Sci-fi TV is usually only accidentally funny when things come across as campy or implausible. Red Dwarf throws those preconceptions out of the airlock and succeeds as a brilliantly clever tongue-in-cheek British sci-fi sitcom. -james

---

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/02/2006 Rating: Nr

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56919 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2003-02-25
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 4

Amazon.com
Notoriously, and entirely appropriately, the original outline for Doug Naylor and Rob Grant's comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf was sketched on the back of a beer mat. When it finally appeared on British television in 1988, the show had clearly stayed true to its roots, mixing jokes about excessive curry consumption with affectionate parodies of classic sci-fi. Indeed, one of the show's most endearing and enduring features is its obvious respect for genre conventions, even as it gleefully subverts them. The scenario owes something to Douglas Adams's satirical Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, something to The Odd Couple, and a lot more to the slacker sci-fi of John Carpenter's Dark Star. Behind the crew's constant bickering there lurks an impending sense that life, the universe, and everything are all someone's idea of a terrible joke.

Later seasons broadened the show's horizons until at last its premise was so diluted as to be unrecognizable, but in the six episodes of the first season, the comedy is witty and intimate, focusing on characters and not special effects. Slob Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is the last human alive after a radiation leak wipes out the crew of the vast mining vessel Red Dwarf (episode 1, "The End"). He bums around the spaceship with the perpetually uptight and annoyed hologram of his dead bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie, the show's greatest comedy asset), and a creature evolved from a cat (dapper Danny John-Jules). They are guided rather haphazardly by Holly, the worryingly thick main computer (lugubrious Norman Lovett).

The second season showcases the show's sardonic, sarcastic humor to perfection. The cast had gelled, the drab sets were spiced up, a little more money had been assigned to models and special effects, and the crew even went on location once in a while. "Kryten" introduces us to the eponymous house robot (here played by David Ross), although after this first episode he was not to reappear until season 3, when Robert Llewellyn made the role his own. Then in "Better Than Life" the show produced one of its all-time classic episodes, as the boys from the Dwarf take part in a virtual reality game that's ruined by Rimmer's tortured psyche. Other highlights include "Queeg," in which Holly is replaced by a domineering computer personality; the baffling time-travel paradox of "Stasis Leak"; the puzzling conundrum of "Thanks for the Memory"; and the astonishingly feminine "Parallel Universe." --Mark Walker

---

Customer Reviews

The Worlds Premier Sci-Fi Comedy is here!!!!!
...and its about time. Join the crew of the Red Dwarf, as ship screwball and slacker Dave Lister is put in stasis as punishment for bringing an unquarantined, pregnant cat on board the ship. When he wakes up from stasis, he finds that 3 million years have passed, and he is the last member of the human race!!! Join him in his wacky adventures alongside "Holly" (the ships computer), Arnold J. Rimmer(a holographic representation of his deceased bunkmate), and "Cat" ( a humanoid who has 'evolved' from his cat).
Seasons 1 and 2 are available Feb 25th 2003, and two seasons will be released every ensuing February until all eight seasons have been released.

This is the funniest television program ever made in my opinion, and I am sure you will enjoy it!!!

Great picture and extras, Buy it or be a gimboid
Just got these the other day. And of course I couldn't sleep until I had watched them both... with commentary turned on of course.

The picture and sound are excellent. The commentary (by the whole cast no less) is great. They chit chat about the history, what was going on when things were filmed, odd things they remember, etc. Very enjoyable and quite humorous for the Red Dwarf fan. Lots of other interesting extras to explore on the DVD as well. All in all it is a very nicely done DVD. If you are a RD fan, you have no choice but to go buy it. Ace would approve. :-)

My only complaint is that they are only going to release two seasons every year. The wait for the next ones are going to kill me.

Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

At last!
At long last, Red Dwarf is finally being released on DVD--and with enough tantalizing extras to cause any fan of the show to celebrate. With smeg ups, deleted scenes, documentaries and interviews (not to mention the crisp, clear quality of the original episodes on DVD), this is a release that I have long been anticipating. Crisp, fresh writing and marvellous acting more than make up for the, at times, low budget sets--and even for their low budget, they still manage to bring across an excellent sense of desolation and loneliness, essential to the show.

I love this television show. And with two series' being released each February for the next few years, this is a tremendous event that should and will be celebrated by all Red Dwarf fans.