Smeggin' Hell!

Well, we're a week late - but on the 15th of February 1988, episode 1 of Red Dwarf, Series 1, aired on BBC2.

Hard to believe 20 years have gone by since the launch of what was to become a favourite amongst sci-fi fans and celebrities (Patrick Stewart is a big fan, don'tcha know...).

With the idea of a film seemingly dead and buried at last, and a ninth TV series turned down by the BBC last year (strange considering the popularity of sci-fi at the moment) it seems that its all over for the crew of the Dwarf. And they never got back to Earth...

The history of Red Dwarf is well documented on the DVDs and here at Cadmium2, we will be covering the show in our own unique style. Let's face it - we have to - it's where we got our name from! That won't be for a little while yet but it doesn't stop us celebrating their anniversary.

Pop along to the Facebook group and join in the discussion of the best and worst of Red Dwarf...

Show 15: Timeslip 2 (The Time of the Ice Box)

Yes, it's that time of the fortnight again! The latest show, our fifteenth, is out there in the Internet ether. In this show, we cover the second story in the Timeslip TV series, called The Time of the Ice Box. There are two more shows in the series, and we are hoping to cover the third in May and the fourth in June.

The Timeslip series is available as a complete boxed set containing all four stories. Click here for some places and prices where you can buy them.

You can download the latest episode direct by clicking here.

If you would like to remind yourself of our coverage of the first tale, The Wrong End of Time, click here.

As usual, you can leave us feedback on the show by visiting the Show 15 Thread on our Facebook group.

The other announcement this month is that we would like to give our listeners a chance to be on the show. There are two possibilities:

1) Join us in studio. This means that you will be with us when we record (either in Daventry, Northants or Hailsham, East Sussex) whatever show we happen to be doing.

2) If you have an opinion on something we have covered and would like to express it in person over the phone, or Skype, we can get you involved in the show that way.

If you are interested in either, either email us of leave a comment on the Facebook Thread set up for that purpose.

Take care, see you all in a fortnight!

BBC7...

In the preamble in show 14, we discuss the merits of some of the shows on BBC7, which is a digital radio station here in the UK. One of the members of our Facebook Group has confirmed for us that you can indeed listen to the station live over the internet and use the listen again function overseas.

So if you like audio drama (science fiction or not) as well as comedy then have a look at the BBC7 homepage. Their Seventh Dimension slot may particularly be of interest to the people who listen to this show, if you click the link it will tell you what is coming up for the next week. The slot is one hour per day, with series running Monday to Friday, and then the Saturday and Sunday slots tend to run independently (it is the weekend slot that usually plays the Big Finish 8th Doctor during their first run).

The serials run from one episode to twenty, some of them are repeats from Radio Four, whilst others are made especially for BBC7. There is some awesome stuff on here (hence this blurb) and I really encourage fans of audio to have a look at it. And if anything amazing comes up I will try and post it on here, but the best way to ensure you miss nothing is to favourite the page from the link above.

Show 14: Doctor Who (The Keys of Marinus)

In this show, we look at the fifth story of the first series of Doctor Who, titled The Keys of Marinus. This is the second story to be written by Dalek creator Terry Nation, and the first of only two shows that he wrote for the show that do not contain the Daleks. It is also much more difficult to get hold of, since it has not been released on DVD yet and is not available on audio CD. Yup, for this show we went back in time and watched a VHS tape, folks!

We have checked, and the story is available from both amazon.co.uk and amazon.com as a second hand item from their marketplaces, but you will pay quite a lot of money for them. As we get into the rare episodes you will find them harder and harder to get hold of, but if they still exist in the BBC archives they will eventually get a DVD release. There are people who like to watch the episodes before we review them, and for those people we have this peice of advice: wait for the DVD release, you will get a much better product than you will on a second hand VHS tape.

And, as you will hear, this is an interesting story - the first of several "quest" type stories for the first Doctor, and this particular story shows many similarities to The Key to Time series from many years later!

As usual, we would love to hear what you think of this show, and as ususal there is a discussion thread set up on our Facebook page.

The episode is already on the podcast feed, and can also be downloaded manually by clicking here.

Next up (on the 20th of this month) is our discussion on the second Timeslip story, The Time of the Ice Box. See you then!