Ahem...
What the heck is everyone's problem with Red Dwarf after Rob Grant left?I personally loved it....

(Gets ready to be mauled with rocks)

I mean I loved it the same after Grant left, not that Grant left. Grant leaving is a loss.

It lost its edge, it's too much of a try-hard comedy now.

Agreed. It just doesn't flow anymore- too many of the jokes are forced and unfunny.

Personally, I quite like series VII and series VIII. While I do not wish to belittle Grant's contribution, the show is still quite entertaining without him.

Series VII wasn't without some small problems, to be sure. Naylor was still trying to find his way solo. Personally, I thought he did an admirable job and found series VII to be quite entertaining.

The big problem many have with VII isn't the writing, it seems... It's more the casting. From what I understand, Chloe was cast as Naylor wanted a more experienced actress. Personally, I loved C. P. in the part, and I must admit I don't agree with Naylor on this point. However, Chloe is still a fine actress, and her inclusion does nothing to take away from me my enjoyment of the show.

Onto series VIII... Naylor makes a bold move bringing the crew back, and I for one found the stories to be quite good. Rimmer was back, which was good. All of his character development had been scraped which, while necessery from the story's standpoint was unfortunate. Still, series VIII felt to me to be much closer in it's feel to series I and II, in that it revolved more around the characters and their interaction with eachother. We got many funny scenes that were simply the characters sitting, doing nothing other then conversing. It takes strong writing to make that entertaining. It'd be a lot easier to have them just running about getting into silly situations. Granted, they did that, too, but the two in combination are a good formula.

In all, Grant is missed to be sure. However, the show is not at all worse without him, just different.

Why exactly did Grant leave Red Dwarf anyway?

I was wondering that myself - what caused the partnership to break up? Has it ever been said anywhere?

Why exactly did Grant leave Red Dwarf anyway?


According to Wikipedia:

In the mid-1990s, the 'Grant Naylor' collaboration was ended when Grant left Red Dwarf after the sixth series, citing creative differences ("... it was basically 'musical differences' ...") with Doug Naylor.[1] His main reason however, he said, was that he 'wished to have more on his 'tombstone' than Red Dwarf on its own'.