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Red
Dwarf has been stolen and our intrepid heroes are hot on
its trail. Starbug, unable to match its speed, has
to take a short-cut to overtake it. Unfortunately this involves
plotting a course through dangerous alien territory which
is patrolled by rogue droids that despise humans. On their
journey Rimmer creates a world populated by his clones, Lister
gets married, Kryten becomes Sheriff in the Wild West, the
Cat once again becomes Duane Dibley and they meet their future
selves who want to kill them...
For
me personally Series Six of Red Dwarf was the last
decent series. It all went down hill a bit after this.
This
series starts off with Psirens, which sees Jenny Agutter,
Anita Dobson and Clare Grogan (Oops! I wrongly stated in an
earlier review for Series
Two
that she didn't appear again - well slap my wrists!), all
guest starring briefly. Lister and Co are lured into a trap
by deadly Psirens - aliens that lure the crews of spaceships
to their death by telepathic manipulation. The unwitting victims
are suckered into letting their guards down so that the Psirens
can suck their brains from their heads via a straw.
Legion
sees Starbug land on what they think is a deserted space station
in order to stock up with supplies. When they arrive they
are surprised to be greeted by an artificial life form, known
as Legion, who shows them the finest hospitality. It is only
when Lister and the gang insist on leaving that Legion reveals
he has other plans for them.
In
Gunmen of the Apocalypse Kryten contracts a deadly
virus, forcing his companions to enter his mind (via a virtual
reality programme) in order to save him. When they arrive
in Kryten's 'mind' they find themselves in a wild west town
and must fight to defeat the virus (who have taken on the
guise of a bunch of mean cowboys) in order to get home.
Emohawk
- Polymorph II sees Lister and Co landing on a planet
in order to acquire replacement engine parts from the ugly
Kinitawowi tribe. The chief of the tribe (played by, believe
it or not, the then unknown Ainsley Harriott) will give them
what they want only if Lister marries his daughter. Ace Rimmer
and Duane Dibley also return.
In
Rimmerworld, Arnold Rimmer does the dirty on his crew
mates and takes the only remaining escape pod when it looks
like Starbug is certain to be destroyed. He can't steer the
pod and ends up going through a wormhole (which causes Rimmer
to shift into a different time stream) and landing on a barren
planet. The crew of Starbug go to his rescue, but as Rimmer
is in a different time stream it is 600 years before he sees
his crewmates again.
Out
of Time sees another Starbug materialise alongside Lister's
vessel. It seems that a future crew, from 15 years in the
future, need the present day crews help... and are willing
to kill their younger selves if they don't get what they are
after.
The
episodes in Series Six all have their merits and to be honest
there isn't a bad scene in the entire series.
The
extras are pretty good on this release (certainly better than
those on series' 1-4) and equally as good as for the Series
Five release.
By
far the most entertaining extra is The Starbuggers
documentary. This 1 hour 14 minute feature takes us through
the episodes in Series Six and includes interviews with cast
and crew to give fans a glimpse behind the scenes. The scariest
moment being an interview with the guy who played Lister's
Kinitawowi bride in Emohawk - Polymorph II. He claims
he was disappointed that he didn't get to snog Craig Charles
with tongues. I don't care whether he was joking or not...
I can't get that image out of my head now! I was surprised
to learn that the majority of the script for Out of Time
was still being written as the cast were preparing to record
the episode in the studio - forcing them to read most of their
lines off autocues.
There
is also a fantastic featurette (29 minutes) on Howard Goodall
which examines his work on the show as composer. It was interesting
to learn that there were additional verses for the Red
Dwarf theme which never got used as well as the fact that
he submitted a backwards version of the theme tune to be included
in the Series
Three episode Backwards. Again, as with
previous releases, there are isolated music cues, which are
broken down into episodes.
There
are also 43 minutes of deleted scenes (all of which have text
introductions to explain why they were dropped from the final
cut); 18 minutes of 'Smeg Ups'; a very funny sketch from the
Son of Cliché radio show - which shows the early
origins of Red Dwarf. In
Return to Laredo (10 minutes) Robert
Llewellyn goes back to the wild west town where they shot
the exteriors for Gunmen
of the Apocalypse.
The
audio commentaries are as we've come to expect. There's way
too much laughing, commenting on pointless things on screen
and saying: "Oh! I'd forgotten that". In fact during
the episode Emohawk - Polymorph II there's more laughing
and long silences than there is actual commentary... almost.
However, they do joke about the fact that they are getting
on a bit and that they will look old when, and if, a movie
ever gets produced. And Danny sings the theme to the Body
Form advert but changes the lyrics to "Terror Form".
They also discuss things that the general Red Dwarf
fan won't understand at all - too many in jokes which usually
revolve around taking the Mickey out of crew members. No one
(apart from maybe the most anal of fans) will get these jokes.
And why did they seem to have a problem with Clare Grogan?
Danny also made me laugh as he continued to point out how
all of the guest stars on the show have gone on to bigger
and better things, while the main cast haven't.
There
is another fan commentary (on Gunmen of the Apocalypse)
which sadly isn't as good as the one recorded for Series Five's
Back to Reality. Only one of the fans seemed to have
bothered to do any preparation - and he got stick for it too
by the other fans.
Other
extras include raw model effects footage; trailers; and a
photo gallery.
This
is another winner of a release which Red Dwarf fans
will want to add to their collection.
Darren
Rea
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