Red Dwarf - Return to Earth

Well Red Dwarf was a bit of a damp squid wasn't it? It used to be a triple decker fried egg sandwhich with chilly sauce and chutney - all the ingredients were wrong but somehow it worked. Last night was like four mates who haven't met for 20 years getting together and not really knowing what to say. The absence of studio or canned laughter didn't help as it left an embarassing silence between the dialouge.
Where it used to be peppered with jokes, puns and amusing similies it had a rather feeble exchange of verbals that seemed to be just padding out the scenes. Rimmer reading Practical Classic Car magazine that Chris Barrie now writes for was perhaps supposed to be witty, but could just as easily have been an out take that got put in by mistake
The special effects were similarly disappointing after the big budget of the last few series. This was distinctly broom cupboard and foam cutouts.
I suppose being produced by DAVE instead of the BBC has a lot to do with it. SKY did the same with a one off Blackadder that was similarly lacklustre
I know the boys from the Dwarf aren't gettign any younger, but the magic and zest of the group dynamic seems to have died a premeautre death. When Laurel and Hardy made their last film, Utopia in 1950 they were tired, ageing and recognised as being at the end of their careers. Yet they still managed to make the film sparkle in places. The dwarf crew seem to be just going through the motions. And motions, remember, is a medical term for shit.
This should have been much better. Craig Charles can act well enough to make us think he fancies Liz McDonald for Christs sake! He could at least make an effort to out some animation into the job, like he did in the early series.
Chris Barrie used to raise a laugh with a simple facial expression, what happened? Is he paralysed or something? And where were his wonderful voices?
Kryten appears to have lost his nasal mechanoid voice, and The Cat had all the style and poise of Vicky Pollard.
I hope the remaining two episodes can redeem the Dwarfers and let them go out on a high. I don't want to remember them this way.
Otherwise Return to Earth, the inside of a ping pong ball and the VW Jetta will go down in history as the three least noteworthy things every written about.