Menu
What's new
Troll Kingdom

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Wacky Reviews: Red Dwarf

Pete Part 1 - And he we are. These episodes. I remember at this point I didn't watch Red Dwarf anymore and I turned on randomly at one point, saw a terrible CGI t-rex, then turned over again. Anyway, just to recap this shit, we start with Rimmer and Lister being called to Hollister's office. This will happen another EIGHT HUNDRED TIMES over the next two episodes. The guy who plays Hollister is fine in shorter scenes but there's so much of him here that it just exposes how limited the character is. He punishes Rimmer and Lister by...making them play basketball. For some reason. Lister and Rimmer beat the guards by giving them viagra. It isn't funny. It's horrible. Was Doug Naylor going through a mid life crisis at this point and taking viagra so he inserted loads of unfunny sex jokes into the scripts? Anyway this basketball scene has nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Then Lister and Rimmer have to peal potatoes but they use a potato skin eating virus that for some reason eats their clothes and hair (but not skin) and they run through the ship naked and bald but it isn't funny. Meanwhile the actual plot(?) kicks in when Kryten and the extras (Cat and Kochanski) find the time wand. This could have been good! The time wand is a fine idea! But they...just use it to turn Cat and Kochanski into kids. The young Kochanksi actress (Holly Earl!) struggles to get her lines out. Okay. So we go back to Red Dwarf and now they have a PLAN to freeze the whole crew and...what? They say something about serving out their two year sentence in the blink of an eye but they don't do that! They just freeze the rest of the crew and then hang out with some old guy with a bird. Why didn't they just escape on a Starbug? Then the time wand suddenly "de-evolves" things like that TNG episode everyone thought had terrible science but here the science is even worse and not funny. Pete the bird turns into a t-rex and Jurassic Park was six years before this episode so I don't know why Doug Naylor thought "EVERYONE WILL LOVE A T-REX" at this point. I don't know anything.

- As bad as this is I'd probably still rank it slightly ahead of 'Duct Soup' because at least it didn't last four hours. But wait for part 2!
- You can't pee when you have an erection so the "doing a handstand to pee" joke doesn't work!
- Why is "Birdman" in The Hole anyway when he's just an insane old man with a bird?

Score: 2/10


Pete Part 2 - Hello, welcome to the worst episode of Red Dwarf ever. What is this. WHAT IS IT. There's a t-rex. It eats the time wand (I'm not sure why they couldn't use the time wand to freeze it?) so they need it to shit out the time wand so they MAKE A GIANT CURRY SOMEHOW and they have a whole cow somehow? Remember when I thought the vindaloo monster in D.N.A. was a TAD immature? This makes that look more sophisticated than FRASIER (that was the only example of a sophisticated comedy I could think of.) There's also a scene at some point where Lister and Rimmer use the time wand to rewind Hollister about ten times and it's not funny at all and goes on forever. Then after that the time wand randomly doesn't work again? Rimmer is caught out slagging off Hollister then Hollister gives him the wand so why doesn't Rimmer just rewind him? Who the fuck knows. OH I nearly forgot since it's completely random and has nothing to do with anything: Kryten made a penis for himself and it's alive for some reason and seems to excist to do an Alien joke bursting out of Cat then it's gone again. Apparently this was originally going to be in Cassandra and I'm thankful they stuck it in here instead since Cassandra was pretty good. Some more stuff happens (who can remember?) and then the dinosaur has a baby (how?) and then Hollister is getting a massage and the baby dinosaur comes up from behind and I think we're supposed to believe the baby dinosaur rapes him? Then Hollister says he's going to send a year in The Hole to get over this, I guess, and fuck this was bad.

- I guess Kochanski is still a character in this show but she barely does anything. She gets a few token lines, more than The Cat (who could be any random prisoner at this point) but that's all and she always looks surprised because she's done something to her eyebrows?

SCORE: 0.5/10


Only The Good - I think this episode has a fairly good reputation but I think that's mostly because of the memorable final scene. Because there's a lot more stuff in here that I totally forgot. It's like a random series of skits thrown together. It starts with Rimmer now working as Hollister's aide? Or something? Why would Hollister want Rimmer as his aide after everything Rimmer's said and done to him? Wasn't Holliser going to spend a year in The Hole? Is this episode a year later? Then some woman shows up. It kind of seems like she's from another ship, but Hollister says she was rebuilt by the nanites and why would they rebuild someone from another ship? But if she's from Red Dwarf why does Hollister act like she's just arrived? I don't get it. She shows up as a nun later in the mirror universe but her character could have been completely left out. Then Kryten throws a "have a happy period" party for Kochanski because haha he doesn't understand human biology somehow and doesn't know women have periods after spending months with them in prison. Then there's a REALLY long bit with Lister and Rimmer trying to hide some hooch. Then Cat gets something to do(!) in a bit where he tries to get prisoners to beat him up so he can go to hospital instead of faking an illness. This could have been funny but it goes on forever and the prisoner has a terrible fake Southern accent. THEN with EIGHT MINUTES TO GO we finally get to the main plot with a virus thing eating the ship so Rimmer goes to a mirror universe (that Kryten effortlessly creates) to get the cure. But the episode just runs out of time so Rimmer is shot by a vending machine (voice by Tony Slattery who used to be funny) and knees Death in the balls the end. Yes Rimmer kneeing Death in the balls is funny as a one off scene but it doesn't work as an ending for this episode. It's just randomly thrown in because they didn't want to have a proper resolution. So no I can't call this a good episode.

- Once again, just like in Out of Time, they actually did film a fairly good scene that tied up all the loose ends and worked as a decent end to the series. Why leave that out? Who the fuck knows!
- The mirror universe stuff is so rushed that we only get to see a mirror Cat and Kochanksi but not Lister or Kryten. Why have that pointless scene with the nun?

SCORE: 4/10
 
Oh I forgot to mention that Chloe Annett's comedy acting is a lot better in series 8. She could have kept up with the others if they ever gave her funny lines. Unfortunately nobody got funny lines in series 8.
 
I never understand why male rape is used in comedy, they would never use female rape for laughs.

Dame reason I hate seeing Homer getting raped by the Panda.
 
Back To Earth Part 1 - So ten years later Dave brought back Red Dwarf with a three part mini series thing. The joke is that there was a Red Dwarf 9 but it wasn't shown in our dimension, so we don't know how they saved the ship and what happened to the crew and where Kochanski is (well we do know Lister thinks she's dead but Kryten knows she's alive and she dumped Lister) and how Rimmer's back to being a hard light hologram. Anyway right away it's clear that Doug Naylor is trying to go back to the old style of humour. The series 1 to 6 (or probably MOST ACCURATELY 3-5) style humour. That is appreciated as series 8 wore me out with the constant sex and poop jokes. We're back to witty lines now and some of them are pretty decent. The opening thing about hte tomato sneeze isn't very funny though and goes on too long. But once the four characters are interacting with each other it's quite likable. Cat's diving suit is funny. Rimmer dancing while everyone else is in danger is a bit funny AT FIRST but again is another joke that's dragged out too long. Then Sophie Winkleman appears and is quite funny as a ridiculous Russian hologram but enjoy her while she's here because she gets fuck all to do in the next two parts. Then the episode ends kind of abruptly with a portal opening. It would have been better to end on a joke?

Score: 6.5/10


Part 2 - And now we get to the "back to Earth" part. Or the part where it turns into a five minute Comic Relief sketch stretched over an hour anyway. PLEASINGLY there are some funny lines here. I did laugh at the "Psi-Scanner" bit despite how obvious it was. And the enhancing the photograph bit is the funniest joke in the whole three parts, so that's good! But I don't really like the meta stuff. It just isn't that funny? And it's been done a lot of times in a lot of things (often for Comic Relief!) Then there's all the Blade Runner references (and they explicitly say "BLADE RUNNER" a couple of times just so you get it.) Maybe they're clever but are they funny? Like the nose guy. It's that actually funny or is just a guy talking in a weird voice for a few minutes? It seems like they're just trying to remake scenes from a movie without actually remembering they're making a comedy show that's supposed to be funny on its own. Then we get them driving about in a Starbug car for about a minute while weird music plays (maybe this is a clever reference to something I don't get!) and the episode just ends with them driving into Coronation Street. It's really running out of steam now.

Score: 6/10


Part 3 - The first six minutes of this episode are pretty terrible. The earlier parts were clearly a bit funnier than series 7 and 8 (on average!) but this is just bad as Kryten talks in a stupid voice and Lister meets Craig Charles and there's no actual jokes here. It gets a bit better when they meet the Creator and there's some funny lines (the whole "flame burns brighter" bit and Rimmer's bit about wanting a sitcom in a biscuit factory) but again it seems like they're just trying to recreate scenes from a movie and minutes go by without anything funny happening. Minutes! That shouldn't happen in Red Dwarf. Then there's the magic typewriter and we're back in Comic Relief and then Kochanski shows up and she's hotter than she was in series 8 so that's good! Craig Charles does some good acting but after that the ending just falls flat. THey should have made a bigger point of Lister choosing to return and leaving Kochanski. They just explain "OH IT WAS A DISPAIR SQUID" and apparently Sophie Winkleman wasn't real and that's that. They could have gone for a big emotional payoff or something but it's just like "well the episode's over now bye." So yeah. This is better than series 8 but it also really drags and feels like a butter spread over too much bread. Not to the inanely bad extent of the previous three parter Back In The Red, but it could have done with being shorter or having a better ending.

- If Russian lady wasn't real how come we had a scene with her ON HER OWN in part one?
- I guess Craig Charles learned to be a good actor on Coronation Street (not that he was bad before...after series 1 anyway.)
- I like that Cat makes cat noises. He stopped doing them for a while.
- Why does Chris Barrie not act much at all other than Red Dwarf?

Score: 6/10
 
Maybe after the two Tomb Raider films he thought hollywood would be knocking his door down to get him, only they didn't.

He did do the Brittas Empire for a long time, perhaps too long.
 
12820.imgcache.jpg
 
Trojan - I didn't think Back To Earth was very good but it got super huge ratings for Dave so they decided to go ahead with Red Dwarf 10. Doug Naylor is back and after series 7, 8, and Back To Earth I didn't exactly have high hopes for this episode. But it is actually pretty good! I mean the general suckiness of the last 19 episodes certainly make this lookbetter by comparison, but I did also recently watch the first six series and I think this holds up well as an entertaining episode of television. There are ropey moments, yes. Starting with the "pig racing" bit is weird as it isn't very funny and I'm not even sure what's supposed to be happening. The thing with Lister being on hold for the whole episode isn't all that funny either (though I like the idea of an automated Droid shopping channel that's still running three million years later.) But the moose joke is pretty good and gets funnier as the epiosde goes on. Everyone is in character and I know that should be standard but really after 7 and 8 it's always a relief to have Red Dwarf characters in character. The story with Rimmer's brother is good. It's a good solid story. The Simulant going mad is a bit predictable but it's fine. Using her to stir the cups is a nice payoff to the (bad) hold storyline. "Nope, we hosed him down and stuck a hat on him" is the funniest Red Dwarf line in YEARS and perfectly delivered by Chris Barrie. NO it's not a total top level, all-time classic Red Dwarf episode, BUT it's not a sterile, borefest like series 7, a nonsensical cock-joke obsessed mess like series 8 or a copy and paste of the Blade Runner script like Back To Earth so I'd call it a success. The best Red Dwarf episode in 19 years.

- The studio audience are back after Back To Earth didn't even have a laugh track. They're enthusiastic. I mean there's times I think they're TOO amused and the episodes don't actually have to try as hard to be funny because of it (not as much this episode) but maybe that's me being A MOANING BASTARD. But really why did they laugh at that shot of Red Dwarf towing the other ship? That wasn't a joke! Or what did the editors insert laughter there maybe should be the question.
- The models are back! AND THEY'RE BETTER THAN CGI.
- Chris Barrie seems to have a bit more hair than in Back To Earth and be a bit thinner?
- The quantum rod thing (seriously I don't know what it's called) is a good example of how Red Dwarf should do sci-fi. It's not overly complicatted and they don't spend too much time on it but it's better explained then just suddenly having Kryten point something at a mirror to create a mirror universe in the last five minutes of an episode.
- I like how they play a version of the Rimmer song from 'Blue' while Howard is dying!

SCORE: 8/10


Fathers & Suns - And this one isn't as good. But it still has more good stuff in it than most 7 and 8 episodes did. I didn't hate it, it's not a disaster. It's just some of it doesn't work. Like I never liked the whole "Lister is his own dad" thing but I always said it should have been played for humour. It is here and I didn't find it all that funny. It's just too weird? Lister acting like he literally is getting advice from his own dad? Eh. Which is a shame because Craig Charles does a great job in the scenes where Lister is talking to himself and the writing is pretty clever here. The stuff with the racist vending machine is best forgotten as well. And there's a bit where Rimmer keeps noticing a noise that doesn't go anywhere. The "main"(?) story with the compuer is pretty good though and like something from classic Red Dwarf.

- Another inappopriate audience laugher moment as they laugh at Lister flying back into Red Dwarf. How is that funny!

SCORE: 7/10
 
I wonder if the special effects wernt done yet when the studio audience was watching, and it was just some scene of Lister riding a bike or something?
 
I read a review by someone who was a at the taping: Red Dwarf X: Trojan Review | Ganymede & Titan

What is really odd about this shot, though, is that an audience laugh is pasted over the reveal of the towing, which felt unnatural and awkward. I understand the technical reasons behind sweetening laughs and moving them around in the edit, but I think adding them to a model shot just feels too odd to justify.
Click to expand...

Maybe whoever did the laughtrack editing was confused.
 
Lemons - Remember when I was saying sometimes I think there's too much audience laughter and if that just makes me a boring bastard? This episode is one that makes me feel like that. It just wears me out. There's laughter after every line and it always sounds the same and I don't remember finding it this distracting in the first six series. It doesn't help that I just don't find the episode all that funny, even though it has some funny lines. Certainly the Jesus stuff raises A SMILE but for whatever reason I just don't connect with the episode. I just feel like "I can see what's happening here" when I watch it rather than feeling amused by it. Maybe I'm just tired. Of life. Again though there's nothing actually wrong with the episode. I like the way Jesus doesn't want to be Jesus anymore and stuff? I don't know. I like it better thinking about it than watching it. There's something about the episode that makes me feel seperate from the episode. Or something. Sorry I don't know my own brain anymore.

- Though I said most of the humour is fine, the cliched Ikea joke and the Shakespeare bit aren't funny.

SCORE: 7.5/10
 
Entangled - So remember the Quantum Rod thing in Trojan? Kryten does some experiments on it and it makes him and Cat "entangled" and...coincidences happen more often? It's a bit like the Luke Virus? Except Kryten says it just makes them more AWARE of coincidences. Or something. That's the biggest problem with this episode, it's not really clear why this stuff is happening. It's an episode with a lot of ideas and I admire its ambitiona and it's definitely never boring...it just doesn't execute those ideas as well as it could. Kryten and Cat being "entangled" mostly just results in them talking at the same time. The actors do a good job (it must be hard to talk at exactly the same time as another actor) but they could have done so much more with this concept! At least have them take on each other's traits or something! Anyway soe stuff happens and I guess coincidences are happening a lot because of the quantum rod (I'll just ignore what Kryten says) and there's some GELFS (but with a different name) and it's a pretty funny scene then they find some space station for thick scientists and it's pretty funny then the last five minutes feature a (cute) girl who is one of the thick scientists. She's the biggest problem with the episode really as she's in so little of the episode that you kind of wonder what the point was when she dies four minutes later. This is an episode over-flowing with ideas, which is good, but it needed a rewrite or something.

- Thought apparently they did have to rewrite the end because the man in the gorilla suit couldn't film for as long as they wanted so maybe the girl wasn't supposed to be in it at all?

SCORE: 7.5/10
 
Dear Dave - Oh dear. I think they had to scrap some episodes due to budget restraints and this script was a replacement designed to not cost much money (no guest stars, standing sets only.) But I have to just judge it as an episode in its own right and it is...not good. It starts with a scene with Lister sad about the human race being dead (Kochanski? The resurrected crew? Not dead?) which could have been good but the writing is pretty dumb for it. Plus he met another human last week and didn't seem to care. Eventually another mail pod (like in Better Than Life!) shows up and Lister finds out he could be a father and gets thinking about that. A bit. Again this could have been good but hardly any time is spent on it. There's also an impossible to follow subplot with Rimmer and Kryten doing...something...with the ship's...budget? There's toilet paper involved. It's poorly explained and underdeveloped. And there's a thing with vending machines too and Lister humps a vending machine (he's trying to pick it up...he says) and it's a bit like the classic Lister/Kryten scene in Polymorph but nowhere near as good. This episode is bad. It's not bad in the same way a series 7 or 8 or Back To Earth episode would be, but it's still bad!

- The best scene is when Cat plays charades and Rimmer keeps guessing "a killer worm" or something.

SCORE: 5/10
 
The Beginning - Series X ends with its best episode (I may have slightly overrated Trojan just because it was better than the previous 19 episodes.) It's the most focused, it doesn't have a lot of padding or give every character a subplot, it's a solid Rimmer episode. The Rimmer centric episodes always seem to be the best ones? Maybe he's the easiest character to write episodes about (look at how the attempts to write for Lister this series were about the weird "he's his own dad" thing and something about humping vending machines.) The flashback at the start makes the episode feel more important. The crazy droid guy is quie amusing. The simulant captain is a pretty good villain. Chris Barrie does his best acting of the series. It's a good episode! There aren't any problems or any embarrassing parts. No it's not quite at the same level of the top level series 1-6 episodes, but even if it had been in one of those series I would have given it a good solid 8/10. The slime's coming home indeed.

- Lots of great model work in this one. Most of the budget for the series seems to have been spent on it.
- Apparently quite a lot of this episode was taken from the script for the movie. Which means Doug Naylor has finally given up on the movie.
- Rimmer's last words were "Gazpacho soup" not "mummy, mummy!" Even if it was meant as a joke it sees like an odd choice.
- Doug Naylor wrote and directed (and produced) every episode this series. In a way that is quite impressive as it's obvious he worked very hard to make it better than 7,8 and BTE and it shows that Doug Naylor is still capable of writing some decent jokes and plots. ON THE OTHER HAND I can't help but think it would have been better if he'd brought on some co-writers and maybe some other directors. Someone to tell him "there's good stuff here, Doug, but do we really need five subplots in this episode?" or "that joke's okay but you've dragged it out five times too long!" Sadly I think he's writing every episode of series 11 and 12 as well...
- But I do think series X deserves some praise for being pretty good (apart from Dear Dave) and changing the default thought when you hear news of new Red Dwarf from "THAT'LL BE SHIT" to "that could actually be worth watching!"

SCORE: 8/10
 
OKAY, I calculated the average score to two decimal places and have ordered them from best to worst.

RD5: 9.42
RD3: 8.83
RD4: 8.5
RD6: 8.17
RD2: 7.92
RD1: 7.42
RDX: 7.17
BTE: 6.17
RD7: 4.44
RD8: 2.63

No big surprises there really. Man, series 8 was SHIT.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top