 Red Dwarf
 1 9 8 8 - 1 9 9 9 (UK)
52 x 30 minute episodes
"This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship Red
Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak, the only
survivors were Dave Lister who was in suspended animation during
the disaster and his pregnant cat who was safely sealed in the
hold".
Revived three million years later, Dave Lister is the last
human being in existence and his only companions are a James
Brown-like life form which evolved from his cat (simply called
Cat) and a hologram simulation of one of the lower achievers from
the dead crew, Arnold Rimmer.
There was enough food to last 30,000 years but only one After
Eight mint and everyone was too polite to take it.
Dave Lister is a curry-eating 23rd century Scouser with a
vocabulary based around the expletive "smeg". He is also
the last human alive, being the sole survivor of a radiation leak
aboard the space mining vessel Red Dwarf. He is brought out
of his sleep in stasis by the ship's computer, Holly. Most of the
humour of the show (particularly in the first season) derives from
the schoolboy antics and meanderings of Lister and Rimmer.
Red Dwarf is a sort of 'Young Ones in space' although as
the seasons progressed it became more serious, and a new character
was added in the shape of the android, Kryten. A new female Holly
was also added.
The seventh series followed a gap of three years and Chris
Barrie announced that he had taken Rimmer as far as he wanted and
amicably left the show, bowing out in the episode aired on 14
February 1997. This event led to the reappearance of
Christine/Kristine Kochanski, Rimmer's ex-girlfriend, originally
played by ex- Altered Images singer Clare Grogan but now by Chloe
Annett.
But Barrie was back for the eighth and final series, in which
our heroes were held prisoner on board a reconstructed version of
the original Red Dwarf, in which the original long-dead
crew had also been resurrected. Otherwise, the exploits continued
much as before with perhaps an even greater freedom to explore
extreme plot ideas and uncharted territories.
Over time, the budget and production values of Red Dwarf
were elevated and the special effects were at times quite
splendid. In later episodes, the action is set on the space hopper
Star Bug instead of the mining ship Red Dwarf -
quite likely a budgetary decision.
Production of the series stopped for a while during the late
nineties while Craig Charles spent some time as a guest of Her
Majesty in England, as a result of some alleged illegal sexual
activity.
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