Red Dwarf-Series 5 (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-Cast Audio Commentary-Fan Commentary - Back To Reality Notes-Fan Profiles Theatrical Trailer-4 Featurette-'Best Ever Episode' Introduction Featurette-'Skutter' Channel Indents Featurette-Raw FX Footage Deleted Scenes Featurette-The SFX Of Red Dwarf V Outtakes-Smeg Ups Featurette-Dwarfing USA Gallery-Photo Music Highlights-Isolated Music Cues Audio-Only Track-Radio Sketch Featurette-Bad Guys Featurette-Documentary: Heavy Science Web Links More…-DVD Credits, Easter Eggs
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	138:51 (Case: 381)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (56:53)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Jeffrey Melman
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Craig Bierko Chris Eigeman Jane Leeves Hinton Battle Robert Llewellyn Lorraine Toussaint Elizabeth Morehead Michael Heintzman
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$49.95	Music	Todd Rundgren

    Another season of Red Dwarf and it's a cracker. There isn't much development to the already well-established plot throughout this series, but there are some great episodes in this bunch. A 2004 BBC poll to find Britain's best sitcom the show was voted 18th out of 100 nominations. Personally, I think that's a little low and this season does nothing to dissuade that opinion.

    The basic concept of the show is that a handful of characters are surviving aboard a mining ship millions of years into the future, long after the the fall of the human race. Only one is actually human, and none of them are terribly gifted at the art of survival (or much else for that matter). The main characters are:

• Dave Lister (Craig Charles) - The last human on Earth and a slob.
• Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) - An cowardly and self righteous hologram based on Lister's last living boss. Despite not being real, he still outranks Lister.
• Cat (Danny John-Jules) - A humanoid with an obsession in style who evolved from Lister's pet cat.
• Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) - A robot who does most of the work and loves it.
• Holly (Hattie Hayridge) - The ship's supercomputer, who has steadily lost its marbles over the course of thousands of millions of years alone in space.

    This series features 6 episodes spread across two discs. The episodes are:

1. Holoship - Rimmer is kidnapped by fellow Holograms who want to study him. He is taken to a holographic ship where he appears to have a physical presence and can actually manipulate objects. Desperate to join the crew of this new vessel, he must win a battle of wits against an existing crew-member to do so.
2. The Inquisitor - An android known as The Inquisitor arrives aboard Red Dwarf to pass judgement as to whether its crew members have lived worthy lives. One by one the crew are brought forward to justify their existence - Anybody failing to do so will have every trace of themselves removed from all of time.
3. Terrorform - Kryten and Rimmer crash land on a "psi-moon", a world that transforms itself according to the psyche of its inhabitants. Kryten is disabled in the crash, so the remaining crew must battle through a world created from Rimmer's self-loathing psyche to rescue their comrades.
4. Quarantine - After a trip to a biological research station, Lister, Cat and Kryten are placed in quarantine by Rimmer for three months out of spite. While in quarantine, the three are tormented by Rimmer, who has become infected with a hologram virus.
5. Demons and Angels - An experimental matter duplicating machine accidentally destroys Red Dwarf, but creates two Red Dwarf copies in doing so. The crew, who escaped aboard the scout ship Starbug, visit each only to find that one ship is crewed by good versions of themselves and the other by evil versions of themselves.
6. Back to Reality - After visiting a deep-sea wreck on an ocean planet, the four humanoid crew awake to discover that they are not in fact the crew of Red Dwarf, but four geeks who have been playing a virtual reality computer game for four years.

Video

    Like each of the other Red Dwarf DVD sets, the video is reasonable, mediocre but adequate. Most of the issues with the video appear to be due to the original recording being cheaply shot on video rather than a poor transfer to DVD.

    The video is presented in its original 1.29:1 aspect ratio and not 16x9 enhanced (nor should it be).

    The image is reasonably clear for the most part, but sharpness does vary. There is noticeable colour bleeding during brightly lit scenes, such as at 7:44 of The Inquisitor, and particularly dark scenes such as many of the outdoor scenes in Terrorform. The colours in these bright shots also appear over-saturated. Some scenes display noticeable edge enhancement. There is a reasonable amount of shadow detail visible, but the contrast levels are generally a bit flat. The colours are generally either a little dull or too bright.

    Aliasing is occasionally visible. It is most noticeable around effects shots. Moderate pixelation is also noticeable, but not too distracting.

    English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available. They appear to be reasonably accurate and reasonably well timed.

    This is a RSDL disc, but the layer change occurs between episodes and is consequently not noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The show features an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kbps) soundtrack.

    The audio sounds a little flat and lifeless by modern standards but has no real technical faults.

    The dialogue is clear and appears well-synchronized to the image.

    The musical cues are bouncy and vibrant throughout and can be listened to in isolation as one of the Extras on the second disc.

    There is no noticeable use of the surround speakers of subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This set comes laden with extras of varying worth. Fans will not be disappointed.

Main Menu Audio and Animation

    The discs feature 3D animated menus based around locations such as the officer's quarters and a console room where Holly warns of unwanted intruders.

Cast Commentary

    Commentaries for each episode feature all the main cast members. The gang are certainly up for a laugh throughout the commentary and keep up a steady stream of amusing chatter throughout the episodes. This one is worth a listen.

Fan Commentary for Back to Reality

    Commentary by a handful of Red Dwarf fans. This one is pretty forgettable.

Heavy Science Featurette (76:51)

    An entertaining, although a tad long, "Making Of" type featurette. This featurette contains a lot of random chit-chat and anecdotes rather than the technical stuff, but it's a fun watch.

Deleted Scenes (48:40)

    A huge number of deleted scenes here, many of which it's plain to see as to see why they were trimmed (failed gags, bits that don't quite fit in with the rest of episodes etc.) but they are pretty much all worth a look.

Smeg Ups - outtakes (7:03)

    A handful of outtakes that vary from hilarious to filler. Thankfully, most of the outtakes are pretty funny.

Dwarfing USA Featurette (28:17)

    A featurette about the development of the ill-fated pilot for a US version of Red Dwarf. It features many clips from the pilot, but not the complete pilot itself.

Bad Guys Featurette (2:28)

    A montage of the various bad guys seen throughout the various series of Red Dwarf.

The SFX of Red Dwarf V Featurette (30:48)

    A thorough effects featurette that covers the creation, design, filming and compositing of the effects for the show.

Raw FX Footage Featurette (17:37)

    A series of effects shots that were chopped up for use in the show.

Trailers, Idents and Episode Introduction Featurette (4:51)

    A series of four trailers, an introduction to the "best episode" of the series and Red Dwarf themed BBC 2 channel logo clips. The trailers are the best of this bunch, particularly one that spoofs the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy animation.

Isolated Music Cues

    A facility to play 10 of Howard Goodall's musical cues used in the show.

Dave Hollins Radio Sketch

    The original radio sketch that inspired the concept of Red Dwarf, which plays as audio only maintaining the DVD menu in the background. Dave Hollins, a Dave Lister-like space traveller, meets an alien race with an unusual greeting custom.

Photo Gallery

    A rather routine photo gallery that can be navigated with the DVD remote.

Weblink

    A link to the show's official website.

Easter Eggs

    I found three Easter eggs on the disc. Each is reasonably amusing:

1. (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) On disc one: Highlight the Time Gauntlet in the middle of the episode selection screen. You are taken to a menu where you are prompted for an activation code on the Time Gauntlet, anyone that has seen The Inquisitor will know to enter 145. This is an animated version of the writers and producer chewing the fat.
2. (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) On disc one: Select Quarantine on the Episode Selection menu. On the second chapter screen, move to the Menu option then press up to select the Mr. Flibble illustration and hit enter. A hilarious clip featuring Rimmer's chum Mr. Flibble!
3. (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) On disc two: Press up on the subtitles menu then press enter. The American Holly explains her accent.

    Identical versions of this set are available in both Region 1 and Region 2. The series can also be found in box-set of bare-bones discs that collates seasons 5 - 8 of the show, aptly named Red Dwarf: Just the Shows.

    An excellent series of Red Dwarf, one of Britain's funniest and most unique sit-coms. The package of extras is phenomenal.

    The video and audio a adequate, but nothing more.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall