Featuettes, outtakes, commentary tracks, Introduction with star Craig Charles

A popular fixture on the BBC during the late 80’s and early 90’s,“Red Dwarf” returns in a three part reunion movie. The series which aired for eight seasons deftly combined comedy and science fiction in a way that was quite unique. “Red Dwarf” was very different from, say, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” or “Quark” Buck Henry’s science fiction comedy series from the early 80’s and it positively thrived with a strong audience following but, amazingly, “Red Dwarf” as fans know almost didn’t appear at all with the pilot script rejected numerous times. ***

Dave Lister (Craig Charles) finds himself punished for illegally bringing a cat on board the deep space mining vehicle Red Dwarf. He’s put into suspended animation and stripped of his wages until the end of the mission. Unfortunately, he wakes up 3 million years in the future after radiation has dropped to safe levels on the ship. It turns out that a radiation leak killed the entire crew and finds himself stranded with a mutated cat (one of the descendants of the one he brought on board without going through quarantine), a hologram that annoys the heck out of him and a super computer that isn’t so super. ***

The three part reunion movie can be watched in a full length “Director’s Cut” or as it aired in three parts. ---

Image & Sound:

The DVD looks quite good with a solid presentation. Colors are fairly strong throughout and detail/clarity extremely good benefiting from being made 20 years after the original series appeared (and was shot on standard definition video tape). *** We get a good 5.1 mix for the audio.

We get a two part “making of” featurette, deleted scenes with commentary by writer/creator Doug Naylor, a visual effects featurette with Mike Seymour, a featurette on the premiere of the three part reunion special, a “Cast Signing Session” as well as “Behind-the-Scenes” web videos. ***

We also get “Craig Charles Introduction” to the three part show, broadcast trailers, a clever “April Fool’s Video” about “Life Found on Mars”, the U.S. PBS Announcements, photo gallery and a very clever Easter Egg. ***

Finally we get “Smeg Ups” which are humorous outtakes from the three part series (much like those for the first eight seasons that appeared on DVD). --

Final Words: