Spaced out

The revived Red Dwarf commissioned for Dave (which temporarily renamed itself Dave Lister in the top left-hand corner, following a plot strand involving the eponymous character) was like a cosmic curate's egg - good in parts, but those parts much diminished - more white dwarf than Red. It was funniest, logically, when on board the spaceship of the title. When they fulfilled the sub-heading Back to Earth, post-modern exposition doesn't quite cut it as worthwhile humour. And, anyway, it wasn't really back on Earth since there isn't a futuristic, Blader Runner-style pyramid in central London nect to the Houses of Parliament (though it would correspond to the ghoulish plans of some Victorians, who wanted a vast mortuary pyrmid to counter running out of grave plots). Doug Naylor, the sole writer afetr Rob Grant left after Series 5 (claiming justifiably that the sitcom had run out of steam), did interestingly reveal that Blade Runner was the inspiration behind Red Dwarf, which is strange given that Alien and Dark Star seem a lot closer in concept. Moreover,a post-modern charcters meeting their creator(s) in real life has already been done with the feature film The League of Gentlemen Apocalypse. Dave Lister meeting Craig Charles did offer up a soupcon of amusement but overall it was funnier the last time they were on Earth, albeit one that was going backwards (and they weren't so shocked at the state of contemporary civilisation). Then again, so many ideas were recycled from previous episodes (beats sending them to China for processing), shame the funniness didn't travel so well, warp speed ot not.