Resident smeg-head Paul Griggs reviews RED DWARF Series III on DVD

By rights, Red Dwarf should never have happened. Barely scraping a commission for its first series (a present from a departing BBC 2 controller to his successor) and a second because there was nothing to replace it. How on earth did it manage to pull off a third miracle? Who knows? Not the cast! Looking back they seemed resigned to the cancellation of the show.

But survive it did, and series three of Red Dwarf saw the show come into its own, building on its unique identity as the cult science-fiction comedy that everyone watched and became a staple of the BBC 2 schedule for another five series.

From the very first moment of the hard-rocking theme accompanying a montage sequence of fantastically mind-blowing images from the forthcoming series, you knew that this was a whole new experience.

Gone was the battleship grey corridors and in came the design sensibilities of the late Mel Bibby (Subject of a poignant tribute on the bonus disc) making the look less like Blakes’ 7 and more like “Alien”. Similarly gone were the beige uniforms and awful ‘London Jets’ T-shirts to be replaced by much more colourful and interesting outfits including Rimmer’s ‘Captain Emerald’ uniform and Lister’s soon to be de rigeur leather jacket and hat.

Add the arrival of Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) as a regular and a head-sex change operation for Holly (Hattie Hayridge) shaking up the mix of characters for the better, not to mention the introduction of the far superior (visually and practically) Starbug shuttle-craft and you suffer a virtual mental meltdown trying to take in just how ‘good’ everything looks and feels!

And then they crash land on an alternate reality Earth where time goes backwards…..

Within five minutes of the opening of the series and it’s already hit the pinnacle of its existence and it doesn’t come down for the rest of the series. Red Dwarf III is, quite simply, the finest set of episodes that this group of writers, mummers and techies ever managed to put together.

Shamelessly cribbing most of their high-concepts from the greatest science-fiction films and literature in existence, Red Dwarf III takes us on journeys backwards and forwards through time and into each others bodies, isolating crew members in ridiculous situations where they must bond to survive, puts them up against ravening shape-changing monsters and ponders the natures of ourselves, our realities and our beliefs with a set of fantastically well-written characters. To this day I defy anyone to dismiss the ‘Boyz from the Dwarf’ as a set of one-note caricatures.

This two disc DVD sees BBC Worldwide and Grant Naylor Productions building on the already impressive job done with the Series I and II DVD’s. Celebrating and revisiting their finest and not-so-finest moments in revealing, but none-to-serious, commentary and interview material the Red Dwarf III experience is revealed as a more harmonious time than the first two series.

Highlights of the packed bonus disc have to include the option to rewatch “Backwards” forwards, revealing exactly what is properly reversed footage and what is just vaguely backwards sounding gibberish, and Hattie Hayridge’s video diary of the ‘Dimension Jump X’ convention. Self-indulgent it may be, but fun nonetheless.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll be sick at the sight of Craig Charles eating dog-food. “Break out the puncture repair kit. I’m Alive!!!”