The Red Dwarf BBC Broadcasts Guide

What follows is a (hopefully) comprehensive listing of every time the BBC broadcast (unless otherwise noted, on BBC Two) the original 52 episodes of the first eight series of Red Dwarf. I’ve not included any information on Dave or other UKTV channels (either their repeats of the BBC series or the four new series they’ve produced), mostly because it would have been impossible to do so whilst also keeping the tables readable and would’ve had to be constantly updated, but rest assured that had I been able to, I would have.

All information about the broadcast times and dates was taken from BBC Genome. Some corrections and information on censorship were taken from articles on Ganymede & Titan which I should stress were nothing to do with me whatsoever. If you know of any corrections to make to these listings at all, please get in touch.

The Simpsons on the BBC: A Ludicrously Comprehensive Timeline

Pre-1988

Back in the day, BBC One used to show a considerable number of imported US sitcoms, and if you search the Genome for them you'll find a fair few names that would go on to greater things: Sam Simon as a writer on Taxi, Nancy Cartwright's guest spot in Fame, and Al Jean and Mike Reiss providing freelance scripts for Charles in Charge and Head of the Class. The earliest listing I can find by plugging a Simpsons-related name into the Genome in this fashion goes back to the 1970s, when Rhoda -- starring Julie Kavner in her earliest role -- aired on BBC Two as part of a "Yankee Treble" featuring three of America's top comedy shows.

(By the time the BBC started airing The Simpsons, the habit of providing cast and crew details for US imports had stopped, so these are often the only times they do appear in the Genome!)

8 January 1988

BBC Two begins showing a new US import, The Tracey Ullman Show. All the crude animated bumpers featuring a cartoon family are edited out. I bet that’s the last we’ll hear of that.

Cretan Chronicles

 

Across 1985 and 1986, the three volumes in an adventure gamebook series called Cretan Chronicles were published by Puffin Books. Puffin also published the hugely popular Fighting Fantasy range, but whilst the Cretan Chronicles had some elements of the FF design in their covers, they were also distinctly different.

Momentum or Maomentum?

The following were all genuinely posted on Twitter. Some are satirical; others are the genuine thoughts of Corbyn supporters. But can you sort the members of Momentum from those of Maomentum? Answers are to be found at the bottom of the page.

Horror Classic Gamebooks

The year is 1986, and adventure gamebooks are hugely popular in Britain. (You might also know them as ‘interactive fiction’ or ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.) The genre was popularised in Britain by the Fighting Fantasy series, which launched in 1982 and inspired dozens upon dozens of similar series. Some of these were great; some of them were The Cretan Chronicles. One gamebook author whose work definitely lands in the first category is J.H. Brennan.