I left today’s blog a bit late, I did. I’ll have to delve into the archives. I wrote this back in 2009, when Back to Earth had just aired and my rage was at its peak. I figured with the announcement of a new full series of Red Dwarf, now was as good a time as any.
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Remember The Phantom Menace? Remember how pumped you were when you knew that there was going to be a new Star Wars, years after the originals? Remember how hyped up you got as the slow drip feed of information trickled down to you, each morsel of knowledge pumping you up that little bit more?
Remember when it finally arrived? Remember how you fell to the floor in horror as all your hopes and expectations disintegrated around you in a torrent of bad dialogue and Jar Jar Fucking Binks? Remember how you left the cinema in despair, collapsing to your knees outside and yelling ‘NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO’ to the heavens? REMEMBER THAT?
Well I don’t, because I was 11 years old and I thought TPM was fucking awesome. But I hear a lot of people were that disappointed by it, and now that I’ve finished watching Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, I have an experience that I believe is roughly the same.
If my long winded introduction has given you the impression that I hated BTE, that’s because I nearly do. Yes, I am going to spend a great deal of this ‘review’ slamming the shit out of it, but I want to make it clear that it isn’t completely worthless. There are good things about it; I mean, come on, it’s a new Red Dwarf! It’s been nearly a decade, anything’s better than nothing. It’s great seeing the old crew back, and the cast slip right into their roles like they’ve never been away.
That’s all the positive praise I can think of for now. Now it is time to rant.
The main problem I have with BTE is that it didn’t *feel* like Red Dwarf. Oh, it ticked all the boxes, but the magic has long since gone. The lack of a laughter track really didn’t help – they got rid of it in series VII, and that is widely regarded the worst series. So why did they think it’d work in their favour this time?
The special effects were good. Which isn’t Red Dwarf – they should have been intentionally crap. Originially, Red Dwarf was made on a budget of a bag of carrots and a few peanuts. It looked really cheap – and that was part of it’s charm. BTE looks too professional, and it doesn’t feel quite as familiar.
They’ve gone and CGI’d everything. A line has been crossed – no, a CRIME has been commited – when Skutters are generated on a computer. Are you telling me that none of the original props exist any more? Haven’t any die-hard fans built one of their own?
Also, do you remember how series 8 ended? With Rimmer kicking Death in the bollocks and the rest of the crew in mortal danger? However did they get out of that one? I haven’t a clue – BTE made no attempt whatsoever to explain the series VIII cliffhanger. For all series VII’s flaws, at least they explained the series VI cliffhanger in a few seconds – BTE completely glazed over it. The closest we get is that Rimmer is a hard-light hologram now as opposed to being alive, which implies that he did die. But Red Dwarf doesn’t have hard-light technology onboard, unless Holly invented it.
Actually, wait – WHERE THE FUCK WAS HOLLY? At least with Kochanski we found out that she died, but there’s no explaination as to where everyone’s favourite senile ships computer has gone. The official blurb is that, due to the water damage Lister causes, Holly is offline. But this is RED DWARF – there are umpteen ways to get around this. For most of series VIII, Holly was present in Listers watch for example.
But I can forgive Holly not being in it. Norman Lovett didn’t want to come back, and I can respect that (although Hattie Hayridge might have been available – and even if she didn’t want to, get a new actor! Jesus…). Do you know what I can’t forgive? The fact that Back to Earth was, to all intents and purposes, a rehash of the series V episode Back to Reality. That episode was about a giant squid secreting a venom that brought out the despair in the crew and made them believe they went to another universe. All they’ve done is taken that storyline, padded it out to an hour and a half and made it so the emotion was extreme happiness – as if that would pull the wool over our eyes. Do you know how I know this? Because Dave is showing Back to Reality right now. A good episode.
And that’s a good thing, because I really need a pick-me-up after Back to Earth. I admit my expectations were high – after all, they had a shoestring budget to make a special episode of a series that really has played out. With hindsight, I don’t think it could have been as excellent as it was in series V-VI. But I didn’t expect it to be a soul-crushingly bad as it was. At most, I managed five laughs (and one of those was at a line of dialogue).
At best, Back to Earth is excellent heckle-fodder. At worst, it’s actually very sad. The cast are so good in their roles, but absolutely everything around is so shit – script, CGI, other actors, the dire references to ‘our world’ – that it’s tragic watching them all go through the motions.
I’m sure there’s more I can say, but I’ll spare you any more nerd-rage. But I leave you with this – if a new series is indeed in the works as rumoured, the production team need to have a long, hard look at what they’ve done and decide what is best for the future. Or they should just listen to me.
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