In the 21st 23rd 22nd Century (probably), the mining ship Red Dwarf was subjected to a lethal radiation leak that killed the entire crew. The ship's AI, Holly, aimed the ship out of the Solar system to prevent contamination. Sealed in the hold of the ship, a pet cat named Frankenstein had a litter of kittens. Their descendants, over three million years, evolved into a humanoid lifeform. There was a huge religious war, the result of confused race-memories of their god/owner, Cloister the Stupid, and the humanoid cats fled Red Dwarf on their own fleet of hastily-assembled ships, leaving behind only the stupid and bewildered. In the modern Cat Fleet, great religious arguments are again raging. Three true believers set out for the ship of their origin, to find their God...they may be risking some disappointment.
The qualitative trajectory of Red Dwarf's history is well-known: okay first season (1988), a solid gold classic "imperial period" consisting of Seasons 2 through 6 (1988-93), then three very disappointing seasons on the trot (1997, 1999 and 2009). Fans had largely written the franchise off, but an unexpected return to, if not form, at least adequacy saw another three seasons that were pretty solid (2012, 2016, 2017). Not classic, but pretty entertaining with some good ideas.
Unfortunately, this run could not continue. The show's four main actors had other commitments and were also getting on a bit, with the oldest castmember Robert Llewellyn in particular becoming less and less keen at the extensive prosthetics and makeup work needed to embody the character of Kryten in his sixties. Writer Doug Naylor also found the task of handling the entire show, from writing through producing to directing every episode of the last three seasons, to be quite demanding, meaning that a new season every year or even couple of years was not viable.
To square the circle, Naylor suggested a new approach: feature-length specials, approximately the length of three normal episodes but which could be edited into single long movies, with filming for all the episodes done simultaneously to make shooting as tight and efficient as possible. This would minimise the workload for everyone and allow the show to make return appearances well into the future.
The Promised Land was the first project to appear in this format. Writer Doug Naylor surprised fans by actually answering a question they'd been asking for decades: what happened to the other humanoid cats who abandoned the ship before Lister's awakening in the first episode? The show had teased this question but never really answered it, resorting instead to the old standbys of bringing in more GELFs (Genetically-Engineered Life-Forms) and simulants (killer androids) whenever it needed an outside threat. Naylor deemed the special a big enough canvas to bring back the rest of the cat species in force and find out what happens when they meet their god, and discover he's a middle-aged, curry-obsessed, lager-guzzling, unambitious geezer.
The story is reasonably decent, with a rare, excellent villain, this case Ray Fearon as Rodon, the tyrannical leader of the cats. The guest cast is also generally great, though unusually large by Dwarf standards, meaning that each guest character is only thinly-sketched and doesn't have much to do (Lister's three acolytes are a bit one-note). This is enhanced by the special also reintroducing Holly (Norman Lovett, returning after a brief appearance in the Season 12 finale) and giving the main cast a lot to do, including a new "Diamond Light" mode for Rimmer which turns him into a superhero, at least until his battery runs out. Surprisingly, the least-well-served character here is the Cat himself (Danny John-Jules). With the entire supporting cast being made up of cats, it feels like Naylor doesn't have as many cat-things for him to do. One late-breaking storyline hints at a larger role for him but this doesn't go very far.
Whilst the story is solid and there's a lot of extra interesting ideas to play around with, like Holly being reset to factory settings and immediately going hard on the characters because they're not disciplined, proper crewmembers (shades of Queeg here, but the show doesn't make the connection), it does feel like the allocated time is too much for the concept. Perhaps a tighter 60-minute story, split into two episodes for repeats, would have been better. As it stands we do have several chase sequences, a brief-but-fun space battle, and in the scenes where Starbug crashes in the desert, easily the most impressive vfx sequence ever created for the show.
There's also some ideas that Naylor has wanted to pursue since the very start of the series. He and Rob Grant had wanted to portray the holograms in the show in black-and-white as opposed to their full-colour crewmates, but 1980s vfx just wasn't up to it. Here he gets his wish as Rimmer goes onto low-power mode and spends a third of the story traipsing around in black-and-white (and plugged in to a wall socket!).
There's some nice ideas as Lister has to convince Rimmer to go on living, and has to deal with religious faith and the motivating force for it. Red Dwarf is at its best when it throws some big philosophical concepts into the mix, and it does that here successfully, though not as much as you might think given the storyline.
Events culminate in a reasonably clever ending with some big moments for all the characters. And, unfortunately, that's it for now. Since The Promised Land aired in early 2020, there have been no further adventures on-screen. Plans for a series of TV movies to follow this one up fell through when co-creator Rob Grant took legal action to regain part control of the franchise for his own planned TV prequel and additional novels, something Doug Naylor maintained was unnecessary and basically blocked any chances of new episodes being made. The situation was resolved, but too late; by the time the smoke cleared, the Dave TV network had suffered savage budget cuts and could no longer afford to make much in the way of original new TV. The BBC maintained its curious decades-long indifference to making new episodes, and Rob Grant's attempts to interest a streamer in a rebooted version of the show came to nothing.
Even more tragically, Rob Grant passed away earlier this year, taking the wind out of the sails for a lot of fans. Whilst new episodes cannot be ruled out - this show has come back from the dead more often than Optimus Prime, Superman, Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Kenny from South Park combined - it does feel more remote than previously, especially as the actors start edging into their seventies.
If this is how it ends...it's an okay way to go out. Red Dwarf: The Promised Land (***½) is fine. It has some good ideas, some good performances, some thoughtful and introspective moments, some outstanding vfx and some good laughs, and even gives Holly some really good story and character moments for the first time since arguably Season 4. There are some painful jokes that just don't land, the cast is a bit too large to allow everyone to be serviced well, and the pacing feels off. But we're a long way from the show at its worst, and if the show and franchise can't go out with a bang, maybe going out with a miaow instead is fine.
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