"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 evolved from his cat and Arnold Rimmer,
a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew......" Notoriously, and entirely
appropriately, the original outline for Doug Naylor and Rob Grant's comedy
sci-fi series Red Dwarf was sketched on the back of a beer mat. When
it finally appeared on British television in 1988, the show had clearly
stayed true to its roots, mixing jokes about excessive curry consumption
with affectionate parodies of classic sci-fi. Indeed, one of the show's
most endearing and enduring features is its obvious respect for genre
conventions, even as it gleefully subverts them. The scenario owes
something to Douglas Adams's satirical Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
something to The Odd Couple, and a lot more to the slacker sci-fi of
John Carpenter's Dark Star. Behind the crew's constant bickering
there lurks an impending sense that life, the universe, and everything are
all someone's idea of a terrible joke. Later seasons broadened
the show's horizons until at last its premise was so diluted as to be
unrecognizable, but in the six episodes of the first season, the comedy is
witty and intimate, focusing on characters and not special effects. Slob
Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is the last human alive after a radiation leak
wipes out the crew of the vast mining vessel Red Dwarf (episode 1,
"The End"). He bums around the spaceship with the perpetually
uptight and annoyed hologram of his dead bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie, the show's greatest comedy
asset), and a creature evolved from a cat (dapper Danny John-Jules). They
are guided rather haphazardly by Holly, the worryingly thick main computer
(lugubrious Norman Lovett). (Written
by Mark Walker as an editorial review for Amazon.com)
NTSC VHS
BBC Video released all of
the show’s seasons on NTSC VHS (two tapes each season, three episodes per tape)
in 2003. (See Amazon.com for more)
R1 DVD
Warner Home Video is releasing region 1 DVDs, one for
each season, starting in 2003. They are releasing two seasons a year, and so we
still await the release of the season 6, 7 and 8 DVDs as of yet. (Check Amazon.com for updates)
PAL VHS
BBC Worldwide Publishing has released all of the show’s
seasons on PAL VHS (two tapes each, three episodes per tape) in 1998-1999. (See Amazon.co.uk for more)
R2 DVD
BBC Worldwide Publishing has also, thus far, released the
first four seasons of Red Dwarf on DVD starting from 2002. (Check Amazon.co.uk for updates)
Grant Naylor Productions, creators of the show.
http://www.sadgeezer.com/RedDwarf/rd-epis.htm
This is the Red Dwarf Episodes Main Page. It contains
reviews Red Dwarf episodes from the first seven seasons.
http://reddwarf.calcon.net/index.html
"This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship
Red Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation
leak.
http://www.cybernex.net.au/users/simkin/red_dwarf_links.html
Smeg it. The greatest links 'smeg' in cyberspace. Part of the Simkin
Industries web.
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