The G&T Review of the Year 2020 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 31st December 2020, 13:03 What a very strange year. It seems to have lasted for several millennia, but 2020 is finally over, pending any last minute shenanigans, which we can't entirely rule out. By now you'll have already read a dozen depressing round-ups cataloguing what a horrible anus it's been for the world at large, so let's focus instead on our small corner of it. The trials and tribulations of Red Dwarf may seem insignificant in comparison to the fucking atrocious circumstances we find ourselves in, but it feels more important than ever to find distractions and positives wherever we can, and it's actually been a pretty busy year for a show that's rapidly approaching its mid-thirties. Let's go through some of the highlights, and inevitably some massive lowlights, topic-by-topic, starting with The Promised Land, which yes, really was only this year. Read more →
DwarfCast 115 – The First Three Million Years DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 4th September 2020, 15:15 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes Following on from our 11 year old revelation that DwarfCasting a review is so much easier than writing one, we present to your our thoughts on the documentary series The First Three Million Years. In attendance was the definitive Ian Symes, reused footage of Danny Stephenson from the DVD docs and a five second mention of Jonathan Capps tacked onto the end. Read more →
Let’s Talk About The First Three Million Years #3 News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 20th August 2020, 12:00 Tonight is the exciting finalé of The First Three Million Years, entitled Playing Pool with Planets. We can expect some chat about guest stars, the brilliance of Timewave and apparently some coverage of Red Dwarf USA so there’ll be plenty more opportunities for the painstaking archiving work carried out by Andrew Ellard 15 years ago to stretch its legs again. As always this is your place to natter on about the latest instalment in the comments and we’ll be joining the discussion in our own way soon enough.
Let’s Talk About The First Three Million Years #2 News Posted by Ian Symes on 13th August 2020, 12:20 We all really rather enjoyed the first instalment of Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years last week, despite some quibbles that mostly involve the treatment of 4:3 material. We will put our thoughts on the record properly at some point in the future, but while we’re still on compassionate leave from having to think about anything too much, here’s a little discussion thread for you in the meantime. This covers episode two, In Studio Space No-One Can Hear You Scream, which airs tonight at 9pm on Dave.
Let’s Talk About The First Three Million Years #1 News Posted by Ian Symes on 6th August 2020, 10:29 While you shouldn’t expect much immediate in-depth coverage from us for obvious reasons, we thought we’d best provide a place for everyone to discuss The Boys from the Dwarf, the first of the three-part documentary series Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, which airs tonight at 9pm on Dave. A few reviews and previews have started to emerge, from the likes of Radio Times, What’s On TV and Sci-Fi Bulletin, who reveal the unexpected but welcome news that the series is narrated by an actual Doctor Who, David Tennant. A fansite of his has what looks like the full press release. There is also an additional reason to tune in tonight. The Patrick family have asked us to spread the news that there will be a tribute card to Seb included. It was too late to get it added to the programme itself, but thanks to Doug and the team at GNP, UKTV are doing it as part of their presentation. We’re told it’ll happen during an ad break at around 21:25.
Doc Trails (woo-hoo) News Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd July 2020, 10:42 It is now precisely two weeks until the first of three episodes of Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years airs on Dave, and so I suppose it's high time for a trailer. Expect to see this approximately a thousand times over the next fortnight if, like me, you're trapped watching Dave's nightly repeats of all episodes of Taskmaster ever on a loop, or here it is on Twitter: A look back at the comedy phenomenon three million years in the making.#RedDwarf The First Three Million Years, starts 6th of August on Dave. (@DougRDNaylor @CCfunkandsoul @bobbyllew @DannyJohnJules @RichardDGNaylor @RedDwarfHQ @NorthOneTV) pic.twitter.com/Otb42tg783 — Dave (@davechannel) July 23, 2020 Read more →
The Last Twenty Three Days News Posted by Ian Symes on 14th July 2020, 12:01 A brief but happy news story for you – we now have a TX date for Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, the three-part documentary series produced by North One for UKTV. Having heard the first rumblings of the publicity juggernaut a few weeks back, Dave has tweeted this morning to confirm that it will air on Thursday 6th August. That’s presumably just the first episode, like – no word yet on whether it will be weekly, daily or some other schedule, or indeed whether all or any of it will be available on UKTV Play in advance of broadcast. We’ll figure out the plans for our coverage of this coverage of the show when we have those details. Also tucked away in that tweet is a new, much much improved title card for the series. When we joked in our previous article that they had time for another crack at the logo, we didn’t expect they actually would, so fair play. This is very much based on the look for The Promised Land, with its weather-beaten aesthetic and same sub-heading font, and it makes sense for Red Dwarf to have a consistent branding style. The powers that be clearly agree, given that both Dave and UKTV Play liked our tweet of the above meme… UPDATE (17/07/20): Today’s TOS update answers pretty much everything that was as yet unanswered about these docs. The three episodes will air weekly on subsequent Thursdays from the 6th-20th August, and will appear on UKTV Play after broadcast. For the avoidance of doubt, all the interviews are brand new, and we’re promised “newly dug-up archive material”, which is implied to go beyond what’s featured on the DVDs. Exciting! We also have titles for all three episodes: The Boys from the Dwarf, In Studio Space No-One Can Hear You Scream and Playing Pool With Planets. Weird to dedicate a third of the series to one brief scene from White Hole, but hey.
Just what the documentary ordered News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 19th June 2020, 12:14 As Doug Naylor teased this morning, there has been some NEWS coming out of GNP towers today, in the form of more details about the previously teased TV documentary, now titled Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years. It will be airing exclusively on Dave (obvs) this August, which gives them plenty of time to have a bit of an extra crack at that logo. Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years is THE definitive celebration of the most successful sci-fi sitcom of all time. Over three hour-long episodes we go on an epic journey through space and time to chart the history of Lister the lonely space-bum, Rimmer the failed hero, Kryten the spaceship-cleaning mechanoid and Cat, the vainest non-human ever to be trapped in space, through the eyes of co-creator, writer and director Doug Naylor, the cast, the crew, and celebrity fans. I’ll not lie… at the moment, this sounds like it could very easily be a collection of all the best bits from the DVD extras, re-told and re-packaged. The mention of Doug seems to sadly exclude the inclusion Rob Grant (which would be odd given how visible he is in the Dwarf world these days) but I guess he could be categorised as ‘crew’? North One certainly have a good track record and I’m sure these docs will be well put together and worthwhile, but I’m left wondering what they will offer for the likes of people reading this. We shall see, and I’m very prepared to be pleasantly surprised. Having said that I’m certainly delighted that the show is getting such a sizable and prominent series of docs, and three hours of extra Dwarf is something I’ll never sniff at. This is the first time a documentary has been made about Red Dwarf for television since the BBC’s Comedy Connections episode in 2004; and before that, the Red Dwarf Night documentaries of 1998. *The Making of Back to Earth has left the chat* In other, meta, news; G&T’s server will be undergoing some maintenance at some point Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd June, so if during this time you see an error then please don’t panic.
OFFICIAL: Red Dwarf Special Announced! News Posted by Ian Symes on 18th October 2019, 00:03 After the merest Morse-based mumblings on Thursday afternoon, the news we've all been waiting for dropped in the very early hours of Friday morning. It's quite late at night and we've got work in the morning, so here's the short version: NEW FEATURE LENGTH SPECIAL! THREE-PART RETROSPECTIVE DOCUMENTARY! LIVE AUDIENCE! RECORDING IN DECEMBER! AIRING NEXT YEAR! TOS, of course, has some finer details, and here are our initial bleary-eyed thoughts... Read more →
