Dwarfmatis Personae

In the first episode of Red Dwarf, David Lister awakens from three million years in suspended animation to discover he is now the last human being in existence. But he is not alone.

Exactly how alone he, the hologrammatic simulation of his dead bunkmate, the creature who evolved from the descendants of his pet cat, the ship's computer and latterly the android they found tending to a bunch of skeletons are tends to vary; common knowledge seems to have it that in the early years Lister really is alone, and the universe he inhabits tends to become rather more inhabited over time. Perhaps a series-by-series look at the number of credited guest cast would be useful?

Series I

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“The End”	7
“Future Echoes”	2
“Balance of Power”	5
“Waiting for God”	2
“Confidence & Paranoia”	2
“Me2”	1
Series Average	3.17

The only reason "The End" -- the first two-thirds of which take place before the radiation leak kills everyone -- isn't a massive outlier is because of the flashback in "Balance of Power" which features Chen, Selby and Petersen. "Balance" was the second episode recorded, and was bumped down to third because "Future Echoes" turned out so strongly and was felt to be the most likely episode to keep viewers watching, although the only two credited guest actors in "Future Echoes" are voiceovers.

(The other two guest parts in "Balance" are a voiceover and Rimmer impersonating Kochanski, and the only guest actor in “Me²” is Captain Hollister in the video of Rimmer's death. This is before you even get into that episode being a replacement for "Bodysnatcher", which would also have only utilised the main cast and voiceovers, and Holly was also originally intended to be voice-only until after the first two episodes were recorded. Until very late in the day Lister could've been even lonelier than he is.)

Series II

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Kryten”	3
“Better Than Life”	9
“Thanks for the Memory”	1
“Stasis Leak”	7
“Queeg”	1
“Parallel Universe”	4
Series Average	4.17

The second series was the first to feature location filming, and interestingly enough is pretty evenly divided between the Alone Byte of "Thanks for the Memory", "Queeg" and to a lesser extent "Kryten" (the only guest actors are flashbacks, part of millennia-old broadcasts, Kryten himself or Queeg himself, who turns out to be Holly having a laugh) and the Not Alone Byte of "Better Than Life", "Stasis Leak" and "Parallel Universe".

Isn't it interesting how "Stasis Leak" has the exact same number of credited guests as "The End"? No? Suit yourself.

Series III

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Backwards”	4
“Marooned”	0
“Polymorph”	3
“Bodyswap”	0
“Timeslides”	10
“The Last Day”	2
Series Average	3.17

Lia Williams was credited for providing the voice of Carole Brown in "Bodyswap" in the Radio Times, but is not credited on the episode itself; for sake of consistency, she's excluded here. (I've also excluded Hitler from "Timeslides". Sorry.)

But anyway, "Timeslides" is obviously a massive outlier -- it has more guest actors than every other episode put together! Take it out and the average of the five remaining episodes falls to 1.8, much lower than even Series I.

Series IV

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Camille”	4
“D.N.A.”	1
“Justice”	2
“White Hole”	1
“Dimension Jump”	3
“Meltdown”	10
Series Average	3.5

Once again, "Meltdown" is a clear outlier -- remove it from the equation and the average is 2.2, and that's before you get into things like the only guest roles in "D.N.A." and "White Hole" are voiceovers, and all four guest actors in "Camille" are playing different perceptions of the same character.

Series V

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Holoship”	6
“The Inquisitor”	3
“Terrorform”	2
“Quarantine”	1
“Demons & Angels”	0
“Back to Reality”	5
Series Average	2.83

A varied spread -- no two episodes have the same number of actors -- just on raw numbers, without getting into things like all of the guest cast in "Back to Reality" are hallucinations.

Series VI

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Psirens”	7
“Legion”	1
“Gunmen of the Apocalypse”	9
“Emohawk: Polymorph II”	4
“Rimmerworld”	1
“Out of Time”	0
Series Average	3.67

Two episodes are noticeably more populated than the others here -- in fact, similar to Series II, you could divide this series into one byte featuring "Legion", "Rimmerworld" and "Out of Time" and another with "Psirens", "Gunmen" and to a lesser extent "Emohawk".

Series VII

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Tikka to Ride”	4
“Stoke Me a Clipper”	10
“Ouroboros”	4
“Duct Soup”	0
“Blue”	0
“Beyond a Joke”	7
“Epideme”	2
“Nanarchy”	1
Series Average	3.5

The double act of "Beyond a Stoke" skews the numbers here a little, but this is perhaps a surprisingly underpopulated series overall; if one were to count Norman Lovett as a main cast member for "Nanarchy" and not with the guest cast, there would be three whole episodes only utilising the main cast (one of which, "Duct Soup", was admittedly a last-minute replacement for "Identity Within", which would have featured a not inconsiderable guest list had it not proven far too ambitious to realise on the show's budget).

Series VIII

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Back in the Red (Part One)”	5
“Back in the Red (Part Two)”	7
“Back in the Red (Part Three)”	4
“Cassandra”	6
“Krytie TV”	5
“Pete (Part One)”	7
“Pete (Part Two)”	3
“Only the Good...”	5
Series Average	5.25

Owing to its unique set-up, this is by far the most populated series on average, even before you get into it boasting a full seven regular cast members if you include Mac McDonald (who plays Captain Hollister in every episode barring "Krytie TV"), and many of the guest cast appear in more than one episode: Graham McTavish as Ackerman notches up five episodes including all three standalones and one part of each multi-part story, Karl Glenn Stimpson plays MP Thornton in all three parts of "Back in the Red", Andy Taylor is Dr. McLaren and Kika Mirylees is Doc Newton in the first two episodes, Ian Masters appears as Birdman in both parts of "Pete", Shend is Warden Knot in two episodes, and of the other members of Red Dwarf's hitherto unmentioned prison populace Jake Wood is in three episodes as Kill Crazy and Ricky Grover as Baxter is in all of the last three episodes. Despite all this we do get a fairly even spread across the series and no single episode would even make the top 5 largest guest casts across the entire run up to this point.

It is probably not a coincidence that "Back in the Red (Part Three)" and "Pete (Part Two)" feature the two smallest guest casts of this series, as both were late additions to the schedule when the ongoing production crisis meant several other episodes had to be abandoned and previously standalone stories had to become multi-parters, with "BitR" previously being envisaged as an hour-long special; these episodes had to be written quickly and cheaply, some guest actors may not have been available for the reshoots (indeed, three of the guests in the final part of "BitR" only appear in material shot for the hour-long version), and both are largely exercises in filling time.

Back to Earth

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Back to Earth (Part One)”	1
“Back to Earth (Part Two)”	9
“Back to Earth (Part Three)”	4
Series Average	4.67

There are few useful comparisons to be made here, not least because "Back to Earth" started life as a two-parter, one of four specials commissioned by Dave, but when the Whose Line is it Anyway?-esque Red Dwarf Unplugged fell through it was expanded into three episodes.

Series X

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Trojan”	6
“Fathers & Suns”	2
“Lemons”	5
“Entangled”	5
“Dear Dave”	1
“The Beginning”	8
Series Average	4.5

There are two noticeably less populated episodes, with "Fathers & Suns" featuring Kerry Shale pulling triple duty as three different artificial intelligences, and "Dear Dave" -- an extremely last-minute replacement when all the location filming had to be cancelled -- featuring only voiceover parts. "The Beginning" cannibalises elements from the abandoned movie script, perhaps accounting for its larger cast.

Series XI

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Twentica”	9
“Samsara”	3
“Give & Take”	5
“Officer Rimmer”	3
“Krysis”	3
“Can of Worms”	5
Series Average	4.67

"Twentica" is a bit of an outlier, although not as much as previous examples; take it out and the average of the remaining five would be 3.8. ("Give & Take" gets five guest credits because the separate physical performers and voiceovers for Asclepius and Snacky mean each character gets two credits.)

Series XII

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“Cured”	5
“Siliconia”	6
“Timewave”	5
“Mechocracy”	4
“M-Corp”	4
“Skipper”	5
Series Average	4.83

Perhaps the most balanced series of all, even if "Mechocracy" is a bottle show with all the guest parts being vending machine AIs and hence voiceover only.

So the final averages are as thus:

1) Series VIII = 5.25 (Most representative episodes by average: "Back in the Red (Part One)", "Krytie TV", "Only the Good...")

2) Series XII = 4.83 (Most representative episodes: "Cured", "Timewave", "Skipper")

3) Back to Earth = 4.67 (Most representative episode: Part Three)

=) Series XI = 4.67 (Most representative episodes: "Give & Take", "Can of Worms")

5) Series X = 4.5 (Most representative episodes: "Lemons", "Entangled")

6) Series II = 4.17 (Most representative episode: "Parallel Universe")

7) Series VI = 3.67 (Most representative episode: "Emohawk: Polymorph II")

8) Series IV = 3.5 (Most representative episodes: "Camille", "Dimension Jump")

=) Series VII = 3.5 (Most representative episodes: "Tikka to Ride", "Ouroboros")

10) Series I = 3.17 (Most representative episodes: "Future Echoes", "Waiting for God", "Confidence & Paranoia")

=) Series III = 3.17 (Most representative episode: "Polymorph")

12) Series V = 2.83 (Most representative episode: "The Inquisitor")

(The least representative episode for each series is the one with the most guest actors, except for Series VIII, where it's the one with the fewest guest actors -- namely "Pete (Part Two)".)

Hmm. So certainly the years after Rob Grant left are more populated overall, with only VIII outdoing any Dave series and Series VII being an outlier in that regard (being roughly in the same ballpark as the first six series), but Series V has the fewest guest cast members on average, and Series II the most of the first six series without any one massive outlier, so it's not quite as clear-cut as "the show's universe got steadily more populated over time".

This idea started life as a discussion on the Ganymede & Titan forums