Any fans of this terrific show? I loved it in Jr. High/High School and revisit it every few years.
Any fans of this terrific show? I loved it in Jr. High/High School and revisit it every few years.
Used to watch that and Red Green on PBS back in the day. Good stuff.
Yep, one of the best around IMO. The Vindaloovians gets me every time
Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.
Last edited by timdotexe; 03-05-2015 at 05:20 AM.
NOW
Had myself a Dwarf marathon a few months ago, and was surprised to find the new episodes (Series 10) were much better than I remembered. Just weird to see the actors so much older, and the continuity is slightly baffling.
Being a hopeless nerd I also had to give every episode a rating from 1 to 3 after watching, then aggregate the results. To the 0.76 of you who might be interested, my results:
V - 2.33, VII - 2.25, I and II - 2.17, IV and X - 2.00, III - 1.83, VI - 1.67, VIII - 1.40. I didn't watch Back To Earth/IX, because you know. I'd rather make out with Lister's wife.
Series 7 draws a lot of hate from fans, but episode by episode, it's a strong run in my opinion.
(Final thing - if anyone hasn't read the books, do it. They string together the episode ideas into one long story, and flesh out the jokes and concepts in such a way that they're funnier and more meaningful.)
I remember being let down by season 7 and thinking season 8 was an improvement. When I went back and watched 7 and 8 I was surprised by how much better 7 was than I remember and thinking that 8 wasn't one of the better seasons. The dynamic of the four core characters ins't the same without Chris Barrie, of course, and the entire look of the show was totally different, but Chloë Annett was actually a good addition to the show, IMHO, and I enjoyed her interactions with the rest of the cast. I also liked the season's more dramatic feel. Seasons 1-6 will always be the best, but season 7 had a lot of strong points too. The show went in the wrong direction in season 8, IMHO, too many cast members, but there were some good episodes. I enjoyed Season X but need to watch it again.
The books are actually quite good. Very touching at times, especially BTL.
Another gem:
Two new series!
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-...series-on-dave
S11E01 available on... different... formats! :-)
Yeah, if you've got Sky you can download the first episode straight from the main menu.
Kind of amazing to me but... it's still funny. It's still inventive; the gag-rate isn't rapid but it still packs several belly-laughs. Despite being written solely by Naylor, despite the ages of the actors, and despite the fact that the show is now 28 years old - older than the Simpsons - it's still a decent show.
Awesome. Will have to wait for U.S. Blu-ray release.
DVD release (U.S.) on 11-8.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dwarf-XI-...=Red+dwarf++xi
Oddly, no blu-ray release date, just the standard dvd.
Amazon does have it on blu-ray and my copy came the other day.
Some thoughts--It's the same format as season X, so it's back to the four core characters, still no Holly. It looks like season XI had a bigger budget than X, which looks cheap by comparison. I've seen five of the six episodes, all were very good, but but not of the same quality as seasons 2-6, as it was never really the same after Rob Grant left writing for the show. Still, this season was rather enjoyable.
I enjoyed S11 immensely. It was a step up from S10, which was a huge step up from Back To Earth. The Archimedes gag had me in stitches, and it was great to finally see Cat get his own episode.
We're probably never going to see Holly again unless it's Hattie Hayridge. Norman Lovett's done with the show, after being kept on hold for filming for BTE before finally finding out he wasn't even going to be in it, and he thought it was terrible (He's right). There's no doubt the show lost a lot of punch when Rob left, when you compare the novels Backwards (Grant) and Last Human (Naylor); it's evident that Rob was the guy who knew how to write the humor and play the characters off against each other best, while Doug was more the one with the eye for sci-fi and atmosphere. Not to shit on Doug, but I'm amazed the show is as good as it is without Rob, honestly.
Last edited by Shadaloo; 11-10-2016 at 06:46 PM.
Back to Earth did kind of suck.
Big fan since series 5... best series for me are 1,2,5 & 6
As a matter of fact I just finished robert (kryten) Llewellyn's book "the man in the rubber mask", extremely interesting and very very funny, particularly the stuff about the American remake (Daphne from Frasier as holly, believe it or not). You can get the ebook on Amazon for about 4.99, I'd recommend it.
If you liked the books, search YouTube for "infinity welcomes careful drivers", it's the first book read by Chris barrie (rimmer). Outside of dwarf chris is a professional impersonator/voice artist, and his impressions of the rest of the cast (particularly kryten and holly) are eerily good, making for one of the most immersive audio books I've ever heard.
I loved the most recent series, particularly the polymorph episode. Probably the best since series six
this is tragic but I own a small replica of starbug that a friend got me from japan, it opens up and has rooms inside as well as tiny figures of the crew. I think my virginity just grew back
Absolute nadir of the show. Between that and season 8, I didn't think it'd ever be worth watching again (I disagree with the vast majority on 7, thought it was episode-for-episode better than several of the +Rob seasons). These last couple of runs have been a very pleasant surprise.
The one thing I really miss right now is some sense of continuity. We don't even know which version of Rimmer we're seeing. They've always been frustratingly lax about continuing story threads, but there's almost none at the moment.
To be honest the continuity baggage started to drag the show down for me, series 8 was the low point. In sutekhland they all died In series six and rimmer finally redeemed himself, the rest is all just optional extras.
But yeah we can deduce this is the fifth rimmer - rimmer prime being the first, then the hologram, which in series 3 (timeslides) became human, then died - presumably was resurrected again (making 3), he then became ace and left. A rimmer was created by the nanites in series 7/8 (4), which then somehow died and became the current and fifth one
I'm seeing a lot more love for 7 from fans as time goes by. Kid me was devastated when Rimmer left to become Ace; it's a good thing he came back because the show couldn't stand without him. To this day I can sing the Rimmer theme from memory. It doesn't quite hit the highs of the first six series, but I'd still consider it up there.
As far as the current version of Rimmer goes, I tend to assume at the end of S8 Death caught up with him. I'd like to someday learn what happened there, but I'm not too bothered.
Back to Earth had exactly two good jokes: the shove, and:
"Listening to music, are we?"
"....no."
Also, I want this to become a thing. They hit the necessary amount of supporters so I hope it's greenlit.
The alternate ending for series 8 available on the DVD is far better and actually ties everything up quite nicely, I've no idea why they didn't use it. In that, they cure the metal virus eating the ship. The resurrected crew have all fled in fleets of Starbugs and blue midgets, they realise Arnold has saved the ship and request to come aboard. Arnold ignores them, leaving them all stranded in space. I think he says something like "carry on holly, I see no ships"
American pilot:
Second America Pilot:
Terry Ferrell (Jadzia Dax on Deep Space Nine) played the Cat.
Season 12 will be released on 11/21.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dwarf-XII...s=red+dwarf+12
Anyone see season 12? Thoughts?
Really really good for me, I am surprised how creative they still can be, it is almost like Black Mirror, but with jokes.
I have never been so fucking glad to be wrong about something on TV as I was this season.
Every single one of these Dave seasons gets better than the last by a bit. This season's sole exception had to be Timewave, which was just awful, but all the other eps were great, especially the finale. That was such a good close. There's a lot of callbacks this year, but when they do them right, like in that last one, I think longtime fans should be getting the warm and fuzzies. I did.
Cripes, I could really do with a new RD novel.