DwarfCast 139 – The Promised Land Commentary DwarfCasts Posted by Jonathan Capps on 21st July 2021, 18:04 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes IT. IS. DONE. I feel like we've been going on about milestones quite a lot recently, but to add to our previous BBC-era accomplishment we have now finally recorded a commentary for every single extant episode of TV Red Dwarf! Whether or not this ends up being the last ever remains to be seen, but let's hope we'll be returning to our longest running feature sooner rather than never. Before that, though, join Ian, Danny and Cappsy in this feature length commentary of the Dave era's finest, The Promised Land. Read more →
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 →
Let’s Talk About The Promised Land (on Bluray/DVD) News Posted by Ian Symes on 1st June 2020, 08:30 Nearly two months after broadcast, Red Dwarf: The Promised Land is out on Bluray and DVD today, the longest wait we’ve had for new episodes to appear on shiny disc since Back To Earth eleven years ago. That’s assuming people can get hold of their purchases today, of course; ever since the olden days of play.com with their lax attitude towards both release dates and VAT, pre-orders have generally turned up a few days before the official release more often than not, but apparently retailers and postal services have other priorities at the moment, the bastards. Amazon customers were initially advised that their delivery had been put back by several weeks, but this was revised in the last few days and the majority of orders have now been dispatched, as have orders with other retailers such as Zoom. So hopefully we’ll all get our copies within the next couple of days, one way or another. As with every release since 2002, we’ll be putting together a full and comprehensive review, although it may take longer than usual as your resident reviewer will be alternating between this and changing nappies. So while you wait for us to tell you the correct opinion on the packaging, the picture quality and the extras, use this thread to share your initial thoughts.
The Promised Land Review Reviews Posted by Jonathan Capps on 3rd May 2020, 18:55 I’ve been thinking a lot about what I expected from The Promised Land. Over the years since Back To Earth - and so since the general death of any idea of a movie - my relationship with and expectation from the show has changed a fair bit. I was someone for whom Back to Earth was a relief as, despite its flaws, it was a large step up from Series VIII. In this way, it was and still is the saviour of the show’s legacy, even if it’s been superseded since. Series X was when the young, entitled fan in me finally fucked off as now not only did we have something better than VIII, it was better than VIII while playing the same, audience sit-com game. The era of the audience-less, movie-ish experiments of VII and BTE were a distant memory and a new, proper rebirth era was on us. From that point on, new Dwarf didn’t really have any saving to do and Series XI and XII came along possessing a huge amount of confidence in the format, and for the first time since 1994 the show wasn’t in the middle of a giant, near destructive identity crisis and I was no longer particularly worried about what would come next. Read more →
DwarfCast 105 – Live The Promised Land Instant Reaction DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 11th April 2020, 15:55 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes With brand new Red Dwarf back on our screens, no pesky lockdown was going to prevent us from forcing our semi-formed, barely-thought-through opinions on you via a live platform. The entire G&T team of Jonathan Capps, Danny Stephenson and Ian Symes logged on to the G&T Towers remote access point, as did our guests Phil Pagett, Jo Sharples and Shelley Smith. And there was much to talk about over the course of two damn hours, including giant floppy disks, fake deaths, moonlight, a bit of unfortunate outdated language, the new Gary Glitter of space, surprising siblings, a more fitting name for the Anubis Stone, and men of painted neck. For the first time ever, we bothered to properly integrate the Skype feed into our broadcasting console, rather than just turning the speakers up loud enough to be picked up by the microphone in the room and hoping for the best. It worked a little too well on the night, with the Skype correspondents much higher in the mix than the people behind the desk, but we've managed to tweak the levels a little for this catch-up version, to provide a slightly less irritating listening experience. Read more →
Let’s Talk About The Promised Land News Posted by Ian Symes on 9th April 2020, 09:00 Despite the last few weeks having seemingly lasted an eternity for obvious reasons, it still feels like the big day has crept up on us. Nevertheless, it’s finally here – Red Dwarf: The Promised Land airs tonight at 9pm on Dave. No caveats required – for the first time since 2012’s Series X, all the Red Dwarf fans in the country will sit down at the exact same time to watch a brand new episode in the exact same place (even if you don’t have linear TV any more, you can watch live online in the UK). And this post right here is the best place to discuss it. In terms of episodes that had audience recordings, this is by far the shortest gap between said recording and broadcast in the Dave era, and in fact it’s the quickest turnaround since Series V in 1992. But to pass the time until this evening, you can re-read parts one and two of our set report, if you like. But what you’re all really looking forward to isn’t the episode itself, but our Live Instant Reaction DwarfCast, which will be taking place on Friday at 8pm. Join us (from a distance of at least two metres) on Spreaker to listen and chat live; we’ll post the link on here and on Twitter about twenty minutes before the start.
The Promised Discs News Posted by Ian Symes on 8th April 2020, 21:38 With just under 24 hours to go until The Promised Land airs on Dave, news broke of when we'd see it on shiny disc, thanks to Amazon's pre-order for the June 1st release of both the DVD and the Bluray turning up. A singular disc per format in this case, in a first for a Red Dwarf release, but one that's understandable given the size of the main feature. Mind you, Back To Earth was a similar running time and that managed a whole second disc of extras, admittedly in the rather different home media climate of eleven years ago. Instead, the rather attractive cover, naturally based on the fabulous poster, reveals that there's just under an hour's worth of bonus features, and they break down as follows: Read more →
The Previewed Land News Posted by Ian Symes on 3rd April 2020, 11:09 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: Red Dwarf fans solved a series of codes to unlock the first five minutes of the new Red Dwarf special, The Promised Land. Watch the full feature length special Thursday 9th of April at 9pm, and until then, enjoy! pic.twitter.com/CMN6yazbOz — Dave (@davechannel) April 3, 2020 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.
Ian’s Newsround – 31/03/20 News Posted by Ian Symes on 31st March 2020, 20:18 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... Read more →
Twelve new photos! News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 27th March 2020, 11:41 Some of them involving strange men (and women) with large teeth, and all of them look GREAT. So, now, if you enjoy someone who wasn't at any of the recordings blindly fumble his way through explaining things he doesn't understand, then please do read on. Read more →
