'Jump The Shark' – Guardian article

[Dax101]

The Rovers stuff is kinda fun but the scene in the shop with the accent joke and silly talk is horrible.

I think Doug just wrote it in there because he wanted to make the most of having the corrie set but it’s already fairly dated now.

[Ben Saunders]

Back to Earth works irrespective of you seeing Bladerunner.

Source: I have seen and enjoyed Back to Earth four or so times and watched Bladerunner zero times. I fully understood the plot all four times.

[MANI506]

I say Back To Earth is more To Hull and Back than Royal Flush. It would have been the Miami Twice if they’d been able to afford an audience.

[(deleted)]

Miami Twice doesn’t have an audience – it’s all fake, added on for the VHS in 1998.

[Pete Part Three]

>Source: I have seen and enjoyed Back to Earth four or so times and watched Bladerunner zero times. I fully understood the plot all four times.

That’s a shame; you’re missing out on the 21st century “thing” of being able to congratulate yourself on getting a reference Commonly used these days as an alternative to getting a reaction by being original or, perish the thought, funny.

[It’sMarilynMonroe!]

Before I saw Blade Runner, the only thing I didn’t understand in BTE was what on Earth was going going on with Kochanski’s hair.

[Lilly Queen]

Yeah, I also hadn’t seen Blade Runner when Back to Earth aired. Didn’t effect my enjoyment. Once I saw Blade Runner there were some parts that made me laugh more but it wasn’t a major issue.

[MANI506]

Episode one of Miami Twice did have audience laughter and is actually very good. It’s the second part that is all done on film. Episodes one and two were edited together for VHS and fake laughter was added to the second half. I have watched this version once and it is a slog.

[(deleted)]

It’s poor anyway that second part (by far the worst OFAH prior to the 2000s comeback shows) but the video version is diabolical. Actually a different telecine of the episode too – all credits removed and rescanned at 4:3, with some music replaced. Think there might be a scene missing too. Completely baffling, and unlike A Royal Flush there’s no way of owning the original broadcast version.

[Ben Saunders]

Is A Royal Flush the one that ends with [SPOILER!!!] another two pairs?

I fucking love that gag, saw it when I was young and never forgot it. And if Miami Twice is the one with two David Jason’s, I really enjoyed that, too. But I was young.

[Dave]

I initially misread that as “but I was wrong”.

[JamesTC]

>Is A Royal Flush the one that ends with [SPOILER!!!] another two pairs?

No, that episode is A Losing Streak.

A Royal Flush is the one with Del making a tit of himself being drunk around some royals.

[Ben Saunders]

I don’t think I’ve seen that one – for better or for worse

[International Debris]

It’s the absolute extreme of Del being a bastard. I’ve never seen the original version, but even the recut with his worst behaviour cut out is really difficult to watch, especially without a laugh track. There’s a palpable sense of being in the room with someone you absolutely fucking despise.

[MANI506]

I just watched the whole series on Brit Box and a lot of them are the original non edited versions U.K. Gold have been playing although some music substitutions are still there. For some reason To Hull and Back, The Miracle of Peckham and Miami Twice are missing entirely. I think A Royal Flush was unedited too because Del was a total cunt. The last three episodes are not the worst – I think the worst one is Video Nasty.

[(deleted)]

The unedited A Royal Flush is about 75 minutes long and features no laugh track even in the VT scenes, which is disorientating to say the least. It was never repeated at the time, until it came out on VHS in early 1998 as part of BBC Video’s grand mopup of unreleased Fools episodes in the light of the 1996 specials doing so well on TV and video. It was a really good time to be a fan.

In 2004 they made a new version for broadcast and DVD, with a newly-recorded laugh track over a cut down hour-long re-edit. Frustratingly, the DVD release didn’t include the original version as an extra, but it was fleetingly available as part of a DVD partwork that pre-dated the new version, and the issue it was on – Volume 13 if I recall – turned up on eBay from time to time which is how I got my copy. I think it goes for crazy money now – that partwork also put all of the 1996 specials onto one disc instead of three, and I got that one too.

So yeah, you’ll know straightaway if it’s the original due to no laugh track. I don’t think Del’s *that* bad in it, it’s just David Jason’s a bit off form with no audience, and the actress playing Victoria is too sympathetic and likeable when she should be played as more of an opportunist using Rodney as a trophy for brownie points.

I love Red Dwarf, me.

[(deleted)]

Video Nasty is a bit of a dud generally but happens to feature the best scene in the entirety of Only Fools And Horses. So there’s that.

[Ridley]

Is the Gold/US DVDs mishmash still the best way of seeing OFAH these days?

[(deleted)]

The UK DVDs are mostly alright to be honest, it’s just a few small cuts carried over from VHS and one show where they’ve used a tweaked modern-day repeat. It’s only Miami Twice being ruined that bothers me, and even then it’s an episode I would only watch if doing a complete runthrough.

[Lily]

Speaking of laugh tracks, I just re-watched BtE again and I think the lack of laughing is probably one of the things that makes it feel so ‘not-Dwarf’ to me. The guys are used to having an audience and it’s when they pause that beat after a punchline and there’s silence, it just makes the joke feel like it’s fallen flat.

There’s still an awful lot of things I didn’t like; the whole self-referential meta’ness of it just doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Half the Corrie stuff just felt like padding. The Joy part of the joy squid made no sense to me still – how is having an existential crisis joy? Sure Lister was tempted with a fake Kochanski but that was only after they’d become aware that it was a hallucination. There was no joy there for the others though.

Saying that though, Craig really acted his socks off and it was great seeing that character development for Lister.

I guess on the whole I’m still glad it exists, I just don’t really want to re-watch it much.

[Ben Saunders]

>the best scene in the entirety of Only Fools And Horses

Del Boy.
Falling through the bar.
On Only Fools and Horses.

Is it as good as that?

[Ben Saunders]

>how is having an existential crisis joy
Well in Better Than Life, Rimmer’s mind wouldn’t let him experience joy for very long at all before it started self sabotaging. I assume it’s a similar situation to that. He did quite enjoy offing Katerina. And Lister could have enjoyed finally having Kochanski. Maybe it’s a shit joy squid.

[MANI506]

The Royal Flush on Brit Box has no laugh track and is 75 minutes long. The version I had on VHS was the same so I’m guessing John Sullivan mucked about with it for the DVD.

Is there a way of watching the new OFAH documentary online?

[MANI506]

Sorry Darrell you already clarified the point – I did see the version of Royal Flush with fake laughter and it somehow made me sadder than the original.

[Pete Part Three]

>Del Boy.
>Falling through the bar.
>On Only Fools and Horses.

And Trigger does a face.

[MANI506]

It was the FUNNIEST THING

[Katydid]

I really don’t understand why so many people hate Back to Earth so much. I just watched it again, and I still think it tells a really nice story and does it well. It struggles for a bit at the beginning, but it picks up as it goes.

[Pete Part Three]

It’s cold outside and BTE has no kind of atmosphere.

If Back to Earth or any episode of Series VIII was my first experience of Red Dwarf, I’d take a lot of persuasion to bother watching any further episodes. I don’t think I can say that about any of the others, even the dregs of VII and X. Even when Red Dwarf goes wrong; I can still recognize the format that works for me; or an attempt to recapture that. These two? I just don’t think they even qualify as ‘reasonable television’.

[Ben Paddon]

If Back to Earth or any episode of Series VIII was my first experience of Red Dwarf, I’d take a lot of persuasion to bother watching any further episodes.

Well, no, but then where BTE is concerned the reasons are obvious – it’s largely fan-service. BTE isn’t really for anyone other than people who had watched the preceding eight series.

I rewatched “Only The Good…” last night, then jumped straight into BTE. In terms of production, it’s a jarring switch-up, but BTE still contains some of my absolute favorite moments across all of Red Dwarf.

“I’m pretty cool, I don’t take any smeg, and even though I’m disgusting, sometimes I can be quite brave,” is still one of the best moments from the entire run of the show. I love it. I cry every time.

[flanl3]

I’ve got an important question about the BtE Director’s Cut.

…

…

Why did they combine three episodes into one though?

[flanl3]

And on Back in the Red, why did they uncombine one episode into three separate episodes?

[Sofajockey]

I enjoyed BtE without knowing anything about Blade Runner. Aside from apparently he’s doing fifteen without possibility for parole. Ba-dum boom tschhh. I thank yew….

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