Be Excellent To Each Other

So, there might be a new series of Red Dwarf tonight, on Dave. I'm almost certain there won't be, but you never know.

I saw a poster saying so, but it couldn't be true. The last series was in 1993 and they all looked so much older!

Seriously though. What happened to them?

They... got older?

A white hole?

I reckon it'll be super-brill.

It will be just as good as good as the other series.

Fucking wank.

Kryten will now be battery powered, spend his whole time talking about the amount of CO2 Starbug kicks out and only able to be in half the episode before he needs recharging...

HDR, by the looks.

Hopeless optimist that I am, I can't wait to give the boys from the dwarf another chance. The studio audience, the sets, all looks great. Fingers crossed anyway, even if it's shit I'll probably still be compelled to watch to the end...

There's a number of reviews of this floating around that are quietly positive.

I hold a slim hope that it will be return to form.

Slim.

You never know, but the Dave special was awful and I worry that Naylor just doesn't have comedy chops. He can write a good sci-fi yarn, but it's clear from the TV show and books that Grant inserted most of the jokes. Still, I'd love for this to work, not only because it's a series that didn't deserve to die but because it could also lead to Dave having more confidence regarding commissioning original series that are a bit more ambitious than a panel show. (Oh, who am I kidding? I'm just hoping Red Dwarf fucking rocks and then Dave on a whim continues Ideal.)

What happened twixt Grant and Naylor? Summary plz.

Oh my lords it so completely did. Series seven and eight were so bad they made me go bald and start ageing.

Fell out.

OK, I deserved that. York Notes rather than dust jacket version plz.

One wanted to continue with Dwarf, the other didn't. No huge DRHAMA as far as I'm aware

Yup. Grant had been bored for a while and I recall him thinking series six was a dip that he didn't want to turn into an irreversible dive. Naylor then spent a few years mostly forgetting Red Dwarf was a sit-com rather than a sci-fi, presumably.

Fuck! I knew there had to be a reason, I watched this as well!

/picks up phone

"Hello? Claims Direct?...."

I'm pretty sure I was sexy and immortal before watching them. So much is lost.

Ah... Girl look at that beard [x3]
Ah... I work out
Ah... Girl look at that beard [x3]
Ah... I work out

When I walk in GamesWorkshop (yeah), this is what I see (ok)
Everybody stops drybrushing and starts staring at me
I got passion in my pants and I ain't afraid to show it, show it, show it, show it

I'm sexy and immortal

The robot has aged.

I still maintain that Series 8 was excellent. Series 7 was, indeed, mostly clever-clever sci-fi with a couple of average jokes thrown in.
The Dave specials were mainly forgettable.

I wonder when this will make it over to maple syrup land.

A bit cringy at first, but a few lol moments!

will keep watching!

Malc

Brevik was funnier.

This is fucking shit.

"We hosed him down and gave him a hat"

Funniest bit yet

at least 5 laugh out loud moments, a few chuckles, and the odd smirk. Lots of stuff that didn't work, and the laughter seemed more like a track than live!

Malc

Kryten's eyes looked really saggy, you can tell Robert Llewellyn is older!

Pretty good, I thought. Not a patch on the original run, of course, but better than anything Series VIII had to offer at least. The first gag about the moose dragged on for far too long, but then paid off nicely later in the episode. Wasn't a huge fan of the beach ball reference, but it was generally well handled.

Slightly annoyed that they nerfed Howard though - it was pretty well established that Rimmer's brothers were successful.

Lister isn't funny any more.

Saving lives is a serious business, young man.
/

This is okay so far.

The time-traveling guy in the ad break who is trying to save the world from Dave in the future is my mate Henry from school.

Yoks to obscure US Civil War in-joke from Kern, there.

As for Red Dwarf, I'm not going to bother watching it. It's tired. And I hate the fans.

Red Dwarf is to sci-fi comedy what Last of the Summer Wine is to Alan Bennet.

Far more enjoyable than I thought it would be - more please!

The star field over the end credits was very pretty.
That wasn't bad at all.

Re: Grant and Naylor

Yeah one of them lost interest but still went on to write his own continuation of the story when he couldn't make a living elsewhere.

I sometimes think I get different programs beamed into my TV to other people.

Fuck! He's onto us again!

I thought the humour was quite light for an opening episode considering the obvious pressure on it to be a return to former glories. If they've got better stuff under their belt I'd have preferred they'd put their best foot forward.

The story wasn't that great either what with the reveal that the mechanoid had killed the other crew with very little foreshadowing.

Plus, I didn't understand the relevance of the green tube thing. There was a suggestion that they could zoom light years across the galaxy with it and that was probably what happened when Rimmer reinserted it but no one said anything after the black out to the effect that that was what had happened or why the Red Dwarf would have been towed along with it.

Unless I missed summats. Which wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

I believe the implication was that Howard's ship was zoomed across the galaxy to their ship, although that makes little sense either.

Howard zoomed to Rimmer, I figured.

I often think this when Dr Who is on.

I was a bit confuddled about where they are now. Are they still in deep space, millions of years from anything? If so, how could they receive a letter from Space Corps? Or order a Stirmaster?

Y'see, maybe I wasn't listening intently to the science. I thought the green rod pulled the ship places not visa versa. I'd watch the science speech again but I've deleted it now. Tch.

Why are people expecting a level of internal logic from Red Dwarf X that was never present before? It's no more consistent than the various versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy are. It's always been that way, so I see no need to berate the new series for more of the same.

Edit -- for example, the huge break in continuity between S1-2 and S3, explained via timey-wimey stuff: http://www.reviewsbygavrielle.com/dwarf3.shtml

Because it's a sit-com set in outer space.

A sit-com where the 'sit' is four misfits lost in space. Or a meringue?

a sit com where the company that made Kryten was able to send a replacement, where the electric company was able to track down lister to give him a bill.

If you want to be picky, the telesales thing was manned by driods, and they mentioned that a few times.

We've already seen that droids can last a very long time in the dwarf universe, so it's ok.

Malc

Both the Kryten Replacement and the leccy bill (in a mail pod) were explicitly stated to have been tracking Red Dwarf for a long time. The stirmaster was less annoying that the letter from Space Corps.

It just bothers me that if they're going to abandon the basic framework of a show that I have loved, they could at least handwave it quickly.

I thought it came from the space corp computer (internal mail)

Malc