History Series / RedDwarf

** In ''Future Echoes'' Rimmer is gloating over having apparently seen Lister die in the future, to which Lister retorts:
--> "It hasn't actually happened. It has have been going to have happened, but it hasn't actually have been happen happened. Hactually."

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Lister as Voter-Colonel Sebastian Doyle in ''Back To Reality''. "Vote Fascist for another decade of total law enforcement!"

** The in-universe TV show "Androids" has a theme song that sounds suspiciously like the long-running Australian soap drama, "Neighbours".

--> "It hasn't actually happened. It has have been going to have happened, but it hasn't actually have been happened. Hactually."

* RunningGag: Many in the later seasons, including Rimmer's inability to correctly quote Space Corps directives, Cat's repeated bemoaning that "we're [[DeaderThanDisco deader than (insert bygone fashion trend here)]]!", Kryten describing Cat's (typically ridiculous) plans as "excellent, with just two minor drawbacks", and exchanges like these regarding ''Starbug'''s performance:

*** The Series VII episode "Duct Soup" contains a scene cut from the original broadcast but restored for the extended DVD release in which Kochanski mentions spending years hooked up to a computer (the actual term "Better Than Life" is not mentioned, but the premise sounds similar) during her school years. After returning to the real world, she confesses to "coming off the rails" for a while, even going so far as to smoking a cigarette.

[[BritCom British]] FantasticComedy (1988-1993; 1997-1999; 2009; 2012) and book series about an enormous interstellar mining ship (the eponymous ''Red Dwarf''), the crew of which has been almost completely wiped out by a radiation leak.

To keep Lister sane, Holly creates a hologram of the despised (and now deceased) Second Technician Arnold J. Rimmer. The pair discover the Cat, the last known member of ''his'' race ''Felis sapiens'', which evolved from the pregnant cat that got Lister put in suspended animation in the first place.

** Even in show, there is a scene where Rimmer confesses that his first kiss was with "Uncle Frank" while camping. Uncle Frank had drunkenly mistaken Rimmer's tent for Rimmer's mother's tent. And Rimmer even says on one occasion words to the effect of "You can have mine [mother], everyone else did!" So we do know that Rimmer's mother wasn't exactly a one-man lady.

* TheAce: Ace Rimmer. [[PhraseCatcher What a guy!]]
* ActorAllusion: ''Back to Earth'' does it. The crew meet [[spoiler: Craig Charles, who plays Lister]], and Rimmer asks for his own sitcom (Chris Barrie starred in ''TheBrittasEmpire'').
** Cat's 'Do ''I'' dance?' from ''Parallel Universe'' might be an example.
* AdaptationDistillation: The novels turn an episodic TV series into a sprawling adventure. Each of them takes particular episodes from the series and incorporates their plots into one long narrative, integrated with original material. The first novel is much more heavily based on episodes of the series than its sequels, and also has a much more meandering plot.
* AdaptationExpansion: The novels again. For the episodes that are incorporated into the novels' plots, they go deeply in-depth and add a lot of detail that wasn't or couldn't be realised on screen. The novels' depiction of the AR Game "Better Than Life", as compared to its more lighthearted TV depiction, is a good example.
* AfterTheEnd: Basically the premise, though there's no distinct end.
** So much so that the first episode is called "The End."
** It's actually unknown whether it really is after the end, however. The ship never makes it to the Earth of their time.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Holly's IQ is, purportedly, 6000. Then again, s/he is 3,000,000 years old and gone a bit... peculiar.
--> '''Queeg''': "It's got a six in it... but it's not 6,000!"
* AliensAndMonsters: Appear somewhat frequently beginning in Series 3.
** Well monsters do at any rate. [[AbsentAliens There are no actual aliens]] in RedDwarf, all the creatures they meet are mutated or genetically engineered from Earth organisms, or are mechanoids.
* AllJustADream: Sort of the plot of ''Back to Reality'' and [[spoiler:''Back to Earth'']].

* BagOfSpilling: Averted and yet played straight. When the Boys from the ''Dwarf'' are in the shop 'They Walk Among Us' with a shopkeep who is as familiar with the series as they are, he names, in order, things which could aid them in instantaneously traveling the thirty miles to where they need to be: the Holly Hop Drive, the Matter Paddle, the Time Slides technique (which would have been more difficult than simply walking thirty miles, to find an appropriate photograph and develop it in a dark room with mutated development chemicals,) and the [[StarTrek Transporter]]. The first three methods of transportation are all "back on Red Dwarf," indicating that they retained such amazingly useful technology but most likely stored them and forgot about them, while by the last the annoyed crew remind him that the transporter was from [[StarTrek Star Trek]] and not their show, but it may be reasonably suspected that the owner was taking the piss and subtly mocking the fact that they used such amazing technologies for one episode and then forgot about them, neglecting to use them in any number of subsequent situations in which they would have been useful, including the one they were in.

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Kochanski]], of all people, in ''Beyond a Joke''. When Kryten is kidnapped by the rogue Simulant aboard the ''S.S. Centauri'', [[spoiler:she instructs Cat to turn ''Starbug'' so it flies away from the ''Centauri'' at top speed. The Simulant, after realising they're not giving chase and actually fleeing, assumes they've planted a bomb on his own vessel and starts chasing after ''them''. Cat and Lister are fooled too.]]

* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler: The end of 'Only The Good' where it is undetermined whether Rimmer or the rest of the crew survived for that matter]]
** After a decade, 'Back To Earth' ended the speculation, though [[spoiler: it is still unclear how the crew survived, and which Rimmer lived on]]

** Also, in Me2 Lister brings a picture to Arnold and Arnold's quarters and reads the nameplate. 'Second Technician, Arnold.J.Rimmer, and Second Technician, Arnold.J.Rimmer?!' and looks at the camera in a smirking fashion before shaking his head.

** Grimsby is also mentioned, as are several other places. this is a British show, however.

Between 1989 and 1996, four TieInNovels were made, based on the series, but in a different continuity (which split into two continuities itself after the show's creators ended their collaborative partnership).

One man remains alive: a chicken-soup-machine repairman from Liverpool named David Lister. Lister was sentenced to be put in suspended animation for eighteen months as punishment for bringing a female cat on board illegally ([[TelevisionTieInNovels and, in the novels at least]], did so deliberately, having only signed onto the Jupiter Mining Corporation vessel initially to get back to Earth after being stranded on one of Saturn's moons after a drunken bender).

To keep Lister sane, Holly creates a hologram of the despised (and now deceased) Second Technician Arnold J. Rimmer. After a few days, the pair discover the Cat, the last known member of ''his'' race ''Felis sapiens'', which evolved from the pregnant cat that got Lister put in suspended animation in the first place.

To keep Lister sane, Holly creates a hologram of the despised (and now deceased) Second Technician Arnold J. Rimmer. After a few days, the pair discover the Cat, the last(ish) known member of ''his'' race ''Felis sapiens'', which evolved from the pregnant cat that got Lister put in suspended animation in the first place.

One man remains alive: a chicken-soup-machine repairman from Liverpool named David Lister (born 2155 A.D, although this is debatable as at least 3 other birth dates appear in the TV series, plus several other references that make it impossible for Lister to be born in 2155). Lister was sentenced to be put in suspended animation for eighteen months as punishment for bringing a female cat on board illegally ([[TelevisionTieInNovels and, in the novels at least]], did so deliberately, having only signed onto the Jupiter Mining Corporation vessel initially to get back to Earth after being stranded on one of Saturn's moons after a drunken bender).

During Lister's time in the stasis booth, incompetent Second Technician Arnold J. Rimmer (B.S.C., S.S.C.[[hottip:*:"Bronze Swimming Certificate", "Silver Swimming Certificate"]]), Lister's bunkmate/superior officer (and all around smeghead), failed to replace a faulty drive-plate in the ship's engine system, which floods the ship's entire crew decks with lethal Cadmium-2 radiation, killing everyone on board except for Lister (and the cat, which survived in the cargo hold). The ship's AI, Holly, sends the ship immediately out of the solar system, until the radiation reaches safe levels and Lister can be safely released from stasis. Unfortunately, that takes three million years, during which Holly (who slowly becomes senile with age and lack of interaction) continues piloting the ship away from Earth's solar system.

To keep Lister sane, Holly creates a hologram of the despised (and now deceased) Rimmer. After a few days, the pair discover the Cat, the last(ish) known member of ''his'' race ''Felis sapiens'', which evolved from the pregnant cat that got Lister put in suspended animation in the first place.

Lister decides that he wants to return to Earth, despite the fact that no-one aboard knows if the human race still exists, and despite the problem that the journey back will take another three million years at sub-light speed (even turning the ship around at near lightspeed will take 4000 years according to Holly).

In the second season (Series [=II=]), the crew of ''Red Dwarf'' discover another ship, but the skeletonized crew are all long dead, though still being "attended to" by a cheerfully-oblivious android butler, Kryten, who is programmed to be ''obsessed'' with cleaning. Kryten ultimately ends up joining the ''Dwarf'' team, and with a great deal of effort and coaching from Lister he eventually develops other character flaws as well, such as the ability to switch to "lie mode". A few more seasons down the road, Rimmer's hologramatic existence is upgraded from "soft light" to [[HardLight "hard light"]] by [[AppliedPhlebotinum advanced science]], giving Rimmer a NighInvulnerable material body, though he remains the same neurotic coward. During the seventh season (Series [=VII=]), Lister's former LoveInterest, Officer Kristine Kochanski, arrives from an AlternateUniverse. Throughout all of this, the group does not so much explore the cosmos as wander fecklessly through it.

Despite what it sounds like, this was essentially just another British comedy about amusing characters bickering amongst themselves, similar to ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', but with a fair amount of [[AliensAndMonsters monsters]], TimeTravel and the like thrown in. The plot of the show grew convoluted and unwieldy, but since the show was never about its plot, it survived.

The writing was snappy, as is typical of many a British SitCom, but the programme's creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ended their writing partnership after the sixth series, and subsequent novels and episodes were not as well received.

The otherwise rather silly ''Red Dwarf'' has the surprisingly [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard sci-fi element]] of not featuring aliens; all life was terrestrial in origin [[hottip:*:most likely even down to the space weevil]]. In place of aliens, they substituted mutations, various types of androids ("mechanoids" and "simulants"), a variety of genetically (mis)engineered life forms ([=GELFs=]), and pretty much every time travel and alternate universe/reality plot they could fit in. Oh, and solid hallucinations from mutated pneumonia. It was also extremely low-budget, but very popular, with annual Public Television marathons across the US during stations' fund-raising drives, numerous DVD collections, two tapes of outtakes, several tie-in books (including quizbooks and script collections), and a series of novels (which split into two continuities itself after the show's creators ended their collaborative partnership).

A three-part, PostModern, movie-length sequel ''Back To Earth'' aired across the Easter Weekend of 2009 on digital channel Dave, putting an end to the complete lack of any new TV or book output since 1999. ''BTE'' enjoyed very high viewing figures for a digital broadcast show, and its success helped the commissioning of the forthcoming ''Series X'', which began production in late 2011 and is scheduled for a September 2012 broadcast.

Came eighteenth in ''Series/BritainsBestSitcom''.

* ConsultingMrFlibble (though it was [[ConsultingMrPuppet renamed]] because people didn't get the reference)

* ShoutOut: The first two series' title music is very reminiscent of ''AlsoSprachZarathustra'', and the sequence is in line with scenes from ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' that utilise said music. The name ''Holly'' is a ShoutOut to ''2001'''s HAL, too. (In the radio sketch series ''Dave Hollins, Space Cadet'' on which the series is based, the computer was known as 'Hab'.)

My
Almost.

--> '''Past Rimmer''' (In the process of having a mental breakdown yelling at present and future Listers, Cat, Kochanski and present Rimmer, all of whom he thinks are hallucinations brought on by a breakfast of space mushrooms. ItMakesSenseInContext ) : Perhaps Lister here would like to go over to the fridge and open a bottle of wine for Lister and Lister. Rimmer here doesn't drink, because he's dead, but I wouldn't mind a glass.

* MyFutureSelfAndMe / TimeTravelTenseTroube: The ludicrous temporal shenanigans of Stasis Leak in Season 2. Lister attempts to re-kindle a relationship with his former girlfriend and in doing so encounters a future version of himself who has already married her.

* MyFutureSelfAndMe: The ludicrous temporal shenanigans of Stasis Leak in Season 2. Lister attempts to re-kindle a relationship with his former girlfriend and in doing so encounters a future version of himself who has already married her.
** And Rimmer runs into the 'original' him, who he went into the past to try and save, and thus runs into a future version of himself who has an unconvincing moustache.
--> '''Future Rimmer''' ''(after appearing unexpectedly through a solid object to see the present and past Rimmers arguing)'': I'm from the double double future. I'm with the Lister who's with Kochanski. From this point things get a liiiiiittle bit confusing.

* HoYay: Rimmer/Lister - the aforementioned kiss being the culmination of seven series worth of innuendo (and several cans of beer downed by both actors).

* DubInducedPlotHole: In the Czech dub of the second episode, Lister says that he's never eaten chicken vindaloo before (prawn vindaloo in the original), when in a flashback in the next episode he says that he'd dropped Rimmer's revision timetable into one (he spilled cold vindaloo on it in the original).

** The series itself was originally supposed to be filmed in 1983, but an electricians' strike prevented it.

A three-part, PostModern, movie-length sequel ''Back To Earth'' aired across the Easter Weekend of 2009 on digital channel Dave, putting an end to the complete lack of any new TV or book output since 1999. Production of a new season began in late 2011, some 23 years after the series began, for a 2012 air date.