending, the return of Holly (the original, played by Norman Lovett) and overall it's a decent enough ending to the season.

The seventh season is a mixed bag, it has to be said. The visual effects and writing are radically inferior to what has come before, although the acting (from both the regulars and guest stars such as Brian Cox) remains strong. The addition of Kochanski to the cast also works surprisingly well, somewhat better than I think most people were expecting at the time. At the same time, this season was also made with significant background problems, and in that context it could have turned out worse. The biggest problem, and one that was unavoidable, is that the series really hurts without Rimmer as part of the mix. Luckily, Chris Barrier had such a blast filming this season that he agreed to return full-time for the eighth, which contributed to that season's somewhat higher quality.

Red Dwarf: Season VII (**½) is available on DVD in the UK and USA.

Red Dwarf VI

Returning for its sixth season in 1993, Red Dwarf underwent the largest shake-up to its basic premise since its beginning. Writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor decided that the crew had things a little too easy living on a five-mile-long spaceship with absolutely tons of supplies, so devised a storyline in which Red Dwarf - and thus Holly - disappears whilst the crew are on an away mission and they have to chase after it in Starbug with not much in the way of food and water.


Psirens introduces the new situation with a cold open with Lister being revived after 200 years in cryo-sleep. Since he is temporarily amnesiac, Kryten has to re-explain the show's premise to him, thus providing a handy jumping-on point for new viewers. The episode has Starbug stumbling across a graveyard of ships and asteroids infested with 'psirens', hideous insectoid creatures that lure passers-by onto the rocks and then suck out their brains ("Just like Ulysses and that ancient Turkish myth!" - Lister). It's a creepy and dark episode with some decent ideas, a few good laughs and some nice guest spots from the likes of Anita Dobson and Richard Ridings (soon to be seen in Game of Thrones), but it feels a bit off. The episode suddenly resets Lister's character back to being the undeveloped slob of earlier seasons as if the last five years never happened, which is weird. On the other hand, there is a long-awaited new job for the Cat, with his superior reflexes making him a natural pilot for Starbug, which is a welcome move.

Legion sees Starbug taken aboard a vast space station whose only inhabitant is the enigmatic, brilliant and eccentric humanoid Legion. Legion is initially friendly, solving the crew's supply problems and giving Rimmer a new 'hard light' drive allowing him to interact with solid matter again, but obviously turns out to be a bit of a mentalist nutjob (what a surprise) whom the crew have to engage in battle. This is a reasonably funny episode featuring some excellent CGI and a good hard SF idea about gestalt intelligences, but is let down by some rather over-obvious slapstick in the finale.

The Emmy Award-winning (no, seriously) Gunmen of the Apocalypse is the strongest episode of the season by far. The crew run afoul of a warship belonging to rogue simulants and engage in a pitched battle to the death (Starbug having been upgraded with laser cannons to give it a sporting chance) that ends with the ship being infested by a computer virus. The crew use a VR interface to go into the ship's systems and battle the virus, a fight embodied as a Wild West showdown. It's a pretty bizarre idea but works brilliantly, with a genuine Wild West re-enactment town in Kent providing some surprisingly authentic atmosphere. A classic.

Emohawk: Polymorph II is the sequel to Season 3's Polymorph although it also sees the return of Ace Rimmer (from Season 4's Dimension Jump) and Duane Dibley (from Season 5's Back to Reality) after the crew enrage a bunch of GELFs, who dispatch a new, more capable version of the polymorph after them in revenge. There's some funny stuff in the episode, most notably when Lister has to marry a GELF to get a vital engine part, but the latter part is less successful simply because the episode re-uses a bunch of gags from those earlier episodes. It's the first in what will later become a worrying trend, namely the recycling of old ideas rather than the pursuit of new ones.

Rimmerworld sees Rimmer forced to abandon ship in an escape pod that crash-lands on a planet 600 years away from rescue (thanks to time dilation). As the pod is equipped with emergency cloning and terraforming equipment, Rimmer is able to create his own verdant paradise world and populate it with, erm, himself. Again, this is a decent episode with some funny lines and a good central premise, but there is also a strong sense of deja vu, as this is similar ground to Season 6's Terrorform.

Out of Time ended the season on a completely jaw-dropping and shocking note back when it first aired. The crew gain control of a temporal drive which allows them to travel in time. They encounter their future selves from fifteen years hence, and discover that the ability to travel anywhere they want in time and space has given them enormous power...and power corrupts. It's an excellent idea which is genuinely unsettling and the episode has an unusually doom-laden atmosphere to it building up to a huge cliffhanger ending.

And then...nothing. Several months after filming of Season 6 was completed, lead actor Craig Charles became embroiled in a major scandal that led to police charges being filed (Red Dwarf had made Charles one of the biggest names on TV at the time, and he enjoyed the rock 'n' roll lifestyle a little too much, something that later came back to trouble him on Coronation Street as well). He was eventually fully exonerated, but it took a long time for him to clear his name. At the same time, the writing relationship between Rob Grant and Doug Naylor unfortunately broke down and their partnership split. Rob Grant left the series to start writing novels, whilst Doug Naylor became the sole writer and flag-carrier for the series.

Eventually, Red Dwarf returned for a new series in 1997, but it was a very different show to what had come before. But I'll be covering that in due course.

This season saw a marked change in the series. Still watchable and still funny with brilliant production values (for a BBC show in 1993, anyway), there was more trading on past glories than the exploration of fresh new ideas, and a much greater reliance on running gags. Lister, having been set up as a pretty canny guy over the previous five seasons, was also reset into a slightly dim slob, which wasn't really fair to the character. However, the performances remained strong, Gunmen of the Apocalypse is a classic episode and the cliffhanger ending is still startling today.

Red Dwarf: Season VI (***½) is available on DVD in the UK and USA.

Red Dwarf V

For its fifth season, Red Dwarf underwent a change of focus. Whilst the set-up and premise is still the same as the previous two seasons, the writers chose to take the show more in the direction of being a drama-comedy rather than a straight-up sitcom. The fifth season still has plenty of laughs, but they are now less prominent than before, with the SF ideas and character relationships come more to the fore. Production values, particularly the more frequent use of CGI, again improve, and the fifth season is arguably the first which still really stands up well in contrast to modern shows.


Things get off to a familiar start with Holoship, which is another Valentine's Day show (for the second season running, the season debuted on 14 February, this time in 1992). The crew encounter the Holoship Enlightenment, a wholly holographic spacecraft which is exploring the Galaxy and is crewed by the cream of the Space Corps, all top guns in their field. In the words of the captain, this is 'a ship of superhumans'. Tempted by a life of intellectual and scientific fulfilment - not to mention the ship's regulation that all crewmembers must have sex twice daily - Rimmer sets out to join their ranks, but encounters a few obstacles (most notably being an intellectual ignoramus with all the social graces of a cockroach). This is a solid episode with a great guest turn by Jane Horrocks as one of the holographic crewmembers.

The Inquisitor is the first of two unusually 'dark' episodes in the season. The crew encounter the Inquisitor, a time-travelling robot from the end of time who has concluded that there is no God and the sole purpose of life is to lead a worthy and fulfilling existence. When he encounters those who have wasted their lives, he deletes them and alters the timeline to replace them with someone more worthy who was never even born in the original timeline. Obviously, the crew of the Red Dwarf are in big trouble when he meets them. After a Rimmer and Kryten-heavy fourth season, this episode is a welcome chance for Lister to take centre stage and shine as he defies the Inquisitor in a battle to the death. This episode takes a great idea and runs well with it.

Terrorform sees Kryten and Rimmer crash on a 'psi-moon' which terraforms itself based on the psychology of the people inhabiting it. By the time Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue Kryten (alerted to their plight in one of the funniest sequences in the entire series) the moon has unfortunately adapted itself into the shape of Rimmer's mind! This is an unusually epic episode, with a ruined temple set, a swamp and a spacecraft crash site amongst its locations, and the 'making of' documentary and the cast commentary reveal just how they achieved the look of the piece on a relatively small budget.

Quarantine sees the crew exposed to a lethal holographic virus whilst on a mission to an abandoned scientific outpost. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't carry the virus anyway, Rimmer has the other three locked in quarantine upon their return to Red Dwarf. Lister's initially cheery view that it's not a problem as they spend all their time together anyway is soon put to the test as he has to spend several days and nights with Kryten and the Cat non-stop. However, even that isn't too much of a problem as the crew are soon confronted by their most demonic and evil foe to date...a psychotic penguin named Mr. Flibble!

Angels and Demons is probably the single most disturbing episode of Red Dwarf ever made. A freak accident with a 'triplicator' blows up the entire ship but creates two identical copies, one consisting of the crew's 'higher selves' (a bunch of super-intelligent peacenik hippies) and the other of their 'lower selves' (a bunch of psychopathic nutcases). As they attempt to unify the two ships together to recreate the original, they have to contend with the machinations of their lower selves who are a thoroughly unpleasant lot indeed. This episode is interesting for the fact that the audience are quite clearly rather uneasy about where to laugh and when not to. Although there are several genuinely funny sequences, there are also some seriously twisted moments, such as when Lister is kidnapped by the lows and put through a highly original method of torture involving a tarantula and a boiling kettle. It's an inventive and intriguing piece that pushes the boundaries of what you can do in a supposed sitcom.

Back to Reality is a classic episode with a brilliant, killer premise, although it loses a little of its power on DVD when you know there's another three seasons after this one. When it first aired the cast and crew were apparently despondent about there being a sixth and said at the time the show was going out on a creative high, although of course this was just to sell the idea that the series might end on as shocking a note as this one. Essentially, the crew are killed when Starbug crashes underwater and discover they've been playing a VR computer game for the last four years. Returning to reality, they discover that Lister is a senior figure in the law enforcement services for the totalitarian government ("Vote Fascist for another decade of total law enforcement!"), Rimmer is his drop-out, deadbeat half-brother, Kryten is a cyborg cop with the name 'Jake Bullet', and the Cat is a hapless, style-free dork named Duane Dibley. The episode continues the series' direction towards becoming more of a drama with some excellent writing and great ideas, although the comedy is kept alive and well through such sequences as how the show portrays our heroes in an epic car chase with the fascist cops on motorcycles carrying rocket-launchers with helicopter gunships in support, despite having no money to do it.

Red Dwarf's fifth season is still quite funny, but the move towards stronger drama and harder SF elements does make it somewhat less well-paced than the third and fourth seasons. The episodes still look great and pack a vast amount of content into their 30 minutes, and there are some nice nods towards continuity: the Inquisitor is referenced as a simulant, a similar type of robot to the one that appeared in Justice, whilst the triplicator was adapted from Meltdown's matter paddle. The characterisation is richer than ever, with Holoship and Terrorform both delving into Rimmer's character again and still finding interesting material, whilst Inquisitor gives Lister a chance to shine. The biggest loss of the season is Hattie Hayridge as Holly, who has very few lines and doesn't have much of a role (despite saving the day in one episode), leading the producers to reluctantly drop the character the following season.

Red Dwarf: Season V (****½) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

Wertzone Classics: Red Dwarf IV

The fourth season of Red Dwarf is interesting in that it is the only one without any major format changes. Some of the behind-the-scenes changes were quite big, most notably the moving of production from Manchester to the far superior Shepperton Studios near London, but otherwise the status quo from Season 3 remains unchanged.


The season begins with Camille, starting a brief two-year tradition resulting from the season beginning on Valentine's Day. In this episode Kryten recovers a female mechanoid named Camille from a wreck, but once back on Red Dwarf it's clear things aren't as they appear, as Rimmer sees Camille as a hologram and Lister sees a human woman. As for the Cat...I'll let that remain a surprise, as it's a classic Red Dwarf moment. It's quite a funny episode based around Casablanca, featuring some ripe misquoting of dialogue and some corny lines, but at the heart of it is some very interesting character development for Kryten, putting him back more or less where he was at the end of his first episode in Season 2, which was probably overdue.

The second episode, DNA, continues the theme of basing an episode around a major SF concept. In this episode the crew discovers a machine that can alter DNA and transform any biological entity into any other one. The upshot of this is that Kryten (whose brain is based on organic technology) gets transformed into a human. Cue some rather Star Trek: The Next Generation Data-esque musings on the nature of humanity and some rather more traditional Red Dwarf musings on how Kryten can cope with his new human sexual organs. This plot thread, though amusing, is thankfully cut short by a far funnier sequence where Lister ill-advisedly runs his mutton vindaloo through the DNA machine, resulting in the creation of a ravaging curry monster.

In Justice a long-standing plot hole is addressed: we learned in Season 1 that Rimmer was (albeit inadvertently) responsible for the accident that wiped out the crew of the Red Dwarf, but this was never really developed. This episode makes up for it when the crew visit an abandoned space prison only for the controlling AI to determine that Rimmer must stand trial for his crime, leading to a classic sequence where Kryten has to prove that Rimmer is innocent by virtue of being an incompetent, deranged and self-delusional half-wit ("If I have full access to your personal date files, I could perhaps put together a winning case by maybe lunchtime,"). This is another very solid episode, notable in the Red Dwarf mythos for introducing the simulants, a human-built race of psychopathic mass-murdering androids who return to plague our crew in future seasons.

White Hole spins off an idea raised in the second Red Dwarf novel, except there it was a traditional black hole causing problems. The episode is also notable as the second (and last) to feature Holly in a major role as Kryten successfully restores her super-brilliant IQ but in doing so radically shortens her lifespan. Events culminate in Lister being entrusted with the firing of a thermo-nuclear device, which is really not a very good idea...

Dimension Jump is one of the series' bona fide classics, introducing a parallel universe where Arnold 'Ace' Rimmer is a test pilot in the Space Corps Special Service, the best of the best, and is entrusted with piloting a faster-than-reality starship across dimensions. Arriving in 'our' reality he makes contact with the crew of Red Dwarf and is rather taken aback when he discovers that 'our' Arnold Rimmer is a rather different character. This is a great episode because is gets back to scouring Rimmer's backstory and psyche to find out what makes him tick, and it works well with Chris Barrier delivering a barnstorming performance as a super-handsome, heroic incarnation of Rimmer (complete with a Top Gun-esque soundtrack and a rather bizarre catchphrase).

Meltdown is another one of the series' unsung high points. Kryten constructs a matter-transmission device which teleports the crew to a planet thousands of light-years away. However, the planet turns out to be a 'Waxworld' where the wax-droid inhabitants have broken their programming and have divided into two factions fighting an endless war. Cue some brilliant scenes where Rimmer takes command of the 'hero' army and puts the likes of Mahatma Gandhi ("Don't eyeball me, Gandhi! Drop to the floor and give me fifty!"), Pythagoras, Jean-Paul Satre and Stan Laurel through advanced combat training with the help of Kryten and his second-in-command, Sergeant Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, Lister and Cat are captured by Adolf Hitler and forced to witness the (thankfully offscreen) execution of Winnie the Pooh by a firing squad led by Al Capone, before being tortured by Emperor Caligula and Rasputin! Events culminate in an impressive (and ludicrous) battle sequence between the forces of good and evil, with a rather unexpected outcome. A completely barking mad and brilliant episode with some of the show's most enduring quotes.

The fourth season of Red Dwarf doesn't rock the boat and happily continues the formulae from the third season, and as it's a formulae that works, this is not a problem. The characters of Kryten and Rimmer are explored in greater depth, but Lister drops into the background slightly more, becoming more of an observer and the viewers' surrogate stand-in for exposition scenes. The Cat has some great lines and scenes but isn't really focused on much. Holly gets her own episode, but there is already a notable reduction in her lines going on, as again much of the show's exposition goes to Kryten. These problems will become more apparent and will be addressed in the fifth and sixth seasons, but for now remain under control.

Season IV of Red Dwarf (*****) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

Wertzone Classics: Red Dwarf III

Three million years into deep space, the mining ship Red Dwarf continues on its lonely voyage home. With the clearing of the ship's radioactive decks continuing apace, Lister and Rimmer have moved into much nicer officers' quarters and are also now able to use the far superior Starbug-class shuttlecraft, whilst Holly, still besotted with his female counterpart from the parallel universe, has undergone a head-sex change operation. Lister, left pregnant by a liaison with his counterpart from the same parallel universe (different physical laws apply), has given birth to twins but sent them back to their home universe. Finally, the crew have recovered the android Kryten, last seen roaring off into the void on a space-bike, from where he has crashed on an asteroid, and integrated him into the crew.


Pretty much all of the above exposition is crammed into a ten-second, ultra-fast-forwards Star Wars-style text scroll at the start of the third season of Red Dwarf, and is then pretty much forgotten in favour of getting on with some stories. For the third year of the show, creators and writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor came aboard as producers; a new, tighter spending regime was enacted (helped by a modest budget increase) and new effects people, set designers, costume designers and musicians were hired. The character of Kryten was also added to the show permanently, with Robert Llewellyn taking over the role from David Ross, whilst Norman Lovett had departed following dissatisfaction with the length of time it took to get to work every day (he lived in Edinburgh, rehearsals were in London and filming was in Manchester).

In effect, the show had a pretty significant revamp in the third season. The show is somewhat faster-paced, there's more action and special effects and even the more sombre title music (meant to evoke a Silent Running feel to events) has been jazzed up with some guitars and drums. As a statement of intent, it made some old-school fans feel uneasy but at the time it won over a huge new audience and began to take the series to the top of the ratings.

Of course, the fact that the show starts with three sequentially brilliant episodes didn't hurt either. In Backwards Rimmer and Kryten fall through a 'time hole' and crash-land on Earth in the late 20th Century, but a version where time is running backwards. Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue their friends only to find they actually quite like things this way around, despite certain bodily functions being pretty disgusting this way around. Given that the conceptual basis of the episode is pretty straightforward - Naylor and Grant had discovered an editing machine in the BBC which could run tapes backwards, including sound - they make the most of it with some classic gags and some huge laughs. Just don't think too hard about if it makes any sense or not. I also remain convinced that Martin Amis was inspired to write Time's Arrow by this episode. Seriously, at one point Rimmer and Kryten even get into a similar discussion about the morality of WWII going backwards.

Marooned, brought in late in the day to replace another script, is somewhat more modest in scope but is even stronger. It's basically a two-hander, with Lister and Rimmer trapped on Starbug when it crash-lands (this becomes a running gag throughout the series) on an ice planet. Lister has to keep a fire going in order to survive and must also make their meagre food stores (a tube of Bonjella gum ointment, a Pot Noodle, a packet of crisps and a tin of dog food) last as long as possible. It's a brilliantly-written, expertly-acted episode (the two actors have occasionally mused doing it as a stage play) about two people who don't particularly like one another having to help each other survive a difficult situation.

Polymorph is much more overtly bonkers. A genetically-engineered lifeform (GELF) known as a polymorph has gotten loose on the ship. This creature has the ability to take on any shape or form to provoke an emotional reaction in its prey, and can then suck out that emotion to feast on it. Needless to say, the dysfunctional, psychologically dubious and highly erratic crew of Red Dwarf proves a tempting meal. This is another superb episode driven by great performances from the regulars who, heralding the beginning of another recurring trope of the series, have to play alternate versions of themselves when certain emotions are removed. The highlight is a scene where Lister is almost killed by the polymorph disguised as a psychotic kebab. Another classic sequence sees the newly-pacifistic Rimmer declaring the formation of the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society to deal with the creature, only to run into acronym problems.

After those three episodes, the rest of the season is less overtly brilliant, but still enjoyable. In Bodyswap Lister and Rimmer discover they can swap bodies, providing Rimmer with the first chance since his death to taste, smell and feel. Rimmer's initial plan to borrow Lister's body to get it in shape goes out the window and he ends up porking out, sparking a battle for control of Lister's body. Timeslides ("Tonight's Special Guest Star: Adolf Hitler as Himself,") sees mutated developing fluid allowing the crew to travel into photographs and thus back in time. As a result Lister tries to change his past so he never ends up on Red Dwarf, but this only causes more problems. Finally, in The Last Day Kryten's in-built expiry disc kicks in, triggered by the imminent arrival of his replacement model, Hudzen 10, and the crew have to decide how to deal with the new arrival.

The third season of Red Dwarf is, compared to its two forebears, brighter, more colourful, funnier and more varied. More action takes place off the ship, various story devices are employed to bring in other characters and the special effect and model work is exemplary, and there's a lot more of it (Starbug crash-lands in three separate episodes). There's even some primitive CGI (this season was filmed in 1989) doing the rounds. The episodes are indeed faster-paced, but they don't really sacrifice the two-hander comedy exchanges either as some fans later complained (Marooned is basically nothing other than a 30-minute-long comedy double-act and brilliant for it), although the focus does move away from the Lister/Rimmer relationship and features more scenes of them paired up with other characters.

There are a couple of problems, and they are problems that later episodes also have to deal with. The introduction of Kryten as a regular is a great idea, giving the writers a whole new character to explore, but his role as a mechanoid means that he seems to get all the exposition and explanation-based dialogue that used to go to Holly. The result is a notable drop in material, dialogue and screen time for the new Holly, played excellently by stand-up comic Hattie Hayridge. Introducing the first regular female role on the series and promptly giving her little to do does not send out a great message, although she does get some good material as the series progresses. There just isn't very much of it. This also ties into the second problem, namely that the Cat's role is also slightly reduced to make way for Kryten, and it's quite some time (until Season 6, in fact) until he gets a new role that gives him more to do in the series.

These problems cannot really challenge the sheer quality of the scripts, the hugely-improved production values and the fact that the writers and actors were on top of their game in this season. Red Dwarf: Season III (*****) is one of the series' finest hours, and worth checking out even if earlier episodes didn't do much for you. The season is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

Red Dwarf: Season II

Picking up where the first season left off, the mining ship Red Dwarf is lost in space, three million years from Earth, the crew killed in a radiation leak. The only survivor of the crew is Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the incident. He fellow crewmembers are a creature that evolved from the ship's cat, the Red Dwarf's increasingly eccentric AI Holly, and a computer-generated holographic representation of Lister's dead bunk-mate, Arnold Rimmer.


After an uneven first season, Red Dwarf returned for its second just a few months later in 1988, and it feels almost like a different show. The writers and actors are all much more confident and relaxed, there are more effects shots and some location shooting and the show's characterisation really kicks in this year with a more thorough exploration of the characters and what makes them tick then we saw in the first year. There's also a subtle widening of the series' scope, with the introduction of the idea that there are other wrecked spacecraft out there they can loot and also the first appearance of several key ideas, such as parallel universes and advanced virtual reality systems, all of which allows for other characters to appear without violating the core concept at the heart of the show (four guys marooned in deep space).

The first episode, Kryten, sets the scene for this new era in style. The crew receive a distress call from the Nova 5, which has crashed on a nearby moon leaving only three injured female crewmembers and their service mechanoid, Kryten. The crew manfully come to the rescue only to find that Kryten is a bit loopy and hadn't realised that the 'injured' female crewmembers were actually dead. They rescue the distressed robot and Rimmer sets him to work, to Lister's annoyance and the latter sets about teaching Kryten how to rebel (mostly by making him watch Marlon Brando movies). This is a great episode with some genuinely brilliant moments of comedy and a sterling guest performance by David Ross as Kryten. Fan reaction to Kryten was so positive that he was brought back as a regular, with a change of actor, the following year.

Better Than Life sees the crew receive a mail pod from Earth (three million years being about the average delivery time for second-class post) including various movies, letters and video games. Rimmer learns that his father is dead - well, he already knew that, but getting a letter about it brings it home - and the crew decide to check out the VR game 'Better Than Life', which makes all your deepest fantasies and desires come true. The only problem is that it's not really meant to be played by someone with as many emotional insecurities and hang-ups as Rimmer. Hilarity results.

Thanks for the Memory is one of the show's most underrated episodes. The crew wake up to discover the last four days have gone missing, and they have no memory of how Lister and the Cat broke their legs or what has happened to the ship's black box. This sets up a clever mystery which leads to a surprisingly emotional resolution. This and the preceding episode do a fantastic job of exploring Rimmer's character and bringing some much-needed depth and sympathy to his role. They're also early examples of episodes which feel exhausting, as the writers cram so many ideas and so much plot into the episodes that they feel much longer than their 30-minute run time.

Stasis Leak is a bit of an oddity. The premise that the crew have found a rent in space/time which allows them to travel back to three weeks before the accident is solid, but oddly no-one suggests trying to avert the accident or even just using the rent to return to their original time, lay low for three weeks, and then return home to Earth once the events of the series have been set in motion (thus preserving continuity). Instead we just get a storyline in which Lister tries to get Kochanski to evade accident and Rimmer tries to save himself. There are some funny elements to the episode and some great lines, but it's an episode where the ideas don't quite gel together satisfyingly (not to mention the sins it commits against the series' timeline, but seriously, that's not something you should be worrying about as a viewer of Red Dwarf).

Queeg is a rare episode (one of only two in the whole series) that focuses on Holly. Holly's increasingly erratic behaviour sees him replaced by Red Dwarf's hitherto unknown emergency backup computer, Queeg 500. Queeg rules the ship with an iron fist, forcing Cat and Lister to work for food and almost killing Rimmer by sending him for marathons around the ship. Eventually, Holly (relegated to a job as night watchman) attempts to retake power, with unexpected results. It's a strong episode that plays on Norman Lovett's under-utilised comic talents.

Parallel Universe sees the Dwarf accidentally teleported into a neighbouring universe which is exactly the same as ours except it is more 'female-oriented' (although this is apparently not quite accurate since the masculinist movement of the 1960s, spearheaded by Jeremy Greer's The Male Eunuch and men burning their jockstraps). Cue some rather obvious gags, but there's a great moment when Rimmer's hitherto disgraceful attitude towards women is turned against him. In a great continuity nod, there's a cliffhanger ending that also addresses the question from Season I about how Lister is supposed to have children in the future with no women on board.

Season II represents a significant improvement in quality over the first year. Performances are stronger, production values (whilst still not great) are much-improved and the scope of the show is opening up. The strongest moments, though, are probably the discussions between Lister and Rimmer about such things as Rimmer's father, Lister's ex-girlfriend and the perils of tax evasion and the dangers of AI-controlled shoes. However, the sets are still a bit cardboard and unconvincing, and the quality of the guest stars is a bit mixed.

Red Dwarf: Season II (****½) is vastly improved over the first season and sees the series becoming a genuinely funny and entertaining show with moments of real drama and pathos as well. It is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.

Red Dwarf: Season I

The mining ship Red Dwarf, five miles long and three miles wide, is making its way through the outer Solar system on a mission to process and refine ore. It's not a particularly compelling job, but Third Technician Dave Lister entertains himself by slobbing out, partying with his friends in the rec rooms and making life a misery for his boss and room-mate, the wound-up, arrogant, ambitious and spectacularly incompetent Arnold J. Rimmer. Lister's fortunes take a turn for the worse when the captain learns he has sneaked a pregnant cat on board in violation of quarantine (cunningly discovered when Lister sent a picture of himself and the cat to be developed in the ship's lab). Unwilling to let his cat be killed and dissected, Lister agrees to forfeit 18 months pay and spend the rest of the trip in stasis.


Of course, when Lister wakes up he discovers some complications ensued whilst he was in temporal stasis. A lethal radiation leak wiped out the crew and the ship's computer, Holly, set course for deep space to avoid exposing anyone else to radiation poisoning. However, he had to wait for the radiation to die down to a safe background level before he could release Lister. Unfortunately, this has taken three million years. As Red Dwarf starts its long journey home, Lister discovers that the only other lifeforms on board are a holographic recreation of Rimmer, created by Holly to 'keep him sane', and a humanoid lifeform who descended and evolved from Lister's cat.

Red Dwarf bears the honour of being the greatest SF sitcom ever made. True, this isn't exactly a difficult achievement (apart from Futurama nothing else is really even on the same radar as Red Dwarf), but nonetheless it is a notable one. It is also fair to say that the show took a good year or so to get into its stride, and watching this first season again twenty-one years on is a bit of a mixed bag. On one level most of the ingredients of its later greatness are there and there are some excellent ideas and gags, but on another the show is hamstrung by insanely low production values and a lack of experience on the part of its main cast, resulting in a series that is quite variable in quality.

The first episode, cunningly entitled The End, sets up the basic premise and does so quite well, running through the set-up in half an hour and establishing a long-term goal for the crew (a goal which seems to be increasingly forgotten as the show continues). There's some good laughs, but the low-budget sets (grey, grey and more grey) mean that it feels very cheap although, at great odds with contemporary British SF series like Doctor Who, the actual model shots of the ship itself are excellent and remain impressive. The cast is a mixed bag, consisting of a dancer (Danny John-Jules as the Cat), a stand-up poet (Craig Charles as Lister), an impressionist and voice-over artist (Chris Barrie as Rimmer) and a stand-up comedian (Norman Lovett as the ship's computer, Holly). They all bring great enthusiasm to their roles but their lack of experience come through in some scenes, particularly with Craig Charles who tends to shout most of his lines as if he's still doing a punk-poetry recital in a noisy Liverpool bar. As the season progresses, however, the cast seems to learn that less is more and they relax into their roles.

The second episode, Future Echoes, sets up the future format of Red Dwarf quite successfully. A hard or at least semi-serious SF idea is introduced, in this case breaching the light barrier, and comic ideas are spun off from this concept. More groundwork is laid for the future as Lister gets some glimpses of how his life will turn out (some ideas of which are eventually explored and resolved in future seasons) and Chris Barrie deserves a round of applause for a scene where he has to perform the exact same scene twice with no effects trickery at all. A clever idea, well-explored. Balance of Power sees Lister and Rimmer's struggle for supremacy and rank reaching a new level when Lister decides to take the chef's exam so he outranks Rimmer and is an amusing episode. Waiting for God explores the history of the Cat race and Lister's position in their religion, but it's more vaguely amusing and a bit silly than genuinely funny or clever. Rimmer's speech about the Quagaars (an alien race he hopes who will appear and give him a proper body) is the episode's highlight. The premise of Confidence and Paranoia is completely daft - Lister contracts mutated pneumonia which makes gives his hallucinations solid form - but played amusingly. The season finale, Me 2, sees Rimmer joined by another hologram and the ensuing struggle for dominance is quite entertaining.

Overall these are entertaining episodes, but there's clearly a lot of work to be done. The Cat in particular comes across as quite distant and even cold in these early episodes, not caring if Lister dies in one scene and cracking jokes during another tragic moment. It's true to the idea behind the character, perhaps (cats don't really care about people, only where their next meal is coming from), but it makes him hard to like. Many of Rimmer's character traits are set up in this season but until the finale he mostly comes across as pathetic rather than sympathetic or with pathos, which the later seasons manage more successfully.

Still, all the ingredients for the series' later greatness are here in full, and watched in the knowledge of how fantastic this series gets later, Season I (Red Dwarf's seasons are numbered in Roman numerals for reasons never adequately explained) becomes more interesting in retrospect. First-time viewers may find themselves wondering what all the fuss is about, but I recommend them to stick with it as it does improve immensely in the second season.

I usually forget to mention DVD extras, but in this case the DVD set is quite impressive. All six episodes have full cast commentaries, whilst there is a detailed documentary exploring how the series was created, written and produced and the immense problems Rob Grant and Doug Naylor had getting it on air. The extras are genuinely impressive and well worth a look.

Red Dwarf: Season I (***) is available now on DVD in the UK and USA.