Yar, you be here: Red Dwarf - Series 1 & 2 > Customer Reviews

Red Dwarf - Series 1 & 2 Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 11 Reviews)

A good buy, I recommend it FULL SKULL BABY!

The series Red Dwarf is truly amazing, and if you enjoy it, you'll definately want these DVDs. They hold dozens of interesting bonus features as well as the actual episodes. Some favorties of mine are:
Series 1
-The End
-Balance Of Power
-Waiting For God
Series 2
-Kryten
-Better Than Life
-Queeg

Funniest Sci Fi series ever FULL SKULL BABY!

I have every episode from all eight seasons, and I've watched them many, many times. This is the one of the funniest series shows EVER.....and I'm not even from the UK!
I actually enjoyed the series even more than the books, which is highly unusual. It brings to life the most ecclectic and twisted spacers ever to wreak havok across space and time. So if you liked Hichhiker's Guide To The Galaxy or MST3K, do yourself a favor and GET THIS SERIES!!!

Attack of the killer computers FULL SKULL BABY!

According to some remarks in "bonus features", Red Dwarf is a "sci-fi comedy sitcom" originating from BBC. Recognizable influences come from Dark Star, Star Trek and Star Wars, and probably others. Series I and II each consist of six about-28-minute episodes. Episode 1 sets the premise that leads into the series scenario. Subsequent episodes should generally be viewed in sequence because these episodes can refer back to what has happened before. The more interesting episode elements deal with satirical treatment of sex, religion, evolution, FTL travel, time stream mix-ups, and technology, of which there are a few scattered clever and inventive jewels; but these are, alas, like islands in a sea of mediocrity.

Most of the series revolves around two principal characters: Rimmer (a reconstituted hologram of the now-dead original) is portrayed by Chris Barrie (quite well, actually) as a perfectionist constantly obsessed with personal order and cleanliness of his "body", his wardrobe, and his surroundings. His nominal roommate aboard the ship, Lister (a surviving member of the original crew) is portrayed by Craig Charles as the (naturally) slovenly polar opposite. Much of the intended but never realized humor proceeds from this conflict using an old and worn device right out of Elementary Writing Class: Kindergarten Level. From a quite different direction having to do with the series' clever basic premise comes a third principal character, "Cat", in a no-holds-barred portrayal by Danny John-Jules which, along with related events, provide most of the more inspired humor and mad-cap sub-plot elements.

Comparisons to Dark Star come to mind, and its effect on this series is pronounced. But Dark Star was thoughtfully and imaginatively crafted by budding experts using dead-pan humor and satire. The professional quality actors never broke character. Special effects, while primitive, were inventively supplied within a highly limited college-student budget. Yet these limitations actually enhanced and endeared the overall effect. Humor was always completely natural and needed no adornment.

But there is a chasm between Dark Star and Red Dwarf: Class. There is too much annoying and amateurish breaking of character. Some reasonable, but primitive special effects end up like fragile rice paper stretched tautly over the sharp and protruding bones of an underlying carcass. Humor density is sparse. And therein probably lies the explanation for the single most degrading feature of this series: CANNED LAUGHTER. In the first ten minutes of Series I episode 1 (this reviewer stopped notating in disgust after that), canned laughter erupted at an average rate of every 12 seconds, with frequent inane giggles in between. Such disembodied spectral laughter occurs when two characters are interacting (in what is supposed to be a humorous situation but rarely is) deep in interstellar space and time, isolated by millions of light years and millions of years from the nearest earthlings (if such still exists) on a gigantic space ship. Nor does this annoyance seem to diminish and is "enhanced" by additional spectral CLAPPING in at least two Red Dwarf II episodes! (Series II by the way is a definite step downhill, if that's possible, from Series I.) The resultant intrusions were so annoying to this viewer that the episodes became increasingly difficult to watch, even for review purposes. And therein is perhaps the downfall of this series.

Do those who produce this stuff use canned laughter to hide their minimalist efforts and/or to signal intellectually challenged viewers when to react to something as funny (when it isn't)? Perhaps they are slapping together a product for what they contemptuously perceive as (or worse yet, correctly realize is) their target audience's lack of intellectual vigor?

Each series has two DVDs contained in a single normal sized quality storage case, wherein DVD 1 contains six 28-minute episodes and DVD 2 has 90 minutes of bonus features including the usual narcissistic, self-congratulatory, blather.. DVD 1 is held in a book-leaf like interior holder that hinges off the case's inner spine, a very nice arrangement. Picture quality is sporadically grainy at times, though generally adequate. Sound seems OK. Navigation to the various episodes and bonus features is clever.

1 2 3 4