Product Description

Red Dwarf 'back to earth' DVD signe dby Craig Charles at a signing event in our London shop. 100% guaranteed genuine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #921 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-06-15
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Box set, Director's Cut, PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 75 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It was a long time coming, but finally the crew of the Red Dwarf were reunited for what could be the last time with Back To Earth. And it proved to be a bit of a mixed blessing, with the three parts of show--all of which are brought together on this DVD--throwing up moments of absolute genius, alongside parts where you couldn’t help believing that its best days are far behind it.

The idea behind the show is quite ingenious. Back To Earth takes place after the supposed season ten of Red Dwarf, and the crew find themselves thrown through a portal, whereupon they realise that they’re all just characters from a TV show. Furthermore, they’re characters from a TV show who are going to all buy it in the final episode. The only solution? To track down both the actors that play them (including a trip to the Coronation Street set!), and the creators of Red Dwarf itself.

This opens the door for plenty of postmodern gags and situations, but arguably it’s only when things get back onto a more comfortable Red Dwarf plain do things start to gel a little more. And when it works, you can’t help but enjoy the fact that the crew are back together.

Will this be the last voyage for Red Dwarf? Quite possibly, and there’s little doubt that it’s far from the show’s peak. But it’s still a fun send-off for the crew, and while a little patchy, it still manages to be both funny and entertaining. It’s also, thanks to the DVD, far better to watch it all in one advert-free block.--Jon Foster

DVD Description
Back to Earth takes place after ‘series ten’. Kochanski is dead and the crew are hurled through a portal and discover they are just characters from a TV series. Knowing they will die in the final episode the Dwarfers, in best Blade Runner traditions, decide to track down their creators to discover how long they have left to live. First the crew attempt to track down the actors who play them in the series and their metaphysical odyssey begins…

• Bonus Features
• Cast Commentary
• Director Commentary
• All-New Exclusive Documentary
• The Making of Back to Earth
• Deleted Scenes
• Smeg Ups
• Featurettes
• Trailers
Web Videos
• Photo Gallery
• Easter Egg
• Features both a Director's Cut version of Back to Earth and the original televised version.

Customer Reviews

The team are back together and not as bad as I expected.
I am a huge Red Dwarf Fan and hearing there was a new recently made mini series, I was really looking forward to see these actors reunited.

We live in an age of remakes and sometimes surprise returns of well known series/actors trying to recapture the peaks of glory. Many attempts in recent years of making a huge comeback of recreating nostalgia or continuing a series/franchise put to rest long ago , have been a mixed bag of decent effort and Epic Fail. So one has to keep an open mind nowadays and except returns of old greats to differ greatly from it's past success.

Luckily for Red Dwarf fans, things aren't that bad because many of the people behind the show are still involved , as well as the 4 main actors ! Infact my heart gives a huge salute to see them back together. It's actually very heart warming to see them play the same roles again without problems after such a long period of absence.

Unfortunately even though it's great to seem the old team back , it's not among the best Red Dwarf stories told. It gets a while to get into it ( Well with Red Dwarf having left us years ago , that's a given ) but later on it shows to have the makings of the more classic style of Red Dwarf Formula and the series classic trademark humorously confusing yet clever scientific explanations and twists.

This is still a great adventure with some fresh new twists, along with the usual great stuff you'd expect from Red dwarf.
One thing to note is that special effects are greatly improved and amazing to watch ..... which is a big step forward from the humble days of bad special effects budget BBC that we loved and gave great charm to the older series.
There are a few scenes that are particularly enjoyable to watch thanks to these modern advances .

Also without spoiling too much .. the location of this new adventure leads to funny new situations , although the general idea/concept does seem to be somewhat of a recycling of a past well loved classic episodes. but I don't mind so much since it's being told in such an exciting new way.

As a big Red Dwarf fan I'd still recommend this especially to loyal fans alike. This is one of the better comeback shows/titles that capture the spirit of their former endeavours without sacrificing too much for modernisation.
There are still many laughs to be had after all that's said and done.
This was not as bad as I expected and I very much enjoyed this recent return despite my cautious nature of modernising classic titles.

Although compared to the caliber of the shows in the past, I have to sadly give it an average rating. But that doesn't mean I didn't greatly appreciate the effort to bring one of my favourite comedy series back for one last farewell party.
All hardcore Red Dwarfers should still give it a try though and not be too harsh . But I think it might actually impress and entertain casual Red Dwarf fans alot more than the die hard ones.

I was worried...but...
I started watching Red Dwarf when I was 9 years old, way back in 1993, and have always loved it. I was more than a little dissappointed when the show disappeared after series 8 and always hoped it would return one day.

So I, like many Red Dwarf fans, worried that after 10 years the show wouldn't be able to live up to the expectations of so many over enthusiastic fans. I therefore made a point of watching Back to Earth with an open mind, trying to ignore my bias as best as I could. At first, I was worried, especially when they actually went back to earth and attempted to break down the fourth wall, but the twist and turns in the final episode made it completely worth it and harked back to the same plot devices that made series 5,6 and 7 so successful. Sure, it's different to the original 8 series (after 10 years what do you expect?) but Back to Earth showed that the boys from the Dwarf and the sparkle that made me love the show is still there.
Some will be disappointed, but this is mainly because their expectations got carried away. Watch it with an open mind and you are sure to be pleasantly surprised. I thought it was a great comeback and I will be happy to put this addition to the series with the rest of my treasured collection.

The DVD is sure to help these episodes (no ad breaks will certainly help keep the pace of the plot)and there are bound to be plenty of extras.

Much better than I expected from the negative reviews
This is much better than the negative reviews on here indicate. But it is still flawed and not as good as the earliest episodes of the series.

I am not a die-hard Warhammer playing Red Dwarf fanboy, so things like inconsistencies between episodes and plot holes don't bother me (Red Dwarf has always played fast and loose so who am I to complain?).

I thought the first 2-3 series were the best, with their low budget sets, minimal characters and emphasis on time and mind bending storylines. In general the first 5 series were excellent as Cat and later Kryton became more central characters. Although I wasn't a fan of the gradual increase in budget and lavish sets and costumes, one of my favourite episodes was Back to Reality (so I enjoyed the references to it in this mini-series).

I really disliked the later episodes of Red Dwarf without Rimmer and with Kochanski. For me it was all wrong; horribly wrong. Red Dwarf works because it is (in modern parlance) a bromance, dealing with the relationships and interactions between four disparate male personalities: vain, slobbish, neurotic and insecure. Once Kochanski became a major player (and Rimmer left), the series lost its way, its focus and its heart. I also really disliked the cinematic quality of the later series' - for me the series worked best made on video with flat lighting and on low budget sets. Once they introduced cinematic lighting and cinematography, the series was never the same (much like Dr Who in my opinion, which has replaced story and character with flash visuals, but that's another story).

I was pleased to see that this mini-series focuses on the 4 main characters all of whom are excellent. It is unfortunate that a number of the defining elements of the series are not included such as Holly, who for me was never propely replaced by Hilly and was greatly missed for years and canned/studio laughter. I can't believe how important this is to the series. It is sorely lacking here and jokes which are funny fall flat without the addition of studio laughter.

The complete story is quite clever with some excellent moments, but overall it's not much of a whole.

The opening episode really bears little if any relation to the rest of the story. I felt much of the first episode such as the female hologram was simply padding. It isn't particularly funny or memorable either.

The second episode is better, though I would agree that the "timely" references to recession and credit crunch etc were a bit lame and obvious. I thought the comic shop owner ringing Reg Wharf and apologising for interrupting his Warhammer game was priceless though (perhaps it was too close to the bone for the fanboys?). But the second episode ends on a really flat and pointless note as the carbug drives around some streets. Could they not have thought of a cliffhanger?

The third episode is the cleverest. I quite liked the connection to Coronation St as the characters search for their real selves - it didn't go on too long or get overplayed. I also liked the links with Blade Runner - the recreated scene of Joanna Cassidy being shot in the back and crashing through plate glass windows was brilliantly done. It also contains the sort of ingenious ideas I liked from the early years - like the episode being determined by Lister's typing - very clever.

Unfortunately there are not enough clever moments. A lot of the time nothing of interest (or amusement) is happening during the episodes. The mini-series also suffers from being an outside broadcast: the best episodes are those confined in Red Dwarf or which involve time travel within a tight and constrained environment etc. Here there are too many superfluous characters, too much plot padding and too few jokes.

It's really not all that bad, but this would have worked best as a single one hour episode. That would have been excellent.