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Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire hit BBC2 last night, having been previously aired in the US via Comedy Central (this was a joint BBC and CC production). As a spoof of a fantasy genre, it was pretty much required watching by yours truly, being as I am torn between indulging my inherent sci-fi/fantasy geekdom, and being cynical about the general derivativeness of most of the genre.

It was a strange beast – a real melting pot of some genuinely funny moments mixed in with some predictable gags; occasional comic gems mixed with a smattering of naff, crude humour. I can see why many of the critical reviewers hated it, but I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoyed it. I can happily ignore the duff bits, because the good bits were fun, and the subject matter is right down my alley – how often do you actually get to enjoy a spoof fantasy story written deliberately for comedy effect (rather than being accidentally hilarious, which is sometimes good too)? Ok, so this wasn’t exactly The Princess Bride, but at times it was channelling elements of it, even if it was erratically.

The stars of the show were Sean Maguire (Krod), as the delightfully insecure hero, and Matt Lucas (Dongalore) as a public-school educated, fantasy version of Dr Evil. Lucas was the more consistent, being almost 100% funny for his entire screen time; even though I’m personally not much of a Little Britain fan, I think he was very good in this. Maguire definitely had his moments though as a post-modern male hero.

I’ll definitely be watching the next episode: if you’re willing to not be too critical about the weaker parts and just want some fantasy-oriented laughs, it’s on Thursdays at 9pm, BBC2.

Remakes and comebacks are always in vogue, but unfortunately they almost always disappoint. Whether it’s that a brand new take on an idea just doesn’t quite work as well, or whether it’s an original team getting back together after a decade or more apart and the spark has gone, too often there just seems to be something wrong or missing. I suggest that this tendency should be called ‘George Lucas Syndrome’, in homage of he who epitomised how far you can fall from the heady heights of bygone triumphs.

Red Dwarf was the latest casualty last night, returning after many years away for a one-off 3-parter. It ran for 8 series originally, and whilst the last 2 tailed off really badly it was regularly a really great show. Last night’s return though was pretty disappointing – the lines were far less snappy, the acting pretty wooden and lacking chemistry, many of the gags are recycled and pretty weak, the episode is shorter (to fit into a 30 minute slot with commercials since the return is on commercial channel Dave, instead of a full 30 minute slot like it was when it was on the BBC), and seemed obsessed with special effects and trying to shoehorn a plot in there instead of just focussing on quality comedy. I wonder whether in this case it’s just age, or whether the absence of Rob Grant (this time it’s just Doug Naylor of the duo writing it) that makes it fall a bit flat. I think the lack of a live studio audience detracts too.

All in all, it reminds me of the attrocious millennium edition of Blackadder (Back and Forth) which suffered from the same problems and should never have been created. I was hoping that this return might be like Blackadders Christmas Carol, which was an excellent addition, but sadly it was not to be. It was only made worse by the fact that they showed some of the classic Red Dwarf episodes afterwards – the contrast really was quite stark.

I’ll watch the other 2 just incase, but really this is the way to remember Red Dwarf: