Prologue
Abroad the Jupiter Mining Corporation mining ship Red Dwarf is a crew of 169 people. Rimmer (Chris Barrie) and Lister (Craig Charles), are second and third technicians respectively - the lowest ranked members of the crew - their job the most mundane jobs such as fixing the vending machines. They have a strong dislike of each other. Rimmer is disciplined. Lister is a slob. They bicker and fight constantly. This is the source of much amusement for other members of the crew and of course, us, the audience.
Red Dwarf is the product of excellent writing. The idea that this series is set in deep space is immaterial, it could have been set anywhere. It"s a sit-com that just happens to be set in space. The first season was undeniably cheap-looking, the sort of show that could have been filmed anywhere probably because they had a really small budget, but this isn"t Star Trek with sexy computers or immaculately uniformed crew members (apart from Rimmer). Lister the inventor of the fried-egg-and-chilli-pickle sandwich is a slobby, scruffy, lazy, bum with clothes covered in curry stains. The special effects are also cheap model shots but this only adds to the series" charm - in fact in later seasons, notably seven and eight the low-tech effects are replaced by CGI wizardary and actually end up looking less realistic.
Season One
Lister has smuggled an unquarantined cat on board from Titan when on shore leave, when the Captain finds out he gives him a choice, hand over the cat for dissection or spend the rest of the trip in stasis. Luckily for Lister, and the cat, Lister chooses stasis. Unfortunately for the rest of the crew, as Rimmer is left alone to do the job of two men he ends up making an error and there is a radiation leak that kills the entire crew.
Holly (Norman Lovett), the ship"s computer, revives Lister, when the radiation falls to a safe background level, which happens to be three million years later. Lister is now most probably the only surviving human.
In an effort to keep Lister sane Holly the ship"s computer brings back Rimmer as a hologram, much to Lister"s displeasure, while Lister"s original cat, that had been pregnant, has over millions of years of breeding and evolution evolved into a humanoid cat (that is simply named Cat and is played by Danny John Jules) and is also the only survivor of his entire race.
Lister makes a decision, they"re going home! No mater what Earth is like, no matter if cochroaches have taken over, it"s got to be better than living in deep space.
Throughout season one Lister longs to meet up with his dead shipmates, even if for only one last time. The high point of season one are Balance of Power and Me2. In Balance of Power, Lister takes the Chef"s exam so that he can outrank Rimmer and be in charge. If he succeeds in intends to replace Rimmer with the hologram of Kristine Kochanski, one of the ship"s crew that he was in love with. In Me2 Rimmer works out that if they turn off all unnecessary systems that they can sustain two holograms. Rimmer and Lister fight over whether it will be a duplicate Rimmer or Kochanski. Rimmer wins the argument but gets more than he bargained for when he finds that he is actually unbearable to live with.
Season Two
At the beginning of season two, the boys from the Dwarf, as they like to be known, find Kryten a "condom-headed" android whose only desire in life is to serve his human masters. He doesn"t instantly become a member of the crew but does so at the beginning of series three. Lister hates the way that Kryten won"t think for himself and he is sick of him listening to orders from Rimmer who is using the android for menial tasks. Lister tries to teach Kryten to have a life of his own and he is successful as Kryten rebels and takes off on Lister's space bike.
Highlights of season two are Better Than Life when the crew play a computer game that is so realistic it"s as good as the real thing. Unfortunately Rimmer is so wrapped up in his own failure and self loathing that he can"t help but turn this paradise into a disaster. Queeg is also excellently written and crafted. Not to give away the ending but when Holly is replaced by Queeg 500 the ship"s backup computer the crew try to help Holly to retain his former position as Queeg is working them so hard. The final decision over who should run the ship - Holly or Queeg - comes down to a chess match, although Holly would rather have played poker or tiddlewinks!
Season Three
Season three was when Red Dwarf really got into its stride and with a wardrobe change for Lister and Rimmer as well as a general brightening of the sets it really started to look and feel a lot smarter in production terms. Holly has a sex change for no apparent reason and Kryten rejoins the crew this time as a full time cast member (now played by Robert Llewellyn).
Marooned is without doubt my favourite episode of season three. Lister and Rimmer are marooned on an ice planet with only dog food and pot noodle to eat. What"s more they are seriously short on fuel for heating Starbug (the space shuttle/pod that they are able to use to visit planets or ships which was introduced at this point and used much more heavily in season six), so they are burning books for Lister to keep warm. There is some fantastic dialogue between the two and it"s one of the rare moments that the two bear their souls to each other. The episode is almost entirely a two-hander between them and they do an excellent job of it. The writing is both poignant and extremely funny.

Polymorph (a parody of Ridley Scott"s Alien) is also a season three highlight and is the first ever episode to include an alien presence on board Red Dwarf. The polymorph is an alien with the ability to shape-shift and feeds on negative emotions, such as Lister"s fear, Cat"s vanity, Rimmer"s anger and Kryten"s guilt. Each of the crew members looses the emotion that was stolen by the polymorph with either negative or somewhat positive effects, such as Lister turning in a crazy killer, which is actually quite useful under the current circumstances.

Season Four

Dimension Jump is the highlight of season four and brings with it the introduction of Ace Rimmer a daredevil test pilot for the space corps testing a new dimension jumping ship. Ace Rimmer and Arnold Rimmer do not get along at all well. Ace is handsome, courageous and selfless. Arnold Rimmer is weasely, weak and completely selfish. Lister, Cat and Kryten want Ace to stay with them, but he knows that there are a million other dimensions out there to visit.

DNA is also a season four highlight when the crew find a derelict spacecraft containing advanced technology including a DNA changing device. Kryten finds out what it is like to be human and the crew have to fight a monster mutated from one of Lister"s vindaloo curries.

Season Five

Season Five has so many highlights and features one of the most popular episodes ever Back To Reality in which the crew, while investigating the wreck of the SSS Esperanto are affected by the despair squid that makes them all wish that they were dead. It has similarities to the Polymorph episode as each of the crew loose something dear to their own character that they think makes them most unique.

Season Six

Season six saw the biggest change to the formula of the series yet as Red Dwarf itself was removed from the series and season six was set entirely aboard Starbug. The other big change was a move away from purely episodic storytelling. Season six had an actually story arc running all the way through it and what"s more it ended on a cliffhanger... one that was to span over three years until season seven was finally made.

Season six was my very favourite season of Red Dwarf and there are many highlights. The boys have lost Red Dwarf and in an effort to find it they commit themselves to 200 years in stasis while Holly pilots the ship through a dangerous region of space in order to try to catch up with the Red Dwarf and regain control. In the course of season six, Rimmer gets a hardlight halogram, in the episode Legion, which means that he can touch and feel his surroundings and they are once again attacked by a polymorph in Emohawk: Polymorph II. Gunmen of the Apocalypse is another episode similar to the Better Than Life episode where the action takes place inside an artificial reality videogame. And in Rimmerworld, Rimmer travels through a time-hole and populates a planet made entirely from clones of himself. The final episode Out of Time the crew find a time machine only to then bump into future versions of themselves that have turned into amoral, horrible, almost evil versions of themselves. Determined to sample the best that time has to offer they have along their travels become friends with Hitler and taken part in all manner of other corrupt dealings. Will the crew be able to stop the future versions of themselves and will an unlikely hero emerge?

Season Seven
One of the most disappointing things about the seventh season of Red Dwarf is that Chris Barrie only appeared in four episodes. Kochanski, played by Chloë Annett (as opposed to Clare Grogan in the previous series) was added to the crew as a new regular character. Another factor that made season seven different from previous seasons was the fact that the studio audience was dispensed with in favour of canned laughter. This too was a move that I felt was taking the series in the wrong direction.
One of the highlights of season seven however is Duct Soup. Kryten is jealous because he thinks that Lister likes Kochanski more than him. When the ship"s power goes dead they get stuck together in a room and have to try to escape via the ventilation ducts. While they are trapped together they discover new things about each other that they didn"t know before including the fact Lister is claustrophobic. In several ways this episode is very similar to Marooned as they are telling each other personal stories and bonding in the process. They later find out that the power was intentionally cut by Kryten.

Season Eight

Season eight saw a welcome return to Red Dwarf being filmed in front of a studio audience. I always think that this is an excellent way for actors to judge a reaction to their performance and something that pushes actors to perform better. A highlight of season eight is Back in the Red: Part III. Rimmer finds a sexual magnetism virus in the wreckage of Starbug and instantly becomes irresistibly attractive to every female crew member aboard the recently recreated Red Dwarf - that was recreated in an earlier season eight episode by the nanobots discovered in season seven that rebuilt Lister"s arm after he lost it. Rimmer also starts to impress Captain Hollister and it is possible that he will be promoted. However we then find out that Rimmer is in an artificial reality program being watched by Captain Hollister as part of the trial that they are part of after they were court marshalled and jailed for having caused the radiation leak at the beginning of season one.

Epilogue

The feel of the show changed with each new season and although the writing was always of a high standard its direction often changed too. No doubt in an effort to keep the series fresh. This worked in the case of season six but didn"t work so well in the case of seasons seven and eight when the writing took on a more puerile tone and the whole show seemed less intelligent. Add to this the move to CGI special effects and the show ended up a million miles away from where it had begun over a decade before.

Still audiences were as large as ever so ultimately it all comes down to fashions within TV and what audiences want. Maybe it was intended to appeal to younger audience or maybe I just got older.

Whatever the case may be the fact that Red Dwarf lasted so long and is now celebrating its 20th anniversary in fine style with this newly released DVD package goes a long way to demonstrate the lasting appeal that it has.

There is also strong rumours (if not actual facts) that TV channel Dave has recently signed to make new Red Dwarf episodes.

This really is testimony to the fact that Red Dwarf was popular with fans new and old as well as being critically acclaimed not to mention consistently superbly written, produced and directed.

In the end there are very few TV series that could claim to live up to success of Red Dwarf.