Customer Reviews

Red Dwarf V - Byte One: Back To Reality [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Duane Dibbley makes his presence felt! Rimmer and Lister as half brothers? It's all here and more in Series 5. 'Back to Reality' is the best episode here, but the other two are just as good. Check out Rimmer as Frank N. Furter's alter ego in 'Demons and Angels.' It's aboslutely hilarious and I guess Grant/Naylor must have seen 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' dozens of times in order to get the right effect! Of course the evil Lister seems just as slovenly as the good Lister but that doesn't matter (and the Cat as a saber-tooth tiger is a sight to behold). For once, Lister gets the short end of the stick here, which is a surprise as Rimmer is usually the victim of hideous tortures, such as getting a knobby thing the size of an agave cactus jammed up certain orifices (and to see that happen, get Byte 2 of Series 5).

Finally in 'Holoship', we see that Rimmer is actually a decent person at heart. If only he didn't have such a hard time living up (or down) to his parents' expectiations. Oh well, then the premise of Rimmer as the whipping boy would not exist. Wait until Series 6 to see Rimmer show the traits of nobility and self sacrifice(but only in the last episode)! Hmmm, I wonder what giant despair squid calimari tastes like.

Buyers should note that the episodes here are not in the sequence of their original broadcast order, but that's irrevelant since each episode is self-contained. Only in Series 6 does the sequence matter.

Red Dwarf V begins here. Well, on video anyway...the episodes weren't actually broadcast in this order. This series continues in the action/science fiction vein of the previous two series, so there's not much character comedy on offer. However, despite this, there is a wealth of funny gags and great stories.

Back To Reality-
Voted as the best episode ever. I have to agree. A truly stunning example of comedy/science fiction. The best example. This is the show that elevated Red Dwarf into an all-time great alongside Star Trek etc. There's a truly inventive plot, tension, suspense, laughter by the bucketload. Simply mindblowing television. 4/4

Demons And Angels-
The weakest episode here. Suffers from the whole 'running round the ship thing' again. This episode has some terrible editing, which spoils the realism of the piece. It does tend to rely on shock value and slapstick a bit. However, it is funny and entertaining, (the scene where high Cat and Rimmer are dancing is pant-wettingly funny) but by no means a classic. 2.5/4

Holoship-
This is easily in my top five all-time favourite episodes ever. A charming Rimmer love story that has a cinematic feel to it. An acomplished mix of drama and comedy, where the characters are noble to each other. You root for Rimmer throughout. He is a character to be loved not loathed. Great performances abound. A great acheivement. I just love this episode! 4/4

Back to Reality is often rated the most popular of all Red Dwarf episodes, and it's easy to see why. It's brilliantly scripted. After being chased by a leviathan and crashing Starbug, the crew realize that the entire Red Dwarf experience was nothing but a virtual reality computer game, and they must now continue their true lives back on Earth. When the Cat realizes he is only an utter geek named Duane Dibbly with enormous teeth and atrocious clothes, all hell breaks loose!

Demons and Angels sees a return to some first season roots (Confidence and Paranoia, Me2) as the duality of each crew member is explored, this time manifested into good and evil. This is a good spoof on the classic Star Trek episode The Enemy Within, wherein Kirk is split into very good Kirk and purely evil Kirk. Too bad Kirk never wore a merry widow and fishnet tights as Rimmer does...

Holoship is a lovely episode, who knew Rimmer had a romantic soul? Or any soul, for that matter? ;) He maintains his general smegginess ("Over the years I've come to regard you as...people I once met."), but it's nice to have him play the hero every once in a while too.

Back to Reality is worth the price of the tape alone, but probably would be most enjoyable after one has logged a good deal of space time with these characters. By the fifth season, Red Dwarf was still going strong. Check out this wonderful British Sci-fi series, you won't be disappointed!

"Back to Reality" and "Holoship" were fantastic. OK, so "Demons and Angels" wasn't the greatest, but the other two episodes of this tape make up for it!

Both halves of the Red Dwarf V videos have the episodes out of order. The first half seems to take the more popular stories.

"For the last four years, you have been engaged in the Total Immersion video game Red Dwarf. As with all role-playing games, you will experience a certain amount of disorientation on leaving the game. It will be a few minutes before your real life memories return, so in the meantime, please disengage the game-playing equipment and relax until an attendant is free to answr any of your questions. On behalf of Leisure World Entertainment, may we be the first to say, 'welcome back to reality.' Whoa! In that case, who are the guys who have been in Red Dwarf?" "Kryten" is half-human, "Rimmer" isn't a hologram, and "The Cat" is actually a "no-style gimbo with teeth the druids could use for a place for worship" and a Moe Howard haircut. "Lister" proves to be someone with lots of power, but are things quite as they seem? "Back To Reality" (Episode 6) is the one Stephen Hawking claimed as his favourite, and it is a classic favourite of mine as well in sheer creativity. Timothy Spall, the brummy attendant whose favourite insult seems to be "twonk" as in "you twonks", played Tom Cruise's political ally in Vanilla Sky and will play Pete Pettigrew in Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban.

In "Demons & Angels" (Episode 5), an accident with Kryten's triplicator causes Red Dwarf to explode seconds after an experiment successfully produces a really succulent strawberry and one that's bitter, rancid, with a wriggly texture. They then encounter two Red Dwarfs, "one divine, the other fishbait" created because Kryten reversed the triplicator field instead of the process. The aura of the divine RD "makes you good to be alive." The crew represent the normal RD crew's "higher self, spiritual self which exists in you as potential", for "spiritual and intellectual fulfillment." As for the "Low" ship, it is really a nasty piece of work. The Low Cat is a wild sabertooth chewing raw meat and Rimmer is a transvestite with a whip. The Lows represent "everything designed to sicken the soul and shrivel the spirit." Great line by the Cat when RD's klaxons are sounding: "Hey guys, I think they're playing our tune, the awooga waltz. Anyone care to join me in a quickstep?" Also, Red Dwarf will explode "in less time than it takes a Norwegian to buy ski boots." And after the triplicator experiment, Rimmer asks Kryten, "What do you do for an encore, neutron bomb juggling?"

Rimmer has the chance to join the hologrammatic crew of a holoship in "Holoship" (Episode 1). He falls in love with Flight Commander Nirvanah Crane, who tells them that sexual congress twice-a-day is a ship regulation. Hologram society "discarded the concept of family in the 25th century when scientists finally proved that all our neuroses and hangups were caused by our parents. ... Families are disastrous for your mental health, so are relationships." And love is "a short-term hormonal distraction which interferes in the pure pursuit of personal advancement." The overall theme involves the sacrifices people make for love, and Rimmer's character broadens and changes compared to the "half-wit, hopeless, hideous failure" he perceives himself as. Notable line: after being insulted by a hologram, Lister gets back, describing the hologram as a "complete smegpot. Brains in the anal region, chin absent presumed missing, genitalia small and inoffensive, of no value or interest." Lovely Jane Horrocks molds Nirvanah as a wonderful person who too discovers something about herself in meeting Rimmer.

REVIEW OVER. ... MACHINE DJH68... FINAL SCORE--100%

This whole tape is great. Demons & Angels is my favorite Red Dwarf episode so far, but all 3 episodes are very good.