Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
TV-PG | 15 February 1988 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 12
  • 11
  • 10
  • 9
  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
  • Reviews
    Sexyloutak

    Absolutely the worst movie.

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    Megamind

    To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

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    Usamah Harvey

    The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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    Kaelan Mccaffrey

    Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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    JustOneGun

    Red Dwarf is and will forever be the funniest show ever ever!!!!! Believe me, Believe! Just watch and you too will see. Witty banter, Check. Slap stick, Uh Check. A Stellar Cast so big that the writers of the show had to empty an entire galaxy for these Phenomenal Stars! Red Dwarf is a monolithic beast. It is the longest running show I have personally watched. At the time of my review, this fall the red dwarf crew is setting high sail for yet more comedic adventures! The 12th season is just around the corner.Red dwarf forever ever.

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    tonyinblack

    I'm a huge fan of Red Dwarf, but have always been oddly suspicious of other people who are. I can't say why with any certainty. If I meet a fellow X Files fan, I'll happily declare myself and chat an afternoon away. If I meet another Red Dwarf fan, I won't say a word. Red Dwarf, just by existing, makes a lifetime of underachievement much easier to deal with and has always made me feel a lot less alone. Only the most blinkered would claim that it has never lost it's way, but only the most unreasonable wouldn't accept that these instances are brief. But it's the frequent flashes of dazzling brilliance that allows the occasional heavy handedness to be forgiven. It is with some reluctance that I admit to identifying with Rimmer, when everything suggests it should be Lister. But the best comedy teaches, without you being aware it does.

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    Leofwine_draca

    Review of Series One: RED DWARF was a show I REALLY loved as a kid. I started watching it during series five/six which many consider to be the highlight of the entire series, so of course I was hooked straight away. I do remember going back and enjoyable all of the episodes from the beginning when the BBC showed them some twenty or so years ago.Recently I've had access to the show again and I decided to see how the episodes have held up over the years. The first series of RED DWARF is a good example of how a format and characters could become great over the years, as the seeds of greatness are more than apparent here. However, what is also apparent is the lack of budget and the constrained feel of the sets and situations, although the character jokes are still funny. The repartee between Lister and Rimmer is what makes this first series work, as the Cat is quite annoying at this stage and the lack of Kryten really hurts it for viewers familiar with his later presence. Still, onwards and upwards...Review of Series Two:Series 2 is a definite improvement over the first. The jokes feel slicker and faster here, and the writers feel more assured in the way they handle various sci-fi tropes on what is still a low budget. Thus we get episodes centred around time travel, parallel universes, virtual reality, and the like. It's still a little wobbly in places - the last episode, in which the roles of the sexes are reversed, is crude, while the first Kryten is a disappointment - but this was a real step in the right direction, and 'Better Than Life' is the funniest episode thus far.Review of Series Three:Series 3 is where RED DWARF started becoming the recognisable show known and loved by the fans. Kryten is a fine addition to the series, even if he doesn't get a chance to really shine yet - and Llewellyn's costume still looks a bit dodgy. However, I found this to be a mixed bag of a series, with some of the episodes being way too obvious; the opening one in which everything runs backwards is too forced, and the body swap episode is predictable. On the other hand, 'Polymorph' is a fine episode that makes the best of the show's premise.Review of Series Four:Series 4 of the show continues to build on the previous successes, with less missteps than before. The mutual hatred between Rimmer and the rest of the crew provides endless material for humour, and the cheesy special effects are better than ever. Highlights include the courtroom-based 'Justice' and the final story, 'Meltdown', which has some hilarious fun with various historical figures.Review of Series Five:Many fans of this show regard series five as being one of the true highlights of its run and it's hard to disagree. The production values are the best it's going to get for this show; the acting and comic timing is spot on, and the story lines are varied and consistently engaging. Although the opening romance episode is a bit cheesy, the follow ups, involving the Inquisitor and later Mr Flibble, are absolutely hilarious. Chris Barrie really shines this series in which the spotlight seems to be on Rimmer alone, and the final episode, 'Back to Reality' is the best yet, a quite wondrous half an hour of comedy sci fi TV.Review of Series Six:Like series five before it, everything about series six of the show screams fantastic. Every episode is a highlight, with a fast-paced script full of very funny character jokes (the long-running one about Rimmer getting the wrong directive number never gets old). The opening episode, Psirens, features Kryten on top form and bears more than a nod to The Thing, while Legion features a great set-piece involving Rimmer getting beaten up. It's no surprise that Gunmen of the Apocalypse, a mini-classic in itself, won an Emmy, while the final cliffhanger episode had me on the edge of my seat as a kid. Sadly, due to an extended hiatus and the departure of show co-creator Rob Grant, RED DWARF was never to be the same after this.Review of Series Seven:This is where it all started to go downhill. There are a few highlights like RIMMERWORLD but for a lot of the time, series seven is a mess. As much as I like Chloe Annett (in stuff like CRIME TRAVELLER) she's not a good fit here and I was cringing a bit during her scenes. Plus, all of the material with the weeping and emotional Kryten is really unfunny and an embarrassment for the fans. The new film look is off, the green screen effects are very dated, and aside from tying up a few mysteries, this doesn't have much going for it really.Review of Series Eight:Oh dear. Series 7 was below par, but Series 8 really takes the biscuit. Red Dwarf's old crew is back, but for what reason? The old camaraderie has gone, jettisoned in favour of one stupid joke after another: random stop motion models, dinosaurs, ridiculous heavy metal sex scenes. There's a scatological approach throughout, with the emphasis on excrement and penis jokes, and smutty schoolboy humour elsewhere. Without a doubt, this is the worst series yet. It's like they weren't even trying anymore.

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    Dave from Ottawa

    The first series, made in 1988, always left a bit to be desired. The first season was characterized by Gilligan's Island level humor and pacing that dragged a bit by sit-com standards. The budgets were low and the look was a bit crummy as a result. There were a few decent science fiction and comedy ideas on display here, although the really wacky story ideas came in later years, as did better budgets and smoother pacing. The characters had a few rough edges and the cast chemistry had not yet quite come together. Still, the individual shows had enough entertainment value to be worth a look, and the series got better as time went ahead.After stumbling about a little in season one to find their way, the creators took some time to re-tool the formula, tightened up the pace and started throwing the jokes out at breakneck speed in season two, and the improvement is obvious early on. Basically it's hard science fiction meets humans behaving badly and this is the fountainhead of the comedy as the Dwarfers make their way through human space, encountering the detritus of mad science gone wrong and exploiting weird phenomena for cheap laughs. The look of the show is improved thanks to better budgets and the cast seem more comfortable in their characters' skins and with each other.The show went on a short hiatus of about a year and half, during which time the creators (Grant and Naylor) brainstormed science fiction ideas and picked the ones with real comedy potential... and then made TV history. The first episode of the third season, Backwards, may be the funniest show EVER seen on TV, and the rest of season three are almost as good. Smart story ideas - a backwards Earth, polymorphing personality-sucking creatures, mutant slides capable of supporting travel through time and space etc. - are squeezed within an inch of crushing to get every last bit of comedy out of them. The characters by this point have fleshed out fully and are no longer simply sitcom archetypes, and the performers have great fun with them while showing off a fantastic collective range of comedic abilities. The dialogue is very sharp, the episodes are fast-paced and filled with a flawless mix of brilliant gags and great physical comedy. Like season three, season four absolutely bristled with wonderful science fiction ideas - squeezed for every drop of their comedy potential, and played with gusto by a group of performers who now worked together like a comedy all-star team. The resulting half dozen episodes represent some of TV's best and funniest comedy moments thanks to an almost flawless mix of physical comedy, sight gags, cross talk insults and good character dialogue. The laughs come at high speed and you can watch the shows over and over again and still enjoy them thanks to quality and sheer volume of jokes. The cheap production values of the first two seasons are in the past, and everything now has a more convincing science fiction look and feel to it. Plus, ongoing attempts by director Ed Nye to vary the physical look of the show a bit from time to time helps to keep things fresh. And the cast are brilliant, now perfectly comfortable in character and with each other. You get the feeling that anything might happen and it does. The subsequent seasons had many high points as well, but also brought the characters back to earlier situations and re-used many by now well established gags. The eighth season is notable for having a much expanded budget and more impressive look than anything that had come before. The ninth season was something of a disappointment, bringing the characters back together after a long lay-off and trying to get some mileage out of the old chemistry, while spinning out a not very original mix of Blade Runner-esque plotting and the re-introduction of an earlier brilliant story device, the 'despair squid'.A tenth season is currently rumored to be in the works for broadcast in the UK during 2012.

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