THE THREE ERAS OF RED DWARF, OR (IF YOU WANT TO GET MORE ACCURATE) THE EIGHT ERAS OF RED DWARF

Red Dwarf has to be the stand out show that has the biggest changes to it I’ve ever come across.

I’d like to write out about this because I feel its important or I feel I have to. Quite a few people have this terrible habit of stopping watching a thing, when I feel if they marched on with it, maybe they would gradually get into it, as it gradually changes and develops, and change and develop Red Dwarf certainly does. It also shifts into something different I feel when you go from series VI to VII...it’s major, major change in the writing style that is as big as the change from series II to III.

Series I and II stand very much on their own, for a number of reasons. The show at this stage is much like theatre and is wonderfully creative and talky. It’s very much all about Rimmer and Lister talking to each other...and with series two the cat is far more developed and he really becomes a great character too.

When you go from II to III...the show changes big time, its far more about getting out and about in small transport ships...its got grander set pieces and more elaborate Sci-Fi stories with special effects, which makes it a completely different thing...there’s no Norman Lovett, which was to many people their favourite character...a new holy is brought in played by Hattie Hayridge and Kryten is brought in played by Robert Llewellyn (but hasn’t quite developed fully at this stage) (he’s much more developed in series four, and fully developed when you get to series VI)

I love series VI, and it saddens me that people would abandon viewing after series II and never see series VI. Six is very, very polished and is one of my favourites along with series I and II. But, there are truly excellent episodes in III, IV and V. I love the first six series very much...but, I can understand the outrage of the change from II to III. And I can understand everything from the writer and film crews perspective for doing such big changes too.

Series VII and VIII I have a very hard time talking about, I loved the ace rimmer episode in VII, but these two series are extremely different again and I just cant quite make the adjustment on them...and to me the show wasn't as clever from this point on. It was far more slapstick. This is all the more reason though that people should keep watching, because maybe they would enjoy VII and VIII if they didn’t enjoy the second era (which I call III to VI).

1) series I and II
2) series III and VI
3) series VII and VIII

OR

1) series I
2) series II (cat more developed)
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3) series III (Kryten brought, Cat even more developed and new Holy)
4) series IV and V (Kryten and Cat get more developed)
5) series VI (Kryten and Cat fully developed)
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6) series VII (Kochanski brought into it, Rimmer leaves) (much more slapstick)
7) series VIII (Rimmer back) (again much more slapstick)
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8) Bran new Red Dwarf arriving 2009