Oof

[Nick_Carpinelli]

It's sad seeing them go back to the well several times when the show was clearly over. It was great for the original run.

Yeah as the quality of the special effects went up, the quality of the writing went down. It should have ended when Rob Grant left.

 

[Meownaw]

Haha isn't Australia crazy guys!! Dangerous animals! Spiders AMIRITE! Updoots to the left please.

Edit: wow I didn't expect this post to blow up.

Edit 2: RIP my inbox

Edit 3: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger!

Forgot Edit 4: Trans rights

 

[guest]

Hey Rick, don't forget that in Space Australia Space Burger King is called Space Hungry Jack's!

 

[Patrick O'Neal]

Red Dwarf is the only other sci fi comedy I can think of that worked. The show was good because of the chemistry between the characters not the space setting. The characters in Fatso's work are all tough talking Mary Sues that are indistinguishable from each other. There can be no interesting character dynamics when they are all the same.

If you rewatch early Red Dwarf, you'll notice that it's very grounded in the 90s. Lister drinks lager, eat curries, plays pub pool with planets, watches 90s TV shows on video etc etc. This makes is relatable to the audience. In later episodes, this aspect of the show disappeared and the quality dropped as a result. In science fiction, you can do ANYTHING. But in fact, you should not.

What they did do, is to use the science fiction elements to exaggerate the characters. There's one episode where each of the characters has a good and bad version of themselves created - very fun. Another good episode is where they go to a psy moon where the landscape forms around Rimmer's character and mood. It's not just Random Space Monster, or Incredible Future Machine, the monsters and technology will always change and exaggerate the characters.

This is the opposite of writers such as Patrick S Tomlinson, who are bad.

 

[Stent]

I just remembered the Red Dwarf episode of Rimmer World.

"Avert your eyes from her great beauty."

 

[Patrick O'Neal]

Yeah as the quality of the special effects went up, the quality of the writing went down. It should have ended when Rob Grant left.

I looked it up and that was series 7. Rob Grant and Rimmer left, and they introduced Kochanski.

It stunk.

Mind you, I saw series 12 and it was not too bad. There's an episode where they go on a ship where criticism is illegal. The whole crew are fruity, blue-haired TRA types. It's actually a pretty good comment on current society.

(And probably inspired by Reddit admins.)