Customer Reviews

Official Red Dwarf Companion Pb

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The title of this book, THE OFFICIAL RED DWARF COMPANION, is a bit of an exaggeration. At just 96 pages it's just too brief to tell you all you need to know (OK, maybe just WANT to know) about the very funny and far out British TV series "Red Dwarf." The book's brief chapters cover the characters on the show, episode guides to the first 5 (of 8) series (what we call "seasons" in the U.S.), scripts, production, design, visual effects, costumes, make-up, and Red Dwarf books. Sounds like a lot of stuff, but the chapters are just 4 to 6 pages long, much of that taken up by photos. Speaking of which, the photos are the best part of the book, since they're good quality, color pictures, some of which are full-page. One minor carp that I have about the photos is that the captions leave much to be desired, often not even telling WHO we're looking at! I should note that although I've seen most "Red Dwarf" episodes, I'm not an expert on the making of the show, so as far as I can tell this book is accurate but I'm not the best one to judge that.

The best book that I've found ABOUT "Red Dwarf" is the Red Dwarf: Programme Guide, which has a lot more information than the Companion, including background on each episode and a glossary of terms and characters (make sure to get the third edition to cover all 8 series). However, the Programme Guide does not cover the production of the show as much as this Companion does. Another helpful book is Robert Llewellyn's Man in the Rubber Mask Pb about his experiences playing the robot Kryten. Also, The Making of " Red Dwarf " is good, but it's actually focusing on the making of one episode, "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" from Series 6.

Still, despite its brevity, THE OFFICIAL RED DWARF COMPANION is one of those books that all you smeg-heads out there have gotta have, especially for all its fun pictures to look at.