I officially don't care.

RD7 was poor, and RD8 was unmitigated shite. I'll watch the new ones, I think (at least the first ten minutes of the first one), because it's worth risking an hour on the off chance that it's a triumphant return to form, but I see no reason to think this will be anything other than more of the same inane rubbish that Doug Naylor has churned out ever since Rob Grant left the show.

I rather liked Series VII. I think the humour doesn't always hit the mark and there is some really, really poorly planned stuff in there (a knight "escaping" from the AR machine? Really?) but therein you will also find some of Dwarf's greatest moments.

Series VIII is rubbish, though.

Yarr, I be more excited than a pirate who's just sunk his first ship, so I be!

As for Series VIII, I remember enjoying it for the most part when I first saw it. While I remember there were some weak spots and one particularly terrible episode (Pete: Part 2 *shudders*), I wouldn't classify it as shite/rubbish. Just my opinion, though, so no need for anyone to slap me round the head with a wet kipper.

Series VII is excellent.

MORE DWARF!!!!!


WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Series 8 had three of the funniest moments of the entire show's run, not the best series no but hardly rubbish.


but back onto the point, MORE DWARF WOOOO!!!!!!

I just can't understand why Red Dwarf without Rob Grant is cause for excitement but Hitchhikers' without Douglas Adams is cause for anger. I just can't square that in my head. People can write good sci-fi comedy without being called Doug.

I don't know, I've heard a lot of positive things about the script for Red Dwarf: The Movie from various people. I think fan reaction to VII and VIII taught Naylor what works and what doesn't.

Re: Andrew - I think it's because Doug Naylor is one half of the original writing duo who wrote Series 1-6 whereas the guy writing the new Hitchhikers book had absolutely no involvement in writing the earlier books (plus Adams is dead so people wonder if it's what he'd have wanted). Anyway, I think the new Hitchhikers book might be good, just as the new Red Dwarf might be awful. It's impossible to say for certain until we've tried it.

Re: Ben - I don't think listening to the so-called 'fans' is always a good idea. I got the impression that's what Doug tried to do for S7 (bringing back Rimmer, giving Kochanski a smaller role, making it less sci-fi/story driven and more like the typical sitcom setup of earlier series) and it just made the 'fans' hate it even more. Generally, I think a good idea is to take fan opinion into consideration but not to slavishly follow it, against your better judgement. This is because 'fans' only ever like what's old or niche anyway so you can never really please them all.

Hopefully Doug'll follow his own judgement and make something bloody spectacular.

[quote]Adams is dead so people wonder if it’s what he’d have wanted[/quote]

I hate to drag this up every time we discuss this, but Rob Grant is not dead and we do know that RD7 is, in his words, "[not] what I'd set out to do and ... nothing to do with me".

I really hope the new Red Dwarf will be great, and it's entirely possible that it will. You're quite right that we won't know until it's on. The difference, I suppose, is that based on past performance, you have no reason to doubt it whereas I have no confidence at all that it will be anything better than mediocre.