DVD Reviews: Red Dwarf Season II

In the past sci-fi comedies have always been a failure, but Red Dwarf is about the only series that has managed to do well, there are year round conventions all over the world and in fact they are making a movie as we speak.  Red Dwarf would have to be the one of the most popular British comedies around and even a dedicated British comedy hater like myself found Red Dwarf to be one of the best comedy series of all time. 

At the start of every episode Holly, the super computer of the mining ship Red Dwarf comes on screen and gives you the plot so far, and then a little intro to the episode ahead.  The story only has four main characters, Holly, Dave Lister - the only surviving human aboard, Arnold Rimmer - the holographic reincarnation of Lister's dead room mate, and of course who could forget The Cat.  The Cat is actually the only reason Lister is still alive, upon boarding Red Dwarf Lister brought on a pet cat, Lister is thrown into suspended animation for two weeks as punishment.  The only problem is that the entire crew dies before anyone can set him free, so millions of years later when Lister is finally let out, he finds everyone dead and his pet cat's ancestors have evolved into humanoid form and they’re very vain, in one of the episode the cat needs some help prying himself away from a mirror he looks that good. 

Lister would have to be the most disgusting man well, in the universe and by anyone’s standards his best cloths consist of a curry stained t-shirt and a black pair of jeans with a huge iron hole in the butt.  On the other hand Rimmer, the holographic personnel of the ship is neat, tidy and a bit of a fool, he has continuously managed to fail pretty much every test he has gone for and remains to be an ensign of the mining corporation.  You will find that in every episode there will be some mention of the word smeg, the main problem with this word is that it is an abbreviation of another, the only thing I can say if you don’t know what this means, is ask someone else it’s too rude for me to explain.  Rimmer is always the butt of the jokes, The Cat and Lister are forever ganging up on him and picking on the pour guy, but none of this fazes old Rimmer for he knows that he is better than everyone else regardless of how much a loser he is.   

You really should check out the Red Dwarf series, it sure is a must see, even to see whether or not you're into this type of comedy.  The comedy in the series is always in good taste and very light there is never anything too involved or thinky for you.  Everything is basically spelled out for you and with a light hearted feel throughout Red Dwarf is a pleasure to watch.  Extras are so very funny they include outtakes what they like to call smeg ups, cast commentary, deleted scenes which can be a bit boring and frustrating they sometimes only add a few seconds to the scenes, original trailer, Doug Naylor interview.   

Alternate personalities this is where you get to meet all the different alter egos that the crew from the Red Dwarf encounter, from the alternate universes where they are women to the point where a monster steals their cool.  The extras also have the A-Z’s of Red Dwarf this is a short clip on every thing from Arnold Rimmer clips to Jozxyqk the sound a cat makes when your sexual organs are trapped in something to Zat’s all folks.  The extras just go on and on with special raw features, photo galleries, music cues and more importantly the full feature song tongue tied, but if you look hard enough you will find some hidden extras or what we like to call Easter eggs.  The Extras just keep on rockin’ and of course the show is a classic forever more.