Ian's Newsround - 90 Bloody Minutes! featured image

For each of the previous DVDs, the total running time for extras, excluding commentary tracks, ran to about ninety minutes. For Series III and IV, they’ll beat this with a single documentary. I’ve read the news story through several times to make sure I’ve got it right. I’ve also made my arms raw with the amount of pinching that has taken place. But no doubt about it – each series-specific documentary will be an hour and a half long. The features will be composed of thirteen (13) interviews – Mike Agnew, Chris Barrie, Howard Burden, tall genius Ed Bye, Craig Charles, Andrea Finch (Pennell), ‘Fourth Dwarfer’ Tony Hawks, Hattie Hayridge, Danny John-Jules, Gordon Kennedy, Bob Llewellyn, Ugod Naylor and Sir Peter Wragg. All the interviews were conducted by top workaholic Andrew Ellard, who, I can exclusively report, wore his lucky shirt on Saturday night at DJ. The Cat would not approve. Good job he’s a fictional character, eh?

Another extremely intriguing tit-bit from the official site is the mention of one of the extras – Ace Rimmer – A Life In Lamé. Hattie Hayridge provides the narration in character as Holly, which is quite amazing. It makes our Hopping Holly article rather meaningless – GNP are finally giving Hattie the respect she deserves, and are acknowledging that she is part of Red Dwarf history. It is not clear whether the feature will deal with the fictional story of Ace, or whether it will be an account of how the character was created, but seeing as it’s Holly commentating, not Hattie, we think it will be the former. Either way, it’s yet another indication that GNP are striving to make this batch of DVDs the most original, exciting and in-depth yet.

As if these pieces of fantastic news, and the brilliant accompanying production pictures, weren’t enough, the official site has also updated with an interview with Peter Scott, the chappie behind the Red Dwarf Arcade. From this, we learn that the online version of the arcade will be accessible on a subscription basis. This is a bit of a pisser, but it’s understandable. After all, very few things that are of merchantable quality are free on the internet these days, and our view on Red Dwarf products is ‘every penny spent improves the movie’, so we’ll definately be subscribing. Peter also gives details about each of the games that will be included. Rogue Skutters looks like a Lemmings clone – we approve. Moon Rescue, wherein you search for and rescue a stranded Kryten, sounds great too. This little collection could finally see me kicked out of college for inappropriate internet use…

Other interesting tit-bits… Series Two of The Brittas Empire has been listed at BBFC. 204 minutes – eeeeeexcellent. No sign of any extras yet, but then we have heard from very reliable sources that the BBC are being stubborn cunts about releasing additional footage to Eureka Video. Red Dwarf has been acknowledged as one of the influences behind The Matrix, which is great. All we need now is for Voyager to do the same, and our work is done. Thanks to friend of the website Karl Eisenhauer for that one. Norman Lovett’s website still hasn’t launched. Their definition of ‘late June’ seems to be ‘any time in the second half of the year’. There’s going to be a huge update to our DVD section tomorow. Well, unless someone leaves a suspicious package outside John’s house.

And finally, in case you were wondering – ninety minutes = the length of a football game. Hence the picture of the author of the worst book ever written. Couldn’t find one of Joe Klump, for some reason…

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