This is an S.O.S. distress call from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak. The only survivors are: Dave Lister - who was in suspended animation during the disaster, and his pregnant cat - who was safely sealed in the hold. Revived three million years later, Lister's only companions are: a life form who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew. Message ends...
Yes that’s right space-fans, the first series of Red Dwarf, the BBC’s longest running sitcom and by far its most popular set of VHS releases, has finally made its long-awaited appearance on DVD. Initially produced in 1987 and spawning six additional series over a period of ten years (including a three year hiatus), this seminal first series is now available in a two disc collector’s edition that will have you Dwarfies quickly swapping those worn-out old VHS tapes for the new.
For those who have never seen and loved Red Dwarf in one of its many incarnations (anyone?), the prologue printed above is a pretty good synopsis of, well, with minor additions, basically all eight series'. The focus of the series, around whom the hilarity swirls, is Third Technician Dave Lister (Craig Charles) - a lazy slob who, as the very lowest rank aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf (he even ranks below the service droids), is more interested in curries and lager than his job fixing chicken soup machines and other routine maintenance. The only enjoyment Lister extracts from his job, seemingly, is annoying his senior officer and bunk-mate, one Arnold J. Rimmer (Chris Barrie). A career underachiever with an acute Napoleon complex, Second Technician Rimmer dreams of military glory whilst making Lister’s life a living hell.
But a life-change is just around the corner for our heroic slob. After bringing a mangy, and heavily pregnant cat, ‘Frankenstein’, on board, Dave is sentenced to stasis - becoming a non-event in space-time - for the remainder of the ship’s journey. However, in no time at all (teehee) Lister is released from the stasis booth by the ship’s computer Holly (Norman Lovett) who immediately informs him that a) the entire crew is dead, b) that three million years have elapsed and c) he is very probably the last human being left alive.
The last human being he may be, and a poor specimen at that, but Dave Lister is far from alone. As the colleague with which he exchanged the most words (the majority of them being smeg-off), Holly has brought back his dead bunk-mate Rimmer (albeit it as a hologram) to keep him company. Furthermore, safely sealed in the hold for three million years, Frankenstein and her kittens have evolved into a humanoid species – the last survivor of which (Danny John-Jules) is, at that very moment, prowling the ship’s corridors in a killer suit. And so, with these two companions and a plan to settle on Fiji, Dave instructs Holly to turn the gigantic ship around and head back to Earth. With the combined intellect of a can of spam, he and his shipmates don’t have a hope in hell of making it...
The End
“Look out Earth - the slime’s coming home!”
Basically this first ‘pilot’ episode presents great swathes of exposition; setting up the series’ main characters and their situation. It introduces the relationship between Lister and Rimmer, sees Lister enter and leave stasis, sees the crew wiped out by a lethal dose of Cadmium3 and introduces Cat. Pretty well a dud of an episode, but the rest of the episodes, unfeted by weighty exposition, are able to get the laughs rolling nicely.
Future Echoes
“We’re travelling at the speed of light, even with an IQ of 6,000 its brown trousers time...”
Resolved to return to Earth, Lister and Cat prepare to enter stasis for the long trip back to Earth. However, as Red Dwarf breaks the light speed barrier the three companions begin to see strange visions - ‘Future Echoes’ of events to come...
Balance of Power
“I know you’ll obey me Rimmer, because you, YOU, respect all that officer smeg...”
With Rimmer holding the ship’s cigarette supply to ransom, Lister is forced to obey his superior’s every word. Finding himself doing food inventory late on a Friday night, Lister resolves to pass the chefs exam and thereby finally outrank his hologramatic bunk-mate...
Waiting For God
“Hey, hey, hey – God eh? Working boy makes good!
As Red Dwarf finally turns around and heads for Earth, Holly detects and brings aboard a strange pod. Could this be the evidence of aliens that Rimmer has always dreamed of? Aliens that can give him a new body? Meanwhile, pouring over a copy of the cat race’s holy book, Lister discovers that he is, in fact, God...
Confidence and Paranoia
“Ahh... too slow Chicken Marango, too slow for this cat!”
Whilst up in the yet-to-be-decontaminated officers quarters trolling through his lost love’s personal effects, Lister contracts a mutated form of pneumonia. Bed-ridden and feverish, his hallucinations are made real by the virus; hallucinations that include two curious characters – one his confidence and the other his paranoia. Egged on by his confidence, Lister determines Rimmer’s hiding place for the ship’s remaining hologramatic data disks. Finally a date with his lost love, the delectable Ms Christine Kochanski, beckons...
Me2
“Oh shut your face - Mister Gazpacho!”
By a cruel twist of fate, (for Lister that is) Red Dwarf now contains two hologramatic Rimmers and the pair resolve to shack up together. But just how long can this match made in heaven last?
After five year absence from Red Dwarf, I was certainly a little nervous about revisiting a series that I look back on with extreme fondness. Would it stand the test of time, or was it simply a product of its decade? Well, I needn’t have worried. This first series of Red Dwarf is as sharp and funny today as the day it aired, and with the pilot quickly dispensing with the exposition, the rest of the series really does provide some serious laughs. Of course the life-blood of any sitcom, be it set in a lounge room, on a desert island, or in the sleeping quarters of a monolithic space ship, is the interaction between its motley group of mismatched characters. Red Dwarf is no exception and in this first series, more so than any other, it is the interaction between Lister and Rimmer that gives Red Dwarf its finest moments. With Holly and Cat providing funny, yet fleeting, distractions, it is the chemistry built up between Craig Charles and Chris Barrie - the constant bickering between Listy and Rimmsy - that provides the series with its real comedic punch. In fact, as I watched this series after so long an absence it struck me just how central the talent of Chris Barrie is to the success of the series. It is his input, above all other, that makes the series shine. And shine it most definitely does.
One of the main considerations when looking to update that library of VHS tapes to their shiny new counterparts is a vast improvement in video quality – so how does the new transfer hold up? Well, certainly the video quality to be seen on this first DVD release of Red Dwarf is better than its VHS equivalent. This is immediately evident during the initial title shot of Lister painting the hull of the vast ship; the slight blurring used to join the close-up with the receding wide-shot is now clearly evident.
However with this said, the image does suffer from some serious problems; some inherent in the video source material, and others added by the compression process. That the series was shot on video is immediately apparent, with a substantial amount of video grain loitering in the background of most shots - grain that quickly becomes a swimming blur of pixels if the camera or performers move substantially. This grain is accompanied by an almost uninterrupted level of macro-blocking, and posterisation. Although mostly (and harmlessly) restricted to the largely featureless background sets, every now and again this digital artefacting (alarmingly) accompanies foreground objects such as faces. Edge enhancement too is painfully (but not distractingly) obvious at times.
Taking these deficiencies as read, the image is still reasonably sharp (as the video source allows) and detail is good (but not great). Similarly, shadow detail is OK, with the background grain reducing it slightly over the levels seen in the foreground. In terms of colour, with the exception of the odd external shot of the titular vessel, things are quite drab with beige and military grey predominating. Perfectly rendered skin tones attest to perfect colour balance, and the layer change is nicely hidden between episodes.
All in all a little disappointing, but a definite improvement over the VHS releases. Although I was looking forward to more from the digital presentation, maybe my expectations were a tad high. I do think a second dual layer disc may have been a better way to go given the problems the compression process has had with the video source material, with three episodes apiece and the extras smattered between. Still, this would have meant breaking up the commentary, but I’ll take improvements in video any day of the week.
To my mind, Red Dwarf remains one of the best comedy series' ever produced by the BBC, a fact to which the series increasing longevity is testament. Managing to avoid both the conventional sci-fi and British sitcom stereotypes, it represents an innovative crossover series that looks to remain one of a kind for many years to come.
With eight series' in the can, a new series on the way, and a feature film currently in production, the future looks bright for our moronic space bums, and with laughs aplenty from Chris Barrie, Craig Charles and co., this first series is a must have for all serious devotees of the British sitcom. Of course the question that you fans are really wanting answered is “should I update my old VHS tapes?”, to which the resounding answer is "yes, yes, YES!" Despite the video presentation being a tad substandard, what we are offered here is certainly better than the original format, and with a collector’s edition providing a plethora of interesting extras, there really isn’t any debate needed. All in all, most highly recommended!
