My faith is small rouge one is restored. After an OK sort of
start, the second episode of the series was a cracker.
There are fewer actual jokes this time round, but the
overall effect is something much more consistently entertaining, with decent
sci-fi conceits at its core and some excellent character moments for Rimmer and
Lister. The early part of the episode, with Rimmer carping on about the whining
in his ears, while Lister got soppy over his Father’s Day card, showed just how
these characters should be portrayed now. The cast are getting older, there’s
no getting away from that, so why not make a virtue of it? A whinier than ever
Rimmer against an increasingly soft, gummy Lister would work. Not that we want Last of the Summer Wine in space (they
couldn’t find enough baths to slide down hills, for a start), but four old gits
on a spaceship has plenty of mileage for a sitcom.
Lister’s father-son relationship with himself is a little
touch of genius. It takes a concept from the series’ past (the underrated
Series VII) and uses it to create a brilliant new piece of character-driven
comedy. Craig Charles switches between crabby old dad and defiant son with
aplomb, his arguing with himself being some of the funniest material in the
episode. Lister Sr’s drunken video letter to his son is brilliantly done, with
just enough drunken slapstick, and leads up to the best moment of the episode:
the fake guitar gag. Yet it furthers the plot and ties in nicely to the other
side of the story, that of the new computer.
Rebbecca Blackstone gives a sharp, quick-fire performance as
the coldly logical Pree, the predictive computer. Having had messages finished
for me with disturbing accuracy by my phone (I guess I’m just predictable) I
love the idea of a computer that saves time by predicting your own actions. Pree’s
cold if skewed logic leads to some brilliant comedy moments, before providing
the threat the episode needs for its second half. The episode builds to an
effective action sequence, that is finally resolved with an ingenious tying
together of the episode’s two plot points.
Some elements don’t work quite as well. I’m undecided on the
Medi-Bot – it’s tending just too far to the annoying side of quirky – and the
Chinese Whispers joke feels contrived and is not nearly funny enough. However,
this episode hits far more often than it misses. The roster of vending
machines, each with their own personality, is another reworking of an element
of the show’s past (and presumably leads into the upcoming love triangle
episode, ‘Dear Dave). If the series continues to develop along these lines, we
should be in for some real treats. I’m very much looking forward to next week’s
celebrity historical.
Good Psycho Guide: Four
Chainsaws.
Best Line: “You
predicted that I’d cock it up, so you cocked it up for me?”
Awesome review. I was going to bash one out myself this evening, but you've already said everything I was going to!
ReplyDeleteMust try harder, Wolverson.
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