Hogan Reviews

We’ve reached the end of our look at Red Dwarf (well, for now, there have been at least three other points in the show’s run that looked like the end that turned out not to be the case!) as we take a look at “The Promised Land”, a 90-ish minute special. Remember when in the Series XI and XII reviews I mentioned episodes that felt like Doug Naylor had one good idea and that one idea didn’t stretch enough for 30 minutes? Well, imagine that, but the one idea not stretching to 90. While it does have one or two good moments of comedy, the vast majority is once again just “okay”. Let’s take a deeper look anyway!

“The Promised Land” opens up with a group of cat people (finally following up on that story point from Episode 1 back in the 80s…) who have fallen under the rule of the tyrannical Rodon (Ray Fearon), who insists his people worship him rather than their old God Cloister the Stupid and so three Cats are set to be executed, but they instead escape in a shuttle and head for their ancestral land to find their God and ask for his help. Of course, this land is Red Dwarf and Lister is their God by virtue of sacrificing himself to save his pet cat, that then evolved into their species 3 million years later. It’s a good set up and finally shows us the other cat people who left Red Dwarf leaving Cat (Danny John-Jules) behind. Sadly this good idea would be fine for half an hour, but as I’ve already gone over that point (and will do again!) so let’s move on. After a rather unfunny segment where Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) tries to convince Cat to have a sex change so Lister (Craig Charles) can finally have a mate and have kids (seriously, where did that come from?) Rimmer (Chris Barrie) calls Kryten to the tech lab and there they find a ship making a distress call, but Rimmer tells Kryten to forget about it because they’re too old to deal with that stuff any more. This stops being the case though when Lister and Cat find an old back up disc for Holly (Norman Lovett) and they stick it in only for the original non-senile Holly (who oddly looks a lot older…) to decide that the ship was to be immediately scrapped.

Rodon shows his Wolverine-like claws that all Cat People have… apart from Cat himself, for reasons never explained…

They escape Red Dwarf on Starbug and end up on a ship called the Iron Star, the one that had sent out the distress signal. On the ship they find a new kind of hologram projection called “Diamond Light” that gives Rimmer super-powers but also drains his battery to the point where even when reverting to normal he has to run around plugging himself in with various wires and extension cords, which was at least a good for a visual gag or two. They also find the three exiled Cats who recognise Lister as their God, and although he finds it uncomfortable he goes along with it rather than crush their faith. They reveal that they stole the “Anubis Stone” from Rodon, a stone believed to hold great power, but Krytan reveals it’s just polished beetle dung. Rodon soon teleports on board and orders his men to kill Lister and Cat, but they fight back with forks (once the vegan setting is turned off…) and then they escape in Starbug just before the Cats destroy the Iron Star, soon crash-landing on a desert planet after Lister jettisons the back half of Starbug when it caught fire.

Rimmer briefly enjoys his time as a “Super Hero”.

This leads to some good scenes of Cat pointing out Rimmer’s technically not even a person instead a bunch of data of a dead person projected leading to Rimmer getting an existential crisis, coupled with him being projected in black and white due to “low power mode”, all culminating in a good chat between Lister and Rimmer and a genuinely funny moment where Kryten has to compliment Rimmer and just stands there with a weird look on his face. Only time I legitimately laughed rather than occasionally smirked… As Lister fails to convince his followers that he isn’t worthy of their praise (including Cat becoming converted for a good gag but then it getting dropped just as quickly) they decide to use what’s left of Starbug to hover about the planet to find the Iron Star’s wreckage only to be attacked by the Cats again, this time ending up trapped in a sandstorm…

Like I said, it has its moments, but the ideas on show here don’t hold up for 90 minutes straight, and a lot of the Cat gags like their entrances being giant catflaps and that they use scratching posts and the like make no sense given they evolved on Red Dwarf, a ship that had a no cat policy and therefore they’d have no idea of such things. I mean I’d be willing to ignore it if it was funny, this is still a comedy show after all, but it really wasn’t so it made my mind wonder into thinking how little sense it made. Plus a story about the Cat people returning and Cat is still reduced to side character for the whole duration? That’s harsh. One scene featuring a couple of lines between him and Rodon where the latter claims Cat was left behind because he was “uncool” being the only time Cat reacts to seeing more of his own people after all this time… Bizarre missed opportunity, frankly.

Overall Thoughts:

Lister, Cat, and the three Cat People passengers that I’ve just realised I’ve haven’t mentioned by name in this whole review… Oh well!

Much like Series XI and XII I can’t say I hated my time with “The Promised Land” but a lot of jokes failed to land more than they hit, and only one really made me actually laugh. The idea of the Cat People returning is good but is poorly used here, especially not having Cat play any real role or even act surprised or excited or… anything that his own people have returned. Definitely went on an hour too long for the premise, but it wasn’t so bad that I’m going to trash it. Another middling score for the modern era of Red Dwarf, sadly.

In a rare moment of joy and focus the newly motivated Rimmer comes up with an idea to contact Holly on Red Dwarf and use a backup to restore him to his old senile self so he’d be willing to help, and it works, just like that! The only problem is that Holly’s plan to save them involves firing a large missile at the planet and destroying it, thus setting them free in space. Despite their reservations, and much to Holly’s own surprise, it works and the crew are soon picked up by Red Dwarf. Rodon is sadly waiting for them though and its here where Lister admits he’s not much of a God and the Anubis stone is useless, leading to Rodon leaving them with a bomb on board while Kryten shuts down due to his power being drained by Rimmer. It all looks grim until luckily Lister figures out the Anubis stone’s polished dung is just an outer shell and he breaks it open, revealing a power source strong enough to restore Rimmer to Diamond Light form, allowing him to take the bomb and throw it outside just in time. They then use Rimmer’s powers to shine a red dot on Rodon’s chest from ship to ship, leading to the other Cat people around him to uncontrollably scratch at it and kill him, or something… which then somehow causes the whole ship to crash even though Rodon wasn’t piloting it? Sure. Alright.

Celebrating a well earned victory… by which I mean a “hastily written victory that doesn’t really make sense”.

Holly reveals that Kryten’s battery now won’t hold a charge due to being completely drained so Lister gets Rimmer to use the Anubis stone to restore him, which of course sets Rimmer back to normal. The Cats that have been hanging around doing very little then reveal they no longer worship Lister as their God, but Rimmer instead after he miraculously saved them all. The ships vaguely shaped in a Cat face formation adjust to form a large ‘H’ before flying off…