We now know that Red Dwarf will be returning for a new series in 2012. But with the mixed reception of the 2009 Back To Earth specials, is this such a good thing?
So, Red Dwarf is coming back in 2012.
Well, kind of. There's been no official announcement yet. But overeager cast members have already inadvertently spilled far more beans than they were supposed to, with Craig Charles blabbing on a small radio station (presumably thinking nobody would be listening. Unfortunately, the Daily Mail were) before Robert Llewellyn, assuming the felis sapiens was well and truly out of the bag, posted a lengthy and excited blog post about it. A lengthy and excited blog post that he deleted a matter of hours later, presumably after a Doug Naylor-administered slap on the wrist.
Of course, even though the post was removed, its content had already filtered out onto the wider Internet, including the most crucial statements: "We are making a new series, commissioned by Dave, not a special or a movie or a one off dooberry. A full 6 half hour episodes of a brand new series... We start shooting this in November this year."
Hopefully, Robert's announcement won't affect any ongoing negotiations with Dave. We imagine it should all just be a formality by now, and once the details are ironed out, we should see an official announcement from Dave and/or GNP.
The big question now, of course, is whether or not anyone thinks this is a good idea. Certainly, while there was much excitement and anticipation over the Back To Earth specials in 2009, the resulting episodes themselves aired to a mixed reaction at best. And that's carried over to the Internet's thoughts on a potential new series, with many casual fans, in particular, convinced that the show has now reached the end of its useful life.
Among the more hardcore elements of fandom, however, there's a touch more optimism. Readers of fansite Ganymede & Titan seemed of a mind that the news was, variously, "great", "awesome", "cool", "fantastic" and other similarly positive adjectives. Although, of course, we doubt they'd be hanging around Red Dwarf fansites if they weren't hungry for more of the show.
But it's clear that, although fan opinions on Back To Earth differed wildly, as have opinions on just about every series of Dwarf since around 1993, there was at least a vague consensus that it did some things well and some things badly.
It was rewarding for those long-term fans invested in the character development of Lister, in particular, and considering the miniscule budget it was visually exceptional, with some especially stunning sets and CGI shots.
But at the same time, it was overly bogged down in Blade Runner references, suffered from a lack of atmosphere, and rarely drew on established character dynamics for its comedy, instead resorting to more obvious gags (although anyone who says it wasn't funny at all is an outright liar).
The feeling, though, is that many of the problems could be solved with one significant change on the production side of things with a return to shooting in front of a studio audience.
A majority of fans, among both the casual and the hardcore, feel that the way to get the show's mojo back is to return to a more traditional sitcom style, and Llewellyn has even admitted that this is being kept in mind:
"The plan at the moment, and this could change, the plan is that we record the new series in front of an audience... [But] the fear among the producers now is that it's impossible to imagine an audience of around 400 people at the recording of a TV show like Red Dwarf, where nobody does a bit of a hint on Twitter, or sneaks a picture on Facebook or posts a bit of badly shot video on YouTube."
Despite the worries about potential spoiler problems, this is an encouraging indication of the makers' current attitude. Of course, shooting in an audience-sitcom style hasn't always worked for Dwarf. Series VIII was an attempt to return to those glory days after the single-camera setup of series VII, and is pretty universally acknowledged to be a disaster. (Indeed, one of the good things about Back To Earth was finally removing series VIII's awful closing cliffhanger from its position as the ‘last ever scene'.)
So, it's true that allowing a cast whose origins all lie in live performance to thrive on the energy of an audience once more would undoubtedly reap positive results. But the scripts need to be there as well.
In his time as solo lead writer, Doug Naylor has done an admirable job of maintaining the show's reputation for inventive and original sci-fi concepts, but it's also clear that the immense comedic genius of his partnership with the departed Rob Grant was far greater than either can manage alone.
Perhaps the greatest hope is that Doug turns to another writer, or writers, to assist him in sharpening up the show's flagging comedy credentials. Maybe then, just maybe, we might end up with new Red Dwarf that's fit to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the glory years of its first six seasons.
Oh, and setting more of it in space this time would be nice, too.
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