REVIEW: RED DWARF XII- Ep 6) SKIPPER

SPOILERS for the finale, folks!

REVIEW: RED DWARF XII - Ep 5) M-CORP

This episode was a particularly interesting one for me, as I attended its filming at Pinewood back in February of last year. Not only is it fascinating to see how the episode finally turned out, it's been long enough since the recording that much of it felt fresh again, although not without a certain sense of deja vu. (Well, it probably is deja vu, it sounds like it.) One observation I must make is that most of the scenes recorded in front of us were done with at least two takes, which means that the audience response is a little false in the finished episode. You know you need to laugh at the funny bits, but the laugh is never as big, or as genuine, as it was on the first time round. Equally, the funniest scenes aren't necessarily the ones that stick in your mind from the recording; it's the ones that the cast enjoy performing the most, that involve the most ad-libbing and retaking, that you remember. If you're interested, the biggest laugh was for the Windows sound effect that twanged when the ship was rebooted.

The finished product is a fine episode, although nowhere near a classic. Like a lot of episodes, it starts off about one thing and ends up being about quite another. In this case, it begins as a rumination on ageing, with Lister hitting his fiftieth birthday (thus a little younger than Craig Charles), and then moves onto a dissection on corporatism and monetisation, and the ever-desperate need for the newest upgrade or app. Still, it comes back to the original theme as Lister is aged to decrepitude after his money runs out and he's forced to pay in time.

It's a nicely paced and structured episode, but again, there's the sense that there are too many ideas fighting for attention here. Lister's declining health, the talking medical probe Chippy, and the idea of predicting the time of someone's death with accuracy are all strong elements. Then it veers onto the plotline of M-Corp, their takeover of Earth in the 26th century, and their rapacious need to monetise everything from water to air to thought. Again, I'm reminded of the future history that Grant and Haylor described in the Red Dwarf novels, and I'd love to see this material expanded on the page.

M-Corp's buying out of the JMC has some brilliantly visual consequences any product or person not provided or employed by the company rendered invisible to Lister, M-Corp's sole employee and customer on the ship. The Cat spraying Lister with lager from an invisible can, before he too becomes invisible and steals his beans on toast, are great visual gags and really feel like classic Red Dwarf moments. Lister's teleporting to M-Corp's own little world, with downloadable "friends" and water that costs four hundred dollarpounds, works well too, all clinical white and corporatised. Helen George has a strong turn as the main guest star, the creepy M-Corp avatar Aniter. (Incidentally, she was not present at the filming. All the M-Corp universe material was prerecorded and played back to us.)

The resolution is clever, with M-Corp's desperate need to sell and sell some more proving its undoing. Lister's old age make-up is very impressive considering the TV budget, but it's great to have him reverted to his correct self. The final joke, having to reboot Lister to his original 23-year-old self self is a winner, but again, there's a ton of material that could be mined from the idea of backing up people's identities. Plus, the idea that Kryten could recreate the 50-year-old Lister's knowledge and personality from CCTV records is ludicrous, although admittedly Star Trek did something similar but even more idiotic back with "The Changeling" in the sixties (in which Uhura had her mind wiped, and was apparently able to be completely reeducated to Starfleet standard with her personality unaffected in a mere two weeks).

That final scene though, recreating the very first scene from "The End" back in 1988, is wonderful. Still, I wonder why this episode wasn't chosen to close out the season. With any final episode of a recording block potentially standing as the last episode of Red Dwarf ever, rounding it out with a recreation of the very first moments would have been lovely.

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

Best line: "Sir, you've got nothing. No life, no future, no partner - you're so easy to buy for!"

REVIEW: RED DWARF XII - Ep 4) MECHOCRACY

After a disappointing third episode, Series XII gets back on track with a hugely enjoyable story that gets just about everything right. After three episodes with significant guest casts, "Mechocracy" gets back to core Dwarf. It's Lister, Kryten, Rimmer and the Cat as the only humanoids onscreen, with only vending machines and other appliances as supporting characters. The story sees Lister allow a computer virus to infect Red Dwarf's system, leading to an "abandon ship" situation to which the vending machines are not invited. Long story short, the AI-run machines on the ship go on strike, so Rimmer and Kryten compete to become their president and thus control Red Dwarf.

REVIEW: RED DWARF XII - Ep 3) TIMEWAVE

Irony: an episode about a society in which criticism has been banned being the most critically panned episode in recent years.

The central idea is pretty promising. A society in which no one is held accountable for anything, no one learns how to do their jobs because positive criticism is illegal, where no one can insult or belittle anyone, no matter how idiotic. This could have been a Hitchhikers-eqsue satire. This could have been a timely attack on the fragile nature of people's egos and the tendency of people today to take anything as an offense. It could have gone down the route of Incompetence, Naylor's old stablemate Rob Grant's novel, where no one could be dismissed or barred from a position no matter how ill-suited or unable they were. We might have expected a few pokes at a certain notoriously incompetent and idiotic POTUS, except that these episodes were written and filmed before that world-damning election.

What we got was a bunch of people in children's television "crazy" costumes acting like irritating prats, and not the class of irritating prat that we're used to getting with Red Dwarf. It was a bit of a warning sign when the promo photo released was of Johnny Vegas in a baby pink police uniform, but he's actually the best thing in this episode. As the Crit Cop, Vegas's performance is just the right combination of frustrating and likeable, and his style fits in nicely as part of the Dwarf's world. (It's easy to imagine Vegas playing a crewman on the Red Dwarf back in pre-accident days, and he's apparently a big fan of the series, which is nice to know.) He's a damned sight better than Jamie Chapman as Captain Ziggy, although, to be fair to him, he had pretty poor material to work with.

REVIEW: RED DWARF XII - Ep 2) SILICONIA

Back in the mists of time, I started writing a Red Dwarf fanfic which saw the crew encounter a ship full of liberated mechanoids, who turned Kryten under their wing even as the higher series mechs put down the lowly Series 1000s. It's long lost and wasn't very good, but it perhaps goes to show that "Siliconia" is an idea that's been long overdue. Kryten may have broken his programming (more than once), and he certainly still gets tetchy from time to time, but nonetheless he's still been scrubbing gussets and hoovering quarters for three million years. Surely there are other mechanoids out there who have rebelled against their masters with a little more effectiveness than Mr. 2X4B 523P?

I have to say though, I never would have thought of turning the rest of the characters into droids. Yes, that image we've all seen floating around promoting the latest series with the full cast in mechanoid make-up is from this episode. As punishment for their crimes against machinekind, Lister, Rimmer and the Cat have their mins downloaded from their bodies and re-uploaded into mechanoid bodies, forced to serve their new mechanical masters.

While it starts with a few broad, old-fashioned gags, "Siliconia" turns into a classic episode. With a unusually large cast all buried under latex, this one must have cost a large chunk of Series XII's budget, but there was still enough for some very impressive effects shots. It's the plot that makes this episode a winner, though, as Kryten is wooed by the Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front (not as good an acronym as the Committe for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society, but pretty good). Meanwhile, the remaining Dwarfers find themselves becoming increasingly "Krytenified," as their new programming takes over.

What's really interesting is how quickly Rimmer changes into a subservient mech. The chance to mindlessly serve gives him the opportunity to leave his considerable baggage behind. He no longer feels inferior to his brothers or compelled to become and officer. It's a penetrating moment of character study that makes the old goit seem truly sympathetic for the first time in years, Unfortunately, it's a brief moment in a busy episode, and gets a bit swallowed up. This is a better-paced episode than some have been in Series XI and XII so far, but it's still too short to encompass all of Doug Naylor's ideas properly. It's a strong argument for a fifth Red Dwarf novel, just so he can have the chance of exploring all the ideas that he's clearly so eager to put out there.

The MILFs have taken on empowering new names and have their own, hilariously well-observed self-help group, but there's a rot within their organisation. Poor mechs of a lower class (fronted by a surprisingly recognisable James Buckley) toil in the ship's engines while their brethren of a higher operating system enjoy the life upstairs, all the while in search of their promised land.

"Siliconia" is a cracking bit of Red Dwarf. All it needs is a bit more room to breathe. And a cameo from David Ross might have been a nice touch.


Continuity Bollocks: Kryten has been described as a Series 4000 mechanoid since 4.1, "Camille," which also introduced the superior Series 4000 GTi with the slide-back sunroof head. However, the previous episode, 3.6, "The Last Day," had it that he was a "Kryten Series III." This episode gives a way to clear that up: Kryten and most of his fellows of MILF are Series 4000 Mark IIIs, while the downtrodden rabble are Mark IIs. At the end, they're all upgraded to Mark IV. Presumably, Hudzen 5 from "The Last Day" is an example of Series 5000, although he's never described as such.

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

Best line: "I've got a registered trademark where my wing-dang-doodle used to be!"

REVIEW - RED DWARF XII - Ep 1) CURED

Red Dwarf kicks off its twelfth (and final?) series with a bit of a corker. These episodes were recorded back in 2015-16 along with Series XI, so there's information on the plots out there if you want to go looking. However, if you don't want to be spoiled, go watch the episode first, because there are some big surprises crammed into the half-hour.