Red Dwarf

For the type of star, see Red dwarf.

Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf logo Red Dwarf logo
Created by	Grant Naylor (Rob Grant and Doug Naylor)
Starring	Chris Barrie Craig Charles Danny John-Jules Norman Lovett Hattie Hayridge Robert Llewellyn C. P. (Clare) Grogan Chloë Annett Mac McDonald
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	52 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	30 mins
Original release
Network	BBC2
Release	15 February 1988 – 5 April 1999

Red Dwarf was a British sci-fi comedy sitcom that ran for eight television series on BBC2 between 1988 and 1999, and has since achieved a global cult following. It was created and originally written by Grant Naylor (a so-called 'gestalt entity', in reality a collective pseudonym for the writing duo Rob Grant and Doug Naylor), and originated from a recurring sketch, Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, in the mid-1980s BBC Radio 4 comedy show Son Of Cliché, also scripted by Grant and Naylor. In addition to the television series, there have also been four bestselling novels, a pilot for an American version of the show, and a significant number of tie-in books, magazines and other merchandise.

Despite the pastiche of science fiction used as a backdrop, Red Dwarf is primarily a character-driven comedy, with many off-the-wall science fiction elements used as complementary plot devices. For example, in the early series, a recurring source of comedy was the 'odd couple' relationship between Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer, its two central characters.

Red Dwarf's highest accolade came in 1993, when an episode from the sixth series, Gunmen of the Apocalypse, won an International Emmy in the Popular Arts category. The show also won Best BBC Comedy Series at the British Comedy Awards in 1994, and attracted its highest ratings - of over eight million viewers - during the eighth series in 1999.

The current status of the show remains uncertain, as Doug Naylor (now in sole control of the franchise following the departure of Rob Grant in 1995) is committed to writing and producing a feature film of the franchise. Naylor has also stated that he hopes one day to tie up the cliffhanger upon which the eighth series ended, perhaps with a one-off, feature-length television special. Both projects have been in hiatus for nearly a decade due to funding problems and Naylor's pressing commitments to other projects.

Scenario

See also: List of Red Dwarf episodes

File:RedDwarfCast.jpg

The cast of Red Dwarf as of Series IV. In the foreground from left to right: The Cat, Dave Lister, and Arnold Rimmer. In the background is Kryten, and on the monitors is Holly's avatar.

The mining ship Red Dwarf is a spaceship 6 miles (10 km) long, 5 miles (8 km) tall, and 4 miles (6 km) wide belonging to the Jupiter Mining Corporation. In the first episode, an on-board radiation leak kills everyone except for low-ranking technician Dave Lister (a genial Liverpudlian slob, albeit a more intelligent one than is initially apparent), who is in suspended animation at the time, and his pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who is safely sealed in the cargo hold. Lister had smuggled Frankenstein aboard the ship following shore-leave on Titan, but had been caught in possession of the illegal life form and chose to be sentenced to eighteen months in stasis imprisonment rather than surrender his pet to be dissected. Following the accident, the ship's computer Holly has to keep Lister in stasis until the background radiation dies down — a process that takes three million years. Lister therefore emerges as the last human being in the universe — but not the only life form on-board the ship. His former bunkmate and immediate superior Arnold Rimmer (a fussy, bureaucratic bully obsessed with rank and rules, who is at heart a neurotic coward), is resurrected by Holly in holographic form after the accident to keep Lister sane, while a creature known only as The Cat is the last known surviving member of Felis sapiens, a race of humanoids that evolved in the ship's hold from Frankenstein and her kittens during the millions of years that Lister was in stasis.

The main dramatic thrust of the series is Lister's attempt to get back to Earth (indeed, in the novels, this was introduced as a desire of his, even before the accident that left him stranded three million light-years away). Along the way, however, are frequent distractions that usually see the not-so-intrepid Dwarf crew encountering strange races and lifeforms that have developed in the intervening millions of years (although a core tenet of the series is that there are no aliens anywhere in the universe — every element of the large and bizarre mix of intelligent life within the Red Dwarf universe is in one way or another derived from Earth, a result of developments in robotics and/or genetic engineering).

Furthermore, the crew roster changes as the years go by. During the second series, the "Dwarfers" encounter the sanitation mechanoid Kryten, rescuing him from a long-since crashed vessel. Initially, Kryten only appears in one episode of Series II (as Rob and Doug didn't want a robot as a main character), but by the beginning of Series III he has become a full time character in the series. At the end of Series V, however, disaster strikes when Lister loses Red Dwarf, having forgotten which planetoid he parked it around (he offers this as an excuse initially, but Kryten almost immediately informs the crew that Red Dwarf was stolen). This forces the crew to travel in the smaller Starbug craft for two series, with the added side-effect that they lose contact with Holly. And in Series VII, Rimmer departs the crew to take up the role of his alter-ego from a parallel universe, Ace Rimmer, whose name has become a long-standing legend and a legacy passed down from dimension to dimension. Shortly afterwards, the crew find a replacement for Rimmer when they encounter another parallel version of themselves. In this universe, it was Kristine Kochanski — Lister's long-time crush and (because of merged realities) ex-girlfriend — who went into stasis, while Lister died and was brought back as a hologram. A complicated series of events leaves Kochanski stranded in 'our' universe, and she is forced to join the crew.

Finally, in the eighth (and so far final) series, Red Dwarf itself is reconstructed by Kryten's nanobots that had stolen it and broken it down into its constituent atoms. In the process, the entire crew of the ship — including Rimmer — are resurrected, but the Starbug crew all find themselves sentenced to two years in the ship's brig on a set of convoluted charges. The series ends, however, with Red Dwarf being eaten away by a virus and all on board evacuated, save for Rimmer who is left to face Death, The Grim Reaper, for the second time. Unhappy with his predicament, he knees Death in the groin and runs away — although the cliffhanger ending leaves this open to interpretation.

Characters and actors

Main article: Red Dwarf characters

Regular cast

• Craig Charles plays Dave Lister.
• Chris Barrie plays Arnold Rimmer. Rimmer appears in only four episodes of Series VII (two before departing, and two in flashback).
• Danny John-Jules plays The Cat.
• Norman Lovett plays Holly in Series I, II, VII and VIII. Hattie Hayridge plays him/her in Series III to V. The character makes no appearance in Series VI.
• Robert Llewellyn plays Kryten from Series III onwards. In his original one-off appearance in Series II, Kryten was played by David Ross.
• Chloë Annett plays Kristine Kochanski in Series VII and VIII. Kochanski was originally, in Series I, II and VI, a supporting character played by Altered Images vocalist Clare Grogan, (credited as CP Grogan).

Recurring guest characters

• Captain Frank Hollister (played by Mac McDonald) appears in Series VIII, two episodes of Series I and one episode of Series II.
• Olaf Petersen (played by Mark Williams) appeared in three episodes and is mentioned regularly when Lister talks about the days before the accident. Typically Lister refers to this character by his surname only. (Williams may be better known today for his role in the Harry Potter movies.)
• Selby and Chen (played by David Gillespie and Paul Bradley, respectively) appeared in three episodes altogether.
• Kill Crazy (played by Jake Wood) and Baxter (played by Ricky Grover) appeared in the several episodes of Series VIII.
• Warden Ackerman (played by Graham McTavish) appears in Series VIII.
• Bob the Skutter, a small maintenance robot and friend to the regular characters. Bob is married to another skutter named Madge.

Guest actors

• Actors who played more than one role in Red Dwarf include Tony Hawks, Rupert Bates and Tony Slattery. Guest stars have included Brian Cox, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Ball, Sarah Alexander, Arthur Smith, Gordon Kennedy, Jack Docherty, Lee Cornes, Morwenna Banks, Don Henderson, Don Warrington, Angela Bruce, Koo Stark, Jenny Agutter, Maggie Steed, Jane Horrocks, Geraldine McEwan, Frances Barber, Ainsley Harriot, Ruby Wax and Timothy Spall.

Production history

The first series aired on BBC2 in 1988. Seven further series have so far been produced, and a film has been in development hell almost continually since the last series in 1999. The idea was originally developed from the sketch-series "Dave Hollins: Space Cadet", introduced on Grant and Naylor's BBC Radio 4 show Son of Cliché. Having first written the pilot script for Red Dwarf in 1983, former Spitting Image writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor had hawked it around a number of places before it was finally accepted by BBC Manchester in 1986, a happy result of a spare budget being assigned for a second series of Happy Families that would never arise. The show was lucky to be remounted after an electrician's strike partway through rehearsals shut the entire production down, and the first episode, "The End", finally made it onto screens on 15 February 1988. The creators have long admitted that without the persistence of producers and commissioners such as Paul Jackson and Peter Ridsdale Scott, the series might never have seen the light of day.

Grant and Naylor wrote the first six series together (using the pseudonym Grant Naylor on the first two novels and later as the name of their production company, although never on the episodes themselves) before Grant left in 1996, leaving Naylor to write the final two with a group of new and less well-known writers, notably including Paul Alexander and actor Robert Llewellyn.

For the most part, Ed Bye produced and directed the series. He left before Series V due to a scheduling clash, and Juliet May took over as director, but she parted ways with Grant and Naylor partway through the series for personal and professional reasons. Grant and Naylor took over direction of the series, in addition to writing and producing. Series VI was directed by Andy De Emmony, with Bye returning for the final two series.

Series I, II and III were made by Paul Jackson Productions, with subsequent series produced by the writers' own company Grant Naylor Productions, all for BBC North; all eight series were broadcast on BBC2. At the beginning of Series IV, production moved from the BBC's Manchester studios to Shepperton.

The theme tune and incidental music were written and performed by Howard Goodall, with the distinctive vocals on the theme tune courtesy of Jenna Russell. Goodall also wrote music for the show's various songs, including "Tongue Tied", with lyrics written by Grant and Naylor, which Danny John-Jules re-orchestrated and released as a Top 20 single. Craig Charles wrote, performed and sang "Cash" — from the episode "Timeslides" — with his band. Goodall's own voice can be heard in the version of the song "High Noon" in "Queeg" (Series II), and in the "Rimmer Munchkin Song" in "Blue" (Series VII).

A period of three years elapsed between Series VI and VII, partly due to the imprisonment and subsequent exoneration of Craig Charles, but also due to cast and crew working on other projects (notably Chris Barrie in The Brittas Empire) and disputes over pay. When the series returned, it was filmised and no longer shot in front of a live audience (a common misconception is that canned laughter was used, when in fact the completed episodes were later shown to an audience), allowing for greater use of four-walled sets, location shooting and single camera techniques. Although some critics praised the higher production values, many fans disliked the series (see "Mixed reactions"), and when the show returned for its eighth series two years later, it had dropped use of the filmising process and restored the live audience.

In 1998, on the tenth anniversary of the show's first airing (between the releases of Series VII and VIII), the first three series of Red Dwarf were remastered and released on VHS. The remastering included reformatting the series in 14:9 widescreen, applying the same 'field-removal' film effect as Series VII, replacing model shots with computer graphics, cutting various small pieces of dialogue (and, in some cases, entire scenes), and updating music and ambient sound effects. Red Dwarf Remastered was met with a generally poor fan reaction in the UK, but massive international broadcast success. No further series were remastered and the later DVD releases of the same series reverted to the original versions, although the first episode of Series VII ("Tikka to Ride") would also include an alternative Remastered version, featuring upgraded CGI as the only difference to the original broadcast version. However, some continental European countries have recently released localised DVD's with the remastered episodes, rather than the original aired material.

Spin-offs

Books

File:Red Dwarf IWCD.jpg

The cover to the first Red Dwarf novel

The franchise has expanded to include four novels, written by the show's creators, Doug Naylor and Rob Grant (under the combined name of Grant Naylor).

• Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (published 2 November 1989) — Grant Naylor — ISBN 0-451-45201-1
• Better Than Life (published 25 October 1990) — Grant Naylor — ISBN 0-14-012438-1
• Last Human (published April 1995) — Doug Naylor — ISBN 0-14-014388-2
• Backwards (published 2 May 1996) — Rob Grant — ISBN 0-14-017150-9

These novels contain deeper insights and more thorough backstories for the main characters, as well as more information on humanity's future state of affairs. Rather than adapting the show outright, the books provide yet another, possibly idealized version of the series' backstory. They reinterpret and reposition elements from past episodes, and even introduce ideas that would later be used in the show.

For various reasons, Grant and Naylor decided to both work alone when writing the sequel to Better Than Life, and so two completely different, contradicting sequels were made. Last Human (by Doug Naylor, who would go on to make two further television series) introduced Kochanski to unsuspecting fans and felt very much like Series VII of the TV programme, while Backwards (by Rob Grant) was more in keeping with the previous two books, feeling much like Series VI. The styles of these sequels vary wildly from the two predecessors and each other. While opinion differs strongly on which solo effort is superior, neither matched the widespread fan acclaim of the original co-written novels.

All four books were published in audiobook format, the first two read by Chris Barrie, Last Human read by Craig Charles, and Backwards read by its author Rob Grant.

The BBC World Service re-recorded the first two books as The Red Dwarf Radio Show, with Chris Barrie narrating and additional sound effects. The first series was broadcast from 3 December 1995 to 17 February 1996, and the second from 13 March 1997 to 28 March 1997.

An Omnibus edition of the first two books, including a few edits to the original text and some extra material such as the original script to the first episode of the TV series, was released in 1992 (ISBN 0-14-017466-4).

Other books include:

• The Official Red Dwarf Companion — 1992 — Bruce Dessau — ISBN 1-85286-456-7
• Red Dwarf VIII Scriptbook — 1999 — Doug Naylor (with Paul Alexander) — ISBN 1-85227-872-2
• Red Dwarf Programme Guide — 2000 — Chris Howarth & Steve Lyons — ISBN 0-7535-0402-2
• The Space Corps Survival Manual — 1996 — Doug Naylor & Paul Alexander — ISBN 0-7493-2374-4
• The Red Dwarf Quiz Book — 1994 — Nicky Hooks & Sharon Burnett — ISBN 0-14-023662-7
• Red Dwarf Log No. 1996 — 1995 — ISBN 0-434-00370-0 (Diary)

There have also been two script books — Primordial Soup (1993, ISBN 0-14-017886-4) and Son Of Soup (1996, ISBN 0-14-025363-7) — each containing six scripts, and an extremely rare short book entitled Scenes From The Dwarf (ISBN 0-14-600243-1) was also released in 1996 as part of the Penguin 60s series, and contained scripts of a handful of scenes from the series.

U.S. version

File:RedDwarfUSA.jpg

Craig Bierko as Lister in Red Dwarf USA

A pilot episode for an American version (known as Red Dwarf USA) was produced for NBC in 1992, though never broadcast. The show followed essentially the same story as the first two episodes of the original series compressed into one 45-minute episode, substituting American actors (including Craig Bierko as Lister, Chris Eigeman as Rimmer, and Hinton Battle as the Cat) for the British; exceptions being Llewellyn, who reprised his role as Kryten, and the British actress Jane Leeves, of Frasier fame, as Holly. It was directed by Hinton Battle.

A later, extremely low-budget network promo consisting of scenes from the first pilot edited in with new footage (and featuring Terry Farrell as a female Cat) was also unsuccessful.

Clips from the first pilot can be found on the DVD of Series V in the featurette Dwarfing USA, along with interviews with the British cast and Doug Naylor. Bootlegs of the pilots are widely circulated among Red Dwarf fans, and sold at conventions, while some low-quality recordings can be found on the Internet for downloading.

Red Dwarf: The Movie

Since the end of Series VIII, Doug Naylor has been attempting to get funding to make a feature length film version of the show, but on every occasion so far has been thwarted by circumstances. He has long persisted with his conviction that the making of the movie (for which the script has been written for many years) takes precedence over the production of a ninth TV series. On the Series VIII DVD documentary The Tank, however, he admits to being — perhaps mindful of the age and schedules of the principal cast — close to having to make a final, outright decision of whether to continue to pursue the film, make a Series IX or some one-off TV special(s) (as Only Fools & Horses did previously), or simply end the series as it is. Naylor sent a letter to the Red Dwarf fans at DJ XI, which mostly consisted of his failed attempts to create the film, such as a fake duke of Manchester sending forged money to fund the film.

Tongue Tied

The song "Tongue Tied", originally featured in a dream sequence in the series II episode "Parallel Universe", was rearranged and rerecorded by Danny John Jules (under the name 'The Cat') and released as a single in October 1993. It reached number 17 in the UK charts, and was expected to get higher, but a planned performance on Top Of The Pops never happened, thus halting momentum for the single. The single also included the actor's performance of the Red Dwarf theme song.

A video to accompany the release which starred Danny John-Jules as some of his Red Dwarf alter-egos, including Duane Dibbley, was also produced. This was primarily available to readers of the Red Dwarf Smegazine. It was based around a storyline written by Danny John-Jules and featured music videos for some of the remixes, with guest appearances from the rest of the Red Dwarf cast, along with Mark Clayton ("Elvis" in Meltdown) and Charles Augins ("Queeg 500" in Queeg). In addition an eight-minute "Making Of" documentary featuring the cast was included.

Specials

On February 14 1998, the night before the tenth anniversary of the show's first broadcast episode, BBC2 devoted an evening of special programming to the series, under the banner of Red Dwarf Night. The evening consisted of a mixture of new, specially-recorded content and existing material, and was introduced and linked by famed actor and Dwarf fan Patrick Stewart. In addition, a series of special take-offs on BBC2's famous idents, featuring the "2" logo falling in love with a skutter, were used.

The night began with Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg, a spoof of the popular cookery programme Can't Cook, Won't Cook, presented by that show's host Ainsley Harriott (who had himself earlier appeared in Red Dwarf, albeit under heavy make-up, prior to his career as a celebrity chef). Taking place out of the continuity of the series (not least as it features both Kochanski and the hologram Rimmer, who never actually met in the series, on-board Starbug), two teams (Kryten and Lister versus Rimmer and the Cat, although the Cat quickly departs to be replaced by alter ego Duane Dibbley) are challenged to make the best chicken vindaloo. The show was part-scripted by Paul Alexander, and part-improvised by the cast.

After a compilation bloopers show, featuring out-takes that had already been seen on the various Smeg Ups releases (see DVD and video) but new linking material from the cast, the next special programme was Universe Challenge, a take-off of the University Challenge (or College Bowl in the USA) format. Hosted by original University Challenge presenter Bamber Gascoigne (following an introduction in which Chris Barrie mimicked current host Jeremy Paxman - who Gascoigne subsequently 'blew up' with a Bazookoid), the show saw a team of knowledgeable Dwarf fans defeat a team consisting of Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Robert Llewellyn, Chloe Annett and Danny John Jules.

Universe Challenge was followed by The Red Dwarf A-Z, a half-hour documentary special that chose a different aspect of the show to focus on for each letter of the alphabet. Talking heads on the episode included Stephen Hawking, Terry Pratchett, original producer Paul Jackson, and Patrick Stewart, in addition to an appearance from two (officially-licensed) Daleks. Finally, the night ended with a showing of the Emmy award-winning episode from 1993, Gunmen of the Apocalypse.

Another one-off Dwarf special was produced in November of that year - a short sketch serving as a prelude to the eighth series that was broadcast as part of the annual Children in Need fundraising night. The sketch saw the Dwarf crew (again featuring both Rimmer and Kochanski - with Rimmer still sporting his holographic H to avoid spoiling the nature of his return) onboard the newly-redesigned Blue Midget, discussing fund-raising and telethons.

Red Dwarf A-Z and Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg have both since been released on DVD (on the releases for series II and IV respectively), but rights issues have prevented the release of Universe Challenge.

DVD and video

All eight series remain available on DVD in Regions 1, 2 and 4, with each release (except for Series II) being accompanied by an original documentary about the making of each respective series, and a bonus disc filled with extra material. The DVD releases have been praised for their particularly extensive bonus material, which includes cast commentaries, exhaustive deleted scenes, raw effects footage, previously-broadcast one-offs and specials about the show, amateur fan films and much more, including — in one instance — a special audio/part-animated version of an unmade episode, performed by Chris Barrie. There are also various country-specific releases, usually without extras, across the globe.

Regions 2 and 4 have also seen the release of two Just The Shows, digipack boxsets containing all the episodes from Series I–IV (Volume 1) and V-VIII (Volume 2) with static menus and no extras. In October 2006, meanwhile, an Interactive Quiz DVD entitled Red Dwarf: Beat The Geek was released. The quiz allows "hardcore fans" to compete against casual viewers, in addition to offering general knowledge questions for friends/family not au fait with the series. The DVD is hosted by Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge, both reprising their roles as Holly. It is currently only available in regions 2-4, and in region 2 also includes an internet treasure hunt competition called "Geek Chase", with a prize of £5,000.

The Region 1, 2(UK) and 4 releases of series 1-3 are the originally aired versions of the show. The remastered versions are not currently available in the UK, USA or Australia. However, some European countries such as Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands have localised releases which contain the remastered versions of Series 1-3. Bonus features on these DVDs vary. An earlier release in Japan also had the remastered versions, but the episodes were significantly cut down.

Prior to the DVD releases, all eight series had been available on VHS. All the videos are now deleted, but none — save for "Six Of The Best" — are particularly rare. Three episodes of Series VII were also released as special "Xtended" versions with extra scenes and no laugh track (these "Xtended" episodes would later be included on the DVD), while the remastered versions of Series I–III were released individually and in a complete box-set. A special limited edition box-set, Six Of The Best, was released in 1997, featuring one episode from each (then-existing) series selected by the writers, and an audio CD of discussion and commentary by Rob Grant, Doug Naylor and Ed Bye (this discussion would later be split up and used as extras and easter eggs on the DVD releases).

For the initial release of the VHS editions, the videos were named after the first episode on the tape, as were other BBC videos at the time. This was changed for the second half of Series I, as the BBC already had another series called Waiting for God (The title of the fourth episode in the series) so the video was named after the fifth episode, "Confidence and Paranoia". Because of this, the episode summaries on the back of the tape were mixed up with the second episode being listed first. The first video of Series VI was named after the third episode on the tape, presumably because the Emmy-winning episode "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" was seen as being more prestigious than "Psirens", the first episode of the series.

Finally, two outtake videos were released, the famed Smeg Ups in 1994, and its sequel Smeg Outs in 1995. There was also a specially edited version of Smeg Ups for the Red Dwarf anniversary, which featured newly recorded links by Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, Chris Barrie as Rimmer and Craig Charles as Lister, the links were later released separately on the Series VII DVD. The original, 1994 version of Smeg Ups contained out-takes from Series IV–VI, with brand new specially-recorded links performed by Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, and featured the never-before-seen original ending of the Series VI finale "Out Of Time". Smeg Outs featured out-takes from the first three series, with more new links (now also featuring Craig Charles as Lister), in addition to the full-length video for "Tongue Tied". These videos were a strong commercial success, and Red Dwarf's out-takes remain among the most famous in television. All the out-takes featured on the videos have now been included on the relevant DVDs, but the links have yet to be re-released. However, Smeg Ups is set to be re-released on UMD in June 2006, with Smeg Outs to follow 'for Christmas'.

Meanwhile, three episodes — "Marooned", "Quarantine" and "Cassandra" — are also available to view on selected mobile phones on a "ROK Chip".

Notable series characteristics

Basis in scientific theory

Doug Naylor is a voracious researcher, and his shelves are lined with books on quantum theory and new technologies. Huge amounts of the show have, despite the farcial humour, been influenced by real scientific theories, such as tachyons, (which have been spoken of at various points in the show), the nanobots, the stasis booth and the dimension theory of reality (!).

A Brief History of Time author Professor Stephen Hawking remains a big fan of the show. One episode of The 10 Percenters - Grant Naylor's talent agency sit-com - included a reference to A Brief History of Time: The Musical (which featured the song 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal A-Go-Go' and starred Jason Donovan as an electron).

Fans

Red Dwarf is known for its considerably large fan base and cult status, largely due to its position in the science fiction genre, and also due to the fact that it initially garnered low viewing figures (starting fairly strongly, but dropping off to the point where a second series may not have even been commissioned) but began to gain momentum on repeat showings and on video. That said, many have in recent years questioned its position as 'true' cult nowadays, since it is one of the most well-known sitcoms ever to come out of the UK: it ranked 18th in the BBC's 100 Best British Sitcoms, received over eight million viewers during its eighth series, and has been syndicated worldwide to great success.

Nevertheless, Red Dwarf does attract a certain kind of fan, often a curious hybrid of the sci-fi geek and the comedy buff. Most-commonly known as 'Dwarfers' or 'Smegheads', Red Dwarf fans are also notable among the sci-fi community for their large female proportion, and their propensity for obsessive trivia about the show.

Its official fan club is still going strong, some seven years after the show was last seen on air, and the annual convention "Dimension Jump" is consistently well-attended by fans as well as cast members. There are also still a significant number of active fansites devoted to the show.

Notable celebrity fans of the show include Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawking, Terry Pratchett, Brian Cox, Don Henderson, Tony Curtis, Jenny Agutter, Craig Ferguson, Ken Morley, Ainsley Harriot and Patrick Stewart, who famously recalled during Red Dwarf Night in 1998 an incident whereby he was channel-hopping and came across an episode of the series, initially believing it to be 'a rip-off of Star Trek' and nearly about to call his lawyer, before it made him laugh and he became hooked.

Mixed reactions

The many changes that were made to the series' cast, setting, creative teams and even production values from series to series have meant that opinions differ greatly between fans as to the quality of certain series. In particular, Series VII was seen by many as a major disappointment — while much slicker and higher-budget in appearance, the shift away from outright sitcom and into something approaching comedy drama did not impress the majority of long-standing fans. Furthermore, the attempt to then shift back into traditional sitcom format for Series VIII was greeted with a response that was similarly lukewarm — and at times downright hostile — by many fans who felt that the level of humour in that series was far below that which they'd come to expect from the show. There was also a significant amount of criticism aimed at the decision to resurrect the entire crew of Red Dwarf, as many felt this detracted from the series' central premise of Lister being the last human being alive.

On the other hand, there are many Red Dwarf fans who feel that Series VII and VIII, either individually or as a whole, are the equal of — if not superior to — the earlier series, and the topic is therefore the subject of constant fervent debate among the show's fandom. Similar discussions revolve around the quality of Series VI (seen by some as the strongest series, but by others as a descent into formulaic comedy with an unwelcome change of setting), although not to the same extent; and there are even those who argue that the show lost its way with the significant changes made after the second series.

Within the context of British comedy in general, meanwhile, Red Dwarf occupies a curious position. While revered by many — and still a successful programme, as recent DVD sales have shown (Series IV and V were the third and fourth best-selling BBC DVDs respectively in 2005) — it is also often looked down upon by those in the comedy fraternity (comedians such as Armando Iannucci and Lee and Herring have remarked on their dislike for the series). This could be the result of any number of factors — its niche content, the fact that its writers largely worked alone and are noted for little else in the industry, or the 'unfashionable' status of its main cast members (consisting of a dancer, a poet and an impressionist, rather than previously-noted comedic actors) and the science fiction setting.

Invented words

Expletives

Red Dwarf famously employed a vocabulary of fictional expletives in order to avoid using potentially-offensive expletives in the show, and to give nuance to futuristic colloquial language. By far, the most famous example is 'smeg'. Variations of the word include: 'smegger', 'smeghead', 'smeg off', 'smeg-for-brains', 'smeg-a-rama', and 'smegging hell'. The writers of Red Dwarf have stated that they invented the word and that it has no connection with any similar real words, such as 'smegma'. However, lexicographer Tony Thorne, in his 1990 Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (ISBN 0-7475-2856-X), reports instances of 'smeg' (and derivatives) being used as a term of 'mild contempt and even affection' among 'schoolboys, students and punks' as early as the mid-1970s — a decade or so prior to the inception of the Red Dwarf phenomenon — and unequivocally traces the etymology of the term back to 'smegma'. A character in the 1978 DEVO promotional video "The Men Who Make The Music" employs the term in the line "You're dying under Daddy's Cap, Smeghead."

Other invented expletives and euphemisms include 'goit' (one who is annoying or awkward; perhaps adapted from the words 'git' and 'oik' or referring to someone with the condition goitre) and 'gimboid' (one who is stupid or clumsy; possibly an adaptation of the word 'gimp'). Another term of abuse used in the show was the word 'gwenlan' (or 'gwenlyn'), the last name of Gareth Gwenlan, a former BBC head of comedy who had once passed on the show.

Other

• GELF: an acronym for Genetically Engineered Life Forms. They are recurring creatures in the Red Dwarf universe.

Main article: GELF.

• Rogue Simulants: sadistic warrior mechanoids who despise humans. The Red Dwarf crew occasionally run into simulants.

Main article: Rogue Simulants.

• Bazookoid: the Red Dwarf crew's weapon of choice is the bazookoid. Originally a piece of mining equipment, the crew have adapted it for offensive purposes. The bazookoid fires an energy charge that can be set to heat seek. Obviously derived from the word bazooka.

• The currency in use at the time Red Dwarf left the Solar System was the dollarpound, divided into one hundred pennycents. It is also sometimes referred to as the quidbuck.

• Zero-Gee Football: the main sport to have survived into the future is American football, which is now played in zero-gravity. Lister's favourite player is Jim Bexley Speed, who plays the Roof Attack position for the London Jets and holds the single-series record for most cubic yardage. Interestingly, the game derives from American football rather than soccer, despite the fact that Red Dwarf is a British series.

• Felis sapiens, a species of humanoids who evolved over three million years from common domestic cats. A main character of the show, The Cat, is one of these creatures and one of only two of these creatures ever seen on screen.

• Fuchal: The mistaken name, originally supposed to be Fiji, of the Cat race's (Felis sapiens) version of heaven which was actually just a fantasy future of Lister's.

• Jozxyqk: in the episode Bodyswap, Cat plays the word "jozxyqk" in a game of Scrabble, claiming it to be the sound you make when you get your sexual organs trapped in something.

• Quagaar: the name of the percieved alien species which Rimmer imagines will make him a real body, in the episode Waiting for God. It turns out that the Quagaars never existed, the pod that he believed they resided in was actually a Red Dwarf garbage pod, while the Quagaar body he believed he had found was actually the decomposing remains of a roast chicken.

Continuity

Red Dwarf is particularly known for its creators' lax attitude towards continuity. As such, there are many facts and events that go contradicted (sometimes multiple times) from series to series. In the beginning, changing such things as the number of people on-board the ship, or the number of times Rimmer took his astronavigation exam, was a result of Grant and Naylor not bothering to check their facts because they assumed that no-one else would either. Once the show began to attract a quite large fan base, however, such errors began to be gleefully pointed out by fans the world over, to the extent that they became one of the series' most notable features. Most of the series' continuity errors are therefore now treated with a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek reverence, and cheerfully ignored (just as Grant and Naylor ignored them when writing the show). Nevertheless, highlights include:

• Probably the most famed example is of Lister having had his appendix out twice, as it is removed by Legion in Series VI, despite the fact that Rimmer 'remembers' having had it removed as part of the memories he is given by Lister in "Thanks For The Memory". Rob Grant covers this in an interview by stating that Lister regrew his appendix during the episode "DNA", while another explanation is found in Doug Naylor's novel Last Human, in which it is revealed that Lister was born with a double appendix. In the Smeg Ups Bloopers video, Kryten answered a fan letter stating that since Lister enjoyed the procedure so much, he did it again.
• In Series II's "Thanks For the Memory", Rimmer reveals to Lister that he has only ever made love once in his life, to Yvonne McGruder - "A single, brief liason with the ship's female boxing champion". However, in Series III's "Marooned", Rimmer relates the story of how he lost his virginity to a girl he met at Cadet School named Sandra. The books explained this error by revealing that Rimmer was lying in this instance, but this still does not account for why Lister would even have asked how Rimmer lost his virginity, having already had it revealed to him in "...Memory".
• In Series I, Lister has shared a total of 171 words with Kochanski (he had a better verbal relationship with his potted plant) and had never asked her out. By Series IV, they had dated for three months, before she dumped him for a catering officer named Tim.
• The number of people aboard the ship is 169 in Series I, rose to 1,169 in Series IV, and was implicitly reverted to 169 in "The Inquisitor". In the novels, meanwhile, the ship had had a complement of 11,169 prior to the radiation leak.
• References to the series' pre-accident time period vary, with Lister describing himself as 'an enlightened 23rd century guy', even though the radiation leak is said to have happened in the 21st century, and Lister was supposedly abandoned as a baby in the 22nd.
• Lister drops a tombstone on one foot in the episode "Thanks for the Memory", and the plaster cast eventually appears on the other. This was due to Craig having to leave the set early as his wife had gone into labour, and a stand-in actor (actually the show's production manager Mike Agnew) subsequently wearing the cast on the wrong foot.
• In the Series 3 finale "The Last Day", Kryten finds himself fully capable of lying to his replacement Hudzen when the former convinces the latter that there is no Silicon Heaven. However, Kryten does not learn to lie until the fourth series opener "Camille".
• In the episode "White Hole", Lister plays pool with planets in order to "block up" the time-spewing white hole of the title. At the end of the episode, time is restored to a point before the "game" occurred, thus removing any knowledge of it. However, in the following series' episode "Demons & Angels", Lister makes reference to the event.
• In the first episode of series 7 the crew use the time drive to return to Earth, despite a joke having been made out of the fact that the drive only allows travel in time, not space, in the last episode of series 6.

One way in which many of the series-to-series continuity errors can be explained away is by exploring the possibilities of different series taking place in alternative dimensions. Indeed, this is often used as a general explanation for the many changes in style (and characters' histories) between Series II and III — with many fans taking the words 'THE SAME GENERATION... NEARLY' in the opening scrolling text of the episode "Backwards" as indicative of this. Indeed, it is at this point in the series that Grant and Naylor began to introduce elements from the novels' continuity (such as Lister and Kochanski having actually had a prior relationship) into the series.

Another explanation is that the characters' frequent travels through time alter their own continuity through butterfly effects. Lister's own birth results from time travel, as shown in the episode "Ouroboros."

A fan-written document entitled the Plot Inconsistencies Project has circulated around the Internet for many years. Contributed to by a large variety of Red Dwarf fans, it documents just about every known continuity error in the show, in addition to attempting to come up with logical, in-continuity explanations for many of them, and was even used as reference by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor when writing the segment of Smeg Ups entitled "The 10 Most Asked Things About Red Dwarf".

Pastiche and parody

While Red Dwarf is a comedy series, there is a mistaken belief that it exists solely as a 'parody' of existing sci-fi shows. This, however, is untrue — the sci-fi elements of the series are always treated seriously by Grant and Naylor, and indeed there are many concepts introduced by the series that would later go on to be used by more "serious" programmes. Nevertheless, like many sitcoms of its era, a number of its episodes contain references to other (not always sci-fi) television shows, films, books and plays. These include:

• "The End" — the first two series' opening theme is based on the soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• "Waiting for God" — the title of this episode is a play on Waiting for Godot. Rimmer warns Lister "You might get some squiggly, slimy thing stuck to your face!", a reference to the facehuggers from Alien. He also confuses Christopher Columbus with Columbo.
• "Kryten" — Kryten's favourite soap opera, Androids, is a parody of the real-life television show Neighbours. Later, Kryten imitates Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Kryten's name is taken from the play The Admirable Crichton.
• "Queeg" — Queeg's name comes from The Caine Mutiny, whilst Holly's line 'This is mutiny, Mr. Queeg' is based on Mutiny on the Bounty. "The Ballad of High Noon" plays as Holly goes to confront Queeg, and Holly's 'death' is a parody of HAL's death in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• "Backwards" — The episode opens with scrolling text, in the style of the introduction from the Star Wars films, and parodies them by having the text scroll too fast to be read without a "pause" button. Lister and the Cat talk about The Flintstones in the opening scene.
• "Marooned" — The TARDIS from Doctor Who can be seen, hidden in the hangar for the very observant.
• "The Last Day" — When Kryten asks 'Is this the human value you call "friendship"?', Lister gives the grumpy response 'Don't give me this Star Trek crap, it's too early in the morning!' In the same episode, a replacement robot named Hudzen 10 appears, a reference to the character of Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs.
• "Camille" — A parody of the popular film Casablanca, which also features a scene where the Cat and Lister discuss Hammy Hamster from Tales of the Riverbank.
• "DNA" — Features the line 'How can the same smeg happen to the same guy twice?', a reference to the Die Hard movies. The Curry Monster's demise is in the manner of the death of the shark in Jaws. Furthermore, the "Man Plus" is an amalgamation of Lister and Robocop.
• "Dimension Jump" — The character of Ace Rimmer owes something to James Bond 007. The sound track was inspired by Top Gun's "Take My Breath Away".
• "Meltdown" — The scene where Rimmer inspects the Waxdroid troops resembles a scene in Full Metal Jacket. This episode also includes references, direct and indirect, to The Dirty Dozen and An Officer and a Gentleman.
• "Terrorform" — When Kryten offlines he listens to a remix of Copacabana.
• "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" — The showdown scene pays tribute to High Noon.
• "Legion" — The character Legion refers to the biblical quotation "My name is Legion".
• "Stoke Me a Clipper" — Opens with a deliberately James Bond-esque sequence.
• "Beyond a Joke" — The crew visit Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice World on the A.R. Machine.
• "Pete: Part I" — The story Pete features a rampaging Tyrannosaurus rex, similar to that in Jurassic Park.
• "Pete: Part II" — Kryten's pet penis, Archie, appears to burst out of the Cat's chest, spoofing a similar moment in Alien.

See also

• Red Dwarf characters
• List of Red Dwarf episodes
• Red Dwarf ships
• British sitcom
• Britain's Best Sitcom
• List of television series that include time travel
• Chinface

External links

• Official Red Dwarf site
• Red Dwarf at IMDb
• DwarfWiki - oldest Red Dwarf Wiki
• "Tongue Tied" - newer Red Dwarf Wiki
• Red Dwarf FAQ
• The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club
• Red Dwarf at the BBC Comedy Guide
• Red Dwarf Scripts

Cast links

• Website of Norman Lovett (Holly)
• Website of Robert Llewellyn (Kryten)
• Website of Chris Barrie (Rimmer)
• Website of Danny John Jules (Cat)