Red Dwarf XI and XII were recorded back to back and due to this it will come as no surprise that you can pretty much copy and paste my opening paragraph from the previous review and use it here. Series XII is a mix of fun ideas but averagey episodes that while can raise a smile it never hits anywhere near the heights of past series, but never hits the Series VIII lows either. Let’s take a look…

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Red Dwarf XI and XII are an odd one, as they don’t have the “wow Red Dwarf is back!” feel of X and frankly don’t have the mostly good-to-great writing of X either, and while neither series falls as low as VIII they stand out so little that my rewatch for this review at times felt like I was watching them for the first time because I remembered so little about them. Well, with that said, let’s take a look at XI and see what, if anything, stands out!

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Red Dwarf X (because they counted the “Back to Earth” special as Series IX) is a true return to form for the series, with the cast reduced back to the classic four from Series III – VI, with six half hour episodes most of which are good to even great. The next few series sort of drop to middling (if memory serves) but X at the very least was, and as it turns out still is, a real treat to watch. Let’s take a deeper look!

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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…

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*sigh*, here we go then. This is the series I’ve been “dreading” rewatching for this run-down of Red Dwarf as I kind of liked it when it aired (though more for discussing new episodes of Red Dwarf with my friends than the episodes themselves) and then it went down in my eyes with each rewatch, to the point where I got to my first DVD watch I thought “I doubt I’ll ever watch that again…” and yet here we are with the Blu-ray version for the sake of this blog. I’d love to say the series has gone up in my estimation in the previous years, but nope. One episode still stands out as fun though flawed, but the series as a whole is definitely the low point of Red Dwarf. Oh well: let’s take a look, then THIS time I really won’t rewatch it again!

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Red Dwarf’s seventh series is an odd one for me, and indeed for the show in general. Rob Grant left the writing team leaving Doug Naylor as the sole writer and his vision of the show was a lot more… cinematic and leaned heavier on the sci-fi than previous series. In terms of Series VII it works more than it doesn’t but I can’t say the same for the next two… Also VII was the first series I watched as it aired rather than through repeats / VHS tapes, so it also holds a special place in my heart for the reason… Overall though it’s a mixed bag, so let’s take a look!

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I constantly go back and forth as to which is the better series out of V and VI, they both feel different thanks to yet another status quo change but both have the perfect balance of genuinely funny comedy and really interesting sci-fi plots. Basically strap yourselves in for more of me praising everything! Sadly for the last time, but there you go, few shows can keep this kind of momentum going… It was also the “final series” when I got into watching it, with me and my friends losing our minds in 1997 when we heard they’d be a seventh series, so more than anything else I see this as the end of the “original series”, at least as I watched them at home in the mid-90s.. Anyway, let’s look at Series VI, shall we?

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Red Dwarf’s fifth series once again sees a shift in tone and look, leaning even heavier towards sci-fi than sitcom and coming up with some properly great ideas, though still keeping things funny. While I’d say two episodes don’t quite hold up to the other four that’s more praise towards the crazy high standard those four have than being too harsh on the other two! Let’s take a look…

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Red Dwarf’s fourth series has an even higher hit-rate than Series III, with more episodes that would easily make it to my top 10 (though thinking about it I could say that for most of V and VI as well, so it would be a legitimately hard list to write!) and even the episodes that aren’t on that level are still really good, not one “duff” episode to be found here and beyond a greater scope of locations outside the main ship there wasn’t a major cast or tonal shift either. So let’s take a look!

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