Red Dwarf
POSTED BY: Infrared
UPDATED: Thursday, March 10, 2005 19:42
VIEWED: 11661
PAGE 4 of 4
RD has a curious way of parallelling Hitchicker for the many different ways one can jump into it.
For some its on audio with the radio show or "radio" Book-on-tapes for RD, the TV series, the novels and now (in one case and still probably in the other) the movie.
I caught on to RD through the TV show Straight fomr ep 1- through the last series picking up the books etc along the way. For Hitchhiker it was the books. I stil consider the novels the deinfitive Hichhiker and the TV Show the Definitive Dwarf (except possibly series 7 and 8 but they're not Greatest American Heroine bad)
The big difference in Dwarf is it was conceived as a TV show first and then the novels etc were done as spinoffs. IN hitchhiker it was a radio show first then books and so on.
Most of the people I know who got into Dwarf followed the TV path but I just converted two people by giving them the books first. They love the TV show equally but they have complained that the characters are not entirely how they thought they'd look or talk.
So really the TV show wasn't rehashing the books, the books were re-hashing (and very celverly expanding on) the Tv Episodes. (Mainly The End, future echoes, Me2, Kryten, Better Than Life, Backwards among others) The only flip was White Hole. That was a replacement script for the earth/Cockroach episode planned so they grabbed a bit they invented for the books and turned it into an episode.
Regardless the show and the novels are both really funny. (until again, Season 7 and 8)
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I remember searching endlessly for the "third" RD book and never finding it anywhere. Finally I found it and when it arrived it was a tape of the book read by Craig Charles. Not what I was expecting but I'd take it after all that time (I think over a year). I have come to the conclusion that Grant and Naylor should never have split up. I noticed that one of them likes gross-out funny more and the other likes scientific funny. Working together they can combine them so one doesn't out-do the other. Separate the comedy gets old a lot quicker. I definately was suprised by the type of comedy in the last book. Not what I was expecting. I just found out about Backwards from this thread so I now have to find the lost "fourth" book!
Run to the Tower, and call out the Magus
If he has caused this, we'll tear out his pages
Throw him in shackles, AND REMOVE HIS HANDS!
- Red Horse Rainbow, CLUTCH
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lister:
When one member of the crew leaves the show should end. You can't replace Rimmer so why try?
but he didn't leave, he was only away for a couple of episodes.
and for those who haven't read the latter two books, be warned that there was obviously some communication issues between rob and doug at the time which makes the continuity between them pretty much non-existant. both can be enjoyable reads on their own, but i'd advise against viewing them as canon.
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eviltobz - that's lowercase gorram it!
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Yeah I kne wof the third and 4th books but it took me a while to get them through UK book dealers when they came out. Luckily I was 'in the know' about them and the grant naylor split so I knew that basically Book 3 Last Human is book 3a and Backwards is book 3b- essentially alt. thrid books to follow Better Than Life.
I personally prefer Backwards and I think Grant was the better writer of the two which is part of why in general I don't like RD 7 and 8 depite a few moments of greatness. The split did indeed hurt the series and I noticed the different approaches to humor too. Actually I started to see the decline in Series 6 which got painfully repetitive in a lot of cases and suffered from the influence of the development on the U.S. pilot right beforehand in my opinion.
The books are a bit of an off-shoot of canon anyway although I noticed that RD 6 and beyond actually fits into the events of the novels moreso than RD 1-3.
I kinda wish they'd given the show a proper ending around the time of series 6 or 7. I mean whatever happened to finding Fiji or following up on the time thing in Stasis Leak where Lister will marry Kochanski?
Ah well.
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