Here’s the full press release.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is the biggest ever non-terrestrial commission, rating 2.66m on Good Friday at 9pm

Freeview comedy channel Dave is celebrating a massive ratings success following the eagerly awaited reunion of four hapless space explorers in Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. 2.29m (11% share) tuned in for the premiere episode on Good Friday at 9pm and another 374k (2% share) caught up with the action on Dave’s plus one channel, Dave ja vu.

The total viewership of the premiere episode represents the largest viewing figure in multichannel television history for a UK commission. Red Dwarf: Back to Earth even saw Dave score a higher share than BBC2 and Five in the same time slot on Good Friday at 9pm.

The two following episodes on Easter Saturday and Sunday at 9pm also broke the million mark according to consolidated figures, rating 1.7m and 1.3m respectively. Red Dwarf: The Making of Back to Earth pulled in 621k individuals at 9:30pm on Easter Sunday evening.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is Dave’s biggest commission yet and its first foray into scripted comedy. Enjoying both mainstream and cult appeal, Red Dwarf has enjoyed phenomenal success since it first aired in 1988 on BBC 2; spanned over eight series with a total of 52 episodes plus specials; brought in over 8 million viewers for series 8; 7.25 million DVD & VHS sales worldwide; broadcast over 25 territories worldwide and International Emmy and British Comedy Award winners including Outstanding Popular Arts Programme.

To pad out proceedings a bit, the “Jobbing Celebrity” Handbook was desperately trawled to bring a style makeover for – gasp – Leslie Joseph and Jeremy Clarkson! You could easily sense right from the beginning that this was going to be an exercise in kicking blind puppies, but nontheless entertaining for all that. Joseph, predictably, arrived to face the firing squad in loud Marks and Sparks cast-offs and her eyes plastered with so much Kohl pencil that she’d “have had to tip her head back to get the lids open” [© Victoria Wood 1989]. It’s undoubtedly sad that sub-repertory theatre panto-hams like Ms Joseph get stuck in the same “I’ve had one famous part and now I’m such a living stereotype that I’m to be found in every hole with a TV camera from here to the end of the world” rut, but having Lesley Joseph torn to pieces for looking like Lesley Joseph was more than a little self-defeating. As the great father of functionalist sociology Emile Durkheim once said: “However unpalatable it may be, for every society to function, there must be at least four Trude Mostues to every one Rolf Harris.”

That said, it was disquieting in the extreme to discover that Lesley actually keeps her Dorien Green outfits in her own wardrobe – leopardskin and all. Not exactly helping her own cause, was she? And mark you, no punches were going to be pulled. After watching a bit of Birds of a Feather, and comparing Joseph unfavourably to Kevin Keegan crossed with a pantomime dame, the loathesome presenters introduced the woman herself, and then started throwing all her clothes across the room whilst slagging her off to the heavens. It sounds like fun – in fact it sounds mightily well-deserved – but it was actually more akin to watching two distinctly vicious playground bullies humiliating the fat kid in the flowery dress. Majorly uncomfortable viewing – Leslie’s defeated “I think they’re a bit sharp” was the very definition of pathetic. “Is there anything about me that you like?”, she wanted to know. I’m still thinking. Answers on a postcard.

Clarkson, on the other hand, seemed to work his affably boorish charm on the presenters right from the beginning; no desire on their part to make him out to be a) old, b) fat and c) dressed like his mother. It was interesting to see the difference. After an initial assessment that he looked like he should be “selling vegetables in the market” (come the Revolution!), Jeremy simply whined at them in the manner of a rather endearing 12-year-old, and tried desperately to escape their fitting-room clutches. “I’m not wearing a blue suit and a purple shirt”, he whined, à la Partridge (“Just try talking, Lynn, and see what I do!”) Apparently he himself hates the jeans-and-Geography-teacher-jacket look, but their suggestions for an update were not at all to his liking. “I know this programme’s all kind of – ‘cushions’ … But I’m a man! I like fighter jets!” This is Clarkson’s world-weary faux-chauvanist schtick, and you either like it or you don’t, but it was highly entertaining to watch. (Trinny: “When I look at this wardrobe I feel …” Clarkson: “Moist?”) The aforementioned suit, apparently, made him look like “a photocopier salesman”: “I’ve never worn a jumper in my life. People who wear jumpers are bullied.” Nuff said.

The list of celebrity fashion disasters themselves was rather odd and contradictory. Joan Collins, for instance, who Trinny and Susannah themselves pointed out was actually one of the more restrained members of the “My wardrobe lived through the ’80s” club. So why the brickbat? Sophie Wessex, apparently, “looks like Nick Faldo”(!): “That’s not a haircut. That’s just something growing out of the top of her head.” Ah, the benefits of the Chingford School for Girls education. Kirsty Young was buttonholed at some party to be slagged off by these (distinctly forgettable) harpies, and looked mightily close to telling them exactly where to stick their braying opinions. Some of the stuff they said just plain didn’t make sense. Chris Evans, apparently, is making a “grubby anti-fashion statement” which is “actually quite pretentious”; Sting, on the other hand, is “cool”, because he has “that anti-fashion thing going on …” Excuse me? J-Lo has a “fat arse”, Gwyneth Paltrow has “saddlebags”, and Dawn French has a “Bedouin” look that appears like she’s “wearing a tent”. Strange sub-juvenile jealousy complexes abound, and both presenters are obsessed with references to “tits”. They do say you are what you espouse …

Bizarrely, there was a brief appearance from David Dimbleby, who appeared to have been accosted in his Question Time dressing room, poor man. His summing-up was majestic: “Now, look here. I think you two are extremely nasty. You just seem to be out to destroy your own sex. I happen to think these ties are delicious.”

Their eventual Worst Dressed person, if you’re interested, was Liza Minnelli. “Her clothes wear her”, apparently. Go figure.

Quite why the producer felt it necessary to inflict this on the viewer is difficult to fathom, but its deeply disturbing nature was written all over John Leslie’s face – quite patently, his mugging up of the “Oh dear, you’ve really gone and embarrassed yourself this time, Fern” routine required no acting whatsoever. (David Essex: “She’s obviously a natural mover … She’s got lots of things moving.”) It’s indicative of the “Oh well, nobody’s really watching anyway, they’re just waiting to turn over for Bargain Hunt while they iron the cat” attitude which has so obviously rotted this tired old format-coffin to its core. I’ve seen some barrel-scraping ideas, but I have to admit: “Fern, get your tits out” was a strategy that boggled even me. Expect John Leslie’s home photography circa 1993 to be worrying Michael Douglas’ lawyers very soon if this carries on (“So, Raj, what would Freud make of this one, eh?”)

Basically they’ve tried freshening up the format, in a rather pathetic “deodorant on a dead horse” kind of way; each of their famous panel of “experts” now gets their own day of the week. Monday is Joanna’s “Carnival of Obesity”, more of which anon. Tuesday is Dr Chris Steele (“Ask your GP about the possibility of reducing the dose, or have you perhaps considered exorcism?”), followed on Wednesday by psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud (“It should only interfere with your relationship if your mother minds him wearing them”). Bringing up the rear on Thursday is wobbly-bodied, hand-wringing, squinty-eyed “Duurnt give up huurp, love” agony aunt Denise, and then a sublime week’s viewing is capped by some generic, cliché-dictionary, camp hairdresser/gardener/whatever he is.

“Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey are here!” exclaims a now mercifully de-corsetted Fern. Naturally I took this to be some sort of sick joke – “But don’t worry, Security will have them removed! If not that, then Paraquat should do it …” – but sadly, no. There they were, the entertainment media equivalent of Foot-and-Mouth disease, “chatting” to each other ‘midst the pot plants and MDF. Their “interview” was just as bumsquirmingly awful as you might expect. “I’ve got three lovely girls from my first marriage, so I’ve been very lucky in that respect”, smarmed the delectable Bovey; quite a beautiful way to begin a discussion of infertility with your childless second wife sat grimly at your side. I know the brain cannot compute “felt sorry for” and “Anthea Turner” in the same sentence, but for a fleeting moment, it was so. “Even though Anthea can’t conceive”, he intimated in his most compassionate tones, “no doctor on Earth can tell us why!” (Well, there’s five million people currently coming up with some cracking theories, you insidious Brylcreemed tit.) Sadly, Dr Madeley has now long since left the building, so we were spared what would have been a priceless attempt at cod fertility analysis (“Ah, well, no, it’s your womb, you see. See, Judy’s womb, that’s been a real bummer …”)

No less painful was the aforementioned fitness guru Joanna, as emaciated and over-makeupped as these lifestyle Fundamentalists always are. Two poor women called Donna and Nicky were vying for the dubious honour of a “DietCam” installed in their homes; presumably so Joanna can spend her weekends snorting Jaffa Cake crumbs all over the editing suite whilst compiling the highlights. “Dropping under 18 stone is a great psychological hurdle, isn’t it Donna?” she smarmed. (Translation: “Now you only weigh the equivalent of a small horse!”) It got worse, though. To add weight (snigger) to this “DietCam” business, a celebrity victim was needed: Hey, its Brummie Alison from Big Brother! Now you too can watch her hoover up the West Midlands every Monday morning.

David Essex looked like the nurse had wheeled him on under the medicine trolley. To say he appeared “a bit old” would be like saying Christine Hamilton is “a bit annoying”: he looked like an gypsy-earringed Transylvanian corpse doing an impression of a faded ’70′s pop star. Plugging his book, plugging his new album, plugging his trawl of every WH Smith’s from Clacton to Aberystwyth – did Pebble Mill not die with Judi Spiers? (“Yes, I’m in Me and My Girl with Su Pollard at the Birmingham Hippodrome, firebombs permitting.”) This really is like TV stuck in East Anglia, circa 1983; right down to the pastel sofas. Why on earth don’t they just admit that the format is like rigor mortis? What’s wrong with just bunging a mélange of crap at the viewer, à la BBC1? It brought us the Thin Orange Duke, don’t forget (now resplendent for a full – live! – hour in the mornings, as well as primetime.)

Truth is, R&J fans, though Fern and John do a pretty commendable job (as long as she keeps her assets to herself), their predecessor’s lack of professionalism had long since turned This Morning into a tatty, tiresome, amateurish mess. I can only sympathise with the 77% of people who phoned in to tell Denise they were “close to a nervous breakdown”. They, too, must have seen the face of the abyss shimmering back at them in Grant Bovey’s fake tan.