Highlight: Red Dwarf VIII

Cassandra. Predestination fun amidst horrific caricatures.

I... I don't like Series VIII. It disagrees with me in so many variously horrible ways that it's often hard for me to contemplate without collapsing into floods of metaphorical tears. Notably, the 1999 series took a series that I loved and destroyed it before my eyes. Albeit I was watching the series for the first time in 2009, but it still felt so heart-breaking when instead of great comedy, Series VIII just both literally and metaphorically took a shit on Red Dwarf's memory. I've watched some bad things in my time - seen some awful movies, managed to enjoy some of the worst Doctor Who and found joy in such blind banality as Survivors and Outcasts. Nothing comes close to the pain I felt when I reviewed Pete, all those years ago. Unfortunately we have to keep this positive, and so I will make a nod towards Cassandra, and episode that manages to be funnier than both the Naylor series combined. A stark combination of Future Echoes' predestination and Legion's sense of entrapment, Cassandra is great fun and is the only redeeming thing about this whole damn excercise.

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Written 9/6/12

NEXT TIME: Business as usual. Oh, and Red Dwarf X starts on Thursday, Just mentioning.

Highlight: Red Dwarf VII

Ouroboros had some fun ideas. Shame about the rest.

Some people find Series VIII funny. For these, rare and incredibly strange people, Series VII is the one to avoid, for the simple reason that this 1997 reboot tried to go down the dramedy route and failed at the -edy bit quite considerably. The series became more character driven, but those characterisations were inconsistant and irritating, and potentially good ideas were thrown out in favour of stupid drama moments. Also, whiney Kryten, NO. Despite this, I do have a highlight for Series VII, and that's the complex Ouroboros whose attempts to make up for Rimmer's departure are, while considerably lacking, a decent piece of Sci-Fi in their own right. Series VII? There's an obscene phone call, and I believe it's for you.

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf VI

Psirens. Not you, Pete Tranter's sister!

Series VI is my favourite series of Red Dwarf, because it hit upon a winning sitcom formula and kept up a major story arc. This is the series where our characters were honed to perfection, and while there are a few misses you can't help but love the madness of Out of Time's cliffhanger or the sheer gold that composes award-favourite Gunmen of the Apocalypse. Simple enough, then. My highlight from Series VI is Psirens, the episode that ushered our characters back into development and managed to be the most successful reboot that the show has managed so far (of the three or four.) Also - chameleonic space weevils? Cheeky references to the failed Red Dwarf USA? Count me in.

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf V

Holoship. Smaller portions, but so many courses.

And the so-called Golden Age ends with a bang, on an entire series focussing almost exclusively on Rimmer, with a few nods to other characters here or there. Lister takes the spotlight again in the ambitious The Inquisitor, while the crew meet their potential evil sides in Demons and Angels. And while everyone in the fandom would expect me to say Back to Reality (if they actually read this blog), my highlight from Season V is the much more interesting Holoship, which takes Rimmer and puts him into a tragic tale of love and loss. The simple fact is that you can see the character development up close; it doesn't seem strange that the uptight and insecure Rimmer from all those series ago can stand here now and sacrifice his dreams for the woman he loves. It's bloody beautiful.

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf IV

Dimension Jump. Ace Rimmer... What a Guy.

Series IV is about Rimmer and Kryten, at that time the series' most interesting characters. While I like Camille's whole-plot reference to Casablanca, I can only really enjoy Kryten when he's being Mr. Exposition - the character becomes exceedingly irritating the very moment that they stray beyond that, as Seasons VII and VIII would later show. Season IV brought us a whole plethora of fun stuff, from GELFs to Curry Monsters, from Simulants to White Holes. But my highlight must be the unbelievable epicness that is Dimension Jump, introducing us to the remarkable Ace Rimmer. Every second of this piece works both as an extravagent parody of action heroes as well as a clever character study for Rimmer. What a guy.

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf III

Marooned. Lister and Rimmer chat around the fire as they
await rescue.

So; two years have passed and the RD team have had an entire year to get the new series ready. With Robert Llwellyn on as Kryten, the series is given a fresh lick of paint and the Golden Age begins. Out of these six absolute crackers, which would I pick as a highlight? Well, that's incredibly difficult. The classical Bodyswap? Timey wimey Timeslides? Shameless Alien parody Polymorph? Well, it's none of them. My highlight is most definitely Marooned, a quiet character piece between the two leads that provides some of the best character work and comedy in the series. Who can forget Lister eating from the tin of dog food, or pretedning to burn Lister's guitar? And where would we be without Rimmer's revelation of his Eunuch past?

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf II

Thanks for the Memory. Rimmer tries a
Triple Fried Egg Chili Chutney Sandwich.

So I may have left Rimmer's episode out of my Highlight from Series I. No matter. Series II is a bit different; while still stuck with the first series' aesthetic, the second 1988 series tries to be bigger and better than its predecessor, introducing Blue Midget to get about and actually meeting other people and things. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of great ideas that are never well-delivered upon, the most notable examples definitely being Better Than Life and the troublesome Parallel Universe. My highlight is of course Thanks For The Memory, the best episode of the series on account of Chris Barrie's astounding performance and the way that timey-wimey is used to deliver genuinely touching character development. Goes down well every time, and yet is frighteningly underappreciated by some of the fandom.

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Written 9/6/12

Highlight: Red Dwarf I

Future Echoes. Lister prepares to die.

After three years of development hell and an electrician's strike that nearly killed the series before it had began, the first series of Red Dwarf began broadcasting in February 1988. The first series was the one that stayed most true to the series' brief, as well as being the one in which the relationships between both characters and actors were most raw. My highlight from the first season isn't a tricky decision. Sure, The End is a great pilot, and Me^2 is a great character piece, but when I look at the first series, the episode I remember the most fondly is Future Echoes. Blending a high-concept sci-fi idea surrounding predestinative time-travel with great character moments, Future Echoes blatantly defies the contraints of Red Dwarf's brief and, despite the way that it breaks up the narrative of the series, it still acts as one of the best second episodes of anything, ever.

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Written 9/6/12

A Few Words: The Hotel

Not since Airline has real life so reflected fiction. In this eccentric Channel Four show, we take a fly-on-the-wall look at a real hotel (the Damson Dene) in the Lake District, where characters are seemingly around every corner. The "manager" Wayne, whose work consists of shifting tables and whose residence is a small caravan outside the hotel where he lives with his dog. The kitchen staff, composed almost entirely of full-time Eastern Europeans, and the Manuel-like Amos.
     These people couldn't get closer to a Fawlty Towers type farce if they tried, and yet every second of it is real. The editing is a tad manipulative, perhaps, but the fact is that this is relaity TV - no constructed environments, no "challenges," etc.: the perfect Car Crash TV. The Hotel takes real, ridiculous characters and slaps them on our screen. Essential Sunday viewing.
     Well. Better than Lewis anyway.

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I can't make any promises about scheduling, but I'm hoping to have Lost 4.9 out tonight and Being Human 1.3 sometime later in the week. Thanks for your patience.

A Few Words: Jamie's Dream School

Jamie's Dream School is a show in that particular genre of reality show that tries to pretend it has any profound influence on the rest of the world. Lamenting on "Broken Britain" stereotypes, the show often seems a little pretentious, trying to educate children who have failed their GCSEs. A School-dropout himself, Jamie has enlisted celebrities to teach his brood.
     The two major drawing forces of the show are the teachers and the pupils. The teachers often show their own incompetance as they're faced with the unexpected ignorance of their audience; one in particular was reknown historian David Starkey, whose first lesson consisted of a slanging match with a pupil. The biggest hit was Scientist Lord Robert Winston, whose practical science lessons (including looking at sperm samples - provided by the classes' boys) helped to stimulate the kids.
     The pupils themselves are chilling charicatures of modern Britain, students chosen that were just ignorant enough to be annoying, and yet just cockey enough to pick out the teachers' flaws. They draw real parallels with my own education, frighteningly, while being covered up by the series editting to look either better or worse (it changes depending upon the edittor's mood, it seems.)
     Jamie's Dream School has a lot of interesting ideas, but like its contemporary Waterloo Road it turns more into a "spot the flaw" game every week. A nice try, Jamie, but this show is entertaining for all of the wrong reasons.

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A Few Words: Red Dwarf Extras

Red Dwarf - Only The Good "Alternate" Ending


The originally filmed ending to Only The Good, this would have neatly left the series open for other incursions later on, and as such neatly explains Back To Earth in canon. It's not a good ending by any stretch, and it doesn't tie the series to a close, but what it does do is present a logical, funny end to Series Eight and it doesn't feature the fucking Grim Reaper.

The Red Dwarf Children in Need Special


Children in Need usually offers up some fun stuff, not all of it worth more than five minutes of your time. Here's a Youtube video of the Red Dwarf Children In Need episode from between Series VII and VIII, and is, in my opinion, several times funnier than either of those series combined.

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A Few Words: "All I Want For Christmas Is New Year's Day", by Hurts

Hurts - All I Want For Christmas is New Years Day (Official)

A big part of Christmas is the music, especially for taking a look at years' past. Christmas music, for me, has exposed me to greats like John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Slade from an early age, helping me to at first understand the great music of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Noughties attitudes mean that Christmas music is rarely written. Hurts, however, disagree with this sentiment.
     And, to be honest, the song is standard Hurts fare - a melancholic drawl with optimistic lyrics that sort of flies by without much notice. The song has a lot of warmth and definitely fits the seasonal theme, but it blends in too well with the rest of the songs in their ouvre. So; worth a listening - if you like Hurts.

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A Few Words: "1962 - 1966" and "1967-1970"

The rock band. The ultimate in the history of British music, of all music. The Beatles are, quite simply, the best band in the world. Their success was first captured in 1973, when their self-run business Apple Corps released the two albums covering the entire 50 song singles chronology from 1962 - 1970, in which they rose to stardom and eventually split up. Why then, am I even mentioning these two albums here in 2010?
     Well, this year Apple Corps finally gave in to consumer pressure and released their songs on the completely unrelated Apple iTunes. In anticipation of this, the two albums were rereleased. And I bought them. These two albums showed me that The Beatles weren't just an old relic, weren't just a museum piece. They showed me the great talent and care put into their music, how the music took influences from the surrounding world but kept a firm grasp on its own intentions
     Wednesday was the 30th Anniversary of the death of one of the band's main figures, John Lennon, who was shot and killed in 1980 by a mad Christian, possibly angered by his blasphemous attitude. Monday two weeks ago was the 9th Anniversary of the death of George Harrison, another member with less publicity. RIP John. RIP George. Long Live The Beatles.

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A Few Words: Your Song, by Ellie Goulding

Littlewoods recently asked singer Ellie Goulding to record a cover version of Elton John's 1970 hit Your Song for use on one of their Christmas adverts, and she's also released her own video for it. Watch the video. Now.


(Thanks to elliegoulding for that video)

I reviewed Ellie's debut album back in May, and raved about how I was blown away by the skillful melding of folk and electronica. Maybe just to prove that she's actually a decent ballad singer as well, her rendition of Your Song stands out immediately from the original by being lighter and more poignant. Some are even guessing it'll be a Christmas Number one, which I look forward to after Ellie's otherwise lacklustre chart performance.

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