5-7-2-3-1-6-4-8 I've only seen BTE one time so I don't really have an opinion on it yet. 5 and 7 just have some great, great stories and some of the funniest moments in the show's history. But the best stories, hands down.
3-4-5-6-2-1-8-BTE-7 Series III is a very comfortable favourite. Partly due to nostalgia as it's the first series that I watched and partly because I genuinely believe that several of the episodes are superb. Series VIII, Back to Earth and Series VII are sadly very comfortable my least favourites due to the acting and the writing.
Oooh, 7 at the top with the first two series at the end!:shock: What a delightfully varied and unpredictable bunch we are.
Hard to pick but - 2, 5, 3, 6, 4, 1, 8, 7, BTE There's something about 2 I just love, great interaction between the characters, a bit of SCi Fi, and just enough of that lonely space feel. I think the show was really finding it's stride and all the episodes were very creative and funny. Series 5 has much more Sci Fi, but the episodes are fantasic. Also maybe the first series where I saw episodes as they were airing for the first time (I think I saw some of series 3 but didn't really watch all the way through) Series 3, generally great scripts and more developement between Lister and Rimmer, the acting between the two of them is wonderful. A bit like series 2 in quality but much flashier and a bit more sci fi. Series 6 was very good quality wise, but perhaps lacking something or slightly repeating old ground. Series 4 is very good but doesn't stand out as much as the other ones I've put before it. I still like series one, but wasn't as funny as later series. 8 was not great but I kind of prefer it to 7 because it has Rimmer, Kochanski is a lot less annoying and at least they tried something new with bringing back the crew. 7 started off great with Tikka To Ride but turned bad quite quickly and kochanski was written so badly. I feel the new writers totally missed the point and reduced Red Dwarf to some tired cliche sitcom crap you'd expect to see on On The Busses or Terry And June. BTE. That whole Coronation St bit renders this the only piece of Red Dwarf I consider to have no part in the continuity of the show in any way. I would have prefered if it had ended with lister stepping outside the shower ala Dallas . I put this on the same level as the comic relief sketch and a bit above Can't Smeg Won't Smeg. Shame because there were a few funny bits in it. Also it was just pulling the same trick used in Back To Reality all those years before.
I've been watching Series 2 again and I agree that the interaction between the characters is superb and the balance between the four of them is the best that it would ever be. Having the Cat as a support character works really well I think as he is possibly overused in some of the following series. He is essentially just comic relief and so should be used sparingly and was not so much of a caricature at this point. Holly is also superb in this series with several classic lines and scenes in every episode. Much as I love the following few series, I do wonder what they would have been like if Norman had stuck around.
Yeah in the first 2 series Cat just used to pop up now and then, very much in keeping with his Cat heritage. I think though a lot of changes throughout the show while not always being better than previous situations, were better than it would have been to keep it the same. To make it clearer, series 2 was for me better than say series 6 but if series 6 was just a copy of series 2 it would have been probably not as good as it was with the changes made to keep it fresh. I also watched back to earth again last night and thought it was pretty good with a couple of very weak points which spoiled it. I didn't even hate the coronation street bit as much as I did. Next up, I will rewatch series 7 and 8 and see what I think of them now. I think part of the problem with 7 apart from losing Rimmer was the no audience situation affected the way the cast delivered lines. I think everyone handled it better in BTE, but I still think classic dwarf worked from the performances which were based on the buzz of doing it live, with several takes, tweaking and seeing the reactions.
2-7-3-5-BTE-6-8-4-1 Say what you want but I thought VII was one of the best seasons. It had great effects, gags, and not to mention the new Kochanski (drool)