BBC Studios, out now

The 20th Century seasons of Red Dwarf get a 21st Century upgrade as an affordable, single volume boxset, retaining their extras, and then some.

The fact that Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s Red Dwarf celebrated its 30th birthday last year means that the shows have been round long enough to have been released on multiple home entertainment formats. VHS two-bytes-per-season cassettes (Series VII was even split into three!) were succeeded by season DVDs, and along the way there have been other variants (Xtended, just the shows, or just the Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs), which leads me neatly to this very pertinent question – Do you need to buy the show in another format?

And the answer is of course yes, thanks to a budget price of £40, meaning that you’re only paying a fiver per season, and it’s all collated neatly in a single volume. As with the recent BBC Hitch-Hiker’s and Doctor Who releases, the content has been upscaled from standard 480p video masters to 1080 high definition in a way that the output is far cleaner and clearer than your Blu-Ray player upscaling from DVD could offer, and you can proudly sit this box next to your Blu-Rays of Back to Earth and Seasons X, XI and XII.

There are of course limitations to upscaling, and this lower-budget studio shot comedy can only look so good, no matter how polished it is. But watch a scene of your current DVD versus the new releases and there’s a decided improvement in colour grading and range, as well as an overall crispness to the images. Wisely, all the added bonus material from the DVD releases has been ported across, ensuring that you really can send your previous discs to the charity shop without losing some of the fun documentaries like Can’t Smeg, Won’t Smeg or Dwarfing USA (a fascinating look at the US pilot).

As a special treat, the final disc is the bonus material from the rare-as-hens’-teeth 2007 DVD set – The Bodysnatcher Collection – boasting unseen ‘lost’ episode ‘Bodysnatcher’, performed to storyboards by Chris Barrie. Maybe the biggest fan, already owning all the episodes and bonus content, might feel aggrieved that there’s no brand new features, but if you love the show that much you’ll love the improved, vibrant picture and sound, free of dropouts, artefacts and other pre-digital smeg.

Verdict: All eight BBC seasons (52 episodes) of Red Dwarf, restored and upscaled, for under £40 – it’s a great price, and the ideal opportunity to upgrade and slim down your collection.  9/10

Nick Joy

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