Customer Reviews

RED DWARF, Series I, Byte One ~ 1988 Remastered Programs (The End / Future Echoes / Balance of Power) [VHS]

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2 star:		(2)
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Three million years away from Earth something is very wrong with the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew are missing and only one human is left aboard.

Introducing a young man by the name of Dave Lister, a dirty, lazy, beer swilling, curry eating slob of a man, a barely human space bum that makes Homer Simpson seem like Ned Flanders. He enjoys noise pollution when attempting to play his guitar and trimming his toe nails with his teeth.

Arnold Judas Rimmer is a holographic recreation of Lister's dead bunk mate. Rimmer is a loathsome, sneaky, cheating, cowardly, weasel of a man. According to Kryten, Rimmer is `the most jumped up farty little smeghead that I've ever had the misfortune to encounter !'. He enjoys making a hasty exit from dangerous situations, listening to his extensive collection of hideous hammond organ music and admiring his photo collection of 20th century telegraph poles.

The Cat is a cool, hip, unfailingly stylish, narcissistic, incredibly stupid and mind meltingly shallow creature who evolved from Dave's pet cat. He enjoys looking good, smelling nice and food that moves.

Holly is the ship's sentient computer. Holly started out the voyage with an IQ of 5000, but over the course of 3 million years computer senility has set in, big time. His IQ is now closer to 50.

Kryten (introduced in the second series) is a prissy, fussy and neurotic android rescued from the crashed Nova 5 spaceship. He is obsessed with cleaning in all its forms. For some reason he admires Dave and longs to be human like his hero.

These five unlikely characters come together to make the best and funniest space based comedy ever! If you like Science Fiction and good side splitting belly laughs then this is for you. Be prepared to shed many tears of laughter at the crew's often bizarre adventures. The first five series are by far the best. I envy all of you who have yet to see Red Dwarf you are in for a treat.

This is the funniest show! I love it! But it's more than just the best entertainment available, it's a modern legend, a love story spanning time and space. It's about the grossest slob of the universe, who may be God, trapped in a ship 3 million years from Earth with only a stylish, idiotic cat, a self-loahting hologram, an out of date maid-robot, and a talking toaster oven. Bizarre, fun, perfect, and WITTY!

This incredibly enjoyable little show from the UK is just plain fun. The creators have never lost control of the show unlike some shows (Star Trek) and the actors seem to really enjoy their roles, to the point of the upcoming Red Dwarf Movie. Please do not miss this show it is both fun and intelligent. This is why the BBC is better than ABC. ENJOY!

The beginning of Red Dwarf is The End(the pilot that helps new fans understand what the smeg is going on)and is one of the best episodes of any show ever.I've seen every episode of the show and this is still one of the top ten.Some simpler people who are amused by shiny objects will not be able to appreciate the superb writing of the show and will be distracted by the simple sets(think the first Star Wars:good script,simple effects) so they are better off trying to take an astronavigation exam,but for those of us with an IQ over 80,I highly recommend Red Dwarf.But I don't recommend it for Trekkies:this show was designed to just be fun that is essentially The Odd Couple meeting Lost In Space.The characters consist of Dave Lister-a slobby space bum and the last human being alive,Arnold J. Rimmer-his hologrammatic bunkmate and a complete git,the Cat-a highly evolved cat who is 'smooth with a capital SMOO',and their senile computer Holly. A must for any sci-fi or comedy fan,by this video NOW.

I want to say first that I am not a huge fan of British Humor. Especially Monty Python...I just don't get it. So when a friend of mine suggested that I check out this series, I was very apprehensive. At the time my friend had series 1 through 4 on video, and after watching the first tape I could not stop. I stayed up all night watching the show and when I was finished I was left feeling hungry for more. I am not going to go into detail on what the series is about, all the previous reviews did that pretty well. I just want to add that if you are looking for something wacky, fun and new to watch...PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE check this show out, you will not be disappointed. If you were like me and thought all British humor was dry and incomprehensible, you will be pleasantly surprised by RED DWARF. It is a bust a gut, laugh out loud kind of show. I own the entire series on video, including the smeg-ups and smeg-outs (bloopers) tapes, and from time to time, my friends and I gather and have a Smeg-Athon. We order curry and vindaloo, drink wicked-strength lager and have a great time watching our favorite episodes. There is a movie in the works as well and I can not wait to see what is in store next for the crew of the Dwarf.

Buy this series and ENJOY!

If you've never heard of Red Dwarf, the best way to describe it is to compare it to Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It has the same random humor and remarkable wit. This show is incredibly flexible for having only about 4 characters. If you're in the US you can probably catch it on PBS or the Sci-fi channel. Even if you're not a Sci-fi fan, (which I'm not), check this show out!

Attention, all you dwarfers out there... Can't speak personally for the other tapes, but they killed Byte 1 with this 're-mastering' kick of theirs. I love, Love, LOVE the originals, but I have to be honest and say that the re-mastered version disappointed me nearly to tears. Put me right off of buying any of the others. They cut a surprising amount of original dialogue, evidently in order to add a lot of unnecessarily lengthy CG exterior shots. These butchered scenes no longer have the flow that they used to - they've gone all wonky. They seem to have a nasty knack for cutting the little 'unnecessary' line that makes the scene funny. Also, somebody must have thought that the old footage of Holly (Used to be a killer) wasn't good enough, 'cause it's all newly-shot stuff.

They also added a lot of pointless, distracting elements to scenes that were just fine before. They changed about half of the score, too. One cumulative effect was that the "All Dead, Dave" bit, which usually has me in stitches, failed to work at all. Worst of all, they've added sound effects of Rimmer, the HOLOGRAM, crashing into things off camera. It really feels like it's something someone banged together in their basement at 2 in the morning. I hope they didn't spend any serious money on this... They've also dome something to the footage that's supposed to make it look more like film.... *shrug*

If you want to see real top-notch comedy writing and performance of which there still is no equal, I suggest you track down a copy that doesn't have the word 're-mastered' printed anywhere on the package. If you're in to a lot of truly nasty matte lines, you'll love this one. Don't say nobody warned 'ya.

-Comedy Deputy Horn (eeeeeeeExtraordin'ry!)

Its a fresh look at the end of the world! A scuzzy man forces him self to be the last humman left in the world. This is the story of how he got himself stuck with a smeg head, and a decendent of his dead cat.

I became hooked on RD when a roommate got a few episodes from the library. Then I began collecting them in order from the first episode. I'm glad I saw later installments BEFORE I saw Series 1, Episode 1 "The End". Otherwise I never would've watched at all. This tape of 3 episodes ARE ESSENTIAL for the COLLECTOR like myself who couldn't stand to NOT own them all. HOWEVER if it's laughs you're looking for "spin on" until at least Series 1, Episodes 4-6. "Confidence and Paranoia" and "ME2" are both very funny.

For anyone that does not know Red Dwarf - it is the bomb! What a intellectually halarious show. It's not played in all 50 states (it is a British comedy) so many U.S. people do not know about it. But try doing a search (using your favorite search engine) of "Red Dwarf" & you will see that you have a lot of catching up to do. Did you like the movie "Airplane"? Did you like Chevy Chase? Did you like the Beatles humor? If you are an intellectual & need desperately to "break the straightjacket" of everyday thinking - GET INTO RED DWARF. Warning: once you've started you'll never stop!!