Red Dwarf: Just The Shows (Vol. 1) (Series 1-4) [1988]

Amazon.co.uk Review

Notoriously, and entirely appropriately, the original outline for Doug Naylor and Rob Grant's comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf was sketched on the back of a beer mat. When it finally appeared on our television screens in 1988 the show had clearly stayed true to its roots, mixing jokes about excessive curry consumption with affectionate parodies of classic SF. Indeed, one of the show's most endearing and enduring features is its obvious respect for the conventions of SF, even as it gleefully subverts them. The scenario owes something to Douglas Adams's satirical Hitch-Hiker's Guide, something to The Odd Couple and a lot more to the slacker SF of John Carpenter's Dark Star. Behind the crew's constant bickering there lurks an impending sense that life, the universe and everything are all someone's idea of a terrible joke.

Later series broadened the show's horizons until at last its premise was so diluted as to be unrecognisable, but in the earlier episodes contained in this box set the comedy is witty and intimate, focusing on characters and not special effects. Slob Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is the last human alive after a radiation leak wipes out the crew of the vast mining vessel Red Dwarf (episode 1, "The End"). He bums around the spaceship with the perpetually uptight and annoyed hologram of his dead bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie, the show's greatest comedy asset) and a creature evolved from a cat (dapper Danny John Jules). They are guided rather haphazardly by Holly, the worryingly thick ship's computer (lugubrious Norman Lovett). --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews:

Just The Shows, Just Greatness.......2007-11-20

Red Dwarf is rightly considered one of the finest sitcoms ever made and these early series show why. The early set up with the crew dead, and only Dave Lister surviving as the last human with an oddball crew pushes the sitcom into a different arena but it does still boil down to the inter-personal relationships. The star characters however are genius. Rimmer is among the finest comedy creations television has ever known, and the biting irony of Holly (pre-gender swap) is a constant source of laughter.

The first two series of Red Dwarf are different from the rest, less overtly gag-intensive but with a real story that had the potential to develop into something quite interesting. This is not followed up beyond the second series and the references to Zero-G football end at that point. However, what emerges is comedy platinum.

Watching the Shows again, I find the Queeg episode to be right up there with the best that sitcom has offered and while not every episode is perfect there are many gems to be found in the early series.

Class in a glass!.......2007-05-14

Pure brilliance. I've always enjoyed Red Dwarf, and often thought I'd missed some episodes. This DVD showed me I hadn't. I had a real job tearing myself away from the TV.

The most underated comedy show ever.......2007-03-23

Red Dwarf is THE best comedy the BBC has ever produced and what did they do with it? they stuck it on BBC2.It makes my blood boil when they never mention it when they have all these Z list celeb has beens doing those lame top 100 shows where they bleat on about the same old shows,if you are a fan then I don't need to explain but if you have never seen it I will quote Kryten "If you don't gosub a program loop you will never get a subroutine" in other words "Nothing ventured nothing gained" give it a try.

I wish they would have carried it on a saved Craig Charles the indignity of appearing in Coronation Street,Lister in Corrie ! it just isn't right.

The reason that God created laughter?.......2007-03-14

Red Dwarf is one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever, it's also one of the best Sit-Coms ever. So this is top of two different genres!

My favourite Red Dwarf series' are the first four. I love the idea of these guys being on a superhuge vessel (and yet sharing a room!). This has no additional features, and although I love my commentaries and extras - this is so crammed with laughs, and so well priced that you are getting unbelievable value.

Rimmer is absolutely fantastic and played brilliantly by Chris Barrie. His relationship with Lister is one of the best TV relationships I've seen. They can't stand each other, yet they need each other. There is a lot of affection between them but they'd hate to admit it.

The Cat and of course Kryten add extra character elements to take this show from fantastic, to phenomenal!

Holly is a great parody of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and again absolutely hillarious.

If you love comedy, and love intelligent Sci-Fi then this is without doubt something you have to watch - otherwise you will live your life unfulfilled and not know what a Polymorph is!

Finally, Someone Understood why we REALLY Buy DVDs.......2007-03-01

How nice to see a DVD that gets the point! Rather than shelling out the price of a Saturday night blowout to buy the shows plus some extras that I'll watch once or twice, I end up spending the price of a chicken vindaloo, a few lagers and a good movie to get four series of some of the best British comedy ever to hit our screens.

I have already reviewed all of the four series herein so I will focus this purely on the DVD. It is just as it says on the tin - Just the Shows. And with the beginning of this wonderful saga, and the pinnacle of series three and brilliant sci-fi comedy of series four, what more could you want? Do you really want extras so much that you will pay THREE TIMES as much for some out takes and interviews?

Bravo, 10 out 10 for the content and 11 out 10 for value for money!

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