The Sundarban 
Detached from the British sci-fi sitcom called Red Dwarf. Right here we search four of the main cast individuals pointing at the camera. From left to factual: The Cat, Lister, Rimmer, and Kryten.
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On Feb. 25, 2026, English comedy author Rob Grant died. The author of several novels and television series, Grant is most productive remembered as the co-creator of the science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf, which adopted the adventures of Dave Lister aboard the titular mining spacecraft. A series that had a huge impact on me personally.
Created by Grant and Doug Naylor and based on a series of radio sketches called Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, Red Dwarf debuted in 1988 on the terrestrial TV channel BBC 2, however I didn’t thought the series till its second season in 1989. And it was a entire search for-opener for a ten-year-dilapidated baby who would changed into passionate about sci-fi, however at that point had only really been exposed to Doctor Who and Star Amble.
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Mickey Mouse? We ain’t even Betty Boop!
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Both shows have been infamous for their lack of rate range, however would only share the hide for 2 years after Who was cancelled in 1989. But whereas Who fans decried the show’s naff special results, the cheap however ambitious special results of Red Dwarf, together with some absolutely most spirited model work for the time, normally served as an asset to Red Dwarf rather than a hindrance, adding to the ridiculous situations the series regulars came across themselves in week after week.
Red Dwarf was radically utterly different from Star Amble. For one thing, it was a take a seat-com and no longer a drama. The titular ship Red Dwarf was lived in, to say the least. Lacking the clean aesthetics of the Endeavor, it was extra akin to the Nostromo of Alien than anything shown in Star Amble or The Next Generation, which wouldn’t debut on BBC 2 till 1990, three years after it first appeared on U.S. TV.
And whereas Gene Roddenberry’s vision of Star Amble saw a distinct lack of real conflict and animosity between the series regulars, Red Dwarf’s key relationship was the strange couple dynamic between slobbish and laid-back scouse third technician Dave Lister, portrayed by Craig Charles, and the fastidious and priggish low-ranking officer Arnold Rimmer, played by Chris Barrie.
(Image credit ranking: BBC)
You may be wondering at this stage how Lister and Rimmer may have a relationship at all, given that I superb said that Lister was the last human alive. The catch is that Rimmer is a hologram of a dead crew member, hence the “H” he wore on his head for the entire series. He’s also the one responsible for the mess they gather themselves in, having inadvertently killed the entire crew of the Red Dwarf (together with himself) because of his incompetence.
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Lister escaped this fate because he was in stasis at the time of the fatal Rimmer-caused Cadmium II radiation leak — a punishment for sneaking aboard his pregnant cat, Frankenstein. He’s awakened after the radiation reaches safe ranges by Red Dwarf’s computer, Holly (initially played by the wonderfully poker-faced Norman Lovett). Unfortunately, that direction of took 3 million years, meaning Lister outlived the crew of Red Dwarf… and the entire human race.
For a baby growing up in a small town outside Liverpool, I knew folks appreciate Lister. Other folks who shared his love of vindaloo, pool, and, as I acquired older, cheap lager. Some even had the same reluctance to change their socks. He was a salt-of-the-earth, working-class man plugging away at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder. Nothing exemplified Lister’s existence extra than the scene of him painting the outer hull of the gargantuan Red Dwarf as it traverses the void of space at the opening of each episode of seasons one and two.
You can’t scare me, I’m a coward! I’m always scared!
(Image credit ranking: BBC)
Taking a research back now, I search Lister as a manufacture of proto-Peter Quill from Guardians of the Galaxy. An everyday shlub from Earth plunged into outrageous sci-fi situations. Lister even had an unrequited love in the manufacture of Red Dwarf’s navigator Kristine Kochanski, played by Scottish pop-singer Claire Grogan (and then later by Chloë Annett).
Lister was so utterly different from the sci-fi heroes of the time — the Doctor, or Jean Luc Picard, and even Sam Beckett of Quantum Leap — whose resume of abilities and talents grew with each passing episode.
Although Lister can be moral and courageous appreciate those characters, I can’t image any of his contemporaries being compelled to eat pet food whereas stranded on an ice planet. He felt real in a way that his contemporaries by no means did. I wager the Doctor would not even appreciate vindaloo; he’d probably have gone for the Pot Noodles.
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Fortunately, Lister’s decision to smuggle a pregnant cat aboard Red Dwarf means he’s not always really entirely alone with Rimmer. Descended from Lister’s cat, Frankenstein is Cat (Danny John-Jules), a preening, fashion-conscious, and self-obsessed member of a race of cat-humanoids advanced from Lister’s pet and her offspring.
Cat’s lack of understanding (and common sense) is the leaping-off point for a ton of jokes, however also serves as a great automobile for exposition, as the other boys from the Dwarf explain events to the loveable fool.
Although I’d enjoyed the second season of Red Dwarf, it was with the third series that my love of the series really began. The first episode of season three really served as a gentle reboot for Red Dwarf, long ahead of the time duration entered common vernacular.
The cliffhanger of the outdated season, which saw Lister impregnated by his female self from an alternate universe,
