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RED DWARF |
SEASON 3 SEASON 4 
Dave Lister - Craig Charles Arnold Rimmer - Chris Barrie Cat - Danny John-Jules Kryten - Robert Llewellyn Holly (1,2,7 & 8) - Norman Lovett Holly (3,4 & 5) - Hattie Hayridge Kristine Kochanski (7 & 8) - Chloe Annett 
OTHER RED DWARF SEASONS Series 1 & 2 Series 5 & 6 Series 7 & 8 Back To Earth Series 10 OTHER SCI FI COMEDIES Quark Clone Supernova No Heroics Hyperdrive 
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BACKWARDSThe crew of the mining ship RED DWARF return and there have been some changes. Kryten is back, but looks and sounds a lot different (played by Robert Llewellyn), Holly has reconfigured into the face of Hilly (Hattie Hayridge) and there is even more money for special effects. In this first episode, Kryten takes his driving test in one of the ship's starbugs only to get sucked into a time hole with Rimmer. They find themselves back on Earth, but an Earth where everything runs backwards. They can only wait until Lister and the cat come for them. Whilst it's great to see them back, it's to be hoped that this episode is a sign of things not to come. BACKWARDS is a one joke hal hour. There are only so many ways to make film running backwards funny and this uses them all up within a few minutes. We are then forced to sit through the rest of the episode hoping that something else, anything else, will happen. It doesn't. Welcome back RED DWARF, please get better. TopMAROONEDIn order to avoid being compacted to matchbox size by 5 rogue black holes, the crew take to the starbugs. Lister and Rimmer are hit by an asteroid and crash onto an ice planet where they are forced to survive, two men alone in a pod with only a few stale crisps to eat and Rimmer's books for heat. Thank goodness. This is RED DWARF doing what it does well, character comedy. Lister and Rimmer are together alone and share stupid conversations and great one liners. The jokes are superb and the interplay between Craig Charles and Chris Barrie is priceless. Fantastic TopPOLYMORPHA pod lies in space, transmitting a signal that it should never be opened because it contains a terror of gargantuan proportions. Unfortunately, it's been holed and whatever was inside is now aboard RED DWARF. It turns out to be a creature that feeds on negative emotions and can turn into anything at all. Soon, Lister has lost his guilt, the Cat has no vanity, Kryten is without guilt and Rimmer is no longer angry. What a fantastic return to form! After the last episode's interpersonal play, we now get a science fiction gimmick turned on its head. Alien shapeshifters aren't anything new, but one that turns into Lister's underwear? In the hands of writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor this is one convention that completely gets turned on its head. True, the creature effects are pretty crappy, but that's all part of the charm.There's also a ton of really fun character comedy as well. The crew without their defining flaws are wonderful and the scene where Rimmer leads a tactical meeting whilst Kryten insults everyone and Lister want to blow himself up with a nuke is an absolute joy. The bad smell that was Backwards has been washed clean. TopBODYSWAPIn an attempt to stop the ship's autodestruct from going off, Kryten swaps Lister's mind for that of one of the dead officers. Rimmer offers to also swap minds with Lister so that he can get Dave's body back into some kind of shape. When he tastes food for the first time in over three million years, however, all good deeds go out the window. Can Lister reclaim his body before his starts to look like Jabba the Hutt? Back to the straight character comedy again as Craig Charles and Chris Barrie get to imitate each other. There are plenty of great lines and a lot of fun to be had, but it is a little bit of a one joke episode. Still, it's way better than most British sitcoms at their best, so we're not complaining. TopTIMESLIDESKryten's developing fluid has mutated and can now produce photographs that move. What's more, the crew can enter into the photos, but not move outside the frame. Lister uses this device to go back in time to meet himself in a pub where his band was playing and advises himself to invent the tension sheet (bubblewrap painted red) and thus become a multibillionaire and avoid his fate on RED DWARF. Left all alone as a result, Rimmer sets out to change the past to his own advantage. Time travel and the paradoxes that it creates are explored here, but not in any great depth. This is comedy after all and it is the comedy that prevails. Lister as a rich man has the same vulgar tastes, but more money with which to indulge them. Seeing him as a young man obsessed with crypto-fascists is also really funny. Not a classic episode but enough to be going on with. TopTHE LAST DAYA pod arrives with a message announcing that Kryten has passed his expiry date and has 24 hours before he will shut down and his replacement arrive. He is initially calm about the whole thing, accepting that he will go to silicon heaven, but one wild night with the boys is enough to change his religious beliefs and make him want to stand up to his replacement, who happens to be a mad, and indestructible, pschotic killing machine. What a way to end the series. This is one of the funniest episodes yet produced. The interplay between the principals is fantastic and it touches on some deep stuff about religion death along the way. Admittedly, it also touches on Marilyn Monroe sex robots as well. Rimmer's story about his french kiss is absolutely priceless. If there was any doubt that this show could stand up to a fourth series then this episode shatters it into a million little pieces and flushes them out of the airlock before flying straight into an asteroid. Bring it on. TopCAMILLEFollowing the final episode of series 3, this was bound to be a disappointment, but it is anything but that. This is the best episode yet. The crew pick up a survivor of a crashed ship that turns out to be a beautiful android, a lovely hologram, a gorgeous woman and a delightful catgirl. She turns out to be a gelf (genetically engineered life form) that morphs into the ideal partner of whomever is there. She has a special bond with Kryten, one that transcends her real shape (amorphous blob), but when her blobfriend turns up for her, the stage is set for a tearful goodbye. If you're going to rip off something, then rip off the best. This whole plot is used simply to set up the best spoof of "Casablanca" that there ever was. When Kryten says goodbye, I nearly cried with laughter and his final parting line 'We'll always have..." is one of the best ever. I was still laughing an hour after it finished. TopDNAAn alien pod floating in space contains a machine capable of rewriting dna, effectively allowing the crew to become anything they wish. Lister ends up as a chicken and a hamster before an incident with a vindaloo curry ends requires him to become a superman (or at least half a one). Kryten, meanwhile finds out what it's like to be human and is faced with the great mysteries of the human spirit, such as why his nipples no longer pick up Jazz FM. There is more money about in RED DWARF and the writers are making the most of it. The vindaloo monster is great and the mode of its destruction is pure RED DWARF genius. Kryten's examination of the problems of being human is hilarious. Fantastic. TopJUSTICELister is suffering the grossest of space diseases whilst an alien pod contains either a beautiful woman or a homicidal killer android. The only way to find out is to head to a penal colony where the computer in charge reads their minds and charges Rimmer with manslaughter. Kryten takes up the role of the advocate, using Rimmer's stupidity as a defence. WHITE HOLEA plan to make Holly a genius again goes horribly wrong and leaves the ship drifting out of control towards a white hole (the place where all the time that is sucked out through black holes is put back). Time takes on an erratic nature and the only solution is use galactic physics to plunge a planet into the hole. The question whether to trust the newly supersmart Holly or Lister's dodgy pool skills to carry out the plan. The first hiccup of this fourth series is still a very funny show. The reintroduction of the toaster from the first series in the opening scenes is delightful. The rest of the plot doesn't quite match up and the final sequence with Lister taking the all-important pool shot fails to impress. There is still plenty of great dialogue and it just shows how far this series has come that an episode with this many laughs in it is something of a disappointment. TopDIMENSION JUMPThe theory goes that there are an infinite number of universes existing in parallel with each other. Every decision made creates a new universe playing out all possible scenarios. In one of these universes lives a guy called Ace, a hero so great that everyone falls in love with him, man or woman. Everyone who knows him is his friend and everyone he touches is the better for it. His surname is Rimmer(?) This is what happens when he comes into the universe of RED DWARF and meets his counterpart. What if Rimmer were a hero. That's the idea that is played out here to perfection. It's a brilliant concept and the absolute most is made of it. Chris Barrie has a whale of a time playing both the Rimmer we know and hate and the hero with the catchphrase 'Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast'. Actually a rumination on cause and effect, this is one of the funniest episodes yet. TopMELTDOWNKryten finds a matter transmitter that transports the crew to the nearest inhabitable planet. This is Waxworld, peopled by wax recreations of famous heroes and villains locked in a perpetual war. The good guys (Elvis, Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe) are about to lose the battle, but now they have a new general - Arnold Rimmer. Series four bows out more with a whimper than a bang. This is a one joke episode that relies on not very convincing impersonators. The gags are weaker than usual and coming only a week after Dimension Jump seems even poorer by comparison. At least it's no Backwards Top |
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