Dwarfed

I wish I really had much of an idea what was going on in this show, but PBS running episodes out of order made it impossible for me to get hooked on Red Dwarf. It always seemed really enjoyable and witty, but I felt like I was on the other side of a set of iron bars watching people inside the zoo watching the show from the other side of their own set of bars. I hope that made sense, because I'm not certain how else to explain it without a diagram.

The best I could gather for all these years (and I intentionally haven't researched it much) is that these guys are a crew of misfits stranded in space. In Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, the crew are thrown through a portal in space and find out they're just characters in a TV show and are likely destined to die. They decided to track down both the actors who play them (Malkovich Malkovich?) and the show's creators in a desperate bid for survival, as the end of a show means death for them.

This big reunion show remains controversial among fans because it broke the fourth wall and changed the rules of the show in ways it never really had. In some ways, that's what keeps things interesting, as no concept can survive in a vacuum. It apparently worked well enough financially that a new series has been commissioned, for better or worse.

Extras on the Blu-ray released by Warner Bros./BBC Video back on October 6th include separate Cast and Director commentary tracks, a Making-of documentary, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, some Featurettes, Trailers, and Web Videos along with a couple Easter Eggs (denoted on the packaging).

Amazon has the Blu-ray for a cool $20. The DVD is $18.49, nice to see price parity.