SFX Reviews VI News Posted by John Hoare on 16th February 2005, 23:47 So, I go out and buy the new-look SFX (#128, March 2005) to see if it reviews the upcoming VI DVD. I need not have bothered though, because Si has wonderfully transcribed it for us. Hooray! RED DWARF: SEASON SIX The one with the planet full of Rimmers. 1993 • 12 • 180 mins • £19.99 • 21 February DIRECTOR: Andy DeEmmonoy STARRING: Craig Charles, Chris Barrie Rating: 3/5 stars; Extras 5/5 stars. Series Five of Red Dwarf saw a dramatic but unexpected increase in viewership, so it’s maybe not surprising that many of the best-known jokes and scenarios of the series can be found in series five and six. Duane Dibbley and Ace Rimmer return in series six due to popular demand from fans and the famous gag about changing the light bulb to go to red alert is in there. This series also includes “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”, the episode that won an Emmy award. But despite these peaks, series six has the same problem as series five, with most of the jokes involving creative but ultimately samey insults in lieu of well-crafted comedy. It’s still funny, but surely there can only be so many jokes about the shape of Kryten’s head?” DVD Extras: Everything you could ever possibly ask for, and a few things you’d never have thought of. Along with the usual outtakes, deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage, other highlights include a “Return To Laredo” documentary, a recording of the hilarious “Son Of Cliche” radio sketch that served as a prototype for the TV series, and a fan commentary (they won a compo on the website) on “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”. Leah Holmes The scene in “Psirens”, where Kryten reminds an amnesiac Lister of previous key events, was written because the BBC wanted a “recap” for the new viewers who started watching in series five. I’ll keep it short, then, in keeping with the shorter review. The central accusation (that “most of the jokes involving creative but ultimately samey insults in lieu of well-crafted comedy”) is clearly and provably not true. There are a million and one brilliant jokes that aren’t insults. Simple as that. Prove it yourself by watching an episode. The other complaint is really, incredibly, stupidly nitpicky, but I’ll say it anyway. The mention of “the” Son of Cliché sketch seems to indicate that the reviewer thinks there is only one. A minor point. A very minor point. And it seems ridiculously pathetic to mention a single word reading badly when you consider some of the mistakes we’ve made in the past. But it ties in with the fact that most reviews of the Dwarf DVDs read slightly awkwardly when it comes to SOC; mistakes made in other reviews include things like they think that the show is called Dave Hollins, or that Son of Cliché is the name of the sketch, or other such things. It’s clear that there is a huge ignorance about SOC – and that’s a shame, as it deserves to be heard by a wider audience. Not because of its links to Dwarf (fascinating though they are), but because it’s fabulous in its own right. It needs a CD release. Now. Incidentally, there’s also a new regular on DVD eggs in the reviews section; Red Dwarf is included: Red Dwarf, Season Six: On the first Scene Select screen for “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”, click on the Sheriff’s badge on the control panel for an audio interview with Rob Grant, Doug Naylor and Ed Bye about the production process behind “Gunmen Of The Apocalypse”, (illustrated with cartoons of the three). Amusingly, they’ve mentioned the one egg that we all knew about. So we’re still left deliciously hanging for what the others are. Which is good, really. Despite me moaning about SFX constantly, I still buy it every issue. And I approve of the relaunch – it’s very nice. Even if the Ghostwatch feature manages to indicate that the show ends with a breakdown caption when this isn’t even remotely the case. Honestly, they should get me running things. Oh, and to all you Play orderers: I hate you.
Reviewer Leah Holmes is a new girl in the SFX office. Now I’m not one to make harsh judgments, but she doesn’t appear overly keen/familiar with Doctor Who either. Stupid bint.
I really wish there’d be a review that wasn’t simply intent on ripping the show, just ONE. I know it isn’t criticised greatly but there’s just no need, no fucking need for the negative tone to the review. Oh…at least she gave the extras 5 out of 5, which they plainly deserve even though we haven’t seen them yet. What other BBC DVD can boast that amount and that quality of extras? Oh yeah, Red Dwarf Series V. As for VI itself, it IS a good series. It’s as though some people can’t stand the fact that Dwarf got popular. And it isn’t ‘samey’ at all. Just like the previous series it takes steps in a new direction.
>Reviewer Leah Holmes is a new girl in the SFX office. She probably got the job I nearly went for, then.
Haha, the trailer for Hitchhiker’s Guide is already on amazon.com and the Red Dwarf movie isn’t even filmed yet! I WONDER WHICH IS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!cock
“but surely there can only be so many jokes about the shape of Kryten’s head?” That’s like somone reveiwing “Fools And Horses” and saying “There’s only so many jokes about Del Boy’s French” In other words completly stupid and proof of what we already knew – SFX can’t reveiw.
> I WONDER WHICH IS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! […] !!!!! What I wonder is why is has to be a competition. Can’t they both be very, very good? And if one did happen to be “better” would that reduce the quality of the other? Maybe we could get the Dwarf movie filmed if we also used a star from The Office. Would anybody really object to a Ricky Gervais Kryten?
> I WONDER WHICH IS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! […] !!!!! There’s also the slight fact of HHGTG existing about ten years before Dwarf, and being in movie development hell for a much longer time. Furthermore, there’s also the fact that ffffffffffffff is a bit of a twat.
“And if one did happen to be “better” would that reduce the quality of the other?” Well yes. If one thing is better than another then the latter would generally be regarded as worse than the former. “There’s also the slight fact of HHGTG existing about ten years before Dwarf, and being in movie development hell for a much longer time.” I didn’t know you wanted to wait ten years for this film for it to become any good. Presumably you’re wanting the characters recast?
Well for me series VI is when Red Dwarf started to go off the boil slightly. Actually I remember not liking it at all until series VII came along and made it look like genius in comparison. With hindsight I think it’s a good gag-orientated series, but I still think that with the “re-introduction” of everything in Psirens (isn’t there an article in this detail?) and the cliff-hanger that wasn’t satisfyingly resolved, series VI is an odd one. It exists in a liminal space for me – I treat it as a “bonus series” of something that ended with Back to Reality. Series VII and VIII don’t exist at all. Amazon.co.uk is a good place to see reviews of Dwarf, and they go back for ages. For the VHS release of series VIII byte one I wrote a review reflecting upon the deterioration of Dwarf as a whole, suggesting that it began with series VI. When I wrote the review it seemed that the remastered versions were replacing the originals, and it ends on that note! Anybody interested? It’s here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/video/B00004D00B/customer-reviews/qid=1108742419/sr=1-15/ref=sr_1_2_15/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/202-7961444-4007028
Whoops. I should add that it’s the review entitled “A potentially good premise wasted with bad writing”.
>If one thing is better than another then the latter would generally be regarded as worse than the former. Sure, if it’s a competition, which I never knew it was…. But even so my question remains: can’t they both be very, very good?
>Would anybody really object to a Ricky Gervais Kryten? Well, Robert Llewellyn, probably. And me. For two reasons: 1)Robert Llewellyn is brilliant; and 2)Ricky Gervais is a talentless, unfunny cunt. Also, Hoare, it’s ‘DeEmmony’, not ‘DeEmmonoy’. The second ‘o’ is superfluous.
>Would anybody really object to a Ricky Gervais Kryten? Well, Robert Llewellyn, probably. And me. For two reasons; 1)Robert Llewellyn is brilliant; and 2)Ricky Gervais is a talentless, unfunny cunt. Also, Hoare, it’s ‘DeEmmony’, not ‘DeEmmonoy’. That second ‘o’ is superfluous.
>and the cliff-hanger that wasn’t satisfyingly resolved You can’t really pin that as a Series VI fault, though, as the execution of the cliffhanger itself is nothing short of absolutely ball-blowingly stupendous. You can’t hold it against Series VI if the resolution was buggered up in Series VII. Me, I love Series VI. Psirens doesn’t bode particularly well for it, but it’s all uphill from there. Legion is just fantastic, Gunmen is great if plenty overrated, Emohawk has its moments but does, admittedly, show worrying signs of the desire to crowd-please that would dominate the next two series, Rimmerworld is ace, and then what can you say about Out Of Time other than “absolutely smegging brilliant”? It’s probably my second favourite series of the lot, behind II. Perhaps it’s because I’m quite fond of the Airplane! school of comedy they were clearly adhering to for this series – if you throw a high rate of gags per minute at the screen, then as long as a good eighty per cent of them are funny, you’re just not going to stop laughing. I know some people don’t like comedy saturation, and I’m well aware of the fact that it can be done horribly badly, but just like Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, Rob and Doug actually know how to tell *jokes*.
Si must know I was being sarcastic. And if he didn’t, I’m willing to pretend. And Seb is right…as embarassingly as the cliffhanger was resolved, the fault belongs not to series VI…unless your specific complaint happens to be that the urine recyc gag was deleted…which I thought was crap anyway…
No I wasn’t saying the rubbish resolution to the cliffhanger was the fault of series VI. I said that the series feels weird to me because it doesn’t have an end. It’s like a liquid held in a bottle without a lid.
There’s a really odd occurance of non-regular posters in this thread believing that opinions can actually be correct or incorrect… Please let this be temporary…
“There’s a really odd occurance of non-regular posters in this thread believing that opinions can actually be correct or incorrect… Please let this be temporary…” Yeah, please. Please let them become regulars.
I would become a regular on here, but i have so little fucking time to get on here and the rest of the boards i belong to. But i like it here because you can say more or less what you want.