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» Wednesday, July 27, 2005

A hilarious post title

First of all, however, an admission: in story terms, VII shits on VIII by a mile. It's hard to deny this. Just take the first three episodes: Tikka, Stoke, and Ouroboros - all great ideas for a story. Tikka is an interesting alterate history/screwed-up timelines story, Stoke is an intriguing and meaningful way of writing a loved character out, and Ouroboros has oodles of Dwarf mythology revealed. Compare this with with a frankly flabby opening three-parter (which admittedly has an intriguing premise), with loads of padding, and which has the feel of a sketch-show at times. And VII has no equivalent of Pete, the story of which can be summed up as "A dinosaur eats some food and shits everywhere". Cassandra is the best of a bad lot plot-wise - and let's not pretend that it isn't just a reheated Future Echoes.

John Hoare @ 22:15 | Responses (4) | » Read More...

» Tuesday, July 26, 2005

And another

But the problem is - when I sit down to watch the first three eps of VII, I don't find myself laughing very much. BITR, for all its problems, for all the padding, dodgy plotting, and generally embarassing moments, makes me laugh rather a lot more than Tikka, Stoke, or Ouroboros ever have. And that's the main reason I watch Red Dwarf - it's a comedy show, and I sit there demanding to be amused.

John Hoare @ 22:15 | Responses (4) | » Read More...

And Yet another

But what's this? I can hear some of you saying (well, shouting) now that the jokes in VIII were terrible. Oh, agreed, some of them are awful. "Yeah, lemonade in a really large scotch" springs to mind. There's also the problem of over-explaining the joke, which really does destroy a lot of pretty funny gags. For instance:

John Hoare @ 22:15 | Responses (4) | » Read More...