Review: Red Dwarf: Kryten and Better than Life

Series Two, Episode One - Kryten

Series Two blasts off with Kryten, which has a fun storyline that explores the bounds of robotics in the Red Dwarf Universe. The characters have the same personalities as in Series One, if less extreme and more identifiable.

Rimmer is trying (and failing) to learn Esperanto when Red Dwarf gets a signal from a ship called the Nova 5. The android on board (the titular Kryten) says that there are three young female officers, and so the Red Dwarf crew smarten up accordingly. They go across to trade medical supplies for food supplies, and to bunk up (three million years is a long time...). When they get to the command centre of the Nova 5, they find that the three officers are dead, skeletonised, and Kryten seems fairly suprised. They take him back to Red Dwarf, and Rimmer makes him do all of the chores for the ship. In response, Lister makes him rebel against his programming.

This episode not only sees the introduction of Blue Midget, a smaller ship for leaving Red Dwarf, and Kryten, who becomes a more important character in Series Three. The chemistry between the characters is a lot softer here, as in the filming for Series One, Chris Barrie and Craig Charles were said to have hated each other. That hatred seems to have cooled off and as such the performances are much more smooth.

Series Two, Episode Two - Better than Life

A classic episode, this is a dreamscape idea that stands as one of the series first classic episodes that stick in the memory. It's also a further look into Rimmer's background with his father.

Red Dwarf recieives a post pod (from the Royal Mail; it took three million years to arrive). Inside the pod are several packages including videogames and a letter sent to Rimmer to tell him that his father had died. Rimmer is upset that he never got the chance to hear his father, whom he hated, praise him. One of the videogames is called Better than Life, and is a total-immersion life simulation that awards players their hearts and dreams. They try it, and it works, but Rimmer's mind is so twisted that all of his wishes, and eventually everyone elses, become negative.

This episode features a lot of the political satire (the "Outland Revenue", second-class post arriving in three million years) that the series loves, while still being an entertaining mix of space sitcom and dream exploration.

Thanks.