Well then. Dave’s daily coded message treasure hunt has concluded with… the first four minutes and forty seconds of The Promised Land. If you can’t wait a further six days to see around 5% of the feature length special, here it is:

It’s certainly an excellent preview – timed just right to provide an almost standalone prequel to the main feature, without giving anything away about how our heroes get involved in the plot. From the snippet of the theme tune that we hear at the end, it seems like this could be a pretitles sequence in the finished episode, and it’s certainly structured that way.

We’ve decided to hold back any in-depth analysis from us for the forthcoming live DwarfCast and review. In the meantime, please keep any specific discussion of this video’s contents to this comment thread, lest you spoil it for those who are abstaining.

G&TV logoA little over a week ago, Rob Grant decided he wanted to do something to cheer up all the Red Dwarf fans who had suddenly found themselves confined to their own personal Bay 47. The idea was to recapture the magic that formed the conclusion to the most recent Dimension Jump, whereby he was joined by Paul Jackson and Ed Bye to do a live commentary on The End. It made sense, therefore, that the reunited trio would do Future Echoes next, and so they took to Zoom last Sunday afternoon, and broadcast their thoughts to around a hundred webinar viewers. As well as sharing their tips for lockdown survival, we were treated to in-depth details about how the complicated show was put together with analogue technology, the story of how Tracey Ullman was partly responsible for the word "smeg" being used in the show, and even surprise cameo appearances from two former Red Dwarf guest stars. And now the whole thing is available on YouTube for everyone to enjoy.

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The dusting off of the old "Newsround" format from G&T's earliest days is a sure sign that a new broadcast is just around the corner; indeed, there are now only nine days to go until The Promised Land airs on Dave - that's Thursday 9th April at 9pm, as if you didn't already know. I think it's fair to assume that it won't be premiering on UKTV Play a week in advance this time, as that would be the day after tomorrow, and you'd think they'd have mentioned it by now if that was the case. An eminently sensible decision given the one-off nature of this outing, and with linear television audiences being boosted by the current situation, one that could lead to great results. There's certainly no shortage of press and social media coverage, as we'll dive into now...

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When TOS updates on any day other than Friday, it’s either extremely good news or extremely bad news. Thankfully, today was the former, with the announcement that the triple act of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye are broadcasting a live commentary on Future Echoes followed by a Q&A, this Sunday 29th March at 2pm BST. It will take place via Zoom, but places on the call are extremely limited, so fill in the form on the TOS page right this second if you don’t want to miss out.

Anyone who saw the trio give The End this treatment at the last Dimension Jump will be very excited to see them reprise the act, and hope that at least another 34 episodes will follow if this is a success. At a time when content creators from across the world of entertainment are pulling out the stops with innovative ways to provide a glimmer of distraction from the shitty situation we find ourselves in, this is a much welcome venture right now.

We're all very sad to hear the news that Bill Pearson, one of the all-time greats of the British visual effects industry, has passed away.

As part of a long career in film and TV, which took in such classics and cult favourites as Alien, Flash Gordon, Space Precinct, Casino Royale and Moon, his contribution to Red Dwarf was the stuff of legend. He first joined the team for Series IV, working on set dressing and handheld props up to and including Series VI. He returned for Series VIII as the visual effects designer, with perhaps his finest and most memorable triumph being the Starbug crash and explosion from Back In The Red (Part One). His ability to work to a limited time and budget was also in evidence; he famously agreed to knock up an escape pod for Only The Good for the cost of a bottle of wine, only to be presented with a full crate as a token of Doug's appreciation.

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Red Dwarf: The Promised Land Trailer Analysis featured image

Ah, here were are again. You'll all have seen the full 40 second trailer for Red Dwarf: The Promised Land by now, and made your minds up about the jokes within. Personally, I like them, my favourite being the way Kryten, Cat and Rimmer all confirm that Lister is a nobody in slightly different and expertly timed ways. But let's face it, we always get into a bit of a tizz ahead of a new Dwarf broadcast by over-analysing the handful of gags we've seen, when deep down we know that only a certain type of quick-fire joke works in a trailer, and they're not necessarily representative of the humour of the whole show.

So we're going to ignore the actual dialogue for now, and instead do what we do best - painstakingly and pointlessly analysing every single shot, pointing out both the big talking points and the little things you may have missed. Well, we say "every shot", we've not bothered doing screengrabs every time it cuts back to a similar shot within the same scene, because the tiny snippets you see in the montages are much more interesting anyway. Here we go...

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First thing’s first, The Promised Land will be airing on Dave on Thursday 9th April, helping you kick off what will sure to be your perfectly normal Easter weekend that will be just like any other previous Easter, definitely.

Second thing’s second, we’ve got our first full trailer and pardon me for saying that it’s a good ‘un.

Cats in deerstalkers! Essentially the same (but good) joke made in the space of seconds! Great CG! Even greater music! RIMMER COSTUMES.

Anyway, have a chew on that and no doubt someone will be along later armed with nothing but a snipping tool and a head full of dreams.

Well then, today’s TOS update has certainly given us something to talk about, despite having already had a teaser trailer and title reveal this week. It’s hard for us to say too much, having attended the recording, but for those of you who didn’t, get a load of this:

As TOS points out, there’s still a lot of things to speculate about with this special. Fill your boots.