Series X Appreciation Thread

[Stabbim the Skutter]

So, Series X will be X years old this year, and I friggin’ love it. It’s my personal favourite of all the Dave offerings. It’s definitely not perfect, and I won’t defend elements such as Taiwan Tony, but I just feel like it has a “heart” to it that XI and XII are missing (but not The Promised Land!).

I like the attempt to give the series an arc (especially one that follows on directly from Back to Earth!), and the experimental nature of the comedy. Sure not every joke lands, but I’ll take a skullet, “moves move”, and a game of charades (sorry, charades) over a trillionth gag about Cat hating Rimmer and Lister being a bad guitarist.

The Series VIII finale “resolution” is a beautiful bit of fanservicey meta-humour that I really, really wish we got more of in the decade following X. Also, Fathers and Suns uses a plot element introduced in (and at that point had only been mentioned in) Ouroboros. That’s mad! I really wish we got more “follow-up” stories regarding plot developments like this.

XI and XII had me so frustrated when nothing was connected between episodes. What happened to Hoagie’s star map or finding Kochanski, DAMNIT?!! Doug Naylor is a very funny man, but I feel he tries too hard to make the stories standalone and keep the classic style of humour, when the mainstream audience of today is a bit more intelligent (and binges a lot more TV!) than in the 80s and 90s, so they can handle deeper cuts.

And of course, the production issues behind the scenes are fascinating – come on, this is always the most entertaining thing about Red Dwarf! They had to overcome so many hurdles to get this series made, and while the finished product might show its seams, it’s certainly impressive that they managed to get it completed. Gotta love the market set in Lemons!

So yeah, Series X. A dish fit for a king, or an absolute slag heap? Discuss.

[International Debris]

X episodes always end up better than they seem, because the first few minutes are a reminder of how much like a set the set looks, and usually consist of some terrible drive room scenes with Rimmer doing the skullet and moves gags. Almost every episode I started with “oh God, it’s going to be shit” and ended up liking.

There are still other issues – some VIII-style gags throughout, Chris still being way too broad, Taiwan Tony, the slag line, most of Dear Dave, the last ten minutes of Entangled, Rimmer conveniently taking his holo-message thing when leaving Red Dwarf like he obviously does every week, the b-plot structure never being satisfying – but also a lot of stuff I love. Cat stealing the episode by walking into shot not once, but twice in Trojan, the first 20 minutes of Entangled, the first Jesus reveal, most of The Beginning, “it turned into a jacket,” Operation Sizzle, seeing inside the ram scoop, the generally slower series II/III style ship-based stories, the subtle but pleasing arcs of Lister looking for Kochanski and studying robotics, and the quantum rod. It still feels like a bit of a sketch of a series rather than a fully fleshed out one, but it’s a solid template that XI and XII should have developed, rather than diving head first into more actiony stories again.

[RunawayTrain]

I liked it. And honestly knowing there were production problems just felt like, ‘typical Red Dwarf’! (Finding out the extent of them in the documentary, obviously there were far more serious problems than usual, but before that, I mean.)

I will mention that in my mind Lemons is mixed up in series XI, and Officer Rimmer is lumped together with series X – to the point where I actually had to look up the episode list for X, and then saw my mistake.

My battery and brain are both on 2% so no more musings for now.

[GlenTokyo]

It’s been a good while since I’ve watched it, but if you could excise Taiwan Tony, Professor E and the unnecessary misogyny, and some broad/ ropey/ rusty performances, to me it feels the most closely related to the Red Dwarf that was on the BBC, series VII and VIII like, but still.

X also has proper models so that’s a big win.

[Warbodog]

Taiwan Tony was bad, but it was mainly the Medibot that kept me from ever revisiting Fathers and Suns.

[loadoftottnumb]

Yep I’m another fan of X. I agree with most of what has been said already but one thing I’ll add is I think Norman Lovett would have fit in better than any Holly character has since series 2.

The JMC onboard computer winding Rimmer up, and the medi and denti bots could have been switched to him delivering the lines (I know tweaks would have to be made) and instead of Pree the whole thing could have been an update gone wrong, though I know Pree was one of the best parts of X so that would be a shame.

[Flap Jack]

Yeah, Series X is still very good overall. Not as good as XI or XII, but still hugely enjoyable. I’m also a big fan of the new red ship interiors. Completely inconsistent with every other series, yet somehow it just feels right.

However, when it first broadcast I was so happy to be getting good, new, “proper” Red Dwarf after the hiatus and Back to Earth, that I was way too instinctively defensive of its more problematic elements.

Like, no, 2012 me, it doesn’t matter how clever the broader joke is, if executing it requires a white Canadian to do a ‘comedy’ Chinese accent and expect immediate laughs, it’s just bad. And no, even if Lister so quickly turning on his ex is funny, him using such offensive language doesn’t make it funnier.

Lemons, The Beginning and the good half of Fathers & Suns are classics though, and Trojan is close.

[Pete Part Three]

Trojan is great.  Lemons is reasonable. The Beginning is pretty good.  I appreciate these episodes.

The rest of it can go in a big bin.

[Dax101]

I find myself sometimes forgetting Series X exists. I think its because the scripts still feel a little rusty and tired. falling a little under the radar. While I’m not a huge fan of XI and XII i do think they have alot more energy in them.

I know many like The Beginning. but I’m not a huge fan of how dumbed down the villains are.  Or even the father reveal. it just doesn’t work for me. It feels like the show had set up so much depth for Rimmer as to why he is how he is. And growing up with his past. And the beginning seems to be trying to say something, but I’m still puzzled as to what its trying to say. There seems to be mixed elements of Rimmer is a loser because his father was just a gardener. and the guy he thought was his father being this demon or villain thats holding Rimmer back. Even though in the hologram message the guy says he didn’t tell rimmer because he didn’t want to hold him back. It feels like Doug got abit ahead of himself with trying to resolve a part of Rimmers character in a very short amount of time, presuming the payoff would so cool… when tis just kinda messy and lazy.

The episode that stands out to me as decent is Lemons. I think Doug’s best stories are ones where he sticks to one idea and doesn’t stuff his stories with too many ideas.

[Dave]

I still remember tuning in for the first broadcast of Trojan and hoping it was going to be good (after the disappointing mixed bag of Back To Earth), and being relieved when it was really good.

There’s quite a few bits of X that I don’t like, but overall it mostly works and (crucially) it feels like a worthwhile follow-up to the original series.

It’s always felt to me like the true ‘return’ of Red Dwarf and the start of the Dave era proper, to me.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think crucially, even though there’s some rough patches in humour, each episode has a fairy strong and interesting story underpinning it.  Even Dear Dave has a good story it’s just executed badly for reasons known.

So it makes it a compelling series to watch as the stories keep the episodes rolling when some of the humour fails.  Its easy to look past Tony, when the rest of the concept is drawing you in for example.

That’s my experience anyway.

And it really helps that Trojan just hits it out the park and sets the series up as being a show people recognise.

[Ian Symes]

I think any appraisal of Series X ought to include We’re Smegged as part of it, because the behind-the-scenes problems make sense of so many elements of X that are less than ideal. It doesn’t make it better, but it gives you a mixture of leniency towards several of its flaws, and immense frustration that squabbling and cock-ups got in the way of something that could have been much better.

[Rudolph]

I remember at the time thinking it had a I & II vibe to it, as they seemed to be limited to a handful of sets – the corridor, the new sleeping quarters and the new drive room – which was painfully obvious when they performed Jesus’ surgery in the drive room. Admittedly, they did have some fairly impressive big new sets in Trojan and Lemons, but it felt a bit cheap when Blue Midget’s cockpit was just a redress of the drive room and the Simulant battleship was just a table with some black curtains. Even the flashbacks at the start of The Beginning looked like they were filmed in a corridor at Shepperton Studios.

[GlenTokyo]

Well Lemons was a redress of Trojan I believe, so it was cheap. It was Dave’s first non panel show/ stand up thing wasn’t it? They did that Zapped or whatever around that time but I’m not sure if that was before Red Dwarf.

[Moonlight]

I remember having a copy of Trojan on my mp3 player after it aired. I must’ve watched the hell out of Series X, but ESPECIALLY Trojan when it was the only one out. Aside from Back to Earth I’d never seen new Red Dwarf as it came out and I was bubbling over with anticipation of the series since it was announced.

While I recognize X can be a mixed bag now (though I’m keen on it overall), back in early high school I was fairly uncritical of it. I was entirely too excited, but my experience with the show didn’t let me down. And that’s sorta been the case for every single new thing they’ve done except Timewave, which I can safely say is the only time I’ve been disappointed out of the gate by new Red Dwarf.

I must’ve rewatched the climactic scene from The Beginning a hundred times by itself. That was the coolest shit ever when I was 16.

[Warbodog]

Series X came along at a good time for me. Along with Matt Smith era Doctor Who and a couple of other things, it was a (brief) lifeline to “home” and something to excitedly download when I was travelling long-term, so it still has that glow around it, even if my critical thoughts would put it more alongside its flawed contemporary Doctor Who series 7A.

It definitely peaked with the pleasure of watching Trojan in a cheap hotel room in Vietnam, having allowed myself to get irresponsibly hyped for the back-to-basics series and risking crushing disappointment, only for it to be really good.

Then I liked The Beginning and the first half of Entangled even more, before the rest of Entangled happened. Lemons took a couple of viewings to decide I really liked. Was Fathers and Suns supposed to go out first? That would have been a more complex experience.

[Flap Jack]

Along with Matt Smith era Doctor Who and a couple of other things, it was a (brief) lifeline to “home” and something to excitedly download when I was travelling long-term, so it still has that glow around it, even if my critical thoughts would put it more alongside its flawed contemporary Doctor Who series 7A.

Fun Series X fact: 2012 is one of only 2 years in history where there were equally as many new Red Dwarf episodes as new Doctor Who episodes.

[Dave]

Fun Series X fact: 2012 is one of only 2 years in history where there were equally as many new Red Dwarf episodes as new Doctor Who episodes.

Is the other one 1793?

[Flap Jack]

Is the other one 1793?

No, the Stand Up To Smallpox minisode doesn’t count as a full episode, so Doctor Who actually had one more new episode than Red Dwarf that year.

[Moonlight]

Oh god, the catalyst for this thread to devolve into Idea for an Episode: 18th Century Edition. I’ll start by writing new titles for existing episodes that are descriptions a paragraph long, a la 1700s novels.

[Renegade Rob]

Don’t forget Pond Life, which might not count as a full 2012 episode of Doctor Who, but it’s still a fraction, which tips the scale into not being equal.

Also, unless I’m mistaken, 2016 is the only year in which there were six times as many Red Dwarf episodes released as there were Doctor Who episodes.

Of course, we could do that all day. Someone should plot the Red Dwarf to Doctor Who episode release ratio by year, though you might run into trouble in the 90’s when the result would be undefined. (They say dividing by zero creates a time paradox, which is actually a rather fitting result for dividing Red Dwarf by Doctor Who.)

Getting back on topic, I agree with most of the above assessments of X, but I’d just add that I didn’t really have a problem with Dear Dave. Yes, it’s a mess and it’s not especially great and obviously green screened, but as an avid fan of Montague bunkroom-era dwarf, this felt the most like that the show’s been in decades. How often do Rimmer and Lister sit around the Drive Room on a boring day, just arguing and philosophizing about shit? Give me that any day please.

[Flap Jack]

I didn’t forget Pond Life existed, but I wasn’t counting online/red button-only shorts as proper episodes of Doctor Who, because there madness lies.

Like if you asked someone “what’s your favourite episode of Doctor Who Series 2?” and they said “Fear Her” you would probably be baffled but it would be legitimately one of the options. If they said “Tardisode 4” you would be like “nope, incorrect, have another go”.

[Jonathan Capps]

Thanks, Flap Jack, I’ve gone years and years without thinking about Fear Her.

[si]

I’d just add that I didn’t really have a problem with Dear Dave.

It was great on the night, because they only recorded half of it on the night. Luckily, it was the better half.
We watched an early edit of Trojan as a treat to fill the rest of the evening.

[Renegade Rob]

Clearly I was just trolling with Pond Life. But now you have me philosophizing as to what counts as a legitimate episode of Doctor Who. It’s a dark timeline where Fear Her counts as a legitimate episode of anything.

(Honestly though while I love dumping on Fear Her as much as anyone, it’s main problem is it’s dullness. Always was forgettably harmless to me and still managed to tee up the finale decently. It’s increasingly hard for me to be that down on Fear Her in a world where In the Forest of the Night and Orphan 55 also exist.)

Have to say, I really like this thread, as I was just chatting with a friend recently about how much we both like Series X and how it gets better and better in hindsight, and how despite its flaws, it was able to cultivate a respectable fraction of that “spark” from the first six series albeit in its own way.

To me the bigger question raised is, are XI and XII bad? I would say no but there’s something X had that those didn’t. And I don’t just mean a lack of Timewave. And I don’t even dislike XI and XII, which actually addressed some issues I had with X (like the hacky opening scenes). And yet, X has a touch of magic to it that isn’t as present in XI and XII, and I can’t quite put my finger on what or why that is.

XI and XII are understandably lumped together by many. Now if you took the top 6 episodes from between those two series and jettisoned the rest, that’s a damn fine series. Is it just the low points dragging them down or would even that hybrid season still not quite approach the “spark” X had?

[International Debris]

X has a warmth that XI and XII don’t.

The Dave era in general is weird in that it’s difficult to judge the individual series in the way you can the BBC ones, because they all have obvious strengths and weaknesses. X is warm and fun and enjoyably low-stakes, but also stagey with some genuinely awful scenes and ideas. XI is pretty solid but lacking warmth and experimentation. XII has some stinkers and some classics. There’s just not enough consistency within episodes and series to make them easy to judge.

[Flap Jack]

Clearly I was just trolling with Pond Life. But now you have me philosophizing as to what counts as a legitimate episode of Doctor Who. It’s a dark timeline where Fear Her counts as a legitimate episode of anything.

Hey now, this is the internet. I have no choice but to assume everyone is being serious all of the time.

Anyway, I’m now disappointed there wasn’t a Red Dwarf X equivalent to Pond Life. You could call it “Taiwan Tony’s Tales”.

And you could do another series of shorts for Series XI and XII called “Wait, What Happened To Snacky?”. Every week after Give & Take it would show you what Snacky was up to and why he didn’t appear in that week’s episode despite being a permanent member of the crew. Maybe do an extra episode for The Promised Land, showing Snacky trying to fight off Rodon when he boards Red Dwarf.

[Author]

Posts