Red Dwarf: The Sci-Fi Sit-Com

Continuing with a British Sci-Fi theme, Red Dwarf is impossible to just pass over. Red Dwarf is an exception to most comedy series as it does take place in space. Not just in space, but three million years in the future as well. The main character, Dave Lister, is the grossest weirdest and laziest man in existence and now, the only man in existence. Lister represents the last of humanity; three million years from Earth and the only person left alive on his giant city sized space ship, Red Dwarf. He is companied by a hologram of his dead bunkmate (whom Lister hates a great deal), a creature that evolved from the ship’s cat and the on board AI with senility problems. Later they meet a custodial droid named Kryten and finish the “Red Dwarf Posse”.


The spectacular writing by Doug Naylor and Rob Grant draw from character based comedy and parody of dozens of sci-fi stand-by's and even literary classics (not sci-fi in origin). The actors themselves come from diverse backgrounds and play well off each other, a poet, stand-up comedian, dancer, impressionist, etc. They created their own vocabulary for the show including words such as hologrammatic and smeg (the universal swear word in the Red Dwarf universe).

The show ran for 8 seasons before ending. Not only is it worth picking up a season or two for the fun of it, the crew of the Red Dwarf will hopefully show up once again. The production crew has been working feverishly to get a movie approved since the ending of the show in 1999. The problem is that they’ve been unable to get support at any studio to actually get the movie filmed. With such a large cult following, even having their own conventions called Dimension Jump, it’s amazing that studios aren’t chomping at the bit to get that sucker out and into the public.
No matter what happens in the future of the “gigantic red trash can with three million years on the clock” the eight seasons it did give us were incredible. Not as short lived as some other would-be greats of the genre *coughfireflycough*, there are still too few episodes. I suggest picking up a few, either online or any place that sells DVD’s of British shows. There’s no need to be a sci-fi dork or a British TV connoisseur to understand just how funny Red Dwarf can be.

Ian MacKechnie