Saturday night in the alternative dimension known as digital channel Dave, and hologram Arnold Rimmer is in an electrical shop reading a Red Dwarf DVD cover: "Oh no, not a three-parter. I hate three-parters."

Yes, after a decade's absence, it was the cult sci-fi sitcom's much- anticipated return last weekend in a three-parter.

And what corkers the second and third instalments turned out to be, capping a triumphant return for Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten with an intelligent, surreal story full of unexpected twists, elaborate special effects.So, more's the pity that the first part of the 90-minute trilogy, Back to Earth, was total smeg – so much so that less than half the audience for the opener on Good Friday bothered to stick around to find out what happened over the next two nights. For half an hour, Back to Earth should have been called Back to the Drawing Board.

The dialogue was painful, the desperately needed studio audience hadn't even been invited for fear of spoilers, and unlike any three-act play worth its salt, there wasn't a single hint where we were heading.

Then suddenly on Saturday night, the script burst into life.

The crew hurtled to present-day Earth through a TV screen in that electrical shop, and discovered they were fictional characters in a sitcom and destined to die.

So, the Boys from the Dwarf headed off to find their creator and plead for more life, stopping off at Coronation Street, naturally, to locate "granny-grabbing, philandering taxi driver Lloyd Mullaney as played by Craig Charles".

Rimmer took one look at Weatherfield and asked: "What sort of godforsaken place is this?"

"This is worse than Rimmerworld," said Cat.

They're a perceptive lot. It is, after all, almost as bad as Walford... almost.

T hen, that classic moment when Lister came face to face with Craig Charles in the Rovers, setting up a fabulous one-liner from the befuddled and game-for-a-laugh actor.

Rimmer: "We've got to speak to our creator."

Charles: "And I've got to get back to The Priory."

When the crew finally tracked down their maker, they realised they could rewrite their own destiny on his typewriter. With Lister typing away, Rimmer said: "So, the rest of our loaves can be one hedonistic wash filfulment."

Lister: "Sorry, typos."

Cat: "Do you really think you can write your wee out of this?"

Lister: "Witch me, baby, witch me."

Yet, in true Crossroads style, it all turned out to be a dream.

Not for the first time, they'd had a group hallucination caused by a giant squid and came back to reality on Red Dwarf knowing it was us viewers who hadn't really existed.

As for our fate, Rimmer guessed: "Those sad suckers will live out the rest of their lives convinced they're the real ones and we're characters from a TV show."

Lister: "And if you told them the truth, you know what they would probably do?"

We'd laugh. Well, those of us who'd got past episode one, anyway.