Red Dwarf by peacekeeper

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

Red Dwarf

POSTED BY: PEACEKEEPER
UPDATED: Thursday, April 23, 2009 13:40
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VIEWED: 2606
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Sunday, April 12, 2009 4:45 PM

Keeping order in every verse

Any fans of the classic UK sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf? Dave channel has just aired three brand new episodes. I loved the original 8 series of the show that finished in 1999. I was looking forward to the relaunch, but i was bitterly dosappointed.It just isnt up to scratch anymore.Anybody else see it?

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Sunday, April 12, 2009 7:42 PM

SIGMANUNKI

Not yet. But, I'm taping it and will watch it after I watch series 7 and 8 (never did get around to watching those DVDs).

But, I don't think that this is a relaunch. What I heard was that it was a special. Yes/no?

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Sunday, April 12, 2009 8:39 PM

CALHOUN

I've only seen the first episode so far and it definitely has lost something over the last nine years.. hopefully it will pick back up again.

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Sunday, April 12, 2009 8:46 PM

RALLEM

I am a fan of the series and own all of the episodes on vhs. I think the series while still funny lost some of its luster after Gunmen of the Apocolypse, when one of the writers either Grant or Naylor left the project, (I cannot remember which at this time) but I still look forward to seeing the three episodes you just brought up.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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Sunday, April 12, 2009 11:00 PM

CITIZEN

They're talking about it being set after season 10. I never knew there was a season 10.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 12:45 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by peacekeeper:
It just isnt up to scratch anymore.Anybody else see it?

Faint praise: I was expecting a lot worse.

Given the advance details and leaks:
(Spoiler shields in case you've been living under a rock for a month)

Select to view spoiler:

Crew return to Earth circa 2009, find they are characters in a TV show, visit Craig Charles on the set of Coronation Street.

I was just expecting a collection of cast/crew interviews and clips "linked" with a minimum of new materials (the usual score when an old show comes back for a "one off special").

However, it wasn't done like that, and the end result did at least feel like a "proper" story (albeit self-referential, but RD is sufficiently surreal to pull that off).

My main criticisms: (a) too much reliance on parodying one particular cult movie (...and I thought the show was inspired by "Dark Star" not the one they sent up) while missing lots of opportunities to parody Star Trek 4. (b) re-cycling a plot device used umpteen times in the original show and (c) ultimately failing to make me wet myself laughing.

Oh, plus, the virtual sets for the good ship Red Dwarf were impressive but far too clean. Even a mile long spaceship would look like a complete smegheap if Dave Lister had been living in it for 9 years.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 12:49 AM

LWAVES

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
They're talking about it being set after season 10. I never knew there was a season 10.

I think that is kind of meant to be an in-joke.
We got to actually see 8 seasons but in the 9 years gap they played out seasons 9+10.
You never know maybe if it gets picked up for a proper new series they'll go back in time and we'll get seasons 9+10. Sort of thing I can imagine them doing just to twist our minds around.

As for the show itself I haven't seen part 3 yet but I am also disappointed. It was losing it's way by the last season anyway, but was still great.
I think there are some funny bits in the show but they just don't seem to come out to you.
Which draws me to what I think is the problem (and I can't believe I'm actually gonna say this) but I think the show really needs a laughter track. You know the faked 'canned' laughter or even a recorded audience whilst they watch the show.
I saw an interview with Craig Charles and he said that comedy had changed in the 9 years they were off air as things like The Office had come along and they had to change to go with the times. He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.
Red Dwarf in my opinion needs it, it just isn't the same type of show as others to get away without it.

Oh well, at least I was expecting bad but hoping for good. (I do want Carbug 1 though

).

"I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it it might cheer me up to watch."

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Monday, April 13, 2009 12:53 AM

CITIZEN

I think bringing back the crew in season 8 was a little to close to wind surfing over killer fish.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 12:55 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
while missing lots of opportunities to parody Star Trek 4. (b) re-cycling a plot device used umpteen times in the original show and

Maybe the recycling thing was a parody of Star Trek 4.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 1:26 AM

RALLEM

I would like to see what happened to the crew after Arnie kicked the Reaper in the nads.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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Monday, April 13, 2009 1:59 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

That misses the point: Old-style sitcoms were, traditionally, fairly stage-bound using a few standing sets (which looked like sets). The whole genre is something of a stylistic hold-out to the good old days when TV cameras were the size of the house, there was no video tape and all you could basically do was go into a theatre and point a couple of cameras at the stage while the actors did their stuff.

They could (and did) film large parts of such shows in front of a genuine live audience, and since they are produced and directed in the style of stage plays, having the laugh track doesn't feel incongruous.

Shows like The Office have a totally different style - The Office isn't meant to be a stage play, its a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary - reality TV with the knob turned up to 11. Its "meant" to be real people making idiots of themselves in a real office with a hidden camera. A laugh track doesn't fit.

In this case of Red Dwarf, episode 1 was almost entirely green-screen, and episodes 2 and 3 were mostly "on location" (OK, so one of the locations was a TV set) so the only option would have been to use canned laughter - which, frankly, is a bit crap.

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Monday, April 13, 2009 1:59 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:38 AM

LWAVES

Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

That misses the point: Old-style sitcoms were, traditionally, fairly stage-bound using a few standing sets (which looked like sets). The whole genre is something of a stylistic hold-out to the good old days when TV cameras were the size of the house, there was no video tape and all you could basically do was go into a theatre and point a couple of cameras at the stage while the actors did their stuff.

They could (and did) film large parts of such shows in front of a genuine live audience, and since they are produced and directed in the style of stage plays, having the laugh track doesn't feel incongruous.

Shows like The Office have a totally different style - The Office isn't meant to be a stage play, its a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary - reality TV with the knob turned up to 11. Its "meant" to be real people making idiots of themselves in a real office with a hidden camera. A laugh track doesn't fit.

In this case of Red Dwarf, episode 1 was almost entirely green-screen, and episodes 2 and 3 were mostly "on location" (OK, so one of the locations was a TV set) so the only option would have been to use canned laughter - which, frankly, is a bit crap.

You actually talk about areas that I probably should have made clearer in my post.

Red Dwarf definitely isn't The Office, which is why they shouldn't have tried to emulate it (or other modern comedies). Bear in mind that Craig Charles made the orginal comparison - not me.

Part of Red Dwarf's charm was the cheap sets, repeating locations (in the same way old school Doctor Who did).
Now obviously time has passed and I'm sure with their new budget they could have built better sets, added CG later where needed but still kept Red Dwarf the way it was.

IMO they should have shot it the same way as they did back then - with a live audience.
Or at least showed the finished shows to an audience and record that laughter.

I gather that even live recorded laughter isn't totally genuine coz they add canned laughter on top to highlight jokes that don't work straight away or because the audience has heard it so many times through re-takes that it loses it's funnyness. Saw this on a Friends documentary.

But I guess we'll never know.

"I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it it might cheer me up to watch."

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:27 PM

TRAVELER

Did they bring back the same cast?

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:39 PM

MSA

Pout I hate being in the US sometimes.. though I'm sad to think a new series of Red Dwarf was sucky.. I've loved all the other series so much

To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
--Francois Mauriac
It's fuzzy-minded liberal thinking like that that gets you eaten.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:45 PM

PEACEKEEPER

Keeping order in every verse

Quote:
Originally posted by traveler:
Did they bring back the same cast?

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

They did yes.Lister,Kryten,Cat,Rimmer and Kachanski. Holly was missing though. He was offline due to Lister leaving the bath running for nine years and it leaking thru onto the mainframe.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:56 PM

TRAVELER

MSA:

I am sure in a few years it will be syndicated here.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:43 PM

NEEDY

The road to Hel is paved with good intentions

Well I know I'm going to go against everyone else here (hardly the 1st time) but I quite enjoyed it.
I think it might have worked better as 1 whole episode, or split into just becasue the 1st episode is really jsut set up, and like others, I felt it jsut wasn't funny.

I thought it really got going in the second though. I didn't know that the plot involved them discovering they were fictional characters so I thought it was a stroke of genius. I loved that we got to see them interact with normal people (if sci-fi geeks like ourselves can be classed as normal

) and even with the actor Craig Charles

Yes things got silly when they went to meet their maker (loved the return of the Rimmer munchkins) but that was a part of the show's charm. And the true explanation for events meant we got to have our cake and eat it too.

I got the feeling that the special was not just a one-off but a testing ground to see whether there was an audience still out there for it, and whether it would be worth continuing.
Then again I could be dead wrong.
Still, I wouldn't mind seeing the crew back in action again.

(Ps, I found the none-laughter track off-putting at first but soon got used to it. Series 7 was filmed without an audience present too but i believe they screened it before an audience after n recorded the laughter)

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 9:34 AM

CORNCOBB

I liked it a lot too. It was great to have it back. I agree it wasn't as high on laughs as many of the older episodes, but it was funny and I wasn't watching just for the laughs anyway. I've never felt that Red Dwarf was a straightforward comedy. I just wanted to see the boyz from the dwarf off on another wacky adventure, and in this sense it was perfect: the characters were spot on, the Lister/kochanski plot was emotionally effective for the first time since the first couple of seasons, and the story hinged on some neat ideas.

The Dwarf episodes that get remembered as classics are usually the ones with the best ideas or best character stuff rather than the funniest eps. I think Craig Charles said that once, might have been one of the other stars, but it's true regardless.

Thanks for shows, Dave. Keep 'em coming

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:40 PM

RALLEM

I will buy it when it comes to America.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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