Red Dwarf V is, of course, the 5th series of the successful comedy Sci-Fi show, Red Dwarf.

Red Dwarf is a mining ship 3 million years away from earth, home of the only human alive – Dave Lister, slob extraordinaire and amazingly bad guitar player; Arnold Rimmer, a throroughly dislikeable person (most of the time) who is a hologram as he died 3 million years ago; Cat, a strange creature who is 70% man, 30% cat , and 100% ego; Krtyen, an android they rescued back in series two but who now has had a serious attitude change after some reprogramming by Lister; and finally Holly, the ship's sardonic computer. Oh yeah and not to forget the scutters, little robotic helpers with a severely bad attitude.

Series 5 is arguably the best Red Dwarf series ever, and the last really brilliant one before it lost inspiration in series 6 and hit obscurity in 7 and 8. If you like comedy Sci-Fi, it just doesn't get better than this. I don't see any point in rating them as they'd all be 10.10! (each episode is approx 25 minutes long)

The Episodes

Holoship

Rimmer thinks his dreams have come true when a holoship – staffed entirely by holograms – makes contact with them. As they're all holograms of brilliant scientists and the only way Rimmer can join them is by displacing another, he realises the only way to do this is cheat... but more complications arise when he finds out who he will replace...

The Inquisitor

The Inquisitor – expunges the wastrels, destroys the worthless... the crew of Red Dwarf are in big trouble!! A self-styled righter of wrongs crosses paths with the Dwarfers, but can he get the better of them?

Terrorform

The crew encounter a planet that forms itself entirely on someone's brain... since that brain is Rimmer's, expect sickness...

Quarantine

When Rimmer catches a Holovirus, the King of the Potato people orders him to exterminate the others.... but if you think that's evil, you should meet Mr Flibble... insane and inspired.

Demons & Angels

Not, in fact, anything to do with Dan Brown, but when a replicator goes wrong, it creates two replicates of Red Dwarf, complete with crew. However, while one ship and crew contain all the goodness, all that is pure and excellent about them, the other one contains the exact opposite... some very scary scenes of an S&M Rimmer are only some of the delights in store in this episode...

Back to Reality

The crew die.. or do they? It seems that all this time they've just been playing a virtual reality game.. are have they? What's going on? Is Cat really Duane Dibbly? Is this the end of Red Dwarf as we know it?!?

Cast

Dave Lister - Craig Charles
Arnold Rimmer - Chris Barrie
Cat - Danny John-Jules
Kryten - Robert Llewellyn (the only cast member to make it over to the US version)
Holly - Hattie Haybridge

Written by: Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
Directed by: Juliet May & Grant Naylor

Rating

12 (suitable only for persons f 12 years and over)

Language - some, mild
Sex / nudity - some mild references
Violence - some, mild, comic

DVD Extras

As with all the individual Red Dwarf DVD individual series releases, this is packed with extra features – and even I, who can rarely be bothered with such "bonus extras", actually watched them all – and found them interesting!

We have:

Cast Commentary
Fan Commentary – Back to Reality
"Heavy Science" Original Documentary
Deleted Scenes
Smeg Ups
"Dwarfing USA"
Documentary on the Making of the US Pilot
"Bad Guys" Featurette
The SFX of Red Dwarf V
Trailers, Idents and Episode Intro
Raw FX Footage
Isoltated Music Cues
"Dave Hollins" Radio Sketch
Photo Gallery
Weblink
_ Easter Eggs (wherever they are... didn't find them myself!)

(You also get a Collector's Booklet – quite interesting stuff, mainly on the making of the episodes.)

For me the most interesting extras were the SFX feature and the making of the US Pilot – I was a little disappointed though that the US Pilot episode wasn't acutally included (the US company involve didn't even let them use the trailer!!) even though it sounded awful and the few clips that were included didn't look very promising!

Overall, what can I say? People either love or loathe Red Dwarf, and if you fall into the first group, you'll love this DVD. 'Nuff said!

Links

Red Dwarf - Just the Shows - Volume 1

Top Ten Sci-Fi Series
Futurama Season One
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – TV Mini-Series
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – The Book

The Captain Disaster series - my own comedy sci-fi creation:

Episode 1 - "The Planet-Eater of Acturus"
Episode 2 - "A Beta Burger"
Episode 3 - "Wormhole"
Episode 4 - "Mecenaries"
Episode 5 - "A Newish Hope"
Episode 6 - "Timedrive"
Episode 7 - "Correctness, Politically Speaking"
Episode 8 - "Virgin on the Ridiculous"
Episode 9 - "Lighter Than Fast"
Episode 10 - "Do Androids Dream Of Electronic Beeps?"
Episode 11 - "How to cook an omlette in only 12 seconds"



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older