RED DWARF: BACK TO EARTH (DVD Review) - 9/8/09

Older & bolder Red Dwarf returns to TV on the DAVE Channel because the BBC can't be arsed! Weirdly it is a strange amalgam of Red Dwarf and whatever? Simply because I felt the story was not really good enough and it was too much of a pastiche of 'Blade Runner' but as a labour of love for Red Dwarf fans I think it will hit the spot. Don't quite know how to feel about the convention of breaking the 'fourth' wall but that gets a strong resolution at the end if you can stomach it! (Even weirder is Lister picking up a DVD case and Kryten reading the back blurb which is an exact match for the real-life product several months down the line?) Top notch effects & acting from the cast make this familiar and disappointing at the same time.

The Red Dwarf crew find a strange creature down in the bowels of the ship. On investigating they re-start another hologram programme by accident (Ummh?) and this all ends up with the crew mysteriously ending up back on Earth through a dimension portal. Unfortunately they then find that they are just characters in a TV show and set out after their creator to find out what is going on?

This 2-disc Director's Cut of the three episodes can be watched individually or in one long hit! You get a couple of Commentaries thrown in with a new 2-part Documentary which covers the 'Making Of Back To Earth' with some interesting insights to be had on the production from another angle. Of course we get the usual 'Smeg Ups' Reel with a selection of small Featurettes. Plus Trailers, Photo Galleries and some Web Videos Behind-The-Scenes.