Red Dwarf V
I remember, way back in 1993, getting my first glimpse of Red Dwarf V on a friend’s PAL-converted VHS tape just shipped over from the U.K., and getting the jokes while missing a lot of the visual detail. Until recently, a dub of that already-dubbed-and-converted tape was my only copy of the show’s fifth season. Needless to say, going from that tape to this 2-DVD set was almost like watching a whole new show that I had only heard before.
Some of my first impressions about Red Dwarf V still stand, however: despite featuring what may well be the most brilliant single story of the entire show (Back To Reality), this season is where just a little bit of a rot began to set in. The show was still funny, but this season was where someone, somewhere, decided that the emphasis on action-adventure needed to outweigh the emphasis on comedy. There’s just one problem with that theory: in 1993, between two of the best iterations of Star Trek, shows like seaQuest DSV and Time Trax and that space station upstart called Babylon 5, there was already ample science fiction action-adventure on TV. What had endeared Red Dwarf to so many so quickly precisely that it was not trying to compete with all of those things, or even with its BBC stablemate, Doctor Who. Now it really was trying to get into their territory, and it became less unique for it.
As with the series’ first six seasons, there are only six episodes to discuss here. Holoship is a dandy episode focusing on the underutilized Rimmer, who was in danger of becoming a one-note joke already. Granted, the gags already associated with his character were still seen in full force here, but throw a love story into the mix and it’s a whole different animal. The Inquisitor has never been this fan’s favorite - far from it, in fact. It’s funny in places, especially in the vignette scenes where each character must justify his own existence to a mirror image of himself, though the episode later becomes a rather lame take on causality and seems to miss its original point entirely. Terrorform is another Rimmer episode which packs in some great laughs (namely Rimmer’s “boy, am I glad to see you!” gag), but it pales in comparison to the all-time classic Quarantine, which gave the world the gift of Mr. Flibble. (For those not in the know, Rimmer becomes infected by a computer virus targeting holograms and rewriting their personalities into a perfect simulation of murderous madness, and for some reason, this manifests itself in Rimmer’s case in the form of an apparently well-worn hand puppet of a penguin named Mr. Flibble.)
Demons & Angels takes something equally well-worn - the premise of an alternate universe with saintly or bloodthirsty doppelgangers of the main characters - and milks it for laughs better than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s campy series of visits to the Mirror Universe ever could have. Even all these years later, and especially now with the miracle of digital video clarity, I find that Lister biting into a strawberry squirming with live maggots (and later being forced to eat a live tarantula) still makes me squirm. For some reason I’ve never been able to adequately explain, the sight of Hattie Hayridge as an evil Holly in goth get-up makes me squirm in an entirely different way. And finally, there’s Back To Reality, about which I don’t want to give away too much in case you haven’t seen it (though it’s safe to say that the shoe leather on that episode’s surprise twist has been worn through completely by other SF entities in recent years), save to say that it’s one of the two most perfect meldings of SF concept and comedy that the show ever effectively put on the screen (alongside the sixth season’s Gunmen Of The Apocalypse).
Each episode has a full-length commentary by the regular cast with the notable exception of Craig “Lister” Charles, who was ill on the date that the commentary had to be in the can. The balance of the commentary is very different without him there - perhaps just a little bit manic - though by the time one gets two or three episodes into the season, that frenetic energy (and Charles’ ability to go right out there and riff on anything) is missed. A panel of fans provides a second commentary for Back To Reality, though I’m a little dubious on the merits of that new feature; basically, they say what you’d expect fans to say.
Disc two’s impressive stash of bonus features is centered around the documentary Heavy Science, which does in fact concentrate on the show’s evolution from character-based situation comedy with a smattering of high-concept SF into a full-on action-adventure with a smattering of character-based situation comedy. Other big topics of the documentary include the departure of director Ed Bye, who had helmed all of the show’s previous seasons, and the difficulties that, well, everyone had in adjusting to new director Juliet May. (How difficult? Difficult enough, apparently, that series writers/producers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor stepped in to direct the final two episodes, including Back To Reality, and heavily reshot the four episodes directed by May.)
The other major feature is Dwarfin’ USA, a fond and frustrated look back at the fifth season’s counterpart: two attempts to make a successful pilot of the show with a new cast for the U.S. market. The only people involved in both incarnations were Grant & Naylor and Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn, who sheepishly admits that his British castmates singled him out for some special treatment as a “sell-out.” With such talent as Jane Leeves on board as Holly, and several of the behind-the-scenes players who had made the U.S. sitcom Night Court such a success, it seems hard to imagine that a show which already had a strong American following could miss - and yet it did lose something in the translation. And apparently one of the things lost was Universal Studios’ desire to have the show’s creators involved with a new version of their show in any way. A rare second swipe at the pilot was made, with Terry Farrell - yes, the future Jadzia Dax from Deep Space Nine - taking over the role of the Cat, but this attempt was even weaker and Red Dwarf USA was officially stillborn. And as so many of the people interviewed in this featurette point out, the main roadblock was as simple as the studio Just Not Getting It. It’s funny how Universal has continued to milk the U.K. sitcom market for ideas in recent years (Coupling, The Office) on behalf of its NBC network; arguably, they still haven’t learned.
Other bonuses include a special effects featurette, a plethora of deleted scenes and bloopers, the complete archive of Howard Goodall’s magnificent music for season five (divided up by episode for the first time, the way it should’ve been all along), and even the Dave Hollins: Space Cadet radio sketch, written in the early 1980s by Grant & Naylor, which saw the genesis of many of the ideas that would become part of the fabric of Red Dwarf.
As always with Red Dwarf DVDs, this is a stunning package (made even better in the U.K. by the limited edition’s inclusion of Corgi’s excellent Starbug toy) that really shows off the full potential of TV on DVD. It doesn’t hurt that the show on its own would be enjoyable even if there weren’t all the bonuses.