Customer Reviews

Red Dwarf VII - Byte Two [VHS]

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

 

 

Here's where the absence of Chris Barrie is strongly felt. The tension between Kochanski and Kryten is no replacement for the intense relationship of Lister and Rimmer that served as the basis for Red Dwarf for six subsequent seasons.

Duct Soup is a good, not great, episode, examining Kryten's insecurities about his relationship with Lister now that Kochanski has arrived. The crew spend the night crawling around Starbug's service ducts. I love the Cat's insensitivity concerning Lister's claustrophobia.

Blue is fantastic. Blue is worth the price of this tape alone. Lister is missing Rimmer, and missing him badly. Chris Barrie appears in one of the funniest Red Dwarf scenes EVER. Complete with the Arnold Rimmer munchkin song.

Beyond a Joke is pretty boring. It has a moment of gold when Kryten hunts down the five Bartlett sisters from Pride and Prejudice using a blowpipe and swinging logs. The rest of the episode is pretty insipid, including a truly irritating 4000 mechanoid named Abel.

Please join me in a moment of silence as we honor the genius of Red Dwarf. Although there are four tapes in the collection following this one, we do not see the true brilliance that sparked Red Dwarf again.

Rimmer is only featured in one episode on this tape, and I think that it hurts the overall feel of the show. Rimmer has always been my favorite character, and his absence does cause this tape to get less time in my VCR than most of the other tapes. However, the one episode on here with Rimmer ("Blue") is a classic.
"Duct Soup" - Kryten shuts down the generator on Starbug because he thinks Lister and Kochanski are going to take a bath together. The crew than has to crawl through the ships' ducts to turn it back on, but Lister is claustrophobic and the expedition ends in disaster with them falling back in to the same room they started in. I don't want to spoil the whole plot, but they don't die, so everything works out alright. Not a very funny episode except for the part where Kryten daydream's his sendoff as Lister and Kochanski kick him off the ship ("But Kryten is spelled with a K!")
"Blue" - The only Rimmer episode on this tape is the true standout. Lister actually starts to miss Rimmer, so Kryten develops the "Rimmer Experience" to cure him of his depression. This has some really funny Rimmer moments in it, especially the little skits during the Rimmer Experiance ride ("Thank god you're here, Ace, I thought I was gonna wet me kecks!")
"Beyond a Joke" - Not much happens in this episode. Main idea behind this one is to further explain Kryten's jealousy of Kochanski. Kryten does blow up some annoying Jane Austen characters with a tank, though.

Red Dwarf went from strength to strength. Series 5 was amazing, Series 6 was even better. Then came Series 7. It started out with a strong episode, Tikka to Ride, and the two episodes which followed (Stoke Me a Clipper and Oroboros) were highly enjoyable. But after that things just fell apart. The loss of Rimmer is heavily felt, Kochanski is just irritating throughout this series, the tone of the episodes feels self-satisfied, the characters are just crude parodies of their former selves and the humour is very thin on the ground.

Red Dwarf 7 Byte 2? The three episodes here are Duct Soup, Blue and Beyond a Joke. There are a few good moments, such as Kryten on the rampage in Jane Austin artificial reality. But that, and throwing in GELFs, rogue simulants and mechanoids, can't make up for deadbeat scripts. Thankfully Red Dwarf escaped the mire with the far superior Series 8.

I LOVE Red Dwarf. I idolize the show. I laugh so hard I fall off my exercise bike while watching it. But Series 7 was, overall, a let-down.

First of all, the lighting and sets are much nicer than in the previous series--I think they were going for a more polished look. However, it has the effect of turning the show from "space scum trying to survive" into "way hip cats out gallavanting about this lovely universe".

The lack of Rimmer makes it harder for the writers to fit in some of those drop-dead funny lines of the past. The Lister/Rimmer conflict probably accounted for about 80% of the humor, and now that's missing.

Kochanski--where should I begin? Far from the sex-kitten that Lister was in love with in the early episodes, this Kochanski is smart and agressive--not necessarily bad characteristics, but I have a tough time imagining Lister falling for her. In some scenes the writers try to get back to her nauseatingly saccharine roots, but this is such a contrast from the rest of her behavior in Series 7 that it's a bit of a wash-out.

In fact, the only reason this series earned 3 stars from me is the pricelessly funny episode "Blue" when Rimmer is brought back to the show, first in Lister's rather steamy dream, and later in a ROTFL song celebrating the "wonderful" Rimmer.

I feel I have to put the record straight about Red Dwarf VII. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I've studied Red Dwarf very closely over the years and regard myself as a super fan and expert. Forget other peoples opinion on Red Dwarf VII - this is the TRUE reflection.

Tikka To Ride-
Fantastic production values, lovely subtle character based humour (lacking for three or four series) mixed with a fantastic, thought provoking action based plot. Emotional music is superb. Nice start. 3/4

Stoke Me A Clipper -
WOW. One of the best episodes ever. Great send-off. The characters are more REAL in this episode than they've been for a long time. Memories of 'Thank's For The Memory' with Lister being noble to Rimmer. Some superb action sequences and an breathtaking CGI funeral scene. This episode is both hilarious and sad - absolutely fantastic entertainment. Easily one of the top five episodes ever. 4/4

Ouroboros -
Hard act to follow with bringing Kochanski into the mix, but this episode achieves that goal admirably. Some fans complained about Kryten's whingeing, but I say to them - watch series three - he does the same in both 'Polymorph' and 'Bodyswap'. Nice character moments and a fantastic chase scene. Kryten is really funny in this episode. Not a classic, but this is a standard Red Dwarf episode. 2.5/4

Duct Soup -
The whole start bit with the pipes is the comedy genius that we expect and the episode has the weakest plot in the history of the show. Other than that though, this episode has a wealth of successful moments. Lister going to toilet in the shower and other jokes are very funny. Some Lovely character moments and we get to learn about Kochanski's character. Not nearly as funny as Marooned but still touching dialogue. 2/4

I can remember that night nearly a decade ago when I first saw the last few minutes of the episode "D.N.A." on my local PBS station. It started a following of the show that has seen me buy every single video released. I had been searching for a show to fill the void left by the departure of "The Young Ones" and I knew I had a winner in Red Dwarf. The show peaked during seasons 3 and 4, but slipped a little in season 5. Season 6 rebounded slightly, but not to it's previous high. Season 7 started off well enough with Tape 1, but having the hindsight of Season 8, I can say without hesitation that this tape was the deathknell of the series. Everything that made the first 4 series great, the idea of the dwarfers -vs- the universe, the friction of lister -vs- rimmer and kryten -vs- rimmer and cat -vs- rimmer plus the pure comedy that drove the series is gone with rimmer's departure and Kochanski's arrival. The tape is difficult to watch, it's that boring. The script's suck and the humor is forced. I was so glad to hear that Rimmer would be back for season 8 to make up for the abysmal season 7, but even his return is not enough to save this show which has strayed so far from it's beginning. Someone should have done us all a favor and put a bullet in the head of Red Dwarf sometime before the "Demons and Angels" episode of Season 5. Give me "Backwards" anyday. At least I have my memories and my videotapes.