Red Dwarf (TV Series) Dear Dave (2012) User Reviews

Weaker than other series ten episodes but still has enough laughs

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 2 November 2012]

As this episode opens Lister is feeling down; he is missing the human race and despite Kryten's attempts to cheer him he just can't get over the fact that he is the only human being left. Things look like they might get better for him when the mail pod arrives bringing a sack of million year old letters; including a parking fine for Rimmer and a letter to Dave from the only girlfriend who didn't dump him... she was pregnant and there was a fifty percent chance that he was the father. He spends the rest of the episode trying to find out if there was a second letter revealing the results of her paternity test. In a secondary plot also involving Lister one of the vending machines thinks Lister is hitting on her/it which causes another one to get jealous. There is also a plot involving Rimmer trying to bribe the doctor with the ship's supply of toilet paper so that he won't get demoted for failing to turn up to work.

I think this was probably the weakest episode of series ten; that isn't to say it was bad though as I thought the previous episodes were really good whereas this one was just pretty good. There were some good laughs even if they were a little bit predictable; I'm sure most viewers will guess that the letters won't contain good news. The plot involving the vending machines was a bit weak although it did lead to a very amusing moment where Lister was trying to lift up a vending machine that had fallen over but it looks like he is doing something entirely different!

Series 10 feels like it is petering out

[snoozejonc · 6/10 · 4 January 2021]

Lister is on a downer about being the last human alive and a mail pod arrives.

I enjoyed this one in parts, but it contains a lot of reused concepts from the early series.

Lister's loneliness was explored during Timeslides and this is one does it in a more reflective way now that he is older. The scenes with the vending machines are okay, but I found the idea more sad than funny. The notion of a machine with a personality, interacting with the crew, the talkie-toaster, feels similarly repetitive. The arrival of a mail pod with a letter containing big news for a crew member has also been done before. This all unfolds quite well but feels like plot ideas are running quite thin after a decent first half to series 10.

All performances are solid, particularly Craig Charles and Danny-John Jules who have a funny heart to heart about failed romance. Chris Barrie is as good as ever, but Rimmer feels more like a caricature these days.