"This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak. The only survivors are Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the disaster, and his pregnant cat, who was safely sealed in the hold. Revived three million years later, Lister's only companions are a life form who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew. I am Holly, the ship's computer, with an IQ of 6000, the same IQ as 6000 PE teachers."

‘Red Dwarf’ began as a low budget science fiction sitcom that mainly concentrated on the interaction between the show’s two anti-heroes, the slobbish and hygienically-challenged Dave Lister, and the obnoxious, regimental, and anal-retentive Arnold Rimmer. Together with the vain and narcissistic human-feline, Cat, and Holly, the slightly-insane ship’s computer, they attempt to find their way back to Earth, encountering strange life-forms, space/time anomalies, and parallel universes along the way.

The show quickly formed its own particular blend of anarchic and irreverent humour (and led to the introduction of the now universally-used word of derision: ‘smeg’), while later episodes saw an increase in spectacular special effects and more and more bizarre and surreal storylines. As the show progressed, the crew were joined by Kryten, a neurotic service android; Holly changed ‘sex’; our heroes lost their spaceship Red Dwarf; encountered genetically-engineered life forms, holograms, aliens, alternate versions of themselves, as well as Kochanski, Lister’s long-lost love, before eventually being reunited with Red Dwarf, only to discover that their deceased crewmates had miraculously been restored to life by rogue nano-robots!

As well as these eight televised seasons there have also been several spin-off ‘Red Dwarf’ novels, which have a different take on the televised stories; the Americans made two unsuccessful (and frankly bloody awful) pilots; and talks of a feature film have been fuelling fans interest for years, but the smegging thing still hasn’t gone into production.

After a ten year wait, ‘Red Dwarf’ eventually returned to television screens in April 2009 for a three-part Easter weekend special on the BBC’s ‘Dave’ channel, in which our heroes finally returned home in ‘Red Dwarf: Back to Earth’ (confusingly, this story took place after Season 9 - which has never been made!). Then, in 2012, ‘Red Dwarf’ Season 10 (yes, 10!) premiered on ‘Dave’ with six brand-new episodes featuring our favourite smeg-heads. This new lease of life gave rise to a further six new episodes that premiered as Season 11 in 2016; these were recorded back to back with another six, which were shown as Season 12 in October 2017.

2020 brought a new special-length episode, 'The Promised Land', and an accompanying documentary. 2025 will see a new 3-part story, details still to be announced. Let's hope there will be smeg-loads of adventures for the Boys from the Dwarf for years to come!


It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere,
I'm all alone, more or less,
Let me fly, far away from here,
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun...
I want to lie shipwrecked and comatose,
Drinking fresh mango juice,
Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes,
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun...
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun...


Red Dwarf - Season 1
Red Dwarf - Season 2
Red Dwarf - Season 3
Red Dwarf - Season 4
Red Dwarf - Season 5
Red Dwarf - Season 6
Red Dwarf - Season 7
Red Dwarf - Season 8
Red Dwarf - Season 9
Red Dwarf - Back to Earth
Red Dwarf - Season 10
Red Dwarf - Season 11
Red Dwarf - Season 12
Red Dwarf - Season 13

Red Dwarf - the Movie

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Legal Bit: 'Red Dwarf' is a registered trademark of BBC Worldwide. The 'Red Dwarf' logo and all images from the television series are copyright BBC unless otherwise stated; music is copyright the original composers and producers; no copyright infringement is intended. All specially created images and text are copyright © Clive Banks; please do not use these without my permission. All rights reserved. No profit is made from this website, and any revenue made from using the banner-links featured goes straight back into the costs of maintaining it, which comes out of my own pocket in the first place. No profit advertising is accepted. This website was created purely to entertain and amuse, and any references to persons living, dead, comatose, in suspended animation, regenerated, not born yet, a smeghead, or a figment of someone's imagination is purely coincidental. All opinions expressed are my own, so there...

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