-Holly, Queeg
"Red Dwarf remains unique in its combination of sitcom and science fiction, and its comedy has a distinctively British tone..."
-M. Keith Booker, Science Fiction Television
"...the audience of Red Dwarf sees in its characters a representation of its own situation; an ironic reversal of the early optimism of SF."
-Charles William Sullivan, Young Adult Science Fiction
"BBC series such as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf perhaps succeeded because they offered humourous visions of space and time travel. Unable to compete with the special effects and futuristic look of expensive American series 'the only option left for British science fiction TV was to have a laugh at itself'..."
-Lincoln Geraghty, taken from Chapter 15: Television since 1980
"Like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, [Red Dwarf] resits denigrating geeric conventions to mere devices to enliven standard comedy situations. However...Red Dwarf's humor is more intimate, deriving from personal, class, and masculine conflict between characters."
-Peter Wright, British Television Science Fiction
Lister- Craig Charles
Rimmer- Chris Barrie
Cat- Danny John-Jules
Kryten- Robert Llewellyn
Holly- Norman Lovett(male) and Hattie Hayridge(female)
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/index.cfm- This is the official website of Red Dwarf and is resplendent with show summaries, interviews, cast biographies, and lots of trivia.
Red Dwarf Programme Guide, 3rd revised edition- This book contains a wealth of information, including trivia about each episode and background information about the creation of the series. ISBN-10: 0753504022
Elice Rae Helford's two papers on Red Dwarf- Dr. Helford takes a detailed look into the gender roles portrayed within Red Dwarf. She makes some very itneresting points through extensive examples. See the bibloiographical information in the "Works Cited" section.
According to the Red Dwarf Programme Guide, 3rd Revised Edition, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor coined the terms "hologramatic", "Dollarpound", "Felis sapiens", "Simulants", "GELF", "space weevil", and "Zero Gee Football".
In 2007, Radio Times readers voted Red Dwarf "the best sci-fi show of all time", even after being off of the air for over six years.
The writing duo of Grant and Naylor (writing under the pseudonym "Grant Naylor") released a novel version of the first television series, entitled Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers). The novel gives some history leading up to Lister's decision to join the Space Corps and also elaborates on the journeys the crew takes during the first television series.
Other novels based on Red Dwarf:
Better than Life
Last Human
Backwards
A term commonly used on Red Dwarf is "smeg" and multiple variations of the word. Smeg is a slang word invented by the writers. It is derogatory and can be used in the place of any other swear word, as in "smeghead" and the phrase "smeg off".
Last update: 11/23/2009
This site was created by Stephen Shapiro for HONR101, Speculative Visions, an honors course at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, instructed by Dr. Arthur Evans. If you have any questions or comments about the website, please contact: stephenshapiro_2013@depauw.edu