Do you think Dwarf had a realistic chance of getting bigger/more mainstream?

Well, exactly how big was it, really? Being the age I am I never experienced its heyday. A lot of similarly-aged people I know irl are fond of Red Dwarf when I bring it up, many more than say the same for Doctor Who (which is obviously MUCH bigger) or other sci-fi shows. Series VIII was pretty big, wasn’t it? I remember seeing repeats of it being trailed on BBC2 in ~2004, and I walked in on my mum watching it on Sky+ one night (she will have gotten into it via osmosis from my dad, as I did).

As far as breaking out into the States, how many British shows have managed that succesfully? The Office is the main one, but other programmes such as Peep Show or The IT Crowd failed miserably. New Who took five-or-six series before it really took off in the States.

I don’t think it was ever likely that the show as we know it would ever be truly huge in the US, simply because the format would have made it unsuitable for network TV. You’d either have to cut six or seven minutes out to fit it in a half hour slot, or fiddle around with the schedules to fit in a 40-45 minute slot. Just a big hassle either way for them, which is why a lot of British imports only end up on PBS or cable.

As for the UK, I don’t think it could have been much bigger than it was. Over eight million viewers for a sitcom on BBC2 will never be matched. 

I guess a lot of this is subjective, but in terms of hype and public awareness I think the show’s peak for me was around the time of Series VII starting – through the various broadcasts, repeat runs, videos etc. the show had built up a huge reputation based on the 1-VI era, and then being away for a few years built up a huge sense of expectation for the comeback.

Getting the Radio Times cover for VII seemed like a massive deal at the time, and by that point it had become so popular that it was used as shorthand for UK geekery in general (I remember being slightly put out that the Lee & Herring tour programme had jokes at the expense of geeks that said “…and I probably like Red Dwarf”).

Series VIII was also hyped, but at that point it didn’t seem like it was quite as big a deal, to me.

I’m not sure the hype about a movie ever really cut through to the mainstream in a big way – if it had, we might have got one.

Series 8 was sorta sandwiched between the 10th anniversary and a potential movie. All the pieces are kinda to suggest the BBC were very happy with the show and that there was potential for greater success.

The movie had other issues as to why it wasn’t made. From studios having demands to independently trying to find 20 million to make the movie. Also might have helped if Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy done better at the box office.

I didn’t even know the US had done “Life on Mars” until I saw the dvd the other day.

If you don’t plan on watching it, and you want to hard roll your eyes at American’s totally not getting something, look up the last 10 mins of the series, what is basically the end of our series 2. 

It’s a case for never letting American’s touch anything of ours ever again. 

Is the first series of Endeavour better than the first series of Sherlock though? I mean this is the sort of topic I come to a Red Dwarf site to find out about.

I would rank the Oxford adjacent series Lewis (if you look past the obvious), then Morse, then Endeavour. I watched Endeavour but I was thinking of Lewis.

But if you didn’t watch Morse with your parents and came to Endeavour without any real history of what went before, maybe that’s a whole different thing?

I agree that Red Dwarf as we know it probably was a big as it could have been in the 90s. In the days before every meme could be custom printed on a t-shirt you were limited to what HMV wanted to flog and you saw people wearing Red Dwarf t-shirts. 

I walked in on my mum watching it on Sky+ one night

And you were scarred for life.

OK, that’s fair enough! I guess Sherlock being so huge compared to Endeavour is due to how ingrained Holmes is in global popular culture compared to Morse who is more Britain specific, and also Sherlock being a modern reinvention while Endeavour is a period accurate reinvention. Also Sherlock had international superstars Tim From The Office and Martin From Cabin Pressure in it.

Slightly ashamed to admit I didn’t realise that Endeavour had the same format as Sherlock (feature length episodes, only a few episodes per series) until looking it up just now. That gives extra reason to compare them, even if Endeavour had more series in total and released them more frequently.

I wonder if Endeavour being a TV series has scuppered all those people who liked to trot out “Do you know what Inspector Morse’s first name was?” as a fun fact to act slightly smug about knowing.

“I need to watch Sherlock, I love Steven Moffat” – me, dozens of times over the past decade-plus

At the time, Sherlock series 2 felt like it was offsetting the decline of DW series 6B that it was partly responsible for.

Jekyll’s more stereotypically Moffat, and 100% written by him, so you might have fun with that. I watched a bit of episode 1 of Dracula, but got bored.

OK, that’s fair enough! I guess Sherlock being so huge compared to Endeavour is due to how ingrained Holmes is in global popular culture compared to Morse who is more Britain specific, and also Sherlock being a modern reinvention while Endeavour is a period accurate reinvention. 

Two excellent points, I genuinely hadn’t thought of that.

“I need to watch Sherlock, I love Steven Moffat” – me, dozens of times over the past decade-plus

Point cheerfully taken!  Though it was explicitly an initial factor for a not insignificant number of people in the vast Wholock subsection of the fandom in the early years.  I can’t speak for outside the fandom though, nor whether it had any bearing on any international broadcasters’ decisions to air it.

I haven’t watched his new one, Douglas Is Cancelled, yet – anyone checked that out?

I really want to love it, but I merely like it. Certainly not bingable. It’s reasonable enough, but nothing spectacular. 

Slightly ashamed to admit I didn’t realise that Endeavour had the same format as Sherlock (feature length episodes, only a few episodes per series) until looking it up just now. That gives extra reason to compare them, even if Endeavour had more series in total and released them more frequently.

In fairness, is that not the case for most British mystery series?
Hell, even some American ones like Columbo.

Well, now you’ve put me on the spot, I’m less sure. I was definitely under the impression the more standard approach for crime series is 45 minute or hour long episodes with 6-8 episode series, but I haven’t done the research.

Going on nothing but a general gut feeling from having just existed in the UK for 36 years …
I think a lot of those types of TV detective series (Morse, Frost, stuff like Waking the Dead, anything based on a book like Poirot etc) have only a couple of feature lengths, or 2x two parters a year. Like Sharpe was a couple of TV movies every year.
That’s why there’s so many of them. There is just endless movie length detective series constantly on TV doing the same thing just with different characters all the time. 

Certainly would not see Sherlock slotting neatly into the PBS Mystery! block.

EDIT: Except it actually did? Huh, I guess I should not make pronouncements when I no longer have satellite TV.

I haven’t watched his new one, Douglas Is Cancelled, yet – anyone checked that out?

My wife and I planned to watch the first couple of episodes last night and ended up watching the whole lot. I’m an ardent fan of Moffat’s work, while my wife is more critical of him. We both loved it.

Just watched Episodes 3 & 4 actually. Not always a comfortable watch, but certainly a compelling one.

It was initially intended to be a play, which would explain it feeling theatrical.