You missed nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. It was utterly, completely shite, with extra complete bollox and a side-order of totally pants.
The cast must be absolutely cash-strapped. I'd have had to be on the verge of selling my kids off for scientific research to have climbed onto that set. I'm astounded anyone, anywhere, gave it airtime.
Doesnt SamH have such a way with words, its almost poetic!
I missed it as i was at skeggy playing machines all day, but from what i hear i didnt miss much, plus i guess it will be repeated about 250 times over the next few years anyway, probably on DAVE.
I think one of the problems is not acting in front of a live audience, which seems to completely ruin the actors' timing and delivery.
That and the plot was appalling. It takes a truly *great* writer to be able to pull off meta-fiction, and that was not great writing. 99% of the time it fails dismally.
Red Dwarf : A British sci-fi sitcom that ran from the late 80s to 1999 that was very good. In the US it was aired on various public broadcasters, and is probably available on Region 1 DVD somewhere in a dusty corner of the Intertubes. It might be cheaper to get it done in a roundabout way from a UK store, as having checked on Amazon.ca the DVDs are being sold for considerably more than the cost of shipping it to somewhere in the UK and then on to Canada.
If you missed it, they are repeating all three one after the other on Dave tonight.
It was still funny, however the production values changed somewhat - gone are the wonky sets or dodgy green-screens, despite being produced on a Dave-sized shoestring it was more filmic. It's really not as bad as some people are making it out. Should it be recommissioned, I'd rather they went back to filming it in front of a live audience or at least go back to putting a non-overzealous laugh track on. Emphasis on non-overzealous.
I was expecting it to be better than it was but DAVE have truly shown they suck at program making, they should give it back to BBC. But I am expecting to see a series come out of it as all the actors have said they want to do more. But if its Dave doing it then i cant see it being that much of a hit
i was extremely disapointed. especially when i could see blatently the different things that could have been done to make it funnier just by changing a few lines!
I think the main thing that killed it is that there was way too much stuff done with green screens and not enough real sets. It was poorly written and too fake for what red dwarf should be. It got better towards the end.
Dave don't make programming themselves, it is all done by independant production companies. Indeed, most TV is done by indepenant production companies - with the main exception being the BBC. Like the original series it was made Grant Naylor Productions. I'd imagine that this was made with one eye on a film release should UKTV had pulled out or something, due to the lack of the laughter track and other reasons. If UKTV do another series, I'd imagine it would have a lower budget per episode, and probably go back to being shot in front of a live audience. Red Dwarf worked in front of a live audience, lots of other sitcoms plainly don't.
EDIT : Franky, much of the original series was done in front of a green screen anyway, I don't think the issue was the green screen but the somewhat overzealous sets. I'd also imagine that much of this was shot single camera rather than multi-camera, too.
I don't think the sets or props were that bad - certainly not the problem (Carbug aside, which was just shite).
The problem was the terrible script and lazy acting. Indeed, the cast were trying too hard to be funnier than in the past and that just resulted in audiences cringing.
Hopefully, and I say this as a long time RD fan, they'll never bother again.