Red Dwarf had a series in 1997 and 1999. While there wasn’t one in 1998, you could still get close to a series-worth of material in Red Dwarf Night, a special which celebrated the franchise’s history. There were five half hour programs, though one was a reshowing of the series six episode, “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”. The original four had their own Red Dwarf theme song-styled intros, so they’re kind of like a 1998 series. One of those programs features the characters getting in an adventure, albeit an unconventional one, so you do get a stealth bonus episode from this special. Some of the material featured in Night won’t be covered, due to a focus on non-documentary-esque material. It’s amusing that there’s a title card saying “Red Dwarf X” (as in the tenth anniversary), considering there would one day be a series with that name.
‘Night’ Bumpers
Patrick Stewart has such a great voice and there’s something so novel about his inclusion. The “BBC Two Icon” bumpers are pretty amusing, featuring it and a scutter getting into brief romps. Some of the segments are very strange.
Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg
This kind-of episode of the show is such a delight. A general highlight of Red Dwarf is when the main leads can just bounce off each other (especially in front of an audience) and create comedy from air. Them cooking might not sound interesting, but they make it work with the little bantering and fast pace. The cast are clearly good at playing to an audience. They manage to find little comedic things to do to get attention and not make this just a cooking show. Kryten using that vacuum cleaner is a favorite moment, as is Lister losing his cool with Ainsley Harriott, which feels authentic. The Red Dwarf crew are disgusting, with Lister eating out of containers. Them not breaking character really adds a layer to the experience.
Danny John-Jules is great at cutting food. Perhaps everyone’s favorite part is Duane with the rice? It’s just such a great gag! Rimmer is underutilized. Seeing as his actor had recently left the show, maybe this was written without his inclusion, only for him to be added in when he did come around? Ainsley Harriott is fun, especially when he gets outraged. What’s up with his little dance as he pours food and the face he makes when feeding Kochanski? Amusingly, Kochanski serves very little role, as if it had been realized she doesn’t really work in the show. In the 1999 series, there’s almost no attempt to fit her into the show, with it being focused on other characters. Still, she gets a little bit of material. Kochanski’s face as she watches the meals being prepared is hilarious. It would’ve been nice if Kochanski’s reactions to eating the food were real. Imagine if someone intentionally made them disgusting, so as to get a visceral reaction from her?
It’s not all good with her… Have the writers ever met a woman before? The jokes about Kochanski not being hungry because she ate a stick of celery, and also her asking everybody to look at her butt seem like either no one had any ideas for her and/or they wanted to give the male cast some eye candy. Duane’s comments about Kochanski later are strangely sexual, as well. Some deleted scenes from series seven and eight depict Lister as sexist for no discernible reason. Here, he gets a random sexist line.
Such shortcomings are insubstantial when compared to the highlights. While Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg doesn’t hold a candle to series one-six, it’s better than series seven. It has the same creative team and everybody is wearing their series seven costumes, so it’s nice to see this era go out on a relative high. This certainly isn’t for everyone, but for others it’s surprisingly funny and engaging.
For friends of continuity, there’s two places this could go in the series. Neither are where it aired, in between series seven and eight. The most natural choice is after series eight, this being just one of their many misadventures before Back to Earth. It’d be funny to think that after all she went through, Kochanski decided to leave because of eating the meals this episode. It could also be set between series seven episodes three-eight, with one of the virtual reality machines. Imagine one of the leads wanted to live through an episode of Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook and got the others to come along? Maybe this is “Better Than Life”, and thus it became somewhat demented? Ainsley Harriott, Rimmer, and Duane Dibbley would be artificial creations if this was the case. The Cat leaving could represent the Cat deciding to leave the game.
A creature turned the Cat into Duane Dibbley in series six. A fun fan theory is that it is hiding around somewhere and turned the Cat into Duane, as how else would he be here? In between the Cat leaving and Duane arriving, there could’ve been more things going on we just didn’t see.
Universe Challenge
In “Universe Challenge”, questions were asked about the cast members’ early appearances in media and whomever a question concerned was allowed to answer. You’d think that’d make answering a little too easy, as they’d most likely know the answer. There is one fun moment where Danny John-Jules says, “What?!” in response to Craig Charles answering a question pertaining to the former person. Chloë Annett is very good at acting uncomfortable (as she seems in Smeg). “It’s meeeee!” is a very funny part. The best part is seeing the cast react to something amusing or embarrassing about them.
Children In Need (Not part of Red Dwarf Night)
The group is weirdly slow, as if they had no time to rehearse. If they in fact didn’t, you’d think their natural chemistry would carry them further. Kochanski almost feels like an afterthought. No one really knew what to do with her when Rimmer rejoined. The Channel 5 joke is quite good.
The Filme Diary 