A brief retrospective chronicling my slightly unhealthy fixation on Sci-Fi sitcom Red Dwarf. If you enjoyed this video, please take a look at my retro-infused sci-fi novels here: www.amazon.co.uk/Samuel-Astbu...
Call me twisted then, too. I made MP3s of most of the Red Dwarf episodes, and I go to sleep listening to them nearly every night. There's something oddly reassuring and relaxing about it. Red Dwarf is one of the greatest shows ever made. Not just British shows, not just comedies, not just sci-fis. One of the best shows, period.
I loved the first two series. They were so beautifully bleak. I loved the idea that it was just the 3 core cast; and it was interesting how they managed to bring in other characters.
@@critchblackpoolful Nah, it's deeper than you think... especially when you've read the books and know what the back stories of each episode relates to.
Series 1 and 2 were peak but i do still love the later seasons. But my heart is very fond of the cold, desolate, open loneliness of those first two. I do like how as the Dwarfers headed back to earth they kept coming across all the remains and leftovers of humanity's expansion into space.
One of the things that is often overlooked in Red Dwarf is the fact that unlike every other Sci-Fi show I could name, it is set in a universe with no aliens. Space is big and empty (if they meet any characters, they came from Earth. Even the GELF came from Earth...)
@@retrogiftsuk4812 At one point Lister laughs at Rimmer for believing in UFO’s and thinking they were being interfered with by them “You blame everything on aliens… the toilet roll’s run out, you think it’s aliens”. In any other sci-fi, he’s would have been vindicated when the unknown object they were tracking turned out to be an alien device. In Red Dwarf, it was a human trash capsule.
@@PippetWhippet "Innnnncredible! The perfectly preserved remains of a Quagaar warrior.... They must have looked something like.. a roast, chicken." Poor Rimmer
What I loved about it was just how it felt colloquial. Most TV and Movies feel like they're in a language I learnt at school, and red dwarf felt like it spoke what we spoke.
There is something very comforting about the premise of Red Dwarf. Yes they are stuck in middle of nothing with potentially nothing to look forward to. But they are safe and cared for by the ship. It’s like when you take a long distance flight. You can’t do anything so you just have to relax. They are on the ultimate long distance flight.
I feel like it's also they have nothing to live for but do it anyway and have a hilarious time along the way. I rewatched the show when I was quite depressed and it helped out quite a lot because for me I felt at the time I had no future. Yet look at these guys even less yet they go on and have a great time and still have hope.
@@Alex-cw3rz Glad you are feeling more positive about things mate. The show is very insightful about how humans tick along, especially I think the first two seasons.
Growing up in America, my brother and I were in a sort of club. A friend-of-a-friend in the UK would record Red Dwarf off the telly, then mail the tapes to our friend who had the right machine. We would get our parents to drive us two hours to a pizza restaurant in another town, where twenty or thirty of us would watch the latest episodes on a little tv somebody brought in on a cart. We used to ask each other Red Dwarf trivia in the car during the drive. Seriously nostalgic comfort-food-for-the-soul, that show 🥰
@@ephtue I know, and I supported the pledge drives (and got a shirt signed by Danny and Craig when my mom and brother went to a Con without me 😭), but it was way more fun watching with a medium-sized group of fellow nerds on a tiny screen while eating mediocre pizza! 😆
I felt like the books really captured this feeling of desperation and sadness. You could really feel Lister's loneliness and descent into depression in various scenes from the books.
I discovered this show when I was doing work in Manhattan, New York in the early 2000’s. Part of my job allowed me to stay rent free in various apartments. I discovered my love for chopped chicken liver salad and tequila. One apartment had two cats, so I just had to hang, do nothing with a couple cats sitting on me while I watched Red Dwarf and eat chicken liver salad on black bread while drinking tequila. I was living the dream.
They used to broadcast this on our PBS station during their pledge drives at least once a year in the 90's. They would marathon it, the whole thing, in between asking for money. One year I managed to videotape the whole series, they were up to series 6 by then and I spent quite a while camped out in front of the TV with the VCR remote in hand. One year, if you pledged you could get tickets to meet Craig Charles (Lister) and Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I was living at the time. I totally took that plunge and got to meet them.
I remember it being on PBS at midnight on Saturday nights. Most weeks SNL had to be pretty funny to not turn the dial... remember having to get up, change the channel and adjust the antenna? Good times!
@@nedweeks6964 some of my earliest memories are BEING the channel changer for my parents. You could cut the cigarette smoke with a knife in our house back then.
@@Flint-Dibble-the-Don I did my best not to be the channel changer, one of my siblings would grab my chair. Sometimes we would end up watching something boring because the one with the worst seat refused to change the channel and no one else wanted to lose their seat.
50 yo old dude from Australia, Red Dwarf is my favourite show ever! I re-watch the entire seasons every year or two. And I don't do this with any other show.
Thanks for a terrific video. Glad to see I'm not the only one who treasures the existential terror of the first two series. It is just so full of ideas and hits the ball out of the park when it comes to intelligent comedy. I've also been thinking a lot recently about how my life is reflected in the popular culture I grew up with. Incidentally, I saw Craig Charles doing live stand-up in my adopted home of Manchester in about 1996... he was awesome. The highlight for me when he started a segment with, "in Liverpool, if you want to make it out of poverty you have to be successful either in comedy or football". He then proceeded to do head-ups with a football, unerringly, for the best part of five minutes, cracking one-liners throughout.
Love Red Dwarf. It appeals to the desire for isolation. Reminds me of the years early in life, when I was completely on my own. I remember my English teacher noticing me read about the show, and say that it was her favorite show. Since she was my favorite teacher I had a crush on, to me it meant a lot. Later in life, when I was working, it was the same isolation for years and years, and again, nothing echoed my existence as much as the show did, so I kept running it over and over. To me, the original 8 seasons are "it". When I run out of episodes, I simply start over, treating all of the modern sequels as non-existent. It feels sad, to see the modern incarnations, and realizing that I have aged as much as the cast did. That this much time has actually passed, and yet, I'm still stuck in my mind on Red Dwarf. Still completely detached from outside life. Watching the clock tick away, as if I was the last human in existence. At least, this show feels like home. It makes the loneliness bearable.
Excellent video. I was lucky enough to have a channel that ran Red Dwarf when it came out in the U.S. I think 1989. It was then, is now and will always be my favorite show. I own them all and watch them all throughout the year. Every year.
Absolutely agree with everything, here. Red Dwarf, especially early on, really captures the feeling of loneliness in a unique way. I think it has something to do with the main characters - both Lister and Rimmer experience loneliness very differently, but both are still extremely relatable. I genuinely think they're one of the best sitcom duos ever!
I'm 41 and grew up in America, watching this with my mom as a kid. I marathon this show here and there lately and often put this on in the background as I head towards dreamland. I highly recommend getting the Red Dwarf Audiobooks which are masterfully narrated by Chris Barrie who played Rimmer and is actually a master impressionist. I also recommend checking out a comic called Soap which came on in the late 70's and is utterly hilarious.
The comparison to Waiting for Godot is one I made way back. Obviously that episode's name makes it easier to notice, but also the show is very clearly absurdist theatre, just like Waiting for Godot. Theatre of the absurd is all about meaninglessness and purposelessness, and wandering through the empty void of space is almost the perfect version of it. A friend of mine in drama class liked to say that absurdism was all about incompetent characters in hopeless situations, which this show is. Also I never knew it had such a connection to Manchester, especially the parallel of the defunct mining operation, and the empty void of space would be a parallel for I guess neoliberal Thatcherism lol.
I was born the year Red Dwarf came out and i'm still coming back to it , such a great show. I share many of your thoughts and sentiments in the video, it captured something beautiful, hilarious and bleak, that will never be replicated. You have a new sub, cheers.
I clicked on this at fairly close to random following the despair pit that is Where the Wind Blows at 3 in the morning, and the weird feeling of comforting, friendly loneliness you describe has genuinely perked me back up a bit. You've managed to capture what I love about this show beyond just it being a good sitcom; there's a feeling of home in a lot of the early-middle seasons in spite of (and maybe because of) the bleakness of the ship's surroundings. Brilliantly put my feelings into words. Also, bonus points for mentioning the Danny John-Jules Labyrinth connection, that always entertains me a bit. (But minus points for the presence of Mr Blobby, that cursed hellspawn)
I'm an American with an appreciation of British humour (I misspelled it in your honour). I also love science fiction. Red Dwarf was the best of both worlds for me. I'm surprised it was ever produced and doubly surprised that it lasted as long as it did. It's so quirky, but that made it all the better. It's time to pull out my Red Dwarf DVDs and watch them again.
Been a fan of the Dwarf since about series 5 first aired in 1992, I was about 6. In the 30+ years since, I've made it my mission to fly the flag for this show. I've foisted it up people countless times, and made some new fans. It's great to see this show isn't being forgotten outside of the people I (metaphorically) tie to chairs A Clockwork Orange style and play episodes at random at. :) Great video!
After listening to this I feel a shared bond. You have hit the nail on the head. The melancholy the desperation, the loneliness. All aspects of the show i love and miss from the later versions (with the odd exception). the early part of BTL really gets me, before they go into the game. it shares that desperation of those first 2 series. Great appraisal, enjoyed the vid and had the class to finish with the piano variations from Howard Goodall. You deserve a full Rimmer salute.
When I was struggling to sleep back in the day due to Stress I used to Watch Red Dwarf and Space Dandy - two great Space comedies to get me get to sleep - its nice to know that im not the only one who did this - good video!
I found Red Dwarf in the late 90's on a local station here in the American Northeast. I immediately fell in love with the quirky show and still think it one of the best shows in it's genre.
I also fell into the same ritual of playing an episode from series 1 or 2 while falling asleep. There was something so soothing about it. I thought I was the only one. Thanks for the memories 😴
I remember watching Red Dwarf with my brothers when I was younger every year on PBS in the states. It was a big deal for us because the internet was years off getting into people's homes so we couldn't just stream it whenever we liked. The local PBS affiliate would put on a grand telethon running all available episodes and even as a younger kid I loved the weird comedy. Growing up the deeper themes stuck with me, one of them being the one-off "Gazpacho Soup" line that Rimmer spouts out as he's dying. Now I can't speak to the writer's intentions with this, it may have truly been just a silly gag meant to fill time and show Rimmer as a try-hard weirdo, but all these years it stuck with me in a way to show that the stupidest, embarrassing mistakes we make in life are what truly make us human in the end. Rimmer's explanation truly connected with me, even as a young kid trying to understand my anxiety issues, that everyone deals with tense, embarrassing moments that can be brought back at any time to shame us. It also showed a vulnerable side to him that I related to instantly. Again, just my take and art is subjective. The show always made me think and I appreciate that to this day. ❤
I liked the radio show version, as well as the TV show. I taped it off a friend, who had the official BBC Red Dwarf and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio show boxsets. I used to often put it on to go to sleep, usually with headphones on, because I shared a room with my younger brother.
I did listen to some via RU-vid fairly recently and really enjoyed it. Had the Hitchhiker's guide radio play on CD (still got it somewhere). Awesome stuff. Thanks for watching.
@@retromuel I wish that I still had the complete HGTTG. I enjoyed the TV series, and loved the fact that they kept the radio cast. That would never happen today. The fact that the TV version existed, really fleshed out my imagination when listening to the radio show. I also loved the fact that Chris Barrie did the Red Dwarf radio series, putting his impersonation skills to good use.
One of my favorite comedy series of all time. When I was single, I used to fall asleep to this as well. Wife can't sleep with any noise or light, so had to change that once I got married. Still sneak away for a night or two every couple of months to fall asleep to it in our guest room, though.
@@retromuel love your breakdown of the actors vs the current trend of what comes from the UK. Something I never thought about when watching the UKs current exports.
@@RicoRaynn Thank you very much. Yeah you could spend a lifetime in Britain and never actually meet anyone who talks like Benedict Cumberbatch, and yet that's kind of what many people picture when they think of an Englishman. Statistically speaking you're far more likely to meet a Dave Lister.
My ex gf is an architect and her company managed the moving of coronation street set to media city in Mcr. Met Craig Charles on the set a couple of times that I'd tag along on a weekend.
Thank you, great video. All the best nerds we loved the show. Growing up in Tasmania in the 80s and 90s. Suitably dystopian. I’m very happy for the cast and creators that it still lives on in many ways. Robert has a big future shoe in the electric vehicle world of media and futurism. 🎉
Absolutely agree, the melancholia of Red Dwarf always appealed to me, that long slow final march of the last man across the stars, to a home they could never reach, just spoke to me as an early teen filled with ennui. Still decades later, it has an absolute hold on me, 12 series and 4 books later. Those early seasons are easily my favourite though, and that original melancholic theme is just the cherry on top of the little red cake.
I found this show while I was working nights at a factory. The rest of the family was on normal daylight hours, while even on weekends I was up all night because it was just too hard to switch back n forth. The first two series perfectly reflected the loneliness and melancholy I was feeling at the time and I just couldn’t stop watching it. It was great to hear someone else gets the feel of this classic.
From across the pond, it makes me realise one thing: everything now is so CLEAN and SAFE. Some of that is for the better, but the human soul has definitely influenced less.
I stumbled across this quite appropriately as I was winding down for the night and looking for a short, good natured video before turning in. What superbly put together video essay. Good writing, well delivered at just the right tone. And very relatable too😉
You are awesome, I remember 1996 Florida PBS playing the marathon of Red Dwarf. This got me hooked, smoke me a kipper and I will be back for breakfast!
Yes yea yes!! Did exactly the same thing for years following being laid up after a major surgery. Just filled me with childhood nostalgia and joy. Like wrapping yourself in pure comfort, class👌🏾
Thanks to our local PBS station, we had a great line up each Saturday night including Red Dwarf, Dr. Who and others. Was nice to watch as i worked graveyard shift doing computer maintenance.
I remember when it started airing on PBS here in the States back in the early 90s. I was immediately hooked. I got my friends to start watching it, and we had our own little clique referencing and quoting it constantly. Such a brilliant show.
When you mentioned only middle class+ making the requirements my genuine instant thought was what about actors like Comer so respect for that. She is incredible 😍
Excellent explanation of that extra dimension S1 and S2 have that the later seasons, great as they (mostly) are, just do not have. Alone in the big empty. The bleakness. The permanent isolation. The (superior, IMO) forlorn opening theme, playing over Lister futilely painting the side of ship. Even the window in the bunk room is coffin shaped.
From Last of the Summer Wine to Red Dwarf (Have You Been Served, Porridge, Fools and Horses, etc), this era of BBC TV has a special place in my heart. I endlessly try to explain why I'm drawn to them so much but I can't put my finger on what it is. I would love to discover another series that I can add to my list but I'm afraid I've found them all.
I love the show, still watch it now and then. I never found it depressing although there were moments and I agree the first 2 seasons were the best. Great video, thank you!
Brilliant essay, I still find this Sci-fi the most immersive and believable of all the great films and book series. See you around Picadilly Gardens sometime fellow 0161-er
Exactly why these are my two favourite seasons. Imagining the sheer size of the RD, how you could explore for months, the idea that humanity was gone and Lister was the last human, the show really nailed the grey apocalyptic vibe. Then the sheer silliness and sitcom crap started. I usually take naps listening to Ricky Gervais show mainly for Karl or Seinfeld, must try it with RD some day.
Love this show. It has the ships cat after 3 millions years of evolution and an android who’s actor got his accent by trying to imitate a Canadian. Says it all
Started watching this way back in the late 80's it was on a PBS channel here in Canada . Loved it like a lot of the British shows of the time from Dr. Who And Black Adder of course Benny Hill. I have most of the series on DVD"s and get them out and watch them ever so often. Like you said they bring you back to simpler times before all the current Smeg of these times.
Even though I grew up in the early 2000s in America I was lucky enough to still watch Red Dwarf and other British TV through the channel PBS. I remember watching this late at night on weekends, sometimes with my brother or mom. I have a lot of nostalgia with this show and it really is the perfect show to watch just before bed/while going to bed. I now have a need to rewatch this. Great video and thank you for reminding me of this show again 😊
The show is a hard sale outside the UK. Like many british shows, actually. League Of Gentlemen, the old classics (Fools and Horses, Black Adder, Porridge), I guess you had to be there. Still, one of my favorite long standing comedy, if not the favorite. Some great episodes, Marooned, Dimension Jump, Inquisitor, Back To Reality, Justice, Queeg, Better Than Life, Polymorph. Season 1 to 6, good memories.
Yep, Red Dwarf is strangely peak bedtime content. Something about being alone after everyone else has gone (to sleep). The 80s/90s Manchester filming location is very underrated as an influence. For me, I actually like to watch Red Dwarf I-II paired with Victoria Wood's turn of the millenium 'dinnerladies'. Theyre almost nothing alike except for the dialogue heavy single set stuff, maybe I just saw them play back to back once on UKTV Gold, but they feel like grimy Manc cousins somehow. If Red Dwarf is what scifi lads do with northern disillusionment, dinnerladies is what middle-aged women do with it. Maybe there's just not a lot of sitcoms of that calibre and era.
Hey I'm from Manchester (well Salford) from a similar era and also discovered RD in the early 90's so this resonated with me. Didn't know it was filmed on oxford rd. I'll walk around circle square with a different look now 😂. Thanks.
I first saw this show on PBS (public broadcasting service) during their fund raising drives they used to do twice a year. This had to be the early 90’s. This particular time they were showing Red Dwarf and offering the series as a gift if you donated an over a certain amount. I couldn’t stop watching it. I loved it. Oddly, Red Dwarf is what got me watching Dr. Who.
I would also point out on the terms of the actors backgrounds this was the first show on british TV to have the majority of the main cast from a minority background (Norman Lovett was not considered part of the main cast and is the reason he left the show over pay).
I'd never put it together with Thatcher's Britain, but of course it is. A mining ship now almost devoid of people after a catastrophic event wipes them out.
This is my fave show. I spent so many sunday nights on the floor, finger on the record button of the vcr, hopeing that PBS was gonna air the new season. I can still feel the thrill every time it happened. In the early 90s, one of the first websites I found was about Red Dwarf. They maintained something called The Plot Inconsistencies Project or PIP. It was over 20 pages long, before season 7! My ex and I bonded when we met in 1993, talking about this show. He was my best friend, he passed in April. It hurt watching this video, I cried, just hearing the theme song. Everyone dies. You're born and you die. The bit in the middle is called life and that's still to come! Yeah, those words cut deep right now. It may be some time before I can visit the boys from the Dwarf.
Here in Texas, in the 80s, Red Dwarf came on late at night with Dr Who and Red Green Show on PBS. We were watching it at the same time TNG was catching on in a more prime time slot and channel. Truly great stuff.
