So, this week we got Entangled - or maybe Doug Naylor did? I'm wondering if the episode was called this because it's what the writer scribbled at the top of his rough draft in frustration.
This was an episode that felt misplaced in the run by about seven series. It was also an episode that featured some really strong material and ideas but either needed a second part or more tidying up at the scripting stage.
There was a lot I really liked about it: it had some great ideas, some great gags, and (possibly since I work in that kind of environment) I thought the aspect of Health & Safety paperwork and audit trails was wonderful. But the BEGGs bits were rushed and there was no proper lead up to the Cat and his space weevil or Kryten and his crystals - and this left me completely wrong-footed when they started to do their (exceptionally well-played) synchronicity act. You could tune in at the start of this episode and think 'damn, I need to watch last week's first to get what's going on' - which of course wouldn't really help you at all.
What I liked about this episode, and what I liked about the early series, was that each of the crew is doing their own thing. It's a big ship, after all, so they wouldn't be under each other's feet all the time. Lister is being irresponsible, drinking and having a massive kebab in the (tiny!) drive room, Rimmer is being officious as only he can, Cat is hunting like a cat (it's good to be reminded that he is actually a cat now and again) and Kryten is getting on with what he has to do. The episode wouldn't work so well if any one of them wasn't there. Then they all come together for the important scenes.
But there's actually too much going on this week - or possibly too much going on off screen. Having tried it several times in the last few series I don't see why they didn't boost this one out to a two-parter. Then we could have had a proper introduction to where the weevil and crystals came from, we could have seen Lister meet the BEGGS and at least start the poker game (without spoiling the later gags), we could have had an amusing lead into Rimmer's anorak-wearing, wibbling breakdown on the BEGG moon and more could have been done on the ERRA space station (what a fabulous comedy concept that was). As it was it all felt too rushed, with too much trying to be crammed in to one half hour. This means the episode becomes off-balanced by some of the longer (and funnier) scenes such as Rimmer and Lister discussing H&S and the death of the rest of the original crew towards the beginning. You couldn't lose any of the individual plot-strands without compromising the conclusion, so I can't help but feel Doug Naylor wrote himself into a bit of a hole here.
Professor Edgington, with her glasses on upside down. Bless! Sydney Stevenson played her exceptionally well for what amounted to a potentially hammy cameo, but boy would the character have become annoying if she'd stayed. She'd already pushed her luck with my patience by the end of this episode, but she made up for it with a wonderful clumsy death through the airlock - perfect!
The BEGGs scene was set (possibly as a deliberate nod) just like the GELF scene in the episode Emohawk - Polymorph 2 (Series VI), including a return for actor Steven Wickham who'd played Lister's GELF bride. So far Series X of Red Dwarf has had an expensive, glossy look and feel to it, with excellent production values all round. Why, then, did the BEGGs have alien monster costumes that would have been derided in Doctor Who forty years ago? This was a real disappointment - but they could have got away with it if they'd drawn attention to it as a feature of them being genetically engineered! There was a ready-made get out clause for them and they didn't take it - or maybe the production team thought they looked great and not like £15 Planet of The Apes party costumes.
I also have to ask how Lister managed to communicate with them effectively during the previous poker game without Kryten to translate. The universal language of alcohol maybe? But I shouldn't be searching for my own answers! Sloppy...
This could easily have been the best episode of the series so far, or the best two episodes. It's a real shame that it wasn't either.
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