Red Dwarf X

Strictly speaking not a film, but this year Santa brought me Red Dwarf X, on DVD. I escaped from the clutches of my family and fell into the pit of Cats/Gundarks at home and had to watch the DVD.

Having seen Red Dwarf from season I onwards, I was intrigued as to how it was going to go, as I was less than impressed with series 7 (meh), 8 (meh) and Back to Earth (ommmm).

Well this series does seem to be a return to form in terms of script, and dialogue. Many Rimmerisms surface (m’laddo) with out being forced as do the Cat’s mannerisms from the first few series, especially the physical ones. Lister is a bit over dressed in leathers but he’s still a pleasant slob. Kryten is pedantic and wound up as usual, only a small niggle that sometimes his prostehtics/makeup around his eyes looks a little green.

The first episode: Trojan is good, though it doesn’t explain why the ship was abandoned. The data freeze Arnold, Howard and the simulant suffer is hilarious (and I wonder when the simulant is going to return, she was good). Fathers and Suns was good overall though the plot did a sudden lurch half way through. Lemons allegedly the best episode left me a bit cold, it was fine, but well, I think other episodes were better as did Entangled which was saved by really really good performances by Cat/Kryten.Dear Dave was really good, with Rimmer discovering his past but maintaining his weasely self. The final episode The Beginning had some good scence, and as they commented in the making, some of those scenes had none of the Red Dwarf crew in them for the first time. I’ll be watching that one again.

The production values are high. Not convinced by the amount of green screen in the bunk room that seems to happen, but the rest of the SFX are good.

Overall, a good return to form, 4/5, not the best but certainly a keeper and repeat watch !
I hope they get series XI commissioned.

Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast (or at least another blog roll entry tomorrow wrt Xmashammer 2012.)
😉