Red Dwarf star Robert Llewellyn attended a 20th anniversary bash at PBS station KTSC-TV and told the American crowd that the BBC are planning to shoot a one-hour Red Dwarf special in October! The popular sci-fi comedy started in 1988 and ran for 8 seasons until 1999. In recent years, co-creator Doug Naylor has been trying to get a big-screen version made, but the project never found much momentum.
This special would tie-in with the show's 21st anniversary, so it does seem appropriate. But, who knows how true this is. I'd personally like to see another Red Dwarf, even though the show spiritually died after season 6. The last two seasons, particularly the seventh, were atrocious. A great example of what happens when a co-writer (in this case Rob Grant) decides to move on, a principle actor (Chris Barrie) jumps ship for awhile, and they mess with the concept (by introducing new character Kochanski).
Red Dwarf always worked best with slob Lister and anally-retentive Rimmer as a space-age "odd couple", in a lonely environment with no women. I understand TV shows tend to evolve (Dwarf undoubtedly improved with its own season 3 revamp), but once it abandoned its core premise -- even going so far as to resurrected the long-dead crew in season 8, the show just died for me. They even "re-mastered" old episodes and made the eponymous ship into a red CGI dildo! Terrible.
That said, you have no idea how huge Red Dwarf was for me back in the '90s. I had the videos (including the two Smeg Ups outtakes), the excellent novels (that mixed the storylines of some episodes into a fresh narrative), T-shirts, issues of the official magazine, everything. If they'd thought to release action figures, I'd have bought them. At school, we even used to make hologram H's in woodwork class, by cutting up sticky-backed plastic with the band-saw. This was before girls.
Consequently, the drop in quality after season 6 (which I remember thinking was itself weaker than season 1-5 at the time) really hit me hard. Beyond a few amusing lines and sequences, season 7 and 8 were god-awful and forgot what made Red Dwarf so great.
If this hour-long special really does happen, they'll sadly have to continue with the season 8 set-up (repopulated ship, Kochanski part of the gang), but hopefully they'll use the opportunity to reverse the damage (i.e., kill the crew and get rid of Kochanski), and just leave Lister and Rimmer as bickering bed-bunkers forever...
This special would tie-in with the show's 21st anniversary, so it does seem appropriate. But, who knows how true this is. I'd personally like to see another Red Dwarf, even though the show spiritually died after season 6. The last two seasons, particularly the seventh, were atrocious. A great example of what happens when a co-writer (in this case Rob Grant) decides to move on, a principle actor (Chris Barrie) jumps ship for awhile, and they mess with the concept (by introducing new character Kochanski).
Red Dwarf always worked best with slob Lister and anally-retentive Rimmer as a space-age "odd couple", in a lonely environment with no women. I understand TV shows tend to evolve (Dwarf undoubtedly improved with its own season 3 revamp), but once it abandoned its core premise -- even going so far as to resurrected the long-dead crew in season 8, the show just died for me. They even "re-mastered" old episodes and made the eponymous ship into a red CGI dildo! Terrible.
That said, you have no idea how huge Red Dwarf was for me back in the '90s. I had the videos (including the two Smeg Ups outtakes), the excellent novels (that mixed the storylines of some episodes into a fresh narrative), T-shirts, issues of the official magazine, everything. If they'd thought to release action figures, I'd have bought them. At school, we even used to make hologram H's in woodwork class, by cutting up sticky-backed plastic with the band-saw. This was before girls.
Consequently, the drop in quality after season 6 (which I remember thinking was itself weaker than season 1-5 at the time) really hit me hard. Beyond a few amusing lines and sequences, season 7 and 8 were god-awful and forgot what made Red Dwarf so great.
If this hour-long special really does happen, they'll sadly have to continue with the season 8 set-up (repopulated ship, Kochanski part of the gang), but hopefully they'll use the opportunity to reverse the damage (i.e., kill the crew and get rid of Kochanski), and just leave Lister and Rimmer as bickering bed-bunkers forever...
