Wednesday, January 07, 2009

#176: I'm a Smeghead, What Are You?



I am a huge fan of the British series Red Dwarf. I feel it's the greatest series to come out of the U.K. and while you could argue that the greatest is either Benny Hill or Monty Python but I can't get into those and the humor tends to cater to only a certain type of person while Dwarf crosses many different genres.

Below is part one of the series three episode "Polymorph". Below that is part two. Below that is part three. Enjoy and let me know what you think.






I got into Red Dwarf from an old friend who was reading the first book, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and he told me that episodes were airing on PBS every Sunday night or something like that. I watched a few episodes and fell in love. Soon after I started watching it on PBS, they took it off (probably because I never donate money to them) and I had to go cold turkey for several years until they came out on video. Thankfully, they are currently on DVD and I have them all. What I don't understand is why British shows have very short seasons (which they call series).

I've looked into it and only found out that the reason U.K. have between 6-8 episodes per season/series is because all the episodes are written by basically the same person or staff unlike U.S. shows who can use a whole corral of 20-30 writers to write 22-24 episodes. U.S. cable series which typically have 6-13 episodes every season can also fit into that group but they can also argue that reason, plus that cable shows have to do more with less money.

So enjoy the episode. I know I do.