Back To Earth

This Story: Season 9, Episodes 1-3
Overall: Story 49 Episode 53-55
Airdate: 10 – 12 Apr 2009
Written by Doug Naylor
Directed by Doug Naylor

Notes

• This is the first episode(s) of Red Dwarf produced in both high definition and in 16×9 widescreen.  All episodes prior to this were 4×3 SD.
• Was nearly 10 years to the day since the last episode before this (Series 8’s “Only The Good…”)
• In universe, this takes place 9 years after the events of Series 8.  The original hologram Rimmer (who left to be Ace Rimmer) returns.  Kochanski is presumed to be dead, and Holly is out of commission.
• Officially, this is not listed as “Series 9”, it’s just listed as “Back to Earth”.  However, given the series before this was branded as “8” and the one after this was “Red Dwarf X” (or 10), then this generally gets considered “Series 9”, even if it’s not officially labeled that way.
• This is the second (and final to date) three part episode of Red Dwarf, the other being Series 8’s “Back in the Red“.

Links

[ Wikipedia | Tongue Tied Wiki | Amazon US Blu-Ray | Amazon UK Blu-Ray ]

Episode 1: 

I wrote a bit more about Episode 1 than I can fit in standard Twitter text length – here’s the full text of Episode 1..

10 years & 5 days later, we get a new ep of #RedDwarf. This is Part 1 of the 3 part “Back to Earth”, which I have issues with. The first episode reminds me of Dwarf a lot, but the other two do not. I’m going to type a bit more here as I won’t fit it in to just two tweets.

There’s a *LOT* of changes over where we were at the end of Series 8. First off, the show is now made in 16×9 HD, prior to this it was all 4×3 SD. The show is no longer on BBC, it’s on “Dave”. Norman Lovett & Chloe Annett are gone from the series. The cast has reset itself back to an earlier combo (although Annett has a brief cameo in pt 3 despite having said to be dead). Series 8 Rimmer was living, but he’s back to being a hologram (without Holly?) – this is the original hologram Rimmer that left to become Ace in Series 7, now he’s stopped doing that and has come back to Red Dwarf. It does look better, as money has been spent, and just general production values have increased since it was off the air for a decade. There’s also no audience laughter here, which is a really odd feel. In Series 7, there was no live audience but it was dubbed later. No audience has a way different feel than the usual episode.

This first part introduces a previously unknown character Katerina Bartikovsky. It’s the best part of Back to Earth, IMO. She’s not exactly evil, just gruff, and I rather liked the character. The main plot involves a sea monster that has gotten into the water supply and is stopping all the water flow in the ship – they’re trying to figure out how to get rid of it to save the water. Of the three parts of this, the first one here feels most like the Red Dwarf we know, albeit without a laugh track. Once Bartikovsky shows up, she relieves Rimmer as the highest ranking officer and actively plots to get Lister back to Earth right away.