a science fiction show with jokes

TV Andrew offers some useful tips to the production team on the new Red Dwarf as to how to return to the core values of the show. I'm one of the few who thinks the show lost its way somewhat with Season Six which relied to heavily on past glories and tried to be more of a science fiction show with jokes. I remember dreading each new week at the time.

Season Seven worked much better than most give it credit for. It wasn't really the same programme, what with the loss of studio audience, yet it was still very funny with Kochanski reinjecting the element of class politics. The writing was clever, and the performances spot on. Season Eight was a mess what with the attempt to meld the two different approaches and felt wrongly simply. It missed terribly the ever present sense of isolation of previous years.

I'm very much hoping for a return of the character rather than gag based approach, though with all the apparent filming on Coronation Street, that's not looking likely. It'll be interesting to see how much they can really do with just two episodes and (presumably) an even lower budget.