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RED DWARF |
Series Overview SEASON 1 SEASON 2 
Dave Lister - Craig Charles Arnold Rimmer - Chris Barrie Cat - Danny John-Jules Kryten - Robert Llewellyn Holly (1,2,7 & 8) - Norman Lovett Holly (3,4 & 5) - Hattie Hayridge Kristine Kochanski (7 & 8) - Chloe Annett 
OTHER RED DWARF SEASONS Series 3 & 4 Series 5 & 6 Series 7 & 8 Back To Earth Series 10 OTHER SCI FI COMEDIES Quark Clone Supernova No Heroics Hyperdrive 
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OVERVIEWComedy is the hardest genre in movies or on television. Science Fiction comedy is almost impossible and so good examples are very hard to come by. On TV there is Mork and Mindy (God Bless Robin Williams), Third Rock From The Sun, the towering Hitch hiker's Guide To The Galaxy and...well, any suggestions gratefully received. Red Dwarf is more successful than them all (with the possible exception of Hitch hiker). A show that calls its first episode THE END is pretty much letting you know what you're going to get right from the start. We're introduced to the crew of the Mining ship Red Dwarf just in time for them all to get wiped out by a radiation leak and only Dave Lister surviving by virtue of being in stasis at the time. When he comes out, it's 3 million years later. Holly, the shipboard computer, a creature evolved from Lister's pregnant cat and a hologram of his obnoxious room-mate Arnold Rimmer are his only companions, at least to begin with. Kryten, the best android since Marvin the paranoid one, joins later. Their adventures through every cliche of time and space form the basis of this fantastic comedy show. The science fiction trappings, though, are only the situation part of the sit com. The comedy comes from the great characters and they, in turn, get their likeability from a cast that just couldn't have been bettered. Craig Charles is a genius as Lister, so disgusting that you couldn't possibly like him, but so charming that you can't do anything but. Matching him all the way is Chris Barrie as the hateful, but ultimately pitiable Rimmer, whilst Danny John Jules's Cat is an explosion of energy. Add in Robert Llewellyn as the nervy Kryten and Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge as the drolly deadpan computer Holly and it is the characters that drive the show, not the sci-fi plots they inhabit. That said, the plots of RED DWARF are seriously sci-fi literate, even when taking the mickey out of the genre. Any one of them could form the basis of an episode from a serious sci-fi show and its the writing of Rob Grant and Doug Nayler that keeps the quality so high throughout. TopTHE ENDDave Lister is a slob. He is the lowest rank on the mining ship RED DWARF and he is partnered with Arnold Rimmer, a man so obnoxious that all his dreams of advancement are destined for failure, a failure that he will always blame on someone else. Lister, though, has dreams. He dreams of going to Fiji with the cat that he has smuggled on board against regulations. Those regulations see him thrown into stasis only to be released by Holly the computer millions of years later with the whole crew dead. Still, he has companionship in the shape of a hologram on Rimmer and a creature that has evolved from the children of his cat. This first episode lays to rest all the fears that a genre fan naturally meets the idea of a science-fiction comedy with. There is much more about the comedy here than the science fiction. This is all about the characters and they really work. Craig Charles makes the disgusting Lister personable and likeable whilst Chris Barrie is truly hateful, but also pitiable as the awful Rimmer. Danny John Jules's Cat is a wonderful creation with plenty of feline characteristics that crop up in the most unusual ways and the apparently intelligent, but utterly incompetent supercomputer Holly is wonderfully realised by Norman Lovett's head. The science fiction trappings, though, are only the situation part of the sit com. The comedy comes from the great characters and they, in turn, get their likeability from a cast that just couldn't have been bettered. Craig Charles is a genius as Lister, so disgusting that you couldn't possibly like him, but so charming that you can't do anything but. Matching him all the way is Chris Barrie as the hateful, but ultimately pitiable Rimmer, whilst Danny John Jules's Cat is an explosion of energy. Add in Robert Llewellyn as the nervy Kryten and Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge as the drolly deadpan computer Holly and it is the characters that drive the show, not the sci-fi plots they inhabit. Absolutely great and with the promise of much more to come. TopFUTURE ECHOESIn order to get back to Earth as quickly as possible, Holly is going to take the RED DWARF to light speed. As they accelerate towards that, the crew start to experience flashbacks, or more accurately, flash forwards. Confused discussions occur until finally Rimmer sees Lister's death. Now Lister has to prepare for his untimely end. The first evidence of science fiction proper arises in the show and it's handled well and with fun. The first flashes are not explained and the confusion builds to the credible explanation and final resolution. It's also very funny and adds to the characters of Lister and Rimmer. Whilst Arnold delights in the imminent demise of his bunkmate, Lister manages a semblance of dignity. The promise continues. TopBALANCE OF POWERLister wants some company other than Rimmer. Whilst he is technically the lowest rank on the ship, it's never going to happen, but Lister has a plan. He intends to get a promotion and order Rimmer to give him the hologram discs of the other crew members. Rimmer doesn't think he can do it, but when Lister announces that the exam he is going to take is the chef's exam, the balance of power on board the ship is threatened. What is Rimmer willing to do to save his position? More character-based comedy that doesn't rely on the science fiction aspect. This is great interplay between Lister and Rimmer with some fun along the way as Rimmer stoops to ever lower methods of getting Lister to abandon his plan. TopCONFIDENCE AND PARANOIAWhen Lister becomes infected by a mutated virus, his fever-induced dreams start to become reality. Thus the ship is plagued by rains of herring and exploding mayors of Warsaw (No, really). Then two opposing sides of Lister's personality, his confidence and his paranoia, are called into being. Whilst his confidence drives him onto to take wilder and wilder risks, Rimmer finds that he has more in common with Lister's paranoia. An angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other... There can't be many shows out there that would ever think of, let alone use, the concept of exploding Mayors of Warsaw and that underlines the freshness and originality of this show. It's also very, very funny. Who could ask for anything more? TopWAITING FOR GODLister is God. No, it's official. The cat people distorted the past into a religion that worshipped Lister and used his dream of a fast food shop on Fiji as the basis of heaven. They also used it as the basis for holy wars over what colour hats the waiters would wear. Whilst Lister is coping with his divinity, Rimmer is on the edge of his own great discovery, the contents of an alien pod that might just be one of Red Dwarf's own rubbish pods. A sit com that takes on the very nature of God and religion? Well, you can't deny the aspirations of the show. True, the comedy of this episode is a little on the shaky side, especially as Lister meets the last holy man of the cat people, but it's fun and the characters are really meshing together well. TopME2Rimmer has found his perfect partner, another hologram copy of himself. It's Lister's worst nightmare, but Rimmer is sure that he can drive himself on to achieve more than ever before. What he actually drives himself to is the edge of madness. Lister decides that one of them has to go, but which one? One Rimmer is enough for anyone, but two of them? The decay of the relationship between the two Rimmers is brilliantly handled and Lister's horror at this situation is delightful. The ending where Rimmer is summoned in to meet his final minutes is something close to genius. Great stuff and can we have another series please? TopKRYTENThe boys from the Dwarf are back and this time they have a budget. In this first episode of the second series, they go outside the spaceship for the first time in response to a SOS call from a ship on which a mechanoid is serving the three surviving female officers. Unfortunately, things are not as they first appear and the Lister sets about breaking the subservient android's programming. What a way to start the new show. The new budget might stretch to a few special effects, but everything else is present and correct. The comedy is still based on the characters. For example the sequence where everyone prepares to meet their first women in 3 million years, each in their own way, including Holly the computer. It's priceless. The jokes flow plentiful and are up to the standard of the first show at the very least. It's looking like being a fun series. TopBETTER THAN LIFEAn overdue mail pod arrives with news of the death of Rimmer's father and also a version of the new total immersion video game. Lister, Rimmer and the Cat go into the game and find that all their fantasies are coming true, which doesn't turn out to be such a good thing when some of those fantasies are Rimmer's. Take a simple sci-fi idea (total immersion video games) and twist it through the scarred psyche of the characters and you get this, a laugh a minute walk on the silly side. In a world where anything can happen, anything does, including Marilyn Monroe, a mermaid girlfriend for the Cat, the arrival of the Outland Revenue and death by killer ants. The imagination of the show knows no bounds and the comedy is as hot as ever. TopTHANKS FOR THE MEMORYAfter a night's partying, the crew wake up to find that both the Cat and Lister have broken feet, Rimmer has let slip a few secrets he would rather not have, a jigsaw has magically completed itself, four days have passed without record and the black box recorder has gone missing. It's a mystery and the solution lies in the nature of memory. This is not one of the funnier episodes. There is something about Rimmer that is basically pitiable, but it is a fine line to tread without slipping into humiliation of the character. This episode gets a bit close to that and doesn't have the saving grace of being funny. There are moments, but not enough. TopSTASIS LEAKA statis leak on one of the floors of Red Dwarf gives the crew a chance to go back in time to three weeks before the accident that wiped out the whole ship's complement. If they can persuade one of the other crewmembers to take the spare stasis tube next to the one that Lister was in then they can save them, but should it be Kachanski or Rimmer? After a rumination on the nature of memory we get thoughts on the nature of time. Fortunately, this is a lot funnier than the last episode. Time travel presents a lot of opportunities for fun storylines, but here it is kept simple (to the point where paradoxes don't occur) and it is the characters' responses to those opportunities that create the humour here. Lister chases his dream girl, Rimmer chases his dream man (ie himself) and the Cat just chases all the women. Thank goodness for some great jokes, many of them in the men's shower. Welcome back to form RED DWARF TopQUEEGA meteorite hits the Red Dwarf leading to Dave nearly being electrocuted. Because of the threat to the life of the crew, backup computer Queeg takes up the running of the ship from Holly's and starts a military regime that is to nobody's liking. Finally, Holly challeges the new computer to a mental contest with the loser being erased. A new regime on the Dwarf and the reaction to it by the trio makes for a very fun episode. The idea of Lister the slob, Rimmer the lazy and Cat the, well, cat, being forced to actually work for their peas (it makes sense) is a lot of fun. The resolution is also fantastic. TopPARALLEL UNIVERSEHolly invents the Holly Hop Drive, a box that will instantaneously transfer the Red Dwarf to any other point in the universe. Thinking that they can go straight back to Earth, they initiate the drive and find themselves in a parallel universe. There they meet their other selves, only to find that Lister and Rimmer are both female. A fine way to end the series with a tale of gender twisting that allows lots of playing with the characters. If you didn't think that Rimmer was odious enough, wait until you meet the female version. The meeting between the Cat and his alternate persona is hilarious and even Holly gets in on the act with female computer Hilly. This is one of the funniest episodes of the series with plenty of good gags and an ending that will leave tears of laughter in the eyes, though not for Lister. Top |
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