A Re-Run of the Comedy Series Set in Space

On the 7th January 1994, the very first episode of Red Dwarf, "The End", was repeated on BBC Two -- the first time it had been broadcast since its premiere on the 15th February 1988, something that has been attributed to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's embarrassment over the quality of that series compared to what was to follow.

This run would not only continue past the first series, it would comprise 35 of the then 36 episodes, "Psirens" being skipped on account of Craig Charles' legal situation at the time; barring a couple of breaks for sports coverage, the show was transmitted weekly until the 28th October 1994 and the repeat of "Out of Time". So epic in scope was this all-encompassing repeat season that it was nicknamed "From Here to Entirety", although the name does not appear to ever have been used in listings magazines or onscreen.

Oh, you want to be more specific than 'a couple of breaks'? There was a break on 25/02 between "Kryten" and "Better than Life" for Winter Olympics coverage; a two-week break between the broadcast of "Marooned" on 15/04 and "Polymorph" on 06/05 for snooker; the jumbled repeat order of Series IV was interrupted on 17/06 and 24/06 for World Cup fixtures, including the opening match of the whole tournament, and again on 15/07 for the first night of the BBC Proms; and the similarly-scrambled run of Series V also took a break on 19/08 for Proms coverage, and on 09/09 for athletics coverage.

Dwarfing Through the Decades

Having repeated the first two series of Red Dwarf last year -- the first full-on repeat run the show has enjoyed on its channel of origin since 2007, and the first in peak viewing hours since the Remastered episodes were screened in 1998 and 1999 -- BBC Two have picked things up in the last week with a repeat of Series III, which has required me to try and edit the old Red Dwarf BBC Broadcasts Guide without completely fucking up the coding once again.

At the moment this post is published, "Marooned" will just have finished airing -- the seventh time it's been seen on BBC Two overall, which is the joint most times along with "The End" and "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" ("Gunmen" getting two extra outings for Red Dwarf Night and a seemingly random showing in 1999, and the Remastered version of "The End" being shown twice when every other Remastered episode only had the one airing).

But thanks to "Marooned" also getting a one-off airing as part of Two's fiftieth anniversary a decade ago, the episode holds a very interesting record: it has been shown once in the eighties for its original airing, three times in the nineties and once in the noughties for various repeat runs (including in its Remastered form in 1999), once in the twenty-tens and once in the twenty-twenties, all on the same channel it originally aired on.

How many other episodes of television can claim this record?

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.)

That Letter, That Letter, and That Letter

In the Red Dwarf episode "Bodyswap", originally broadcast on BBC Two on 5 December 1989, Lister (who has temporarily swapped bodies with Rimmer) and Cat are playing a game of Scrabble:

CAT: Hey-hey-hey! I've got you now, buddy! [He holds up his letter rack.] J-O-Z-X-Y-Q-K.

LISTER: That's not a word!

CAT: It's a Cat word!

LISTER: "Jozxyqk"?

CAT: That's not how you pronounce it!

LISTER: What's it mean?

CAT: It's the sound you make when you get your sexual organs trapped in something. "Jozxyqk!"

LISTER: Is it in the dictionary?

CAT: Well, it could be. If you were reading in the nude and you closed the book too quick. [He mimes this.] "Jozxyqk!"

My Scintillating Observations on the Recording Order of the First Series of Red Dwarf

The first series of Red Dwarf was originally scheduled to be recorded and broadcast in the following order:

1. "The End"

2. "Bodysnatcher"

3. "Balance of Power"

4. "Waiting for God"

5. "Future Echoes"

6. "Confidence & Paranoia"

However, before the episodes could be recorded, an electrician's strike at the BBC put paid to the planned filming dates in early 1987. The series was eventually remounted towards the end of the year, but as the story famously goes, during the hiatus, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor took a second look at the scripts and decided to drop the planned second episode, "Bodysnatcher". They rewrote the ending of "Confidence & Paranoia" so, instead of successfully resurrecting Kochanski as a hologram, Lister unwittingly brought a second hologram of Rimmer online instead, and wrote a new finale, "Me²", following on from this. The episodes were thus recorded in the following order:

1. "The End"

2. "Balance of Power"

3. "Waiting for God"

4. "Future Echoes"

5. "Confidence & Paranoia"

6. "Me²"

(7. Reshoots to "The End")

"Future Echoes" turned out so well that it was bumped up from fourth to second, giving a broadcast order as follows:

1. "The End"

2. "Future Echoes"

3. "Balance of Power"

4. "Waiting for God"

5. "Confidence & Paranoia"

6. "Me²"

The story of "Bodysnatcher" getting dropped is a pretty well-known one to any Dwarf fan, but the changing of "Confidence & Paranoia" seems to be a less-discussed one -- had Grant Naylor already changed their minds about this ending when they decided to drop "Bodysnatcher"? Were the two decisions made in tandem? Was the originally planned ending a consequence of deciding to bump all the episodes after "Bodysnatcher" up one and write a new finale, rather than write a new second episode?

Of Brittas and Men

Over on Ganymede & Titan, a rewatch of all 74 episodes of Red Dwarf is underway for their quinquennial ranking of said episodes from worst to best. They hit Series V this week, and I found one comment particularly intriguing: describing a certain line of Rimmer's (Chris Barrie) in the episode Holoship as "a bit of Brittas creeping in", in reference to Chris Barrie's other famous sitcom character, Gordon Brittas (Chris Barrie).

I wondered just how far apart Barrie's stints as Rimmer and Brittas, both sitcoms filmed in front of a live studio audience, were, and how recently it had been since Barrie had last played Brittas on the occasion of that episode. But whilst recording dates for every episode of Red Dwarf that played out before a live audience are easily accessible online, the same is not true for Brittas.

My Scintillating Theory on the Recording Order of the Second Series of Red Dwarf

The first series of Red Dwarf was recorded in the same order it was intended to be broadcast. However, the originally intended fourth episode, "Future Echoes", turned out so well that it was decided to bump it up to second in the broadcast order to try and keep viewers' attention.

I think that the second series was also recorded in the order it was meant to be shown, with one exception born out of necessity. Let me explain.

Radiotimeslides

When casting the first series of Red Dwarf in the late eighties, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor hoped to get four "proper" actors to play the four regular roles. They ended up with an impressionist, a poet, a stand-up comedian and a dancer. When David Ross filmed his guest spot as the original Kryten in the eponymous second series episode, he was horrified to discover that none of the main cast were 'legit' actors. The original intention for "The End" was for all the ship's crew to be played by big-name comedy stars... and then for them to all be killed off, leaving viewers with "Craig who?" as the lead. These are all stories any Red Dwarf fan will likely recognise.

The Pearl Poll Rankings

Last week Ganymede & Titan published their Pearl Poll, all 73 episodes of Red Dwarf ranked according to the fans. As this is a remarkably easy thing to get an extra blog post out of, here's my own personal order.

Red Dwarf XII: Siliconia

"Siliconia", the second episode of Red Dwarf XII, was recorded in front of a live studio audience on 29 January 2016, back when we all thought David Bowie and Alan Rickman dying in the same week was going to be the absolute low point of that particular calendar year. It was the first, and likely only, chance I would ever get to be in the audience of a live sitcom recording, let alone Red Dwarf (the holy grail, as far I was concerned). The episode's plot was something I had been in the audience to hear Doug talk about when he first confirmed Series XI & XII at the Dimension Jump convention in May 2015, so to actually be in the audience for it eight and a half months later was an added thrill.

Four months on from its 12 October 2017 release on UKTV Play, and on the day of the show's 30th anniversary, I've finally cobbled some thoughts I've mostly already posted elsewhere into an article...

Scenes From the Dwarf

The Penguin 60s range, as published at some point in the mid-late nineties, was a series of pocket-sized books about various subjects. The range included cookbooks, retellings of ancient myths and, in this case, a selection of Red Dwarf script extracts, billed in Grant Naylor’s introduction as “the least unmemorable scenes”, and also containing material cut from the broadcast versions. We were still a good few years away from actually getting to see the deleted scenes through the magic of DVD, so this was definitely the book's biggest attraction when first published. As part of my continuing commitment to write about things that are of interest literally to me and me alone, here is an analysis of the book’s contents.

Sit in a Bottle

I’m sure you all know what bottle episodes are. They’re episodes of television shows that are filmed only on pre-existing sets, with few (if any) actors other than the regular cast members. (They may also be told in real time, but that’s not a prerequisite.) For this reason they tend to be known as “the cheap one”, or “the one that’s replaced another episode that’s fallen through at the last minute”. Anyone who knows anything will know that this does them a grave disservice, as they often lead to some of the greatest moments their respective series will ever produce.

I really, really like bottle episodes, because of how much their minimalistic approach reveals about the show, they produce some of the best performances from the show’s cast members, and they often have fascinating stories behind their production. I particularly find them interesting in the case of audience sitcoms – that’s basically live theatre playing out in front of an audience. So I thought I’d grab one example each from three different audience sitcoms and see what each one tells us, if anything. (I considered widening the scope to include drama series… but the article started getting a wee bit over-complex. Maybe another time.)

Bender Than Life: Part 2

Welcome to the concluding part of my Futurama/Red Dwarf comparison, split in half because of readability and making the best of my tendency to make these articles probably far too long. Let’s get straight into it with a look at some more classic sci-fi tropes…

Bender Than Life: Part 1

(NB: Somebody else beat me to the title “Futurama Echoes”. Alternative titles include “Stasis Leak Pilot 3000” and “Listerama”.)

In 1988, the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf began on BBC2. The first episode sees Dave Lister frozen in time and wake up in the far future.

In 1999, shortly after Red Dwarf had seemingly wound up for good, the science fiction sitcom Futurama began on FOX. The first episode sees Philip J. Fry frozen in time and wake up in the far future.

Okay, it’s an overly simplistic comparison… but it’s a rather good one to make, as it does highlight the differences and similarities between the two shows.

In Praise of The Bodysnatcher Collection

Here are some things that are on the Red Dwarf DVD boxset The Bodysnatcher Collection (released 2007), which started out as a collection of the three Remastered series (versions of the first three series, originally broadcast in 1988 and 1989, digitally remastered in 1998 principally to replace all the nice model shots with crappy cheap CGI and add a film effect to a late-eighties studio sitcom that obviously wasn’t shot or lit for it – as you may have guessed, the Remastered episodes were not well received) but ended up as so, so much more.

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.