Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast

By series four Red Dwarf was undergoing something of a renaissance, getting more popular by the series, more viewers meant bigger budget and better special effects, in fact some of the series best episodes appear in season IV.

The plot has the four “man” crew of the Red Dwarf Deep Space Mining Ship stuck three million years in the future with no way of knowing whether the Earth still exists and even less chance of getting there. The only human is superslob Dave Lister (Craig Charles) and there is Hologram Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) an anally retentive, pedantic and very possibly insane sex starved figure with a major Napoleon complex. Thirdly there is the Cat (Danny John-Jules) a humanoid descended from the ships cat (Hang on a minute, does that mean somebody had sex with…no it doesn’t bear thinking about), the Cat, incredibly vain and self obsessed (How am I lookin’ – I’m lookin fine) is also the ship’s navigator. Finally there is Kryten a robot cleaning mechanoid with a head shaped like a novelty condom whom the boys have rescued from a dying ship.

Series IV (6 episodes) really belongs to Kryten as he seeks to break out of his unbelievably prissy ways and even falling in love in the episode Camille. Red Dwarf is hilarious, full of belly laughs and clever situations, highlights include the episodes DNA which sees Kryten assume human form and Lister’s beloved curry turn into a rampaging monster while the episode White Hole belongs to ships computer Hilly (Hattie Hayridge) who, normally dense, manages to gain a genius IQ. Best of all though is the episode Dimension Jump. This introduces us to Rimmer’s altar ego from another dimension, Ace is everything Arnold isn’t, dashing, brave, a hit with the ladies). A series then that’s not to be missed basically.

EXTRAS A bumper package for sure, a whole disc of them in fact, including a typically funny commentary from the cast, a 75 minute talking heads heavy documentary about the making of the series, numerous deleted scenes (left out mostly for reasons of running time), a bloopers reel entitled Smeg Ups, an overview of the life of Ace Rimmer, a half hour feature from Comic Relief featuring the cast appearing in character on cookery show Can’t Cook Won’t Cook hosted by Ainsley Harriott (here called Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg), a chance to see raw FX footage, isolated music cues. There are also talking book chapters, a photo gallery and various weblinks as well as a natty little collectors booklet. Also watch out for the Easter Eggs.