Red Dwarf - Series 8 - Byte 1 - Back In The Red [VHS] [1988]

BITR pt 1-
This episode is fantastic. Some fantastic dialogue between Lister and Rimmer. Quality visual gags like the infamous 'rat-arsed' sequence and some great jokes. The return of the crew premise works surprisingly well. Minor negatives: Kochanski's character has been diluted, some gags hit the target, 'Are you sure your seat is screwed down?'. Great stuff. 3.5/4

BITR pt 2-
This otherwise fine episode is hurt by two extremely bad scenes - the Kryten toilet sequence and the return of the irritating Dibbleys. Very unoriginal and not the comedy genius I expect. However, other than that, the trilogy continues in a funny, inventive way. Mediocre but only because of TWO scenes. Now that is irritating. 2/4

BITR pt 3-
The worst episode of Red Dwarf bar none. There is very little coherence in this episode and very few jokes hit the target. The Blue Midget dance sequence, although an admirable effort, is just plain boring and goes on far too long. Weak jokes and sequences abound. Plusses: the first bunk room scene has some good jokes, the 'cut off both his bo""%"S with a blunt knife' bit and the end part. Bitterly disappointing. 0.5/4

Cassandra-
This is an incredible episode. Funny and inventive. A fantastic episode. 3.5/4

Certainly they achieve this to some extent, with the hunt for their ship giving the series some sense of purpose. For me, Legion is a particularly good episode. However, my feeling is that by this stage, the long-running series had become formulaic. Almost every episode began with about 7 minutes of them in the cockpit, followed by a dilemma requiring them to leave the 'bug in some way, with everything being tied up by the end. Repeated jokes like Cat's "We're deader than... (an unfashionable item of clothing)" took their toll, as did Kryten correcting Rimmer's attempts at Space Corp Directives.

So series 7 took a different angle. Rob Grant had left the writing team. Much is said of why they didn't film with a studio audience, and many critised the series as it stood without Rimmer. Personally I think its biggest problems were the lack of decent characterisation and the terrible scripting. The Cat was no longer a cat, and Kryten no longer stood as a character different to the others. In fact, with the words they spoke and the way they behaved, each character was basically no different to any of the others in the crew. The writing and performance swayed between complete dullness (there were times when the lines they spoke could have been spoken by any of them - notice how all the characters, even Kryten and the man who discovers Lister's box under the pool table, regularly spurt the cheap line that uses the basic structure: "It's larger/sharper/flatter/whatever than (something that is very large/sharp/flat/whatever)"), and mindless parody of Red Dwarf itself. Lister's emotional performance which resulted from the ship's lack of curry was to me one of Red Dwarf's lowest moments. Toe-curlingly bad. Here, and elsewhere in series 7 we see that the characters have become pantomime re-inventions of their past selves. And without the tight hunt for Red Dwarf, series 7 lacked the urgency or need for anything. It was completely and utterly pointless. Two episodes stood out though: "Stoke me a Clipper", which respectfully dealt with Rimmer's exit in a suitable re-incorporation of Ace Rimmer (not like the daft re-incorporation of fan-loved characters in series 6's "Emohawk"); and "Blue", which highlighted Lister and Rimmer's relationship in a sensitive and (with the "Rimmer Experience" at the end) amusing way.

And onto series 8. I thought that the premise was fantastic. To bring back Red Dwarf with its crew had so much potential - potential which I think here is wasted. Why? Once again, terrible scripting and bad performances. The "Reservoir Dogs" walk through the corridor, Kryten's "I'm feeling an emotion, OOH! AAH! I'm feeling two emotions, my files are corrupting!", the snogging scenes following the use of the sexual magnetism virus, and the final caption: "The End ...the smeg it is" are only four examples (and series 8 is full of them) of the characters and humour being exaggerated and simplified to the point of such one-dimensionality that it is not only quite tedious and unremarkable, but uncomfortable to watch in the memory of what the series used to be.

And with the early series of Red Dwarf being remastered and those videos replacing all the originals, it is no longer possible for newcomers to the series to follow its natural evolution in style and content.