Happy 35th Birthday Red Dwarf!

A 35th anniversary tribute to Red Dwarf. Actually recorded for the 30th anniversary tribute 5 years ago, but I never blogged it on the site, so some justification for putting it up today!

As a show, it was a real game changer for me, alongside Star Trek The Next Generation, providing different ways in which the future could go and highlighting some real fun with the concepts. Brilliantly funny scripts and a mixture of pathos and whackiness to the characters that really helped the show work. So many great moments, with Backwards and Legion being my two favourite episodes. All without a hint of aliens, just showing some ways in which society could go.

It also managed to be a show with two non-white leads, a feat at the time. Not perfect in being representative, as with the definite lack of female parts) but that would have changed the dynamic. I enjoyed the swap over from Rimmer to Kochanski in later series, but that didn’t work for everyone.

Sadly, it seems to have had it’s day. Series 12 felt totally on par with the classic episodes, and I think the feature length episodes around the society evolved from cats was a perfect finish if nothing else gets made, showing us life still goes on, and goes on with giving us a laugh!