Some people have lofty ambitions. Become rich, famous, the best in your field. Others just want something simple. Like buying a small farm, getting a sheep and a cow and breeding horses. Red Dwarf was the story of the man with the simple dream. There’s just one problem.
Everybody’s dead.
Dave Lister was just another guy, taking an easy job as a technician on a mining ship. The lowest ranking member of the crew, his most challenging job was unclogging the soup dispenser whilst dealing with the intellectual black hole that was his bunk mate and supervisor, Rimmer. Lister was a simple creatire. He liked a good curry, he liked to pretend he could play the guitar, he liked a few (dozen) pints with his mates and unfortunately, he liked cats.
Life was good until he was caught smuggling a cat aboard the ship against regulation. Refusing to release his pet for termination, his captain ordered him to spend the rest of the mission in stasis; losing out on the rest of the mission’s wage packet. While Rimmer tried to cheat his way into becoming an officer, Lister was frozen in time ready to wake up back on Earth to find a new way to start saving for his dream farm.
Unfortunately for Lister, he didn’t wake up on time.
Sci fi was going out of fashion thirty years ago for the BBC, who were at the time trying to punt Doctor Who off the air. And a sci fi show that was really a sitcom was an odd prospect for anyone to digest. Yet by a minor miracle, creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor managed to capture the BBC’s attention enough to push out the first series in 1988; a low key, introspective bottle show that quickly became a cult hit that is still going strong to this day.
While later the show would find it’s groove with some weird and wonderful sci fi plots including travelling to a world where time ran in reverse, to the emotion stealing Polymorph, the show started on a much quieter level. Far from the mad-cap antics of the misfit crew, Red Dwarf started with the simple odd couple staple of comedy.
When Lister was released from Statis, the ships computer Holly told him there had been a disaster that had wiped out the crew. A radiation leak. Lister was released when the ship was safe for human life again. Unfortunately that meant he woke up three million years later, Red Dwarf itself adrift in space far from an Earth that more than likely didn’t exist any more.
Holly, after informing Lister that everyone had died, realised he needed to keep Lister sane and revived his former bunkmate Rimmer as a hologram. The polar opposite to the laid back and lazy Lister, Rimmer was an uptight, cantankerous and egotistical failure, bickering with Lister at every opportunity as he slapped his authority of being the only person higher in rank than Lister.
And of course, there was the smuggled cat, Frankenstein. The crew died before they could find her and, safely sealed in the ships hold, she gave birth to a litter of kittens that would be the starting point for three millions years of evolutionary progress that would result in a whole civilisation of Cats. By the time Lister was revived only one remained.
Unlike other sci fi shows, Red Dwarf made the point of Lister being pretty much alone in the universe. There were no aliens to bump into. No indication that humanity had survived that long and generally no hope. Lister was all that was left of us. Even when it ventured into Monster of the Week territory later on, the show made a point of those creatures being man made; such as the GELF’s and various Androids. But nothing emphasised that sense of lonliness more than the first season; especially when Rimmer spent an entire episode hoping to have finally made contact with Aliens only to realise he’d been trying to translate burned off paint on a garbage pod.
Lister and Rimmer’s antagonistic relationship would be the basis for the show, with Holly and The Cat providing additional comedic tones as they dropped in and out.
The premise itself didn’t seem like much on the surface, but it came with it’s own spark of genius. Sci fi was filled with overachieving heroes. Here we had the failures and the hopeless; the last shred of humanity being a defiant waster with the most capable companion he has being a senile computer who’d been left on his own for far too long. Working as both a comedy and a character piece, it had the elements of sadness that came with the gravity of the plot as well as the Hitchiker style wit thrown in. On a sci fi level, it did bring intriguing concepts particularly with the first season seeing Lister hallucinate very real versions of his inner fears – with it’s only down side being that the half hour format only allowing the comedy to be showcased over the sci fi.
Throughout the first series, Lister and the makeshift crew of the Dwarf experienced a time shifting phenomenon that let them glance into the future, explored Lister’s sense of loss as he tried to replace Rimmer with another revived crewmember and finished off with Rimmer’s desire to duplicate himself to create the perfect bunkmate; an episode that gave some oddly deep moments as Rimmer began to face the realities of his own unpleasantness and Lister touched on the morality of deleting one of the two holograms.
It was a small, cheap show. Unashamedly so. But with it’s character exploration, classic antagonistic dynamic and unique setting for a comedy, what could have been a footnote in British sci fi has become one of the UK’s longest running shows and the second longest running science fiction the country has produced next to Doctor Who. While most remember Red Dwarf for it’s season 3-5 adventures as they pushed the limits of adventure and storytelling while also stretching the budget as far as they could. But it all began with a few less laughs, and a lot more reflection and character.
Thirty years on from it’s February 1988 launch, Red Dwarf has evolved into one of the most loved sci fi shows the UK has produced, standing the test of time, surviving certain death after a few format changes, and most importantly; despite ageing horribly in it’s looks and style, remains timeless in it’s underrated exploration of how normal people not heroes react in the worst of situations.
This article was originally posted in SFCQ2 Comms on Red Dwarf’s 30th anniversary in 2018. All former issues of Commms are archived for members in the Membership Hub.
About the author
Comms/Comms Relay Revisions from Beta Quarter 2025 Onwards
Following our last released issue of Comms as a downloadable publication, we've been moving to an easier and more accessible format by using Q2's website for various articles and updates throughout the year which has included some carry over features from Comms itself. After some trial and error experimentation, our 2025 plan began with some tests through the first quarter and a new comms line up for the site ahead of any plans by our next Fleet Comms Officer. To mirror the old style, reduce workload and offer some variety to our regular posts, we've broken down the year of updates through our operating quarters and scheduled in a rotation of our regular features to keep the fleet updated, entertained with some positive Trek hijinks and more. The current quarter (Beta Quarter: April, May, June) is the first full use […]
[Q2&A] If I Could Get Serial For A Minute…
With a long history and many people coming to SFC over the decades, there can often be a lot of curiosity for members – both old and new – about various subjects. From questions about our base structure, how to get four pips, how Q2 and Q1 diverged many moons ago.... even questions on the curse of the Daring. Sometimes we have questions where the answers are as mundane as the question. One of the most common.... what is my serial number and why do I have it? Like any account number in the known universe – whether it's your broadband provider or local Blockbusters – your service ID is a unique membership number that helps us identify each member whether we're updating a record or assessing a Fleet Support application form. With our structure and organisational systems based on […]
[Retro Review] Latent Image; Voyager S5E11
Running through annual check-ups and playing around with a 24th century version of a digital camera, the Doctor spots some weird scars on Ensign Kim. Scars that could only have come from a surgical procedure he developed, but has no memory of ever performing. The surgery isn't the only gap in the Doctors memory. What else has he forgotten? And how...? No matter the show or the season, Star Trek loves diving into the lives of it's artificial characters. Data explored everything from his basic rights to the meaning of dreams as he developed to become more of a person. For the Doctor, things had always been a bit more complicated. He was a program developed for short term use. A piece of equipment built into sickbay that could be turned off and on at will. While Deep Space Nine's […]
A New Class: Academy Revisions For The Class of 2402
It's only April and the year has been one for us to take a step back and review our operations to do some much overdue maintenance on our overall performance and offerings. One of the major hurdles for the second quarter is one of the tougher parts of Q2: The Academy. Once upon a time the Academy was a core part of the experience in joining SFC. After singing up new members would pass through the Academy, completing a series of tests before becoming an ensign, joining their unit and becoming an active member of the club. Many people over the years enjoyed the more immersive and playful nature of being part of an organisation modelled after Starfleet. Some didn't. As years went by, the franchise itself evolved, opening it's door to new fans who'd want to reach out and […]
A Fistful of Vulcan Emotions
Being a key element in the Sstar Trek lore from the very beginning, Vulcan mythology can often seem distorted by simplicity. Seen as a stoney emotionless species, their society is built on logic and science in helping them understand and navigate through the complexities of the universe. Though when it comes to them being emotionless, nothing could be farther from the truth. Once a volatile and primitive species, the Vulcan culture came from the teaching of Surak who learned to repress his violent urges and find peace within logical thought. Surak's teachings would become the basis for Vulcan core values for centuries. When it came to the original series, Vulcans were introduced through Spock – a half Vulcan with a human mother who often wrestled with the cultural norm of repressing emotions alongside the human half's more emotional state. Over […]
[Retro Review] Year Of Hell: Voyager Season 4
Embracing all aspects of science fiction has been Star Trek's thing since it's inception and time travel was no exception. Ever since the first time travel adventure with Kirk's Enterprise ending up in the 1960's, we've seen the various crews out of time and desperately trying not to change their own history. In one adventure, history would constantly change around the USS Voyager. One of the most memorable and loved two parters, Year of Hell remains a symbol of how desperate the situation could have been for the Voyager crew. As Janeway negotiations with an alien species for free travel through their region, a small annoyance of a ship interrupts them. Then suddenly, the timeline changed. The aliens, the Zahl, were gone. Erased from history. And the unsophisticated Krenim ship that was no match for Voyager one second was now […]
Related
[Sci Fi Sunday] Quantum Leap Season 2 on Paramount+
Returning to an old classic can be a mixed bag. Especially when the ideas a revival of a cult classic without any of the original stars returning. Quantum Leap was one of several of those shows to dip back into an old idea and give it a new life to modern audiences and in it's first season it was a surprise hit thanks in part to being a next chapter for the government funded time travel project that mixed the old theme with new ideas.
[Sci Fi Sunday] Twenty Years Waiting in the Winchester: Shaun Of The Dead
Back in the 90s we'd learn all about the cool, wacky lives of 20-something's through the adventures of a mysteriously close group of Friends; following the will they-won't they off Ross and Rachael, Joey's zany antics.... it was an ideal life filled with drama, joy, laughs and coffee!
Sci Fi Sunday: The Matrix 20 Years Later…
Most people have had moments where they doubt their surroundings. Where they look all around them and wonder what they feel, what they experience is actually real. Or if it's all an illusion. What would we do if we learned that everything we know was a lie. The world we knew may not be perfect, but it's stable, reliable. Imagine being told that underneath that it was an illusion masking a future where the world was in ruins, where no hope was left? Sci Fi Sunday: The Matrix 20 Years Later... That was the basis of the Matrix. A films where the protagonist, Neo, was given a choice. Take a blue pill and return to his average, normal and safe life within a digital reality, or take the red pill and awaken from a slumber he never knew […]
Sci Fi Sunday: Get Ready For The OA Season 2 (Comms Highlights)
Appearing from nowhere without any promotional efforts, the OA was a weird experiment from Netflix to just drop a show into it's line up and see what happened. As people tuned in to scroll through their library, they'd stumble upon the supernatural sci fi mystery and as a young girl who'd been missing for years sat a group of strangers down to tell them her story, viewers were captivated by the weird tale of finding the space between life and death. After being missing for years, Prairie returned home a completely different person. She was seasoned, tough, and despite being blind when she vanished, she could now see perfectly. It's hard to get into specifics without spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen the mystery, but as she returns to her home town under the careful supervision of her parents, […]
Sci Fi Sunday: New Blade Runner Series In Development (Comms Highlights)
Back in 2017 we were introduced to Officer K as he began to uncover a long buried secret and revived the world of Blade Runner. In a world of tired reboots and sequels, Blade Runner 2049 was \ refreshingly worthy update to the original that brought something new whilst advancing the building blocks laid by the original. Following it's success, the on screen mythology of the Philip K Dick adaption is about to receive another expansion with an animated prequel series in the works. Taking place in 2032, the as yet untitled Blade Runner series will consist of 13 half hour episodes aired through Adult Swim in partnership with Crunchyroll and Alcon Television. The series is said to feature some pre-established chatacters earlier in their lives and take inspiration from the visual cues of the 2049 sequel. “I first saw […]
Star Trek Horizon Sequel Cancelled
In the latest edition of Comms, we had a small plug for Star Trek: Horizons and we had scheduled a supplemental update regarding a recently announced sequel as soon as the kickstarter went live this weekend. Unfortunately the sequel will not be going ahead as planned as Horizon producer Tommy Kraft announced that there will be no more Horizon after contact with CBS. Late last year CBS/Paramount issued legal action against another fan film and it's producer after raising more than a million dollars to fund their project as a full time gig. With that legal dispute ongoing CBS has reached out to Kraft before Horizon's sequel, Federation Rising, could launch it's $250,000 kickstarter goal. Kraft posted the news on the Star Trek Horizon Facebook page; Earlier today, executives from CBS reached out to me and advised me that their […]
