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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Want to enjoy an older episode? Why not grab a DVD?

Update (11th April):
Robert LLewllyn has mentioned the viewing figures on his twitter feed:

I’ve been quite busy with work and organising different things,, which usually results in a backlog of TV programs to watch on iPlayer, however this really hasn’t happended. The only thing I’ve been watching of late is Qi, which isn’t too difficult to keep up with.

However, The Apprentice has started again – I’ll probably make a blog post on it a few weeks into the series. F1 also starts again on the BBC this weekend which I’m looking forward to.

Have I missed out on something I should be watching, or am I right in thinking that there really isn’t a lot on?

As such I probably shouldn’t be surprised that this happened. When an Evening of Wonders first aired, I must admit I missed the start (unfortunately this was due to revision for exams – it’s probably better that I was doing the revision). However, I decided to pop down  to the lounge to speak to someone, where they happened to be watching Derren Brown. I ended up down there watching it for the remainder of the program and catching up on the bit I missed at the start as soon as I could.

Derren Brown’s ‘An Evening of Wonders’ aired on 14th January on Channel 4. It was filmed at the Garrick Theatre in early June 2008 (the exact date can be found out as part of one of the acts).

The show (as with most) is split into two halves with the the first half being much lighter in my opinion. As you might expect, audience participation is used a lot throughout the show, of which, we are assured, none are stooges.

The first half includes him running his own version of 20 questions, with it getting more impressive as he guesses each item. He also carries out an act using someone not in the theatre, but through a mobile phone which once again leads you to – how did he do that? A member of the audience is also given the chance to win £5000 although it is more based on luck than judgement (on the contestants part)

The second half has two main parts to it. The first part features moving and floating tables with the help of the audience. The second part is a lot more impressive and involves answering questions which the audience have written and sealed in a black envelope. This later develops into the audience just thinking of questions and him answering them.

The finale involves Derren lowering a box which has been hung above the stage the whole time and revealing what predictions he made for the show before he started.

If you didn’t get a chance to watch the show, it’s definitely worth checking out. It’s available from the UK iTunes Store for only £1.89 which is a pretty good price! The show itself runs for 1 hour 16 minutes.

I was also inspired to go out and purchase Something Wicked This Way Comes on DVD which i watched as soon as it arrived. I may make a blog post about this show later on. I find it difficult to choose which of the two I prefer – Something Wicked This Way Comes has a much better ending in my opinion (it makes the show), but An Evening of Wonders is better as a whole.

Let me know what you thought of the show in the comments.