Comments on: Television: Red Dwarf – Back To A Dearth Of Ideas

By: Smee

Smee — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:20:59 +0000

I really, really liked Red Dwarf. Watching these three episodes felt like seeing a fondly remembered uncle from your childhood after he’s been admitted to hospital years later. Old, weak and and tired. I wasn’t expecting greatness, but I wasn’t expecting it to upset me in the way it did. A kind of melancholy that has put to rest happy memories from my past.

(Nonplussed means ‘suprised and confused’, not ‘ambivalent and dismissive’)

By: Zoe

Zoe — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:40:12 +0000

For years i enjoyed watching Red Dwarf, although i must admit it took a while for the Back to Earth episodes to get going by the end i found myself enjoying the characters that we had all come to love. Red Dwarf will always be a good laugh as the characters are so well portrayed and interact with each other like an adorable bunch of school boys.
The only disappointing thing i found was the odd gap between series 8 and Back to Earth, i found myself wondering if i had missed a series and hoped to find out what happened to Rimmer after he kicked Death in the ‘privates’. Please go back and fill in the blanks!

By: Jockie

Jockie — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:38:21 +0000

I wasn’t overly impressed, though there were a couple of decent gags in there that gave me a chuckle i’m hard pressed to remember any of them. In retrospect and after reading this article, it does seem a little sad in the portrayal of the show as something it quite clearly isnt.

The problem with the Blade Runner references is they kinda just took them wholesale and didnt do anything funny or inventive with them. Instead they just sorta used them in a lazy way.

But the mind boggles as to why they didnt have a laughter track it just felt alien and strange for me watching Red Dwarf without a laughter track (though it was also a bit alien and strange watching Red Dwarf without knowing what the next line was going to be..).

By: John Walker

John Walker — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:52:18 +0000

Simon – I think the onus is on your to counter the consensus. The defence you’ve made so far has been to say you liked the Bladerunner references and that you thought it was a good ending.

Can you explain why you liked the Bladerunner references, and what you thought they had to do with anything that happened? And can you say why you thought it was an ending at all? Also, did you find that anything in it made you laugh? I really cannot think of a funny moment in all three episodes.

By: Simonkaye

Simonkaye — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:09:01 +0000

Will no one else defend it wholesale? I think it at least qualified for a thumbs-up overall…

By: Saul

Saul — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:01:51 +0000

Good write-up, Walker. I guess the only additional point I would make is the absolute irony that the creator is trying to kill off his characters while they’re still at their peak, which is what should have been done at the end of series 6, and still doesn’t manage to happen, although I doubt we’ll see them again.

The lack of a laugh track is mystifying and unsettling (as it was when the extended versions of three series 7 episodes were released on video back in the day).

Red Dwarf remains one of my all-time favourite shows, but as far as I’m concerned there will only ever be 36 episodes.

By: John Walker

John Walker — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:01:07 +0000

The “Russian chick” was Big Suze from Peep Show. I strongly recommend that for a chance to see her being funny.

If a “little bit” (fnarr) of you has literally died, I recommend hospital or a lawyer.

By: PC Monster

PC Monster — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:21:18 +0000

Crank up the data-valves – John’s got an Electronic House!

I don’t know…I’m on two minds about it. I was expecting a car-crash, naturally, and I think I got one…but find myself spotting little moments of beauty and other interesting things; rubber-necking as art criticism. It was a very strange and cold Red Dwarf, and a little bit of me literally died when they leapt into the “real” world. But still, some of the music was nice – the acting was decent despite some very ludicrous material (Post-box droid? Poor Robert) and Russian chick needs to give me her address and phone number pronto. It was also fascinating to see some actual honest-to-gosh effects happening: anything that fleshes out the crimson short one is okay in my book. But yeah. the Blade-runner references were starting to grate horribly by the end.

Oh, and I think that was the original actor who played Eldon Tyrell, wasn’t it? The Bladerunner fan in me lapped that up. :)

To conclude: Thanks for the memories, Dave, but let’s hope that’s the end of it.

By: The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:00:09 +0000

[...] Oddly, quite a few non-games pieces found their way into the Sunday Papers document this week, just because I liked the cut of their jib. The Wall Street Journal interviews the creator of the much-despised Comic Sans, which is a lovely portrait of taste and hate in the early 21st century. Then BLDG blog wrote also went cheerfully off their normal topic and wrote beauifully in defence of twitter. Finally, you may not be aware that John Walker’s as obsessed with television as he is with videogames, and occasionally ends up spewing masses of words about it. Here’s a recent essay, unusually about a British piece of television, where he tears apart Red… [...]

By: simonkaye

simonkaye — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:09:08 +0000

Sorry, I know I’m coming late to this one, but…

I actually liked the latest Red Dwarf episodes. The absence of a laughter track was very strange indeed – I once saw a dubbed version of Friends minus the canned laughs, and it was unsettling. Perhaps they looked at a late edit and thought – we need to make this more adult, more of a drama. Like… a dramedy. Or some such rubbish.

But I loved the Blade Runner flourishes. The whole thing felt like exactly the end that the series needed, in fact. They couldn’t ever really get home. Nobody seriously wants or needs another full season (7 and 8 were pretty bad). This is a proper, totally-self referential ending.

So, as a bit of self-indulgent self-analysis by the writer, I don’t think these episodes were so bad.