Review: Red Dwarf: Pete, Parts One and Two

Oh god, we're finally here. The worst episode of Dwarf, Pete (Part Two). Hold on tight.

Series Eight, Episodes Six and Seven - Pete
 Pete (Part Two) is hideous. It just is. But Pete (Part One) is slightly better. I'm going to review them side-by-side, god help me. Here I go.

          Lister and Rimmer are taken to see the Captain, for playing a prank on the prison warden. Their punishment is to have to play basketball against the Prison warden team. (Already, Dwarf? ALREADY?) They play the game, and get beaten up considerably. However, Lister has managed to sneak a form of viagra into the warden's team's drinks, and so in the second half they win. There's no comedy here. It's... just wrong. So once again they're escorted to his office, where they get punished again for the drugs fiasco.
        Their punishment is to peel spuds for two weeks. There's some more prison room comedy, where Lister is shown to not be able to do a crossword. We see Lister talking with the scutters, who are smuggling them things. rimmer, curious, asks if the scutters can smuggle them something to help with the spuds. Lister suggests a programmable virus which would eat the skins.
          Kryten, Cat and Kris are on a canary mission, looking through a ship that has swallowed up two entire canary battalions. Inside, they find a group of canaries frozen solid in time, looking at a machine. The machine is a time wand, which froze them, and can store time. Trying it out, Kryten accidnetally turns Kris and Cat into children. He then fast forwards them to their teenage years,  (bad 70s hair gag). Returning to normal, Kris anticipates that the wand could make the prison term pass by almost instantly.
          Back at the spuds, and Lister releases the virus. It works, but it also starts to eat their clothes. Bald and naken, they are once more escorted to the Captain's office. He tells them to go away, but not before shaking his hand and accidnetally transfering the virus onto himself. As he loses his hair, they're sentenced to two months in "the hole".
          In the dining room, Cat is beatun up by Baxter. Turning his lunch into a chicken, Kryten is forced to freeze him as he jumps for Cat. They escape. Meanwhile, in "the hole," Lister and Rimmer meet a madman called Birdman, with a pet sparrow called Pete. The scutters manage to help them escape, all of the crew frozen in time by Kryten. They follow the scutters until they meet the other guys in the landing bay, where they're having a picnic. Kryten ages their hair back, and Pete dies. Feeling sympathetic, they try to use the wand to de-age the sparrow... but for some reason, a tyranosauus rex appears instead.
          As we go to cliffhanger.. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!? ARE YOU INSANE?!? I mean, that episode was ok, if you ignore the tasteless basketball and the sheer idiocy of the cliffhanger. And they've frozen the crew! Not only is this task so great it beggars belief, but the fact that they haven't hitched a Starbug and gotton out of their is just insane!

          And now we plung, arse-first, into Part Two. I took a two-hour break just to prepare. We get a recap. Chased by the T.Rex, Kryten throws the time wand to Bob the Scutter, who is eaten by the T.Rex. They hide in a store-room, behind steel doors. Kris sugests that they need to get the wand out of his system, and so to speed up his bowel movements, plan to feed him a large curry. (A bowel movement/curry joke? Seriously?) Meanwhile, inside the T.Rex's stomach, Bob accidnetally activates the time wand, unfreezing the crew. Cutting back to the cargo bay, and they've made a large swimming pool of vindaloo and are... hanging a cow over it.
          The T-Rex comes in, and starts to eat. He starts screaming, to emphasise, "Duh dudes curry is hot lol". The dino crashes through a wall and two guards come in. Lister and Rimmer once again march into the Captain's office. He straight-facedly berates them, TALKING ABOUT THE DINOSAUR INSTEAD OF DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. He then goes on to describe the dinosaur's burp, and then its vomit. Lovely. He then confronts them about the dinosaur's diarrhoea attack. One moment.
          THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD
          Moving swiftly, on, the Captain tells Lister to use the wand to revert the dinosaur. They get prepared, and in the one funny segemnt in this thing, Rimmer, thinking Lister has the time wand and can easily reverse the Captain, tells the captain exactly how much he hates him. The captain then gives him the time wand.
          And... oh god. No. Please. Don't. They introduce... Kryten's... pet... penis. And it's called Archie.
          I CAN'T GO ON! I REFUSE! I WILL NOT REVIEW ANY MORE OF THIS EPISODE!!!
          Kris is cleaning under a bed as part of her punishment, trying to get a mouse. Kryten comes and tells her that it isn't a mouse, but his pet penis, Archie. Apparently he made it so he could be classified as a male. Kryten then calls for it.  It then escapes and runs away. They're then given a canary mission, to stop the dino. The guard says it totally non-shalantly, as if a rampaging dinosaur is a normal sort of problem. On the way there, there's a T.Rex masturbation joke.
         Then, Cat starts to spasm. It turns out that Kryten's pet penis is crawling around in his suit. Moving on, some mad prisoners, who want to have a fist fight with the dino, threaten Lister and Rimmer to stop them from doing the sane thing. For some reason, when the time wand is used on them , it doesn't work. They try punching the two but nothing happens. It turns out that they froze their bodies in place. The two madmen then steal the wand and run away.
          For some reason. they end up marching back to the Captain's office. He tells them to get them back. Unfortunately, their bodies catch up with the rest of them, meaning that they are beaten up, seemingly in mid air, right in front of the captain. Cutting forward, we see that the two madmen have been reverted to gorrillas (DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND BASIC BIOLOGY?). They take back the wand. Finding the T.Rex (who's sleeping like a dog...) they use the wand to ressurect Birdman, and then fast-forward Pete to a sparrow. Rimmer then tells him to destroy the wand so nothing like this could ever happen again. As they head back, they pass a giant dino egg. That's opening. The baby dinosaur get in the lift and climbs into the Captain's quaters, and on to his back, where he mistakes the dino for a masseuse.
           They end up marching back again, and the captain is so stressed he is speaking with cards. He says that he is going to spend 12 months in the hole, just to get over it.
           I don't blame him. This episode was bad. Really, really... just wrong. I need to stop now. I need to rest.

Thanks.

Review: Red Dwarf: Cassandra and Krytie TV

Before I get started on these episodes, I want to briefly revisit Back In The Red.

Revisit - Series Eight, Episode One, Two and Three - Back In The Red
This episode is such a buzz-kill that I didn't have the energy to write this stuff in its review. My main point is the large logical gaps that this episode leaves wide open; Why didn't the officers work out what had happened before trialling them? Why were they prosecuted on crimes that hadn't happened? Why is the sentence for such a small crime two years in a hell-hole? Why did Hollister conclude that all members were guilty of sharing the information, when it was only Rimmer? "bangs head on table"

Series Eight, Episode Four - Cassandra

"This is the first time I've been seduced by pre-determinism theory!"

So, it's the first episode in the prison environment, and after BITR expectations aren't high. How does Cassandra fare? Well, it's known by fans as the only bearable episode of Series Eight, so that should say something...
          Lister consults Holly and we open to a one-liner that puts the entire preceeding film to shame. The problem it then faces, as does every god-damn joke in this series, is that it then explains the joke, ridding it of all humour. Rimmer comes in, moaning, and the following exchange is quite crude but funny.
         Lister reveals that he has volunteered all five members for something called the Canaries, a group which has quite a few atractive privelages. Lister thinks it's a singing troup, while Rimmer then reveals to him that it's a suicide squad, used for exploring unsafe derelicts and mining areas.
         In the Canaries briefing, they meet an insane prisoner called Kill Crazy (played by Eastenders' Jake Wood). Captain Hollister tells them about a ship abandoned on an ocean moon, where the crew has mysteriously vanished. The Canaries are to be sent in to find whatever killed them and eradicate it. In an effort to escape, the five start singing. Badly. But it's funny. And that's what counts.
          They get frightened out of it, and end up going on to the ship. As they fearfully enter the ship, paranoia forbidding, they activate the ship's mainframe, to try and find out about what happened. When they activate it, they find an old woman, who knows each one by name and is called Cassandra. She is a computer that can predict the future. The crew go through the moral dilemnas of knowing the future. I must say, the actress playing Cassandrais wonderfully charismatic throughout.
          Rimmer asks Cassandra how Lister dies, and there's a great gag about how, even though he dies aged 181 taking off a bra with his teeth, the bra is probably his and the teeth aren't necessarily in his mouth. Kryten explains his theory; that the ship didn't crash, but was sent here on auto-pilot to rid the world of the computer. Cassandra then predicts that the ship will start to depressurise, and that the Canaries will all be dead within the hour, except for Rimmer, who has 20 minutes. The other four don't die at all.
          Knowing that he dies worrying about his impending death, Rimmer can't help worrying about his impending death. They all say that Rimmer is going to die because the future can't change. Rimmer, however, realises that during the discussion Cassandra didn't identify him as Rimmer, and so it could be any male member of the five. He then decides to find someone to introduce to Cassandra as Rimmer, so that he dies instead.
         He does so, and Mr. Knot dies of a heart-attack.  He thinks he's fooled Cassandra, but she reveals that she knew he was Knot. Testing the theory that as the four survivors, Kryten, Cat Kris and Lister are therefore immortal, Kryten demonstrates by trying to fire a gun at all of them. He then decides that if they surrounded Rimmer, they could use their invulnerability to get him to the diving bell. They do so, but when they make it to the diving bell they find that Rimmer has strayed off.
          Finding him down a hole next to the diving bell, Kochanski goes down to help him up. The water burst through, so they go into the diving bell itself, leaving Kryten, Lister and Cat above the reach of the water. Resigned to his fate, Rimmer goes and asks Cassandra how he dies. She tells him that Lister finds him making love to Kochanski and shoots him. Excited, he goes and tells Kochanski, who is deeply shocked, and questions the wholething. Rimmer accepts that you can't change the future, while Kochanski is starting to think about it more seriously.
           When Kochanski says she'll never get into the bed, a pipe bursts and she is doused with water. Meanwhile the others are on their way back up to Dwarf. Lister is planning to go back down to the ship. He brings a harpoon gun, just in case. Kochanski is sat in the quilt, while Rimmer, quite hilariously, tries to woo her.  Lister comes in an hour early, and tells them his theory. Cassandra didn't see Rimmer die - she saw her own death, and so told Rimmer that to try and inspire Lister to kill him. Lister confronts her, and decides that just to spite her, he won't kill her. However, he puts his chewing gun on the wall, sparking a chain reaction that blows out her circuitry.
          This episode is wonderful. It may not stick out amongst the best, but in Series Seven and Eight it is a marvelous example of a good comedy in these nadir parts.

Series Eight, Episode Five - Krytie TV

Combine sexism, poor humour, a complete lack of understanding of character, and you'll get this episode. It not only goes against the series' spirit as a whole, there're also completely pointless breaks in logic. I'm going in.
          We see Kryten in the Women's section of the prison and they're, for some reason, doing stereotypically girlish things, like jump-rope and painting their nails. In the showers, Kryten has an umbrella (WHY IS HE IN THE SHOWERS? HE'S AN ANDROID!) Back in Lister's room, and there's a bad pun about the post having arrived. Rimmer sifts through the usual death threats, and find he's won a lucky dip and the Lottery. In another letter, Peterson is sending down Lister's guitar. We get a random throwback to the Ohm song (from Timeslides), and Lister finds that they've confiscated the strings so he doesn't kill himself. An appeal letter comes through.
         We skip forward two days as they're returning from a mission. Kryten moans about how he hates being in the women's showers, and the men drool unconvincingly. Kill Crazy suggests filming them, but Rimmer objects, before giving in. Kryten also objects, so when they get back to the ship, Kill Crazy somehow knocks him out and reprograms him. (This spindly, insane idiot can not only knock out a mechanoid but also knows programming?)
          The prisoners are watching a B-movie, and it's replaced with a film called Krytie TV, which has a mad Kryten filming the naked, showering women. Half-way through, he looks at a tile to allow for his minions (with special shirts, for some reason,) to collect currency. (Collapsed beer cans? WHY?)
         Back to Kryten's pad, and for some reason he's coloured gold, and has collected a lot of wealth (from BEER CANS?!?) Apparently, as Lister goes to visit, Kryten is now a "ruthless entrepeneur". Kochanski comes in, and Kryten offers her a waterproof pogo stick ("It will makes ratings go through the roof!") and so Lister tells Kochanski about everything. Kochanski is, instead of being outraged at Kryten, more angry at Lister, and acts very much like a teenage girl.
          Back to some more prison comedy, and Lister is trying to make it up to Kochanski. Kryten comes in, claiming to have been re-designated male. (But he still hasn't got any genitalia, which makes the whole gender business a little, well... let's not go there.) He then tells Lister that Kochanski is going out with Tim, her ex-boyfriend. They discuss their plan, to sabotage the date by making Tim's room look like hell. Kryten suggests a ventilation shaft.
          So we see Lister sneaking in and doing several horriffic things to Tim's room, which are broadcast on Krytie TV. Kryten then reveals that the room was that of the prison Warden, who is returning to the room. Rimmer, frightened for their appeal, rushes in to help as we watch, rather tediously, them simply cxleaning up the room in an unspectacular fashion. They get away, eventually, and Lister tells Rimer that the appeal was for his guitar strings.
          One popular fan opinion is that this episode is good if you forget that this is Red Dwarf, and that is partially true. But that's a bit of a cop-out. There are some small good moments, but the rest is either unfunny, offensive or unremarkable. It's watchable, sure, but it's... tiring.

Thanks.

Review: Red Dwarf: Back In The Red Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Do I really have to? Really? Please, spare me. Don't make me review Back In The Red, I beg you!

Series Eight, Episodes One, Two and Three - Back In The Red

The time had to come. Eventually. And here I am, reviewing this, this... mess. It was originally broadcast over three weeks, but in the true spirit of reviewing, I'm gonna review it as what it really is - a film, or the closest we're going to get to one. Such is the sheer wrong in this episode, that doing a moment-by-moment recap is, well, painful. I also can't bare to put in a quote.

          We start out with Lister and a human Rimmer in prison uniforms, doing what seems to be close to a Series One routine. It's a little lacklustre though, and Barrie isn't saying much. Rimmer is for some reason back to his Series One personality. Cut to three days earlier, and Starbug is rapidly being crushed as Red Dwarf shrinks back into its original size. There's another lacklustre comedy sequence and they avoid one rat, to then, erm, head up the arse of another. Lovely.
          They manage to escape into the hangar. Running from the ship, it explodes spectacularly. Lister looks up, and two of his old friends are standing there. Kochanski (looking a bit older for some reason, I notice,) assumes, correctly, that the nanobots also recreated the crew. (CONGRATULATIONS NAYLOR, YOU JUST WENT AGAINST THE PREMISE OF YOUR OWN SHOW.) Kryten thinks this is fantastic, but realism gets in the way and the Captain comes along to arrest all four with the charge of stealing a Starbug. crashing a Starbug, and smuggling on The Cat and Kryten. He's inprisonned in his original sleeping quarters.
          Lister asks his Holly what's going to happen if he loses the court case, and its revealed that he could get two years in the Brig, a terrible prison used for storing prisoners that Earth couldn't manage. He sits down to contemplate the matter, when Irritating!Rimmer comes in and, well, acts like he did in very early Series One. He tries appealing to Rimmer's better nature, but Rimmer is loving it.
          The officers are worried, because they've noticed that the ship is three-milion years off course. They examine The Cat, and there are various jokes regarding his internal organs. Meanwhile, Lister tells Rimmer about all of the crew information left in the crashed Starbug, and offers it in exchange for help in escaping. He takes up the offer.

          Meanwhile, the crew's psychiatric officer is talking to Kryten. All of his creation records and knowledge of the world come from after the original anhialation of the crew, so he is sent down as insane, and as needing to be rebooted with his original programming. Rimmer gets the files, and also two positive viruses (from Quarantine). He takes the Sexual Magnetism virus, and walks down the corridor, prompting our first break.
          So far, the comedy has been passable, with some quite horrible bits with large gaps in logic. Chris Barrie helps proceedings, but it's certainly a fan letdown to see his character reverted. The whole idea of bringing back the crew goes against everything Dwarf is, and so it's quite annoying that it was even considered.
          When we go back in, there's a recap from the Captain. It shows that he's aware of Lister and Rimmer's deal. Rimmer comes into the Captain's office and impresses him in several interesting, and sometimes crude, ways. He responds by inviting him to the Captain's table. Kryten is seen going into a Doctor's surgery, and for some, awful, reason the doctor treats him as he would a human being. Since he doesn't have male genitalia, he's sent to live in the female quarters (even though, one would assume, he doesn't have female genitalia either.) He talks to Kochanski and talks about being reverted to Factory settings. Kochanski says that if he needs to say no to them, then he should imagine them on the loo, so they cease to be his superiors. Chloe Annett is acting worse than ever before.
          All four sit down to the inquiry. Captain Holister acts if they are familiar with the Mind-Scan, which shows their thoughts and puts them into a trance-like state at the lick of an envelope. They do so, but don't recognise the fantasy. Rimmer goes back to Lister and talks about his exploits. He then refuses to release him, but when he's gone, he uses a little bit of the luck virus, smuggled from Rimmer, to escape.
          The officers confront Kryten and offer him a choice - be reverted to Factory settings, or face trial with the others. Kryten, unable to deny them, steals a gun from a guard and forces the officers into a toilet, where they further declare him insane and force him into Factory settings. These scenes are, quite frankly, painful.
          Lister and Kochanski, disguised as workers, sneak into a lift where Lister uses the sexual magnetism virus, off of his other hand. They nearly get it on, but the Luck virus cures him. Meanwhile, Kryten is being cured by a computer system, controlled by the virtual "Data Doctor" (Robert Llwellyn, how could you?). He is rebooted, and is completly useless.
           Rimmer goes to the Captain's supper, and proceeds to sneak off and have sex with every female officer, using the Sex-Mag virus. Lister and Kochanski have managed to get The Cat from the medi-bay and now only need to get Kryten. They plan to steal a Starbug and go off adventuring again. When they find Kryten, they find that he's lost his corrupted files, and so go into a supply corridor to get a better disguise. Using sets of false teeth and mop-heads, they disguise themselves as forms of... oh god, the Duane Dibley family. This disguise manages to fool two guards, for some reason. Kryten comes in, needing a mop, and recognises the Duane Dibbley disguise. His files corrupt, right there, on the spot. Holly draws away the guards, and Kochanski points out that it seems too easy, while Lister claims it's the Luck virus working.
          Captain Hollister reveals to Rimmer that the others are in a simulation. Fearing for his safety, by virtue of Lister mentioning the agreement, he leaves the table. Trying to regain control of his libido, he injects his penis with horse tranquizer, making him unable to walk properly. I can't believe I just had to right that. Seriously.

          Elsewhere, the four Dibblies walk down a corridor. Two scutters, wanting to follow them, put on tiny false teeth and wigs. And we cut to the second break. At this point I'm beginning to get increasingly weary of the toilet humour, and the frankly stupid character actions. There's no charm, no wit. Just... just idiocy. But I fear the worst has yet to come.
          We go back in, and there's some more prison comedy. Barrie actually talks in this one, so it's a lot more watchable. Skipping back two days, we get another recap from Hollister. Then, the four dibbly's, stuck in their fantasy, get in a Blue Midget. They don't have the clearance code, so The Cat chats up the woman in control and, in one of the worst scenes in the history of Dwarf, proceeds to spend an agonizing two minutes dancing with the ship.
         At the AI suite, Rimmer comes along and erases all mention of the deal between him and Lister from the playback. Feeling this, Kryten tells them that they're in a simulation. They escape by pressing an exit button. Instead of waking up, they find themselves in a claymation world. When will this end, Dwarf. When does the episode end?!? Anyway, they press a bottle of Ketchup (Seriously Naylor? Seriously?) and they awaken. Lister confronts Rimmer, but they all have to hold off Kochanski, who is affected by Rimmer's virus.
          Rimmer takes the Luck virus and everything's back to normal. They decide to once again take a Blue Midget and bring along Rimmer. He is at first worried, but he then goes along with it. They get a blue midget, and luckily we're not treated to the dance again (although one does worry). They escaoe, once again, and there's a real hope this time.
          After some good Series 1-level comedy, it's revealed that not only did Holly's nanobots recreate the crew, "I thought you'd be pleased," it turns out that they're still in the fantasy machine, only this time Rimmer is included. Hollister finally concludes that they were innocent of the original crimes, but now are guilty of using the crew's files to their own ends, which has the same sentence as the original charges.
          I won't make a proper conclusion. My thoughts are up there. I don't want to continue this today... do I have to do more tommorrow? Really?

Thanks. Or No Thanks.

Overview: Red Dwarf: Series Seven

The thing most notably different about Series Seven is its higher production values. To replace the loss of writing and acting talent, we now have more CGI. One problem with this is that the CGI doesn't actually feel as real as the make-shift props of earlier series.
         The loss of Rimmer certainly robs the series of some brilliant oppurtunities, but there is the potential to work without him, seen in Beyond A Joke and Epideme. Series Seven is just so lumpy; inconsistent cast, quality and all-round attitude. It can't decide whether it's a drama, a comedy or a sci-fi adventure. And when it tries to do comedy, most of the time it falls down flat.
        But the thing is, compared to Series Eight, the thing is watchable. Only Duct Soup is more or less painful, and even that has some ok moments. Despite my smearings over Series Seven, there is some gold to be found - although very little, after the rest had been spent in the Golden Age.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Earthshock

In 1982, Peter Davidson had taken up the helm of The Doctor. He'd had more acting jobs than all of the other Doctors combined, but notable, he was in his early thirties, the youngest Doctor up to that point. His producer was the infamous John-Nathan Turner, who had become so in the last year of Tom Baker's tenure.
         The show needed something to make Peter more popular, and JNT always pandered to the "fans," so he decided to reintroduce the Cybermen after their seven year hiatus. They got a redesign, which was fairly consistent during JNT's era.
          The resulting story is here before you; Earthshock. It broke with the trends surrounding Cyberman episodes, and for the last time in the history of Who, their presence was kept a secret. Indeed, the entire first half of the serial uses this suspenceful buildup, and then the grand reveal, as a sort of push-off to carry the rest. What results is nothing more than a tragedy; while the first episode, in which we are waiting for something to appear, is a piece of mastery, the rest doesn't really stand up to it. It all falls apart, really.
          We're introduced to a group of police-corps whatsits who are investigating the deaths of several scientists who went missing in deep caves, around the twenty-whatsit century. Within the caves, we see mysterious black clothed drones wandering about. They're quite effective, to be honest, and very low budget too; made out of a few stockings. Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, Adric, who is a small boy from another universe (it makes sense in context) is being stroppy with the Doctor about going home. The Doctor tries to explain rationally that he can't go into another dimension without risking severe harm to everyone on the vessel, but for some strange reason Adric doesn't care.
          They land, conveniently, in the same cave system and it all escalates and they think The Doctor is the killer, yadda yadda, and then there's a really bad CG droid fight and we suddenly get a glimse of the Cybermen, in what was proclaimed to be one of the best pieces of television surprise of the 80s. The rest of the serial is about how they're tracking them down to a cargo ship, destined to get to Earth and invade. Anyway, for whatever reason Adric works out his problem and then is left on the shuttle with the cybermen as it crashlands into a prehistoric Earth. (Oh sorry, I should have mentioned...).
          The commentary on the DVD is really fun. It's just a group of four middle-aged people joking about the past, inserting innuendo everwhere. It's also revealing about the sheer madness of the low budget film production.

Thanks.

Review: Red Dwarf: Epideme and Nanarchy

Like in Series One, the last two episodes of this series are interlinked, and so here they are together.

Series Seven, Episode Seven - Epideme

"Old five fingers has checked out!"

Well, it's the penultimate episode already, that can be quite clever in places but clever in an interesting way rather than a funny one. Here goes.
          Deep inside an astro-glacier, the crew find a starship. On board, all of the crew are dead, but they find the stasis-preserved body of Caroline Carmen, one of Lister's old girlfriends and a supply officer on Red Dwarf. They bring her on the ship and while Lister sleeps, the zombified Carmen tries to have sex with him. Lister thinks for quite a while that she is Kochanski, until, of course, Kochanski walks in the room. She manages to infect Lister with the virus that she, and the members of her crew, were suffering from.
          Kryten tells him that the virus is Epideme, an intelligent parasite that should stop the neural relays for nictotine, but instead stops blood and oxygen. To save Lister, they hook him up to a moniter and find they can talk to the virus. They have a discussion about human superiority, and how Lister eating a chicken is the same as the Epideme killing Lister.
          They plan to cure Lister by forcing the virus into his left arm and then cutting it off. Lister is upset, but ready to do anything to be cured. They end up cutting off his entire right arm instead. When he awakens, he is extremely upset, and he's also still infected.
          Lister plans to rid himself and the universe of the virus by going back onto the astro ship and setting off some explosives. He ransoms himself to the Epideme, and bids farewell to the crew of Starbug. The epideme accidentally lets slip that the crew of the Astro ship were actually travelling towards a cure. Lister changes his mind.
         They then ask Epideme how to make the ship go faster, and they tell him. They then use this information to get to the planet before Lister dies. However, when they get there, the planet has already been flamed to rid themselves of the virus. Kochanski stops Lister's heart, and his mad undead form bites her hand, infecting her. She then cuts off her amr, revealing it to be Caroline Carmen's, and ejects it into space. They ressurrect Lister, and everyone's happy. Except Lister, of course, who has no right arm....
          Ok, I'd say that this is the strongest episode of Series Seven. It's got all of the Doug Naylor aspects and yet it's tightly plotted with some good ideas and logical paths. A lot of the humour is passable, but none of it's particularly laugh-out-loud.
 
Series Seven, Episode Eight - Nanarchy

"Last week on Red Dwarf... 'high voice' Something terrible happened to Mr. Lister's Arm! "

So we get to the finale, and it's been quite a long series, what with the extra episodes and the change in tone around the early bits. The series has definitely suffered without Rimmer, but There have been some successes, like Beyond A Joke and Epideme.
          We get an opening that recaps Epideme. Lister tries to do the things he used to do it daily life, by having Kryten "be" his right arm. They try to name the famous one-armed people from history, but they fail rather dramatically. Kochanski sees that Lister is exploiting Kryten as a slave. They try to fit him with an artificial arm, controlled by thought, but the amount of effort required to simply pick up a ball is so much that it's more or less useless. They then decide to use Kryten's nanobots to reconstruct Lister's body, the same nanobots that stole Red Dwarf. Since the nanobots have dissappeared, they retrn to where Kryten saw them last - the SS Esperanto (from Back To Reality). When they wake from deep sleep, they find a planetoid that the scanners say is Red Dwarf.
          They go onto the planetoid and take some soil samples, and find that the entire planetoid has been engineered by the nanobots from the remains of Red Dwarf. Among these remains is a portable Holly (NORMAN LOVETT WOOO), who explains that the nanos made a mini Red Dwarf and left everything else. They then realise that the reason their scanners can't pick up the nano Red Dwarf is because it's within the ship, and it's tracked down to Lister's laundry basket. Kryten berates the nanos and orders them to recreate Lister's arm and Red Dwarf.
          The nano-bots turn Lister into a bulging muscle man, which he is unhappy about. They then fly back into Red Dwarf, but for some reason are extrememly small....
         Ok, it's another decent episode, and Norman Lovett certainly gives the whole thing some pace. One can't help but be satisfied by the solution to the problem that they've faced for the last two series, but there's also some ok comedy and it never goes truly mad with itself. Series 8... well, that's just.... a different matter.

Thanks.

Review: Red Dwarf: Duct Soup, Blue and Beyond a Joke

Ok Dwarf. You've got most of the major changes out of the way. Now it's time to really get down to some fun, inspiring comedy that leaves us not only laughing but entertained as well. Oh, and this is the 100th post, by the way.

Series Seven, Episode Four - Duct Soup 

"I've never had to comfort a crying woman before. I don't quite know the technique. 'tries the heimlich movement' "

Oh Dear. Here we get a rather weak offering that tries to emanate the close-quarters character development of earlier series and fails dramatically. Naylor just can't do it. What's left is quite a bland excercise that fails to do much at all, towards anything.
          No title sequence, other than a five second image of "SERIES VII", and we find Lister boiling in his bed due to some temperature problem. Kochanski keeps being annoyed at a pipe that makes a series of noises. We devote a very long minute to an agonising sequence in which Kochanski berates the pipe for being out of tune. Instead of being funny, it just feels random and out of place. Both try their best to overcome their problems, but they, of course, fail. Kochanski confronts Kryten about how much she hates the ship. Lister and The Cat kill time by watching Kochanski's underwear spin dry.
          Kryten informs them of Kochanski's troubles and then finds that one of Kochanski's two outfits is horrendously shrunk. Lister goes to Kochanski who laments some more, and then he shows her that he has tidied his quaters for her to sleep in, built her a bathtub and found her a new dress. Kryten comes in, and, as Naylor dictates, fears the worst (he even has a hallucination of them getting married and throwing him off the ship.) Again, there's just something about it that prevents anything funny going on.
          Kryten storms out. The ship quakes and the lights go out, and Lister guides Kochanski by torchlight and finds Kryten and the Cat. Kryten explains that the generator has gone, and the backup comes on. As, for whatever reason, they go back into Lister's quarters, the back-up fails and they're locked in. Kryten reveals that the only way to get back to the generator is through the service ducts, which Lister is nervous about because he now (as Naylor commands) has claustrophobia. To take Lister's mind off the phobia, Kochanski reveals to Lister that his parallel counterpart was actually gay. Lister goes along with it, but then he realises that she was lying for that purpose. She goes away, and the Cat comes and is the helpful self he always is.
          Kryten, meanwhile, is accusing Kochanski of being in love with this Dave. The Cat hears water surging down a passageway, and Lister gets them to evacuate as the vents are self-cleaning. They all make it out anyway, and Kryten reveals that he could have overrided the doors at any point.
          It's just... it's trying so hard, and yet falling so short of being a good episode. It's unwatchable in some placed. Just painful. Do I have to continue? Really?

Series Seven, Episode Five - Blue

"How do you iron a bra, sir?"


This episode is about Arnold Judas Rimmer. Yeah, him. Remember that guy? I'm gonna stay brief on these plots now, because too much detail is just...eugh... . This is the last of Rimmer's roles in this series and it'll be another eleven episodes before we see Hard-Light Hologram Rimmer again.
          Lister is trying to clean himself up, most likely to be more attractive to Kochanski, including abandoning Curry. Kryten is finding it hard to cope with looking after women, (despite LOOKING AFTER THREE WOMEN ON THE NOVA 5 FOR TWENTY MILLION YEARS). They've found the co-ordinates of the tear in the universe and so are on their way to return Kochanski. Lister, as well as being annoyed at being about to lose Kochanski, is also beginning to miss Rimmer. He starts reminiscing and dreaming about him. To help Lister get over it, Kryten builds a Rimmer experience, accentuating all of his negative features.
          This episode is about really having a go at Chris Barrie. You know, this series' catalyst. The rest of the stuff is just re-treads of things done to death in the previous episodes. There were a few small giggles, most from Rimmer's brilliance, but the rest of the episode gets a little bogged down in sit-com drama. Although the Arnold Rimmer song is genius.

Series Seven, Episode Six - Beyond a Joke

"Supper is ready! 'fires tank gun' "

By this point, you actually begin to find Naylor has really stamped his boot into the series. The ideas themselves can be interesting but the execution is awful and there's no comedy to back it up. Well. There's no good comedy.
          To celebrate the supposed anniversary of Kryten's rescue from the Nova 5 (back in Series Two) kryten has prepared a full lobster dinner for the crew. Unfortunately, Kochanski takes Lister and Rimmer off to the AI machine, to visit the fabled, "Jane Austin World". Lister and The Cat want to get it on with one of the five sisters from Pride and Prejudice, while Kochanski is trying to introduce them to culture. Kryten, angry, visits the world himself and usues a WW2 tank to force them out.
          However, Kryten can't cook, and when Lister asks for ketchup he is so offended that his head explodes. They try to use spare heads but they all instantly blow up. They go on to a derelict that should have some mechanoid parts on, and it does, but it also contains a Rogue Simulant (my god I love those guys. Remember? Justice, Gunmen of the Apocalypse and Rimmerworld). They manage to remain undetected and plan to disguise themselves as GELFs to get supplies from the simulant. There's some conveniently good disguise work and they take Lister, undisguised, as a prisoner. They trade successfully, but while they're gone Starbug has been ravaged and Kryten stolen.
          On the ship, we reveal that the Simulant's accomplice was another 4000 series mechanoid called Able, who repairs Kryten. Able is mad, as well as addicted to a form of mechanoid drug. (Curiously, they're both played by Robert Llwelyn, except able has green armour and a stouter head.) In order to stop the ship from escaping, Kochanski decides to fly at full speed away from the ship, thus fooling the Simulant into thinking that there's a bomb on board his ship. It works. They beam on board and hold Kryten hostage.
          The simulant persuades Kryten to open the only file in his database that he has never opened. Inside is the truth about his creation; the inventor, Professor Mammet, designed the entire 4000 series after her ex-boyfriend, who she hated. This makes him deppressed. Before the Simulant can strike, however, Able knocks them out and saves the crew's lives. Kryten talks to Lister about the situation and how all of his negative emotions get stored up in a file, until it overloads. Lister tells him that he has evolved.
         The simulant catches back up to them, and chases them through an asteroid belt, where they're hiding. Able, high on the drug, falls on the controls and lets the Simulant find them. Able heads off, in an escape pod, towards the ship, where he uses Kryten's negative emotions to somehow make the Simulant so deppressed that he self destructs.
          Ok, this episode was watchable. It had an interesting story with a few laugh-out-loud moments, and some good story. Good work. Shame the last two episodes are interlinked.

Thanks.

Review: Sherlock: Part Two

A much more interesting mystery this week, with a tighter focus on getting down to business instead of the lighthearted bantering of last week. Yet again everything fit into place like clockwork, but it got a bit convoluted along the way, leaving the whole thing a bit unreal.
        A Chinese woman disappears. Deep in a tower block in London, someone writes a piece of graffiti in a mysterious language. Sherlock is called in, and discovers that the graffiti is a warning to the Hong Kong ambassador, Van Coon. Sneaking into Van Coon's flat, Sherlock discovers him dead, a murder badly disguised as a suicide. After another murder, Sherlock and Watson follow several paths including book ciphers and ancient chinese dialects, revealing a murderous smuggling chain disguising themselves as a circus.
          The mad complexity of the plot is generally consistant, and there aren't any logical gaps that spring to mind. What is lacking, however, is a sense of light-footed genius. Sure, there are near-supernatural deductions from Holmes, but it could have done with something to break up the madness. Not that it wan't enjoyable, of course. I'm looking forward to the final installment next week.

Thanks.

Review: Red Dwarf: Tikka to Ride, Stoke me a Clipper and Ouroboros

For the purposes of these reviews, my review pattern will now consist of two reviews covering three episodes and then one covering the last two episodes.

Series Seven, Episode One - Tikka to Ride

"Just call me badass!!"

Series Seven opens with an episode that is bearable at least, with a cohesive plot, some funny sequences and quite a bit of sci-fi. There are cracks however, in the design, acting and general attitude of the episode that forshadows other, more troubling developments.
           We get a cold opening where Lister tries to explain how they survived, and how the ship is still slightly damaged because of the stablising timelines. He talks to Kryten, who explains, sadly, that there is no curry left on Starbug. The acting here is a little forced, and I put that down to five years without practice.
           Rimmer's acting is fine, and there's a small explanation of why Starbug is now massive. They manage to use the space-time drive to travel back in time to Earth to get more curry. (Thus violating THE POINT OF THE ENTIRE SERIES.) To do this, Lister has had to turn off Kryten's guilt chip, turning him into an unstable madman. Anyway, they accidentally end up in 1963, and prevent President Kennedy's assassination, and when they travel forward to 1966 they find Texas abandoned. Kryen is able to explain that if Kennedy lived, his affairs would lead to a Mafia-controlled US, allowing the Cuban Missile Crisis to spin out of control.
        After several attempts to help the assassin, they decide that the only solution is to create a killer on the grassy knoll. They choose Kennedy himself, in the future version, who comes back and successfully kills himself.
         The sci-fi aspects of this episode, and the culmination of several running gags, pave over the initial cracks in the story, and it shows some good omens at least. The humour is mostly slpastick, as in, absent. Lets get on with it.
         
Series Seven, Episode Two - Stoke Me a Clipper

"'translated from German' What a Guy! "

Another sequel to Dimension Jump, this episode is quite brilliant. In it's best areas, it's touching and a poignant send-off to Chris Barrie, who leaves the series temporarily. And rightly so. The removal of one of the series' most important and funny characters, with around three series' worth of plot development, is a terrible decision. But, this is Doug Naylor, so we will have to get used to bad decisions.
         The cold open lasts about five minutes but it's quite a fun action sequence, in which Ace Rimmer saves the girl and does some brave derring do (the effects are a little shabby though, to be honest.) We then cut back to Dwarf, where Lister is once again using the AI machine, this time cheating in order to have sex with the queen of Camelot.
        Ace re-jumps into the Dwarf-verse, causing the ship to lose power. He appears, and everyone is glad to see him, except of course Rimmer. Ace reveals to Rimmer in private that he is dying. He shows Rimmer that he is a hologram, and that every time an Ace dies, he goes into another dimension and passes on the torch. Rimmer isn't persuaded, but mocking from Lister means that he takes up the challenge, saving the crew from one of the AI machinations that has escaped onto the ship (Lister in disguise.) Rimmer then goes off, to fight as Ace in other dimensions.

Series Seven, Episode Three - Ouroboros

"I wonder why guys have nostril hair? "

So. Two decent episodes so far, bar the fact that the best character is gone, we look set. Here to replace Rimmer is Chloe Annett, in the form of Kristine Kochanski. Lets see how they manage her introduction. This episode also gives us a juicy look at Lister's parents.
          Our cold open shows a baby Lister being found as a baby in a small box under a pool table, with the word Ouroboros on the side. We cut to present day Lister, cleaning his teeth and plucking his nose hairs. He's doing this to get ready for bed, and Kryten comes in offering him help. He's half-way through flossing his teeth (terribly), when Cat comes in with news of something on the scanner.
           They see that it is a temporal rip in space-time. They can't escape it and so head straight into it. Heading down to the Engineer deck, they find that a hyperway has opened up into a parallel dimension. There they meet their opposite numbers. A hologrammatic Lister explains that in his universe Kochanski got put in stasis and so Lister was resurrected instead of Rimmer. Kochanski then appears.
          May I take a moment to digress? Kochanski is quite an important character in the long run, despite only making four appearances before Series Seven. She was played by a Scottish actress, and had a few cameos as the woman that Lister loved above all others, a higher ranking officer. Here she is replaced by a new actress without any note whatsoever. And, as we'll find out, she's just got none of the charisma of the former actress. She can't act.
          Anyway, returning to the episode, and Kochanski explains that she wants to have a child with Dave but can't, so wants our Lister's sperm sample. While the others exchange supplies, she gives across the gamma mixer whatsit and the tunnel tears, leaving Kochanski hanging out over nothingness. Our Lister manages to pull Kochanski back up, but the gateway is being attacked by GELFs (from Emohawk:Polymorph II), and she is stranded in our universe.
           As you can apprciate, she is violently unhappy about this, but helps to fight off the GELFs with her superior knowledge nonetheless. Kryten is also annoyed, as he has gained an obsessive need to help Lister, and fears that Kochanski will steal him away. This Kryten personality is not just annoying, it's also incredibly painful. Horrible. Unfortunately, this is Doug Naylor's Kryten. Appalling.
          Anyway, they reopen the linkway and Lister finds the Ouroboros box, and realises that the tube he gave Kochanski will result in himself, and that Kochanski is not only his ex-girfriend, but his mother. Cue looks of disgust from all three men. He runs to get the test tube back, trying to ensure his own birth, and the GELFs return, firing at the temporal gateway. Kristine jumps but doesn't make it, and so fires a harpoon gun at her, saving her life (at some considerable pain.)

Review: Dorian Gray

I can’t help thinking that this film gave me the wrong impression. Its whole anti-hero character structure is based off the Victorian tale from which it was adapted, and so this doesn’t really correlate with modern values. In fact, the main antagonist (other than the protagonist himself) is a pretty ok guy.

            So, we’re introduced to Dorian Gray, this guy with absolutely no back story or personality beyond having a mother and a father. He’s come to live in London and is painted by an artist who loves his image, while he falls under the influence of Lord Henry (Colin Firth with a smashing goatee) who is an opportunist, obsessed with life’s pleasures. Apparently, based on a conversation where Dorian says he would sell his soul to live forever, he is forever bound to the painting, which absorbs all of his evils and imperfections while leaving him untouched. It seems like an interesting idea, but the way it’s executed in the first part of the film means that it comes off as unendingly dull, and the interactions comically bad.

            Anyway, after the original artist sees the evil painting, Dorian (for some god-awful reason) decides that he has to die, and strangles him. He runs away, and we flash forward to twenty five years later, where everyone’s wearing a grey wig and Dorian returns, exactly the same as before. (Of course, nobody notices that 25 years of aging seem to have passed him by.) He falls in love with Lord Henry’s daughter, but Lord Henry, who seems to be the only one that has twigged, decides to burn the painting and the house that Dorian lives, so as to kill him. Dorian ends up destroying the painting himself.

            So, bad characterisations, terrible pacing (I was shocked to see what I thought of as a week was actually a year) and bad moral matching. This is not only a dull film, it is a bad film, and one you should avoid.

Thanks.