Howdy Folks! It’s time once again for our weekly news round-up! I’ve been fairly absent for a little while, mostly due to some rough germs passed around at Christmas and New Years that kept me in a fairly pitiful state while I was not working. Rather than crank out a bunch of fever-induced terrible content, I rested the site for a bit. I have been collecting a few decent news stories for the past few weeks, so don’t be surprised if this particular edition is a few weeks behind. I originally sis this on Saturday, but feel that Tuesday better fits this premise due to news rarely “breaking” on weekends and that catchy rhyme up there. so without further ado, here’s your top headlines for the week!

If you have a great news tip that you want to share, feel free to contact me through e-mail or on a comments page, I’ll drop credit when I can!

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: The Red Dwarf chilli chutney egg sarnie

I’ve seen people recreate dishes from many science fiction properties, but it’s usually reserved for things like Star Wars and Star Trek. I’m not sure if it’s good news or bad news, but it seems somebody has decided to bring one of Red Dwarf’s many gastronomic abominations into the real world.

“That’s how Arnold Rimmer described Dave Lister‘s unholy creation in episode Thanks for the Memory. Lister’s recipe was apparently inspired by a book on biological warfare, but in the absence of the original reference material or indeed a hard-and-fast set of instructions, the show’s fans have since speculated on just how the “state of the art sarnie” might be constructed.”

READ MORE HERE>

Doctor Who Season 9: News, Casting, and Rumors

Den of Geek has done a good job of compiling some recent filming news for the ninth season of Doctor Who. If anything, I’m most happy about this little tidbit:

“We’re not going to do splits [in Season 8],” he said this time last year, “and the same format will repeat exactly [for Season 9] the following year [2015] like that. So it will be the traditional form.”

READ MORE HERE >

‘Doctor Who’ fans gather for Los Angeles convention

In the past, news reporting about Doctor Who was about as relevant as the classified ads at the back of the newspaper, but today it’s front page news. The Los Angeles Daily News has tossed together a nice summary of the Gallifrey One convention that happened a few weeks ago.

“In America, however, “Doctor Who” was only known as an obscure BBC science fiction show rebroadcast on PBS — until now. Today, a resurgent “Doctor Who” is the most commercially successful show in BBC history and has appeared on the front cover of magazines and, later this year, will be immortalized in Lego form. It’s also popular enough to sell out Gallifrey One, a fan convention expected to attract 3,700 hard-core “Doctor Who” enthusiasts — also known as “Whovians” — to the Marriott Los Angeles Airport from Feb. 13-15, 2015. Organizers boasts it’s the largest convention of its kind in the country.”

READ MORE HERE >

Titan targets Doctor Who fans launching comic featuring the 10th, 11th and 12th Doctors

It seems Titan comics is going to be releasing some sort of anthology format Doctor Who comic in the near future featuring tales of more than just one Doctor. If I can get my hands on these, I’ll be sure to do some reviews for you guys for our new weekly comic review!

“Every issue features work from writers and artists including Nick Abadzis (Laika), Elena Casagrande (Angel, Star Trek), Al Ewing (Loki: Agent of Asgard), Rob Williams (Trifecta), Robbie Morrison (The Authority, 2000AD) and Dave Taylor (Batman: Death by Design).”

READ MORE >

Doctor Who and Eastenders: a history of soap and space

One of the main reasons I don’t like the very forgettable 30th Anniversary for Doctor Who – Dimensions in Time. Is that it shoe-horned the Cast of Eastenders into the plot helping it make no sense at all. Despite that, this is a decent write-up showing the links between the two BBC properties.

“From the Queen Vic to the TARDIS. As Eastenders prepares to mark its 30th anniversary, we look back at its encounters with Doctor Who…”

READ MORE >

Two Doctor Who Showrunners Just Had The Best/Dumbest Argument Ever

“As you may recall, the Doctor has been married to River Song, Queen Elizabeth I, and Marilyn Monroe… that we know of. This delightful nonsense began when someone wrote into the official Doctor Who magazine and asked Moffat if that meant the Doctor was a bigamist. Moffat replied that at least the Doctor’s marriage to Elizabeth could have been annulled, since it was never consummated.”

READ MORE HERE >

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It’s another Tuesday, so you know what that means! I have gathered a handful of some of the most noteworthy stories of the week all in one easily digestible nugget of newsiness. Check back later in the week for my coverage of the recent comic / science fiction convention that I attended last week, and perhaps a podcast episode about it. So without further ado, here’s the news!

Red Dwarf Star Goes Back to the Future With Bosch in Vegas

“Every year thousands of exhibitors, visitors, journalists and industry experts de-camp to the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas to see, experience and discuss the hottest new technologies set to make a big impact around the globe.
Luckily for us, Robert Llewelyn, star of cult classic TV show Red Dwarf, ignores the saying ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ by ‘spilling the beans’ in a series of short films on the next generation of Bosch consumer technology products and innovations on show at CES.”

READ MORE>

Doctor Who series 9: “scary” Mark Gatiss episode confirmed

“We’re not bringing him back exactly the same as we left him, at all. I think that was already evident at Christmas,” he explained. “He’s left some of the burden of being the superhero of the universe behind.”

READ MORE>

10 years of new Doctor Who: what 2005 reviews made of Rose

“It was either a legend majestically born or an annoying Ritalin romp pitched at Doctor Who’s youngest ever audience; an inspired return to form, or anathema to Who fans of old with nothing in common with the previous incarnation.”

READ MORE>

30 YEARS LATE: A BUS FOR JOHN NATHAN-TURNER!

“Authorities in Brighton are asking the public to choose local figures worthy of recognition by having their name on one of a new fleet of 24 Coaster buses. Brighton and Hove Buses have selected 15 names from over 100 nominations but for the remaining nine slots a public voting process will determine the names to be chosen.”

READ MORE>

Must-read fan fiction from ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Farscape’

“What do you think? Fan fiction, science-fiction and television? Do they share a special bond? In this month’s HEA post, I’m going with a big yes and a huge side of outer space, the final frontier …”

READ MORE>

RADIO TIMES: TOP TEN EPISODES IN TEN YEARS

“The poll by RadioTimes.com, which received 280,859 votes, asked fans for their favourite episode of Doctor Who since it was relaunched by Russell T Davies on 26 March 2005, 16 years since the last full series. Blink topped the poll beating 2010’s Vincent and The Doctor to second place and The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End (2008) in third position.”

READ MORE>

‘Doctor Who’s Day Roundup: Doctor When?

“Before we get started looking at the past week in Doctor Who, let’s go on a journey to the distant past. No, not prehistoric times, I’m talking about a time before there was an actual Doctor Who to watch. What did people do to entertain themselves without tales of Time Lords and TARDISes? And, actually, what would Doctor Who have been like if it was made in the earliest eras of filmed entertainment?”

READ MORE>

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(From Red Dwarf) If you have a funny image that would make a great edition of The Monday Meme, feel free to send it to my Tumblr, Facebook, or email it to me! Links for these options are located in the links at the top of the page! Don’t be surprised to see it on here someday!

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The Fastest Ship in the Universe : How Sci-Fi Ships Stack Up Created by: FatWallet.com

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The Boys are back…

Red Dwarf is one of those shows that you are either going to love or hate.  If you like your sci-fi bleak and dark like the fad seems to be these days, you may not like Red Dwarf as it pokes fun at itself at every turn.  Much Like the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, Red Dwarf likes to be as self-referential as possible and generally mock other sci-fi tropes.  Things like unnecessarily complex time travel situations, parallel universes, and genetically engineered monsters are all par for the course.  When I had heard that we would see more Red Dwarf after such a long hiatus, I was ecstatic as I have been a huge fan of the show for quite a while.  But was ten years too long to wait?

When we last left the crew of the mighty mining vessel Red Dwarf, things weren’t going so well.  Rimmer was about to die, and the rest of the crew was stuck in a parallel universe as the titular ship smoldered to a crisp.  With an unresolved cliffhanger like that, pretty much anything would be hard to follow up, especially after such a large break.  The producers and Writers of Red Dwarf came up with something ingenious and in tone with the show, by having a “missing season” thus, not actually resolving anything at all.  Many questions persist at the beginning of Back to Earth like: Why did Ace Rimmer go back to the Dwarf, and re-join the crew as Arnold Rimmer?  What Happened to Kochanski?  I guess we’ll never know, and that makes me chuckle.  With a show that had a main character turn out to be his own father and other such shenanigans, what more would I expect.

New Tension emerges between Sophie Winkleman‘s new science officer character and Rimmer

The story of Back to Earth takes place some nine years after we last left the crew.  Everyone is back aside from two notable exceptions.  Holly, the deranged ship computer (played by Norman Lovett or Hattie Hayridge respectively) has gone out of commission after Dave Lister, the show’s main character, left a bath running for nine years which fried Holly’s electronics.   Kristine Kochanski, the shows on-again and off-again love interest for Dave is dead, and Dave has matured from the experience.

After a run-in with a sea monster that had stowed away in the ship’s water supply, a hologram other than Rimmer appears claiming that Rimmer has put the crew’s lives in danger for the last time, and his holographic life is to be decommissioned.  She also decides that Lister needs to find a mate, and orchestrates a dimensional jump to take Lister Back to Earth.  Earth is not all it is bargained for, as the crew finds out that they are from a parallel dimension and are in fact, characters in a TV show called Red Dwarf.

On a storyline basis, Back to earth is a really good aside from a large stylistic change.  Rather than the joke a minute tone of older seasons, there are a few somber moments where Lister is on the brink of sadness due to his diminished status as a fictional character.  Aside from the drama, we also see home old-school sci-fi action, in the guise of homage to the film Blade Runner.  A few scenes were either directly or indirectly based on scenes from the popular Harrison Ford film, all the way down to costuming.  While these stylistic changes seem a bit in contrast to the show’s normal format, but work in the context of this special.

Carbug is definitely a silly addition, here’s hoping it stays on, if more episodes are made.

On the technical side, Red dwarf has never looked so good.  While shot on a shoe-string budget, the show has never had such well utilized computer generated effects, and other touches, and a lot of that has to do with the new HD camera that the crew used during the filming.  During the making of segment at the end of the disk, we were shown how a few shots were done using this new camera system, and it was truly awesome.

All In all, Back to earth was a good episode, but I would recommend it as a feature length viewing session.  Split up into three parts, the story structure seems to front loaded with jokes and padded in the middle with drama.  As a movie, which is what I believe the original intention to be, this series really shines, and may usher in a complete re-birth of the show if rumors hold any water.

Here is a trailer, that shows a bit of the Blade Runner parody:

My Score: 4.5/5

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The post REVIEW: Red Dwarf – Back to Earth (2009) appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

After posting that trailer for Being Human (U.S.) I started thinking about the sad state of the American TV industry when it comes to original ideas.  Whenever I turn around, it seems like “new” TV shows are either based on popular U.K. shows that already have a following here, or are reality garbage.  I know it may just be my opinion, but I feel that most TV shows that are translated from the U.K. to the U.S. are vastly inferior to their U.K. counterpart.  Even a network show such as NBC’s The Office, being written by the same folks behind the original, suffers from being drug out far too much as it enters its seventh season.  Shows like Coupling, Red Dwarf, and even the IT Crowd have had failed pilots over here, and it’s no mystery – people that like the original shows will resent the new show from the outset.  With one exception in The Office*, I have found that TV execs produce the show in one of two ways, both of which ruin the show:

1) Leave it “as-is” basically making a shot for shot remake – This baffles me completely as a TV fan.  I know that some accents from the U.K. can be rough to American ears, but I have no idea why they just can’t air the original show.  The problem with these “as-is” remakes is that the humor is not styled for an American sensibility.  The jokes always fall flat due to our mannerisms, a general lack of understanding in irony, and other things too numerous to list.  Fans of the Comedy Show Spaced have undoubtedly seen the TV pilot scenes that leaked not too long ago, and I feel those scenes speak for themselves

Or even this ghastly version of Red Dwarf:

2) Same plot, but let’s re-write it to make it “better” – I know I just said that leaving it the same hurts the shows chances, but this is usually worse, especially for fans of the old show.  Life On Mars (U.S.) is a prime example of this as it was originally supposed to air at least one year before it actually did.  ABC screened the show at the San Diego comic-Con to a horrible response, supposedly many of the execs had no idea that it had a fan base in the U.S. and were scared of the reception.  A new pilot with different actors was ordered, and it failed due to declining viewership.

So how do we fix this America?  Let’s come up with our own damn ideas!  I love British science fiction, not crappy remakes of popular British science fiction.  There has to be more than one creative guy in U.S. TV, and rather than block any new shows, how about we nurture our own creative minds.  With the announced releases of Skins, Shameless, and even X-Factor the pain keeps going….and going….

Here is a list of the crap that gets made sometimes, count how few actually took off.

* season 1 of the Office is basically a re-shoot of the U.K. version, but it went vastly in it’s own direction thereafter, minus a few things…thankfully

The post Speaking of U.S. Remakes… appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

The post I knew Something Was Weird About Lady Gaga! appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

As with any list of this type, I know that choosing what I want to be in the 50^th anniversary spectacular is both “fanwank” and unlikely to actually materialize in any capacity. Keep in mind that I do not want all ten of these to happen in one episode, that would result in the most horrendous non-sensical mess ever! This fact doesn’t keep me from coming up with a list of ten things that I would love to see happen.

10. Multi Doctor Story with at Least McGann and Tennant – I know that some fans bemoan such an episode, but I think it goes without saying – the best way to celebrate the long run of Doctor Who is to run a “multiple Doctor story” like past episodes such as “The Three Doctors”, “The Five Doctors”, “Dimensions in Time” etc. The old saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” so why not – why break a tradition that has been around for decades. This coupled with the fact that David Tennant has basically said that he is going to have something to do with the anniversary, I think It’s a shoe-in that we will see something like this, even for a short cameo.
What I would really LOVE to see is Paul McGann reprise his role as the eighth Doctor. Many fans see him as an overlooked part of the saga, and he is still technically a “current Doctor” as his regeneration has been only seen off-camera. We don’t know how old he was before the time war, I mean heck, he could have had white hair before it was all said and done. Unlike other older titular actors, McGann isn’t much older, so they do not have to come up with a terrible explanation about why the Doctor has aged forty years. This brings me to:

9. Cameos from older actors – The above problem is one that I hope they don’t have to discuss as one only has to watch something like Dimensions in Time to see how weird it is to see a former “doctor” that has aged so much. Of course I’m speaking of Tom Baker, and the silly half-explanation about why he was old, overweight and had grey hair. Yes, age happens, and I’m sure Moffat is a more than capable writer to pull something like this off, but why waste tape? Why not have as many actors as one can get, that want to take part, and have them be there in cameos? Maybe we can have a scene of some sort of government body like the Parliament composed of actors from the older show. This would be good to showcase the older actors, and not get too over the top. If they were to bring back an old companion, like they have done with Sarah Jane, Jo Grant, and the Brigadier, why don’t they bring back:

8. The Return of Susan – what better way to look back at fifty years of this amazing show than to have the first companion come back? I have no idea how this would be pulled off, but having Carol Ann Ford reprise her role as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan Foreman would be awesome, even if it was a brief appearance.

7.  No “every villain teams up” story – Since we’ve already had this kind of thing happen in “The “Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” it would be boring to have the same thing crop up in the special. I know it would be an easy idea to go along with, but this needs to be special, and to copy something from two seasons prior would not be so great.

6. The Return of the Master – I’d love to see the master come back, especially if they decide to do a regeneration scene. While I think John Simm did well in the role, albeit being in two serials that I did not particularly love, I’d love to see new blood. Maybe Bennedict Cumberbatch will have free time?

5. No metafiction drenched “breaking the fourth wall” stuff – Red Dwarf: Back to Earth was a solid few episodes of Red Dwarf, although fans were torn on it just a tad. A lot of that came from the plot, which seemed to make the distinction that the guys onboard the titular mining ship, were in fact on a TV show. While this made for an interesting story, it was almost on the verge of “jumping the shark” plot-wise, I mean where would they have gone from there had they kept that revelation part of the show? It would be too easy to write an episode where someone makes a TV show out of the Doctor’s exploits, but I hope we don’t see that. If they are going to think of something similar though….

4. Load us up with “special features” – I know Doctor Who Confidential is gone, but we need some documentaries produced, sort of like the one they made right before the 2005 re-launch just re-tooled to hype up the anniversary and rebirth of the show. This stuff would make some fans appreciate a show’s heritage that they may have never known about before 2005-6 and make any DVD set that much better.

3. “Making of” Movie – A real kicker would be a drama production of the story of the production of the show. Many fans do not know the uphill battle the show had before it became an icon of British scifi. Lorded over by a female producer (Verity Lambert) and an Indian Director (Waris Hussein) in a world of old white guys, the show definitely had an uphill battle at the beginning, not to mention its terrible ratings the day it first aired, the day JFK died.  As Picard would say: “Make it so..”

2. More than one episode – I know we have half of the seventh season to look forward to in 2013, but I hope they do something like David Tennant’s final “season” where we get multiple long form episodes, just as long as they aren’t as unspectacular as what we got then. I’m not saying they were terrible or anything, but they definitely were at the bottom of Davies’ caliber as a writer.

1. No Regeneration – while I bet this would get the papers really rolling, add to viewership, and keep everyone buzzing, this would overshadow the actual anniversary if it would happen. If Matt were to leave soon, I hope he stays on until the eighth season. Not only would that make him have the traditional “four or so years” but keep that season exciting as well.

So there we have it, hopefully some of this stuff happens, but what do I know? I bet what we actually see will be so much better!

The post Top Ten Things I’d like to see (Or Not) With the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

A TV series by BBC

Red Dwarf is a show known for playing around with the science fiction tropes of overly-complicated time loops, paradoxes, parallel worlds and other shenanigans you often see in big budget science fiction shows, but deliberately worse and usually with silly outcomes. Think Douglas Adams if he was making fun of something like Star Trek at all times. This is probably the first episode where the entire plot revolves around that trope, when a freak spatial anomaly created when the ship breaks the speed of light. Everyone starts seeing things (or future echoes as Holly states), and accusations of everyone being “space crazy” flow like water. Sounds like classic Red Dwarf and I’m down for it.

“When Red Dwarf breaks the speed of light, time dilates, and the crew begin to experience visions from their own future. Sadly for Lister his future appears to include being reduced to his component atoms by a rather large explosion. Happily for Rimmer, Lister’s future appears to include being reduced to his component atoms by a rather large explosion.”

Having the knowledge of upcoming future events creates chaos of the bridge of the ship, with Lister frantically trying to alter things. He finds out that many things are apparently going to happen including Cat losing a tooth, himself having children, and even his own potential death, Lister goes crazy trying to stop these events from happening in order to prove they aren’t destined. Lister thinks about what he would be missing if he died at 25, lamenting that he’s never read a book, as an example. This tampering with time humorously usually ends up causing things to happen rather than not, for example accosting Cat as he tries to eat a metal fish, and being the one that breaks his tooth instead.

With the show being on the cheaper end at this time, not that it ever has a HUGE budget, the dialogue and characterizations of the cast are at the forefront, and everything is very well done here. You get a real sense of the insufferable arrogance of Rimmer as he correlates himself to Albert Einstein at one point, and you really get a since Lister’s life as a slacker with some of his weird trivial priorities like eating prawn vindaloo being a dream of his. The Cat, in these early episodes, is not allowed to really get out of his shell much and exists as a pretty one dimensional character as does Holly, but that eventually changes.

We see a point where Lister accuses Rimmer of being ecstatic that he’s about to die, but we find out Rimmer, despite all of the antagonism, is terrified of that. Being a dead person brought back as a hologram, he feels he has no power and would likely go “peculiar” in the isolation such an event would cause. Granted, he says this not long after doing a number of things most would say are “peculiar”, but we see shreds of his real vulnerable personality shining through nonetheless.

While the first episode of Red Dwarf set up the plotting and the characters, this episode really sets the tone for the show moving forward, and what a tone it will be sure to be! It’s funny that the show takes real scientific theories, such as future echoes, pretty seriously and then makes a big silly joke out of it. That’s largely the theme of the show at most times, it shies away from the “magic” that some science fantasy shows revel in, but the hard science is not taken too seriously by the characters resulting in it having the illusion of being silly.

All-in-all, if you felt episode one of this show was a bit slow, episode 2 really sets the blueprint for everything else moving forward. It’s by no means my favorite episode in any way, but it’s decidedly Red Dwarf. Now it will be time to see if any of the “future echoes” really pay off, personally I’m hoping that we see old-aged lister in the series finale with a metallic arm just to have final closure. I feel like that would make me REALLY happy. Side note: that old age makeup was actually pretty good!

The post REVIEW: Red Dwarf: Series 1, Episode 2 “Future Echoes” (1988) appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

A Television show by the BBC

You might have thought I forgot about my promise to keep watching Red Dwarf, but good news – I’m right here with yet another episode review! When we last left the crew of the mining ship Red Dwarf, some timey wimey hijinks was going on, however today’s episode is a bit less crazy. When we open, Dave Lister is absolutely sick and tired of Rimmer lording his power over him. Rimmer was only one miniscule rank ahead of Lister before the accident, now he is acting like a five star general on the ship. When Lister refuses to help him count and audit all of the ship’s food supplies (which sounds painfully boring), Rimmer does the unthinkable by hiding the ship’s cigarette supply away. Rimmer has basically declared war, and Lister knows the perfect way to put an end to it: by becoming an officer himself.

“Rimmer encounters his most dangerous blood chilling challenge ever – Lister is taking the chef’s exam. If Lister passes he will hold sufficient rank to have Rimmer replaced as the ship’s hologram. Just how low will the universe’s most obnoxious dead man stoop to stop him?”

As the series moves on, episode three really sets the tone for the relationship between Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer here, at least for the time being. Lister isn’t a fan of Rimmer in the slightest. He states that he was the most unpopular guy on the entirety of Red Dwarf, and was so sad that he had to plan his own surprise birthday parties. Holly tells Lister that Rimmer was chosen in order to keep him sane, fearing that somebody he saw as a “buddy” would eventually lead him down the wrong path. We even see a bit of a flashback where Lister is very drunk and acting like a buffoon instead of finishing his work, something that would likely continue if anyone but Rimmer were onboard. Honestly, it’s the sort of behavior that caused his sentence in cryolock and the accident as a result.

On the flip-side, Rimmer needs Lister because he has an authority complex, and Lister is basically the one person he had some kind of authority over in his past life. Being a loser himself, but thinking himself leadership destined, Rimmer would succumb to the depths of hologram depression without him. The big problem is that a deal has been made regarding Lister taking a chef’s exam – if successful, Rimmer has agreed that he will allow Holly to swap the hologram to Kris Kochanski, a woman Lister had a crush on in the past. Rimmer is afraid Lister will keep the hologram that way afterwards, which obviously worries him.

Kochanski is played by Clare Grogan, who is also the lead singer of the 1980s new wave music group Altered Images. Honestly, we don’t see Clare do the role very much in the show at all, and when we do she’s kind of a bit too over the top for me. I actually prefer the later version of the character, as played by Chloë Annett. We almost think we see her actually appear to Lister, only to start bad-mouthing him and speaking in a familiar manner. This is actually Rimmer in disguise, which is somewhat creepy. He accidentally gives it away by trying to explain “her” behavior as due to “having a woman’s period”.

Cat is still somewhat one-dimensional here, obsessing over how nice he looks and generally acting as comic relief. As the show progresses he gets more of a fleshed out character, but it takes a bit of time. The big joke here is that Rimmer shows him how to use the food replicator, and without even the smallest iota of self-control, Cat eats so much that he makes himself sick. That’s about all we get here for him. I suppose he is needed here, as an episode like this is a tad dramatic despite the jokes. With Lister threatening to upend the power structure of the ship, it puts Rimmer on edge and perhaps shows him that he can’t get away with acting like a complete jerk all the time. Nothing comes particularly heavy, but the tension is there.

Overall, not much happens here, but it is a good set up for future episodes. We get some valuable character development for both Lister and Rimmer, but not much else. Once Cat becomes a bit more three dimensional he’s a lot better, but here he is used almost like a Jar Jar Binks sort of character which gets tiresome sometimes. Overall, solid episode if nothing spectacular.

The post REVIEW: Red Dwarf: Series 1, Episode 3 “Balance of Power” (1988) appeared first on Arcadia Pod.

A Television show by the BBC

When it comes to Red Dwarf, there are definite times where the show is very silly, and there are others where the writers hit a bit of philosophical brilliance you don’t see too often in comedic science fiction shows. 1988’s Waiting for God is one such episode as it lampoons organized religion for all of the inherent issues it has, and simultaneously does a bit of world building for a character that up to this point has merely existed as a walking punchline. I enjoyed this episode because it doesn’t do the typical malicious attack on religion that a lot of science fiction does, instead opting for an almost sentimental, albeit sarcastic, “lampshading” of some of the worst parts of it.

“Holly, the ship’s computer, recovers a strange unidentified pod floating in the frozen wastes of Deep Space. Rimmer is convinced it contains the remains of a long-dead alien warrior, and immediately begins a scientific investigation to decipher the pod’s hieroglyphics. Meanwhile, Lister’s rather mundane day perks up a little when he discovers he is a God.”

The “main story” is about Rimmer becoming obsessed with a piece of space debris collected that he mistakenly assumes is some sort of alien pod when it is in fact a trash pod from Red Dwarf itself. Arnold Rimmer, whether through jealousy or hyper-focus on the trash pod, comes across as a douche in this episode, yelling at Lister a couple of times for no real reason. I was not a huge fan of this part to be quite honest. The “meat and potatoes” of the episode involves Lister coming across a series of books in Cat’s possession that turn out to be holy books about Lister himself. This half of the episode was great.

It seems that during the million years of Lister’s cryogenic imprisonment, a race of cats developed in one of the storage compartments, to which the character “Cat” is evolved from. The originator of this race was the very same cat Lister smuggled onto the ship, named Frankenstein. She was pregnant and apparently passed down stories of Lister’s exploits and his unfortunate “demise”. These got written down at some point, and mutated into a strange religion that wasn’t quite correct.

It appears that Lister has become the God “Cloister” and it somewhat upsets him when he weight of such information. It seems “Cat” is not the only of his kind on the ship, and a blind priest has been left behind after all of the other cats fled. Cat is the descendant of a notably stupid cat, thus the reason he was also left behind. Lister is upset when he learns that the cats tried to follow his plan to travel to Fiji and set up a diner, but nobody could agree to the finer details of the scripture and resorted to violence.

He feels immense guilt for this, and feels responsible for genocides done in his name. There was a great number of “Cat Wars” over the petty issue of what color hats the employees would wear, which wiped most of the species out over the years. The survivors left Red Dwarf in mighty ships referred to as Cat Arks, never to be seen again. Lister takes on the role of “Cloister” to comfort the terminally ill blind priest and let him know he did not waste his life following a false religion.

This episode is a bit uneven, somewhat talky, and less humorous than some others, however the parts with Cat and Lister are some of the best bits in series one for me. I like the idea of the origin of religion being a story misconstrued as the years go by, and one can imagine that pretty much every world religion is a similar idea. It reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Lisa Simpson accidentally creates life that sees her as a God, and eventually wipes themselves out in her name. It’s an interesting take on the origins of religion and points out the frivolous nonsense that has sparked billions of deaths for thousands of years.

It’s after this episode that Cat finally starts getting a bit more characterization rather than just showing up, saying a zany one liner, then disappearing into one of his many hideaways.

I have not watched it yet, but I am happy to note that the most recent series of Red Dwarf, The Promised Land, is a direct sequel to this episode. It picks up when one of those very same “Cat Arks” comes face to face with the crew of Red Dwarf. I will try to watch that pretty soon as I am behind on it, as well as a ton of other things I have slipped on. stay tuned for more Red Dwarf reviews, as I slowly try to get through as many episodes as I can.

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A Television show by the BBC

We’re at the penultimate episode of the first season of Red Dwarf. It’s been a while since I’ve watched this, so it’s been fun to go back and see how well it holds up from the very first time I watched it. It’s definitely not quite in “the groove” that some later episodes get into, perhaps because Kryten has not joined the cast as of yet, but what we have here has been generally fun. Episode five brings us one of the more classic science fiction tropes, a space virus, and plays around with it a tad. Imagine what would happen if your fever hallucinations came to life? What if your own Confidence and Paranoia became personified, I’m sure chaos would ensue.

“Lister contracts a mutated pneumonia virus. The hallucinations of his fevered brain materialise in solid form, and suddenly the ship is beset by herring rain and an exploding 16th-century mayor of Warsaw. When his fever breaks, Lister wakes up to find he has created personifications of his Confidence and Paranoia, and a war of manipulation begins.”

For me, one of the coolest things about this episode is that it’s the FIRST credited role for Scottish-American actor and TV personality Craig Ferguson. Ferguson was a staple of my TV consumption in the 2000’s when he took over for Craig Killborn on CBS’s Late Late Show, a late night talk show that came on after David Letterman (at the time, now it’s Stephen Colbert hosting). He went to the extra mile to completely deconstruct what it meant to be on a late night talk show, having a robot co-host, a nightly segment with a pantomime horse, and usually did not practice or pre-write interviews giving them a raw edge that no other talk show had at the time. I’m sure James Corden is doing fine ever since Craig stepped down, but it’s not the same.

I know many UK viewers may not know who he is or care about this at all, but in the US, Ferguson definitely has his fans. This being his first role, and likely while he was in the throws of his well-documented drug addiction, the acting isn’t spectacular. This is especially true considering he is playing an over-the-top embodiment of Lister’s “pure confidence” as a ridiculous American gameshow host or something (funny that Ferguson is currently a game show host in 2022 lol). He doesn’t quite have the accent down, and is almost “too much” in many ways. That said, I love seeing his humble beginnings.

Paranoia is played by veteran character actor Lee Cornes who was a staple of 80’s and 90’s UK sitcoms.

While the concept in the episode was fun, I feel like the story was somewhat hampered by the time allotments. Confidence and Paranoia only really show up towards the end of the episode, and we never get the attachment to confidence we’re obviously supposed to have until he ultimately becomes the villain of the whole thing. Neither are we able to build up the sort of animosity towards Paranoia that would make the ending shocking. When everything happens at the end, it’s just sort of there, and credits troll. awesome premise, average execution. Onward to the final episode of series one!

For more Red Dwarf reviews and ancient news articles I did on here, click HERE.

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“Season 13” of the long-running TV series

While watching Season one episode four of Red Dwarf aka “Waiting for God”, I forgot that I STILL had not watched the latest feature-length special (considered “season 13”) that was released around the time the global Covid-19 pandemic started raging. This episode is noteworthy because it is a direct sequel to that aforementioned episode, continuing one of the few dangling plot threads from the show’s early years – whatever happened to Cat’s people? You know, the ones that thought of Dave Lister as a god named “Cloister”, and waged a holy war due to minor disagreements between church doctrines? We knew that one of the two arks crashed into an asteroid, but the other presumably survived. That question was answered here, finally.

“The posse meet three cat clerics who worship Lister as their God. Lister vows to help them as they’re being hunted by Rodon, the ruthless feral cat leader who has vowed to wipe out all cats who worship anyone but him.”

Much like 2009’s Back to Earth, The Promised Land is somewhat more serious than a typical episode of the show and somewhat takes an idea from an existing sci-fi property and runs with it. While Back to Earth was an homage to Blade Runner, I couldn’t help but see this as an homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in some ways. Thankfully, one thing that this series does right is keeping the humor in place, because there are some side splitting site gags here, mostly involving the antagonist feral cats as lead by King Rodon (Ray Fearon).

Simple jokes like having all of the doors on the Cat ship being huge pet doors, or having Rodon maniacally attack a huge scratching post to relax was hilarious. As a cat owner, the detail in the jokes was spot on, such as having him lay on his bed knocking cat toys on the floor gave me many a flashback to my own cat doing similar things. This is not to mention that Fearon is doing all of this whilst playing the whole thing as serious as possible.

We also see the triumphant return of Holly as played by Norman Lovett in this film. Lovett has been an on again and off again feature in the show, finally burying the hatchet with series showrunner Doug Naylor after some sort of prolonged backstage issues dating back to some eighteen years ago. After leaving before series three, Lovett returned in the seventh series as a guest star and the eighth as a regular. Many felt he would never fully come back to the show after a brief cameo in series twelve, but here we are – Holly is back and better than ever.

The rest of the guest cast is pretty fun, with the majority of the new characters being the members of the Feral Cats. The three most prominent guest stars other than Rodon are Tom Bennett as Brother Sol, Mandeep Dhillon as Sister Luna, and Lucy Pearman as Sister Peanut, all clerics that worship the almighty “Cloister”. Also noteworthy is Al Roberts as Count Ludo, Rodon’s sycophantic lackey.

Going back and returning to a storyline from 1988 shows that this show is definitely for the fans, and the love and care put in to make it something special is evident. Most shows constantly try to reinvent the rules of the show, usually alienating the fans, Red Dwarf is so successful still because it has stopped doing that. They had their fair share of blunders in the past when trying to change the show around, but you can tell Naylor has learned.

I was skeptical of the 90 minute format at first, as I felt Back to Earth was somewhat uneven, but The Promised Land is a definite testament to the strength of the concept. Here’s hoping they get more of these out sooner than later, and I have no doubt there will be more. Craig Charles (Lister) has even been quoted when discussing the show saying “There’s life in the old dog yet”. He was also quotes in the Metro saying “We were supposed to do the other one by now but obviously Covid put paid to all of that but as soon as we can, we want to just do these 90-minute formats now so the feature-length formats because it was so well-received.”

Overall, this was awesome, and some of the best Red Dwarf in a few years. I say that knowing that it’s compared to three largely solid seasons since the show returned in 2009. I loved the Feral cats, and the additional lore explaining some plot holes from the earlier episodes was cool. The action was solid, the special effects were great, and the jokes were absolutely hilarious. I would recommend watching the 1988 episode before you do this one, although it’s not 100% necessary. Just like how the Wrath of Khan stands on it’s own despite being a sequel to a Star Trek TV episode, you can enjoy this just the same. I can’t wait for more, and hope it comes quickly!

For more Red Dwarf reviews and ancient news articles I did on here, click HERE.

Here is a special sneak peak of the first five minutes as well:

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