Review 74: Red Dwarf Series Seven

Red Dwarf somersaults the shark.

In case any of you are scratching your head at the above comment, let me explain. "Jump The Shark" is a phrase that describes the moment when a TV show loses its spark, when it becomes stale, unfunny or just plain boring. There are numerous well-known reasons for this happening (members of the cast leaving, new members being introduced in an attempt to bring new life to the show, writers leaving..) and amazingly, Red Dwarf managed all of these in the space between Season Six and Season Seven.

We've all seen TV shows go down the pan, but I don't think I've ever seen a show take such a drastic, no-holds barred drop in quality as Red Dwarf did here (and continued to in Season Eight). Make no bones about it - Red Dwarf was a GREAT TV show. Endlessly quotable, it gave us superb characters like the anal, self-important Rimmer, the slobby yet humane Lister, they evolved the Cat from a one dimeonsional James Brown spoof into a real character (and even gave him one of the best running "Dwayne Dibley" character gags), and, of course, added Kryten in Series Three who became the heart of the entire show.

And then, in the blink of an eye - Rimmer leaves, Kryten becomes whiney, irritating and almost the most loathsome character in the history of the show.

Ah yes - I said almost. Enter Christine Kochanski, supposed to be Rimmer's replacement, but where Chris Barrie is funny, Chloe Annett just isn't. Quickly scrubbing out the entire show's history (where we saw a different Kochanski - Clare Grogan, as sweet, sexy and someone who you could imagine someone like Lister falling in love with), she became spoilt, irritable and downright unlikeable. Plus, for six whole seasons we were told Lister had only ever spoken to Kochanski a handful of times, always being too shy to actually ask her out. But no, come this series they HAD dated. So basically forget everything else that had happened before that, then. Just another reason to shake your head at the downward spiral of this series.

The writing suffered too. Rob Grant left, leaving Doug Naylor and other hacks to ruin the fun. The live audience was binned too, giving us a hollow, totally obvious laughter track. And, believe it or not, it just got worse and worse.

Like I've said in other reviews, sometimes this is just no fun. To witness a once brilliant program turn into this sub-standard garbage was painful. And yet I re-visited old demons to review it just for YOU. You lot really lot don't deserve The Curmudgeon.