As we said at the start, that’s not bad going for a 31-year-old sitcom that has kept the same core cast throughout most of its run. The name Dave Hollins was changed to Dave Lister when a football player called Dave Hollins became well known, and Hab was replaced by Holly. The mentions of two further series afterwards don’t go unnoticed either, because the Dave era has left us in absolutely no doubt that they could do it. With a 13th series and other possible projects still somewhere on the horizon for now, it’s impressive to look at what this sci-fi sitcom has achieved in the Dave era so far and what’s still to come…. Digital Spy participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. [19] The look of the show had been overhauled with the incoming Mel Bibby who had re-designed the old grey sets. [41], The opening theme tune, closing theme tune, and incidental music were written and performed by Howard Goodall, with the vocals on the closing theme tune by Jenna Russell. The loose ends included the return of Kryten, Lister being pregnant, delivering twins Jim and Bexley, who grow up in a matter of days, then wind up in the parallel universe with the female version of Lister. Next Episode To be scheduled Episode 1 Season 13: Episode 1. The Series VIII finale Only The Good ends with a cliffhanger and the simple caption “The End? [192] His only steady companion is the computer Hab (voiced by Chris Barrie). "Back from the Dead" featurette on the Series VII DVD release. A ship crewed by a single Mechanoid mercenary and carrying one hostage is heading towards a black hole. [8], A year later Red Dwarf once again was voted "Best Returning TV Sitcom" for series XII retaining the title from British Comedy Guide. The cookies collection information in an anonymous form. After writing 35 different drafts of the script for different potential budgets, Naylor and his team were unable to get the film funded and green-lit. [165], In 2012, material from early drafts of the film was incorporated into the series X finale "The Beginning". [124] In 2005, Grant Naylor Productions and Across the Pond Comics collaborated to produce the spin-off webcomic Red Dwarf: Prelude to Nanarchy.[125]. Lister, Rimmer and Kryten have to save Aura and get her to fall in love with the Cat before he dies from being a virgin. [4], KTEH, a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) station in San Jose, California, broadcast the entire series on 7 March 1999. Red Dwarf II (1988). The writers had resisted using robot characters as they had considered the practice a sci-fi cliché. As far back as when Red Dwarf XII was going out on Dave, he told the Express that another series was in development. Copyright © 2015 PremiereDate.News. The authors began work on a sequel to Better than Life, called The Last Human, but Rob Grant was drawn away from Red Dwarf by an interest in other projects. [13] Filming eventually went ahead after the industrial action was resolved. On 10 April 2011 Dave announced it had commissioned a six-episode series X to be broadcast on Dave in late 2012. [71][72] Filming dates for the new series Red Dwarf X were announced on 11 November 2011, along with confirmation that the series would be shot at Shepperton Studios in front of an audience. Revisiting and updating our design retrospective! [56], Three years elapsed between series VI and VII, partly due to the dissolving of the Grant and Naylor partnership, but also due to cast and crew working on other projects. On 14 February 1998, the night before the tenth anniversary of the show's first episode broadcast, BBC Two devoted an evening of programmes to the series, under the banner of Red Dwarf Night. A conversation between the four key cast members was filmed on the set of "The Promised Land", as the actors shared memories and anecdotes from their decades of working together[189], Red Dwarf was originally based on Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, a series of five sketches that aired in the BBC Radio 4 series Son of Cliché, produced by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor in 1984. Rimmer, who has been diagnosed with a tense nervous disorder, escapes in a pod which has no steering, and is whisked away through a worm-hole and crashes on a planet. To do this he must pass an exam against a fellow hologram, which is complicated when he discovers his opponent is Nirvanah Crane (, The Inquisitor is a time-travelling android who acts as judge, jury and executioner to those who have led worthless lives, and thus erases them from history. [14] A remastered version of this series was produced and broadcast in some countries. In the 2004 documentary Dwarfing USA, Danny John-Jules said the only actor who could have successfully portrayed an American Lister was John Belushi. To date, twelve series of the show have aired, in addition to The Promised Land. The series revolves around Lister being the last human alive, 3 million years from Earth, with his companions. What’s most impressive about the post-Back To Earth series is that they haven’t relied on warm nostalgia for the show. [52] Stage plays of the show have been produced through Blak Yak, a theatre group in Perth, Western Australia, who were given permission by Grant Naylor Productions to mount stage versions of certain episodes in 2002, 2004 and 2006. The show was becoming difficult to write for. For more information on how these cookies work, please see our Privacy Policy. The developing fluid that Kryten uses to process old photographs mutates and the photographs come alive. The series explores many science-fiction staples such as time-travel paradoxes (including the grandfather paradox), the question of determinism and free will (on several episodes), the pursuit of happiness in virtual reality and, crucially to the show's premise of Lister being the last human, the near-certainty of the human species' extinction some time in the far future. The Red Dwarf team finds an ocean moon and begins to discover all is not as it seems on the ocean floor nor in the ship itself, where a nefarious force exerts its power over them. The comic strips featured episode adaptations and original material, including further stories of popular characters like Mr. Flibble, the Polymorph and Ace Rimmer. [193], Grant and Naylor chose to use the Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketches as a base for a television show after watching the 1974 film Dark Star. Mathematically, we must be closer to the end of Red Dwarf than we are to the beginning. On 8 September 2017, it was announced that Red Dwarf XII would begin broadcasting on Dave on 12 October 2017,[86] and on 15 September 2017 it was further announced that each episode would preview a week earlier via the UKTV Play video on demand service, effectively meaning that series 12 would be starting on 5 October 2017.[87]. [26] The outbreak of the Gulf War also affected the series running order as both the anti-war "Meltdown" and heroic Ace Rimmer's "Dimension Jump" episodes were postponed. The series III episode "Polymorph" references and parodies key moments from Alien (1979); from series IV, "Camille" echoes key scenes from Casablanca (1942),[99] while "Meltdown" borrows the main plot from Westworld (1973). The previous volume of this magazine, dating back to the 1990s, was known as Better Than Life. It has not been confirmed whether the Rimmer on board ship is the one who originally left, the revived version, or a third incarnation entirely; however, episodes have alluded to him remembering events from both previous incarnations' lives. Two versions of a pilot episode for a proposed NBC version of Red Dwarf were produced in 1992—a complete episode and a partial episode with different cast members. The droid harvests Lister's kidneys and leaves him stuck asking the only genetically-similar creature available for an organ donation - the group's most selfish member, Cat. The magazine The Red Dwarf Smegazine was published from 1992 to 1994. Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Chris Barrie, disappointed with the hectic workload of series VI, had decided to only take part in four of the episodes. [24], Due to the old studio in Manchester undergoing refurbishment, the recording of Series IV moved to Shepperton Studios. [5] During Series II, the crew encounter a mechanoid called Kryten, who joins them from Series III onwards. The second novel, Better Than Life, followed in October 1990, and is largely based on the second-series episode of the same name. Rate. However, there are non-human life forms such as evolutions of Earth species (e.g. Series VII is also set in Starbug. Craig’s very busy and Danny’s very busy as is Chris and Rob. [93] In February 2020, the day before the 32nd anniversary of when Red Dwarf first aired, a synopsis was given by the official Red Dwarf website: "The special will see the posse meet three cat clerics (Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Lucy Pearman) who worship Lister as their God. Each release from series III onwards also features an original documentary about the making of each respective series. [13] Though it has a science fiction setting, much of the humour comes from the interactions of the characters, particularly the laid-back Lister and the stuck-up Rimmer. [16], Although the pilot episode of the show gathered over four million viewers, viewing figures dipped in successive episodes and the first series had generally poor ratings. Developed by GameDigits, it was intended to release episodically with new releases being based on all the episodes of XI. The first, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, was published in November 1989, and incorporates plot lines from several episodes of the show's first two series. The flyer was genuine and had been distributed by Winchester Films to market the film overseas. The writers based the whole theme of some episodes on the plots of feature films. [52] The flyer outlined the movie's plot, set in the distant future where Homo Sapienoids—a fearsome flesh-machine hybrid race—had taken over the solar system and were wiping out the human race. Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski have been sentenced to two years in "The Tank" on secretive Floor 13, for stealing and crashing a. Kryten has been placed in the women's wing of the Tank, due to his lack of male genitalia. Meanwhile, the others return from a Canaries mission with a "time wand", a device that can manipulate time. A back-up of Holly is installed in The Promised Land. Craig Charles, Chris Barrie, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn have all been confirmed to reprise their roles. This box set was re-released in a smaller slipcase-sized box, reverting to the Just the Shows title, in November 2009. He moves out of his quarters he shares with Lister and starts rooming with his doppelgänger. Probably if we did a Red Dwarf XIII and XIV, it would make the O2 live show more difficult.”, He added: “So we’ll probably do Red Dwarf XIII, live show and come back and probably do XIV after that.”. [159] The intention was to shoot a "promo video" for the show in a small studio described by the writers as "a garage". The retrospective contained deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage and new interviews, as the cast and crew reflected upon 30 years of the show. The remaining episodes were directed by Grant and Naylor. Grant and Naylor rewrote the script, but although the cast preferred the re-write, the script as filmed was closer to Boomer's version. [35], Grant and Naylor wrote the first six series together (using the pseudonym Grant Naylor on the first two novels and later as the name of their production company, although never on the episodes themselves). The cast have all variously confirmed that they’re raring to go on another series, but at the time of writing, the most recent word on what’s happening is Naylor’s. All eight series were made available on VHS, and three episodes of series VII were also released as special "Xtended" [sic] versions with extra scenes (including an original, unbroadcast ending for the episode "Tikka To Ride") and no laugh track;[133] the remastered versions of series I–III were also released individually and in a complete box-set. Additionally, having worked on so many drafts of the script, Naylor had plenty of ideas to go on.