The Return of The Return of The Return of Red Dwarf

[Pip Madeley]

First five minutes here!

I'm excited!

[Dirk Gently]

"This Video has been removed by the user!"

[Pip Madeley]

Try again...

Crap BBC Breakfast interview

[Milky Tears]

Digital Spy's SPOILERY PREVIEW:

CONTAINS SOME PLOT SPOILERS!
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a15...than-smeg.html
CONTAINS SOME PLOT SPOILERS!

Sounds about as bad as the last series. I'll be shocked if there are more than three big laughs.

[Si Hunt]

Wow. It wasn't a disaster!

Ok, bad things first. Everyone looked a little old after all, and it was a little thin on the jokes. Introducing the characters one at a time was an odd move, and meant it never really felt "right" until all four were together again, some minutes in. Also, there wasn't enough screen time for Kryten.

What we couldn't have hoped for was that both the cast and the series should slip so effortlessly back into old form so easily. There was no tedious explanation of how they got out of the last episode ten years ago (see Series 7) - the Kochanski grave sequence excepted, but we'll forgive that. The old music cues were there, and so too the old characters. (Relatively) recent episodes have felt like "the old boys" getting together for a knees up, but this genuinely felt like the characters we know and love: slobby Lister, vain Cat, fussy Kryten and selfish Rimmer. Around the point of the squid attack, suddenly it felt like a Series 5 episode. That, surely, is a small wonder. In fact, bits of this felt more like Red Dwarf than anything in Series 8. I even missed Holly.

It's therefore unfortunate that the only old thing missing was that old Red Dwarf staple, a concise and clever 30 minute plot, and it's a real shame that this is a story spread over three episodes and not three seperate stories: the joy of Red Dwarf was always getting a clever story each week.

But I enjoyed it, miraculously! It really felt like Red Dwarf was back. It was, ironically, only the script that wasn't quite up to scratch. The actors did us proud, which was almost enough.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

It was fine! It was never going to be 'the same' and we had great fun spotting the virtual sets. (Hint - it was all of them).

The other missing character was the lafftrack, it seemed weird watching Red Dwarf without being cued to laugh at all the jokes.

'I was attacked by a giant testicle!' That made the comeback worthwhile on its own!

I liked the lack of explanation too, good stuff all round.

And... Craig Charles is a much better actor. He can now do 'sad' and 'angry' very well indeed, I thought he was going to rip Rimmer's head off when they came back from the diving bell. No really!

It was spot on, though the best bits were stuff like Rimmer trying to get his photo straight and the sneeze-ironing. I don't like the female character and I strongly suspect that she's up to something. The cliffhanger felt very weak too. At least there's only a day to wait!

[Dino]

I enjoyed that!
It's been too long. It never had me on the floor anyway but the "Bit Crap" joke made me laugh.
Did end a bit quickly though?

[Rob McCow]

I know what you mean Dino - with the ad break, we probably only had a 20 minute show. Five of which were eaten up with that awful woman. So 15 minutes of great Red Dwarf!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

It was probably made as an hour-long special (or 80 minutes or whatever) and they decided to break it up into three parts, much like they did with series 8. That's just a guess though

It was alright. About as (un)funny as series 7 and 8 really, which is kind of what I was expecting given it was just by Doug Naylor again.

[Paul Monk]

That was just very average, I thought. Nothing to do with the actors, they were spot on. Just not a lot happpened. Jokes were fairly poor and the whole thing was very badly paced. Slow start, action middle, garbled and confused end section. It felt like you were watching the first bit of a film rather than a stand alone episode and the ending was very unexciting as a result.
Still I'm going to watch the other two.

[Si Hunt]

It was frustratingly nearly there. Add more jokes, and a laughter track, and 3 seperate episodes, and it would have been there.

The opening titles were unspectacular, I thought. Because the clips were all culled from three episodes, none of them were particuarly intriguing as in series of old.

Uncharitable thought: perhaps there WAS a laughter track, only nobody laughed!

Si.

[SiHart]

I enjoyed it. Which considering all I've said on this thread about it being a bad idea, is a good thing.

Si xx

[Martin Penny]

I thought it was okay, but not very funny at all. I think a laughter track would have helped. The only joke I got a laugh out of was the 'bit crap' bit.

[cullsoft]

One more for to the "really felt it was missing something without the laughter track" crowd. Have to admit that without I was left wondering whether or not I was supposed to be laughing at certain bits... though there were a few chuckles though - Rimmer's frame hanging and "Bit crap" were good.

Second half lost something - as has been said, the pacing was all over the place (I thought the first half went okay, though the diving bell fight dragged on a little, the female hologram felt shoehorned in, and the ending felt very sudden in a bewildering way... IMO season 7's "Tikka To Ride" had the right idea with being a single re-introductory story that stood on its own with the sort of elements of the old series, though these days it seems you MUST have some stretched out multi-parter to open things up.

That said, I think the episode definitely gets great marks for effort, even though it was lacking in achievement. I agree with Si that all the right elements are frustratingly there, they just don't seem to be in quite the right places yet... though the potential for it to get back on track is in reach.

I was also dissappointed that when Lister kicked the vending machine to get a can of lager at the beginning, I didn't hear Tony Hawks's voice making a remark!

[Paul Monk]

On the plus side, given the budget, it looked good (ifa little grey and white).

[Andrew Curnow]

I found it a lot better than I'd expected, to be honest. Some of the later episode back in the day weren't (IMHO) all that, and I'd say this was certainly better than some of those. The regulars seemed to get back into it as if they'd never been away - Rimmer may look a bit older, but that aside they were all present and correct. I watched it closely, Zel half-watched while playing on the computer, but we both laughed a fair few times. The sneeze gag, the 'testicle' gag, Cat's diving suit, the first appearance of Kryten, and particularly the 'sonar' scenes. Looking forward to more tonight!

[Si Hunt]

I didn't like the sneeze gag, I thought it was a bit too gross! Maybe I'm getting old?

Si.

[Tom Simpson]

I posted my comments on DWF/OG.. but to sum it up:

Laughing so much couldn't breathe; Loved it; Thought it was hillarious; Can't wait for tonight's episode.

[Rob McCow]

You're so old! It's no more gross than Lister's socks, or getting ready to meet the girls when they find Kryten, or the exploding head from the space mumps! It's perfect Lister!

[Dirk Gently]

I thought the 'Sneeze Gag' was typical Lister, the 'Testicle Gag' was typical Cat, the 'Rimmer dancing Gag' was typical Rimmer, the 'Panic Kryten' was typical Kryten & the 'Bit Crap' was typical Holly...shame it wasn't delivered by Holly really.

Red Dwarf by numbers? May be, but still enjoyable enough. The ending was WAY to abrupt & that, I think, will work better on Monday as a whole entity.

There's another DVD I'll have to get.

[Andrew Curnow]

We liked the plumbing gag too.

[Pip Madeley]

Apologies if it's been mentioned but I'm totally ignoring the previous posts (to avoid spoilers) - I'm glad to see this:

New 'Red Dwarf' pulls in over 2 million
Saturday, April 11 2009, 10:05 BST
By Neil Wilkes, Editor

The return of Red Dwarf for its first new episode in ten years was a huge hit for multichannel Dave last night, according to early ratings figures.

The first episode of a three-part reunion special, Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, pulled in 2.06m (10%) for Dave between 9pm and 9.30pm. A further 341k (1.9%) watched at 10pm on timeshift channel Dave ja vu.

A subsequent screening of a classic episode took 1.01m (5.1%) at 9.30pm.

The success of Red Dwarf helped Dave to a primetime share of 3.2%, making it the most popular multichannel station of the night by a margin of almost one share point.

Excellent result for Dave

[SiHart]

Much funnier episode tonight I thought. Hope it's doing equally well.

Si xx

[Paul Monk]

Part 2 was both really awful and quite good, which I know doesn't make sense. Overall the concept seemed badly handled and odd cringeworthy. There were awful bits at the beginning, the looking in the sofa gag was rubbish and made little sense. The sci-fi shop stuff was a really cheap shot and seemed strangely nasty, insulting the very fans that keep the show going, whilst vastly inflating the self importance of the Back to Earth dvd. Essentially becoming a huge ad for it. Then the show suddenly improved. The references to series 9 & 10 were inspired. I loved the chat Lister has on the bus with the kids, although the Dave channel advert was cringeworthy and all the Bladerunner stuff was great (although lost on Jody and others I suspect). I particularly liked the photo sequence. And the bit where Rimmer disposes of Sophie Winkleman had me laugh out loud. Despite this though it still failed to grab me and again the pacing was weird and some of the logic is odd.

[Si Hunt]

Well that was bizarre wasn't it?

Yesterday's was Red Dwarf old style without the jokes, but this was completely different - not Red Dwarf at all, but the Red Dwarf characters wondering around "our" world. And it really WASN'T "Red Dwarf" - it was paced completely differently, and suddenly the CGI/model work etc. is just gone. This is not as bad as it sounds - freed from having to fit into our expectations, suddenly it got really interesting and Lister's chat with the kids on the bus was a little sad and quite lovely. Unfortunately bits didn't work - God knows what the scene set in the nose-sculpters dungeon was all about, for example. I actually thought them discovering Red Dwarf in our world wasn't as disasterous as it could have been; I loved them flicking through the DVD's and the gag with the psi-scan in the TV shop. But it felt like it could dangerously misfire at any minute and I'm praying "their creator" doesn't lead to an awful cameo from Doug Naylor. The decision to (presumably) have them in a dimension where "Back to Earth" followed a Series 9 and 10 of the show that we never saw is odd (at first we thought it was a mistake when they mentioned Series 10!). Is that a dimension when they didn't dick around for ten years trying to get a movie made then? And sadly both a coherant plot and the jokes were largely AWOL.

It's just got surreal now though, and is therefore at least quite entertaining. Instead of making a new Red Dwarf they've shown us what the characters make of a world where there isn't one.

Si.