Red Dwarf series 1 - 4

===========

~Starring~
Dave Lister.
(Craig Charles).
Begins his journey as a tone deaf, idle, useless, curry loving, carefree or should that be careless, scruffy slob.
But his character develops

Arnold J Rimmer.
(Chris Barrie)
Arnie is the most cowardly, back stabbing, regimented, and pathetic life form to ever call itself human. But Arnie, or big man to his friends, has the biggest transformation of them all because he ends up becoming Ace Rimmer the multiverses greatest hero, what a guy!

Cat.
(Danny John-Jules)
The offspring of an idiot and a cripple, he is the most vain creature in all of the multiverses.
His character never really changes.
Dwayne Dibbley.
Cats alter ego, the geakiest, (if there is such a word) squarest being to ever exist. With Zero fashion sense and teeth which are a cross between Alan Carr and Janet st Porter.

Holly - Computer.
Once had an IQ of 6000 but after 3 million years alone has 'gone a bit funny'. Best one liner was "IQ of 6000 isn't that much; it's about the same as 6000 PE teachers".

No Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) in series 1.

Introduction: *****************************===
Dave Lister is stuck on Mimas and he just wants to get home to Earth, so he enlists aboard the Red Dwarf little realising it will not reach earth for another 5 years.
Dave smuggles a cat aboard the ship but is found out and put into "stasis" for refusing to surrender his cat for dissection.
Whilst in stasis there is a radiation leak which kills all of the remaining crew.
The computer keeps Dave in stasis for 3 million years until the radiation levels are safe for him to emerge.
The ships computer 'Holly' creates a hologram to keep him company and sane. It is the one person in all the Universe Dave hates Arnold J Rimmer.
Dave's cat survived in a sealed hold and many many generations later the cat's species representative emerges to join the motley crew.
Not in series 1 but later on is (Kryten who is rescued from a crashed spaceship and the crazy crew is all together hopelessly flying through the universe).

Series 1 *****************************

1. ~The End~
Everybody's dead Dave!
Here we meet the crew, then watch them die and so end up with the terrible trio of Lister, Rimmer and Cat.
Dave wont give up his kitten, ends up in suspended animation whilst everybody else is killed by a radiation leak from a drive plate that Rimmer should have fixed, properly.
Oh and there's Holly a slightly dopey ship computer with the IQ of 6000, equivalent to 6000 PE Teachers!

2. ~Future Echoes~
The crew see 'future echoes of themselves. Rimmer sees Dave blown to bits whilst Dave sees himself with 2 babies.
Dave tries to make sure what is about to happen hasn't happened yet and will not happen if he can help it, get it? Clear as a conundrum.
'How old did I look just before I was blown to bits'?
'How old are you now'?
'35, How old did I look'?
'Erm..... Mid thirties'!

3. ~Balance of Power~
Lister wants to go on a date with navigation officer Kristine Kochanski, but with her being dead the only way is for Rimmer to go 'off line' whilst Kochanski comes 'online'.
Rimmer's refuses as the senior officer and so Lister decides to do a cooking exam so he can outrank Rimmer.

4. ~Waiting for God~
Should have been entitled, "Cloister the stupid". Lister learns that HE is the mythical god of Cat's people otherwise known as "Cloister the stupid".
Cat was the offspring of a cripple and an idiot!
Meanwhile Arnie brings on board which he thinks is an Alien space craft but is in fact an old garbage capsule.
He calls his Aliens the "Quagaars.".

5. ~Confidence and Paranoia~
Whilst searching the ship for Kochanski's hologram disc, Lister mistakenly enters a contaminated area of Red Dwarf. After it raining fish and the mayor of Norway self combusting in the night, the crew wake up to two very unwelcome guests. Confidence and Paranoia.

6. ~Me2~
The title should be read as 'Me 'squared'.
Arnie manages to get two versions of himself up and running with disastrous result.
Don't mention guspachio soup!

Series 2 *****************************
Introduction:
The writers Rob Grant & Doug Naylor invented The 'Blue Midget' Shuttle to ferry the crew too and from planets and other spaceships in order to broaden the possible comedic scenarios.

Episodes *****************************

7. ~Kryten~
Kryten make his appearance but it is not THE Kryten that will eventually stay with the crew.
Here he is played by David Ross but later of course by Robert Llewellyn.
The Dwarfer pickup an SOS call from a crashed spaceship, Nova 5, and all put on their best togs to go and meet the ladies that need rescuing.
Unfortunately they find a 'Norman Bates' style robot serving tea to 3 skeletons.
Packed with a multitude of sexist jokes and gibes at each other.
Kryten joins the crew and for a while is Rimmers slave.

8. ~Better Than Life~
The mail arrives via a pod that has been chase the ship for millions of years. Dave's won the Lottery but it's too late now.
Included in the post in the total-immersion computer game called "Better than Life".
Highly addictive and outlawed in some universes the boys can't wait to play!
They can have all their wishes granted but Rimmer ends up ruining all for them.

9. ~Thanks for the Memory~
Its Rimmers 'Deathday' and the boys set about celebrating only to wake up 4 days later to find bizarre things have happened.
A 'who-dun-what' with clues to unravel and who broke Daves foot?

10. ~Stasis Leak~
There's a stasis leak on floor 16 allowing the crew to go back in time to 3 weeks before the radiation leak happened on the ship. They try to change history but it all goes awry with the usual consequences.

11. ~Queeg~
The boys keep belittling Holly and when he Holly goes off line for a bit and his back up takes over. His back up is called 'Queeg' and soon he wants to stay 'online' so he and holly battle it out for supremacy.
Better the devil you know!

12. ~Parallel Universe~
The crew test out Hollies new invention, 'the holly hop drive' which should take them back in time 3 million years. It works ! But it only takes them back 3 million years exactly where they are in space now!!!
However it slips them dimensionally into a parallel universe and here they meet female versions of themselves with hilarious results.
The funniest being cat meeting his opposite number a scruffy flea ridden dog.

Series 3:
*******
saw changes to the title sequence which was more upbeat and modern. Also at this time the now recognisable Red Dwarf Logo was formally introduced and the uniforms had a more futuristic feel.

The Blue Midget of series 2 was dropped and it was now known as "Starbug".

Kryten was now a main character in the show but the original actor David Ross was unavailable to continue to play him and Robert Llewellyn stepped in, permanently.
Another change was Holly changed from Norman Lovett to be replaced by Hattie Hayridge.
Norman would return for series 7 and 8.

Episodes *****************************
13. ~ Backwards~
One of my personal favourite, Rimmer takes Kryten on a flying lesson in Starbug but they fall into a black hole and end up in another universe where time moves backwards.
They make a living as the Backward Brothers, with hilarious results.

14. ~ Marooned~
Holly has to navigate through 5 black holes and so the crew leave Red Dwarf. However Lister and Rimmer crash on an asteroid and Lister secretly burns all of Rimmers prized positions and has a choice of either dog food or a pot noodle. He chooses the dog food!
Hint next time perhaps someone should clean the bits (5 specs) off of Holly's screen.

15. ~ Polymorph~
The guys tangle with a shape changer called a polymorph. It's hungry and the boys don't want to be sucked so they load up and go hunting for it, watch out for the vending machine.

16. ~ Bodyswap~
Very funny one this one, basically Rimmer and Lister swap bodies so that militaristic Arnie can get Lister into shape.
But Rimmer finds having a body is too much to handle and drinks and eats himself to the point where Lister gains a stone and an extra spare tyre.

17. ~ Timeslides~
Not one of their best sketches this one, Kryten is developing photos when he notices that the photos are 'alive' and the crew can get inside them to go back in time and change things. As you might expect thing don't go quite to plan.

18. ~ The Last Day~
Kryten must die!
Kryten has reached his sell by date and a super strong android has been chasing him down to ensure his destruction and replacement. The boys have a party and then decide to stand up for Kryten.

Series 4:
*******
Episodes *****************************
19. ~ Camille~
Camille is a pleasure gelf, genetically altered to appear to you as you perfect partner. All things to all men comes to mind.
But Kryten tells her to be herself, she turns out to actually look like something Moby Dick might have sneezed out!
Then her partner comes looking for her with a cure and Kryten must let her go if he really loves her.
This episode is has a bit of Casablanca about it.

20. ~ DNA~
This is the episode with the Curry monster.
The dwarf docks with an adrift alien spaceship and the crew go aboard. Told to "touch nothing"!, the Cat ends up turning Dave into a hamster, a chicken and then back to himself. Kryten gets made human and then a curry monster from a Vindaloo stain on Daves shirt is brought to life with hilarious results.

21. ~ Justice~
The guys come across a life pod drifting in space and fear the frozen occupant might be a deranged killer bound for Justice World, so they decide to take the pod there themselves.
When they arrive Rimmer is found guilty of the murders of the entire Red Dwarf crew.
The boys must, 'reluctantly' fight to clear Rimmers name.
Although he cat wants to go and leave him there!

22. ~ White Hole~
Holly has her I.Q restored but accidentally it doubles to 12,000 instead of the 6,000 she should have. This has the unexpected effect of shortening her life runtime!
She then gets into a hilarious explanation with Rimmer explaining what is wrong, which he finally gets and panics to switch her off.
The boys must find away to help her get back to normal, well her normal.

23. ~ Dimension Jump~
ENTER OUR HERO "ACE"
We get to meet Ace Rimmer (WHAT A GUY!) as his ship, firstly crashes into Starbug, helps repair the ship and then save the crew, all whilst having a broken arm.
His disappointment with 'our' Rimmer is something to behold.
'Our Rimmer tries to do away with him but come on this is Ace.
WHAT A GUY!
He leaves to explore other dimensions with those immortal words...
SMOKE ME A KIPPER, I'LL BE BACK FOR BREAKFAST.

24. ~ Meltdown~
The wax droid planet is one of my favourite episodes.
The crew find and repair a 'Matter paddle' and when the each hold on they get transported to the nearest planet with life on it.
Unfortunately the wax droid on the planet they land are at war and Hitler wants the paddle for himself.
Rimmer takes charge and is soon telling Mother Teresa to "give me 50 push ups, you Mother"!
Things don't end well for the droids.

~DVD Features~
******************
Language English, oh and Esperanto
Available Audio Tracks: Dolby Digital Stereo
Sub Titles: English
Hearing Impaired: English
Region: Region 2
Number of discs: 4
Classification: 12
ASIN: B00029QXBE
Amazon Price: £30.98
Run Time: 720 minutes

No real extras with these four discs just usual subtitle and chapter selections.
Overall the both discs are very watchable and worth every penny. The four series are superb and hilariously funny to watch.
The BBC have outdone themselves with this series and putting it to DVD is just brilliant.
The characters develop before your very eyes as the series progress and the humour just keeps on getting funnier.
Sit back and enjoy these 24 episodes.

Greg.

Summary: SIMPLY ENJOY.