General Red Dwarf - Now Discussing Series XI

Just a note for those who get the Dave channel (Sky 111, Virgin 128, Freeview 19) - the Director's Cut of Back to Earth will be premiering there July 30 (Saturday) at 10pm. There is a full-page ad for it in the new issue of SFX Magazine.

 

My husband is so excited for it, he wants to jump the pond for it!

 

Is this the lame special they did where the gang end up in Coronation Street? It will need a lot of directorial improvement to be anything like as good as the show was in its prime. If it does improve, I will have more optimism that the forthcoming series will actually be worth watching.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it. Maybe the Director's Cut will add some more humour.

 

Oh good, it needed some humour in it.

 

it needed a laugh track

 

It needed to never happen.

The show will never recapture it's peak. Rob Grant isn't interested, the cast are too old (they have no spark), classic Dwarf was of it's time, the budget isn't there and what money they do get goes in the wrong places...

 

I enjoyed Back to Earth more than the last two proper seasons. That's not saying much though.

 

The last Red Dwarf episode of merit was Out of Time. Much in the same way I like to think Indy rode into that sunset never to return, I like to think Arnold Rimmer didn't get his shot away in time.

 

Time note for this - although the ad said 10pm both the TV listings in today's Mail and the Sky program guide say that it starts at 9pm. Back to Earth is from 9pm-10:35 PM. It's followed by the Smeg Ups from 10:35-11:10 pm and then a 'Making of Back to Earth' from 11:10 pm-11:45 pm. The sequence then repeats from 11:45 pm.

 

It was OK, nothing particularly funny about it just like the last time.

 

I taped the whole sequence. Haven't watched it yet as it was too nice today to be in watching TV.

 

Agreed.

I missed the Director's Cut, but watched the original last year (or whenever it was first on?) and really missed the canned laughter. Weird, as usually I hate recycled laughs, but Back to Earth just felt... missing something without it.

 

"canned laughter" is not the right phrase. That refers to fake laughter put in after a recording behind closed doors. Red Dwarf had a live audience, and that works. As the actors feed off that and up their game. The laughs in seasons 1-6 are genuine and spontaneous.

 

Maybe they had an audience, but nobody laughed

 

So this week's local Informer (newspaper) just came, and there's a section called '5 minutes with'. This week's interviewee is Craig Charles. In the interview he mentions taking 3 months off from Corrie starting in November to film a new series of Red Dwarf. Part of the interview addresses his fellow actors:

I'm 47 now but at least I haven't gone grey like the rest of them. Kryten's going to be a much wider robot than he used to be, and Cat wears a wig so you can't see his grey hair, and Rimmer, he'll need a touch-up. I like the idea of grumpy old men in space - I don't think it's been done before.

 

Maybe it hasn't been done, that doesn't mean it should be.

 

I'm not so sure it's the concept of going back to them as 'grumpy old men in space' that's the problem... the problem is that Doug Naylor isn't very good as a writer by himself.

The show doesn't work without Grant Naylor.

 

Even with the two of them, it's past its time now. There is no guarantee it will still be funny with the same writers, no show can sustain high quality forever. Surely the last two series of the show indicated that it was no longer what it was, why continue with it?

 

I'm not saying I want it to continue, merely that without the same conditions - i.e. the pair of them - it's not a comparison we can draw any conclusions from.

 

The new series of Red Dwarf will be filmed in front of a live Audience I think that's great news it makes the show a lot better.

 

What if they don't laugh? Then it might backfire on them

 

The audience managed to laugh at My Family for the past 10 years, and sounded like they were rolling in the eiles at the slightest sneeze in Life of Reily. And I think BTE was much better than that pile of putrid codswallop. Not that that's much praise.

I think a live audience might help give the oomph that BTE and the last couple of seasons lacked. I think the cast will bounce off of a live audience better. At the very least the pauses between gags won't feel so awkward with some genuine laughter filling in.

 

As much as I hate to say this, now begins the process of trying to work out how to get hold of tickets for the recordings.

 

Have they said where the filming would be? I know past series have been at Shepperton and that's not far from me. I tried to get tickets one year but wasn't successful.