Red Dwarf

POSTED BY: peacekeeper
UPDATED: Thursday, April 23, 2009 23:40
VIEWED: 3485
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IMNOTHERE

Monday, April 13, 2009 11:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

That misses the point: Old-style sitcoms were, traditionally, fairly stage-bound using a few standing sets (which looked like sets). The whole genre is something of a stylistic hold-out to the good old days when TV cameras were the size of the house, there was no video tape and all you could basically do was go into a theatre and point a couple of cameras at the stage while the actors did their stuff.

They could (and did) film large parts of such shows in front of a genuine live audience, and since they are produced and directed in the style of stage plays, having the laugh track doesn't feel incongruous.

Shows like The Office have a totally different style - The Office isn't meant to be a stage play, its a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary - reality TV with the knob turned up to 11. Its "meant" to be real people making idiots of themselves in a real office with a hidden camera. A laugh track doesn't fit.

In this case of Red Dwarf, episode 1 was almost entirely green-screen, and episodes 2 and 3 were mostly "on location" (OK, so one of the locations was a TV set) so the only option would have been to use canned laughter - which, frankly, is a bit crap.

IMNOTHERE

Monday, April 13, 2009 11:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

That misses the point: Old-style sitcoms were, traditionally, fairly stage-bound using a few standing sets (which looked like sets). The whole genre is something of a stylistic hold-out to the good old days when TV cameras were the size of the house, there was no video tape and all you could basically do was go into a theatre and point a couple of cameras at the stage while the actors did their stuff.

They could (and did) film large parts of such shows in front of a genuine live audience, and since they are produced and directed in the style of stage plays, having the laugh track doesn't feel incongruous.

Shows like The Office have a totally different style - The Office isn't meant to be a stage play, its a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary - reality TV with the knob turned up to 11. Its "meant" to be real people making idiots of themselves in a real office with a hidden camera. A laugh track doesn't fit.

In this case of Red Dwarf, episode 1 was almost entirely green-screen, and episodes 2 and 3 were mostly "on location" (OK, so one of the locations was a TV set) so the only option would have been to use canned laughter - which, frankly, is a bit crap.

LWAVES

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 12:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
Quote:
Originally posted by lwaves:
He mentioned that The Office doesn't have a laughter track so they weren't either.

That misses the point: Old-style sitcoms were, traditionally, fairly stage-bound using a few standing sets (which looked like sets). The whole genre is something of a stylistic hold-out to the good old days when TV cameras were the size of the house, there was no video tape and all you could basically do was go into a theatre and point a couple of cameras at the stage while the actors did their stuff.

They could (and did) film large parts of such shows in front of a genuine live audience, and since they are produced and directed in the style of stage plays, having the laugh track doesn't feel incongruous.

Shows like The Office have a totally different style - The Office isn't meant to be a stage play, its a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary - reality TV with the knob turned up to 11. Its "meant" to be real people making idiots of themselves in a real office with a hidden camera. A laugh track doesn't fit.

In this case of Red Dwarf, episode 1 was almost entirely green-screen, and episodes 2 and 3 were mostly "on location" (OK, so one of the locations was a TV set) so the only option would have been to use canned laughter - which, frankly, is a bit crap.

You actually talk about areas that I probably should have made clearer in my post.

Red Dwarf definitely isn't The Office, which is why they shouldn't have tried to emulate it (or other modern comedies). Bear in mind that Craig Charles made the orginal comparison - not me.

Part of Red Dwarf's charm was the cheap sets, repeating locations (in the same way old school Doctor Who did).
Now obviously time has passed and I'm sure with their new budget they could have built better sets, added CG later where needed but still kept Red Dwarf the way it was.

IMO they should have shot it the same way as they did back then - with a live audience.
Or at least showed the finished shows to an audience and record that laughter.

I gather that even live recorded laughter isn't totally genuine coz they add canned laughter on top to highlight jokes that don't work straight away or because the audience has heard it so many times through re-takes that it loses it's funnyness. Saw this on a Friends documentary.

But I guess we'll never know.

"I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it it might cheer me up to watch."

TRAVELER

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:27 AM

Did they bring back the same cast?

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

MSA

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:39 AM

Pout I hate being in the US sometimes.. though I'm sad to think a new series of Red Dwarf was sucky.. I've loved all the other series so much

To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
--Francois Mauriac
It's fuzzy-minded liberal thinking like that that gets you eaten.

PEACEKEEPER

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by traveler:
Did they bring back the same cast?

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

They did yes.Lister,Kryten,Cat,Rimmer and Kachanski. Holly was missing though. He was offline due to Lister leaving the bath running for nine years and it leaking thru onto the mainframe.

TRAVELER

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:56 AM

MSA:

I am sure in a few years it will be syndicated here.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

NEEDY

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 8:43 AM

Well I know I'm going to go against everyone else here (hardly the 1st time) but I quite enjoyed it.
I think it might have worked better as 1 whole episode, or split into just becasue the 1st episode is really jsut set up, and like others, I felt it jsut wasn't funny.

I thought it really got going in the second though. I didn't know that the plot involved them discovering they were fictional characters so I thought it was a stroke of genius. I loved that we got to see them interact with normal people (if sci-fi geeks like ourselves can be classed as normal ) and even with the actor Craig Charles

Yes things got silly when they went to meet their maker (loved the return of the Rimmer munchkins) but that was a part of the show's charm. And the true explanation for events meant we got to have our cake and eat it too.

I got the feeling that the special was not just a one-off but a testing ground to see whether there was an audience still out there for it, and whether it would be worth continuing.
Then again I could be dead wrong.
Still, I wouldn't mind seeing the crew back in action again.

(Ps, I found the none-laughter track off-putting at first but soon got used to it. Series 7 was filmed without an audience present too but i believe they screened it before an audience after n recorded the laughter)

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CORNCOBB

Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:34 PM

I liked it a lot too. It was great to have it back. I agree it wasn't as high on laughs as many of the older episodes, but it was funny and I wasn't watching just for the laughs anyway. I've never felt that Red Dwarf was a straightforward comedy. I just wanted to see the boyz from the dwarf off on another wacky adventure, and in this sense it was perfect: the characters were spot on, the Lister/kochanski plot was emotionally effective for the first time since the first couple of seasons, and the story hinged on some neat ideas.

The Dwarf episodes that get remembered as classics are usually the ones with the best ideas or best character stuff rather than the funniest eps. I think Craig Charles said that once, might have been one of the other stars, but it's true regardless.

Thanks for shows, Dave. Keep 'em coming

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

RALLEM

Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:40 PM

I will buy it when it comes to America.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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