Tag: Red Dwarf

  • Arrested Development, Arrested

    Try not to dwell on the MSPaint-looking “Closed” sign.

    Next year, Arrested Development returns after having been mercilessly cancelled by Fox back in 2006. Ten brand spanking new episodes are being produced for distribution exclusively via Netflix, which is very exciting news for fans of great comedy.

    My worry, though, is that the new Arrested Development is going to make the same mistake that other similarly revived shows made upon their triumphant returns. Shows brought back from the brink of disaster have a worrying habit of wasting their second chance nodding at their past rather than looking optimistically towards their future.

    Two of my favourite shows, Futurama and Red Dwarf, were revived in recent years, and both fell prey to nostalgia. The first of the straight-to-DVD Futurama movies, “Bender’s Big Score”, seemed to hinge almost entirely on winks to the audience, nostalgic self-referential gags, and “Hey, remember this minor character and/or in-joke?” moments. “Into The Wild Green Yonder”, the fourth and final Futurama movie, also ended on a very forced note that tried to wrap up as many elements of the show as possible very quickly while also providing an opening should the show return for a full season (as it did last year, with somewhat disappointing results).

    Similarly, the 2009 Red Dwarf miniseries “Back to Earth” intentionally recycled and referenced elements of previous episodes rather than making the effort to stand out and be it’s own thing. While in Red Dwarf‘s case this can be forgiven to an extent – the miniseries was an anniversary event intended to celebrate the series – it does unfortunately mean that, as a story, “Back to Earth” struggles to stand on its own two feet.

    Other successful show revivals such as Doctor Who and Family Guy somehow found it within themselves to soldier onward almost as though they’d never been off the air (aside from the opening scene of Family Guy‘s fourth season, which pokes fun at the Fox Network’s predilection for greenlighting and cancelling shows almost in the same breath).

    With Doctor Who, then-showrunner Russell T Davies made a very deliberate choice not to refer heavily to the classic series, despite being a continuation. This made the first episode much more accessible and, more importantly, didn’t bog it down in self-reference and continuity. Anyone can watch “Rose” and enjoy it, but I have a hard time imagining non-Futurama fans getting much out of “Bender’s Big Score”.

    The new Arrested Development ultimately has to make good on the promise that “new” implies – new stories featuring the same characters. No wasting time paying lip-service to the past, just focusing on what’s to come. If they can check that box, if they can get through the ten episodes without relying too heavily on Remember-Whens and in-jokes, then they can’t go wrong.

    Y’know, unless it sucks.

  • Red Dwarf: Songs in the Key of Files

    I realised today that the Red Dwarf fan-comic that Kris Carter and I produced, “Songs in the Key of Files”, never really had a place to call home. I’ve alternated between linking to the DeviantArt gallery for the comic and the thread over on Ganymede & Titan where it was showcased, but I’ve decided it’s probably a good idea to have a local copy of the comic. I’ve also added it to my Resume, because I’m exceptionally proud of it.

    You can read “Songs in the Key of Files” here.

  • I’ll Give You My Telescope, Anything, Please Glod Don’t Tell Anyone

    This blog entry runs the risk of becoming somewhat of a self-indulgent Pity Party, so you don’t have to read it. I feel I need to vent, and this blog is a convenient place to do so and so I shall put it to use. There’s every chance I’ll wake up in the morning, remember I’ve written this blog post, go…

    ARGH

    …and then delete it, or make it private. That said, it’s here while it’s here. So enjoy it, or whatever.

    Every now and then my brain gets caught in a logic loop. The problem goes something like this: I worry that there is something seriously wrong with me on a psychological level – some wonderful, terrible mental illness which accounts for my erratic behaviour, my emotional nature, my desire to be the central focus of attention, and all manner of other personality problems. I worry about this for a while, and then I decide I’m probably just being paranoid and I dismiss it. At that point I begin to worry: maybe my dismissing of the thought is preventing me from getting actual, proper help for what may well be a proper, actual condition. My usual response there is to dismiss that as me overthinking the matter and being overly paranoid. Then I worry that dismissing the notion is me denying a problem I have with paranoia coupled with the potential mental problem I might have, and I start to get anxious. Then I dismiss all of it as rubbish, and I wonder if maybe dismissing any of it was in fact the smart thing to do.

    Usually I can stop my thought process from wandering too far down this path and I can catch myself before I get too caught up in it and find myself sitting on the bed, staring out into nothing, terrified that whichever decision I make about this whole “my brain is broken” nonsense is the wrong one. Occasionally I don’t, and I wind up doing just that. Even when I’m able to break free of it and go about living my life as if I were a normal, sensible, contributing member of society (ha!) it still floats around the surface of my brain for a few days afterwards, and generally that can leave me feeling rather low.

    I had someone suggest to me a few years ago that I might be Bipolar. I’m fairly confident that I’m not. I’ve something of an interest in neurological disorders and I don’t personally believe I fit the description of a classic Bipolarity. That said, I’e always felt a kinship with Stephen Fry. If you don’t know who Fry is then that probably means you’re American, but to summarize he’s a writer, actor, playwright and poet. You’ve probably seen him in Bones as Dr. Gordon Wyatt M.D., or in Jeeves and Wooster as the titular butler. Possibly you remember him as the Qur’an-owning television chat show host from the 2006 movie adaptation of V for Vendetta.  I’ve just spent far too much time explaining who he is. Long story short, he is the gem of the British Isles, and a rarity; a glowing, charismatic, intelligent man who is at the same time accessible to and admired by the general public. He is an inspiration of mine and something of an idol. He is the man I hope to be when I reach my 50s.

    He’s also Bipolar, and in 2006 filmed the documentary “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” talking about his own experiences with Bipolarity and interviewing other Bipolar celebrity figures such as Carrie Fisher (oh, you know who she is) and Robbie Williams (the British musician, not the hairy comedian – you’re thinking of Robin Williams). I’ve watched this documentary a couple of times on YouTube and just tonight downloaded the whole thing to sit and watch on a proper television tomorrow.

    Every time I watch this documentary it shreds my insides. It leaves me devastated, frightened. It scares me, it makes me worry, and it usually leaves me stuck in that paranoia/anxiety feedback loop I mentioned earlier. In fact I haven’t watched it in well over a year and a half for that very reason. But spurred on by a recent… looping, I feel I have to watch it again. I don’t know why.

    I’d love to know exactly why my head is wired up the way it is. I’d love to know what makes me tick. I doubt I’m Bipolar – I know I’m not, in fact – but for some reason I feel that if I learn more about Bipolarity, if I can understand it better, then perhaps I can understand what’s wrong with me. I’m sure there’s a logical hole in there somewhere.

    Sometimes I am so scared of the way my brain functions. But, and I feel this is important, I do my best to ensure it doesn’t get in the way of experiencing new things and achieving my ambitions. It’s rare for me  to feel as weak and pathetic as I do tonight.

  • Search for a Star

    I was looking at the analytics statistics for Jump Leads, and I discover that rather a few people have found the site by searching for “british comedy sci fi” (oddly enough, most of these searches seem to be coming from Google UK). Out of curiosity, I thought I’d find out where we stand on Google’s search results.

    The results are… well, see for yourself:

    Google UK results for "british comedy sci fi"

    I have to say, I’m rather proud of this. Which is, I will admit, rather silly. But there we are.

  • io9 post list of top 100 scifi shows, have big ugly face that’s as dumb as a butt

    io9, the scifi & fantasy blog owned by Gawker Media, have taken time from their busy schedule of Googling for pornographic Futurama fan-art to post a “Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows Of All Time” list. I happen to side with Mil Millington on the subject of “lists as journalism” – namely, it’s bollocks – and their list is more reprehensible than comprehensive. Let’s take a look at some of the items on that list, shall we?

    (more…)

  • Positive Jump Leads press

    I just posted a long and slightly lazy review of Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, which aired in the UK over the Easter weekend, over on the Jump Leads site. Also, while I’m here, how about I throw you you a link to a very positive review of Jump Leads Issue #3: Trojan Horse?

  • “We Ain’t Found Shit”

    I recently decided to have another look at scifi-comedy, past and present. There’s a lot of it I’m already familiar with – Red Dwarf and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy are not only what I consider to be pinnacles of the genre but are also at the top of my list of favourite novels and TV shows, and the Back To The Future trilogy is, I think, the best trilogy ever commited to film – but there’s some stuff I haven’t seen. I’ve only seen about four episodes of Hyperdrive for instance, and although it’s not fantastic it’s hardly as bad as most Red Dwarf fans seem to think.

    A big example of scifi-comedy, one that has always been recommended to me, is Spaceballs. I’m a fan of Mel Brooks and yet I’d never seen this film. Thankfully it’s on Netflix’ Watch Instantly service, so I added it to my queue and loaded it up on my Xbox.

    Oh dear.

    It’s one of those films that I imagine was rip-roaringly funny when it first came out, but the entire thing felt really badly hewn together. The jokes were flat and uninspired, leaving me feeling that the horrendous Date Movie would have been a better choice – I laughed once during the entire film, and that was when Tim Russ, whilst combing the desert, angrily declared that he had been thus far unable to locate anything with his giant comb.

    He was a little more succinct with his report.

    The conclusion I drew from this was that Spaceballs is a terrible, terrible movie. I’m sure it wasn’t once upon a time, but now it’s awful. This film, this terrible catastrophe of a motion picture, left me wondering if Mel Brooks has ever been as funny as I thought he was. The first film of his that I saw as a kid was Robin Hood: Men In Tights, which I adored, but that hasn’t aged well either. Was I wrong? Has Mel Brooks always been terrible?

    I inadvertantly found myself watching The Producers two weeks later. I was, in fact, trying to watch the fourth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the last episode of which contains some chunks of the Broadway musical (season four sees Larry David getting cast in the show by Brooks and partially revolves around the rehearsal process). I watched…

    …and I laughed. A lot.

    And my faith was restored.

    Earlier this week I picked up Blazing Saddles on DVD. This was my favourite Brooks film until I’d seen The Producers, and once again I find myself too scared to watch it. I don’t want to ruin the memory I have of it being a fantastic, funny film. I ruined ThunderCats by going back and re-watching it on DVD. I ruined Mighty Morph’n’ Power Rangers by watching clips of it on YouTube. Somehow clinging on to the nostalgia is more important to me than trying to prove myself that the film was worth watching the first time ’round.

    Y’know what? I think I’ll watch it tonight. Hopefully it’s still funny. Dear Glod, I hope it’s still funny.