Jason - "The spiritual successor to Red Dwarf"

Absolutely an awesome show. Not sure what the Brit to American ratio is on this site, but I'm from the US and have been a fan of Britcoms since I was a kid. The show fantastically mixes over stated and under stated humor. I've shown a single episode to some friends and already we're all quoting the show to each other at work, causing other friends to look into the show so they can be in on the jokes. The accepted way to make fun of a manager without them knowing is to say "IN UNDER THREE DAYS!"

I happened across the show purely by accident, and my first thought was that this seemed to be the spiritual successor to Red Dwarf. Now I come on here and find that everyone seems to be comparing the two. I'll be getting a copy of season one on DVD as soon as it's available.

Written by Jason, 1st June 2007

Lei - "Understated and Gentle"

I loved this programme. Its humour is so rare and restrained that I worried it wouldn't get a second series. I know it is bound to be compared with Red Dwarf but Red Dwarf was laddish and loud where Hyperdrive is understated and gentle. Hyperdrive had me in fits of laughter whereas Red Dwarf just only ever makes me smile. Looking forward to Series 2.

Written by Lei Foster, 31st May 2007

Phil - "A Good First Series"

A good first series, which is the most you can expect considering the handicap of the Ghost of Red Dwarf. TNG (Star Trek the Next Generation) had precisely the same problem - 'whos that bald English Guy', 'wheres the new Spock'...etc it's wasn't until the writers hit upon the Borg that it took off. Red Dwarf did not take off until the arrival of Kryton. An accurate comparison is with Red Dwarf series 1 and it's as good.

I like the step forward by including a proper female character Teal; Kochanski did not fit easily into Red Dwarf which was essentially Young Ones in space. Also the characters look like normal people this would not happen in a USA equivalent. The fact that it is derivative of The Office is a strength as bureaucratic bungling is a very contemporary theme and Sci-Fi although set in the future always comments on the time it is written.

I hope series 2 takes some big risks and establishes the series properly.

Written by Phil L, 14th June 2006

Lallakiss1 - "Looking Forward To The Next Series"

I was a bit unsure at first, some of the jokes were a bit corny, however it definitely got better each week and I still find myself saying things like "Talky door!" and "Kill the humans", weeks after the shows have finished, so it seems to have amused me on a subconscious level as well. A very enjoyable series overall and I'm looking forward to the next.

Written by Lallakiss1, 4th March 2006

Richard - "Give Hyperdrive A Second Chance Folks"

So let's get this right people are underwhelmed with Hyperdrive because it didn't live up to the hype or match the 'hysterical' Red Dwarf? What hype, apart from a few preview clips?

In its defence - and I'm saying this because I usually hate any Sci-fi comedy - this is a show which features visual effects that made Red Dwarf's look like something they made up 'earlier' in the Blue Peter studio. It also has a line of humour which although isn't the thigh slapping of a mainstream sitcom, is actually sharp and quirky.

The fact that such a wonderful actress as comedian Miranda Hart playing 'Teale' who is like a cross between Hattie Jacques and Julie T Wallace, is in herself a wonderful find and worth viewing the show for that reason alone. Her co-star Nick Frost from Spaced is a brilliant performer and his on-screen relationship with Miss Teale the most endearing since that unrequited love act between Ruth Madoc and Simon Cadell in Hi-De-Hi.

Personally I found Red Dwarf as funny as a plastic dog turd and the latest Ch4 sitcom The IT Crowd just plainly feeble and embarrassingly flat - but that's just my opinion - it may improve, although for me personally life is just too short. But I grant you comedy is subjective and others may love it. One man's meat and all that.

But honestly, how anyone can carp at Hypedrive by criticising its faux 'Blakes Seven' set - when that is the whole point! - really makes me wonder if some members on this site have a funny bone in their geeky bodies at all. Incidentally calling the space craft Camden Lock was pure genius and a reflection of the off-the-wall humour that made this show enjoyable and different from what's gone before. It's like a piss take of Star Trek - where the self importance nonsense of that show is brought down a peg with mundane and banal reality. I find it odd that a sitcom such as My Family which is (in my opinion) cringing, formuliac - a mum who is a crap cook (pe-lease) - sheer ham acted drivel, not only gets 8million watching but is also probably praised by the same people on here who berated Hyperdrive. But as said before, comedy like taste buds is subjective isn't it?

Ratings really don't mean anything for as we all know The Peep Show which has been universally championed by critics is coming off air due to only pulling in a million viewers. Give Hyperdrive a second chance folks in the same way that many other comedies failed to hit the mark on their first outing but later down the line were regarded as classics. For this particular viewer it hit the funny mark straight off and I'm very pleased the Beeb have seen fit to recommission. Especially when I think my licence fee is going towards funding Hotel Babylon!

Written by Richard Bevan, 24th Feb 2006

Daniel - "Abysmal"

I thought this show was absolutely abysmal, it is just a rip-off from Red Dwarf. It is cheap and nasty and I'm surprised it has been given a second series!

Written by Daniel O'Rourke, 23rd Feb 2006

John - "Humorous Light-Hearted Show"

There was a lot to like about this programme. OK so the captain was a bit like David Brent... it's called the Peter Principle, it's universal and it's funny. In fact all of the characters are funny and well defined, apart from the space commander who overdoes it a bit (I'm excepting Sandstrom, she's just wonderfully bizarre). The whingers can always watch 'celebrity puppy training' or whatever, if they can't cope with a humorous light hearted show like this.

Written by John B, 22nd Feb 2006

Captain Helix - "Enjoy It, Forget the Dwarf Comparisons"

As a massive Red Dwarf fan, my hopes were really high for this show. Sadly, it's fair to say that a lot of Dwarf fans were disappointed with the first episode, myself included. However, I was determined to stick with it, and just feel that it's got so much promise, some nice writing, and a great cast.

Having gone back and rewatched the episodes again, I'm now able to enjoy it for itself, forgetting comparisons with Red Dwarf and other TV shows, and judge it on its own merits. Indeed, I've set up a fansite and firmly believe that the second series will make the most of the BBC's belief in it, and really deliver.

Written by Captain Helix, 22nd Feb 2006

Rob - "Abysmally Unfunny"

I was never a Red Dwarf fan so can't be accused of bashing Hyperdrive for it's sub Red Dwarf humour (whatever that is). I came to this show 'fresh' as t'were, but still found it laboured, cliche ridden and (horrendously!) unfunny. What's with the (rubbish regional accented) space ship announcer doing those sub Victoria Wood voiceovers? Why is Kevin Eldon ripping the piss out of all those cardboard cut out baddies in various seventies space shows? It's such a one trick pony kind of joke! And Nick Frost? 'Understated'? Hello? He can't act. Period.

This shoddily written, poorly directed and (here's the cruncher) ABYSMALLY UNFUNNY show is just another over produced mess from the BBC (According to Bex, The Robinsons anyone?). So what are they going to do about it? Why give it another series. Nice one. Thanks for that!

Written by Rob Stein, 16th Feb 2006

Albie - "Started to Really Like"

I got past the Red Dwarf-isms, and started to really like this programme. I am now prepared to give a sound drubbing to anyone who 'disses my beeeatcch.' Hyperdrive being said beeeactcch. Eldon is of course the baby's bo***cks!

Written by Albie, 16th Feb 2006

Sholto - "Outdated"

Feeble, unamsuing, irredeemable tosh. The sub-Blake's Seven set design and mid-1960's sci-fi reference points are bad enough, but the opportunistic and misguided attempt to cram in "edgy" observational comedic elements a lá Office is nothing short of criminal. The laddish humour is outdated, the special effects are pitiful and anyone who finds this funny ought to be made to pay my license fee.

Written by Sholto, 15th Feb 2006

Ben - "Agreeably Quirky"

Five episodes into this series and I am starting to get very angry at the online "reviewers" who are bashing Hyperdrive.

Of course it's very easy to slag off other people's work, especially when it seems the online society for Uncritically Slavish Red Dwarf Obsessives are giving out stock reviews in bulk to all their members.

Hyperdrive is an attempt to produce something a bit different, and should be welcomed for not sticking to the inflexible 'rules of comedy' which have ruined every other BBC sitcom in the last ten years (yes, I include the last 3 series of the otherwise-excellent Red Dwarf in that analysis) - Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley have a pleasingly absurdist bent to their writing (evidenced on Black Books, particularly in its second series), and Hyperdrive is agreeably quirky as a result.

The characters in the show have developed nicely over the last five weeks, with Miranda Hart's initially bizarre but now genuinely loveable Teal and the mighty Kevin Eldon particularly outstanding, while Nick Frost's cuddly, blokey captain is an understated joy.

Despite the slight ploddiness of episode five (yumminess of Sally Phillips notwithstanding), Hyperdrive has in my opinion worked very well, and if it is early evidence of the BBC starting to invest in written TV instead of endless bloody celebrity reality shows then I am all in favour.

Long may you sail, Camden Lock, and nuts to the whining naysayers, most of whom should be in bed by ten on a school night anyway.

Written by Ben Shillito, 9th Feb 2006

Kate - "Fantastic New Comedy"

I think Hyperdrive is a fanastic new comedy! Likeable characters and funny, well written storylines! Brilliant!

Written by Kate, 9th Feb 2006

Jay - "Funny, Clever and Engaging"

I suspect that the previous reviewers have severely impared humor receptors, or just don't understand humor that isn't blindingly obvious. At least that's what I surmise from them holding up the apallingly over-acted and inanely written Red Dwarf as some sort of hallmark to aspire to.

Hyperdrive is funny, clever and engaging. Unlike in Red Dwarf, the characters are well-acted, the jokes not forced punnery and situations strained for comic effect, but rather the more subtle humor of timing and tone with some embellshing absurdity.

Destined to be a classic, whatever those who like their humor broad, obvious and dumbed-down might say.

Written by Jay T, 5th Feb 2006

Dave - "Pile of Rubbish"

Just when you thought BBC comedy could not get any worse they come up with this pile of rubbish. Even the names of the aliens are staggeringly unoriginal - The glish! How long did it take to create that one! This car crash is what happens when you rely on the team who wrote the dreadful Black Books. But that's the BBC all over - the only surprise is they didn't commission their own darlings Craig Cash or Simon Nye to write it - Hyperdrive might have been even worse in that scenario!

Written by Dave Sedgwick, 4th Feb 2006

Simon - "A Waste of the TV Licence Fee"

What the biggest pill of horse-sh*t to come on the TV since chatshows. I tried to watch both episodes with an open mind, and cringed at every point. Bad acting, not at all funny, I PAY MY TV LICENCE FOR THIS... If you are going to p*ss my money down the drain (sorry for the language to those who read this), give it back! If the BBC went pay-as-you-go half the country would be better off and the BBC would have to work for their wages and start making decent programs.

Written by Simon, 25th Jan 2006

James - "Laughs have been non-existent"

What an appalling load of rubbish. There are very occasional moments of humour in the script - but nowhere near enough - they are mangled by an appalling cast and some incredibly flat direction.

Every second of Kevin Eldon's screentime should be digitally erased - his performance is the most toe curling embarrassment on British TV. Let's be honest that is saying something! The show had the potential to be amusing but with one third of the series already gone laughs have been non-existent and smiles have been thin on the ground.

Written by James, 19th Jan 2006

Scott - "Misfire"

Two episodes in and this tedious space-com has still to produce a laugh-out-loud moment, quite an achievement given a cast that includes the excellent Nick Frost and Kevin Eldon. I get the sneaking feeling that this was commissioned to cash in on the success of Doctor Who. Unfortunately, it lacks the ingredients that would make it a ratings winner, namely jokes, engaging characters and a decent script.

Hyperdrive plods along, failing to exploit its sci fi setting and leaving the viewer underwhelmed. As the credits roll, you can't help but ask 'was that it?' It's not terrible, just not very good. Rather than bringing something new to the table, it recycles gags from Red Dwarf and hopes that this will be enough to win over fans of that show. Frost and Eldon try hard to inject some energy in to the proceedings, but there's only so much they can do with tired jokes about how, even in the 22nd century, the British are still a bit crap. Inexcusably dull.

Written by Scott, 19th Jan 2006

Dave - "A Poor Man's Red Dwarf"

I was rather hopeful of this, given the inclusion of Nick Frost & Kevin Eldon. Unfortunately it just seems to be a poor man's 'Red Dwarf'. Nothing made me more than smile (laughs are always good), and the parallels with 'Red Dwarf' (largely the overall style to the spaceship design etc, as well as of course the idea of a UK sitcom set in space, on a ship with just a few crew members) bring comparisons which in which it tends to come off worse.

Considering it's written by the team behind Black Books 3, I'd like to think it can improve. I'll watch another couple before I write it off completely, but it will have to do exceptionally well to better Red Dwarf. And if it doesn't do that then it will always appear a pale imitation.

Written by Dave, 14th Jan 2006

Aggie - "I Grinned Mightily and Often"

I've been looking for something to fill the 'Red Dwarf' void - this could be it.

I didn't laugh out loud - but I grinned mightily and often. I'll have a better idea at the end of the series. As with all new comedy stuff - you have to give it time to settle into your comedy crevase.

I have a good feeling - similar to the first showings of 'Spaced' and 'Black Books'. I think I even had a 'Mighty Boosh' moment...... I'm undecided about Sandstrom - we'll see what 6 episodes does for her character.

Written by Aggie, 11th Jan 2006