First before I begin my nostalgic ranting I shall wish all my visitors a Happy Easter, whether you celebrate it with chocolate or a visit to your local church (or both) a Happy Easter is wished upon you. One thing that has made this Easter one of the best yet for me is purely down to my innate love of everything Red Dwarf and that after a decade of the show lieing dormant I believed it would never come back to be surprised and amazed when the channel Dave released a new Easter Special. The Red Dwarf Forums have exploded with thousands of posts by new and old fans showing how even after ten years asleep the show has a very vibrant fan base. I must admit that each episode does feel a little too short, but considering that the whole three parts should really be one, 1 hour piece this is no surprise. Additionally a few pessimistic people are claiming that Dave are simply brining Red Dwarf back to sell merchandise and considering that during episode two the crew do have a lot of interaction with their own merchandise as characters of the show teleported into the real world this could be seen as true however it isn’t. Red Dwarf has always been self-referencing, always about cheesy jokes and poorly built sets that was what made it funny. However to appeal to a new audience the producers had to do away with the poorly built sets, the cheese while still there is transformed for a whole new generation of fans while the hard core fan base has not been forgotten, the self-referencing nature of the new plot would be obvious to a good fan because it was always a case of being funny though making the audience cringe, and yes I did cringe when I saw Dave Lister pick up a Red Dwarf DVD, still it was sort of funny and the image of Lister drying his arse in a hand dryer made up for it.
In all honesty while the crew have gotten older, the sets been updated to near Doctor Who production quality and the plot modified for a brand new audience, I don’t believe that any of this has made the new Red Dwarf bad at all. The new episodes references to Blade Runner also added something new to the Red Dwarf genre and the cheese was on an all time high. Overall while things have been changed, I don’t think it is at all bad. Dave brought back Red Dwarf after 10 years of it sitting collecting dust and its bound to be a different item as audeinces change. I am just happy they kept the best of what Red Dwarf is and built upon it for a new generation of Dwarfers!
