Re-Dwarf: the Great Red Dwarf re-watch

February 1988. Star Trek: The Next Generation had recently launched, but was still a couple of years away from UK screens, where TV science fiction consisted of Kirk-era repeats and Doctor Who. Yes, the first time round - Sylvester McCoy and Ace, specifically.

This was the world into which the BBC chose to launch the Jupiter Mining Ship Red Dwarf; possibly a risky move given the extent to which Doctor Who was struggling to survive at the time, but the Dwarf succeeded, largely by being both good sci-fi and a good sitcom.

So successful was the show, in fact, that Series XI is due to hit the screen later this year - which seems like as good a reason as any to introduce Christian Geek Central to Red Dwarf - starting, of course, at...

The End

The End is slightly different to most Red Dwarf episodes, having to do all those things a pilot episode should: set the scene, introduce the hero (Lister), kill his nemesis (Rimmer), evolve his pregnant cat into a sentient humanoid, allow the ships computer to degenerate into something less stable than a ZX81, and squeeze 3 million years into a single 30 minute episode.
The End is one of the better early episodes, and both the humour and the sci-fi elements have aged pretty well. The story centres on the relationship between Lister and Rimmer which is the core of the series; the laughs flow easily from the characters and the science fiction doesn't descend into the hard to believe silliness that bothered some episodes.

It's not, however, a perfect introduction to the series as a whole; Kryten didn't join the crew until series 3, and the Cat, who appears briefly at the end of the episode, is a long way from the character he developed into in later seasons.

Another thing The End does - and one which is of particular interest to this blog - is introduce us to the cultural and religious history of Felis sapiens, when the Cat tells of learning in kitty school about

the Holy Mother, saved by Cloister the Stupid, who was frozen in time, and who gaveth of his life that we might live; who shall returneth to lead us to Fuchal, the promised land.

It's a throwaway line really, there only to give Lister a purpose - finding Earth and fulfilling his Fijiian dream - and Cat a hint of a back story. A little bit of a religious cliche to resorteth to King James Version English, but that, too, probably just hints at the overall view the show will take to religion.

Re-mastered

Hot on the heels of Star Wars, series 1-3 were digitally re-mastered for the show's 10th anniversary and in an attempt to increase foreign interest. Like Star Wars, the results of the re-mastering are decidedly mixed: the enhanced colour is a welcome addition; some of the added CGI... not so much.

And although the later style credits are a lot more exciting, I prefer the more low-key, 2001-esque opening of the original. Or maybe that's just nostalgia.

I mention this mainly because as part of the re-mastering process, Holly (Red Dwarf's dead-pan shipboard computer) was booted up again to re-record his lines, and during this process he adds the words

Yes, God?

just before Lister issues the order to return to Earth, building on the 'Lister as God' motif and foreshadowing its further recurrences within the series (oops, spoiler!).

And that, along with whatever other religious, philosophical and moral themes crop up on the way, is the sort of thing I'll be pointing out here as we follow the boys from the Dwarf on their ongoing misadventures. Look out CGC - the slime's coming home!

A version of this review first appeared at stevetrower.com, where you can find more sci-fi reviews, updates on what I'm writing, and the occasional ZX81. And if Red Dwarf is your comedic cup of tea, you might enjoy my comic sci-fi novella The Ballad of Matthew Smith.