List of Red Dwarf episodes

This is a list of television episodes from the science fiction sit-com television series Red Dwarf. There were eight series and 52 episodes in total. The first six series were written by co-creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, while Series VII and VIII were written by Naylor with collaborations from other writers. Series I and II were produced by Paul Jackson Productions (Grant Naylor Productions taking over from Series III) for BBC North, and broadcast on BBC2. The series first aired on 15 February 1988 and ended on 5 April 1999 after eight series. The eight series are available on DVD.

The main setting of the series is the mining spaceship Red Dwarf which is Template:Mi to km long, Template:Mi to km tall, and Template:Mi to km wide. In the first episode, an on-board radiation leak of cadmium II kills everyone except for low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who is in suspended animation at the time, and his pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who is safely sealed in the cargo hold. Following the accident, the ship's computer Holly has to keep Lister in stasis until the background radiation dies down — a process that takes three million years. Lister therefore emerges as the last human being in the universe — but not the only life form on-board the ship. His former bunkmate and immediate superior Arnold Rimmer is resurrected by Holly as a hologram to keep Lister sane, while a creature known only as Cat is the last known surviving member of Felis sapiens, a race of humanoids that evolved in the ship's hold from Lister's cat, Frankenstein, and her kittens during the millions of years that Lister was in stasis.

The main plot of the series is Lister's desire to go back to Earth. As they journey through space, the crew encounters such phenomena as time distortions, faster than light travel, mutant diseases and strange lifeforms that developed in the intervening millions of years. During the second series, the crew encounter a sanitation mechanoid called Kryten, who joins them. At the end of series five, the Red Dwarf ship is stolen from the crew, forcing them to travel in the smaller Starbug craft for the subsequent two series. Rimmer departs the crew to take up the role of his alter-ego from a parallel universe, Ace Rimmer. Shortly afterwards, the crew discover a parallel gateway to another universe with versions of themselves in which Kristine Kochanski, Lister's former girlfriend, was the person put into stasis becaming the last remaining human. Red Dwarf is found in Series VIII and the entire crew of the ship — including a pre-accident Rimmer — are resurrected, but the Starbug crew find themselves sentenced to two years in the ship's brig on a set of convoluted charges. The final episode ends with Red Dwarf being eaten away by a mystery virus. The crew have all abandoned ship, save for Rimmer who is left stranded alone to face Death.

Series

During 2002-06 the eight series were released on DVD in North America, Europe, Australia, Central and South America (Region 1, 2 and 4), with each release from Series III onward being accompanied by an original documentary about the making of each respective series, and a bonus disc of extra material.

Series		Episodes	Originally Broadcast	DVD release date
				Region 1	Region 2 / 4
	I	6	1988	25 February 2003	4 November 2002
	II	6	1988	25 February 2003	10 February 2003
	III	6	1989	3 February 2004	3 November 2003
	IV	6	1991	3 February 2004	16 February 2004
	V	6	1992	15 March 2005	8 November 2004
	VI	6	1993	15 March 2005	21 February 2005
	VII	8	1997	10 January 2006	7 November 2005
	VIII	8	1999	2 May 2006	27 March 2006

Episodes

Series I (1988)

The pilot script was written in 1983 the writing duo team of Grant and Naylor handed the finished script to their agent Paul Jackson who had trouble convincing the BBC to take on the series. Three years after the initial rejections, the script was accepted by BBC North West. The series almost did not happen due to an electricians strike at the BBC in 1987 which prevented filming and the project was shelved. Filming eventually went ahead after the industrial action was resolved.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
1	"The End"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	15 February 1988	1
Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is sentenced to be frozen for 18 months in suspended animation as punishment for breaking quarantine regulations by smuggling his pregnant cat Frankenstein on board. But Lister awakes only to find the rest of the crew have since been wiped out in a radioactive disaster, and he has actually been frozen for three million years. However, to his relief and horror, he is not alone. The ship's computer Holly (Norman Lovett) has revived Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), his austere bunkmate, in the form of a hologram. Also Lister's pregnant cat, Frankenstein, was sealed in the hull during the radiation leak. Her kittens bred there for millions of years and evolved into a race of humanoid life-forms. They meet one of these life forms on the ship, Lister decides to call it Cat (Danny John-Jules). The episode ends with Lister saying, "Holly, plot a course for Fiji. Look out earth, the slime's coming home!"
2	"Future Echoes"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	22 February 1988	2
Red Dwarf has been steadily accelerating for three million years and when it breaches light speed the new crew begin to experience visions from their own futures. Lister is shocked that his future self appears to have blown up while making a repair to the ship. However it was not him he saw, it was his son Bexley as revealed by a future echo Lister aged 171. The future Lister tells present Lister to run to the medibay to take a picture of Jim and Bexley as babies.
3	"Balance of Power"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	29 February 1988	3
Lister wants to go on a date with the hologram of his old girlfriend, navigation officer Kristine Kochanski (C. P. Grogan), but it would mean replacing Rimmer as the ship hologram, which of course Rimmer will not let happen. Lister decides to do a cooking exam so he can become a chef, and if he passes he will hold sufficient rank to order this. Rimmer attempts to discourage Lister from taking the exam, but fails in this task.
4	"Waiting for God"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	7 March 1988	4
Red Dwarf stumbles upon one of its own garbage pods, and Rimmer is convinced that it's a stasis capsule carrying a dormant alien woman. Meanwhile, Lister learns about Cat's people (the Felis sapiens) and discovers he is their mythical god, "Cloister the Stupid", and will bring them to the mythical island of Fuchal.
5	"Confidence and Paranoia"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	14 March 1988	5
Lister contracts a mutated pneumonia virus. The hallucinations of his fevered brain materialise in solid form, and suddenly the ship is beset by herring rain and exploding sixteenth century Mayor of Warsaw. When his fever breaks, Lister wakes up to find he has created personifications of his confidence (Craig Ferguson) and paranoia (Lee Cornes).
6	"Me²"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	21 March 1988	6
Rimmer creates his perfect companion, an identical hologrammatic duplicate of himself. He moves out of his quarters he shares with Lister and starts rooming with his doppelgänger. At first he enjoys it, but they eventually began to despise each other. Soon the two Rimmers find themselves locked in a conflict so fierce, only one of them can stay.

Series II (1988)

Realising that they were limited with stories based on the huge, but empty, mining ship of Red Dwarf, writers Grant and Naylor decided to go in a different direction for Series II. A small shuttle ship, Blue Midget, was designed to ferry the crew to and from different locations. The mechanoid, Kryten, appeared in the first episode as a one off. The writers had resisted using robot characters as they had considered the practice a sci-fi cliché.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
7	"Kryten"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	6 September 1988	1
Red Dwarf intercepts an SOS distress call from the American Space cruiser Nova 5, which has crashed on an asteroid. Much to their disappointment, the crew (who are expecting to find female crew members) find the only survivor is Kryten (David Ross), a service mechanoid with an overactive guilt chip. Lister wants to teach Kryten to be rebellious, whilst Rimmer wants to abuse Kryten's servitude.
8	"Better Than Life"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	13 September 1988	2
A post pod carrying a three million year old bag of mail arrives, and Rimmer becomes depressed when he reads a letter saying his dad is dead. Meanwhile the Dwarfers play a total-immersion computer game called "Better Than Life" which makes the player's wishes come true. Rimmer's neurotic brain fittingly begins to rebel against the fantasy and turn it into a nightmare.
9	"Thanks for the Memory"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	20 September 1988	3
The crew wake up after celebrating the anniversary of Rimmer's death, only to find four whole days have passed and they've got no memories of the previous four days. But when they find the black box on a moon, they slowly learn what happened over the past four days.
10	"Stasis Leak"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	27 September 1988	4
A time barrier called a "Stasis Leak" is found on Floor 16 and it takes the crew back in time on Red Dwarf three million years earlier, to a point three weeks before the disaster which killed the rest of the crew. Rimmer tries to change the past by putting himself into suspended animation, so he does not die in the radioactive disaster. Lister has similar plans for Kochanski.
11	"Queeg"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	4 October 1988	5
When Holly allows a meteorite to damage the ship and Rimmer's hologram to malfunction, his back-up computer, Queeg 500 (Charles Augins), takes command of Red Dwarf. Queeg 500 runs the ship like a military garrison so the Dwarfers encourage Holly to challenge Queeg to a game of chess, where the loser gets erased from the system.
12	"Parallel Universe"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	11 October 1988	6
The Dwarfers test Holly's new invention, the "Holly Hop Drive", which will supposedly warp them back to Earth in seconds. Instead Red Dwarf enters an alternate parallel dimension in which the Dwarfers encounter female versions of themselves - Cat, however, encounters an opposite version of himself instead, the scruffy Dog. Lister gets drunk and sleeps with his female self. Later he finds himself pregnant with twins, as in the parallel dimension, it is the men who fall pregnant.

Series III (1989)

With Grant and Naylor directly involved with the series' production, under Grant Naylor Productions, they radically changed the look of the show. The opening credits sequence was changed. A new upbeat version of the theme tune played over clips from the series.A new official Red Dwarf logo also appeared at the end of the credit sequence. Starbug was introduced as the new spaceship in place of Blue Midget. The look of the show had been overhauled with the incoming Mel Bibby who had re-designed the old grey sets. Costumes were overhauled as well as Costume designer Howard Burden brought in a new stylish look to the crew.

The character of Kryten was originally intended as a one-off appearance in the series-two episode "Kryten", but had returned mainly to broaden the story potential. The show was becoming difficult to write for. At the insistence of Naylor, Kryten returned to complete the team. They had approached David Ross with the intention of bringing him back to play the regular role of Kryten. Ross, however, was in a stage play Flea In Her Ear and was not available, so they went to see Robert Llewellyn. Llewellyn was also in a stage show called Mammon, playing a robot. They saw his performance and were impressed.

The regular cast changed for Series III, Robert Llewellyn came in as Kryten, and Hattie Hayridge replaced the departing Lovett. Craig Charles, Chris Barrie and Danny John-Jules remained as Lister, Rimmer and Cat respectively.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
13	"Backwards"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	14 November 1989	1
With Kryten now a regular member of the crew, Rimmer takes him on a flying lesson in the transport vehicle Starbug. They find themselves whisked away through a time hole, finding themselves on Earth, 1993. However, time is running backwards.
14	"Marooned"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	21 November 1989	2
The crew abandon ship as Holly sees five black holes in the direct flight path of Red Dwarf. Rimmer and Lister then find themselves marooned on an ice planet after Starbug is struck by a meteorite. Lister is freezing and starving but the only firewood is his beloved guitar and Rimmer's prized possessions, and the only food left is dog food and a pot noodle, Lister's most hated food.
15	"Polymorph"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	28 November 1989	3
The crew become radically different people after they encounter a polymorph, a genetically engineered shape-changing mutant that feeds on negative emotions. After escaping from the polymorph they decide that there are only two options, one: take it on, or two: run away. Two has always been the Cat's favourite number anyway.
16	"Bodyswap"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	5 December 1989	4
Rimmer suggests that the perfect way to help Lister get "healthy" is swapping bodies, by implanting his mind into Lister's and vice versa, so that Rimmer can undergo a hefty exercise regime in Lister's body. However, Rimmer is overtaken with excitement at the prospect of having a physical body again and refuses to give it back to Lister.
17	"Timeslides"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	12 December 1989	5
The developing fluid that Kryten uses to process old photographs mutates and the photographs come alive. The crew find they can go into the photograph, and Lister finds that the photographs allows them to go back in time. Using this he plans on changing history so that he does not end up marooned in deep space.
18	"The Last Day"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	19 December 1989	6
Lister receives a pre-recorded message from Jim Repear, head of Diva-Droid international, the company that created Kryten. Kryten is ordered to be dismantled within 24 hours and is to be replaced by Hudzen-10 (Gordon Kennedy), a super-strong android, who has been tracking Kryten for thousands of years and is now on an intercept course with Red Dwarf. The crew decide to throw Kryten a leaving party, and give him one last night to remember.

Series IV (1991)

Due to the old studio in Manchester undergoing refurbishment, the recording of Series IV moved to Shepperton Studios. Series IV was not broadcast as originally intended. The BBC had decided to start off with the romantic story of "Camille" for Valentine's Day. The Gulf War outbreak also affected the series running order as both the anti-war "Meltdown" and heroic Ace Rimmer's "Dimension Jump" episodes were postponed.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
19	"Camille"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	14 February 1991	1
Lister helps Kryten to break his programming so that he can lie and insult. Later, when Kryten rescues a mechanoid named Camille, the sole survivor from a crashed spaceship, she appears to be his perfect mechanoid partner. However, Rimmer and Lister also see their fantasy women when they see Camille. Secrets, lies and broken hearts ensue, along with an ending similar to Lister's favourite film, Casablanca.
20	"DNA"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	21 February 1991	2
A mysterious derelict spacecraft containing extremely advanced technology, perhaps alien, docks with Red Dwarf. On board they discover a D.N.A modifier, a genetic altering machine that can metamorphose organic life. But havoc ensues as Lister gets turned into a chicken then a hamster, Kryten becomes human, and a curry monster is created from Lister's vindaloo.
21	"Justice"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	28 February 1991	3
The crew pick up an escape pod bearing a woman's name. There is also the possibility it may in fact be a deranged bio-mechanical killer on his way to "Justice World", a deep space penal station. They decide go to "Justice World" to discover the contents of the pod. Things become worse when a justice scan reveals that Rimmer is guilty of the radioactive disaster that wiped out the entire crew of Red Dwarf, equal to 1,167 separate counts of second-degree murder, and he is prompty convicted and sentenced.
22	"White Hole"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	7 March 1991	4
Holly has her intelligence briefly restored to an I.Q. of 12,368, but a side effect of this is that her run-time is reduced to minutes. Holly promptly switches herself off, leaving Red Dwarf with no lighting or manoeuvring capability. It's back to basics for the crew and they must resort to their own resourcefulness to survive.
23	"Dimension Jump"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	14 March 1991	5
The crew meet a parallel dimension version of Rimmer. Arnold "Ace" Rimmer is a dashing daredevil test pilot for the space corps, and he has been assigned to test-pilot a ship that can travel through dimensions, so he can meet different versions of himself. He enters our dimension to meet our Rimmer, the weaselly cowardly version, who has gone on a fishing holiday with the rest of the crew.
24	"Meltdown"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	21 March 1991	6
Kryten uses a prototype "matter paddle" to teleport the crew to a nearby planet with an S3 (or Earth-like) atmosphere. They discover the planet has been visited by humans years previously, who populated the planet with "wax droids" - animated wax works of famous characters from Earth's history including Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Gandhi, Winnie the Pooh, Mother Teresa and Elvis Presley.

Series V (1992)

The series returned without regular director Ed Bye, who had agreed to direct his wife Ruby Wax's television show The Full Wax. New director Juliet May found it hard to work with the science fiction elements of the series and left the before the series had completed. The remaining episodes were directed by Grant and Naylor.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
25	"Holoship"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Juliet May	20 February 1992	1
Rimmer is abducted for the purposes of study by holograms with super intelligence, away to a space vessel which is itself hologrammatic, where Rimmer has a physical presence and where sex is duty rather than pleasure. Rimmer applies to join the crew, feeling that this is his chance of becoming an officer and getting a life. To do this he must pass an exam against a fellow hologram. The situation is complicated when he discovers his opponent in the test is Nirvanah Crane (Jane Horrocks), a female hologram commander he seems to be falling in love with.
26	"The Inquisitor"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	27 February 1992	2
The Inquisitor is a time-travelling android who acts as judge, jury and executioner to those whom he believes have led worthless lives, and thus erases them from history. The Red Dwarf crew are next to appear before this judge to justify their existence. It does not look good for our crew of slobs, failures and misfits.
27	"Terrorform"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Juliet May	5 March 1992	3
Kryten and Rimmer crash land on a "psi-moon", an artificial planetoid which terraforms itself to match the inner psyche and subconscious of anyone who lands on it. Kryten is cut in half in the crash, and Rimmer finds himself alone and taken prisoner by manifestations of his own inner demons. Lister, Cat and Holly arrive to rescue them, but find themselves trapped in an environment shaped by Rimmer's bizarre, self-loathing mind.
28	"Quarantine"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	12 March 1992	4
After investigating an abandoned biological research complex on an ice planet, Lister, Cat and Kryten return to Red Dwarf only to find Rimmer has taken over the ship. While Rimmer orders them into quarantine for three months, he himself is slowly taken over by an electronic holo-virus that corrupts his hologrammatic form, giving him telekinetic powers, and turning him completely insane.
29	"Demons and Angels"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Juliet May, Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	19 March 1992	5
An experiment with a machine - a Triplicator - that can make duplicates of an object goes wrong causing Red Dwarf to explode. The crew escape aboard Starbug but find that the Triplicator has made two copies of Red Dwarf in place of the original. One of these copies has extracted the "good" qualities of the former vessel, and the other has extracted the "bad" qualities. The crew board one, first meeting angelic versions of themselves, then to the other, meeting demonic versions of themselves.
30	"Back to Reality"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Juliet May, Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	26 March 1992	6
The crew take Starbug down into the watery depths of an ocean planet to investigate the wreck of the SSS Esperanto. They find that the ship's crew have committed suicide, then escape to try and avoid attack from a sea monster, the "Despair Squid". The crew suddenly wake up to find they are not who they think they are, Red Dwarf and Starbug did not exist, and they have in fact been playing a virtual reality computer game for four years.

Series VI (1993)

The writing of Series VI was rushed due to the fact that the BBC wanted the episodes completed as soon as possible. Grant and Naylor decided to make changes for the new series - Red Dwarf itself was written out, thus removing Holly and Hattie Hayridge - and the series was set entirely aboard Starbug. During the series Rimmer would also obtain "hardlight", which would effectively give him a physical presence. For the first time in the series history a story arc was introduced and followed throughout the episodes leading up to the series cliffhanger. In subsequent repeats, some of the more sexually explicit scenes and conversations were edited out following actor Craig Charles' arrest on rape charges for which he was later cleared.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
31	"Psirens"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	7 October 1993	1
Two hundred years after investigating the SSS Esperanto, the crew awake from suspended animation aboard Starbug with amnesia, and find that their mothership Red Dwarf is missing. Chasing a faint vapour trail which may lead to their mothership, the crew travel through an asteroid field containing lost and crashed spaceships. The asteroid field is inhabited by "psirens", genetically engineered creatures that telepathically lure the ship's crew onto the asteroids so that they can suck out their brains.
32	"Legion"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	14 October 1993	2
Chasing the vapour trail of Red Dwarf into a gas nebula, Starbug is taken over by a tractor beam which takes it to a space station. There the crew discover Legion, a highly intelligent, sophisticated and cultured lifeform conceived out of an experiment by a group of famous scientists. It is Legion who gives Rimmer a new hardlight holo-projection unit, enabling him to become a normal human, able to touch, feel, eat, and experience pain. He also becomes virtually indestructible. They learn that Legion is composed from the minds of each member of the crew, combined and magnified, and as such they are sustaining his very existence with their presence. Legion will not allow them to leave and continue the search for Red Dwarf...
33	"Gunmen of the Apocalypse"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	21 October 1993	3
Starbug narrowly wins a battle with "rogue simulants". However the "simulants" have infected Starbug with a computer virus and the ship is locked on a collision course with a volcanic planet. Kryten attempts to fight the virus, with the battle taking the form of an old wild west movie in his digital mind. The virus overtakes him, so Lister, Cat and Rimmer enter Kryten's wild-west dream using an artificial reality video game in attempt to help Kryten come up with an antidote.
34	"Emohawk: Polymorph II"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	28 October 1993	4
Starbug is attacked by an advanced Space Corp enforcement probe, for looting from derelict ships. The crew manage to escape by entering GELF space but Starbug crashes on a moon. Lister must marry the GELF chieftain's daughter in exchange for an oxygen breathing unit. The crew escape with the engine part during Lister's honeymoon, but the GELF chieftain sends his pet, a polymorph, after them to retrieve his new son-in-law.
35	"Rimmerworld"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	4 November 1993	5
The crew return to the wreck of the simulants' battleship to salvage for food supplies but are confronted by a surviving simulant who thrreatens to kill herself and the crew. Rimmer, who has been diagnosed with a tense nervous disorder, escapes in a pod which has no steering, and is whisked away through a time-hole and crashes on a planet. The crew follow Rimmer through the time-hole, but due to its effects arrive at the planet 600 years after Rimmer arrived, only to find the planet is populated with thousands of Rimmer clones. (This episode was due to be broadcast on the very evening of the Dunblane massacre when Thomas Watt Hamilton killed sixteen children and their teacher before committing suicide. A similar scene, a crazy woman android threatens to kill herself and the Red Dwarf crew, appears in this one.)
36	"Out of Time"	Rob Grant & Doug Naylor	Andy de Emmony	11 November 1993	6
Starbug enters an artificial fog containing devices that create false realities. Persevering through it, the crew find what it is hiding — a time machine. Shortly after, they meet their future selves, from fifteen years later. The crew learn that their future selves are incredibly corrupt and amoral through abuse of the time drive, to experience the "very best" of history. In the end, the two Starbug crafts engage in a space battle to end all space battles.

Series VII (1997)

After Series VI co-creator and writer Rob Grant had decided to leave the series to pursue other non-Red Dwarf projects. Naylor continued with the series to build towards the often discussed movie. To help with the expanding episode number, Naylor brought in the help of other writers like Paul Alexander. Chris Barrie, disappointed with the hectic workload of series VI, had decided to only take part in four of the episodes. Kochanski, played by Chloë Annett, was brought in as a new regular character.

Changes to the show itself was evident with the mix of science fiction and sit-com episodes throughout. This was an attempt by Naylor to move away from the 'monster of the week' format that he felt Series VI suffered from. Ed Bye also returned to direct the series after leaving due to scheduling clashes during Series V. The studio audience was now removed from the series and, much like feature length films, the episodes were mostly shot using one camera.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
37	"Tikka to Ride"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	17 January 1997	1
The crew find themselves resurrected due to the time paradox resulting from the battle with their future selves. The time paradox also results in a greatly upgraded and much larger Starbug. However, the curry supplies have gone missing, and so Lister devises a sneaky plan which involves swapping Kryten's head, once again utilizing the dreaded time machine, and which ultimately results in the crew accidentally getting mixed up in the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
38	"Stoke Me a Clipper"	Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	24 January 1997	2
Daredevil pilot Ace Rimmer, fatally wounded after rescuing Princess Bonjella, travels from his own dimension into the dimension where Starbug is cruising. His intention is to try and bring out courage in the cowardly version of himself aboard Starbug, and then hopefully recruit Arnold Rimmer as his replacement, so that after his death another Rimmer will carry on the legacy of the interstellar space hero.
39	"Ouroboros"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	31 January 1997	3
Lister, Cat and Kryten stumble upon a tear in the fabric of space that leads to another dimension. There they meet a parallel version of Lister's old girlfriend, Kristine Kochanski, who becomes stranded on Starbug. Meanwhile Lister discovers the truth about himself and who his parents were.
40	"Duct Soup"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	7 February 1997	4
Kryten gets fussy and jealous thinking that Lister likes Kochanski better than him. When the primary power goes off and they get stuck in a room, they have no choice but to climb into the small ventilation ducts which wind round Starbug in order to escape. Whilst inside the ducts they discover a lot about each other, including the fact Lister is claustrophobic.
41	"Blue"	Kim Fuller & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	14 February 1997	5
Starbug is travelling through a rather uninteresting region of space and the crew are bored and begin to nitpick at petty areas of their lives. Meanwhile Lister finds, much to his own surprise and disgust, that he is missing Rimmer, and even having romantic dreams about him returning. Kryten's solution is to take him on a ride called "The Rimmer Experience," which recounts outrageously fictionalised events from Rimmer's diaries.
42	"Beyond a Joke"	Robert Llewellyn & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	21 February 1997	6
Searching for a new head for Kryten, which exploded due to build-up of negative thought after an incident involving ketchup added to lobster, the crew encounter a rogue simulant on a deserted ship. The simulant kidnaps Kryten and commissions one of his own droids, Able, to fix him up. But Kryten and Able discover they're brothers, the same model, and Able helps Kryten escape. Kryten then discovers from Able a disturbing secret about their creator.
43	"Epideme"	Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	28 February 1997	7
The crew come across a frozen supply ship, the Leviathan, with one survivor: Caroline Carmen, one of Lister's former crushes. She revives in the middle of the night, as a zombie; she has been dead for a long time, and infects Lister with the dreaded Epideme virus. Lister tries talking with the virus directly through a communication link (Epideme is a sentient, self-aware organism) but Epideme refuses to let Lister live. Drastic action must be taken if Lister is to survive.
44	"Nanarchy"	Paul Alexander, James Hendrie & Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	7 March 1997	8
Lister tries to cope with the loss of his arm. Meanwhile Kryten searches for his nanobots - incredibly advanced microscopic robots, which can alter forms of matter at the sub-atomic level - so that he can rebuild Lister's arm. Kryten finds the nanobots in Lister's laundry basket, and also discovers that it was the nanobots who stole the mothership Red Dwarf in the first instance. Kryten gets the nanobots to rebuild both Red Dwarf and Lister's arm. Red Dwarf makes an appearance, but with one problem - its size.

Series VIII (1999)

Having changed the look and format for Series VII, Naylor returned to the show's roots for Series VIII. Writing the series himself, Naylor resurrected the original Red Dwarf crew, along with Holly, played again by Norman Lovett, and Chris Barrie as Rimmer. With the old cast and Red Dwarf back, the series moved back to being filmed in front of a studio audience. The series ended on a cliffhanger that has still to be resolved. With 52 episodes the show was now in a good position for international syndication and the prospect of a feature length film increased.

* The last five episodes of Series VIII were broadcast in the United States before they were aired in the UK.

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Original Air Date	Prod Code.
45	"Back in the Red: Part I"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	18 February 1999	1
The nanobots have rebuilt Red Dwarf not only in its entirety, but to its better, original design plans. In effect, the fresh new Red Dwarf is better than the old version of the ship the nanobots deconstructed in the first place — faster, more streamlined, containing more advanced technology, and with a prison which was not included the first time round due to budget cutbacks. After crashing Starbug in the docking bay, they discover the nanobots have also resurrected the original crew complement of Red Dwarf who were killed in the radioactive disaster three million years previously, and who now have no memory of the incident or events following it.
46	"Back in the Red: Part II"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	25 February 1999	2
Lister, the Cat, and Kochanski are in big trouble aboard the resurrected Red Dwarf with the freshly-resurrected Captain Hollister (Mac McDonald), and they find themselves standing trial for stealing and crashing a Starbug. Kryten is reprogrammed and has his factory settings restored. Lister tries to persuade the newly resurrected Arnold Rimmer to help him escape so that he can track down the nanobots to corroborate his story. However the only way for Lister to convince Rimmer is by helping Rimmer find the luck virus and sexual magnetism virus in the crashed wreckage of Starbug.
47	"Back in the Red: Part III"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	4 March 1999	3
After discovering the sexual magnetism virus Lister told him about in the wreckage of Starbug, Rimmer finds he has become irresistibly attractive to every female crew member aboard Red Dwarf. The confidential reports he also finds (which Lister did not intend for him to find) give Rimmer access to information he uses as part of a scheme to get promoted, and he begins to impress Captain Hollister. His plans are, of course, doomed to failure: it is revealed Rimmer is in an artificial reality program along with his bunkmate, where they are being observed by Captain Hollister as part of the trial.
48	"Cassandra"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	11 March 1999	4
Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski have been sentenced to two years in 'The Tank' on secretive Floor 13, for stealing a Blue Midget and abusing confidential information during their trial in virtual reality. Lister signs up the gang for the 'Canaries', thinking it is the prison choir and enticed by the list of privileges that go with it. Lister is unaware the 'Canaries' is actually a convict army utilised for reconnaissance on uncharted planets. Their first assignment is to investigate an abandoned spaceship on an ocean planet, where they discover Cassandra, a computer that can predict the future. But it spells bad news for Rimmer, when Cassandra (Geraldine McEwan) predicts that he is going to die.
49	"Krytie TV"	Doug Naylor & Paul Alexander	Ed Bye	18 March 1999	5
Kryten has been placed in the Women's Wing of The Tank, due to his lack of genitalia. After making the mistake of revealing that he showers with the female convicts, Kill Crazy reprograms Kryten, making him a ruthless and amoral entrepreneur. Kryten soon puts on "Krytie TV", a pirate entertainment show for the convicts, where he goes into the women's shower room and films the exposed naked bodies of the female convicts, including Kochanski. Rimmer and Lister have been given a retrial, and Kryten endangers their only chance of freedom, when he sets up Lister by getting him to mess up governor Ackerman's sleeping quarters.
50	"Pete: Part I"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	25 March 1999	6
Rimmer and Lister are not having a good time, frequently in and out of the captain's office for offences, each of which annoy Hollister more and more until he snaps and has them thrown in "the hole", a sparse prison cell inhabited only by an insane Welshman called Birdman and his pet sparrow, Pete. Meanwhile, the others return from a Canaries mission with a "time wand", a device that can manipulate time.
51	"Pete: Part II"	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	1 April 1999	7
Lister and Rimmer drive Captain Hollister ever closer to a nervous breakdown. Kryten discovers the Time Wand can regress a living creature back into what it evolved from, and turns Baxter and Kill Crazy into apes. He also accidentally regresses Pete, Birdman's pet sparrow, into a Tyrannosaurus Rex which then goes on a rampage around Red Dwarf and eats the Birdman, along with the Time Wand. With the rest of the crew frozen in time, Rimmer, Lister, Kryten, Kochanski, The Cat and Holly attempt to find a solution before the freeze wears off.
52	"Only the Good..."	Doug Naylor	Ed Bye	5 April 1999	8
An escape pod containing a genetically-engineered virus that eats metal arrives on Red Dwarf and begins to destroy the ship. Left on Red Dwarf to die, Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten, Kochanski and Holly find their only chance at finding an antidote is to create a mirror universe where everything is opposite. Rimmer is sent into the mirror universe to find the antidote before Red Dwarf is destroyed. In the mirror universe, Rimmer finds what he has always wanted - he is no longer a lowly technician but the captain of the ship.

Unbroadcasted scripts

Bodysnatcher

Originally to be the second episode of Series I, and would have involved Rimmer going insane trying to deal with his intangibility and attempting to build himself a new body by stealing parts of Lister's. This idea was, in a way, used in the episode "Bodyswap" in Series III. It was dropped in favour of "Me²".

Dad

This would have been the opening episode to Series III. It was to be a direct continuation of the earlier episode "Parallel Universe" (the last episode of Series II), and would deal primarily with Lister's pregnancy. The idea was ultimately rejected by Grant and Naylor who felt that the script was unfunny and possibly sexist. The events were referenced in the pre-title sequence of the episode "Backwards".

Identity Within

This episode was going to be in Series VII but was replaced by "Duct Soup". A reconstructed version of the episode, performed by Chris Barrie (who does the voices), appears on the Series VII DVD release. The Cat is fatally ill, with only one cure: he has to have sex. They travel to a GELF village, where a female cat called Aura is being held prisoner for auction. Lister, Rimmer and Kryten have to save Aura and get her to fall in love with the Cat before he dies from being a virgin.

Movie

Since Series VIII ended in 1999, Doug Naylor has been attempting to make a feature length version of the show. A script has been written, by Naylor, and flyers began circulating around certain websites. The flyer outlined the movie's plot, set in the distant future where Homo Sapienoids - a fearsome flesh-machine hybrid race - had taken over the solar system and were wiping out the human race. Spaceships that tried to escape Earth were hunted down until all but one remained... Red Dwarf. Pre-production began in 2004 and filming was planned for 2005. However, sufficient funding has not been forthcoming and production was put on hold.

References

• "Red Dwarf episode guide". www.reddwarf.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
• Howarth, Chris (1993). Red Dwarf Programme Guide. Virgin Books. ISBN 0-86369-682-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Red Dwarf at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show