TV: Red Dwarf Returns
by Lee on Apr.10, 2009, under TV & Film
It has been talked about for a long time now and tonight, Red Dwarf returned to our screens with a brand new episode being aired on Dave.
Three new episodes of Red Dwarf are airing this weekend
Personally, I’ve only really ‘got into’ Red Dwarf in the last couple of years – generally watching the repeats on Dave when not a lot else was on TV.
Perhaps it is a result of following bobbyllew on twitter, but I was looking forward to a brand new episode, but as many others seemed to be, I was left disappointed.
One of the first things that stood out was the use of some CGI, some of it just didn’t fit in at all, the skutters looked especially strange. The CGI is something people have been quite nervous about in the run up to this episode. A reasonable job of trying to keep it in the old style, seems to have been attempted but doesn’t quite achieve in my opinion
The missing laugh track also seemed to stand out and possibly made the episode less funny. It’s one of those things that I would normally expect not to miss, but maybe it’s because they used an audience track of people laughing rather than canned laughter on their earlier episodes. After watch an old episode straight afterwards, it has made it even more noticeable and reinforced my opinion that the lack of laugh track has detracted from the show.
Linked to this, I’m not sure if some style of humour were missing. The ‘bit crap’ made me laugh as did a few other bits, but I’m hoping this will improve in later episodes.
From a character point of view, perhaps I haven’t watched enough Red Dwarf, but I didn’t notice a huge amount of difference apart from a slight aging (with the exception of Kryten – but I think the make up helps this). The characters became immediately believable again though and didn’t seem liked they’d really been gone. I did miss the lack of Holly though and the humour brought from this character.
As an episode itself it seemed incredibly short and didn’t seem to get anywhere story wise – hence I’m struggling to make many more comments. As for the new woman involved – not convinced yet. I’m holding out hope that it will continue to improve in the next couple of episodes.
As I write, I’m watching an older episode on Dave – Gunmen of the Apocalypse and so far I’ve laughed more at that episode than I did throughout the entireity of the new one.
I’ll wait and see if things improve at 9pm tomorrow when the next episode airs.
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Update (11th April):
Robert LLewllyn has mentioned the viewing figures on his twitter feed:
April 11th, 2009 on 11:32 am
Post has been updated with viewing figures. They almost got a cable best.
I’m expecting a drop in viewing figures for tonight’s episode.
April 12th, 2009 on 12:04 am
Just watched episode 2 of the new 3 part series and was left very disappointed.
I laughed in a few more places, but these were largely at references that were created.
I was left completely underwhelmed by the storyline. Wasn’t impressed by the way it was going and just doesn’t fit into the style of story I was expecting to get from Red Dwarf.
I’ll probably watch the third one tomorrow to finish everything off, but I’m expecting to have a final feeling of less than impressed for the series as a whole.
April 12th, 2009 on 9:05 pm
Have now watched the third and final episode. Personally I thought it was the best of the three, but it doesn’t say much.
Although it explained the storyline, I have to say I wasn’t impressed and thought it was fairly poor. it really was a story which could have been fitted into 30 minutes if it was planned – though Dave wouldn’t have got all the adverts in they wanted.
I found it a bit more amusing than previous episodes, but they were more the ‘modern references’ such as in The Kabin on Coronation Street or the door bell.
I don’t think I’ll be rushing out and buying the DVD for these episodes, or even tuning in on Monday when Dave show all 3 episodes back to back (with adverts of similar length to the show). If they happened to be on when I was watching the TV though, I wouldn’t turn the TV off out of disgust.
My general opinion is that although not great or as good as older episodes, it was god awful – though it got close to it sometimes.
The behind the scenes show afterwards was good – fitted in with my general interest in things like that. It did nicely show where CGI was used etc.