Series 3
\ Overall thoughts | Episode ratings | Downloads /
Overall thoughtS
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As much as I love series 1, I can clearly see that it isn't for everyone - the mixture of comedy and drama could've been smoother, as the comedy frequently felt limp and never generated as much laughs at it could've, while the drama wasn't everyone's cup of tea, seeming like an unnecessary distraction from the comedy. Series 2 hit the mark better, with improved writing and more emphasis on comedy, but now it showed how limited the environment had gotten. Series 3 appears to go out of its way to fix these elements. The comedy is stronger and given the centre focus, while the drama that does appear remains strong. They visit more locations thanks to the addition of their new scouting vehicle Starbug, and more stuff happens on the ship, such as monster threats, bizarre anomalies and general dysfunctional behaviour amongst the crew. And then, of course, there's Kryten. It all adds up to give the series more energy, more pizzazz, and it makes for some great results. It does lose the hard-to-define raw charm of the first two series, but hey, becoming mega-popular and attracting many new viewers by the time of this series can't be too bad. |
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Episode ratingS
Ratings are made from "most favourite" to "least favourite", though that doesn't necessarily mean the low-scored ones are bad.
It was hard to rate a few of these ones, as some were hard to define which was better - for me, Backwards and Body Swap are about on par with each other, although in different ways - Backwards made for a great introduction to the new series, while Body Swap was a nice and simple series 2 style story. Marooned and The Last Day are near-ties as well, though the latter won out if just because of it cementing Kryten as a real member of the Red Dwarf crew.
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BackwardsAs an introduction to the new series, it serves up a really bombastic, iconic display. Otherwise a rather silly, lightweight episode. |
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MaroonedReally fantastic episode. The opening just throws you into the thick of the action; there's great drama, great comedy, and it's oozing with great character moments. One of my top favourite eps. |
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PolymorphThe first monster-of-the-week episode in the series. It's a decent start and the source of some fantastic scenes, but the episode itself is otherwise a bit unremarkable. |
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Body SwapA very series 2-style episode; it feels low-key after the previous three episodes, but it's relatively strong and carries some great character drama and a few laughs. It's an episode that kinda falls by the wayside, but actually isn't all that bad. |
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TimeslidesOne of the episodes I always forget about. It has some cute moments, but it's easy to see why it's forgettable. |
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The Last DayA fantastic episode, one that really cements why I love Red Dwarf - besides the action and the comedy, it shows that the stories have a soul, and for all their faults, the characters protect each other to the end. Sappy stuff like that tickles my fancy, see. |
DownloadS
The series had a substantial amount of incidental music by this point, so there's only a few new tunes, mostly made for specific moments and never heard again. The style of music changes to a more upbeat and rockin' style, which fits the new energy the show has from this point onward.
Opening Theme (0:34 | 474kb)The comparatively dreary 2001 knockoff is replaced with this smorgasbord of electric guitar and noise. It's got a rather corny vibe about it, and Howard himself commented that he wanted it to sound like it was played by someone with no talent, but getting a qualified guitar player to do that is difficult. |
Cash (3:03 | 2.5mb)A song by Craig Charles himself! A funky little number that can be heard in Timeslides when Dave Lister is shown to be a wealthy git with weird taste. Pretty apt. |
Rock Guitar Instrumental (1:53 | 1.5mb)Given the rockier theme song, it's no surprise that scene transitions were often accompanied with a little dose of heavy metal rather than ominous horns. This gets some serious usage in Body Swap. |
Party Time (2:09 | 1.7mb)An upbeat tune that I can only describe as like something from Spencer Nilsen's Sonic CD. It's got the same style of instrumentation! It appears as an incidental theme a few times in The Last Day. |