Hogan Reviews

We jump forward ten years with our next Red Dwarf review, the “Back to Earth” special, or specials I guess, I do remember watching over several nights originally, its just the Blu-ray is edited into one feature. It’s an odd one, mainly because there’s no live audience or even a laughter track, which makes a lot of jokes come off as flat or unfunny because you’re just used hearing it. Personally I always dislike “characters come to our Earth and meet the actors who play them” storylines, it’s one of my least favourite plots of any medium, so that also strikes it down in my book. You know what though? It’s still better than most of Series VIII! Let’s take a look…

The story opens with a “Nine years later…” appearing on screen and that’s literally all you get in terms of a resolution to the end of the previous series. Kochanski is apparently dead, Holly is offline due to Lister (Craig Charles) leaving the water running, and Rimmer (Chris Barrie) is somehow the original hologram Rimmer who became Ace Rimmer in Series VII back as his regular self with no explanation. Basically the cast has been reset to Series V / VI, which to be fair is the golden era of the show as far as I’m concerned so I can understand the appeal, especially as at this point this was just a one off reunion thing. So after some classic Lister and Rimmer banter and a scene where Lister reads to Kochanski’s grave Cat (Danny John-Jules) arrives and informs everyone that there’s a giant squid in the water tanks and that must be why water reserves are low. Lister, Cat and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) head down to the depths of the tank in a diving bell with Rimmer at the controls and sure enough a massive squid is down there and attacks.

Lister visits Kochanski’s grave on one of those viewing pods that have never been on the ship before… Man Red Dwarf (the ship) has seen a lot of redesigns…

After Lister throws a tentacle at Rimmer for being late on the rescue Science Officer Katerina Bartikovsky (Sophie Winkleman) appears out of nowhere as a hologram and tells them that the squid is a “dimensional leviathan” that “swims between dimensions” and that theoretically they could use a mining laser as a “dimension cutter” to find an alternate timeline with humans so Lister can restart the human race. She gives this a go but only succeeds is sending the main quartet to “our Earth” where they find some DVDs of Red Dwarf and discover that they’re fictional characters on a TV show. One of the DVDs is a “Coming Soon” case for Back to Earth and read that it ends with their deaths at the hands of their creator after they come to him to beg for more life, Blade Runner style. With no other option available they decide to do just that: seek out their creator and ask for more life, or pitch various new TV spin-offs they can do, and hope they can break from fate.

That’s pretty much the setting for the rest of the story, Rimmer “kills” Katerina after she claims her killing him wouldn’t be murder because holograms are already dead so Rimmer pushes her in front of a bus (still a great moment, I’m sure the audience would’ve been in hysterics had there actually been one…) and on a bus Lister meets two children who are fans of the show and tell him that in “Series IX” Kochanski didn’t die, she got fed up of seeing Lister spiral into depression and left instead and that Kryten telling him she died was to spare his feelings, which I mean… I guess? Would I rather know I was “dumped” by the woman I loved or think that she was dead? … I think I’d rather know she was out there and give it another try! Plus where did she go all by herself, anyway? Maybe to join all the resurrected Red Dwarf crew, wherever they ended up…

Everyone gets sucked into the real world and pop out via a TV screen, like a reverse Persona 4! (Is there a great cross-section of Red Dwarf and Persona fans? Probably not… oh well!)

Anyway, they eventually find out where their creator is by asking a confused Craig Charles on the set of Coronation Street and head off to face their destiny. It’s funny going to Back to Earth right after Series VIII because its suddenly 16:9, HD and everyone looks so much older, plus thankfully CG is used sparingly and thanks to the passage of time the bits they do use look far better than the over-abundance of stuff used in VIII. It’s a far more noticeable leap than the few years between VI to VII. There are some legitimately good gags here as well as some well-written dialogue, so in the near decade in between Doug Naylor has upped his game after whatever the hell happened with the previous series, though again the core idea and no audience hurts it a lot, especially the gags.

Overall Thoughts:

The Red Dwarf crew hanging out in the Rover’s Return… no wonder Lister looks so depressed.

Back to Earth worked as a one-off reunion special but as a sort-of Series IX in a run of episodes that has reached a sort-of thirteenth series it comes off as an oddity, being the only series without a live audience track and a plot almost entirely set on then-modern-day Earth instead of the usual sci-fi setting. My strong dislike for the “fictional characters visit our Earth and meet their own actors” plot doesn’t help it either. Still, some strong gags and a bit of character development for Lister stops this from sinking as low as Series VIII did, so that’s got to be a bonus! Up next is my first ever re-watch of Series X, which from memory I really loved when it aired, so let’s hope that stays the case!

The Dwarf crew find their creator (played by Richard O’Callaghan) and despite their pleas he says he’s tired of them and is moments away from killing them but Lister gains control of his typewriter and writes that he kills the Creator instead, then proceeds to writer Rimmer, Cat and Kryten to do lots of weird things before Kryten notices Cat keeps making origami squids and figures out that they’re under a mass hallucination similar to the despair squid (from Series V classic Back to Reality) only it induces joy rather than despair, explaining why Lister was having so much fun being told he was great by people on the street etc. Kryten, Cat and Rimmer wake from the dream (which started just as Katerina mysteriously appeared out of nowhere) but Lister stays because he can be happy and be with Kochanski here. He actually meets her (Chloe Annett) but says he going to wake up and get the real her in the real world, which his Kochanski doubts he’ll be able to do.

Lister makes Rimmer ram his groin into the corner of his desk, although in this screenshot it looks like Rimmer likes it I can assure you he didn’t.

Lister wakes up and as everyone heads back Cat admits to having stolen a baby squid from the despair squid planet at the time with plans to eat it and then forgot about it, then they all laugh that multiverse theory stats that the reality they dreamed must exist somewhere and that the idea those “poor saps” think they’re fictional characters to be hilarious…