Geek Crash Course

YouTube vid provides a beginner's guide to Dwarf.

1 November, 2013

Could you sum up the entirety of Red Dwarf in six minutes? It's not an easy task, but it's one that a pair of American fans have taken on, courtesy of the latest entry in their Youtube vlog series, Geek Crash Course.

In Geek Crash Course, Michael Nixon and Diana Dekajlo set out to educate wannabe fans in the history and background of an assortment of popular geek shows. While they've recently been in the midst of a series of episodes focusing on Doctor Who, this last week they've turned their attention to the good ship Dwarf:

And as far as educating the uninitiated goes, they've had a pretty good stab at it. The video probably won't tell any long-standing fan anything they don't already know, but it's lively and fun, with a clear enthusiasm for the series that shines through. They manage to hit most of the series' major beats - with no particular bias given to any individual series - explaining briefly the character and setting changes over the years.

Despite a couple of teeny tiny factual errors (the Red Dwarf Radio Show, an adaptation of the audiobooks, was made for Radio 4, not Radio 7, and at one point they describe stasis as "stasis leak"), everything else is pretty well on the mark, and their individual episode recommendations are wide-ranging and difficult to refute. Kudos, too, for using a show-appropriate font in their captions!

If you like their take on Dwarf, there are a good two years' worth of episodes on just about every geek topic imaginable - so if you've ever wanted to educate yourself in the ways of Firefly, Final Fantasy or - heaven forfend - Babylon 5, now's your chance.

Visit Geek Crash Course's channel on YouTube.