Red Dwarf continues to steam through space, Lister and Rimmer continue to get on each other’s nerves, Cat continues to be incredibly good-looking, and Kryten continues to be mildly neurotic: life goes on. But when an unforseen water shortage hits the ship, endangering Cat’s and Lister’s continued existence, it’s apparent that some other form of life has gotten on board as well. Everyone – minus Rimmer – piles into a diving bell to explore Red Dwarf’s enormous water tank, and they find an enormous squid-like creature there. Lister manages to chop off one of its tentacles before Rimmer stops panicking long enough to raise the diving bell to safety; the being then appears to dimension-jump off the ship under its own power. To make matters worse, another hologram appears – a former member of Red Dwarf’s crew who has been brought online to provide more effective assistance to the crew than Rimmer can provide. Since the ship can only sustain one hologram at a time, Rimmer is therefore expected to forfeit his existence.

written by Doug Naylor
directed by Doug Naylor
music by Howard Goodall

Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Sophie Winkleman (Katerina)

Notes: Back To Earth takes place nine years after the eighth season of Red Dwarf (which fits since it was filmed and broadcast ten years after that season); somewhere in the intervening years, Kochanski met a tragic fate and is still mourned by Lister. (Next to Kochanski’s photo in the ship’s memorial observatory is a photo of the late Mel Bibby, who designed the more elaborate sets seen in seasons 3-8.) Holly is curiously absent for the entire story. Unlike the rest of Red Dwarf, Back To Earth was bankrolled by UK cable/satellite comedy channel Dave (appropriately enough) rather than airing on the BBC, though perhaps “bankrolled” is a term that should be used very loosely, as the budget for Back To Earth was no larger than the entire budget for the final season in 1999. Back To Earth does not reflect the storyline developed for the aborted Red Dwarf movie project, a much-mooted project that never got off the ground in the intervening decade due to a series of equally aborted financing deals. This is also the first Red Dwarf episode without an audience laugh track.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Doctor boards a double-decker bus in London, on the trail of a space-time disturbance somewhere nearby. But to his dismay, the bus drives straight through the disturbance: a wormhole that deposits the bus to a rough landing on a barren desert world. Among the assortment of passengers on the bus are a slightly psychic woman whose abilities have been enhanced by the trip through the wormhole, and a mysterious and surprisingly well-equipped woman named Lady Christina de Souza, who quickly teams up with the Doctor, if only because he seems to be the only one who knows what’s going on – and she wants to know why. When a group of insectoid bipeds called Tritivores find the travelers, it becomes apparent that the double-decker isn’t the only recent arrival on this distant world. There’s another race on this planet as well – one which created the wormhole, and intends to widen the wormhole leading to London. Their objective is to feed on everything and everyone on whatever planet they swarm to; their only obstacle is a Time Lord and a resourceful woman who’s almost as mysterious as he is.

written by Russell T. Davies & Gareth Roberts
directed by James Strong
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Michelle Ryan (Christina), Lee Evans (Malcolm), Noma Dumezweni (Capt. Magambo), Adam James (D.I. McMillan), Glenn Doherty (Sgt. Dennison), Victoria Alcock (Angela), David Ames (Nathan), Ellen Thomas (Carmen), Reginald Tsiboe (Lou), Daniel Kaluuya (Barclay), Keith Parry (Bus Driver), James Layton (Sgt. Ian Jenner), Paul Kasey (Sorvin), Ruari Mears (Praygat)

Notes: Michelle Ryan may be best known on both sides of the Atlantic for starring as Jamie Sommers in the short-lived NBC remake of The Bionic Woman. This marks the second appearance of Noma Dumezweni as UNIT’s Capt. Erisa Magambo, first seen – albeit in an alternate timeline – in season four’s Turn Left; this is the first time we’ve met her in the Doctor’s “home” timeline. The Doctor’s reference to an incident involving a giant robot was, in fact, the first adventure of the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) in Robot (1974/75), which also involved UNIT. The desert scenes were filmed in Dubai, though the plot point of the bus being heavily damaged was helped along a little bit by damage incurred during shipping of a real double-decker to the location. In some respects, the character of Lady Christina vaguely resembles the character outline for Kat (sometimes referred to as Kate in the sparse documentation of that character’s development) Tollinger, a feisty female burglar who would have been introduced in the never-made fourth season of Sylvester McCoy’s era, had it gone into production in 1990. Planet Of The Dead was also the first Doctor Who adventure to be shot on high-definition video, though the first Doctor Who-related HD production was actually the first season of Torchwood.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green (more…)

Katerina, the hologram who is not only slated to replace Rimmer but seems insufferably pleased about it, opens a dimensional portal through which she intends to retrieve a suitable human female to help Lister repopulate the now-extinct human race. But her instruments briefly register that Red Dwarf’s own dimension is invalid. One by one, everyone but Katerina is sucked through the wormhole, landing in London in 2009. As they browse the video aisle of a store, they’re extremely disturbed to discover that their adventures have been chronicled on television: Red Dwarf, and its entire crew, are a fictional construct. As if that’s not enough to rock them back on their heels, the back-of-the-box blurb on a new DVD release, Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, reveals that they’re fated to die in the next episode.

written by Doug Naylor
directed by Doug Naylor
music by Howard Goodall

Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Sophie Winkleman (Katerina), Tom Andrews (Salesman), Karen Admiral (Woman), Jon Glover (Man), Jeremy Swift (Noddy), Julian Ryder (Bus Driver), Charlie Kenyon (Boy on the bus), Nina Southworth (Girl on the bus), Richard Woo (Swallow)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Following a tenuous trail of clues to find the creative mind to whom they must plead their case for their continued existence, the crew find their way to the set of Coronation Street, where they track down actor Craig Charles – the man who portrayed Lister on the televised version of Red Dwarf. After dismissing the Dwarfers as either his castmates gone mad or a cocaine flashback, he reluctantly points them in the direction of the writer who created them. But when they confront him to demand to be kept alive for further adventures, the discussion quickly becomes a more violent confrontation. Can the crew escape “cancellation” if the mind behind their existence is dead?

written by Doug Naylor
directed by Doug Naylor
music by Howard Goodall

Cast: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Simon Gregson (himself), Michelle Keegan (himself), Richard O’Callaghan (Creator), Chloe Annett (Kochanski)

Note: The crew’s visit to Coronation Street plays off of the fact that Craig Charles stars in both shows, and the “real” Craig Charles’ mention about cocaine flashbacks isn’t entirely unfounded in reality, as the actor’s battles with drug addiction are nearly legendary. “Carbug” was a smart car customized with a green heat-shrink wrap (instead of a paint job) and planted-on prop pieces; the tightly-budgeted production couldn’t afford the car, so writer/director Doug Naylor bought it for himself and “loaned” it to the production.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Zoe Graystone is a typical teenager, excelling in the art of making her parents’ lives hell – and in keeping secrets from them. Her father is Daniel Graystone, a multi-billionaire technology magnate whose big breakthrough, holo-bands, have put him on top of the world; Zoe has also inherited her father’s genius, creating and programming essentially a perfect copy of herself in a virtual world, another Zoe with the personality, likes, dislikes and foibles of herself. But she’s managed to keep this from her father, as well as her involvement with a movement toward monotheism…and her plans to run away from home. During her flight from Caprica, Zoe discovers – too late – that one of her fellow believers in a single, all-powerful god is a suicide bomber.

In the wake of the tragedy, Daniel Graystone has a chance meeting with a lawyer named William Adams. A native of the planet Tauron, Adams isn’t that happy with his lot in life; despite being a moderately successful lawyer, he too often finds himself running “errands” for the Guatrau, a Tauron crime lord and power broker, including bailing the Guatrau’s more “hands-on” errand boys out of legal trouble. Adams lost his wife and daughter to the suicide bombing, and left to raise his son William alone. This gives Adams and Graystone some unlikely common ground, and they become fast friends, though Adams is hardly a power attorney and wonders what his unimaginably rich new friend really has in mind.

Graystone discovers Zoe’s friend Lacy – who, at the last minute, elected not to try to run away with Zoe and never boarded the transport – interacting with the virtual Zoe, and is surprised as the complexity and accuracy of the simulation of his daughter. Having hit a dead-end in his own artificial intelligence work for a major defense contract, Graystone decides to base a new AI on Zoe’s simulation. But there’s one further snag: he’ll need the central processor developed by a competing company on Tauron to pull it off.

And this is where Graystone’s new friend comes in. With the technology of Caprica virtually under his thumb, it’s no problem for Graystone to find out about Adams’ tenuous underworld connections. He asks Adams to use his contacts to arrange for the theft of the needed processor; in return, the Guatrau asks Adams for a “favor” that could have serious repercussions for all involved. At the end of the day, Graystone and the Guatrau get what they want. When Graystone tries to thank Adams by introducing him to a simulation of Adams’ late daughter, their cameraderie comes to a very swift end. The simulation of Adams’ daughter is a traumatized, tortured soul who seems to know that she isn’t real. Adams decides that power over mortality is meant for no one but the gods, and bids Graystone farewell. Adams promises his son William that they will make a new start, beginning with a return to their family’s original Tauron name: Adama.

Graystone shrugs off Adams’ departure and downloads Zoe’s artificial consciousness into a cybernetic body. The download doesn’t work, and in his hubris, Graystone failed to back up the artificial Zoe. He’s left with nothing, and has no choice but to reprogram the stolen processor and use it as the core of a cyborg for a Ministry of Defense demonstration. That test run goes spectacularly well – the same cybernetic body into which Graystone attempted to download Zoe proves to be a powerful mechanical warrior, securing Graystone’s contract and his future…and setting his world on a course for its destruction.

written by Remi Aubuchon & Ronald D. Moore
directed by Jeffrey Reiner
music by Bear McCreary

Cast: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone), Esai Morales (Joseph Adama), Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone), Alessandra Toreson (Zoe Graystone), Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand), Avan Jogia (Ben Stark), Polly Walker (Sister Clarice Willow), Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama), Brian Markinson (Jordan Duram), William B. Davis (Minister Chambers), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Jorge Montesi (The Guatrau), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adams), Anna Galvin (Shannon Adams), Katie Keating (Prefect Caston), Veena Sood (Secretary of Defense Joan Leyte), Karen Austin (Ruth), Nancy Kerr (Prosecutor), Terence Kelly (Mayor), Angela Moore (Judge), Josh Byer (Defendant), Vicky Lambert (Hecate), Jim Thomson (voice of Serge), Jared Keeso (Rod Jenkins), Kathryn Schellenberg (Dancer), Maiko Miyauchi (Dancer), Daina Ashbee (Dancer), Adrienne Chan (Dancer), Salma Allam (Dancers), Kirsten Wicklund (Dancer), Shawn Stewart (Dancer), Donald Sales (Dancer), Paul Becker (Dancer), Cara Long (V Club patron), Jay Devery (V Club patron), Keita Parker (V Club patron), Chelsea Darden (V Club patron), Megan Sehn (V Club patron), Chantal Ayre (V Club patron), Michelle Andrew (V Club patron), Eva Hartkoff (V Club patron)

Notes: Caprica takes place 58 years before the fall of Capirca as depicted in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. Young William Adams would grow up to be Galactica’s Admiral William Adama, and his father Joseph wrote the legal texts that Lee Adama studied when he decided to change careers from career military to attorney. As with the re-imagined Galactica, Caprica assumes that the earliest Cylons resembled the “chrome suit” Cylons from the original 1970s incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. “Cylon” is revealed to be an acronym for “Cybernetic Lifeform Node”. Guest star William B. Davis is best-known in SF TV circles for his long-running recurring role as the X-Files’ sinister Cigarette Smoking Man. Esai Morales appeared alongside Edward James Olmos, who starred in Battlestar Galactica as the adult William Adama, in the acclaimed TV series American Family, as well as the 1995 film My Family. The premiere date assigned to this synopsis is that of the Caprica pilot movie’s 2009 DVD release date, several months prior to its broadcast premiere in 2010.

LogBook entry by Earl Green