Red Dwarf Series 1-8 for £16.97 delivered @ Tesco Entertainment

[synaesthesia]

Definitely was a good era. It was all completely mindless fun, especially the likes of Young Ones and Bottom. Just couldn't do it these days, for instance they've wanted to bring back Bottom several times but the Daily Mail brigade didn't think too much of it, hence it only survived until recently in live shows (the DVD's for which I've just recently completed collecting). And look at what some of these people have done since those days - Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are both legends in their own rights. Chris Barrie and Danny John Jules have had some major movie roles and doing very well for themselves, Craig Charles quite enjoying his stint in Corrie. Rowan Atkinson has done too much to count, and how many films have Ben Elton and Richard Curtis done? That all came from a load of knob gags in half hour episodes in the 80s with no budget. Will we ever see those sort of days again?

[cookie_monster]

Makes you wonder - Series 1 and 2 were very cultish, yet bore inspiration to many sci-fi and comedy programs/films for years afterwards. Several episodes from later series, especially Legion and Gunmen of the Apocalypse bagged some serious awardage and for very good reason. Were series 1 and 2 slightly less of a cult thing at the time (christ, thats 22 years ago now - I feel old, I remember watching them on their first runs!) perhaps many of those scripts might have been forwarded for similar awards for scriptwriting.
Funny really - even in the later series some of the scenes were also comedy gold and very strangely for the time, original. I think half the reason the Dave commissioned specials were not as well regarded as the others is the age in which they were shown. Comedy is not original now. It's all been done, and we have talentless gits like Ricky Gervais lapping up the credit for the laugh-dregs at the bottom of barrels scraped long ago.

I think series 1 & 2 became cult very quickly I remember it being massive when I was at school I can't comment on the age range appeal then as I was only 10.

I don't agree with the "Comedy is not original now" statement completely. I think allot of mainstream comedy is exactly as you said but there's still great new comedy out there it just takes a while for the general population to 'get' it in my opinion. Shows like Nathan Barley or Brass Eye are an example I think you only see genuine new comedy approaches come along once a generation and this is due to a general change in taste and tolerance. Not to mention how hard it is to come up with original ideas in such a media saturated market I wonder how many 'great' ideas are swamped and never make it. Or maybe it's just that most of the writers are taking less recreational LSD these days.

[gibbo_ap]

gutted they cost me loads when they were all released each year. mmmm i still need to look at this years dimension jump convention