REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep 6 - CAN OF WORMS

Sorry to say I'm very behind on my reviewing. Moving into a new place is a very time-consuming and stressful undertaking, and one I like to do as infrequently as possible, but these last two weeks have been onwards and upwards and so televisual excursions have been reduced. Soon, though, I will find time to finish covering Space Dandy season two, get back onto Trek and return to working for Television Heaven. Now though, I can finish the latest run of Red Dwarf.

This year's series of Red Dwarf has built on the successful approach of Series X, taking elements of the earliest series and rejigging them for a modern approach. Wisely not trying too hard to recreate the classic years, Series XI is retro Red Dwarf – taking the old and making it new. As such, it's been a very fan-pleasing run, but crucially, it's also the funniest series of Red Dwarf for a good long while (probably since series VI, for my dollarpound).

“Can of Worms” goes for broke with this approach, dredging up memories of favourite episodes while examining some, in retrospect, obvious questions about a character who hasn't ever really been in the limelight. This series we've had a strong Rimmer episode and a strong Kryten episode, and to a lesser extent, a Lister-focused episode, but never before have we had a Cat episode. The closest we've got was “Waiting for God” in Series I, and that was really a Lister story.

Finally, Danny John Jules gets to be the focus of an episode, with a script that revolves around the Cat and his mysterious, self-absorbed lifestyle. Of course the Cat, for all his arrogant self-aggrandising, has never been with a woman, and he's only even met about three. It's a very funny, very blokey set-up for an episode.

It's kind of a shame that, after introducing a female Cat person, the episode chucks the concept away. Back in Series VII, Naylor wrote a script called “Identity Within,” which revolved around the Cat's desperate need to have sex, a parody of Star Trek's “Amok Time.” That episode was scrapped due to budget constraints, but it's voiced storyboard has become generally accepted by fans as a “real” story, something this latest episode puts the kibosh on. Series VII would have given us a real Felis sapiens, but Series XI decides to make her a polymorph instead.

Still, it works. It's a brave move, trying to make a (second) sequel to one of the most popular episodes of the programme, but this latest shapeshifter attack hits an excellent balance of grot vs. comedy. The more seasoned spacers have little difficulty dealing with a whole swarm of polymorphs this time round, but there are enough jokes hitting the mark that it still works as a new take on the old monster.

Meanwhile the Cat gets some of his nest moments ever. It's hard to know whether “It still counts!” or “Pipe me!” will go down as his best-remembered lines (disturbingly, the ovipositor thing is an actual fetish). It's also fun to see the suddenly selfless mother Cat, a huge contrast to his usual self, and once again an idea that deserves more exploration than there is time for. Underneath it all, though, we get a glimpse at how lonely the Cat is as a character. There's a lot more that could be done with his character.

That last scene though, that could have been something. Yes, it was funny, but if only it hadn't been a dream. Of course, it would have made nonsense of the episode as a whole, but imagine the continuity arguments the fanboys would have had...

Best line: "No, Kinder eggs! Yes, eggs that hatch!"

Good psycho guide: Four chainsaws

REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep. 5 - KRYSIS

"Krysis" sees Red Dwarf XI hit a high with the best episode of the year so far. It has a gloriously simple and effective central idea, that of Kryten hitting his midlife crisis, and runs with it to a bizarre and poignant conclusion. The script moves from a brief but classic bunkroom scene into the main plot rapidly, with plenty of funny moments for each of the Dwarfers but always focusing on Kryten. Series X allowed the characters' age to show, with this series (and the next, from what I've seen) following that train of thought. Lister seems fairly comfortable with himself, the Cat is supremely self-assured (who can blame him in that glorious pink suit?) and while Rimmer might seem the obvious choice for a middy, he's so neurotic permanently it would make little difference.

So it's Kryten who gets to face the crisis, and I guess that makes sense, as he's the one who's actually had to experience millennia of solitude, hard work and existential dread. We might consider this the latest step in his evolution from servile android to, well, gobbier, angrier servile android. His new red sportscar look and impromptu dance-off skirt the line between funny and naff, but that's the point with a midlife crisis. It should look embarrassing.

Pitting Kryten against his more accomplished predecessor gives this storyline legs. Dominic Coleman is perfect as Butler, the effete and genius mechanoid. His delivery has a touch of de Niro's Captain Shakespeare (from Stardust) to my ears, and arrogant as the character is he's likeable and seems to be taking real joy in everything he does. I'd be happy to see him again in a later episode, especially as he brings out the very worst in Kryten. The old Series 4000 really is part of the Red Dwarf crew: a somehwat deranged old bastard, like the rest of them.

The final act takes an unusual turn for the series, delving into a more philosophical area before turning it into a very funny scene with more than a hint of Hitchhikers to it. Conversing with the universe itself is not something I expected the series to give us, and it sets Kryten on a rather heartwarming resolution. It all adds up to a rather wonderful episode.

Good Psycho Guide: 4.75 chainsaws.

Continuity bollocks: Kryten here gives his age as 2,976,000 years old. Given that he was created in 2340, this places the current series in AD 2,978,340, with possible allowances made for time dilation, the most accurate date we've ever had for the setting. Clearly, Holly was rounding up a bit when he said he kept Lister in stasis for three million years.

Pretty astonishingly, mechanoids can be expected to last for six million years. Butler is described as Series 3000 mechanoid, which is something of a continuity howler. In the sixth series episode "Out of Time," we learned that the Series 3000 droids looked like realistic humans, but were recalled. Perhaps some of them were fit with new, Series 4000 styled skins? Less problematically, the Nova 5, Kryten's ship, turns out to be the name of a series of ships, with the Nova 3 originating a century before.

We also meet a new breed of GELF, the Sakinyako, who aren't dissimilar to the Kinatawowi.

Best Line: 
"I've got an ingrowing toenail, it's killing me!"
"Thank it for me."

REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep. 4 - OFFICER RIMMER

Rim Rim Rim Rim Rim Rim... Mister Rimmer...

After an average third episode, Red Dwarf XI serves up two belters. I'll be reviewing "Krysis" a little later after a second watch, but first, "Officer Rimmer." Rimmer episodes are always a treat - "Me^2," "Better Than Life," "Rimmerworld." OK, maybe not "Only the Good," but you get the picture. "Officer Rimmer" is another cracking episode, one which sees Rimmer finally achieve his life's (and afterlife's) ambition. Not content with being acting-advisory-senior-crewmember, Rimmer finally becomes an officer and gets to legitimise his arrogant separation from the rest of the team.

The results are hilarious, with Rimmer intentionally segregating himself from Lister and the Cat, and positioning Kryten as his personal valet. Series XI continues its obsession with Red Dwarf's lifts, introducing a scummy, barely usable service lift for the grunts, and an executive lift for Rimsey himself. Then there's the officer's club, Rimmer's attempt to set himself up in a club for people like him. Just like him...

Although Rimmer's supercilious arrogance is the core of the episode, there's a brilliant science fiction concept underpinning it. Back in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, authors wrote about the terrible consequences that could follow from teleportation. Now we know that matter transmission is almost certainly impossible, but we have developed the incredible technology of 3D printing. Considering that we are now able to print replacement organs and mechanical limbs, it's not such a huge leap to speculating about printing entire people. As such, the Nautilus and its crew compliment, kept on file until needed, is a horribly believable use of a miraculous technology.

The printer leads to some surprisingly effective body horror. The Nautilus's captain, printed with his face on the top on his head, is really disquieting, and I actually felt very uncomfortable looking at him. Rimmer then uses the printer to create endless duplicates of himself, instigating a hierarchical structure with him on top... until the printer goes wrong again and creates a horrific mash-up Rimmer Monster. After the deranged surgeon droid of "Give and Take," it's another effective turn to the dark side for the series.

This is an episode that expertly blends sci-fi, comedy and horror, but once again, one that has far too much material for its runtime. The bioprinter is a fascinating concept with huge scope for further exploration. The ethical and philosophical consequences could power a whole series of programmes. There's a brilliant moment where we learn that Lister sold his genome, and that his duplicates have been manning call centres for years. It's one of the best bits of the episode, but again, it's just a moment, where it could be the basis for a full episode. And, as with the first two episodes of the run, it just stops. In fact, it's the worst example so far, with the episode being cut off mid-battle. I can only assume both time and money ran out, and the climactic destruction of the Rimmer Monster was just too expensive to show. It's a major flaw that prevents "Officer Rimmer" from being a five star episode.

Good Psycho Guide: Four-and-a-half chainsaws

Continuity bollocks: As with previous episodes this year, "Officer Rimmer" harks back to the early days of the series. Kryten mentions previous occasions where having more than one Rimmer hasn't gone well, but Rimmer Prime brushes it off, saying there'll be lots of him this time. Sure, "Me^2" was one-on-one Rimsey war, but has he forgottent the entire planet of his clones in "Rimmerworld," where ended up in a dungeon for 557 years? At least he still remembers to always carry a pen.

There's a definite sense that lately Red Dwarf has been moving back into the populated area of space, which makes sense if they've been travelling back towards Earth all this time. We're meeting multiple ships on deep space missions, including the Nautilus, the Nova 3 and the SS Samsara. We also get a little more information about the Space Corps rank system. The lowest officer rank is simply called Officer, with First Lieutenant considerably higher.

Best line:

"Of course we're sure - it's as plain as the nose on your head!"

REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep. 3 - GIVE AND TAKE

SPOILERS OCCUR

After two episodes that combined clever ideas with genuine laughs, the third episode of Red Dwarf XI gets the first criterion right but doesn't quite hit the second. There are some great elements here, and once again, Naylor's script revolves around some brilliant concepts, but fundamentally, "Give and Take" just isn't especially funny. 

There are a few good laughs, the best of which being the drive room scene, which includes the dialogue around Kryten wiping Rimmer from his memory bank. This is one of the clips that was shared before the series started, and it is a belter. After that though, there's not many good laughs to be had. It's a fairly average episode on that score. Where it does rate above other episodes, surprisingly, is horror. The deranged surgeon droid Aschlepius is creepy as hell, and the sequence where he menaces Lister and the Cat works very well. It's not long before the episode moves back to the comedy. The Cat's selfishness has returned to its spectacular Series I levels, and this leads to some memorable exchanges. Snacky the snack droid is pretty poor though, and we've got enough talking snack dispensers on Red Dwarf. It's not a bad episode, all told, just an average one.

Once again, there's a link back to a previous episode, although rather subtler this time. We've already seen a stasis booth allow travel back in time, way back in Series II's "Stasis Leak," so the dodgy engineering on display here to turn such a booth into (yet another) time machine fits in with the dubious science of Red Dwarf. The time loop involving Lister's kidneys is cleverly done, although it lacks any real peril, because we know that the plan has already worked. There's also a huge logical conundrum: whose kidneys were in the dish in the first place? Lister's kidneys were only missing because the Dwarfers went back in time and removed them in the first place. It's a classic time loop, but doesn't explain the kidneys that get accidentally blasted. Perhaps Aschlepius detected that Lister was missing his organs and got some out of storage to transplant?

 

Good Psycho Guide: Three chainsaws

Best Line: "Oh, there's a folder in here called "Captain Bollocks!" Could that be you?

REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep 2 - SAMSARA

Red Dwarf XII continues with another episode full of clever ideas. Doug Naylor seems to have been the more sci-fi-oriented of the Grant Naylor pair, going by his solo work since they split (the oddity of Series VIII notwithstanding). "Samsara" continues to show Naylor's strength as an ideas man, with an ingenious central conceit that leads to some laugh-out-loud moments.

The karma drive is explicitly based on the Justice Field from Series IV's "Justice," but is an original and different enough idea to feel fresh. Indeed I doubt I would have even thought of "Justice" if Kryten hadn't specifically mentioned the technology of that episode. The idea of karmic retribution as a means of maintaining "moral order" on long missions is one that is clearly ripe for abuse, and the episode touches on this, but understandably the script focuses on the humour of the concept.

Although this is an episode with high concept sf at its heart, much of the runtime is taken up with very traditional, straightforward sitcom scenes. The opening scene, in which Rimmer and Lister play a game of "Mine-opoly," is a lengthy, simple and very funny string of bickering between the characters. Equally, aboard the SS Samsara we get a long conversation between Lister and the Cat, two characters who rarely get to interact at length without the others. The Cat's history lesson is hilarious, as much a throwback to the distorted Cat myths of Cloister the Stupid as it is a showcase for the Cat's bizarre idiocy.

"Samsara" is an unusual episode structurally, less linear than is usual for Red Dwarf. Jumping back and forth between the SS Samsara's mission and the series' present, three million years or so later, almost half of the episode features the guest cast with none of the regulars present. Maggie Service and Dan Tetsell are pretty great as the illicit lovers aboard the Samsara, holding their own while the Dwarfers are out of sight. They make believable, if not particularly likeable, characters and hold their own well. In fact, their story is probably more interesting than what's happening to the Dwarfers in the future.

Both "Samsara" and "Twentica" showcase great ideas that lead to memorably funny scenes, but plotwise both have suffered from trying to do too much with too little time. More so than last week, the second episode simply stops, while there is clearly scope for more misadventures within the karmic field. It's enough to make me strongly hope for a fifth Red Dwarf novel, to allow Naylor to expand on, and make the most of, his ideas  and characters.

Good Psycho Guide: Three-and-a-half chainsaws.

Title-Tattle: Samsara is a Sanskrit-derived word referring to the cycle of karmic reincarnation in Hinduism and Jainism.

Best Line: "Bam! Invents gravy!" (Somehow even better out of context.)

REVIEW: RED DWARF XI - Ep. 1 - TWENTICA

Red Dwarf comes back with a bang in "Twentica," the first of twelve episodes that will be broadcast over the next two years. Part of Red Dwarf's appeal and success is its ability to change and embrace different styles of story. Series ten embraced the best elements of the show's various styles, combining outright sci-fi adventures with odd couple sitcom style. When it got it right, it was spot on. The eleventh series begins with an episode that sits on the sci-fi side of the spectrum, as much as anything in the highly regarded fourth and fifth series (which included such contrived environments as the Waxworld of "Meltdown" and the Psi-Moon of "Terrorform"). "Twentica" is perhaps most similar to series seven's "Tikka to Ride" or last series' "Lemons" - a one-off excursion to Earth's history through yet another means of time travel. In fact, "Tikka to Ride" is the best comparison from the series' past, with "Twentica" also taking place in a version of America altered through time travel.

The difference is that the alternative America seen here, while a dystopian setting, is played predominantly for comedy. It's a fantastic idea; a version of the twentieth century where any technology beyond the level of the 1920s is outlawed. A Prohibition Era episode of Red Dwarf is a great idea in itself, but twisting it round to make it an anti-technology setting is an inspired idea. Indeed, it seems wasted on a mere twenty minutes of screentime. This could easily have been the setting for a two-parter, or even a full season of episodes. (Perhaps, if we ever got a fifth Red Dwarf novel, Doug Naylor could explore this world in more depth?) Part of the cleverness of the idea is that it automatically makes Rimmer and Kryten illegal by their very nature, although this isn't explored very much. However, some of the episode's best moments occur in the brilliant "science speakeasy" scenes, where former scientists go to indulge in their proclivities under cover of drinking and dancing. Naylor takes the joke just far enough, and the climactic scene is brilliant.

All the regular cast get a moment to shine, with a strong emsemble feel to the episode. This is a wise choice for a series opener, especially as we seem to have episodes coming up that are more heavily based on one character. I've got to say, all the boys look great in their Prohibition-style gear (but then, what man doesn't look better kitted out like that?) In fact, the episode as a whole looks amazing. Dave, along with new co-producers Baby Cow Productions, are clearly spending more money of the series after the success of series ten.

This extends to hiring a great guest cast. Lucie Pohl stands out as Harmony de Gaulthier, and veteran actor David Sterne as Bob the Bum (aka not Einstein). The best addition to the cast, though, is Kevin Eldon. He's one of those actors it seems odd hasn't been in the series before, but then, the main part of his career has been in the years that Red Dwarf was off air. Here he gives everything as Four of Twenty-Seven, leader of the Exponoids, a new variety of Simulant armed with time travel. As well as an ingenious opening scene that embraces the twisted logic of time travel, the Exponoids turn up throughout the episode to pose a threat and squabble. They're essentially a bitchy version of the Borg and provide laughs and peril in equal measure.

The plot does seem to be cut a little short, but the episode as a whole is a success, with some real laugh-out-loud moments. It does seem, though, that Naylor didn't think the full logic of the premise through. Although the Exponoids are defeated, they've still altered history, and there are potentially a few bits of Starbug left in the twentieth century. Either this is a big oversight, or there will be some repurcussions further ahead. Then again, Red Dwarf's timelines never did make much sense.

Good Psycho Guide: Four-and-a-half chainsaws.

Title-Tattle: "Twentica" is an odd title, to be sure. It's never explained in the episode, and it presumably refers to the Twenties-style alternative America.

Time Travel: In "Twentica," an Exponoid device called "Chronos" which allows time travel, and creates a vortex through which Starbug is drawn back in time. Previously, the Dwarfers have time travelled via a stasis leak rift ("Stasis Leak"), mutated developing fluid that created magical photographs ("Timeslides"), a time hole ("Backwards"), a malfunctional rejuvenation shower ("Lemons") and a 29th century time drive (in "Out of Time," "Tikka to Ride" and "Ouroboros"). Not to mention the time distortions they experienced in "Future Echoes," "White Hole" and "Pete," plus the pseudo-time travel in "Back to Reality," "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" and Back to Earth. That's an awful lot of time travel by many different means.

Best Line: "What happened to your head?"
"...I went bobbing for apples in a cement mixer!"