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RED DWARF |
SEASON 7 SEASON 8
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 SERIES Series 1 & 2 Series 3 & 4 Series 5 & 6 Back To Earth Series 10 OTHER SCI FI COMEDIES Quark Clone Supernova No Heroics Hyperdrive 
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TIKKA TO RIDEAfter very quickly explaining why nobody's dead after the cliffhanger ending of series 6, Lister has a shock when Kryten tells him that all the supplies of curry and lager have been destroyed. In a desperate attempt to order 500 vindaloos in the past, the crew time travel, but get it wrong and end up knocking a gunman out of window in a certain book depository in Dallas on a rather important day. The result is that the future is disrupted and the crew stranded in a past they don't recognise. The first episodes of new series of RED DWARF have been a mixed bunch, but this brings back the show in style. True, one half of the writing team (Rob Grant) has gone, but if this is the level the show is going to maintain then we can banish the fears that prospect raised. A hilarious time paradox story in which the crew end up saving JFK only to find the world a mess as a result. Their solution? Make JFK the second gunman on the grassy knoll to kill himself. It will keep the conspiracy nuts confused forever is Lister's analysis. Ours - comic genius. TopSTOKE ME A CLIPPERAce Rimmer returns to Starbug, but this time mortally wounded and with a proposal for Rimmer that nobody can quite believe. All of the Rimmers in all of the dimensions take a turn at being Ace, until they meet a sticky end. Now it's Arnie's turn to take up the mantle. Will his natural cowardice break the chain of heroism, or has he grown enough to give it a go? The news that Chris Barrie was to leave the show at the same time as Rob Grant was a bombshell of critical nature to the prospects of the show, but he goes out on a high. Ace Rimmer is a fantastic character and this episode gives him a depth and pathos that could hardly have been guessed it. His extended pre-credits sequence is just laugh out loud funny and if you don't want to applaud it, then there's something wrong with your dimension. The main plot of Rimmer having to take over the mantle owes a lot to other sources, but it has more than enough laughs and perhaps a little more depth and subtlety than we've been used to in the past. Goodbye Ace, we'll miss you - I'm not sure that we can say the same for Rimmer. TopOUROBOROSTwo realities converge after a rip in the fabric of space swallows Starbug. There, the remaining crew find their other selves plus one - Christine Kochanski. When Lister's gelf wife shows up in a heavily armed battleship, the rift is broken with Kochanski in this reality, much to Kryten's dismay. There is also much to be learned about Lister's origins. Pathos seems to be the order of the day for this series. The knockabout stuff of the early parts of the episode with Lister's appearance as he finally meets up with Kochanski again and Kryten's reaction to the presence of the woman on board gives way to some deep meaning as Lister finally finds out who his parents are. It's too early to tell whether the new writing team and the new on-screen crew are going to gel, but the signs are all to the good. TopDUCT SOUPKochanski is having a really tough time adjusting to her new life aboard Starbug. Not least of the problems is the fact that the pipes can't even make strange noises in a non-random fashion. Lister organises that she should be able to take a bath, but the generators fail and the quartet are forced to crawl through miles of ventilation ducting to try and restart them. Along the way, they learn a bit more about each other than they might have asked for. Though it starts off promisingly enough, this episode of RED DWARF travels a route dangerously close to being more of a character drama than a comedy. The set up is an excuse to get everyone into a situation where they are likely to bare their souls and tell more than they normally would. This must surely be one of the actors' favourites, but will it be the audience's. If it wasn't for the cat's shallowness and Kryten's overreaction to Kochanski's presence, there might not be any comedy at all. TopBLUELister's having almost as bad a time as Kochanski. Things have gotten almost so bad that he misses Rimmer. When they all nearly die in a comet's tail and the time comes to jettison all the things that remind him of their ex-shipmate, Lister can't do it. Kryten comes up with a cunning plan. Duct Soup had us worried, but this episode brings everything that we love about RED DWARF right back to the fore. Whilst there is no plot other than Lister's feeling down and nostalgic, it produces two of the greatest moments that the series has ever conjured up. The first is the return of the new Ace Rimmer from his dimension-hopping, a pinnacle of the unexpectedly comic. The second is the trip through Kryen's Rimmer Experience, a borrowed idea from earlier times, but climaxing with a version of It's A Small World that is pure joy. TopBEYOND A JOKEIt's the anniversary of the day that Red Dwarf picked up Kryten from the Nova 5 and he has prepared a special dinner. Kochanski, however, is taking everyone into a virtual reality version of Pride and Prejudice. Following a tank attack and a misunderstanding about ketchup, all of Kryten's heads explode. The search for new ones brings the crew into conflict with a killer simulant and Kryten learns about his own origins, something that drove another mechanoid to drink. There is so much story in this episode that there is almost no time for character. Kryten has become the driving force of the comedy and it is his overreaction to Lister's desire for ketchup that is the comic highlight of this episode (not to mention the special effects moment as well). The explosive end of their trip to Jane Austenworld is also pretty funny. Once the simulant gets involved, things go downhill as the story pace races ahead and the whole of Kryten's origin story is thrown away where it could have been much funnier. The other mechanoid, Able, is also barely examined in any detail, comic or otherwise. Great moments, but not RED DWARF at its best. TopEPIDEMELife signs on a remote ice planet lead the crew of Starbug to an ex-member of Red Dwarf's crew. When she thaws out, it turns out that she is dead, but animated by the intelligent, but deadly virus, Epideme, which she passes to Lister is a disgusting snogfest. The others come up with a plan to get rid of the disease by amputating his arm. All they have to do is keep the virus talking. It's a great idea to have a talking virus and trying to reason with it to stop it from killing you (although shades of DARK STAR's talking bomb), but the opportunity isn't used to its fullest. The logic arguments could have been played out a bit longer and a bit more in depth. That aside, there's plenty of fun to be had, not least with the cutting off of someone's arm - not usually the source of good comedy. TopNANARCHYLister is coming to terms with the lack of his right arm when they discover a planetoid that appears to be made up of bits of Red Dwarf. It becomes clear that the ship was stolen by nanobots, microscopic robots that can change things at the molecular level. This means that they can rebuild Red Dwarf, and Dave Lister. Unfortunately, things don't quite go to plan. End of the series and all the loose ends are wrapped up. This isn't the funniest of episodes, but that's probably because the plot had to be wrapped up neatly and set up for the next series. That said, there are still enough jokes to go around, and the mystery of who stole Red Dwarf, why, and their current location is priceless. TopBACK IN THE RED-PART 1Starbug enters the newly re-formed Red Dwarf, but finds that it is hopelessly out of scale. It gets sucked into a ventilation duct and has a close encounter with a rat before everyone realises that either they're getting bigger, or Red Dwarf is getting smaller. And that isn't the only surprise. Series Eight and what can the show come up with that's new and surprising? Quite a lot as it turns out. The early part of the show is much as series 7 was, but then we find that not only have the nanobots rebuilt the ship, but they've rebuilt the original crew as well. This means that Chris Barrie is back as Rimmer and there are other characters to play with. The options are suitably widened. Welcome back in the Red. TopBACK IN THE RED-PART 2On trial for the crimes of stealing and destroying a Starbug, the plan for Lister and co to escape and prove their innocence begins to go awry. The freshly remade Rimmer has all the faults of the old, but now has access to ship's confidential files and the luck and sexual magnetism viruses. This makes his dinner with the Captain a date to remember. He also finds out that he is now implicated with the others. Any fears about the new season have been washed away by one of the very funniest episodes that the show has managed to produce thus far. Not only do we get Rimmer beating his genitals into submission with a hammer, but we get the appearance of the the Dibley family and the world's longest salute. In a word - classic. TopBACK IN THE RED-PART 3The final phase of the escape plan goes perfectly as the Cat proves he can make a shuttle dance and everyone realises that they are in a virtual reality situation brought on by drugs. It also becomes clear that Rimmer is willing to sacrifice them all to save himself. Fortunately, Lister has some of the sexual magnetism virus with which to wreak a terrible revenge. A step down from last week, but very, very funny nonetheless. The stand out moment has to be Danny John-Jules finally managing to get his dancing shoes on in a duet with a shuttle and Kochanski falling under the spell of Rimmer's sex virus. Chloe Annett sure looks fine in a uniform. TopCASSANDRALister signs all of the Starbug crew up for the Canaries, thinking them to be a singing group. It turns out that the Canaries are the sacrificial lambs sent into the worst situations and one has just come up. A ship is lying on the floor of an ocean moon and there is no-one left alive. What can have destroyed the crew? What is the secret of the computer in charge and what could possibly make Kochanski sleep with Rimmer? Another top episode in which the characters are faced with unpalatable truths about their future. Rimmer is going to die, but Kochanski is going to sleep with him first. Watching the chain of events that lead inexorably towards this is great fun and full of brilliant one liners the equal of RED DWARF at its best. It's all topped off with a fine performance from Geraldine McEwan as Cassandra, the fortune-telling computer. TopKRYTIE TVKryten is assigned to the women's wing due to his lack of certain parts and is forced to endure shower time. When the boys hear about this, Kryten gets a forced reprogramme, turning him into a ratings crazed media mogul, using his optic centres to transmit the women in the showers live onto the men's viewing screen. When the women find out, they wipe the reprogramme and he returns to the men's dorm with bad news for Lister. With a gleeful disregard for all things politically correct, RED DWARF produces yet another hilarious episode. There are more brilliant lines than any of the other series 8 episodes and some real surprises in the storyline as well. As for Kochanski in the nude, not on this show. TopPETE-PART 1Due to their ability to get themselves into trouble, Lister and Rimmer get the gang involved in a basketball game with the guards and resort to spiking the opposition's drinks. This gets them onto spud duty, which they also mess up. Fortunately, the others find a device that can manipulate time. The first thing that they do is freeze the rest of the crew. The second thing they do is de-evolve a small bird into a big dinosaur. Lack of inventiveness certainly hasn't been a problem for this series. Bringing back the rest of the crew has proved to be an inspired move and led to inspired situations in which the characters can shine. The whole show has been given a new lease of life, much like the dinosaur. TopPETE-PART 2When the newly de-evolved sparrow (now a T Rex) swallows the time wand, the team whip up a cow vindaloo. The rest of the crew get unfrozen just in time to catch the full effects of curry on a dinosaur's digestive tract. The canaries are then given the job of getting rid of the dino. It looks like this is a story where the image came before the story. 'Wouldn't it be great to have a dinosaur on the show?' Trouble is, once you've got it there, what do you do with it? The answer is put it off screen and ignore it for the rest of the show. That said, the scene where the Captain explains the effects of curry on dino digestion is really funny. TopONLY THE GOODThe gang have got probation, but they pretty soon screw it all up. On top of all that, a metal-dissolving virus has come on board and is destroying the ship. The crew abandon ship, leaving the gang to die, but they create a portal to a mirror universe. Rimmer gets stuck on both sides, ending up on the self-destructing ship and literally kneeing death in the balls. Well, narratively-speaking, this is a mess. There's a ship-destroying virus, a gorgeous visitor who may, or may not have something to do with it, mirror universes and a homicidal vending machine. It makes for some funny sequences, but there really isn't a story here and the show deserved to go out on better. Top |
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