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Red Dwarf

  • TV Series
  • 1988– 1988–
  • TV-14TV-14
  • 30m
IMDb RATING
8.4/10
36K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
968
57
Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, and Robert Llewellyn in Red Dwarf (1988)
Home Video Trailer from BBC
Play trailer1:35
1 Video
99+ Photos
ComedySci-Fi
The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.
IMDb RATING
8.4/10
36K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
968
57
    • Rob Grant
    • Doug Naylor
  • Stars
    • Chris Barrie
    • Craig Charles
    • Danny John-Jules
    • Rob Grant
    • Doug Naylor
  • Stars
    • Chris Barrie
    • Craig Charles
    • Danny John-Jules
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 145User reviews
    • 48Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards

    Episodes74

    Browse episodes
    TopTop-rated

    Videos1

    Red Dwarf: The Series
    Trailer 1:35
    Watch Red Dwarf: The Series

    Photos372

    Robert Llewellyn in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Craig Charles in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Craig Charles in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Mac McDonald in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Mac McDonald in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Red Dwarf (1988)
    Chris Barrie and Craig Charles in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Craig Charles and Robert Llewellyn in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Robert Llewellyn in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Chris Barrie in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Chris Barrie in Red Dwarf (1988)
    Craig Charles in Red Dwarf (1988)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Chris Barrie
    Chris Barrie
    • Rimmer…
    Craig Charles
    Craig Charles
    • Lister…
    Danny John-Jules
    Danny John-Jules
    • Cat…
    Robert Llewellyn
    Robert Llewellyn
    • Kryten…
    Norman Lovett
    Norman Lovett
    • Holly
    Hattie Hayridge
    Hattie Hayridge
    • Holly…
    Chloë Annett
    Chloë Annett
    • Kochanski…
    Mac McDonald
    Mac McDonald
    • Captain Hollister
    Tony Hawks
    Tony Hawks
    • Dispensing Machine…
    Daniel Barker
    Daniel Barker
    • Alien Natural History Presenter…
    Graham McTavish
    Graham McTavish
    • Ackerman
    Clare Grogan
    Clare Grogan
    • Kochanski
    Rupert Bates
    • Bodyguard…
    Jake Wood
    Jake Wood
    • Kill Crazy
    David Ross
    • Talkie Toaster…
    Paul Bradley
    • Chen
    David Gillespie
    • Selby
    Simon Gaffney
    • Young Rimmer
      • Rob Grant
      • Doug Naylor
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Craig Charles and Danny John-Jules are the only two actors to appear in every episode.
    • Goofs
      The cause of Kat's existence is inconsistent. In the first series, he is the last of a species of creature that had evolved from 'Frankenstein', a pet cat that Lister had smuggled on board. For much of the show's run, he is a mutated version of Lister's original pet, even remembering events from earth. As of the most recent episode, multiple species have evolved from Lister's original pet, and Kat is the last one from the race that stayed on Red Dwarf.
    • Quotes

      [repeated line]

      Lister: Smeg!

    • Crazy credits
      The closing credits in the remastered version of Red Dwarf: Backwards (1989) are in reverse.
    • Alternate versions
      A video, "Red Dwarf VII: X-tended" (3 November 1997) was released containing extended editions of three episodes from the seventh series - "Tikka to Ride", "Ouroboros" and "Duct Soup", including fifty new bloopers and the full-length version of the Rimmer Munchkin Song from the end of "Blue".
    • Connections
      Edited into Red Dwarf: Smeg Ups (1994)

    User reviews145

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    One of the funniest British comedies around
    One Britain's great science fiction comedies, "Red Dwarf" is one of the United Kingdom's finest television exports. This is due to the fact that alot of the comedy, through the characters, satirizes British stereotypes (slobs, snobs, neurotics) and makes its own commentary on the bleakness and absurdity that is human life.

    The format, which has become considerably more flexible in recent years, started thus. Set in space, some two or hundred years or so in the future, on an enormous mining ship called Red Dwarf, working class slob Dave Lister (Craig Charles) finds himself placed "in stasis"(frozen in time) as punishment for illegally hoarding a cat on board the ship. Awakened by the ship's senile computer Holly (Norman Lovett), Lister is shocked to discover he's been in stasis for three million years and the rest of the crew have been killed by a freak accident.

    Asides from the now-senile computer, Lister's only company is a vain, narcissistic lifeform who evolved from his cat (Danny John-Jules) and a hologram of Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), his bossy and officious superior.

    This was the set up for the first two series of Red Dwarf. The format changed in series three when Holly swapped sexes and became Hattie Hayridge, and the crew recruited Kryten (Robert Llewllyn), an eager-to-please mechanoid with an overactive guilt chip. In series six, Red Dwarf and its computer were abandoned, and the crew were forced to survive in modified shuttlecraft Starbug.

    Chris Barrie left as Rimmer in series seven and was replaced, courtesy of an alternate universe storyline, by Kochanski (Chloe Annett), the love of Lister's life. The ship, complete with resurrected crew, returned for series eight and saw the adventurers, along with a back-from-the-dead Rimmer, thrown in the ship's brig for their adventures in the previous series.

    In the first two series with a minimum main cast, the much-despised grey sets lent an appropriately barren, lonely backdrop to the very character based comedy. Most of this consisted of intimate comic banter between Lister and Rimmer, occasionally livened up by the Cat's hilariously self-obsessed prescence or an off-the-cuff joke from the laconic Holly.

    Seasons three to five broadened the scope of the series, making it more experimental with different science fiction concepts. The added prescence of Kryten helped this, his 'groinal socket', susceptibility to the whims of a sometimes deranged Rimmer and increased attempts to break his restrictive programming brought new comic dimensions to the series.

    Series six and seven reverse the comedy-science fiction ratio of the series in that the former now takes a back seat to the latter. In other words the comedy of the series accentuates the main science fiction based plots. The comedy emphasis was restored for series eight, although, much like series seven, this element was alot weaker than before.

    The series benefitted from alot of strong characterisation. Craig Charles embodies carefree slob Lister, while Chris Barrie turns in a wonderfully uptight performance as the hopelessly neurotic Rimmer. Dancer Danny John Jules brings alot of colourful charm to the Cat, while Norman Lovett is wonderfully sardonic as Holly, whose almost apathetic stupidity allows for alot of comic misunderstandings. After being replaced by Hattie Hayridge for a few seasons, Lovett returned in series seven.

    Robert Llewellyn, his entire head covered in a prosthetic mask, has some fine moments in a character that is very much a comic take on the android "Data" from "Star Trek:TNG". Chloe Annett is wonderfully superficial as Kochanski, but is attractive enough to make plausible Lister's attraction to her.

    Series eight was helped considerably by the return of Mac MacDonald as Red Dwarf's hapless Captain. During the two-part episode "Pete" he is subjected to a series of increasingly hilarious indignations, prompting a wonderfully humiliated performance from MacDonald.

    Time will tell whether or not the series will return, but the series remains one of the definitive comic staples of British television.
    helpful•139
    13
    • alainenglish
    • Sep 26, 2002

    FAQ5

    • What is Red Dwarf and what is it about?
    • Why did Chris Barrie temporarily leave Red Dwarf?
    • Why does this series lack continuity?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 29, 1989 (United States)
      • United Kingdom
    • Official sites
      • BBC Red Dwarf Site (United Kingdom)
      • Grant Naylor Productions
      • English
      • Esperanto
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • BBC Manchester, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, UK
    • Production companies
      • Grant Naylor Productions
      • Baby Cow Productions
      • British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • 30 minutes
      • Color

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