The SmarK DVD Rant for Red Dwarf: Series Three
“It’s my duty. My duty as a complete and utter bastard!”
– Arnold J. Rimmer.
“Is this the human value you call friendship?”
“Don’t give me that Star Trek crap. It’s too early in the morning.”
– Kryten and Lister do some bonding during a hangover.
– Red Dwarf is kind of a toughie for casual and newer viewers to wrap their heads around, as is the case for most British comedy in general. In fact, if you live in North America, unless you’re a hardcore Trek geek who watches PBS, you’ve probably never even seen it before. Which is kind of a shame, because it’s a viciously funny parody of sci-fi clichés in general and appeals to exactly the sort of people who make fun of sci-fi.
So for the uninitiated, here’s a quick rundown:
Red Dwarf ran on BBC from 1988 until 1999, which seems like an extraordinarily long run until you consider that British sitcoms only have a season of 6-8 episodes. In Red Dwarf’s case, they have 6-episode seasons, but the upside is that there’s absolutely no filler to be found. Plus they took a 4-year break in the mid-90s.
The basic premise is that a giant mining ship in the undetermined future suffers a cataclysmic accident, leaving everyone on board dead except for slob janitor Dave Lister, who was locked in stasis at the time and thus survives as Holly, the ship’s computer, spends 3 million years waiting for the radiation to clear up enough to let him out again. During that time, the ship’s cat has evolved into a new lifeform (and a highly fashionable one at that) and the computer itself has gone quite bonkers. To keep Lister company, Holly creates a holographic representation of his bunkmate, the uptight git Arnold Rimmer (distinguished by the “H” on his forehead) and they’re off from there. The show proceeds to send up Star Trek’s conventions and clichés frequently as they try to find Earth again, along with anything else that gets in the way of the wit of writers Doug Naylor and Rob Grant.
The Film
Okay, you have to understand the kind of crazy devotion that Red Dwarf geeks have for this show they make Trekkies look normal by comparison at times. So when the third season featured actual (gasp) MONEY being spent on the show and a real set designer being brought in to make the show look more sci-fi, it was like Bob Dylan going electric or something. So opinions on this season tend to vary a bit, with some feeling that only the first two are the “real” Red Dwarf, while others (like myself) consider this the start of the truly brilliant run of the show, with Grant & Naylor being able to express what they wanted to do without having sets that fall apart and are all one color. There were a few other changes for the core cast, as well.
– Dave Lister switched from Hawaiian shirts to leather jackets and suede.
– Rimmer got a shiny new green uniform and a new “H”.
– Norman Lovett left the show and was replaced as Holly by Hattie Heyridge, which was written into the show easily, since Holly was already crazy and was likely to do something like switching gender at any moment.
– Kryten, the robot butler who had a small part in the second season, joined the cast full-time, with Robert Llewellyn taking over the role from David Ross and getting new makeup.
And with all that out of the way, these were the episodes
– “Backwards”. One of the most amazingly high-concept comedy ideas ever put on screen sees Stephen Hawking’s “Big Crunch” theory from “A Brief History of Time” turned into a sitcom episode. This is what you’re getting into with this show, kids. The Big Crunch essentially stated that when the universe comes to its end, it will start shrinking, resulting in time running backwards for everyone in the universe. The setup for this one sees Rimmer giving Kryten a driving exam in the Starbug shuttlecraft, but they run into a “time hole” and wind up on Earth except it’s all going backwards, so they gamely set out for nodnoL and make their fortunes as the Sensational Reverse Brothers. Lister and Cat stumble on the same time hole and follow them to htraE, and lots of weirdly provocative discussions about the advantages of a backwards world result (such as Hitler being a humanitarian who liberates France and then buggers off to Austria on this world) as well as Lister getting into a reverse bar-fight (which is more accurately a bar tidy-up) and thus curing the broken ribs that had been bugging him all day. This episode is best remembered for two truly transcendent moments of comic genius, however: At the beginning of the episode, Cat and Lister are watching the Flintstones and discuss the sex appeal of Wilma (“You know she’d never leave Fred”), and at the end, Cat discovers that going to the bushes to do your business has an entirely different meaning in a backwards-world. One of the funniest and most intelligently-written episodes of the show ever kicks off the season in grand fashion (trust me, you REALLY need to be geeky to actually follow the logic of some of the stuff going on), although if Back to the Future leaves you confused, this one will have you questioning your own existence by the end of the bar fight scene.
– “Marooned”. This one is back to the basic dynamic that made the show so great to begin with, as the ship gets hit with five black holes at once (Holly’s sarcastic explanations about how she missed five black holes is awesome stuff) and Rimmer and Lister are forced to abandon ship on the Starbug, only to get hit with a meteor and crash on an ice planet. With no food, except for dog food and instant noodles, and Lister HATES instant noodles. So what we get is a whole show of Lister and Rimmer, who routinely engage in the verbal equivalent of Ali v. Frazier on the ship, stuck together in a confined space for who knows how long AND THERE’S NO BOOZE LEFT! This leads them to discuss their first times (when Lister claims to have lost it at 12 on a golf course, Rimmer is mortified that he couldn’t have been a member), and Rimmer discusses his lousy childhood while Lister is forced to eat the dog food, and they generally drive each other crazy until rescued by Red Dwarf again. For those who appreciate the pure genius of Chris Barrie, this is the episode for you. Another classic.
– “Polymorph”. Back to the goofy sci-fi with a touch of Alien and brilliant character acting, as a shapeshifting alien stows aboard Red Dwarf but with a twist. Instead of killing, this one attaches itself to the victim and extracts their strongest negative emotion, from which it draws its strength. So while Lister and Cat have dinner using medical instruments (“It’s right by the colostomy bag filled with chili sauce”) the alien turns itself into Lister’s worst nightmares to induce fear, and then sucks him dry of it. This leaves Lister as a crazed action hero parody, as the alien moves on to removing the Cat’s vanity, Kryten’s guilt, and Rimmer’s anger. Again the genius of Chris Barrie strikes, as he becomes a beatnik who proposes an immediate and aggressive leaflet campaign against the monster. In the end, good old dumb luck and heat-seeking missiles do the trick. However, the PLOT isn’t the reason to watch this one, it’s Lister being attacked by his boxer shorts while Kryten attempts to wrestle them off while his hose flails freely from his groinal socket. That scene, by the way, ended up getting such a sustained laugh from the audience that they had to trim it down by more than half the original length to remove all the laughter in editing. It’s also famous for Kryten conversing with Rimmer at the beginning and accidentally calling his mom a trout, which he then compounds with a lengthy and hilarious apology that’s 100 times worse than the original remark.
– “Bodyswap”. Equal parts Bugs Bunny cartoon and Star Trek, this one sees the wiring on the ship getting crossed up and Lister accidentally triggering the self-destruct mechanism by ordering a milkshake from the dispenser. Only a last-second brain transplant into Lister can seemingly save the day (sort of), but it still gives Rimmer an idea as to how to get a living body back again. He offers Lister a simple deal: Trade him bodies, and he’ll whip the flabby, curry-soaked body back into shape within two weeks while Lister lounges in holographic form. Lister, like an idiot, accepts and soon Rimmer is using his body to dive into a plate of mashed potatoes for the first time in 3 million years while pouring gravy over his head, and soaking in a Jacuzzi while reading muscle magazines. Not all at once, of course. Lister finally has had enough and wants his body back, but Rimmer isn’t what you’d call a good sport about it, and soon it turns into an outer-space chase. The novelty with this one is the lack of an audience for the first time, as the dubbing and recording was a nightmare for the producers (Chris Barrie and Craig Charles had to imitate each other for one pass of the episode, then do another version with only pantomimed mouth movements, and then dub their voice in post-production to the other character!), and all of this would have been hell to put an audience through. Chris Barrie is a master impersonator (he does all the voices for the Red Dwarf audio books, for instance) and easily pulled off Lister, but Craig Charles having to copy Rimmer’s mannerisms and voice was another thing entirely. Luckily it was all overdubbed in post later anyway.
– “Timeslides”. Yup, more time travel headaches, except this time poking fun at the whole notion. A bored and depressed Lister is regretting what’s become of his life, until Kryten discovers a bizarre radiation leak that has turned all the film in the ship’s photo lab into gateways to the past. Must be that new 360,000 ISO film Fuji has been working on. Anyway, Rimmer is equally depressed when he notices Lister trying to calm himself with a Tension Sheet, which is nothing but a square of bubble-wrap painted red, and was invented by his old school chum “Thickie” Holden, who died a multibillionaire as a result. Naturally Lister gets the idea to shake himself from the doldrums by giving the idea to his former self (back in his “rock star” days), thus guaranteeing himself a life as a billionaire and away from Red Dwarf. History changes, leaving Rimmer all alone in the new reality while Lister is insanely rich and married to a supermodel. This produces Rimmer’s quote that opens this review, as he decides to go back himself and “fix” things by giving HIMSELF the idea for Tension Sheets before Lister can get it. And of course since this is such a simple and brilliant plan that only a total smeghead could mess it up, that’s exactly what happens, and everything is set back the way it was to begin with. Anything with a guest star listing of “Adolf Hitler, as himself” is too brilliant to pass up, although it’s not quite up to some of the other “mucking with time travel” episodes that Red Dwarf produced.
– “Last Day”. The third season wraps up with Kryten’s manufacturer sending a replacement, because he’s obviously past his expiration date, and Kryten is remarkably calm about dissembling himself and shutting down. He and Lister have a discussion about Silicon Heaven (“But where would all the calculators go?”) which ends up too weird for Lister to wrap his head around, and instead he decides to throw one final bash for Kryten before he leaves for the Great Beyond. More bizarre philosophical dialogue follows between Lister and Rimmer, as Rimmer relates a story about his encounters with a group of Seventh-Day Adventists who had an unfortunate typo in their copy of the Bible. Everyone ends up getting wasted later in the evening, including Kryten and the computer, and the next morning they’re all too hungover to notice the incoming video about the new model of robot butler (complete with VERY impressive brick-breaking technique) that will be arriving shortly. In the end, they decide to band together for the sake of their friend (which produces the other quote I started with) only to get their asses totally kicked by the new and improved Hudzen android. A little metaphysical conundrum is enough to slay the savage beast, however. I loved this one for a lot of reasons, from the hilarious introductory video for Hudzen and his calculus skills, to the bizarre and rambling conversation about religion between Lister and Rimmer. Plus drunken acting is always great with this bunch. A great end to a great season.
The Video
Well, let’s put it this way you aren’t watching this for the sparkling video transfer. To be fair, it’s nearing 20 years old, and was done on a shoestring budget to begin with, so there’s not much point in faulting the transfer. Since the show was shot with a variety of cameras and films (ranging from the standard TV cameras to hand-held ones for “Marooned”) things vary a lot. It ranges from dark and undersaturated up to sparkling and crystal clear, and it’s probably the best they could do without a full restoration. Again, it’s the content, not the presentation that counts in this case.
The Audio
It’s 2.0 mono, as you’d expect for a TV show from the 80s. It all sounds okay, and there’s no need for any kind of dynamic range because 90% of the show was done on one sound stage.
The Extras
Now HERE’S where they really put their money where their mouth is.
– First up, you get a commentary on all six episodes, featuring the entire cast, and it’s pretty chaotic stuff, with everyone having a grand time and reminiscing about being young, and generally just watching the show and laughing along with it. There’s nothing in the area of “insight” or anything, but hearing how much fun they have together is great to hear.
And then there’s the second disc. You can choose from an animated (and slow) menu, or a simplified text menu that’s much easier to navigate.
– The biggest extra is the “All Change” documentary, running about 80 minutes, covering all the changes from the 2nd season to this one, including extensive talk with the people behind the set changes and all the cast and crew, and then an episode-by-episode rundown from everyone involved. Pretty much everything you’d want to know about every episode is covered here somewhere.
– Deleted scenes, about 30 minutes worth, all of which are generally interesting.
– 10 minutes of the famous “Smeg ups”, aka outtakes and bloopers. This show is famous for them, and this is a fine example of why that is.
– A 10-minute mini-documentary by Hattie Hayridge, as she meets with fans at a Red Dwarf convention and meets some really scary geeks.
– A 10-minute tribute to Mel Bibby, one of the people responsible for creating the sets.
– A 3-minute musical tribute to people in the show eating. It happens a lot.
– “Backwards Forwards”. This one is pretty mind-blowing, as they play “Backwards”, forwards. Or backwards, to be precise, but all the backwards talk and movements become forwards and it becomes a totally different episode. Anyway, you now get to hear the director yelling “action!” at the end (beginning) of the bar-fight scene, and most hilariously, the club manager secretly chiding the fanboys for bothering to go through the trouble of watching the show backwards (in 1989, no one ever thought there’d be a DVD release where people would actually get to see the show in reverse!). When watched normally you can’t understand what he’s saying, since it’s backwards, so although his lines were directed at the actors he just filled in the space with whatever he wanted to say at the time, which happened to be his “hidden message” to Red Dwarf fanatics. You can only take about 10 minutes of watching the show backwards (forwards?) before all the reverse-talk drives you batty, but it’s fascinating to hear what English sounds like played backwards, because you know what’s being said from watching the show previously, but they end up sounding totally different (as pointed out by Craig Charles, with “bitter” as an example it actually sounds nothing like “rettib” when played back in reverse).
– Two trailers for the BBC Video releases of the shows, and just to show the dedication that the people behind these DVDs had, they actually had fans send in VHS copies of the trailers because the BBC lost the originals.
– There’s some special effects footage without sound or context to show how Starbug was animated.
– A listing of the music cues (aka, the little pieces of music that play at specific times during the show, like “Heroic theme”) used during the series.
– Selected chapters from the audio book, which are truly mind-blowing because you get to hear Chris Barrie (Rimmer) voicing all four cast members flawlessly as well as narrating. The first time I heard one of these my jaw just about hit the floor.
– I should also point out that the booklet included, which most DVD producers just use as a waste of paper for chapter listings, actually has lengthy stories about each episode, with information not covered by the extras, as well as quotes and memorable moments for the season as a whole.
– And of course it wouldn’t be a Red Dwarf DVD without Easter Eggs, and since I couldn’t find them this time, I’ll have to steal from dvdreview.com:
“Insert the second disc of the DVD set and select ‘Bonus Materials’ from the Main Menu. Now select ‘Animated Menu’ from the menu and in the next menu screen highlight the traffic cone at the bottom of the screen. Now press the ‘Down’ arrow key on your remote control and a question mark will appear on the screen. It will give you access to an animated short about the episode Polymorph with audio from the creators of the show.
The second Easter Egg is hidden on the first disc of the set. From the Main Menu select the ‘Select Episode’ menu entry. On the following screen, wait patiently as the music plays itself out twice. On the third go-around, the music will change. It is here where you will need to move your red arrow cursor down to the ‘Drive Room’ option. You will then see the ‘Polymorph’ creature move out of a box on the bottom left side of your screen and scurry his way toward the right. When he gets to the middle of the screen, just below your cursor, press the ‘Down’ button on your remote control. This will highlight another question mark. Press ‘Enter’ and you will be taken to a bonus deleted scene from Polymorph.” (http://www.dvdreview.com/eastereggs/collect/538.html)
This is truly a DVD produced for the FANS, which is fitting for the show’s cult status.
The Ratings:
The Film: *****
The Video: **
The Audio: **
The Extras: *****
