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The guys on The Big Bang Theory would love this sci-fi British import....
BBC / 180 Minutes / 2012 / Unrated / Street Date: January 8, 2013
It's been said - by nerds on both sides of the pond - that Red Dwarf X is a lovechild of The Big Bang Theory and old-school Doctor Who, and this triangulation serves the sci-fi series quite accurately. This is a big, bumbling in-joke of a sci-fi show, one that relishes its under-funded budgets as much as it is limited by them: the spaceships in Red Dwarf X totally feel like they've been constructed in a fanboy's basement (and they work fantastically well).
These are the adventures of the starship Red Dwarf - we have our fearless captain, Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), a cyborg maid of sorts, 2X4B-523P (Robert Llewellyn), a half-human/half-feline, and a handful of other oddities who guide us through the tumultuous universe of the show. There's an entire episode based on the search for an 8-volt battery (Lemons), an on-board poker game that goes woefully wrong (Entangled), even a climactic battle with the series' enemy Annihilators (The Beginning).
I can't help but come back to the Big Bang/Doctor Who hybrid idea. Red Dwarf X is absolutely in on its own jokes, but it's also savvy enough to exist in its own unique narrative universe. This is a har-har geeky show that is both cheeky and legitimately entertaining in equal capacities. It may be too reflexive and resonant of sci-fi culture to be appealing to the masses, but anybody who knows what a Tribble is will find merit here.