We waited ten years for this; we'd have happily waited a couple more months while you finished it.

This weekend, Dave showed three new episodes of Red Dwarf (for which this post obviously contains spoilers). I say 'new'; it actually felt a bit like a pastiche of Red Dwarf. I know the show has always had running gags and returning monsters and so forth, but the plot was just Better Than Life and Queeg pasted into Back To Reality, and even several of the characters' lines were almost completely recycled. I spotted lines paraphrased only slightly from Psirens and Out Of Time and jokes (excluding running gags) lifted wholesale from Marooned, Rimmerworld, Back To Reality, Future Echoes and Demons and Angels. It was almost like watching the US pilot of The Office, or a piece of fan-fiction. (Before you ask, yes, I did think Polymorph II: Emohawk was a bit naff.) It's pandering to fans, which is always a mistake.

I have no idea what to think about this. The first episode I didn't think was very good at all, but the second I actually rather liked (despite plot misgivings) and the third was pretty good also. My biggest criticism is that, because of the way the plot was constructed and because I went in with (I think sensibly) low expectations, by the time I realised I was watching something that was actually quite good, it was practically over. Had this special been done maybe after series six then I'd have gone in with high expectations and been thinking 'how are they going to explain this?' rather than 'oh, God, what?' (although then I'd have been slightly disappointed). The tension is diminished when I don't really expect it to resolve sensibly.

Overall, I thought it was a basically pretty good show. Not really 'Red Dwarf' as I understand it, but it can't be that without Rob Grant. That said, there are a number of things in the script that grated with me, including continuity errors, nonsense, plot holes, and worst of all, one major break with character. On top of that, the whole thing just wasn't as funny as Red Dwarf should be, and some sequences were utterly dreadful. It would have really benefited from a couple more drafts, preferably including a fresh pair of eyes to rein in some of Naylor's worst excesses, and it would have been far better off presented as one long feature — not least because I'm told ratings plunged from more than 2m to less than 1m literally overnight after part one. For the sake of a couple of writers for a couple of months, this show was crippled and came across as unfinished. Artistically, that's tragic, and I'm not sure it was even wise commercially: the ratings drop after part one must have hurt Dave, and I'm sure they'd have saved money in excised SFX follies anyway.

Hopefully if this is the lead-in to a new series then these mistakes will be learned from. If not, then it's a better swansong than Only The Good.

Related link: this review I agree with almost entirely.

Lithium Carbonate On Standby, Sir.

(How impressed was I when I Googled to find the name of the compound and discovered it was a genuine mood stabilising drug?)

This post contains the odd spoiler for the new Red Dwarf, except that it doesn't because it's going to be dreadful and therefore cannot be 'spoilt'.

Now, you may remember a while back I expressed my joy that the BBC had opted not to pour any more of my money into the comedy black hole that is Red Dwarf. For those of you who hate hyperlinks, I am a big fan of Red Dwarf, but I am a proper fan which means I thought series 6 was good but not great, series seven was alright, and series eight was unmitigated shite. (Alright, fine, mitigated shite. But basically still shite.) My point here is this: I have yet to see any evidence at all that Doug Naylor is capable of writing Red Dwarf well on his own. Now, he's had ten years to write a single hour of television, so one would hope that this time he's come up with something good, but all that would prove is that one hadn't seen this trailer:

I've not actually seen this trailer on TV, so it's entirely possible it's the work of an insane fan with too much time on his hands. Certainly it's not made by the producers of the new Red Dwarf episodes, but the person who alerted me to it plays Kryten, so my first instinct is to trust it. In any case, if it is official or the work of a knowledgeable fan, then we can infer the following:

1. Neither Norman Lovett or Hattie Hayridge is in the new Red Dwarf. As in series six, Holly does not feature.
   
2. Kochanski has been written out, or at least isn't in it any more.
3. The new episodes are not set on Red Dwarf. Or Starbug. Or in space. That the crew make it back to Earth in the new episodes is known. In fact, to be honest, we seem to be looking at Steptoe And Son In Space On Earth, which I'm pretty sure has been done.
   

Once again, I have to say, this is not Red Dwarf. I hate to bleat on about this, but Red Dwarf is about a group of people trapped on a spaceship dodging mildly silly sci-fi phenomena and nasty aliens. It is not a prison show. It is not Only Fools And Robots. If you want to make those things then you do that, but don't try to sell it to me as Red Dwarf, because that will just anger me.

Being realistic, I am going to watch the new episodes. Watching TV is very easy since we got the DVR. It's not something I'd stay home to see. But I'll watch it. And here is what I want to see, bearing in mind that filming has started so it's far too late for anyone to actually listen to me:

1. Clever humour. It is my experience that the best comedy combines a silly and surreal streak with a backbone of gritty realism. A program that's just nonsense all the way through is unlikely to hold my attention for long. (It can be done, but even Monty Python can't be called 'nonsense' all the way through.) I suspect from reading their solo writings that Rob Grant was in charge of the Clever and Naylor was in charge of the Silly. Both elements are needed for greatness (although Clever can work on its own). The Simpsons was very good at that for a long time. Now it just metes out Silly at random and hasn't done Clever in years. Red Dwarf is in the same boat.
2. Clever sci-fi. I always thought the sci-fi in Red Dwarf was excellent. It avoided the Star-Trek nonsense of having loads of humanoid and interbreedable alien races and stuck strictly to Earth-borne life-forms, and it treated ideas like Backwards Earth and White Holes with a sensible look, again with a little silliness thrown in for good measure. The last series didn't. In eight episodes it managed exactly one good sci-fi plot. That won't do.
3. A 'reboot' of the show starting at the end of series six. This doesn't, strictly, make any sense, but it's the best thing to do for reasons I will explain in the next list in my list filled post (which in retrospect may have been a mistake given the awful way our blog skin renders lists):

1. Holly and Kochanski weren't in the end of series six. Starting there is therefore the best way to elegantly exclude them both.
2. The time paradox bit at the start of series seven could easily be invoked again to explain the excision of the last two series from the continuity.
3. Series eight (and, to a lesser extent, series seven) made no sense at all. The act of admitting they were mistakes by removing them from the canon in this way would be an encouraging symbolic gesture and would allow me to approach the show as I approached Obama's victory speech rather than as I'd approach a news report about a murderer living in the next flat.
4. The cliffhanger at the end of series eight cannot be resolved. I cannot stress this enough: the established mechanics of the 'mirror universe' totally preclude any means of escape. One such escape was devised: it was included as an extra in the series eight DVD. Suffice to say that it to doesn't make any sense, although it does have one very good line in. And honestly, I don't want it to be resolved, because if we're only getting two new episodes I don't want the first one to consist entirely of Doug Naylor attempting to write his way out of a corner.

Bottom line: when I heard there was more Red Dwarf on the way, I was not excited. I have so far not been given any reason to get excited. I'll let you know when clips are released if my pessimism abates at all, and I've no doubt I'll blog about the episodes too. But don't expect me to be nice. As of right now, I'm very, very doubtful that I'll enjoy the new episodes.

Update: Dave's website has a photo of the cast. Rimmer has a big 'H' on his face, so they've obviously decided to go right back to basics with the classic setup (albeit minus Holly). In a sense that's encouraging: it could be a good sign that the show is returning to its roots (or at least, one of its better branches). Hell, maybe they have gone back to the end of Out Of Time. On the other hand, the attraction of Red Dwarf wasn't that Rimmer was a hologram or that Kochanski wasn't in it. If this is a continuation of the story as it was at the end of Red Dwarf VIII, then I worry that Doug Naylor has again massively missed the point of his own show.

The Void You Occupied in the BBC2 Schedule Will Be Allocated to a Show That Was Never Given the Gift of Air-time.

I just read this poorly-written news entry on reddwarf.co.uk. It makes three main points, which I shall summarise here in a less sanctimonious way:

• Miramax would have been happy to make a Red Dwarf film some time ago if Doug Naylor had agreed to use a brand new cast, which he didn't.
• The BBC have opted not to bother with a ninth series and aren't interested in TV rights to the film.
• There's interest in a stage show based on the movie script.

As a long-time Red Dwarf fan, the news that the BBC don't want to make any more of it makes me very happy. If this seems odd to you, it won't soon: the sixth series wasn't as good as the three before it, the seventh wasn't as good as the sixth, and the eighth wasn't as good as Property Ladder. It wasn't even Red Dwarf — Red Dwarf is a clever sci-fi comedy about the last human trapped in outer space with a dead man, a cat, and sometimes a robot, whereas Red Dwarf VIII was a ridiculous The IT Crowd-style nonsense show set in the brig of a fully populated spaceship. (I like The IT Crowd, but it's not what Red Dwarf is for.)

Of course, as has been pointed out to me today, the opinions of fans often shouldn't be considered when they disagree with those of the programme makers, but I respond to that by pointing out that when BBC Wiltshire asked Rob Grant (co-creator of Red Dwarf and co-writer of the first six series) what he thought of the eighth, he said that he hadn't watched it because the seventh was so bad. He said it "wasn't what [he] set out to do and ... nothing to do with [him]".

If the BBC change their minds and commission Red Dwarf IX, I won't watch it. Unless Rob Grant comes back and they all start work on Red Dwarf VII, I have no confidence at all that any future Red Dwarf will be at all worthwhile. That the BBC have chosen not to spend my licence fee making it can only be good news.

Oh No! The Master Has Cannibalised an Old Red Dwarf Script and Turned It Into a Plot Hole!

As much as I hate to disagree with the fountain of modern wisdom that is The Times' Catlin Moran, who is it who keeps letting Russell T Davis write the Doctor Who finales? Whoever it is, they're an idiot. I mean, let's just have a look back here. In series one, the Earth was largely controlled from the Gamestation, which promptly turned out to be Dalek run, then the Daleks conquered the Earth, and then, moments from the end, the Daleks were destroyed by Rose, in an almost literally Deus Ex Machina way. In series two, you may recall, the Earth was transfixed by a load of ghosts, which promptly turned out to be Cybermen, then the Daleks conquered the Earth, and then, moments from the end, the Daleks were destroyed by The Doctor by pulling a lever. In series three, the Prime Minister promptly turned out to be the Master, then a race which are basically Daleks conquered the Earth, and then the pseudo-Daleks were destroyed by The Doctor in what can only be described as a Deus Via Machina way. Is anybody else spotting a pattern here? Does it have to be Earth that's under threat? I think The Satan Pit was "big" enough to make a blinding series finale, and one that didn't conform to the above pattern.

I think this year's finale has a lot to answer for. It stuck like glue to the formula laid out by the last two years, and it added a whole load of plot holes and lazy cop-outs. The two biggest such cop-outs are intrinsically linked. The first was the "paradox machine". It's not what I'd call a clever bit of writing, but I didn't mind it at first. We don't really know what a TARDIS is or how it works, so the idea that it could sustain a paradox is within the realms of what I'm prepared to accept. But its real crime wasn't clear until later.

The Red Dwarf episodes "White Hole" and "The Inquisitor" both ended the same way: the eponymous phenomenon was eventually conned into undoing the whole episode. This is a fairly unsatisfactory sounding ending, so it must be treated with care. Anyone who has listened to all four commentaries on the Hot Fuzz DVD will know that a good writer will introduce the eventual resolution to the plot as early on as possible. The White Hole was making time skip about randomly from the beginning, and The Inquisitor was all about deleting things from the past. The "It Never Happened" conclusion was not so much a cop-out as it was inevitable.

I can only assume that the "paradox machine" was an attempt to do this (as well as a clue as to the "Toclafane's" true identity). It was introduced nice and early, and it saved the day. But to my mind, it didn't set up the ending nearly well enough. Aside from anything else, we know that paradoxes can exist in the Doctor Who universe (which I refuse to refer to as the "whoniverse"); they are merely accompanied by a horde of wingéd black gargoyle-looking creatures. You don't need a TARDIS to keep them up; just a giant strip of flypaper and something suitably old to hide behind (such as most of the script — for the record, "there was a really bad year where almost everyone died because of machines with human brains inside them but it's okay because it never happened really" is a plotline that was used in Star Trek Voyager a decade ago, and The Inquisitor turned the hero into an old man in his bid to survive five years before that).

In The Inquisitor, the ending was inevitable because it was the natural conclusion of the preceding events. In Last Of The Time Lords, the ending was inevitable because Davis had clearly written himself into another corner and we all know he's far too much of a softie to allow the episode to end with the Earth practically in ruins.

In fairness to Davis, he's done a good job getting Who back onto TV, and he's been good at setting up storyarcs and setting a coherent and engaging long-term plot. But in general, I don't like episodes he writes as much as the ones other people write. Steven Moffat can produce something as good as Blink with 45 minutes and a strict instruction not to tie up David Tennant's filming schedule (bear in mind that when Davis was given this same brief he wandered off and wrote the almost universally hated Love And Monsters), and Russel T Davis can't produce a good plot given six months of buildup, the lion's share of the effects budget, and two and a half hours of screen time. If the BBC really want people to watch Doctor Who, then they should give the big important episodes that lots of people will watch to the most competent writers, and so far I don't think that means Davis.

Though well done to him for making the "gun in four parts" plot a red herring. That would have been just stupid. Silly Master, falling for a trick like that.