Customer Reviews

Red Dwarf: Series V

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Red Dwarf Series 5 is filled with wonderful character exploration and insightful social commentary, yet delivers the same hilarious and dense level of humor as the series that came before it. Holoship gives a wonderful, humanizing look at Rimmer beyond the annoying exterior and Back to Reality is a tremendous look at the motivations and inner workings of all of the major characters in one of the funniest Red Dwarf episodes ever; it also delivers a delightful plot twist the first time you see it. Series 5 reveals a great comedy show delivering some of it's very best writing yet. Episodes include:

1. Holoship - Rimmer leaves Red Dwarf to go to the Holoship Enlightenment where he must compete with the best of the Space Corps to remain aboard. Everything he wants is on this ship. Will he make the cut and find true love as well?

2. The Inquisitor - The Inquisitor travels time and erases the unworthy from existence and the Red Dwarf crew, having not led the most productive lives, are on his list.

3. Terrorform - Rimmer becomes a prisoner of his own nightmares and must be rescued by the rest of the crew.

4. Quarantine - Contagion from a viral research centre causes Rimmer to force the rest of the crew to spend twelve weeks in quarantine. But who is really infected?

5. Demons & Angels- When the crew meet their evil doubles, things get unpleasant and the actors get to play interesting twisted versions of their usual characters.

6. Back to Reality - In a great plot twist that I won't give away here, the crew of Red Dwarf find that all things are not as they seem. Will life ever be the same?

Extras features include: Cast Commentary, Fan Commentary on Back To Reality, Fan Profiles, "Bad Guys" Music Featurette, Photo Gallery, Raw Effects Footage, "Heavy Science" Series V Doco, Weblink, "Dwarfing USA" featurette, The SFX of Red Dwarf, Deleted Scenes, Smeg Ups, TrailersBBC2/Skutter Channel idents, Lister Intro To "Best Episode Ever", Isolated Music Cues, Dave Hollins Radio Sketch and 3 Easter Eggs Including an Animated version of Back To Reality.

Well, the DVD comes with everything it says it does. I think I'll skip a review about the episodes and bonus features and just tell you where some hidden eggs are.


Disc 1 -

- Back To Reality, Animated Commentary -
Go to the episode selection menu. Go down to 3 "Terrorform" and then press right. You should have highlighted `drive room'. Then press down. That parts pretty simple to work out. Press down and highlight that glove. Press enter/ok. It will now display a pad to enter a secret GD code. Highlight each number, followed by enter... 1, 4, 5.It will access the hidden Easter egg of the creators talking about the episode "back to reality" in a cartoon format. Looks like it was created with macromedia Flash.


- What the smeg did they eat? -
Go to the episode selection menu, just like above. And go into the "Quarantine" selection. Then once in there, go to the "next" option and press enter to view the second menu page for the episode. You should notice a penguin kind of drawing in the bottom/middle of the menu now. Highlight the "menu" option and press up to highlight the penguin, or whatever the smeg it is and press enter on him. I won't tell you what it access, you'll have to see it for yourself.


Disc 2 -

- The Accent Question -
Go to the subtitles menu. Click up on "on/off". Then press up again and you will have selected a hidden icon in the shape of Holly's head. Press enter and you will see a little interview with what's his name about Jan Leeve's and where her Manchester accent on Frasier may well have come from.

Never before has sci-fi and comedy worked out for the mass audiences. And since "Red Dwarf", it hasn't happened. The characters diverse in personality, the sci-fi concepts rich, the humor is riotously successful on many levels. What's not to like?

The DVD quality is in top form (with, as usual, a surfeit of bonus material that alone justifies the <$30 pricetag), as alone does the restoration effort (Red Dwarfs 5 and 6 NEVER looked so good) so I will concentrate on the episodes themselves:

1. Holoship. Rimmer, a hologram, sees potential for having a life at last on board. The problem is, he has to beat his opponent. Who happens to be, unbeknownst to him, the hologram he falls in love with. Great series opener in terms of irony but the best is yet to come...

2. The Inquisitor. A rogue simulant (half man, half machine), wanders Time. Upon the individuals it meets, it assesses them. If they fail the assessment, they are removed from history and replaced with someone else. The story explains it with much more panache. It seems weird as to who passes and who fails the test, but not only does it appeal with its intellectual supremacy, but it remains true to its roots as being a comedy and makes this one a real winner for everybody. GREAT stuff.

3. Terrorform. Kryten and Rimmer crashed Starbug onto a "Psi-Moon". Kryten escaped with a helping hand, but Rimmer becomes a prisoner of a world that had been created out of his subconscious state! This one, like The Inquisitor, is riotously funny and appeals to all levels. Best of all, one can feel sorry for Rimmer.

4. Quarantine. Another winner, the Dwarf crew (sans Rimmer) happen upon the results of unique experiments. Unfortunately, one of them was a hologramatic virus that infects Rimmer when he radios the crew. Upon the crew's return, Rimmer seems a changed - and eminently insane - hologram. There are some unusual but wonderful concepts here, and Rimmer gone nuts is hilarious. Another episode in top form.

5. Demons and Angels. Food supplies are running low, so Kryten perfects a triplicator. Well, not quite. The device takes one object and extracts it into its pure good and pure rotten components. Lister tries putting the machine in reverse and subsequently destroys Red Dwarf. Well, not quite. Two new Dwarf ships are created: One good and one evil. The problem is, to rebuild the triplicator to merge the separated ship, they have to go to both ships... Now while the "goodie" side is a bit goodie, the REAL fun begins on the evils' ship. Indeed, I'll never look at Rimmer in quite the same way again! Devilishly funny, this one also works well.

6. Back to Reality. Fleeing from a 'Despair Squid', the Squid apparently destroys the Starbug probing the planet. The foursome wake up from what seems to be a game they've played for 4 years, called "Red Dwarf". This is a GREAT season finale (though the best one ever is a tie between "The Last Day" and "Out of Time".) I won't spoil the outcome, but I will say that Dwayne Dibbley is introduced. A character who gets reused later on, for no reason other than to fill out a horrible episode's time allotment. (A great parody character meant for one episode really isn't meant to be re-used...)

as usual, the extras and disc quality are all top-notch.

Apart from season 2 and the show's opener episode "The End", season 5 is definitely one to hook potential fans in. It's got EVERYTHING and more.

I had written earlier in my review of the first series that I didn't like Red Dwarf. If you look at my review there, you'd see that I thought it simply wasn't funny and I don't get what the fuss is all about. And I wrote the entire series off and went to watch The Brittas Empire instead.

Later, I decided to come back to Red Dwarf, and watch Series 5, reasoning that by this time, they would most likely have gotten a handle on how to do it right. Although I still stand by what I thought of Series 1, oh man, I thought Series 5 is everything Series 1 was not. It's funny, clever, intelligent, engaging and not annoying at all. In fact, I LOVE it.

And after immersing myself in episodes from Series 4, 5, 6 and now 7, I have to say it's one of my most favorite series ever. I'm a life long Star Trek fan, and what I say would be blasphemy I'm sure, but there are many instances in this show where they leave Star Trek in the dust in terms of concepts, storytelling, and simple bravery in the kinds of stories they have the audacity to tell.

If you've never seen Red Dwarf and are a bit hesitant to purchase this collection, rent it first (Netflix has it) and I promise you'll be back to buy! "The Inquisitor" has many hilarious lines, and listen out for a sequence of numbers that is the code for unlocking one of the easter eggs. "Demons and Angels" is probably my favorite episode in this series, because of the blindingly stupid antics of the evil and good versions of the crew. I laughed until it hurt while watching this disc!

The crew of the Red Dwarf are back in series five. Meet Dave Lister last man alive and inventor of tripple fried chutney egg sandwhich. Arnold J. Rimmer ships hologram and BSC (Bronze Swimming Certificate). The Cat a man so self absorbed even his personal mirror has a mirror so he doesn't miss an angle. Kryten ships cleaning meachnoid and all around level headed memeber of the crew. Holly the ships computer that has gone utterly insane.
This go around the crew encounters a holographic ship and Rimmer is determined to join them or die trying! The crew are placed on trial by a being called the Inquistor who wipes out those undeserving of life. Who of the crew will surivive this encounter? Will the crew risk entering a world where Rimmer's mind has become real and save him? An expiedtion to a research station on an ice world leads to a few problems one of which is a homicidal Rimmer. An experiemnt that Kryten and Lister work on result in the destruction of Red Dwarf and with it chance encounters with both good and bad versions of the crew. The crew discover that they have been playing a game called "Red Dwarf" for four years. Everything they have been through has been fake and the world they left is not as kind as the one they are in now. Does this mean the end for our fearless crew?
So come on board and check out Red Dwarf series five today.

This is sci-fi and comedy at it's best. Another brilliant series from red Dwarf and you also get a starbug with which is cool. This one of the best series so if your going to buy just one series, this is one of the top 3 to consider.
In this series you get to have a fun! trip in rimmers mind. We get to see the very nice side of the crew and the bad side of the crew. There is also a chance to see Rimmer in a ginghem dress with Doc Martins and the other 3 going mad in quarantine. Back to reality is also a brilliant episode and is one of the best and funniest. As for The Inquisitor makes you think as well as being funny. Holoship is brilliant as well.

For its fifth season, Red Dwarf underwent a change of focus. Whilst the set-up and premise is still the same as the previous two seasons, the writers chose to take the show more in the direction of being a drama-comedy rather than a straight-up sitcom. The fifth season still has plenty of laughs, but they are now less prominent than before, with the SF ideas and character relationships come more to the fore. Production values, particularly the more frequent use of CGI, again improve, and the fifth season is arguably the first which still really stands up well in contrast to modern shows.

Things get off to a familiar start with Holoship, which is another Valentine's Day show (for the second season running, the season debuted on 14 February, this time in 1992). The crew encounter the Holoship Enlightenment, a wholly holographic spacecraft which is exploring the Galaxy and is crewed by the cream of the Space Corps, all top guns in their field. In the words of the captain, this is 'a ship of superhumans'. Tempted by a life of intellectual and scientific fulfilment - not to mention the ship's regulation that all crewmembers must have sex twice daily - Rimmer sets out to join their ranks, but encounters a few obstacles (most notably being an intellectual ignoramus with all the social graces of a cockroach). This is a solid episode with a great guest turn by Jane Horrocks as one of the holographic crewmembers.

The Inquisitor is the first of two unusually 'dark' episodes in the season. The crew encounter the Inquisitor, a time-travelling robot from the end of time who has concluded that there is no God and the sole purpose of life is to lead a worthy and fulfilling existence. When he encounters those who have wasted their lives, he deletes them and alters the timeline to replace them with someone more worthy who was never even born in the original timeline. Obviously, the crew of the Red Dwarf are in big trouble when he meets them. After a Rimmer and Kryten-heavy fourth season, this episode is a welcome chance for Lister to take centre stage and shine as he defies the Inquisitor in a battle to the death. This episode takes a great idea and runs well with it.

Terrorform sees Kryten and Rimmer crash on a 'psi-moon' which terraforms itself based on the psychology of the people inhabiting it. By the time Lister and the Cat arrive to rescue Kryten (alerted to their plight in one of the funniest sequences in the entire series) the moon has unfortunately adapted itself into the shape of Rimmer's mind! This is an unusually epic episode, with a ruined temple set, a swamp and a spacecraft crash site amongst its locations, and the 'making of' documentary and the cast commentary reveal just how they achieved the look of the piece on a relatively small budget.

Quarantine sees the crew exposed to a lethal holographic virus whilst on a mission to an abandoned scientific outpost. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't carry the virus anyway, Rimmer has the other three locked in quarantine upon their return to Red Dwarf. Lister's initially cheery view that it's not a problem as they spend all their time together anyway is soon put to the test as he has to spend several days and nights with Kryten and the Cat non-stop. However, even that isn't too much of a problem as the crew are soon confronted by their most demonic and evil foe to date...a psychotic penguin named Mr. Flibble!

Angels and Demons is probably the single most disturbing episode of Red Dwarf ever made. A freak accident with a 'triplicator' blows up the entire ship but creates two identical copies, one consisting of the crew's 'higher selves' (a bunch of super-intelligent peacenik hippies) and the other of their 'lower selves' (a bunch of psychopathic nutcases). As they attempt to unify the two ships together to recreate the original, they have to contend with the machinations of their lower selves who are a thoroughly unpleasant lot indeed. This episode is interesting for the fact that the audience are quite clearly rather uneasy about where to laugh and when not to. Although there are several genuinely funny sequences, there are also some seriously twisted moments, such as when Lister is kidnapped by the lows and put through a highly original method of torture involving a tarantula and a boiling kettle. It's an inventive and intriguing piece that pushes the boundaries of what you can do in a supposed sitcom.

Back to Reality is a classic episode with a brilliant, killer premise, although it loses a little of its power on DVD when you know there's another three seasons after this one. When it first aired the cast and crew were apparently despondent about there being a sixth and said at the time the show was going out on a creative high, although of course this was just to sell the idea that the series might end on as shocking a note as this one. Essentially, the crew are killed when Starbug crashes underwater and discover they've been playing a VR computer game for the last four years. Returning to reality, they discover that Lister is a senior figure in the law enforcement services for the totalitarian government ("Vote Fascist for another decade of total law enforcement!"), Rimmer is his drop-out, deadbeat half-brother, Kryten is a cyborg cop with the name 'Jake Bullet', and the Cat is a hapless, style-free dork named Duane Dibley. The episode continues the series' direction towards becoming more of a drama with some excellent writing and great ideas, although the comedy is kept alive and well through such sequences as how the show portrays our heroes in an epic car chase with the fascist cops on motorcycles carrying rocket-launchers with helicopter gunships in support, despite having no money to do it.

Red Dwarf's fifth season is still quite funny, but the move towards stronger drama and harder SF elements does make it somewhat less well-paced than the third and fourth seasons. The episodes still look great and pack a vast amount of content into their 30 minutes, and there are some nice nods towards continuity: the Inquisitor is referenced as a simulant, a similar type of robot to the one that appeared in Justice, whilst the triplicator was adapted from Meltdown's matter paddle. The characterisation is richer than ever, with Holoship and Terrorform both delving into Rimmer's character again and still finding interesting material, whilst Inquisitor gives Lister a chance to shine. The biggest loss of the season is Hattie Hayridge as Holly, who has very few lines and doesn't have much of a role (despite saving the day in one episode), leading the producers to reluctantly drop the character the following season.

RED DWARF didn't really find its legs until Season Three with the addition of Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, who brought that missing "something" that that show had somewhat lacked until then. Season Five pretty much repeats the excellence of Seasons Three and Four.

The continued excellence of the show was the good news. The bad news is that it breaks no new ground and does nothing new. It felt pretty much exactly the same as the previous two seasons. Nothing wrong with that, but my own preference is for shows that move forward and tell a story. So the show, for all its excellence, remains a somewhat limited show. But unlike Seasons One and Two and very much like Seasons Three and Four, I looked forward to each episode and every one provides significant entertainment.

I did get a charge out of seeing Timothy Sprall in a small role.

Now, on to Season Six!

My husband would not watch British t.v. He thought it would be too much like Monty Python, but he would sit and watch while I was watching it. It's now one of his favorite series !!!!!!! Wonderful humor and originality. Hope to find more series like this to watch.