Trivia / Red Dwarf: Back to Earth

• Channel Hop: The miniseries was made for Dave, unlike all previous series which had been done for The BBC. The channel was even acknowledged in the miniseries with two young fans talking to Lister about it. One mentioned they watched it with their father and the other asked Lister what it was like to have a channel named after him.
• Doing It for the Art: Despite its small budget, the miniseries looks quite impressive for a TV production. This is because several members of the production team actually worked for free; the CG Skutter seen in part 1 was done entirely by one person for no pay, simply because he loved the show so much.
• Troubled Production: After Red Dwarf: The Movie died in Development Hell, the eventual Series IX took the form of a three-part miniseries. Unfortunately, they only had the budget for a two-part miniseries; it was originally supposed to be accompanied by a standalone special named "Red Dwarf Unplugged," where the cast would have performed classic Red Dwarf sketches before a live audience, but during a run-through it was realized that the special simply didn't work on any level whatsoever. Since Grant Naylor was still under contract to provide three episodes however, they had to stretch their minimal budget out in any way they could.
• What Could Have Been: Early in planning, this was meant to be a two-part story, accompanied by a special called Red Dwarf Unplugged which would have seen the cast performing classic Red Dwarf scenes in front of a live audience. When they tried to do a run-through however, nearly everyone involved realized that the idea simply wasn't going to work, and since Dave had already commissioned three episodes from Grant Naylor Productions, it necessitated changing Back to Earth into a three-part story.

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