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As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a Godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?
— Holly
British Fantastic Comedy (1988-1993; 1997-1999; 2009-present) about an enormous interstellar mining ship (the titular "Red Dwarf"), the crew of which has been almost completely wiped out by a radiation leak.
Almost.
One man remains alive: a chicken-soup-machine repairman named David Lister from Liverpool (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 six months as punishment for bringing a female cat on board illegally (and, in the novelization at least, 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 * "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. Unfortunately, that takes three million years.
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 400 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, and are being "attended to" by a cheerfully-ignorant android butler, Kryten, who is obsessed with cleaning (as he was programmed to be). (With a great deal of effort and coaching from Lister, he eventually develops other character flaws as well, such as the ability to have a "lie mode".) A few more seasons down the road, Rimmer's hologramatic existance is upgraded from "soft light" to "hard light" by advanced science, giving Rimmer a nigh-invulnerable material body (he still stays the same neurotic coward he was before, though). During the seventh season (Series VII), Lister's former Love Interest, Officer Kristine Kochanski, arrives from an Alternate Universe. 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 The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, but with a fair amount of monsters, Time Travel 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 virtually every British Sit Com, 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.
Red Dwarf and Firefly share the setting-feature of having no aliens, both being set in a universe where all life in the universe was terrestrial in origin. In place of aliens, they substituted mutations, various types of androids ("mechanoids"), a variety of genetically (mis)engineered life forms (GELFs), and pretty much every time travel, alternate universe or different reality plot they could fit in. It was also extremely low-budget, but very popular, with an annual US Public Television marathon during PBS' fund-raising drive, 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, Post Modern, 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; the success of Back To Earth led to the announcement of a full tenth series in early October of the same year.
This program provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Lister's pregnancy at the end of Series 2 was tossed out when the writers realized they couldn't make it funny or not-sexist. It comes up in unreadably fast text in the opening crawl for "Backwards" about what happened to them. Shame, considering that Lister having a son on board Red Dwarf series 7 spoilers is a major plot point in series 1's "Stasis Leak".
- Absent Aliens: All life forms in the universe are Earth-based.
- Abusive Parents: Rimmer. When he was 15 years old, he went to court and divorced his parents. For more details, see entry for that trope.
- Achievements In Ignorance: Rimmer, briefly, in Cassandra.
- Age Appropriate Angst: Rimmer.
- A Glass In The Hand: Once Rimmer became a Hard Light hologram, he could vent his frustration on inanimate objects.
- Alternate Continuity: The novels.
- Canon Immigrant: Lister's backstory with Kochanski is RetConned to one closer to in Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers than series 1 and 2.
- Also, two radically different endings exist to the final episode Only the Good.... The one that was broadcast was actually the alternate ending, while the first one, where Rimmer successfully saves Red Dwarf from the metal-eating nanites, was the original ending but only exists in the DVD extras. It is unclear if Back to Earth follows storywise from the broadcast ending or from the original ending.
- And the real kicker? The companion book to Series VIII states Rimmer's battle with the Grim Reaper is a metaphor for his struggle to regain consciousness, leaving plenty of room for speculation. It also states another ending - involving Ace Rimmer - was planned. And the Series VIII DVD booklet lists no less than four endings, of which three were filmed.
- The Ace: Ace Rimmer. What a guy!
- Actor Allusion: Back to Earth does it. The crew meet Craig Charles, who plays Lister, and Rimmer asks for his own sitcom (Chris Barrie starred in The Brittas Empire).
- Cat's 'Do I dance?' from Parallel Universe might be an example.
- Adaptation Distillation: The novels turn an episodic TV series into a sprawling adventure.
- Adaptation Decay: The US pilot cast Lister as a generic good-looking Hollywood white guy while stripping him of his disgusting habits and Book Dumb, then made Rimmer nothing more than his annoying bunkmate, Flanderising two well-developed characters.
- Adolf Hitler: In Timeslides, appears As Himself in a post-titles guest star credit, to the amusement of the audience.
- He also appeared as one of the evil team in Meltdown, was referenced in Backwards and the corrupt future crew are apparently good friends of the Hitlers in Out of Time.
- A God Am I: Subverted in Waiting for God. Lister is treated as a god ("Cloister the Stupid") by a priest of the cat-race and attempts to explain he isn't. He fails.
- After The End: Basically the premise, though there's no distinct end.
- AI Is A Crapshoot: Holly's IQ is, purportedly, 6000. ...Well, there's a 6 in it anyway. Then again, s/he is 3,000,000 years old and gone a bit... peculiar.
Queeg: It's got a 6 in it, but it's not 6,000.
Cat: Then what is it?
Queeg: 6.
- Aliens And Monsters: Appear somewhat frequently beginning in Series 3.
- All Just A Dream: Sort of the plot of Back to Reality and Back to Earth.
- Almighty Janitor: Chicken soup machine repairman Lister deliberately avoids doing smart or ambitious things in case he might risk his carefree life. He's in fact pretty smart and capable when he tries, and is well aware of what he's capable of.
- Alternate Universe: Parallel Universe and Backwards provide consecutive alternate universes.
- Americanitis: The American adaptation, which didn't last past its two(!) never-aired pilot episodes.
- Perhaps it's just as well. From an article this troper read somewhere it sounded like most of the episodes they came up with were just slight touch-ups of existing ones, the ones remembered most clearly being redone versions of The Last Day and Camille.
- Apparently the original cast refer to the American version as 'White Dwarf', given that the actors playing The Cat and Lister (black and mixed-race respectively in the UK cast) were white.
- And Then I Said: Rimmer pulls this out in Better Than Life but can't come up with something he might have said and is forced to admit he "doesn't remember." Since it's his fantasy, his dinnermates laugh anyway.
- Anti Hero: Lister is a nice guy, but he's hardly got heroic attitudes.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Rimmer is an atheist and doesn't even pay lip service to the tiniest possibility of there being a god, but spends the first two series searching for aliens everywhere he can and declaring the flimsiest evidence to be proof of alien existence and involvement.
Lister: Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens, as well.
Rimmer: Well, we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
Lister: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?
Rimmer: Just because they're aliens doesn't mean to say they don't have to visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and alien-esque, like it comes out of the top of their heads or something.
Lister: ...well, I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
- Armchair Military: Rimmer.
- Ascended Extra: Kryten appears in the premiere of Series 2 and becomes a regular in Series 3, Kochanski makes two appearances in Series 1, one in Series 2 and one in Series 6 (actually a GELF in disguise) before becoming a regular in Series 7 and Captain Hollister appears but twice in Series 1 and again in "Stasis Leak" before returning as a regular in Series 8.
- Notably, despite the fact that Captain Hollister went the most time between his last appearance as a guest and his debut as a regular (11 years), his is the only case in which the actor who played him ascended as well. David Ross declined the opportunity to join the main cast due to his distaste for the Kryten makeup and was replaced by Robert Llewellyn, and Clare Grogan was unavailable when Series 7 began, resulting in Chloë Annett taking over as Kochanski.
- Asymmetric Dilemma: Kryten's favorite way of pointing out the flaws in the Cat's plans.
Kryten: A superlative suggestion, sir, with just two minor flaws. One, we don't have any defensive shields, and two, we don't have any defensive shields. Now, I realize that, technically speaking, that's only one flaw, but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: Rimmer has a videocassette of his death.
- A Wizard Did It: In one of the Smeg Ups specials, Kryten used this as an explanation.
- Back To Front: The episode Backwards
lost won awards. Well, it should have, just for the bar room tidy
- Baleful Polymorph: The Cat after becoming Duane "Duke of Dork" Dibbley as part of a series of Involuntary Transformation scenes of the appropriately named Emohawk: Polymorph II. Subverted and inverted with Rimmer; Ace is brave and selfless by contrast to normal Rimmer.
- Bar Brawl: Except it's a "bar room tidy". Unrumble!
- Also, the real bar room brawl in Gunmen of the Apocalypse
- Barrier Busting Blow: Low Kryten hits Lister with one in Demons and Angels.
- Batman Gambit: Kochanski, of all people, in Beyond a Joke. She instructs Cat to turn Starbug so it flies away from the Centauri which Kryten is on. The ship's pilot, a Simulant, after realising they're not giving chase and actually fleeing, assumes they've planted a bomb on his own vessel. Cat and Lister are fooled too.
- Battle Butler: Kryten, in later seasons, although he is programmed never to take a human life. When he is forced to shoot a man to save a child, his guilt chip goes into overdrive and he attempts to commit suicide.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Rimmer spends the first few minutes of Only the Good... complaining that Hollister doesn't see him as officer material. He has a run-in with a vending machine which states that one day they'll meet again and it will destroy him, and Rimmer snarks that on that day, he'll be ship's captain. By the end of the episode, everyone higher ranked than him had been evacuated making him the highest ranked person on the ship, and as he tries to figure out how to save himself, the machine attacks. It's not certain how he fared.
- Big Damn Heroes: Ace Rimmer would have nothing to live for without this trope.
- Bond One Liner: Played For Laughs with Ace Rimmer.
- Born In The Wrong Century: Rimmer loves to use this as an excuse for his behavior.
- Brain In A Jar: Lister's evil, corrupt future self from Out of Time; the jar has his dreadlocks Sellotaped to the glass.
- Brain Uploading: All holograms, and also the episodes Thanks for the Memory and Body Swap.
- Brainy Specs: Geeky genius-Rimmer wears glasses after his mind patching in Holoship. Similarly in Polymorph, after the chameleonic lifeform has drained away all of Rimmer's anger, he turns into an ultra-pacifist liberal sporting hornrimmed glasses and a goatee and proposes to hit the monster with "a major leaflet campaign".
- Also, in White Hole, they were originally going to make Holly bald with tea-shades, after her IQ goes to 12,000.
- Breaking The Fourth Wall: A possible example. It's not clear when Cat surmises that the Dog wants to eat him (Parallel Universe) whether he's addressing the camera or not.
- But then, in the first two series, the Cat had a habit of speaking his thoughts out loud in an un-self-conscious manner. Apparently, that's what the Cat's people did.
- Brilliant But Lazy: For all his appalling personal habits and seeming stupidity, Lister is in fact quite intelligent, talented, capable and competent. He just prefers the life of an abject slob.
- Captains Log: Holly would start the episodes of the first two series with a sort-of Captains Log introduction. Captain Hollister also keeps a diary of some kind.
- The Cast Showoff: Rimmer's impressions and parroting while he malfunctions in "Queeg". Chris Barrie is a trained impersonator who had already starred in Spitting Image.
- Similarly, Danny John-Jules is a trained dancer, and dance sequences for Cat are done by several episodes.
- Cargo Cult: Played straight by the Cat civilization, which, as the Cats developed sentience and formed a religion, put Lister at the top as their god, Cloister the Stupid. Subverted, somewhat, by Rimmerworld; despite being the literal creator and progenitor of the world and its inhabitants, who are fiercely hierarchical, Rimmer himself is quickly thrown in prison and spends hundreds of years there for not being perfect enough.
- Catapult Nightmare: Lister in Blue, after he and Rimmer kiss in the dream.
- Catch Phrase
Holly: "Alright, dudes?"
Ace Rimmer: "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
- Cattle Punk: Second half of Gunmen of the Apocalypse.
- Character Derailment: The Cat goes from being a rather ditzy guy who acts like a cat and likes his clothes to a guy who's obsessed with fashion and sometimes says stupid things to just being really, really stupid.
- The Chew Toy: Rimmer. Lampshaded in Better Than Life where, even in a video game which fulfills one's ultimate fantasies, Rimmer is the Chew Toy: "My brain's rebelling because it can't accept good things happening to me!"
- The Chris Carter Effect: The first two series had a Myth Arc which foreshadowed future plot points and Character Development... which was subsequently dropped for a Monster Of The Week-type routine at the start of series III.
- As they got significant commercial and critical success with the new routine, it's understandable that they stuck with it.
- Claustrophobia: Lister. Lampshaded that it only comes up when it makes the plot more dramatic.
- Cluster Smeg Bomb: Lister and Rimmer, one each.
- Cold Opening: Stoke Me a Clipper had an opening scene four or five minutes long before finally kicking into the opening sequence. But that's excusable.
- Commuting On A Bus: Rimmer (sort of) for part of Series VII and Holly for Series VI and VII (excluding the finale).
- Consulting Mr Flibble: Trope Namer, Rimmer in Quarantine.
- Contemplate Our Navels: Either played straight or as a parody of science fiction in general being wont to do this, much of the show was taken up by philosophical ideas via sci-fi trappings, i.e. the manifestation of Lister's Confidence and Paranoia, or the Inquisitor.
- Contested Sequel: After the Grant/Naylor writing partnership broke up in 1993, both writers penned a new Red Dwarf novel: Doug Naylor wrote Last Human in 1995, and Rob Grant wrote Backwards in 1996. Each one ignores the other and is written as following the second book Better Than Life, making them both contested sequels.
- Control Freak: Rimmer.
- Couch Gag: The final line or two of Holly's show-opening distress calls in the first two series.
- Couldnt Find A Pen: In Psirens, the crew find a message left by a man who, lacking a pen, used his own blood and intestines. They were torn as to whether he used his kidney as a full stop (period) or whether it had just "plopped out."
- Courtroom Episode: "Justice".
- Credits Gag: In Waiting for God, the credits stop as Rimmer comes to his horrible realization. Rimmer and the skutters play the end theme on a Hammond organ in Dimension Jump, while Elvis sings it in Meltdown.
- In the remastered version of Backwards, the credits are indeed shown backwards.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: Apart from the theme tune, Tongue Tied could count. And of course, the Rimmer Song.
- Also, from Queeg, there's a brief rendition of Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling, sung by Howard Goodall (who sang the chorus of the aforementioned Rimmer Song and composed the theme tune) as Holly prepares for his showdown with the title character. It's only short, but it's incredibly well done.
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: If you absolutely had to pick one, then the Not What It Looks Like scene in Polymorph would be a strong contender.
[extremely long pause]
Rimmer: Well, I can't say I'm totally shocked...
- Cuckoo Nest: Back to Reality tries to convince the crew that they were really immersed in a Red Dwarf video game, a prospect all the more demoralizing when they discover the kinds of people they "really" are and the world they inhabit.
- Curse Cut Short: Possible example in Rimmerworld. As Rimmer falls toward the wormhole, he launches into a tirade which cuts off after several adjectives.
- Cut His Heart Out With A Spoon: One of the recurring jokes on the show is characters threatening very unusual and elaborate acts of violence against each other; i.e., "rip out his windpipe and beat him to death with the tonsil end," "shove my fist so far down his gob, I'll be able to pull the label off his underpants..."
- Darker And Edgier: The novel continuity, for the better in some ways. It retains the absurdist humour, but devotes much of a chapter to Lister having a spectacular mental breakdown in which Drowning My Sorrows is not played for comedy in the least. Rimmer's massive self-image problems and crippling neuroses aren't played for laughs quite so much either, and he's made slightly more rounded as a result.
- Deadpan Snarker: All of the main characters to varying degrees.
- Deep Immersion Gaming: The titular video game in episode Better Than Life, the premise of Back to Reality.
- Deflector Shields: Averted; they don't have any.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Rimmer, of all people, knees the Grim Reaper in the groin.
- Dirty Coward: Rimmer, up and down.
- Downer Ending: Only the Good.... Averted with the recent special, Back to Earth.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Queeg in Queeg.
- Dropped A Bridge On Him: The offscreen death of Kochanski is a subversion, as she is given a Tear Jerker memorial scene in Part One, and in Part Two it is revealed she is still alive and Kryten lied about it to Lister.
- Duke Nukem Forever: The Movie's coming out! Soon! Really!
- Ear Worm: "It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere...."
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Arnold Judas Rimmer; he tells people who first meet him that it's "Jonathan."
- Empathic Environment: The psi-moon in ''Terrorform".
- Enemies With Death: Rimmer.
- Enhance Button: Parodied mercilessly in Back To Earth. Uncrop!
- Enemy Without: The crew (and ship) are split into "High" and "Low" copies in Demons and Angels; the Highs don't survive very long when they encounter the Lows. In Terrorform, the entire planet is literally Rimmer's self-hatred attacking him.
- Esperanto The Universal Language: Most of the ship's labels are in both English and Esperanto. Rimmer spends much of the first two seasons failing to learn the language.
- Even The Guys Want Him: Space Corps Special Service Test Pilot Arnold "Ace" Rimmer.
Bongo: If you're interested, I'll be in my quarters at lunchtime, covered in tarama salada.
Ace: I didn't know your bread was buttered that side, Bongo.
Bongo: It isn't. I've been happily married for 35 years. It's just, a chap like you can turn a guy's head.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: The core premise; the show is the Trope Namer.
- Everythings Better With Bob: ...as in Bob the Skutter.
- Everythings Better With Penguins: Mr. Flibble.
- Everything Trying To Kill You: In the book version of Better Than Life, when Lister crashes on a planet which turns out to be Earth, the planet itself seems to be out to get him.
- Evil Twin: The Low counterparts in Demons and Angels. An evil imitation of Lister shows up in Psirens.
- Evolutionary Levels: The evolution of the Cat race stopped once they reached humanoid, plus or minus a few nipples.
- Extreme Omnivore: Lister's fondness for curries and spices of all sorts means his ordinary meals tend to be gross (like, onion-and-tabasco cornflakes served with a glass of cold chili sauce-level gross), and the stuff he's eaten that he thinks is unusual ... Some of the more notable items have included swarfega (industrial-grade soap used to remove oil) mixed with glass cleaner, a baked space weevil (which he didn't look at and which he thought, from the taste, was crunchy King Prawn), dog food (because he was starving, admittedly), dog's milk in his tea (he didn't know — once he finds out he throws it out), beer milkshakes, and a live tarantula. Admittedly that last one wasn't voluntary. The fact he's a major boozehound presumably doesn't help matters.
- And a triple fried-egg chili chutney sandwich.
Rimmer: I feel like I'm having a baby!
Lister: The trick is, you've got to eat it before the bread dissolves...
- Lister is stated to have only a few functioning taste buds remaining (or just the one).
- The dog's milk proved a bit much even for him in the novels.
- Explosive Instrumentation: A couple times early on, more frequent in the later series. Lister, the Cat and Kryten all die to exploding instrument panels in Out of Time.
- Explosive Overclocking: In White Hole, the crew overclocks Holly, who's been descending deeper and deeper into computer senility, hoping to bring her intelligence back. They get her to an IQ of 12,000, but it drops her lifespan down to less than four minutes.
- Failure Is The Only Option: Getting back to Earth.
- Faster Than Light Travel: Explicitly done in Future Echoes. In the first novel, it's more of an accident; Holly didn't intend to make the ship go faster than light, and everyone's in agreement that it's not at all possible. But Red Dwarf has been accelerating for three million years. Something's got to give.
- Fetish Fuel: Out of the four main cast, one's in leather, one's in rubber, one's in lycra and the other's in PVC.
- Kochanski's first Series VII outfit seems to be made primarily of skin-tight, red rubber.
- Fictional Document: The Space Corps Directives.
- Finger Licking Poison: In Back in the Red, with a (non-lethal) drug in the seal of an envelope.
- Fix It In Post: In a smeg-up from Meltdown, Lister knocks on an obviously-wooden-sounding wall and says, matter-of-factly, "Stone," causing the audience to start laughing. Their laughter set off Danny John-Jules, further ruining the take, and Craig Charles tried to explain that it would have been fixed "in the dub."
- For Want Of A Nail: One little split in the destiny line created Ace Rimmer.
- However, Rimmer passing the test and not being held back a year made him our Rimmer.
- Freaky Friday: Bodyswap.
- Furry Fandom: Although it was made before the Internet made the fandom famous, DNA has Rimmer ask incredulously if Lister is claiming to enjoy strapping on a bushy tail and naming himself 'Nutkin' when Lister, attempting to explain why he feels Kryten should change back into a Mechanoid, mentions his envy of a squirrel he saw in the botanical gardens after getting dumped by Kochanski.
- Future Imperfect: The Cat race took Lister and his dream of retiring to Fiji and turned them into the Cat god Cloister the Stupid and the promised land of Fuschal. Lister, Rimmer and even Holly make historical inaccuracies, but it's tough to tell whether they're owed to widespread historical distortion or to the many varied failings of the characters.
- Future Me Scares Me: Played for laughs in Stasis Leak, played straight in Out of Time.
- Gag Penis: Kryten's "groin attachment." Archie could perhaps qualify as well.
- In Only the Good..., Rimmer gets one (not seen) in the universe where everything's opposite.
- Gainax Ending: Back To Earth has retroactively turned Only the Good... into this. The End? The smeg it was...
- Gargle Blaster: Several. Holly's "android home brew" in The Last Day is lethal to humans, and probably to androids as well. Kryten creates an alcoholic drink for the crew in Series 6 out of recycled urine. In Gunmen of the Apocalypse, Sheriff Kryten asks for the stuff that guarantees you'll get your eyesight back in three days. Baxter's hooch in Only the Good... is "about 300% proof," according to Rimmer.
- Gender Bender: Holly.
- Genre Savvy: The little girl on the bus in Back to Earth is well aware of the Never Found The Body trope and points out to Lister this means that Kochanski must be alive. She's got that trope down.
- To say nothing of humanity forestalling a Robot War by hard-coding all sentient robots with religion.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar:
- Ghost City: Tikka To Ride.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Despair Squid was the result of compressing 5 billion years of evolution into 3 years. It killed just about everything in the ocean.
- Good Angel Bad Angel: Confidence and Paranoia in, unsurprisingly, Confidence and Paranoia.
- Green Eggs: All over the table in Legion.
- Groin Attack: Rimmer does this to the Grim Reaper in Only the Good..., has it done to him (in a way) by Lister in Back to Earth, and gets it from Petersen's arm in Balance of Power after he thinks he's outsmarted it. It had previously been aiming much higher.
- Hand Or Object Underwear: Done with pieces of paper that say "Top Secret."
- Hand Puppet: Mr. Flibble, a cute but evil toy penguin through which Rimmer channels his hex energy while infected with the holovirus in Quarantine.
- Hard Light: Rimmer, post-Legion.
- The Heartless: Terrorform is a planet without even the vestiges of a heart that Rimmer has.
- Helping Hands: Kryten's hand is able to return to the ship and get help in Terrorform, though it scares the hell out of Lister and Cat first. We learn in series 8 that it's not Kryten's only fully-functional detachable part.
- Heroic Sacrifice JFK assassinating himself in Tikka to Ride.
- Hey Its That Guy: The titular Cassandra is played by Geraldine McEwan (of Henry V and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves fame).
- Craig Charles lampshaded this when they were filming the reunion scene with Selby and Chen. He replied to Kryten's question, 'You know these people, sir?', exclaiming, 'Of course I do - they're in East Enders!'
- Historical In Joke
Lister: (talking to a crowd listening to Hitler) "Don't listen to him, he's a complete nutter! And he's only got one testicle!"
- And the Who Shot JFK spoof (Tikka to Ride), in which Kennedy ended up shooting his own past self because it turned out the timeline in which he survived became a Crapsack World.
- Holodeck Malfunction: Gunmen of the Apocalypse.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Lister isn't that big. In fact, in the later seasons, he's downright scrawny.
- His size doesn't really referred to outside of "Bodyswap", is it?
- Homoerotic Dream: One of Lister's dreams after Arnold Rimmer left Red Dwarf to become the next Ace involves a kiss between Lister and Rimmer which Lister wakes up from quite shocked.
- Human Popsicle: Lister. He was supposed to be put there for 18 months as punishment.
- Humongous Mecha: Blue Midget's redraw could count as one.
- I Always Wanted To Say That: Subverted in Rimmerworld:
Lister: This might sound like a bit of a corny line, but... can't even bring myself to say it...
Rimmerguard: Say what?
Lister: [visibly wincing] "Take us to your leader?"
Kryten: Oh, sir, how could you?
- I Am Legion: In, er, Legion.
- I Call Him Mister Happy: Archie.
- Identical Grandson: Lister. He's the child of the second Kochanski and himself.
- Also, one of Lister's other sons seems to be identical to him, or at least similar enough to fool Lister's bunkmate without trying. Logical one, perhaps, as their
mother father is a female version of Lister.
- Intangible Man: As a soft-light hologram, Rimmer is often complaining that he cannot touch or taste or feel anything, and in one scene in Balance of Power when Rimmer tries to block Lister's path, Lister simply walks out through Rimmer.
- I Cannot Self Terminate: Averted. Kryten is often quite willing to shoot himself when feeling especially guilty.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: In DNA and Emohawk: Polymorph II.
- It Came From The Fridge: The curry monster in DNA.
- Jeannie Cut: For the purpose of grabbing hologrammatic items from the air.
- Jonas Quinn: Inverted. The original, living Rimmer from the first half of the pilot comes back for series 8, replacing the hologrammatic Rimmer who had been there until series 7.
- Journey To The Center Of The Mind: Terrorform.
- Sort of. More 'Journey to a Planet that Has Shaped itself to Represent Someone's Mind.'
- Jumping On A Grenade: Ace does this in Emohawk: Polymorph II. Since he's Hard Light and virtually indestructible, he's none the worse for wear.
- Killed Mid Sentence: Kryten.
- The Last Man Heard A Knock: Lister's the last human being alive for most of the show, but he's never alone.
- Last Of His Kind: The Cat and Lister at least until the arrival of first Kochanski and later the whole crew of Red Dwarf). Of course, the cat race still exists somewhere Out There, and one of the "lost episodes" that exists only as storyboard (see the DVD extras) would have featured a visit to a planet of Cat's people, as a spoof of the Star Trek TOS episode Amok Time.
- Leaning On The Fourth Wall: The pub owner's reverse rant in Backwards, ostensibly informing Kryten and Rimmer they're fired, actually criticises the 'one sad git' who's reversed the recording. Of course, when the episode was filmed, reversing it was complicated.
- Legacy Immortality: Ace Rimmer.
- Living Ship: Holly is pretty well alive and aware.
- Locked In A Freezer: Lister and Rimmer in Marooned, though Rimmer's in no danger.
- Logic Bomb: Kryten deactivates Hudzen-10 with one. Hudzen mentions a Silicon Heaven, which Kryten exclaims doesn't exist. Kryten and Holly persuade Hudzen they're telling the truth, and Hudzen, having been programmed to believe in Silicon Heaven, shuts down. Kryten did believe in Silicon Heaven, but was able to lie due to Lister's programming breaking.
- After all, where would all the calculators go?
- Lotus Eater Machine: Several episodes. For details, see the Red Dwarf entries for that trope.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Lister's GELF wife in Emohawk: Polymorph II.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The end theme is an upbeat number that starts with the words, "it's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere; I'm all alone, more or less."
- Tongue Tied is an upbeat love song which describes the metaphorical reactions of a person when they're pleased to see someone they love in gory detail.
- The Mad Hatter: Dr. Langstrom in Quarantine.
- Man I Feel Like A Woman: Rimmer becomes Kochanski in Balance of Power. He doesn't concern himself with feeling his feminine physique until the process is only partly reversed by Holly.
- Mayor Of A Ghost Town: They've got the run of the ship; with a few exceptions, they've got the run of the universe, really.
- Medium Blending: The claymation episode.
- Memetic Mutation: "Mr. Flibble's very cross."
- "ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI??!"
- "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast". Actually mutated within the show itself: "Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas. [pause] Whatever."
- "But, where would all the calculators go?"
- "Gazpacho soup!!"
- "Everybodys Dead Dave"
- Merlin Sickness: Backwards.
- Mind Screw: Quite a few examples, but Backwards the novel and "Back to Earth" took it Up To Eleven.
- Missing Episode: Played with in Back to Earth in that there were two more seasons of Red Dwarf somehow made in the 'real world' that the crew land in, which we of course don't have.
- And worst of all, Series IX was apparently "the best by miles."
- And in real life, too, Doug Naylor has said something along the lines of "I have no interest in writing Series IX... though I am interested in writing Series X".
- Not to mention there really are two missing episodes that were planned but never filmed. (One featuring the story of Lister's twin sons and Kryten's return should have opened season 3/Series III. The other was the Cat episode.)
- Mister Seahorse: Dave Lister's offscreen male pregnancy between the end of Parallel Universe and the start of the third season.
- Mix And Match: Sit Com combined with sci-fi spaceship adventure.
- Motive Decay: Beginning with Series 3, the crew seem to forget that their main aim is to return to Earth and instead concentrate on having adventures. This objective gets picked up again much later in the series.
- Justified somewhat in that they're three million years away from Earth, the human species is probably extinct and Lister and the Cat have decided against going into stasis. Given the unlikelihood of their returning to Earth, and the fact that, even if they did so, it wouldn't be the Earth they left, it's understandable that "go directly back to Earth" would become "saunter vaguely in Earth's direction while seeing what else is out there."
- Mr Exposition: Holly, and later Kryten.
- Mr Vice Guy: Lister's a good guy who likes nothing more than laying around, not doing anything beyond eating, drinking and maybe annoying Rimmer.
- MST 3 K Mantra: How'd we find a traffic cone in deep space? How can the ship suddenly maintain two holograms at the same time? Eh...let's just never mention it.
- They realized the two-hologram thing was off. In the novel, the second Rimmer hologram is maintained by the Nova 5.
- My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels: Rimmer's attempts at Esperanto in Kryten.
- Nakama: The crew aren't the closest-knit bunch, but this gets them out of the trap of Rimmer's mind in Terrorform. Once they're safe, they immediately and unanimously confirm to Rimmer that they didn't mean any of it.
- Nanomachines: Nanobots are responsible for rebuilding the whole of Red Dwarf, crew included, at the end of series 7.
- Necro Non Sequitur: Cassandra's demise.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Averted, subverted and kicked to the floor by Duane Dibbley.
- Never Say That Again: Kryten can't handle being called "tetchy" in Quarantine.
- Never Trust A Trailer: The intro that made it look like an action-heavy adventure show.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: The Inquisitor; subverted by his attempts to populate the universe with meaningful humans.
- No Periods Period: Lampshaded and averted. It's briefly mentioned in Balance of Power when Kochanski (really Rimmer) claims to be "having a woman's period." In Only the Good..., Lister explains to Kryten why the second Kochanski has said it's the wrong time of the month. Kryten is shocked that television and film have so successfully avoided this. Kryten, armed with this new knowledge of the female body, hilariously averts the trope.
- No Water Proofing In The Future: Kryten, and all the other Series 4000 mechanoids of his type.
- Non Sequitur Thud: Happens to Kryten after he's used as a battering ram, and briefly starts calling Lister "Susan."
- And also in Quarantine when the insane Rimmer telekinetically attacks him with a fire axe.
- Not So Innocent Whistle: In Back to Earth, Kryten demonstrates his "Innocent Whistle Mode" after being caught conspiring with Rimmer.
- Now Do It Again Backwards: It's how Red Dwarf is reconstituted from its High and Low counterparts in Demons and Angels.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Holly in Queeg
- Male Holly in general, arguably.
- One Man Army: Ace Rimmer. In Stoke Me a Clipper, he downs a Luftwaffe plane, takes out a whole squad of Nazi soldiers apart from one and simultaneously rescues a princess. What a guy.
- One Scene Wonder: Mr. Flibble, despite having only a few minutes of screen time and no recognisable speaking lines, has fans, real hand puppet merchandise and even his own trope.
- Opposite Sex Clone: Well, opposite sex dimension in Parallel Universe.
- Rimmer eventually, after several failures breeds an actual opposite sex clone of himself in the episode Rimmerworld.
- The Other Darrin: Several:
- Holly, the ship's computer and most notable example, was played by Norman Lovett for Series I-II and was replaced by Hattie Hayridge for Series III-V before being Put On A Bus in Series VI. When the character returned for Series VIII (and the Series VII finale), Holly was once again played by Norman Lovett.
- Kryten, the mechanoid, was a one-off character in Series II played by David Ross. When he became a regular in Series III, Ross was unavailable and Robert Llewellyn replaced him for the rest of the show's run.
- Talkie Toaster (Exactly What It Says On The Tin) was voiced by John Lenahan in Series I and II (although his scenes were cut for the latter.) When the character resurfaced briefly in a Series IV episode (White Hole), not only was he voiced by David Ross (the original Kryten) but the original prop had been replaced as well.
- Kristine Kochanski was a guest character in Series I, II and VI, and played by Clare Grogan. When the character became a main character in Series VII, Grogan was unavailable and Chloë Annett replaced her.
- Painful Rhyme: Blue's Rimmer song.
- Paint It Black: Evil Holly and Evil Lister in Demons and Angels.
- Pardon My Klingon: "Smeg," "gimboid" and variants.
- Parental Incest: Averted in the show, played straight in one of the books. Lister attempts to get off with Kochanski's second incarnation knowing full well she's his mother (via IVF; he's his father). In one of the books, it's suggested he actually does.
- Given the circumstances, it's kind of too late for him to worry about this.
- Pass The Popcorn: Watching the black box recording in Thanks for the Memory.
- Also, in Terrorform, when Rimmer is about to be raped and Lister explains they can either rescue him or sit and watch, Cat asks if anyone has any opera glasses.
- Phrase Catcher: Ace Rimmer, "What a guy!"
- Pinball Projectile: In the famous "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" episode.
- Pointy Haired Boss: Captain Frank Hollister is revealed to have only reached his rank through blackmail (from the lowly position of Doughnut Boy, no less), implying that he is only marginally more qualified than Rimmer or Lister, though clearly more clever and/or more ambitious.
- The Poochie: Averted with Kryten, who fit into the main cast perfectly; it felt like he'd been in it all along. The ill-fated Americanization put him in the first (only) episode.
- Precision F Strike: Rimmer gets to say 'bastard' on three occasions, all of which count.
- Precursors: Subverted: all life in the universe originated on Earth, which makes us the Precursors.
- Projected Man: Rimmer, the hologram.
- Prophetic Fallacy: In Cassandra, Cassandra predicts Rimmer will die in 20 minutes, but doesn't know who Rimmer is. Rimmer gives his jacket and nametag to another crewmember, who does die in 20 minutes, apparently "Rimmer" to any onlooker.
- Put On A Bus: Holly, once in Series VI and VII, and again in the Dave specials Back to Earth (he's fine, just temporarily out of commission for the duration of the episodes).
- Rape As Comedy: Rimmer had sex with a concussed woman who thought he was her partner. Just what television needs: Another rapist main character.
- This becomes an Authors Saving Throw in one of the novels, where it was established that Rimmer's partner really did have feelings for him, and he for her. They just never acted on those feelings because of that incredibly bizarre first night... and then she had his kid. Really, it was a great idea from an incredibly awkward joke.
- Just because someone has feelings for a person doesn't give the person the right to have sex with them while they're in an altered state of mind.
- This troper doesn't know quite what your on about; Mc Gruder +was+ recently ejected from medic-bay, but she'd been in love with Rimmer for ages, they met in the elevator and went out for a week or so; and all that time Lister gave Rimmer smeg saying 'She's only with you because she's concussed', so Rimmer devised a test based upon I won't call her she'll call me; and he stuck to that. Mc Gruder meanwhile while preparing for their date slipped into a minicoma, and when she awoke she thought she'd fantasised her week with Rimmer. So she developed a little test... They spent years walking past each other in the corridors in bitterness.
- Reality Subtext: Derailed by large hiatus at peak of UK popularity.
- Also completely changed the course of Series VIII. Originally, it was going to end with a two-parter, culminating in the crew finally returning to Earth but obliterating civilisation as they arrive. However, circumstances meant the hour-long series opener had to become a three-parter, another episode had to become a two-parter and the series had to finish on a cliffhanger.
- Refugee From TV Land: The crew - or so they initially think in Back To Earth.
- Reincarnation: Rimmer claims to have been chief eunuch to Alexander the Great.
- Replacement Goldfish: Averted when Kryten defeats Hudzen. Referenced when Rimmer becomes the next Ace.
- Replacement Scrappy: Kochanski replacing Rimmer as a regular in series VII.
- Not really — Kochanski was set to become a major character that series even before they found out Chris Barrie was quitting.
- That Kochanski was a Replacement Scrappy for the first Kochanski. And since he did leave, it counts anyway.
- Reset Button: White Hole (although a later episode implies it wasn't quite a total reset) and the beginning of Tikka to Ride after everyone aboard Starbug had been killed and the craft exploded at the end of Out of Time.
- Retool: The writers were always willing to pick quality over continuity, no matter how drastic the change.
- Revival - Two of them: Series VII was broadcast after a four-year hiatus, and the three-part Back to Earth was broadcast after a ten-year hiatus.
- Re Write: Too many to count. The creators always maintained that if altering the Back Story could improve the show, then they should alter it.
- Although some of it makes sense. Whose idea was it to give Rimmer a job that could endanger the entire crew?
- Then they used Rule Of Funny and rewrote the Re Write, implying that the job was so easy that anyone that could mess it up must have the brains the size of a newt's testicle.
- Right Behind Me: Rimmer realizes, too late, that's where Captain Hollister is standing.
- Robo Cam: Hudzen in The Last Day, Kryten in Terrorform.
- Robo Family: Kryten has a brother, Able, who was created by the same woman.
- Rule Of Funny: The writers have no problem tossing the show's conventions aside if they can get a better laugh without them. Notable examples include Kryten's lies; they normally had to be preceded by Kryten declaring himself to be in "Lie Mode" (obviously undermining the believability of his lie), except when they didn't.
Kryten: You won't feel a thing. I'll render you unconcious using the Ionian nerve grip.
Rimmer closes his eyes and braces himself as Kryten grabs his neck... and then breaks a vase over his head.
Rimmer: That's not an Ionian nerve grip! That's smashing me over the head with a vase!
Kryten: There's no such thing as an Ionian nerve grip. Now stand still while I hit you.
- Rule Number One: The Space Corps Directives.
- Sacrificial Lamb: The Red Dwarf crew in the first episode. Several of them reappeared in flashbacks, and the entire crew were resurrected for series 8.
- Satire Parody Pastiche: Many over the years, including Casablanca in Camille and Blade Runner in Back to Earth.
- Scapegoat Creator: Since the Grant/Naylor partnership broke up, many fans have claimed that Rob Grant alone was responsible for the show's early greatness, and that Doug Naylor is just a hack with ideas above his station (citing the drop-off in quality in the last two seasons, and the slightly better reception of Backwards compared to Last Human). To a lesser extent this also applies to Paul Alexander, who took over as Naylor's main writing partner after Grant quit.
- The problem is that all indications are that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts; Grant alone has plenty of bad ideas.
- A slightly more charitable (if still somewhat simplistic) viewpoint is that Naylor was responsible for more of the 'science fiction' angle of the show (some of the seasons he did solo seemed to focus more on science fiction concepts rather than comedy), and that Grant was responsible for more of the funny.
- Screw Yourself: Dave Lister has drunken sex with his gender opposite, Deb Lister, in the Opposite Sex dimension, which leads to him actually getting pregnant despite his protestations of "But I can't be pregnant! I'm a guy! I don't have the... equipment!" (see also entry on the trope page) Cat plans to have sex with himself (the only person he could ever love), but his opposite is actually a male dog.
- Seasonal Rot: The last two seasons tended to be highly variable in their quality.
- Shirtless Scene: Three of the four main cast (even Kryten), except, oddly, for the Cat, who is supposed to be the most sexy. May have to do with the fact that the Cat mentions he perms his leg hair...
- Well, he thinks so. The fact that Danny John-Jules is made of rubber is neither here nor there.
- In the episode Kryten, the cat informs the audience that he's "so excited all six of [his] nipples are tingling." Not showing him shirtless was probably a combination of the "cat" physiology being difficult to show, and the weightier problem of the "cat" physiology being difficult to show without squicking the audience out completely. Had they shown him shirtless, his attraction value/percieved sexiness might have been Ruined FOREVER.
- It's very simple. Another way to describe "shirtless" is "badly dressed."
- Furthermore, at least some of the Cat's 'sexiness' exists primarily in his own head.
- Shoot The Shaggy Dog: The entire Felix Sapien (Felis sapiens) Civil Wars. They fought over the colour the hats should be (red or blue). Not only would Lister not have approved, but they both were wrong (he wanted green). Leads into Silly Reason For War.
- Silly Reason For War: The above.
- Self Fulfilling Prophecy: Cassandra claims that a character will die of a heart attack after being told he's going to die of a heart attack. Similarly, she prophesies that she will be killed by one Dave Lister; Lister's conscious attempt not to harm her leads to her accidental demise.
- In "Future Echoes", Rimmer sees an echo of Dave dying at a computer console. To prove the future isn't set in stone, he tries to prevent another echo, Cat breaking a tooth. Bet you can't guess what happens next.
- Share The Male Pain: Referenced and explained in the episode Legion, where the titular Legion explains that any pain he feels is conveyed to the rest of the crew. He stabs his hand to show them and then tells them not to anger him, or "it'll be ''there''".
- Shoot The Bullet: The Riviera Kid demonstrates this ability in the VR episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse.
- Shout Out: The first two series' title music is very reminiscent of Also Sprach Zarathustra from 2001. The name Holly is a Shout Out to HAL, too. (In the short sketch Dave Hollins, Space Cadet that mutated into the pitch for the series, he's known as 'Hally'.)
- Speaking of music, Ace "What a guy!" Rimmer's theme in Dimension Jump could very well be a shout out to "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun. A different theme was used in Stoke Me A Clipper.
- There's a Shout Out to Die Hard 2: Die Harder in DNA; Lister exclaims "How can the same smeg happen to the same guy twice?" after he is attacked yet again by his favorite foods.
- Smart People Play Chess: Used by Queeg after being challenged to a duel by Holly.
- Spaceship Girl: Holly starts off as a male AI interface, but undergoes a sex change after the second season.
- Note: Holly in either incarnation was attracted to other AI (and sometimes even humans) of the opposite gender. The series never calls attention to the inherent questions this raises, and it's probably best not to think about it too much.
- Spot The Imposter: In Psirens. The real Lister couldn't play guitar to save his life, but since he thinks he can play guitar like a pro, the Psiren that had taken Lister's form read his mind and played guitar accordingly. And was promptly shot.
- The 'imposter' Lister's hands are played by Phil Manzanera. Apparently the writers wanted Brian May of Queen for that part, but he wasn't available - but his wife, actress Anita Dobson, got the part of Captain Tau.
- Sorry I Fell On Your Fist: The "Good" or "High" version of the crew members from Demons and Angels. With knives and bullets from the "Low" Dwarfers.
- Strange Salute: The novels establish that it's actually Rimmer's own invention, and he's trying to sell the Space Corps on the idea of adopting it. This tells you almost everything you need to know about Rimmer.
- Studio Audience: Had one until the end of series 8. In more special effects heavy episodes ("Backwards", "Bodyswap") and the more filmic seventh series had the audience response to a preview tape rather than a Laugh Track.
- Subverted Trope: Several.
- Survived The Beginning: Lister's survival makes the series possible.
- Temporal Paradox: Lister is the son of his future self and the alternate Kochanski. The whole thing is neatly sewn up by the word "Ouroboros", implying it's a cycle, a temporal loop.
- Also, the battle between Starbug and future Starbug in Out of Time. The evil crew win with their advanced weapons systems, but because they destroyed their previous selves, they didn't exist to fight Starbug. Lister, in the next episode, tried to explain why they weren't dead, but the camera he was talking to exploded.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: Invoked after Kryten is ordered into a waste compactor by a Psiren and crushed into a cube.
Kryten: I'm almost annoyed.
- That Was Objectionable: Rimmer repeatedly objected to his own defense counsel in Justice — and was overruled by the judge AI of the prison spacestation every time — because Kryten's defense strategy hinged on proving that Rimmer was too all-around incompetent to have been liable for the disaster aboard Red Dwarf that he felt guilty for.
"A man of such awesome stupidity, he even objects to his own defense counsel!"
- Terraform: Terrorform somewhat, Back to Reality, Rimmerworld.
- Technology Marches On: Lampshaded in Back to Earth when Kryten and Lister discuss how 21st century DVDs were later replaced by "superior" technology — video tapes — because those were too large to lose, whereas it was scientifically proven that humans are incapable of putting DVDs back into their box... neatly explaining why the early series has the characters using VHS tapes despite the series being set in the future.
- This Is Not A Drill: In "Backwards"; "This is a drill." [sound of a jackhammer]
- And in a later episode when Holly's grammar chip is damaged... "Abandon shop! This is not a daffodil. Repeat, this is not a daffodil!"
- Time Travel: Stasis Leak, Backwards, Timeslides, Out of Time, Tikka to Ride and probably more.
- Timey Wimey Ball: Several, but a memorable and rather ingenious example comes from Future Echoes. Lister witnesses an echo of Rimmer, spouting apparently non-sequitur phrases before storming off indignantly. An instant later, Rimmer reappears on the other side of the room and Lister confronts him about what he's just seen... which causes Rimmer to say the phrases that previously seemed non-sequitur and then storm off indignantly. Don't worry, it confuses the characters as well.
- Also, the "So what is it?" scene in "White Hole".
- Title Drop: 'Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas!'
- Tomato In The Mirror: Rimmer in Rimmerworld. Also parodied in Out of Time with "robo"-Lister.
- Too Soon: The running order of Series IV was changed because of the Gulf War.
- Trademark Favourite Food: Lister and Curry. Especially Vindaloo.
- Trash Of The Titans
- Trojan Prisoner: Lister, with the help of the Cat and Kochanski.
- Uncanny Valley: Kryten claims this is why he looks less human than previous droids. Although this doesn't explain why his successor, Hudzen-10, looks more human.
- Also, Holly's forgotten command scene from Demons and Angels.
- Unusual Euphemism: Smeg. At least, it was supposed to be a thoroughly fictional profanity.
Rimmer: Why don't you smegging well smeg off, you annoying little smeggy smegging smegger?
- Use Your Head: Kryten, in White Hole.
- Used Future: From Series III onwards, when Mel Bibby became the set designer. The first two series were meant to have a grey submarine feel, but really just looked like plywood walls painted grey.
- Villain Song: Blue's Rimmer could perhaps be a subversion. It's not actually Rimmer (it's a simulation created from Rimmer's logbook). Although he's not technically a villain, it proves to Lister that Rimmer was an antagonist.
- Virtual Ghost: Rimmer.
- Waif Prophet: Subverted.
- We Need A Distraction: Played embarrassingly straight by Kryten in The Inquisitor.
Kryten: "Excuse me, could I just distract you for a brief second?"
- Who Shot JFK: He shot himself.
- Woolseyism: Backwards begins with some Star Wars expository text that speeds up too fast for the viewer to read. In some foreign dubs it is accompanied by a voice over, which also speeds up until unintelligible. And even if the US pilot is So Bad Its Horrible, there were a few gems in adapting jokes for an American audience ("Death? It's like being at an Amish bachelor party.")
- Xanadu: The ship is city-sized.
- You Fail The IQ Test: An IQ of 6000? Makes as much sense as anything in a 'verse as screwy as this one.
- You Need To Get Laid: The all-male cast's massive sexual frustration is something of a Running Gag in the early seasons, though this tapers off after the rest of the crew are brought back... with one unsurprising exception:
Kochanski: "...Rimmer?"
Rimmer: "Yes, ma'am?"
Kochanski: "Have sex with someone, and that's an order."
Rimmer: "Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am."
Lister: (hands Rimmer a business card) "Here — ring this number, say I sent you. Tell them it's an emergency."
- You Will Be Beethoven: See Who Shot JFK.
- Zany Scheme: The jailbreak in Rimmerworld. Immediately followed by A Simple Plan.
- Zero G Spot: Referenced, if not seen.
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