And so I ended up on the VHistory blog where, hidden in one of the sites earlier posts, I came across an early trailer for the first series of Red Dwarf.

The first thing I notice is that they somehow manage to completely skip the whole ‘everyone-dying’ thing.

The second thing I notice is the complete absence of Danny John-Jules’s Cat and Norman Lovett’s Holly.

And the third thing? The third thing I notice is that it’s utterly, utterly terrible! While it may be unfair to compare the technical side of this trailer to something a moderately competent modern 15 year old could turn out, it’s entirely reasonable to look at the underlying concept and declare that it’s absolutely rubbish. Frankly it’s surprising that anyone watched the first episode – let alone the 4.75 million who actually did! Heck, frankly it’s surprising the general public didn’t march on Television Centre and put both the master tapes and the rest of BBC Comedy to the torch for wasting their money…