Vox Nova At the Tele: Red Dwarf and Doctor Who

Over the weekend, two of my favorite shows had Easter specials: Red Dwarf and Doctor Who. One brought some life back to an otherwise dead series, the other just coasted by, keeping the show in the public’s eye but doing little more than that.

Red Dwarf. Back to Earth.

It’s been nine years since Season 8 ended. We were given a cliff-hanger which, typical for the history of the show, meant the show was put on hiatus. Nine years later, with the high expectation the fans would have for the show, there was no way the first new episode (of three) could do all that it needed to do in order to satisfy the show’s fan.

Naylor seems to have known this.

The first episode was slow, somewhat dull, and went against all expectations (or even type). We are told it is nine years later. We are not given any explanations for what has happened. The characters are back to their old selves. Arnold Rimmer is once again a hologram. Cat is still the cat. Kryten is still an insane mechanoid. And Lister is still a lazy slob. But beyond that, we don’t get what we expect. Lister doesn’t say the s-word once. Kryten, returning from a “vacation,” doesn’t tell us how great it was to be in a room full of laundry. Cat seems somewhat uncool. And Rimmer… ok, he’s still annoyed by Lister. By the end of the first episode, everything has been set up: the crew have found another way to get back to earth, and the audience is wondering what happened to all the Red Dwarf magic.

Then came the surprise: episodes two and three. They were Red Dwarf at its best. Everything you expect from the show: parody, philosophical questions, comic interaction between the characters, and even the s-word, is all there. It’s four characters looking for an author via Blade Runner; it’s Red Dwarf. The crew is back, only to find themselves in a universe where… they are characters from a television series. This leads to some great comic interaction (which I don’t want to give away). Even the end, which follows classical Red Dwarf tropes, allows for the meta-fiction to continue. We have been brought into the Red Dwarf universe in a real way; Tolkien’s subcreation has been invoked, but turned upside down and inside out.

If this is the way the show ends, it’s a great send off. Many of the critics don’t get it. This is Red Dwarf at its PKD best.

I can’t wait to get the DVD.
9/10 (with the -1 for the first episode, which I understand what it is doing, having seem them all together).

Doctor Who. The Planet of the Dead.

While Red Dwarf rose to the occasion, Doctor Who did not. It’s an episode with a slight plot (the Doctor is on a bus which suddenly finds itself on a new planet, and they must find their way back to earth before space-roaming scavengers come around and consume them). There is no real sense of suspense to the story. While there is a sense of wonder and adventure, there is hardly any sense of drama, the kind which is needed to tie the events together and form a cohesive whole. The CGI is, as expected, good (for the BBC), and the alien life is interesting, but overall, this is Doctor Who at its weakest, playing everything by the numbers.

6/10.