Rick Spleen is back and continuing to go down like a lead balloon. I reviewed the first series earlier this year and concluded that while the show was in essence a low rent British Curb Your Enthusiasm, it also had many features which made it worthy in it's own right.

The second series gives us another eight episodes of Rick's life; an almost endless torrent of mistakes, petty acts, misery and at times stupidity from a man who is his own worst enemy. Jack Dee remains wonderfully on form as Rick, mostly because he's playing a character who is close in style to his stand up. That might sound a little derogatory, but it's not, sticking to your strengths when you come from a non-acting background is a wise move and it pays off here. He's a beautifully pathetic, petty, whinging piece of work who is just delightful to watch on screen; especially during his (inevitable) comeuppance.

Sean Power remains sterling as Rick's long suffering writing partner Marty, providing a mix of wry comments and "I told you so"'s to add insult to Rick's (self inflicted) injuries. Likewise Tony Gardner is just superb as the oddball cafe owner Michael, and it's these three who propel many of the more interesting events. Sam (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) and Ben (Rasmus Hardiker) remain the same one note joke as before, which I'm sure is funny for some - myself I found them tiresome from the start, but fortunately they're not on screen for too long if you don't enjoy their uming, ahing and mooching off Rick.

Magda (Anna Crilly) remains the series' best low-key joke with her morose performance, tendency to wear green (which really doesn't suit her), "generic" eastern European background and love of potatoes. But for myself it's the lovely Raquel Cassidy as Mel who lights up the screen the most, providing the voice of reason as well as the long suffering partner, she's just as fantastic here as she is in Moving Wallpaper. She's fast becoming a favourite comic actor of mine, especially if she keeps up the level of quality in her performances.

Over the second series Rick struggles with his inability to send e-mails correctly, Magda quitting after an off-hand comment, his comedy causing the collapse of a pharmaceutical giant, points on his driving license, Marty leaving for bigger and brighter things and many, many other things (often self inflicted) which drive him to higher and higher plateaus of misery.

It's a fun and enjoyable piece of exceptionally British humour, the phrase 'it brings a little ray of sunshine into your life' might not be accurate. But it does leave you feeling better, because it reminds you that out there, somewhere, there's almost certainly someone more miserable than you. Someone who's so quintessentially British that all they do is sit about, moan and make their own life more miserable. And if not being that person doesn't cheer you up, maybe complaing about my use of a double negative will instead.

Extras:
Commentary for three episodes: Hero, Rita and Idiot
Interview with Jack Dee
Deleted Scenes
Out-takes

Details:
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Soundtrack: English
Rating: 15
Region: 2 + 4 PAL
Subtitles: English HOH
Run time: 231 mins
Direct Link

Day Five is not available on the BBC iPlayer yet but when it does it will here, after the BBC HD version has airred.

So beware of spoilers coming up... You have been warned.

...

It's all over now and I'm pretty sure people are going to be bandying words like bleak, sad, moving and depressing for quite a while. Myself I'm quite pleased with it, I do enjoy a good downer and Torchwood Day Five delivered that in spades.

Putting the pieces together it turns out that the 456 are effectively a race of addicted crack users, except their crack is the chemical composition of human children. No, the 456 aren't here because they need our children to survive or reproduce, they're not here because they're warmongering killers, they're here because they are effectively bullying drug addicts muscling in on the one place where they can get their fix from, but they're not willing to pay the bill. It's almost like an intergalactic version of The Corner in scope, almost.

Captain Jack's actions in this series have been very dark indeed, by the end of it he finally realises what a monster he's become. In someways it's quite ironic, the man he most admires - The Doctor - would never have sacrificed one child to save the rest, that kind of compromise is unthinkable. But Jack? Not content with effectively (if unintentionally) murdering his boyfriend last episode he now offers up his grandson as a sacrifice. It's one heck of a dark message, I do hope this means we shan't be seeing Captain Jack on Doctor Who again, I'm not sure a child killer is the right kind of person to make an appearance at all.

Anyhow, enough pondering on that. Was it any good? The answer is yes, yes it was. The fourth and fifth episodes have managed to make up for the second and third, though the story as a whole feels like it would have been better paced as a three parter. It did feel a little stretched thin in the middle, but by the end the pay off was almost worth it all. I'd certainly have few complaints if this had been a three parter.

I think the entire thing as a whole hangs together at around a seven out of ten, which may sound a little harsh - but the thing to remember is Torchwood previously was lucky if it achieved a five in my estimation. So there has been dramatic improvement, but I would quite happily award another point for the bleak ending, except Rusty once again pulls the final answer to solve all of this out of the ether. I'm tired of his "last minute Deus Ex Machina" finales, utterly sick of them all the way to the marrow of my bones, so I confiscated that point back and leave things at a seven.

There were silly moments, there are quite a few logical loopholes if you look to hard at things, but if there is one thing Rusty can do, it's write emotional scenes well - and that's what he did here, he finally played to his strengths at the end and delivered an ending which I'm sure will leave quite a lot of viewers used to more upbeat and light entertainment devastated. Me I was able to weather it as I've seen far more disturbing and upsetting moments on other drama shows, but I was still impressed.

So in a rather rambling way I guess I'm saying Torchwood: Children of Earth was pretty good, it was a huge improvement over the previous seasons and showed a lot of promise. I know and accept that I tend to hold drama up to an impossible standard at times, I especially don't cut Sci-fi any slack (mostly because Sci-fi seems to think it can cut corners in characterisation and plot because it has whizzy gizmos) but this was a decent enough offering from BBC Wales.

The Short Lowdown on the entire thing:
++
Good emotional stakes
Exceptional acting from the support characters
Some good performances from the main cast as well
Bleak ending
Great comedy moments earlier on, mostly from Ianto's family

--
A bit of a lame reasoning behind the alien's actions
Weak "defeating" of the 456
Massive logical mistakes in the plot, big enough to drive a truck through at times
Story was a little stretched thin over five hours and suffered from poor pacing at times

For an alternative take check out Dan's Media Digest or Snark and Fury.


Side Note: I was utterly thrown by some of the extras in this final episode. I suffer a lot when watching Torchwood (and Doctor Who) because I'm intimately familiar with the locations they film in and around Cardiff. So their attempts to pretend bits of Cardiff are London just don't work for me and I do get a little confused. But I was even more confused this time because several of the extras are people I know, as such I spent a lot of time going "Was that _____? It was!" and losing track of the plot occasionally. (If you're interested I have had a chance to be an extra in the Sarah Jane Adventures, but I'm exceptionally camera shy.)
Direct Link

Day Four can be watched on the BBC iPlayer here. Expect spoilers here.

Better, much, much better. While I found Day Two to be fun filler and Day Three to be boring filler Day Four managed to hit the notes I was hoping for and paced itself very well. It's just a shame things had to be stretched out so much before reaching this.

Before I move on I'm going to have to shake a fist at the BBC as they spoilered Clem's death in this episode a while back - by removing him from the credit list for Day Five. So there was absolutely no surprises at his passing in this episode. On the other hand at least they didn't signal Ianto's death as well, so it wasn't a total wash out. But still, slightly annoying.

So Day Four was pretty much what Torchwood should be; energetic, tense, with action, politics, romance and loss. Also; finally, the Torchwood team stopped running about and pulled together a good plan to try and take charge. Only unforeseen circumstances turned it into a tragedy - unforeseen circumstances and Captain Jack's hubris really. So it was good to see the team actually acting instead of reacting as they normally do. A team created to handle the extra-normal should be more pro-active in my opinion, so it's good they finally settled down to do it.

At this point now the entire run really hinges on what's going to happen tomorrow, right now everything is so wonderfully bleak and desperate. That's where it should be at the end of the penultimate episode, the heroes should be at their lowest point, everything should look lost and impossible to solve. Which it did at the end of the episode with that wonderful image of the dead shrouded in red sheets with the occasional white one amongst them. Like human blood vessels, which is the price being demanded by the 456.

So yes, this was a good and enjoyable episode of Torchwood which hit the right notes, it's pretty much wiped the slate clean from the annoyances of the previous two Days and set things up well for one of the most exceptional endings to a UK series in recent times. Bravo Torchwood, all is forgiven - but I do hope RTD will avoid his Deus Ex Machina style of ending things for once.

For those of you still feeling a little wrung out about the loss of Ianto Jones at this point - here's a picture of him. But also, don't worry too much - it's Sci-Fi. People are hard to kill in Sci-Fi, remember Owen? His death didn't stick the first time. (Not that you should get your hopes up too much).


For some alternative takes on the episode check out Dan's Media Digest, Snark and Fury and Rullsenberg Rules.

(Does anyone else find themselves wondering what the heck the Doctor is up to letting things like this happen on Earth? It's not like him to neglect his favourite home from home this badly!)


Direct Link

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Three can be watched on the BBC iPlayer here.

You hear that sound? That almost inhuman cry of rage and frustration echoing out across the land followed by a tearing sound and two soft wet plops? That was me ripping out my eyes and ear drums during that episode of Torchwood. I know I wrote that almost nothing happened yesterday, but at least it was exciting nothing - this was genuinely nothing AND boring to boot.

Seriously, I can't remember the last time I've been so annoyed while watching a TV show as the last few moments of Day Three. Sat there having to slap my face in order to remain conscious while waiting for the dull monosyllabic fart breathing alien 456 s-l-o-w-l-y trot out it's rather ludicrous demand*.

*[Which for the record is a ten percent tithe of the world's children. Because why make sensible demands the human race is going to consider when you can be a cartoony super-villian style monster? (They could be making this daft request just as an excuse to start a war mind you). Someone get that alien a moustache to twiddle and a white cat to stroke.]

OK, initial rant aside. What was good in this episode? The stealing montage was kind of amusing, likewise the dressing up scene was also fun and Rhys again got some great and very human lines. Lois and Clem continue to be interesting characters (even if Lois is a rubbish liar) and the show continues to trot out amusing lines regarding Ianto's sexual orientation. Also the show cleverly kept the alien 456 out of sight, concealing it's appearance enough to make it look threatening and mysterious. What I did see of it reminded me of The Great Race of Yith.


If I'm honest I'm not sure why it reminded me of them, I guess just because it looks like strange things on the ends of tendrils, still being compared to a Lovecraftian monster is a GOOD thing, as all the cool monsters come from the Cthulhu Mythos. Just ask any Shoggoth.

But there were so many things wrong with this episode that the good was buried under a pile of mundanely and dross. I was consistently wound up by all the scenes involving the 456, which were slow paced and suffered from absolutely terrible continuity. If you have an alien which is busy spewing up on the inside of your tank at random moments it's pretty jarring to have the tank magically clean before each spew. I lost count of the number of times that green junk splashed up against the inside of a completely clean tank. Who's in charge of continuity and realism in the Torchwood development team? They need to be fired, immediately.

Likewise whoever thought the slow nature of the conversation between Frobisher and the smog tank would build suspense needs to be shown the door as well - it wasn't tense, it was frustrating and annoying. I was so un-gripped by it that I had no problem repeatedly pausing the scene to do other things, that's not the sign of gripping TV. In contrast during an episode of The Shield I watched earlier today I needed to pee about ten minutes into the story and refused to go to the loo until the episode was over - and I was watching that show on DVD and had seen it before at least four times.

I'd like to write more, but really I don't have much else to say except I pretty much hated this episode passionately. I'm going to catch the final two episodes, I still want to give Torchwood a chance to turn things around because I want to believe in the show. But it's not looking good if their going to keep milking these overly laboured and frankly boring moments.

All you need to know about this episode can be boiled down into a few points. In 1965 Jack gave 12 children to the 456 who promised that was all they wanted. Clem was supposed to be one of them, but ran away and went mad. It turns out the 456 lied, now they want 10% of all the world's children. That's it.

Gripping TV this was not. Please, please let Episodes 4 and 5 turn this around. Don't let me down BBC Wales.

For an alternative take on the episode check out Snark and Fury and Dan's Media Digest.

(For the record I'm tired and I might revise my opinion in the morning. But this episode of Torchwood actually gave me a huge headache, I can't remember the last time a TV show caused me physical pain.)
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Torchwood: Children of Earth Day Two is available on the BBC iPlayer here. No complaints about any spoilers which follow then.

I was half tempted to subtitle this episode review "Nothing Happens" instead of Day Two, annoyingly after a great (amazing by Torchwood standards) opening episode Day two appeared to be little more than exposition, more bum cloud mystery fogging up the cool stuff and I shit you not - a ride in the back of a potato truck. If you'd told me yesterday that Gwen and Rhys were going to spend scenes in the back of an articulated lorry delivering King Edward potatos from Cardiff to London I wouldn't have believed you. For a start, Cardiff doesn't deliver potatos to London! They should have snuck onto a coach filled with rugby fans or soccer hooligans, that I could have bought. But also it just sounds too low tech and frankly stupid for Torchwood - is this why the Torchwood Mystery Machine was stolen by chavs? Just to set up a potato run? And no comparisons between Rhys and a sack of potatos, Rhys is brilliant.

Now I will officially and figuratively eat my hat if classic Doctor Who villains turn up in that poison fog box which was set up at the end. It better had be something pretty monumental turning up in that cloud of gas before the end of the next episode or I'm going to print out a picture of the Torchwood team find something breakable to throw and hurl them at each other on fire*.

It wasn't that the episode was bad, it was just - well nothing really happened. I'm used to slow paced shows like The Wire or Six Feet Under, but they bouy up their slow pacing with deep characterisation and meaningful conversations. Torchwood instead used a few cheap laughs, lots of establishing shots and some vague and mysterious conversations to pad things out.

Maybe I'm being overly harsh because Torchwood is being directly compared to The Shield in my TV world right now and there's pretty much no show which comes off well when placed next to The Shield (Apart from The Wire) - but I can't help but feel the show would do a lot better if they learnt a little about pacing. I find myself watching four scenes in The Shield and thinking "Has it only been three minutes?" I found myself watching the whole of that episode and thinking "Is that it? Nothing has happened!" Which is kind of incredible when you think about the amount of (low) octane action and gun play stuffed into the episode. There was lots of (unconvincing) gunfire (seriously please teach Eve how to fire an gun TV style someone - and use less plastic looking weapons at the same time, a big shiny hand cannon would do), plenty of running about and another appearance of 'the gizmo' but beyond all of that shine there was little substance.

Once again Torchwood themselves are left to look a foolish and stupid - a lot. They spend much of the episode running about headless and surviving thanks to dumb luck; so it's up to the non-members of the team to get things done. Ianto's family, Rhys and Lois in this case shoulder a lot of the burden called 'having a plan or a good idea'.

While you might like to think "At least they got Captain Jack back" I'm hesitant to call their breakout plan a good one because it seems Ianto formed his plan of "I'll just drive a digger, steal concrete Jack and then drop him off a cliff" independently from Gwen and Rhys's 'Operation Body snatcher' - (Ok, I'll admit it, that was amusing). I can't see how the two plans were linked at all, even Gwen shouting "What kept you" at Ianto doesn't cover up her surprise at the concrete room, which Ianto already knew about.

It seems the main weapon of Torchwood is stupidty and dumb luck, I mean the two main weapons of Torchwood are... You can see where I'm going with that one can't you?

On the whole I didn't hate the episode, but honestly I didn't really like it either. It sort of just occupied space and time. Filling in an hour of my day with a semi-exciting mix of humdrum. Considering how much the first episode had improved this second one is a bit of a let down. Hopefully the third episode will bring the aliens in, spice things up and provide us with at least a little explanation of what's happening. It's all very well running around blowing up things, but occasionally it's nice to know the WHY and a bit more of the who (not Who).

Must try harder Torchwood.

Random Thoughts:

Clem McDonald wandering about the streets made me think of Father Ted. I believe it's the cardigan they've stuck him in which makes me think of Father Jack. Shame Father Ted isn't on the TV anymore to spoof it properly.

The 456 sound like they could be a gang from The Shield, if they arrive wearing bandannas and packing Mac 9's we'll know they are.

Jack's role in this episode was pretty funny by all accounts. First of all he's scattered across the ground like the Iron Giant, then he reassembles himself like Doctor Manhattan by 'inflating' himself inside the body bag and then he gets sealed in concrete and dropped off a cliff before striding off naked. For the record I don't care how much you might like John Barrowman, his arse is not his best feature - it's very flat in shape.

I was not impressed with Gwen shooting the cement truck and having it burst into flame. That was unnecessary and unrealistic. Just dumping the truck in the way and stealing the keys would do the job. The flames were a little too much.

For those keeping count so far we've had:
Four Captain Jack snuffs
Three naked man bums
Several thousand potatos

*What's on fire you ask? The picture, the breakable object and myself I think should suffice.

For an alternative take check out Snark and Fury and Dan's Media Digest. Others to be added here when they're written up.

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At the tail end of this week I really got into watching shows I would normally avoid. I didn't really take notes while watching them, so it's mostly going to be vague impressions and I might even forget some of the shows I watched, but here we go.

First of all a thank you to Dan Owen over at Dan's Media Digest for pointing me in the direction of some trashy TV yesterday. I didn't watch all of your suggestions because other things interrupted (e.g. Have I Got News For You). But I did indeed watch Total Wipeout, which I must admit I didn't hate. In fact I had a bit of a grudging admiration for the contestants and a bit of a dislike for the editors who felt some need to make people having to perform difficult and humiliating tasks look even more foolish with replays. Mostly I was impressed with the sheer nuttiness and grit shown by the contestants and I enjoyed rooting for whomever looked least likely to win.

Of course I was drawn back to watching Robin Hood again, mostly because I wanted to see if the quality shown in the previous episode would continue. Sadly I don't feel it did, the show was back to it's usual nonsense and I think my main assessment is this. Robin Hood is bad, Jonas Armstrong is a complete fish out of water (and bad) and Richard Armitage is just brilliant. Seriously he needs his own starring role in a fantasy/medieval series where he can play a character with dubious morals, maybe a British Firefly type show with a band of rogues chugging about the universe. I could see him as a Captain Malcolm Reynolds sort easily. Anyway, I shall probably watch until the end of the series, at least then I'll have some context for Dan (DMD) and Aaron's (Snark and Fury) reviews of the show (which is how I've been following it without watching up until now). Apparently there are some deaths promised in the series finale, I'm holding out for Robin Hood popping his clogs.

I also attempted to watch some Big Brother 10, but I did find it exceptionally difficult to follow anything which is going on. When there's fifteen (I think) people around it's rather hard to follow anything, especially when quite a few of them look and sound similar. I can barely tell the difference between the two blondes at all, apparently one of them is now called Dogface after changing her name on the show (I can only assume it was for a task). That's pretty amusing, especially whenever Marcus Bentley narrates about her in his always amusing accent.

It was really difficult going watching any of the "highlights of the past 24 hours" and I could barely keep my attention for more than five minutes before wandering off to sandpaper my face away in an attempt to clean off the stain caused by watching. But the absolute worst moment occurred during the live eviction show on Friday, which I was watching while waiting for 8 out of 10 Cats to start. Housemate Cairon, who's London born but raised mostly in America had some major problems with Sree, a sweet overly sensitive soul who'd asked him to treat women with respect. How dare he suggest such a thing, as the age of the gentleman is dead and gone, dem is all bee-hatches and garden ho's now innit?

As such the scene unfolded with this bizarre hat wearing pseudo-wannabe gangster/rapper type just rapid fire attacking poor Sree. It was an exceptionally vile and horrible moment of bullying, made all the worse by the total apathy from many of the other housemates around. It was like watching one of the less intelligent street lads from The Wire verbally abusing a Disney character in the Playboy mansion - it was almost funny just how one sided and unpleasant the whole thing is, thankfully Big Brother stepped in where everyone else failed. All I can hope is the very moment Cairon is up for eviction he's turfed out of the house faster than you can say "gimp".

The highlight of the awfulness for me though was Embarrassing Illnesses, a show which takes members of the public with... well... embarrassing illnesses and brings them on the show to try and see if the medical profession can help out. Sort of like a TV GP. This in itself is quite an altruistic idea, it's a reality TV show which is genuinely looking out to help people and I initially found myself nodding in approval.

But gradually I began to notice the insidious and disturbing undertone to the show. These poor members of the public are paraded out and put on display for the public to ogle at like the old freak shows of yesteryear. One poor chap had his infected (and obviously very painful) scalp infection described as "manky" by the technician examining his skin cells and just about every single moment is punctuated by terrible puns and one liners just highlighting the humiliation these people are going through. All that was missing is a few amusing "You've Been Framed" style sound effects, canned laughter (and other such audience noises), a little "WAA, Waa, waaa, waaaaaaaaa" music and you'd realise just how perverse this show actually is.

I'm pretty used to human suffering being exploited in the name of "reality television" by now, but I think Embarrassing Illnesses managed to push the envelope all the way out with it's underhanded and sneaky handling of the whole thing. I wasn't exactly offended, I think it's impossible for TV to offend me short of showing something absolutely illegal or so debasing I can't even bring myself to suggest the acts here (I guess I'm just too desensitised by all the violence on the telly vision these days), but Embarrassing Illnesses did manage to make me feel dirtier than Big Brother did. And that's an achievement to be proud of.
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Final DVD Review of the year and it's the final series of Red Dwarf.

For the previous series reviews look here:
Series I
Series II
Series III
Series IV
Series V
Series VI
Series VII


Starring:
Chris Barrie as Arnold Rimmer
Craig Charles as Dave Lister
Danny John-Jules as "The Cat"
Robert Llewellyn as Kryten
Chloë Annett as Kristine Kochanski
And Norman Lovett returning as "Holly"


Series Eight of Red Dwarf was an attempt to get back to the basics of the show while also widening the cast to include more supporting characters. At the end of the previous series the crew located Red Dwarf after it had been shrunk down taken on a joyride by Kryten's nanobots and had the excess material formed into a small moon. Back in the Red is a three part episode which returns the crew to Red Dwarf, and I mean the entire crew, including a reconstituted Rimmer who is very much like his first season persona. The hologramatic Rimmer had grown over the years and mellowed somewhat, this rebuilt Rimmer is every bit as unpleasant and self-centered as he was at the start of the show. After the events of Back in the Red get the crew sentenced to imprisonment for various crimes Lister signs them up to be part of 'The Canaries' in Cassandra, Canaries are named after the bird and have a similar role to the ones used in mining. While on their first mission they encounter a computer who can predict the future, a computer who has forseen that Lister will cause her end and so starts to engineer Lister's own fate.

Krytie TV has Kryten being reprogramed by 'Kill Crazy' in order to get him filming the female prisoners in the showers, Kryten was designated female due to a lack of male genitalia. He then moves onto pranking people and sets Lister up to damage Ackerman's quarters, jepordising Lister's chances in the retrial. Pete is a two parter which has Rimmer and Lister annoying Captain Hollister with an exceptional amount of mistakes and goofs while Kryten and the others discover a time wand with the ability to freeze time and even regress a living creature backwards down the evolutionary ladder. They use it on Pete, a small bird owned by a crazy Welshman. Do you remember what extinct animal birds are descended from? Last of all in Only the Good, an escape pod containing a metal eating virus arrives on Red Dwarf and begins to devour the ship, the guys are forced to create a mirror world where everything is opposite in order to find an antidote in time before Red Dwarf is destroyed...

The Packaging:
I believe you know the drill by now, the only thing I really need to say here is the packaging is perfect and matches everything previously released in this set without a single problem.

The Extras:
"This is the BBC, we are the true voice of extras. All other manufacturers are false profits prophets who will leave you completely unsatisfied."
The set is a little more expensive this time at £9.99 from play.com. That's 4.4ppm.


Unfortunately with the advent of this series Red Dwarf is left feeling unfinished. The final episode ends on a genuine cliffhanger moment and we've still not seen the end of the story told there. Also the series is not good, the humour is off and there's a little too much reliance on really off the wall characters plus multiple part stories. Still it has it's moments and the return of Chris Barrie plus plenty of Chloë Annett so I do enjoy watching it.

It's worth mentioning that the UK Channel Dave has commissioned some Red Dwarf specials in 2009. So there's life in the old space dog yet.

Direct Link

Must finish Red Dwarf before the year ends!

For the previous series reviews look here:
Series I
Series II
Series III
Series IV
Series V
Series VI



Starring:
Chris Barrie as Arnold Rimmer/"Ace" Rimmer
Craig Charles as Dave Lister
Danny John-Jules as "The Cat"
Robert Llewellyn as Kryten
And introducing Chloë Annett as Kristine Kochanski


After my slightly controversial opinion that the sixth series was the best we move onto the series that most Red Dwarf fans will agree is the weakest (tied with the eighth one). The crew are still lost in space tailing after Red Dwarf having just recovered from a bout of temporary deadness. The show is still missing the titular Red Dwarf and this second series on the trot without the ship really does wear the concept thin, a single full series without Red Dwarf was OK but this second one is a bridge too far.

This series is also longer than the previous ones with eight episodes, while I welcome the longer run in concept sadly in practice this was not enough, because combined with various problems resulted in a series that was not so hot. In Tikka to Ride after surviving time paradox where they were all dead for a while Lister decided to abuse the laws of time once more in order to get some more curry. Frankly this is a low point for Lister in the series, but it does result in a few amusing moments (unintentional cannibalism) and the scenes involving JFK were well done. In Stoke Me a Clipper Mr Fan-service himself returns for the third time as Ace Rimmer meets up with the crew and attempts to pass on his legacy to Arnold Rimmer, a man who has more yellow than a streak of custard.

Ouroboros has an alternate universe Kristine Kochanski joins the crew after an accidental breach between them occurs and Lister learns the truth about his existence (hint a certain orange haired individual from another sci-fi series learns a similar truth). I know that some people aren't too keen on Chloë Annett's arrival in the series and her role in the crew as Kochanski. But Chloë is exactly the kind of woman who pushes all my buttons so I for one like her appearance in the series, it's one of the two decent points series seven has. Duct Soup is overall a rather unmemorable episode spiced up with some rather fun Kryten moments, I really can't recall too much more about it at this point mind you. Blue is something of a final goodbye to Arnold Rimmer as when Lister begins to miss the man Kryten puts together "The Rimmer Experience" to remind him just what Rimmer is really like.

It remains one of my favourite moments in Red Dwarf and here it is in full:


Beyond a Joke is a Kryten-centric piece in which Kryten's head explodes, he meets Able (another Series 5000 Mechanoid like himself), he is abducted and then learns a disturbing fact about his creator. In Epideme the crew encounter one of Lister's old crushes, Caroline Carmen (Lister has a thing for alliterative women obviously) who turns out to be already dead and infected with a sentient virus. Sure enough the virus infects Lister and the crew are forced to undertake drastic measures to try and save him. Finally in Nanarchy the crew hunt after Kryten's missing nanobots with the hope of solving Lister's situation and make a dramatic discovery.

As I mentioned at the start, series seven is possibly the weakest of all the series, the show suffers greatly from the loss of Chris Barrie but I do like the addition of Chloë Annett greatly (so much so that'd I'd put her up alongside Tara Summers as one of the women I'd most like to marry when I grow up) and there are still quite a few good moments to be found amongst the wreckage.

The Packaging:
There's nothing to be said here that hasn't been said before, it's a purple variant of the previous covers with a shot of something techy (I suspect part of Starbug) as the backdrop. The Red Dwarf logo continues to be completed on the spine and it's just a nice looking product which is about the right size for what it contains.

The Extras:
As always Red Dwarf leads the way for extras, but series seven is packed even when compared to the other series of the show. There's an incredible amount of material here.
The Details:
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Soundtrack: Stereo
Runtime: 230 mins
Region: 2 + 4 PAL UK
Subtitles: English SDH
Rating: 12

The Price:
Play.com currently have it at £7.99, that's 3.5ppm which is excellent for a Red Dwarf product but that can be accounted for by the two additional episodes over the normal amount.

Honestly series seven is one for the dedicated fans only, if you're a completionist who must absolutely have everything then it's worth owning. But for everyone else I'd say try before you buy when dealing with this series, either get it in the 'Just the Shows' combined set or just watch it the once then forget about it.
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