Red Dwarf theme by Simon Pring
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| Red Dwarf | |
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 Logo (1992–99) | |
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 12, and 1 TV film |
| No. of episodes | 74 (list of episodes) |
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| Budget | £250,000 per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 15 February 1988 – 5 April 1999 |
| Network | Dave |
| Release | 10 April 2009 – 9 April 2020 |
Red Dwarf is a British science fiction comedy series created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, consisting of a sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following.[1] The series follows low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who awakens after being in suspended animation for three million years to find that he is the last living human, and that he is alone on the mining spacecraft Red Dwarf—save for a hologram of his deceased bunkmate Arnold Rimmer and "Cat", a life form which evolved from Lister's pregnant cat.
As of 2020, the cast included Chris Barrie as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as Cat, Robert Llewellyn as the sanitation droid Kryten, and Norman Lovett as the ship's computer, Holly.
To date, twelve series of the show have aired (including one miniseries), in addition to a feature-length special The Promised Land. Four novels were published from 1989 to 1996. Two pilot episodes of an American version of the show were produced but never aired. The magazine The Red Dwarf Smegazine was published from 1992 to 1994.
One of the series' highest accolades came in 1994 when an episode from the sixth series, "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", won an International Emmy Award in the Popular Arts category. In the same year, the series was also awarded "Best BBC Comedy Series" at the British Comedy Awards.[2] The series attracted its highest ratings, of more than eight million viewers, during the eighth series in 1999.[3]
The revived series on Dave has consistently delivered some of the highest ratings for non–Public Service Broadcasting commissions in the UK.[4][5][6] Series XI was voted "Best Returning TV Sitcom" and "Comedy of the Year" for 2016 by readers for the British Comedy Guide.[7] In a 2019 ranking by Empire, Red Dwarf came 80th on a list of the 100 best TV shows of all time.[8]
Setting and plot[edit]
The main setting of the series is the eponymous mining spaceship Red Dwarf.[9] In the first episode, set sometime in the late 21st century,[a] an on-board radiation leak kills everyone except lowest-ranking technician Dave Lister, who is in suspended animation at the time, as punishment for smuggling a cat aboard the ship. The cat, Frankenstein, who is revealed to be pregnant, is safe in the cargo hold.[10] Following the accident, the ship's computer Holly keeps Lister in stasis until the radiation levels return to normal—a process that takes three million years.[10] Lister therefore emerges as the last human being in the universe—but not alone on board the ship.[11] His former bunkmate and immediate superior Arnold Judas Rimmer (a character plagued by failure) is resurrected by Holly as a hologram to keep Lister sane. They are joined by a creature known only as Cat, who was initially thought to be the last member of a race of humanoid felines that evolved in the ship's hold from Lister's pregnant cat during the three million years that Lister was in stasis.[11] In season 1 episode 3 'Waiting for God', it was revealed that the cat priest had also survived, and was living in the hold of the ship.
The series revolves around Lister being the last human alive, after three million years of travel from Earth, with his companions. The crew encounter phenomena such as time distortions, faster-than-light travel, mutant diseases and strange lifeforms (all evolved from Earth, because the series has no aliens) that had developed in the intervening millions of years.[12] Though it has a science fiction setting, much of the humour comes from the interactions of the characters, particularly the laid-back Lister and the stuck-up Rimmer.
Despite the pastiche of science fiction used as a backdrop, Red Dwarf is primarily a character-driven comedy, with science fiction elements used as complementary plot devices.[13] Especially in the early episodes, a recurring source of comedy was the Odd Couple-style relationship between the two central characters of the show, who have an intense dislike for each other yet are trapped together deep in space.
In Series III, the computer Holly changes from male (Norman Lovett) to female (Hattie Hayridge), and the mechanoid Kryten (who had appeared in one episode in Series II)[14] joins the crew and becomes a regular character.[15]
In Series VI, a story arc is introduced where Red Dwarf has been stolen, and the crew pursue it in the smaller Starbug craft, with the side effect that the character Holly disappears.[16]
Series VII is also set in Starbug. Early in series VII, Rimmer departs (due to actor Chris Barrie's commitments) and is replaced by Kristine Kochanski, Lister's long-term love interest, from an alternate universe.[17] Kochanski becomes a regular character for Series VII and VIII.
At the end of Series VII, we learn that Kryten's service nanobots, which had abandoned him years earlier, were behind the theft of the Red Dwarf at the end of series five. At the beginning of the eighth series, Kryten's nanobots reconstruct the Red Dwarf, which they had broken down into its constituent atoms.[18]
As a consequence, Series VIII features the entire original crew of Red Dwarf resurrected (except for the already-alive Lister and Kochanski), including a pre-accident Rimmer and the original male Holly. The series ends with a metal-eating virus loose on Red Dwarf. The entire crew evacuate save the main cast (Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Kryten, and Kochanski), whose fates are unresolved in a cliffhanger ending.[19]
Series IX onwards revert to the same four main characters of Series 3–6 (Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten), on Red Dwarf and without Kochanski or Holly; Rimmer reappears as a hologram once again. While it was left unmentioned whether the Rimmer on board ship is the one who originally left, the revived version, or a third incarnation entirely (episodes have alluded to him remembering events from both previous incarnations' lives); with the release of The Promised Land, series-creator Doug Naylor confirmed in 2020 that the Rimmer from Back To Earth onwards is the original Rimmer, having returned from his time being Ace Rimmer.
Characters and actors[edit]
- Craig Charles as David "Dave" Lister:
A third-class technician on the Red Dwarf, who was the lowest-ranking of the 169 original crew members,[b] and alone survived the accident due to being in stasis as punishment for smuggling an unquarantined cat on board. A Scouser and self-described "bum" who has a good heart but is also very lazy, he has a long-standing desire to return to Earth and start a farm and/or diner on Fiji (which is under three feet of water following a volcanic eruption), but is left impossibly far away by the accident, which renders him the last known surviving member of the human race.[20] - Chris Barrie as Arnold Judas Rimmer:
A second-class technician on the Red Dwarf who is Lister's bunkmate and direct superior. The second-lowest-ranking member of the original crew, he is responsible for the accident that killed the entire crew except for Lister; although Rimmer himself did not survive, Holly, considering him to be the person most likely to keep Lister sane, selects him to be the ship's one available hologram, recreating Rimmer's appearance and personality as he was before his death.[21] Now the de facto leader of the Red Dwarf, he is despised by the rest of the crew due to his fussy, bureaucratic, neurotic, insecure, and cowardly personality, and has a particularly conflictual relationship with Lister. During Series VII, Rimmer leaves the dimension shared by his crewmates to become his swashbuckling dimensional counterpart, Ace Rimmer. However, pre-hologram Rimmer, along with the rest of the original crew, is resurrected by nanobots at the start of Series VIII; after coming face to face with Death at the end of the series, whom he kicks in the groin, he is once again a hologram from Series IX onwards, although the circumstances that led to this are never fully explained. - Danny John-Jules as the Cat:
A humanoid creature with cat-like teeth who evolved from the offspring of Lister's smuggled pet cat Frankenstein. The Cat or simply "Cat" (who is never given an actual name) is self-centered and concerned with little other than sleeping, eating, and fawning over his appearance, and tends not to socialise with other members of the crew in early episodes. Over time, he grows closer to his crewmates and becomes a useful part of the crew. Unlike his human companions, he has a "cool" sounding pulse, six nipples, and colour-coordinated internal organs.[22] - Norman Lovett (regular series I-II, VIII, The Promised Land; guest series VII, XII) and Hattie Hayridge (guest series II; regular series III-V) as Holly:
The ship's computer who appears on screens as a floating head and originally has a functional IQ of 6000 but, as a result of remaining alone without any maintenance during the three million years Lister is in stasis, develops "computer senility". Although Holly is male during the first two series, they become female between series 2 and 3, taking the voice and appearance of Hilly, an alternative version of themselves encountered in the Series II finale and with whom they had fallen in love.[23] Following an unexplained absence in Series VI, male Holly returns in the Series VII finale. Between Series VIII and IX, Lister's bath overflows and the water gets into Holly's circuitry, causing them to malfunction and go offline. In The Promised Land, the discovery of a backup drive allows the return of male Holly, originally with their memory and IQ rebooted, but eventually back to their usual dysfunctional self. - David Ross (guest series II) and Robert Llewellyn (regular series III–present) as Kryten 2X4B-523P:
A sanitation android rescued by the crew from the crashed spaceship Nova 5 in the first episode of series 2, after having spent countless years continuing to serve the ship's crew without realising they had been long dead; bound by his "behavioural protocols", he is taught independent thinking by Lister and leaves the Red Dwarf on a space bike to enjoy his newfound freedom. Between series II and III, he is rescued by the crew after his space bike crashed on an asteroid and has become part of the Red Dwarf crew; however, the accident led to his face appearing permanently different.[24] Categorised as a "series 4000 service mechanoid",[25] he keeps on maintaining the Red Dwarf, while also showing himself very resourceful due to his proficiency with technology and encyclopedic knowledge of the universe; he maintains a strong friendship with Lister throughout the series. - Clare Grogan (recurring series I; guest series II, VI) and Chloë Annett (regular series VII-VIII; guest series IX) as Kristine Kochanski:
A navigation officer in the original Red Dwarf crew whom Lister had a crush on (later retconned to be his ex-girlfriend) and whose memory he had cherished ever since.[20] After appearing in several episodes following her death, once directly due to Lister time travelling and later as various individuals impersonating her, an alternate version of Kochanski from a universe in which she, not Lister, is the last living human, joins the series' main universe and the Red Dwarf crew in the series VII episode "Ouroboros". As part of the crew, she progressively gets closer to Lister, while struggling to overcome her past romantic relationship with her original universe's Lister, and has a conflictual relationship with Kryten, who is jealous of the interest Lister has for her.[17] Between series VIII and IX, she is no longer part of the crew, and is believed by Lister to be dead; it is later revealed that she had actually fled the ship when it became clear Lister's complete lack of self-respect and indulgence on excesses was slowly killing him, which greatly depressed her; Kryten, the only one aware of her departure, pretended to have witnessed her death to avoid hurting Lister's feelings even more. After learning the truth, Lister hopes to reunite with her one day.[26] In addition to Grogan and Annett, Suzanne Rhatigan and Anastasia Hille portray false versions of Kochanski in episodes of series 4 and series 5 respectively, while Holly Earl portrays a younger version of her in an episode of series 8.
Production[edit]
The first series aired on BBC2 in 1988. Twelve full series and one miniseries have so far been produced, and a feature length special was released in 2020.[27]
Concept and commission[edit]
The concept for the show was originally developed from the sketch series Dave Hollins: Space Cadet on the BBC Radio 4 show Son of Cliché in the mid-1980s, written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.[28] Their influences came from films and television programmes including Star Trek (1966), Silent Running (1972), Dark Star (1974), Alien (1979) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981),[15] but also had a large element of British-style comedy and satire thrown into the mix, ultimately moulded into the form of a sitcom. Having written the pilot script in 1983, the former Spitting Image writers pitched their unique concept to the BBC, but it was rejected on fears that a science fiction sitcom would not be popular.[28]
It was finally accepted by BBC North in 1986, a result of a spare budget being assigned for a second series of Happy Families that would never arise, and producer Paul Jackson's insistence that Red Dwarf should be filmed instead.[29] The show was fortunate to be remounted after an electricians' strike partway through rehearsals in early 1987 shut the entire production down (the title sequence was filmed in January 1987).[30] The filming was rescheduled for September, and the pilot episode finally made it onto television screens on 15 February 1988.[15]
Despite the commission of further series, the cast felt like "outsiders" at the BBC. Co-creator Doug Naylor attributed this to the show being commissioned by BBC Manchester, but its being filmed at Shepperton Studios near where the cast lived in London. When the show won an International Emmy Award in 1994, Naylor's attempts to have the cast invited to a party thrown by the BBC proved futile when they objected to Craig Charles' and Danny John-Jules' inclusion, claiming they were "fire risks".[31]
Casting[edit]
Alan Rickman and Alfred Molina auditioned for roles in the series, with Molina being cast as Rimmer.[32][33] However, after Molina had difficulties with the concept of the series, and of his role in particular, the role was recast and filled by Chris Barrie, a professional voice actor and impressionist who had previously worked with both the writers on Spitting Image and with the producers on Happy Families and Jasper Carrott productions.[33] Craig Charles, a Liverpudlian "punk poet", was given the role of Dave Lister. He was approached by the production team for his opinion about the "Cat" character, as they were concerned it may be considered by people as racist.[34] Charles described "Cat" as "pretty cool" and after reading the script he decided he wanted to audition for the part of Dave Lister.[30] Laconic stand-up comedian Norman Lovett, who had originally tried out for the role of Rimmer, was kept in the show as Holly, the senile computer of the titular ship.[34] A professional dancer and singer, Danny John-Jules, arriving half an hour late for his appointment, stood out as the Cat immediately. This was partly due to his "cool" exterior, dedicated research (reading Desmond Morris's book Catwatching), and his showing up in character, wearing his father's 1950s-style zoot suit.[34]
Writing, producing and directing[edit]
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).[35] Grant left in 1995,[15] to pursue other projects,[36] leaving Naylor to write series VII and VIII with a group of new writers, including Paul Alexander and actor Robert Llewellyn (who portrayed the character Kryten).[37]
For the most part, Ed Bye produced and directed the series. He left before series V due to a scheduling clash (he ended up directing a show starring his wife, Ruby Wax) so Juliet May took over as director.[38] May parted ways with the show halfway through the series for personal and professional reasons and Grant and Naylor took over direction of the series, in addition to writing and producing.[39] Series VI was directed by Andy De Emmony, and Ed Bye returned to direct series VII and VIII. Series I, II and III were made by Paul Jackson Productions, with subsequent series produced by the writers' own company Grant Naylor Productions for BBC North. All eight series were broadcast on BBC Two. At the beginning of series IV, production moved from BBC North's New Broadcasting House in Manchester to Shepperton.[40]
Theme song and music[edit]
The opening theme tune, closing theme tune, and incidental music were written and performed by Howard Goodall, with the vocals on the closing theme tune by Jenna Russell.[41] The first two series used a relatively sombre instrumental version of the closing theme for the opening titles; from series III onwards this switched to a more upbeat version, with Goodall singing on vocoder, the line "Red Dwarf" four times in the second half of the song.[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] Goodall also wrote music for the show's various songs, including "Tongue Tied", with lyrics written by Grant and Naylor.[50] Danny John-Jules (credited as 'The Cat') re-orchestrated and released "Tongue Tied" on 11 October 1993; it reached number 17 on the UK charts.[51] Goodall himself sang "The Rimmer Song" heard during the series VII episode "Blue", to which Chris Barrie mimed.[52]
Remastered[edit]
In 1998, on the tenth anniversary of the show's first airing (and between the broadcast of series VII and VIII), the first three series of Red Dwarf were remastered and released on VHS. The remastering included replacing model shots with computer graphics, cutting certain dialogue and scenes,[53] re-filming Norman Lovett's Holly footage, creating a consistent set of opening titles, replacing music and creating ambient sound effects with a digital master.[54] The remastered series were released in a 4-disc DVD box set "The Bodysnatcher Collection" in 2007.[55]
Hiatus[edit]
| 1988 | Series I and II |
|---|---|
| 1989 | Series III |
| 1990 | |
| 1991 | Series IV |
| 1992 | Series V |
| 1993 | Series VI |
| 1994 | |
| 1995 | |
| 1996 | |
| 1997 | Series VII |
| 1998 | |
| 1999 | Series VIII |
| 2000 | |
| 2001 | |
| 2002 | |
| 2003 | |
| 2004 | |
| 2005 | |
| 2006 | |
| 2007 | |
| 2008 | |
| 2009 | Back To Earth |
| 2010 | |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | Series X |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | Series XI |
| 2017 | Series XII |
| 2018 | |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | The Promised Land |
Four years elapsed between series VI and VII, partly due to the dissolving of the Grant and Naylor partnership, but also due to cast and crew working on other projects.[36] When the series eventually returned, it was filmised and no longer shot in front of a live audience, allowing for greater use of four-walled sets, location shooting, and single-camera techniques.[56] When the show returned for its eighth series two years later, however, it had dropped use of the filmising process and returned to using a live audience.[57]
The show rece