Red Dwarf Returns In a 3-Part Showing 161
Logrusweaver writes "It looks like Red Dwarf is finally returning! Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is airing in 3 parts in the UK starting this Friday. It seems to be a 3-parter followed by a 'Making Of' special. Not trying to give away any more of the plot than the title does, but it does involve the crew finally returning to Earth. (Just hope it's not a bombed out planet with 'space angels' running around...)"
Great (Score:2)
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Let's hope it's close to series 1-6 standards, but I doubt it very much.
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British TV and the feign of class (Score:1, Flamebait)
Unlike the US, British television is very limited. Hence, when a standout show comes along, it really takes off. Sometimes the show is incredibly good and breaks across cultural boundaries like Monty Python's Flying Circus. Other times the standout show simply can't compete with American television, like Absolutely Fabulous.
So how about Red Dwarf? It has lots of fans, but if it were to be played on American network TV, how well would it fare?
To be totally honest... (Score:2)
They tried it once in 1992... (Score:3, Interesting)
There was an attempt at a Red Dwarf USA show on NBC, but the two pilots never went anywhere. They weren't too bad, but I don't think we were ready for such a thing. Since we have BBC America, I don't see a need for one anyway.
It's been a few years since I saw it, but I remember a pre-DS9 Terry Farrell playing Cat, and she had the killer line: "Maybe someday I'll find the right eight or nine guys, then I'll settle down." Classic!
Re:They tried it once in 1992... (Score:4, Informative)
It's been a few years since I saw it, but I remember a pre-DS9 Terry Farrell playing Cat, and she had the killer line: "Maybe someday I'll find the right eight or nine guys, then I'll settle down." Classic!
Original bit from the UK series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpI2t_qwlbI [youtube.com]
Around 2:40 in.
Re:They tried it once in 1992... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There was an attempt at a Red Dwarf USA show on NBC, but the two pilots never went anywhere. They weren't too bad, but I don't think we were ready for such a thing.
I'm not entirely sure we saw the same US Pilots. They were awful at best, it was a disgrace to the original to air those pilots.
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Too right. Every British version of an American comedy, and every American version of a British comedy (with the exception of "the office", where I actually prefered the american one (and I'm a brit)) has been fucking terrible.
We had a pilot for a British version of "Married with children". Married with children was always about the hype. Having the audience going mental about the slightest thing was somehow part of the atmosphere that made it so entertaining. The British pilot was dull, family-orientat
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Probably as well as every other sci-fi-based comedy out there. Which is to say, it will bomb miserably.
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So how about Red Dwarf? It has lots of fans, but if it were to be played on American network TV, how well would it fare?
Do you mean it has never been broadcast in the USA? It is pretty popular here in Australia.
Re:British TV and the feign of class (Score:4, Informative)
The weird thing was immediately after those shows...they'd run the Red Green Show.
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"Public broadcasting" in the US uses the same airwaves and has the same FCC regulations as any other broadcaster. They may push the envelope more because they label it "art" and hope that buys them a lot of slack.
It is trivial for the distributor to edit out the small bits like you mention; they aren't a reason you won't see the show in the US. More likely it's that the distributor has started charging exorbitant rates for the programming. At least
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While some Americans seem to have trouble with some "Britishisms"; I think there's a rather large and dedicated "Brit-com" fan base here who either have no problem with them or to whom a bit of cultural "went over my head" doesn't detract from their enjoyment too much.
I grew up watching plenty of British TV including: Dr. Who [bbc.co.uk]; The Tomorrow People [wikipedia.org]; Are You Being Served [wikipedia.org]; Monty Python's Flying Circus [pythonline.com]; The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy [imdb.com]; Fresh Fields [wikipedia.org]; May to December [wikipedia.org]; The Prisoner [wikipedia.org]; Benny Hill [wikipedia.org] (didn't like
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Broadcast Standards is not part of the FCC. They are a group at a network that decides what might offend their advertisers, and issues rules (well, they are more like guidelines) for what production companies can do. I haven't been hanging out with television production people since college, so things might have changed.
I agree that little things like this can be cut from a show, and would be the first things to go in trying to fit a BBC-length show into a US time slot, but the point is that when you take
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It's been shown on PBS channels and on BBC America on cable several times (though the latter showed the remastered version of the earlier seasons) though I think the last time it aired was 2001 or 2002, sometime during when they were putting a double UK-US flag on the screen post-9/11.
The entire series (before this new production) is also available on DVD in Region 1.
Re:British TV and the feign of class (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really not sure what you mean by "very limited". If you mean that it doesn't export as well as American programs then, no, but that's the same thing for the rest of the entire world, only Americans excel at exporting their culture.
Not sure what you mean by "compete" either, if you mean in quality, then do point me to an American show that competes with Blackadder or A Bit of Fry & Laurie. If you judge how good a show is by how many viewers it would get on American television then I'm afraid few foreign shows are as "good" as say Scrubs ;-).
Red Dwarf is pretty unique anyways, it's pure comedy but in a scifi setting, with scifi plots, but the comedy and characters really come first. Try watching it?
Eh? BBC can't export? (Score:5, Interesting)
It excells at exporting. Its nature series are famous around the world. Dutch and belgian tv can easily be used by those brits who have big enough atena's as re-run channels.
America however is a rather unique market. It doesn't need foreign imports the way smaller EU countries need it. It can afford to create all its own content.
But most important is that america is radically different from the EU.
Red Dwarf works in the EU because it is a bunch of losers losing out. American's don't like that and this can be clearly seen by their version of Red Dwarf, the red dwarf movie changes or for that matter the talks Terry Pratchett had about having his books turns into hollywood movies (loose death from Mort).
Other series are the same. Only Fools and Horses doesn't really translate either. Or for that matter Porridge. Both have had US versions and both times they were changed to suit the american taste which just doesn't seem to accept the underdog being the underdog and staying the underdog.
British humor I think is also different in another way. Just how many british comerdians went to Oxford vs how many US comedians to harvard?
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Just how many british comerdians went to Oxford vs how many US comedians to harvard?
I don't know, but please enlighten me!
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Dartmouth is the Ivy League funny.
Re:Eh? BBC can't export? (Score:5, Interesting)
This. I think Americans still believe in heroes. They tend to want a sympathetic protagonist who is a good person and who generally wins. This is not so much the case over here: we have a far more cynical outlook, whereby if presented with someone who fits the heroic archetype we start to wonder what his real agenda is because nobody is genuinely like that.
So when we do a character-driven comedy show, our protagonists aren't usually nice people. They don't live in a nice world. They don't generally win in the end. Basil Fawlty is burning up with frustrated ambition and bitter hate. David Brent is so utterly self-absorbed that he thinks he's a great guy, though he's one of the most dreadful people you'll ever meet. Edmund Blackadder is entirely selfish and unprincipled in all incarnations, whether he is a prince or nobleman scheming endlessly for advancement through deceits and lies, an unscrupulous butler manipulating his foolish master to his own ends, or a craven army officer with utter contempt for his superiors bent only on self-preservation. Steptoe and son are trapped in poverty with a business soon to be entirely forgotten, gnawing on each other for lack of anything else in sight to blame. James Hacker MP is well intentioned, but weak, and the show is stolen by Sir Humphrey Appleby who must have come straight from hell. Even the Trotter brothers, decent enough people on the whole, are petty criminals. Spreading the net a little wider we find the parish of Craggy Island served by a fraud, an idiot, and a violent drunk. And our topic here, Red Dwarf, is fundamentally about a few completely awful people trapped in each other's company and collectively making their own little nightmare world a little worse every day.
The nearest America gets to that is probably Homer Simpson. Yet despite the critics endlessly and lazily describing his family as 'dysfunctional', it isn't. He's a devoted family man who can be relied upon to do the right thing, if only after trying everything else first. Otherwise, well... remember Friends? Oh God it makes me want to puke.
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia might be a better American example. I've tried to encourage people to watch it without telling them how horrible the people are. "Amoral 3 Stooges in a bar" seems to work. "I passed out once laughing at the show" works as an endorsement.
Now that I think about it, The 3 Stooges weren't very nice, didn't live in a nice world, and usually were worse off at the end of each episode. Interesting that I'd have to reach that far back to find another example and yet they are sti
Re:Eh? BBC can't export? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good point, perhaps. The pilot for the American Red Dwarf turned Dave Lister into someone more like Snake Plissken than the Scouse space bum. But it's not because Americans hate losers, it's because some American producers are idiots and have the wrong ideas about their viewers, since they think like marketing people. Homer Simpson is a successful loser, for instance, and he's arguably one of the greatest successes of American TV, ever. Or Archie Bunker, for that matter.
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The humor content is different, to an extent. The American market is broader, though. Darker comedies aren't on network TV, but can appear elsewhere, especially on Comedy Central or Cartoon Network. Both have niche programs where bad people lose at life together.
Also: Many, many American sit-com writers have gone to Harvard. It's like a little factory that turns out awful writers who go across the country and create awful shows. I take it as a black mark upon Harvard. Look what they've done to our culture.
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" Not sure what you mean by "compete" either, if you mean in quality, then do point me to an American show that competes with Blackadder or A Bit of Fry & Laurie. If you judge how good a show is by how many viewers it would get on American television then I'm afraid few foreign shows are as "good" as say Scrubs ;-)"
Yup - there was only ever one show which managed to mix British quality with American commercial success - "The Avengers". Not to be confused with the American comic series.
And The Avengers w
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I don't know about commercial network coverage, but I do know many PBS stations carried it on their post primetime schedules. I remember watching it in the early 1990s in Houston, and I've encountered many people who were exposed to it from there as well.
I don't think it ever got as popular as 'Are You Being Server?', but it was big enough to garner a pretty wide fanbase.
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I think I accidentally tuned into a conversation between Lie-Bot and Vlad. [assetbar.com]
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Wow... just wow. And you wonder why the rest of the world think Americans are all arrogant, xenophobic, insular, cultural imperialists?
Yes, the only reason that British shows are popular is because we don't have access to the wonderful broadcasting that you enjoy. If only some American shows would come over here and we could stop producing our own entertainment all together... *rolls eyes*
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The real problem is they normally try to make an American version of the British show. Most of the time this means it gets gutted, with all the good parts removed. The only exception to this I can think of is The Office. I think the US version is doing better than the UK version, I don't really watch either thought.
A Sci-Fi comedy would probably not appeal to a wide audience, but I have watched the entire RD series more times than I can count. Once in Germany, countless times on PBS in the US, which I t
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And Scrapheap Challenge... sorry, Junkyard Wars. We Americans can't handle challenges; everything has to be a war! Or a mega-war!
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I think the main reason is that British TV usually knows when to give up the ghost and stop making shows. Whereas shows like the Simpsons go through cycles where it's really funny for a couple of years, then incredibly dull and predictable for a couple of years, rinse repeat, in the UK they'll stop making a show like Red Dwarf or The Vicar of Dibley when the writers run out of material.
Note, however, I said *usually* they'll stop writing when they run out of material. I'm looking at you, Casualty.
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British TV usually knows when to give up the ghost and stop making shows.
You mean like Red Dwarf should have done after season 5?
I'm just saying, is all.
Re:British TV and the feign of class (Score:5, Insightful)
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By then they'd only made 30 episodes, which is less than two years' worth in America.
Re:British TV and the feign of class (Score:4, Interesting)
Redeeming virtue for TNG 1st season (Score:2)
Abysmal? OK, maybe. I did get tired of the "Quick! Have Troi make a face like she's constipated and announce that she 'feels something'!" plot devices.
But y'know what? Ever since I was a geeky teen who studied my Star Trek Technical Manual twenty times as much as my schoolbooks I had been waiting to see the Enterprise saucer section separate from the main hull. Encounter at FarPoint gave me that in the first few minutes. After earning that much go
Two seasons? Not all that typical... (Score:2)
A lot of American shows would have benefited with the "6-8 strong episodes a season for 2 seasons" BBC model.
You seem to think that that's a lot more common than it is. Just because Fawlty Towers (which Americans are obsessed with) ran for two series doesn't mean it's typical. That had more to do with John Cleese than the BBC.
Normally if a show's axed after one or two "seasons" (*), it's because it's not been seen as successful. And the BBC are generally less ruthless with the axe than American networks.
Most successful UK shows have less episodes than successful American ones, but that's usually because each s
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"You seem to think that that's a lot more common than it is. Just because Fawlty Towers (which Americans are obsessed with) ran for two series doesn't mean it's typical."
The Office and Spaced were also widely popular here and followed this model.
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I'm pointing two fingers firmly at My Family. Seriously, that programme was barely funny in the first few series when the eldest son was in it. How it's carried on for nearly a decade I can't even imagine in my most feverish nightmares.
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I tested this out on my Dad. He hasn't seen a lot of British TV, and he's pretty picky about TV when he's setting aside time for it from other things.
He was pretty into it. We watched all the seasons together 2 or 3 eps at a time. (It was my third time watching, so I wasn't as enthusiastic as he was.)
So if they broadcast it in a good timeslot, I think it could do very, very well... As long as they didn't try to remake it like they did with The Office, Life On Mars, and The IT Crowd. I still can't imagi
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They already tried to remake it; they did a pilot - with Terry Farrell as the cat - and it tanked. It gets shown at UK Red Dwarf conventions as a sort of "look at the Americans screwing it up" thing.
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Other times the standout show simply can't compete with American television
Nonsense. British television has a pretty good track record of competing with US shows. I give you:
Pop Idol (American Idol)
Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars)
Weakest Link
Who wants to be a Millionaire?
I.e. several of the really annoying but massively successful reality/talent/quiz shows in the US are licensed from British formats (the rest are licensed from Dutch formats, of course).
Of course, they might not be the kind of shows you are talking about.
Another problem is that British drama/
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I actually think one of the main reasons British TV programs don't make it in the US is because of the format - it doesn't allow for commercials, or is too short or too long (and would allow for too many commercials).
I know even as late as the 80's there were shows that ended at like 12 after - for some reason tv corps in the US like shows that last 30 minutes - 1 hour (with ads).
Lately however - I've noticed a lot of BBC shows are formatted so they can be sold overseas - like the new Dr. Who series.
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You've gotta be kidding. The US industry has been raiding British TV for years:
Trading Places
Coupling
Life on Mars
What Not To Wear
The Office
Life on Mars did OK. Coupling bombed, though the original series was excellent. The rest are very successful hits, except for The Office. It is a runaway smash hit.
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I'm from Finland. Here the common concensus is that British TV series are among, if not the, best.
'Cracker' was awesome. Its Americanized version sucked bollocks.
Imagine something like Men behaving badly americanized... horror.
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Well, in the US, you get about 60% of the good stuff - the other 40% is a bit too eclectic. But yes, we do have some crap comedy. "My Family" is a typical example - it's a bit like Friends in that it's written by a machine, ie. a HUGE team of script writers with a deadline. It's mildly amusing, suitable for all the family, but nothing genius. The best stuff is the independent stuff like Alan Partridge and Mitchell and Webb.
You also have to understand how the BBC works - the best comedy in Britain is act
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>Strange when I lived in the US the TV was shit. TV evangelism,
>reality TV, 10 minutes of adds every 15 minutes, censored
>movies, FREAKY propagandized news. Mindless drama. Sorry but
>in the US the lowest common denominator rules and it shows by
>its TV.
That is still the case for a lot of US tv, but things have become a lot better over the past couple of decades. There is still a lot of rubbish, but there have been some brilliant tv show that have come out o
Philistines! (Score:5, Funny)
How can they make any more Red Dwarf episodes.
The USA version of Red Dwarf was DEFFINTIVE!
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I can't believe that you were modded down for that... obviously the mod hasn't seen the show, or he'd (this is Slashdot, the odds of it being she are pretty low) remember that one
Fix up the twit's mistake and mod him +1 Funny XD
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To be fair, the American Red Dwarf pilot had some pretty damned good jokes in it. For example, when Lister finds Kryten's head, still activated, on a shelf after 3 million years, and he asked, "What have you been doing all this time?" and Kryten replies, "I've been reading that 'exit' sign!"
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yeh, hilarious...
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Yeah, and your baseball cards must be worth a fortune!
Wondering... (Score:1)
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Neither - it's just another alternate universe, which RD can get away with since the scifi isn't really the point.
Remember at the end of the last series the ship blew up and everyone died.. they can't have any real continuity from there.
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Continuity has never really been one of Red Dwarf's strong points. It doesn't suffer from it either
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Neither - it's just another alternate universe, which RD can get away with since the scifi isn't really the point.
Remember at the end of the last series the ship blew up and everyone died.. they can't have any real continuity from there.
They brought back dead people more than once on the show.
Could not be more exicted (Score:4, Funny)
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I just can't be more excited. I think I'm going to take my wife this weekend to get some Vindaloo!
That's breakfast sorted then...
Can't sit still (Score:2)
P.S. Would anyone like any toast?
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An IQ of 6?! Do me a lemon, thats a poor IQ for a glass of water.
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Prawn to queen bish three.
My day. (Score:1)
Also this weekend (Score:4, Informative)
I notice that there is also A Weakest Link Dr Who Special [bbc.co.uk] - not sure about that, I can't stand Anne Robinson.
Space Angels (Score:1)
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I read somewhere that they're gonna link it in with Coronation Street (a long running UK soap where the actor playing Lister has a part).
I'll watch it, but think it'll be awful. The last series commercialized it to a stupid point, and the storylines are little similar to those of the ones conceived by the original authors.
There have been some great episodes in every series, so I'm glad they didn't follow the 12 episode route.
Books are like 10x better than the shows though.
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Series 5 is good. 6 I didn't much like at the time, but in hindsight it's great. 7 is awful. 8 deserves a custodial sentence for anyone involved in its creation.
I fear that this is going to be worse. I'll watch it anyway of course :-)
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I read somewhere that they're gonna link it in with Coronation Street (a long running UK soap where the actor playing Lister has a part).
Good god, I hope not. After the eye-gougingly horrid Dimensions in Time [wikipedia.org], which had Doctor Who in a tie-up with the already obnoxious po-faced (yet humourlessly camp) soap Eastenders [wikipedia.org]... I never want to see anything as bad as that fucking piece of shit again as long as I live.
Actually, Coronation Street isn't as bad as Eastenders because it at least has some humour and warmth, but I'd still hate to see them do that.
Then again, I couldn't bring myself to watch the remainder of Red Dwarf series 8 at the tim
Finish what you started (Score:2)
What is all this crying, moaning, and whining about RD and other comedies not being broadcast on US network TV? Who cares if it plays on ABC, CBS, or NBC. Everyone has cable or satellite these days anyway, and even if not, it plays on local PBS stations. So yes, you can watch it if you want. I've seen more BBC comedy series than most friends I talk to in UK. On top of that, we get more reruns probably than UK market gets on BBC of those shows.
I just hope the new episodes manage to recapture some of the orig
smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast (Score:2)
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Torrents if you want it right away.
Now this (Score:2)
A question. (Score:1)
Not on BBC, it's on Dave... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, the BBC decided not to get involved in these new episodes, so it's ended up on the "tiny" channel Dave and won't get the multi-million viewing figures it might have had on BBC 1 or 2.
Unfortunately, the digital multplexes where I am (yes, I have 2 aerials to pick up Wales and Midlands) both don't have Dave, plus although I have a Sky Digital dish, I don't subscribe to anything on it, so Dave isn't available there either (it's encrypted on Sky for absolutely no good reason, especially when it's in the clear on Freeview if your multiplexes carry it).
So the irony is that despite living in the UK, having access to two Freeview digital regions *and* having a Sky Digital dish, I still can't see these new episodes. So I guess it's off to "other" avenues begining with the letter "B" to find the episodes then...sigh....
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Sadly, the BBC decided not to get involved in these new episodes, so it's ended up on the "tiny" channel Dave
Technically they did as Dave is 50% owned by the BBC. That's why they get so many repeats from the BBC.
My 2 transmitters don't have all multiplexes... (Score:2)
I put my postcode/house number (which is in Merseyside) into the DTG checker [dtg.org.uk] and The Wrekin (Midlands) and Moel-Y-Parc (Wales) are my two transmitters - neither has the full
No good unless you watch it live and once only... (Score:2)
Ah yes, tvcatchup.com, the 100% mis-named service because you actually *can't* use it to catch up on TV that you may have missed when it was transmitted. Unless it's a live sporting event or breaking live news of major proportions, I record *everything* I watch to a hard disk recorder for later viewing (unless it wasn't transmitted in the UK in the first place, in which case it'll be a "download").
This allows me to watch it virtually the same quality as it was broadcast, any time I want, any number of times
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British TV Is Limited (Score:5, Insightful)
When BBC produces a show, said show is unencumbered by Hollywood maggots screaming "sequal!", "product placement!", "it needs a Black guy!", "spin off!", "homogonize it until it couldn't offend ANYONE!", "put Roger Corman's name on it!", "put Britney Spears in it!", "it needs a giant mechanical steam-powered spider!".
No, when the BBC produces a show they make sure that the creators know that they're damned lucky to be given any money or air time and then the execs ignore it.
As a result, British TV, while containing as much mindless trash as any other TV, comes up with roughly one innovative, clever, watchable show per year. The only American TV shows that get the same treatment are animated; probably because the network executive slime think animated series aren't important or just for kids or something. Who knows.
Hopefully, British TV's limitations will remain in place for many years to come.
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Space angels? (Score:2)
It's ok to have space angels. As long as they are hot. And really pissed off.
Laugh Tracks (Score:2)
Did they remove the laugh tracks? I downloaded a few episode to check it out a few years ago and I found the laugh tracks so annoying that I couldn't watch the first episode all the way through. Whoever came up with the idea of laugh tracks should locked in a cell for a few weeks with one on perma loop.
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The series 7 DVDs have two versions of the episodes, original aired episodes with laughter from an audience watching screenings and extended versions without audience laughter.
Personally I hate generic laughter tracks where the editor just presses the "laughter" button when they think something funny was said/happened, but I do kinda like laughter in the background from unpr
Real laughter (Score:2)
Actually, the first 6 series all have real laughter - the studio sequences had a live audience, and the exterior stuff was played to the audience and their laughter recorded.
The remainder (and these new episodes) were shot without audience, and suffered for it. To me, they're very sterile and cold.
I can understand the objection to canned laughter - I cannot watch an episode of MASH with it (in the UK we were lucky, as the BBC showed it without). On the other hand, I'd rather have canned laughter than the gi
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Every action have an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the universe, a white hole returns it.
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Ah, I think we've reached the middle of the conversation.