I'm not entirely certain how best to describe how terrible this is. It's eye-wateringly bad. I'm not quite certian where I got the impression it wuld be good but it is still a massive let down.

Anyone else catch it?

 

First part wasn't bad, particularly if you're a fan and just want a little new Red Dwarf, but...

Spoiler

I tried to strangle my monitor when they got to the "real world". Someone needs to be anally raped for that.

Lost the stream before I finished the second part. Probably will finish watching tomorrow.

 

Ok so its not just me.
This season sucks badly.

They needlessly prettied up the set. I get that they probably destroyed the old sets but they redesigned the sets as high tech now... Why?

The dingy look was part of the shows charms. Nothing was professional and high end in that version of the show. It reflected on the general dingy sloppiness of the redneck idiots on the ship. It was brilliant before...

First scenes I saw of the ship now, I immediately thought Star trek with a little serenity thrown in for the hell of it.

It shows that they spent more time on design than plot.

Spoiler

I swear when those kids came on the bus I could practically predict their lines. This whole Quest to get another season plot is the worst thing to come out of the show.

And I love that series.

Honestly I miss the audience laughter too. Its been a part of the series for so long when something funny happens now without it the humor seems diminished.

 

God, I felt this way too.

It really, really does. There's something missing without a laugh track; it's not really Red Dwarf without it. I rarely watch programs on TV anymore; I usually catch them online later in the week through QSS, so I was ... well, I won't say "fortunate", because it wasn't really all that well done... to watch part of Back to Earth with a fan-dubbed laugh track. Even though it wasn't that great of an editing job, the mere inclusion of canned laughter suddenly made the jokes a bit funnier, and I think it would have been a lot better if the fan had managed to balance the audio levels correctly to not have the laughter overriding the next bits of dialogue.

I'll probably end up watching the series just because it bears the Red Dwarf name. I'm enough of a consumer whore that I'll fall into brand loyalty for this series. But based on the two episodes I've seen so far, I highly doubt I'll enjoy the rest of the series as much as I enjoyed previous ones.

 

Exactly, I get that some people don't like it cause it's like peer pressure comedy, but I enjoy it with the right show. Especially foreign comedies that have humor so over the top that it borders on dumb.

Without it I feel like I'm not even sure if its funny or just foreign to me. I don't like second guessing my laughs.

Ruins the experience.

Although I did enjoy the season prior to the back to earth one. And I think that had no laugh track too...

Maybe the writing is just getting stale.

 

I cringed through every lame, clichéd "fish out of water" joke, but for some reason I enjoyed the ending. It just felt like that was the right way to end the show, with Lister continuing his lifelong pursuit of Kochanski.

 

I loved it. That may be because I'm a die-hard fan of Red Dwarf who's just happy to get anything after ten years of silence, but I don't see it being as bad as some people insist it is. Just make sure you watch all three parts, because the second is really weak without the resolution of the third. And if you can, try and watch them all back to back, without ad breaks. Back to Earth really should have been shown as a TV movie rather than a three part mini series.

They did screw up a little by not having a laugh track. It's not that you can't have funny jokes without one - The Simpsons manages it well enough - but more that it was part of the series' charm. Maybe what they should've done was dub laughs just for the parts set on board Red Dwarf? Having no laugh track in the 'real' world would've added to the illusion that Red Dwarf was a TV show and that they were in the real world now.

Now I just hope they get a season XI out of it.

 

The end wasn't bad but this entire story arc kind of takes away from Red dwarf. I've been watching hte show since I was 9 on those countless pbs marathons that they had going on. I watched every and all episodes of the show over and over whenever I could. It was an event to look forward to.

But still it felt like this was an inside joke story arc. That if you were in the cast and crew of Red dwarf, you would enjoy it as you got all the smaller refrences, but from a viewer stand point I wasn't feeling it.

The ending was red dwarf esque, so I can't fault that.

I still wanna know what happened in that mirror universe where rimmer is trying to escape.

I doubt they'll clear that up.

 

you lived next to KRYTEN!!!

Suddenly I respect you as a person! Not just as a nameless poster with possible girl parts!

 

kryten killed your brothers guinea pig!

Awesome!