Series XII is going to be a weird contradiction. As we’re all aware this series was written and filmed back to back with XI so while it’s reasonable to expect a very similar tone and style to the series we’ve already seen and analysed to death, that’s by no means a guarantee. Production efforts have been made to separate the two in subtle ways with changes to the main sets but what I didn’t consider before sitting down to watch Cured is how this double banking has the potential of making this series strangely unique. While we’re not aware of the writing order of the series, we do know that all of XII was filmed after XI had wrapped and a very short break, which means for the first time in actual decades a new series of Red Dwarf was not starting from scratch. We maybe even have to go as far back as the gap between the first two series to draw a proper parallel for this situation.

So what’s my point? Well, I feel like Cured greatly benefits from this. Confidence and general quality in writing, direction and especially in the performances that has produced an episode that despite some issues felt so comfortable and effortless, especially with the characterisation. If this is how things start to go when this team gets some proper momentum, then it’s a shame XIII and XIV aren’t following closely behind.

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