Red Dwarf - Series 3 & 4

Amazon.com

The third series of Red Dwarf introduced some radical changes--all of them for the better--but the scripts remained as sharp and character-focused as ever, making this a fine candidate for the show's best year. Gone were the dull metallic grey sets and costumes, gone too was Norman Lovett's lugubrious Holly, replaced now by comedienne Hattie Hayridge, who had previously played Hilly in the Series 2 episode "Parallel Universe". New this year were custom-made costumes, more elaborate sets, the zippy pea-green Starbug, bigger special effects and the wholly admirable Robert Llewellyn as Kryten. The benefits of the show's changes are apparent from the outset, with the mind-bending hilarity of "Backwards," in which Kryten and Rimmer establish themselves as a forward-talking double-act on a reverse Earth. After a modest two-person episode that sees Rimmer and Lister "Marooned", comes one of the Dwarf's most beloved episodes, "Polymorph." Here is the ensemble working at its best, as each character unwittingly has their strongest emotion sucked out of them. Lister loses his fear, Cat his vanity, Kryten his reserve, and Rimmer his anger ("Chameleonic Life-Forms. No Thanks"). "Body Swap" sees Lister and Rimmer involved in a bizarre attempt to prevent the ship from self-destructing. "Timeslides" delves deep into Rimmer's psyche as the boys journey haphazardly through history. Finally, "The Last Day" shows how completely Kryten has been adopted as a crewmember, when his replacement Hudzen unexpectedly shows up.

By the end of its fourth year, Red Dwarf had completed its metamorphosis from a modest studio-bound sitcom with a futuristic premise to a full-blown science-fiction series, complete with a relatively lavish (by BBC standards) special-effects budget, more impressive sets, and more location shooting. Despite the heavier emphasis on sci-fi, the character-based comedy remained as sharp as ever. Witness the Cat's reaction to Lister's pus-filled exploding head; Kryten's devastatingly sarcastic defense of Rimmer; or the classic scene that opens the series, Lister teaching Kryten to lie. In "Camille," Robert Llewellyn's real-life wife plays a female mechanoid who transforms into something else entirely, as does the episode, which by the end becomes a delightful skit on Casablanca. "DNA" is heavily sci-fi, with lots of techno-speak about a matter transmogrifier and a RoboCop homage--but in typical Dwarf fashion, turns out to be all about curry. "Justice" sees Rimmer on trial for the murder of the entire crew, while Lister attempts to evade a psychotic cyborg. Holly gets her IQ back in "White Hole," but wastes time debating bread products with the toaster. "Dimension Jump" introduces dashing doppelganger Ace Rimmer--he was to return in later series, with diminishingly funny results. Here his appearance is all the better for its apparent improbability. Finally, "Meltdown" goes on location (to a park in North London) where waxdroids of historical characters (played by a miscellaneous selection of cheesy look-alikes) are at war. Only intermittently successful, this episode is really memorable for Chris Barrie's tour-de-force performance as Rimmer becomes a crazed, Patton-esque general. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews:

i love red dwarf!.......2007-01-05

this applies to all red dwarf seasons, i know that some say that 1 season is better than another, but i just look at it as one big hilarous movie!

This smeggin' rocks!.......2005-08-12

I was so excited to find Red Dwarf on DVD!! The bonus material is awesome and some worth viewing several times. Season three sees the entrance of Kryten as a permenant character and makes for an interesting change. Opening with the ultimate question is one of the best scenes of Red Dwarf. And let's not forget how catchy the "Ohm" song is. Season four takes up another level with our first introduction to Ace Rimmer. Kryten falls in love, we discover the white holes and Talkie the Toast just wants to make toast. I can't wait until I get season 5 & 6!

red dwarf.......2004-09-20

I love this! Ace Rimmer arives from another dimension, Kryten turns in to a human, a dangerous creature breaks in to red dwarf, Lister is forced to eat dog food, and red dwarf is allost sucked in to a white hole. The bonus features are great! Especialy the 'Backwards, Forwards'. This is one of the best DVDs I have EVER seen!

YEA FINALY!.......2004-04-07

I've watche Red Dwarf my whole life (literaly since i was 8). And I've always been stuck with my duped from my aunt's recorded off PBS tapes. The diffrence in picture quality is amazing. I especially like the extra features. You can watch everyting from "smeg ups" to documentarys. each dvd has a diffrent documentry. And, if you're a real Red Dwarf freak, you can watch the episodes with comentarys by the actors. One thing I really like is that these DVDs have the option to view the extra features in an animated menu or a text menu. The first two DVDs only had an animated menu, which was quite frustrating to nagivate.

A Smegging Cool Birthday Present.......2004-03-17

One of my first birthday presents to arrive this was a copy of the third and fourth seasons of Red Dwarf on DVD. Awwww yeah!

I started watching Season Three with actor commentaries. It's hilarious! And of course, I was inspired once again to create a Red Dwarf T-shirt from the "Polymorph" episode featuring two hilarious phrases. Gonna have to order me a copy of that shirt sometime soon.

Amazon.com

By the end of this fourth year, Red Dwarf had completed its metamorphosis from a modest studio-bound sitcom with a futuristic premise to a full-blown science-fiction series, complete with a relatively lavish (by BBC standards) special-effects budget, more impressive sets, and more location shooting. Despite the heavier emphasis on sci-fi, the character-based comedy remained as sharp as ever. Witness the Cat's reaction to Lister's pus-filled exploding head; Kryten's devastatingly sarcastic defense of Rimmer; or the classic scene that opens the series, Lister teaching Kryten to lie.

In "Camille," Robert Llewellyn's real-life wife plays a female mechanoid who transforms into something else entirely, as does the episode, which by the end becomes a delightful skit on Casablanca. "DNA" is heavily sci-fi, with lots of techno-speak about a matter transmogrifier and a RoboCop homage--but in typical Dwarf fashion, turns out to be all about curry. "Justice" sees Rimmer on trial for the murder of the entire crew, while Lister attempts to evade a psychotic cyborg. Holly gets her IQ back in "White Hole," but wastes time debating bread products with the toaster. "Dimension Jump" introduces dashing doppelganger Ace Rimmer--he was to return in later series, with diminishingly funny results. Here his appearance is all the better for its apparent improbability. Finally, "Meltdown" goes on location (to a park in North London) where waxdroids of historical characters (played by a miscellaneous selection of cheesy look-alikes) are at war. Only intermittently successful, this episode is really memorable for Chris Barrie's tour-de-force performance as Rimmer becomes a crazed, Patton-esque general. --Mark Walker

Description

Boldly going where no one in their right mind would ever go, this hilarious, cult Sci Fi spoof takes you on a joyride three million years into the future. Those ubiquitous anti-heroes of space travel - Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten - are following up their spectacularly successful series I & II DVD's. In series IV, Ace Rimmer arrives from an alternate dimension, Kryten falls in love and Lister's curry tries to kill him in six more slices of classic Red Dwarf chaos.

Customer Reviews:

Slightly slip........2007-05-15

This season/series was loosing it's way. If you like British silly sci-fi comedy, you will love this series! The early and the later seasons were the best. Some of the middle seasons had good episodes, but not all of episodes were good. I own all of the series and can't wait for the movie.

red dwarf-series 1thru 4.......2007-04-04

love the dvd's of Red Dwarf, I buy them for my son, got hooked on the show a few years ago, really like the sub title options so I can tell what "them brits" are saying

Four 4 IV.......2006-10-05

Series 4 of Red Dwarf, though just as colourful and watchable, isn't one of my favourite series. The dialogue isn't as punchy, the acting's a little hammier at times, plus there's hardly as much character development as there was in the first three series. The comic and dramatic timing seems to be rushed in a few places too. It doesn't matter too much, I can watch these episodes again and again, it's just not the series I'll usually reach for if I'd like to watch some Red Dwarf.

In this series of the sci-fi comedy show, space slob Lister, stiff and selfish hologram Rimmer, vainglorious Cat and the neurotic Kryten the mechanoid continue to roam the galaxy, stopping at something interesting in each and every story.

Here's a rundown of the six episodes of the series:

"Camille" sees Kryten discovering a marooned spaceship and a female mechanoid, the same type as himself, named Camille. He quickly falls in love, and as Camille is taken on board Red Dwarf, so do the rest of the crew. A human, a hologram and a cat falling in love with a female mechanoid? What on Earth do THEY see in her?

Another spacecraft floats their way in "DNA". This one is abandoned, and tangled up in strange grows. A three headed skeleton is discovered, a skeleton that was once human. Something has gone wrong here, and thanks to the Cat, something else will go wrong too, something to do with the genetic structure of the crew...

"Justice" is probably one of my favorites in this series. We see Lister sick with space mumps, we see Rimmer put on trial for accidentally killing the original Red Dwarf crew 3 million years ago, and we get to see some fancy spaceboots that walk by themselves. There's all that, and a fair bit more, set around a space-prison that does to the criminal whatever crime they choose to commit there.

A "White Hole", according to the fourth episode, is the opposite of a black hole. It spits out time and space. The Red Dwarf passes one in this story, and leads to adventure with talking toasters, "interplanetary" pool, silly distortions in time and narrative and a smart Holly the computer!

"Dimension Jump" introduces a character who'd go on to be quite popular among some fans, Ace Rimmer, an alternate dimension version of the Red Dwarf's Rimmer. Unlike the Rimmer we know, Ace is a friendly, heroic, hansome fellow, full of talent and wit. What a guy, that's all I can say!

"Meltdown", according to the commentary and documentary on the DVD, isn't very popular with fans, though all the cast and production team like it. I like it too, actually, another of my favorites in the series. It's set on a planet of "wax droids", robots who look like famous figures in history. 3 million years of neglect has left their programming decayed, and the "villain" droids have waged war on the "heroes". It is up to Rimmer to save the "heroes", or so he thinks, and becomes their general. There are some very silly moments in this. Lots of things and people getting blown up, and something of a message at the end.

The special features on the Red Dwarf DVDs get better and better, I reckon. Series 4, along with being really well put together, comes with a whole stack of goodies. There are the commentaries, which are always fun to put on, a making of documentary, the deleted scenes, the outtakes (smeg ups), a couple of original television trailers from the 1990s, model shots and a photo gallery. There's also a couple of talking book chapters (read by Chris Barrie, who plays Rimmer), and the background music from the show which you can play on cue just by selecting the track with your remote (including the theme song, the theme song played on Hammond organ, and the theme song sung by an Elvis impersonator). There's also two "clip show" featurettes, one featuring clips to do with love, and the other full of clips from Ace Rimmer adventures, that particular featurette "hosted" by Holly. There's a couple of easter eggs too, of which I've found one so far (watch out for the scutter holding the videotape in a hallway and press ENTER on your remote as you see him). I think the biggest treat, though, is an episode of the British cooking series "Can't Cook, Won't Cook" called "Can't Smeg Won't Smeg". As the title suggests, it has a Red Dwarf theme. It features the main cast in character (from Series 7 or 8, I think) and is a pretty silly affair. They divide into two teams and try to cook the best dish, but there's a lot of cheating and nonsense that goes on in between, which infuriates the host. Fun stuff, as good as an episode, I think.

A reasonable addition to the series, and though it's not my favorite, has quite a few laughs and will sit very nicely in most any DVD collection. Recommended for sci-fi fans, lovers of comedy and all things British.

Essential for Fans.......2006-02-25

I imagine if you are browsing for this product, you already have a pretty good idea what Red Dwarf is all about, and probably have already seen the episodes. What I love is the two-hour documentary about the process that went into creating the season (each of the DVDs have this content) ... what was going on at the BBC, what the producers, director and writers struggled with in terms of politics, budget and overall direction of the series. Also, since I'm in the US and don't watch any other BBC shows, its interesting to learn about some of the guest actors and how they were adored by the cast prior to their appearance on the show. As a true fan this is the behind the scenes content that I crave. Sigh. How I wish they were still making new Red Dwarf episodes!

RED DWARF - WAY COOL, OF COURSE.......2005-10-16

One of the tighter seasons - cast really revelling in their individual roles, and possibly the second funniest (after Season 5).

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