Red Dwarf Thread - So what is it?

It sounds like they’re going to do separate projects rather than work together again , so probably not too amicable.

Interesting news. I absolutely loved Red Dwarf back in the day (well, the 1980s-90s!) but confess I’ve not kept up with the more recent stuff on Dave.

I’d actually quite happily take a new novel from Grant or Naylor - there was a bit of a tendency to stray into just rehashing scenes from the TV series - which was fine when they had some good sci-fi ideas to underpin the comedy, but series VI onwards tended to fall into the “monster of the week” mould and were less interesting.

Anyway, hopefully we can now enjoy some of whatever unfinished business there was!

Rob Grant was the funny guy, Doug Naylor was the sci-fi guy. This is really apparent in the split of the books, where Backwards is basically a big comedy with a threadbare plot and Last Human is some weird cyberpunk space opera where the only funnies are mostly stuff lifted from old episodes.

Series 7 to 9 were absolutely fairly devoid of actual good humour, but I must admit having a few good laughs in the Dave series 10-12. They are not quite as good as the original 6 on balance, but are certainly better than the nadir (series 8 in all its awfulness).

Yeah, agreed on 10-12. Also, Promised Land had me laughing too. Was that a one off? I think it was.

I do remember, aged 13, being genuinely gutted when Chris Barrie left and wasn't in much of 7. Comedy has long of been my music and it was like my favourite band breaking up. Was desperate to like 8 as well, I really tried but it was just so shit.

Didn't like any of the Dave output until the most recent series which was... Ok. I do think an ageing dwarf crew that leans into the fact they're all in their 60s could work. It's more likely not to, but it could work. Even the most recent series didn't really acknowledge the fact that they are really quite old now.

I heard that other longer one-offs had been planned but then everything ground to a halt with the recent legal spat.

Prequel incoming

www.chortle.co.uk/news/2023/11/06/54450/red_dwarf_prequel_in_the_pipeline

from Rob Grant and the guy who wrote 2point4 Children

Oh god no not a prequel

Yeah, I'm very sceptical. I've also not kept up with Grant since he wrote the novel Backwards (which I didn't think was very good), so not sure how excited to be regardless.

With it being called "Titan" I assume it's supposed to be the story of how Lister got on Red Dwarf - which, IIRC, was on Titan in the books; he thought it'd be a relatively quick jaunt back to Earth but hadn't realised it was a five-year mission around the solar system first (or something like that).

But I'm still sceptical.

I grew up watching it, I even remember watching the first episode, although I don't think I really got into it properly till series 3. But from about 1993 till the end of series 6, I was obsessed; it was my favourite show (maybe getting knocked down a peg by X-Files eventually). I had a friend at school and we'd constantly quote it to each other in what I imagine was very annoying for anyone around us.

I do think it holds up, those first six series at least. The recent Dave stuff was pretty good, all things considered.

Its probably fairly telling that the two weakest regular series are 7 and 8 where they used writers other than Grant or Naylor to help carry the load.

Back to Earth is kind of its own thing and feels very separate from the rest but X onwards are solid sequels to the characterisation of the crew in 6 and how they’d evolve from the early odd couple stuff to disgraceful middle age.

G&T getting creative.