Red Dwarf (television)
Red Dwarf is a
British science fiction sitcom ("
Britcom" in the
U.S), created and originally written by
Rob Grant and
Doug Naylor.
It parodies most (if not all) of the sub-genres of science fiction but is first and foremost an
'odd couple' type comedy. The first series aired on
BBC2 in
1988. Seven further series have so far been produced, and a
film is currently in production. The idea was originally developed from the
Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketches introduced on Grant and Naylor's
1984 BBC Radio 4 show called "Son of Cliché".
Production history
\nGrant and Naylor wrote the first six series together, before Grant left in 1996 leaving Naylor to write the next two with a series of new and less well-known writers, notably Paul Alexander.
Series I and II were BBC productions, series III was made by Paul Jackson Productions, and all subsequent series were made by Grant Naylor Productions. In practice all that changed were the names, although at the beginning of series IV production moved from the BBC's Manchester studios to Shepperton Studios.
Scenario
\nIn the show, the Red Dwarf is a gigantic spaceship, belonging to the Jupiter Mining Corporation, which, following an on-board radioactive disaster, is left to drift through deep space. Three million years later, after the radiation has dropped to a safe level, the only surviving crew member emerges from stasis (in which he'd been placed for eighteen months as punishment) and is surprised to face this grave reality.
This is the slob anti-hero Dave Lister (played by Craig Charles). Lister speaks with a thick Scouse accent. He craves Indian food such as vindaloo, curries, and shami kebabs, all of which are available in great supply on board the ship (though the mechanics of storing curries for thousands of millennia have not been explored on the show).
Lister enjoys the company of a hologrammatic simulation of deceased crew member Arnold J. Rimmer, the 'J' stands for Judas, (played by Chris Barrie). Rimmer, Lister's room-mate before the disaster, is a humourless and status-obsessed loser, loathed by everybody on-board. It was Rimmer who actually caused the radioactive disaster. (Technically, the facility for simulating dead crew is reserved for high-ranking and/or essential personnel, but the ship's computer explains in an early episode that it believes company — and specifically Rimmer's company — to be essential to Lister's mental health. Lister expresses incredulity, but later implicitly admits that the computer was right, telling another character that "driving Rimmer nuts is what keeps me going"). It was rendered a moot point early in the first season; Lister almost from the start planned to find the computer disk containing the holographic backup of his ex-girlfriend Kristine Kochanski, but soon after he was activated Rimmer realized Lister would try to shut him down (the computer can only generate one hologram at a time), and Rimmer hid all of the remaining holographic identity disks, somewhere where Lister would never find them. In later episodes, Rimmer is manifest as the superheroic character, Ace Rimmer. What a guy!
Also accompanying Lister on his voyage back to Earth is The Cat (played by Danny John-Jules). The Cat is no ordinary cat, but a member of the species Felis sapiens, descended from a domestic cat which Lister had smuggled aboard three million years prior. While The Cat is humanoid, he retains a cat-like interest in fish and female cats, a heightened sense of smell, unbridled vanity, and grooming in a uniquely feline fashion sense.
The other principal character is Holly, the ship's computer with a supposed IQ of 6000 (played, for the first two series and in series 8, by Norman Lovett and later by Hattie Hayridge after Holly performed a 'head sex change' upon himself; Lovett is scheduled for the movie version). Holly runs most of Red Dwarf's systems despite now suffering from computer senility.
Among Holly's systems are the service droids known as skutters that clean, perform engineering tasks and function as Rimmer's hands since he cannot touch anything non-holographic.
Later on, the crew are joined by the servile android Kryten (most famously played by Robert Llewellyn, but played by David Ross in his first episode) whom Lister encourages to break his Altruismic programming and become a lying, cheating human like the rest of us.
Lister's longlasting crush is Kristine Kochanski, played by C. P. (Clare) Grogan. She was killed along with the rest of the crew in the first episode, and several subsequent episodes revolve around Lister attempting to bring her back, either through time travel or as a computer-generated simulation like Rimmer. In the seventh season, an alternate Kochanski from a parallel universe (played by Chloë Annett) joined the series as a regular character.
Episode List
Series 1 (1988)
\n1: The End, 2: Future Echoes, 3: Balance of Power, 4: Waiting for God, 5: Confidence and Paranoia, 6: MeČ
Series 2 (1988)
\n1: Kryten, 2: Better Than Life, 3: Thanks For the Memory, 4: Stasis Leak, 5: Queeg, 6: Parallel Universe
Series 3 (1989)
\n1: Backwards, 2: Marooned, 3: Polymorph, 4: Bodyswap, 5: Timslides, 6: The Last Day
Series 4 (1991)
\n1: Camille, 2: D.N.A., 3: Justice, 4: White Hole, 5: Dimention Jump, 6: Meltdown
Series 5 (1992)
\n1: Holoship, 2: The Inquisitor, 3: Terrorform, 4: Quarantine, 5: Deamons and Angels, 6: Back To Reality
Series 6 (1993)
\n1: Psirens, 2: Legion, 3: Gunmen of the Apocalypse, 4: Emohawk: Polymorph II, 5: Rimmerworld, 6: Out of Time
Series 7 (1997)
\n1: Tikka To Ride, 2: Stoke Me A Clipper, 3: Ouroboros, 4: Duct Soup, 5: Blue, 6: Beyond A Joke, 7: Epideme, 8: Nanarchy
Series 8 (1999)
\n1: Back in the Red (Part 1), 2:Back in the Red (Part 2), 3: Back in the Red (Part 3), 4: Cassandra, 5: Krytie T.V., 6: Pete (Part 1), 7: Pete (Part 2), 8: Only The Good...
US version
\nA pilot episode for an American version was produced for NBC in 1992, though never broadcast. The show followed essentially the same story as the original UK pilot, substituting American actors for the British; the one exception being Robert Llewellyn, who reprised his role as Kryten. The pilot was unsuccessful.
A later pilot consisting of scenes from the first pilot edited in with new footage (and featuring Terry Farrell as a female Cat), was also unsuccesful.
However, the comparison between the English and American shows is interesting: the anti-hero, slobby pantheist Lister was replaced with a muscular hunk when he is translated for American TV. When Lister learns that three million years have passed in the UK show, he says "I've still got that library book..."; in the American version he says "My baseball cards must be worth a fortune!"
It is also interesting to note that the multi-ethnic cast of the British original (John-Jules is black, Charles mixed-race, and Barrie and Llewelyn white) was replaced by an entirely caucasian one for the second American pilot, the first still having a black Cat, leading John-Jules to dub it 'White Dwarf'.
Spin-offs
\nThe franchise has expanded to include four novels, written by the show's creators, Doug Naylor and Robert Grant.
- Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers - Grant Naylor\n* Better Than Life - Grant Naylor - ISBN: 0-14-012438-1\n* Backwards - Rob Grant - ISBN: 0-14-017150-9\n* The Last Human - Doug Naylor - ISBN: 0-14-014388-2
Backwards and The Last Human are both (different) sequels to Better Than Life, and are not consistent with each other.
The song Tongue Tied, originally featured in a dream sequence in the episode Parallel Universe, was released as a single in 1993. It reached number 17 in the UK charts.
A planned Red Dwarf: The Movie has been delayed from its original schedule. According to the official website, it will now enter full production in January 2005, with details of a release date to follow.
Invented words
\nRed Dwarf is famous for innovating the word "smeg" in order to remove swearwords from the show and to add to a futuristic terminology. Some examples of the word in context are "smegger", "smeghead", "smeg off", "smeg-for-brains", and "smegging hell". The character of Rimmer famously tells a vending machine in one episode to "...smeg off, you smeggy smegging smegger!" 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".
The idea of a substitute curseword was borrowed from the BBC sitcom Porridge, which brought the word "Naff" into popular usage, and again used further in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, which used the word "Feck".
There are other terminologies invented by Red Dwarf that are not as well-known as "smeg". Given the sarcastic and argumentative nature of the show's plotlines, many of these other new words are derogatory designations including "Goit" (one who is annoying or awkward - perhaps adapted from the word "git") and "Gimboid" (one who is stupid or clumsy - similar in meaning to "moron", and possibly an adaptation of the word "gimp").
The international(?) currency in use at the time Red Dwarf left the Solar System was apparently the "dollarpound", divided into one hundred "pennycents".
See also
\n*British sitcom
External links
\n*Red Dwarf FAQ\n*Official Red Dwarf site\n*Entry for Red Dwarf: The Movie (in production) in the Internet Movie Database\n*The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club
\nCategory:Science fiction television series\nCategory:British television sitcoms\nCategory:BBC television programmes\nCategory:Red Dwarf
