Sci-fi comedy and cult phenomenon
Red Dwarf is heading back to the small screen in 2012 for a full six episode series commissioned by U.K. Freeview Channel Dave. This will mark the first new series since the eighth season ended back in 1999. Let's try and forget about the Back to Earth specials that aired on the same channel
back in 2009 shall we? - even though their record breaking success for the channel led to this decision.
Craig Charles (Dave Lister) let the news slip
in an interview with Real Radio saying;
...they've commissioned another series of Red Dwarf, We're gonna film at the end of November December and January. We gotta recapture the highlights of series 5 and 6, that kind of stuff. Otherwise there's no point in doing it if it's a bit so-so.
The main cast, Robert Llwellyn (Kryten)
Chris Barrie (Arnold Rimmer) and Danny John Jules (The Cat) will return
In his blog Robert Llwellyn goes into a bit more detail;
The plan at the moment, and this could change, is that we record the new series in front of an audience.
Now, this is a complicated issue. The last time we recorded a show in front of an audience was in 1998.
The fear among the producers now is that its impossible to imagine an audience of around 400 people at the recording of a TV show like Red Dwarf, where nobody does a bit of a hint on Twitter, or sneaks a picture on Facebook or posts a bit of badly shot video on YouTube. Its just too tempting, its too easy.
Yep, the internet is spoiler hungry, and hardcore "Dwarf" fans are starving, but it's a gamble they should take for the sake of the show. As long as the writing from Doug Naylor is up to par, a show like this should definitely be in front of a live audience, so the cast can buzz off that energy, something the recent specials and last full series dearly missed when it decided not to. So there's still quite a wait for this, but are you excited about their return to screens, or should they have left it in stasis?