List of Red Dwarf characters
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Character descriptions and casting details for the Red Dwarf BBC sitcom and series of novels by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. Red Dwarf is a British science fiction situation comedy, created and originally written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.
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[edit] Major characters
[edit] David Lister
David Lister is portrayed by Craig Charles.
The most important thing to know about Dave Lister is that he is the last human man in the known universe. The second most important thing to know is that his best clothes have only two curry stains down the front. The third most important thing to know is that he believes he is the world's greatest rock guitarist and possibly Jimi Hendrix reborn. However, listening to his guitar playing is akin to having to undergo three root canal fillings without anaesthetic during one visit to the dentist. He is described as a ten-thumbed, tone-deaf, noise polluter by Kryten; before Kryten learnt how to lie.
[edit] Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Rimmer is portrayed by Chris Barrie.
Arnold Judas Rimmer BSC, SSC (standing for Bronze Swimming Certificate, Silver Swimming Certificate), who sometimes goes by "Arnold Jonathan Rimmer". He is instantly recognizable by both the permanent sneer on his lips and the "H" (hologram) symbol on his forehead. He is the second lowest rank on the ship, a Second Technician, immediately over David Lister, Third Technician. The two are charged with the incredibly important job of chicken soup machine repair. He blames himself for the crew dying, since he inefficiently repaired the drive-plate, though, considering his reputation for ineptitude, the blame might more likely be on the captain who gave him that job to do in the first place.
[edit] The Cat
The Cat is played by Danny John-Jules.
The character has no name besides, "The Cat". He is the humanoid descendant of a modern house cat called Frankenstein, which had been Dave Lister's pet cat, son of, as the Cat Priest describes it, "the cripple and the idiot". He is believed to be the last remaining member of his species, Felis sapiens.
The Cat thinks only of his own well-being ("superficial is my middle name"), would "rather die than wear polyester" and claims that he is so attractive "that I have a 6-month waiting list for birds to suddenly appear, every time I'm near". This is a reference to the song (They Long to Be) Close to You. Despite all of his boasting, he has never had any genuine experience with a female.
[edit] Kryten
Kryten is played by David Ross Series 2, Robert Llewellyn Series 3 onwards.
Kryten (full name, "Kryten 2X4B-523P", though he never liked his middle name, "2X4B" calling it "Jerky"), is a Series 4000 mechanoid robotic servant — and is quite neurotic. He looks very humanoid, with the exception of the flat cubical face and head. Once the personal servant of three attractive female crew members of the Nova 5, he is now reduced to serving the slobbish Dave Lister, the only surviving human crew member on the Red Dwarf. Lister, since then, has been teaching Kryten to "break his programming" in order to develop his own personality and develop human character faults (such as the ability to lie). In his first appearance, Kryten was played by David Ross and had an accent of an English butler, from Season 3 onwards, he gained a Canadian accent (he used Lister's space bike and crashed into an asteroid, the change of appearance, personality and accent were a result of Lister's rebuilding of him). Also, in series VII, he develops a neurotic dislike for Kochanski because he feels she will steal Lister from him.
[edit] Holly
Holly is played by Norman Lovett Series 1, 2, and 8 Hattie Hayridge Series 3, 4, 5.
Holly is an intelligent computer. Holly's user interface appears on the ship's screens as a disembodied human head on a black background, and can also be downloaded onto most monitors and watches or roam around on a portable screen that moves on caterpillar tracks. As a male he appeared as around 50 years old with receding brown hair (completely bald on top as of series VIII), and as a female, she appears as a woman of ambiguous age but probably 30-ish with long blonde hair. In Series I Holly was pixelated but this idea was dropped in Series II. Holly has an IQ of 6000, "the same IQ as 6000 PE teachers" (quote from Series I episode "Future Echoes"), although he's lost most of it over the last three million years by "computer senility".
[edit] Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Z Kochanski is Red Dwarf's Navigation Officer, and the ex-girlfriend of and object of lust for Dave Lister before she was killed by a radiation leak. In the first episode (before the accident) she was played by Clare Grogan, who reprised the role in the episode Balance of Power, both in flashback and as a hologram. She also featured in the second series episode, Stasis Leak, due to time travel, and made a brief appearance as a hallucination in the sixth series episode Psirens.
In the seventh series, an alternate universe version played by Chloë Annett became a permanent member of the crew after Arnold Rimmer left.
[edit] Alter egos
[edit] Ace Rimmer
Ace Rimmer (Commander Arnold Judas Rimmer) is an alter ego of Arnold Rimmer, also played by Chris Barrie. He first appears in the episode "Dimension Jump", the 5th episode in Series IV of Red Dwarf.
While Arnold is egocentric and arrogant despite being a sniveling, gutless anti-hero, Ace is modest despite being a popular, knowledgeable daredevil hero.
Ace's childhood paralleled Arnold's until the age of seven, when one of them was kept down a year at school while the other was not. The one kept down became Ace, who claims that being a clear foot taller than the rest of his class inspired him to buckle down, fight back, and work hard, while Arnold spent the rest of his life making excuses for his many failures.
Ace travels from planet to planet wearing a gold, fur-lined flight suit and saving the lives of beautiful women (with whom he usually has sex). He was originally a test pilot for the Space Corps in his own universe, which also features an alter ego of Lister: nicknamed 'Spanners' by Ace, this Lister is a flight engineer married to Kochanski and has twin sons called Jim and Bexley (the sort of family to which the regular Lister always aspired). Ace's other friends included the Space Corps chaplain (played by The Cat actor Danny John-Jules), a receptionist named Mellie (played by Holly actress Hattie Hayridge), and Admiral Sir James Tranter, a superior officer whom Ace nicknames 'Bongo' (played by Kryten actor Robert Llewellyn). Despite being happily married, Bongo has a gay crush on Ace, who takes it in stride despite being 'strictly butter-side up'.
Ace was offered the chance to pilot a brand-new kind of spacecraft, one that can cross dimensions, called The Wildfire. The first dimension he encountered happened to be the one in which Red Dwarf is set. Ace met the Red Dwarf crew, including the original Rimmer. They are supposed to be the same person, but quickly learned to loathe each other. Rimmer was bitter that Ace got all the breaks he did not (despite the irony that, in not being kept back a year, he got what by his terms would be 'the break'), while Ace regarded him as a weasely maggot, even sighing when a booby-trap set by Rimmer failed to work.
In contrast, Ace and Lister became firm friends, prompting a lot of snide remarks on Rimmer's part about their 'relationship'.
Following his visit to Red Dwarf, Ace extended his adventures through the multiverse, adventuring, becoming a hero, and meeting all the many alternate versions of himself. When he finally became unable to carry on (due to having "caught the business end of a neutron tank in Dimension 165", according to a later Ace), he passed his wig and his legacy on to another version of himself, who became the new Ace. Previous Ace Rimmers were sent, when they finally died, to orbit a planet in an unknown location in small yellow 'coffins', and by the time Red Dwarf's Rimmer took on the mantle, the billions of Ace Rimmers who have come before him had formed a ring around the planet (resembling the logo of the TV series).
Ace's catchphrase is "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!", and it is a running joke in the series that everyone who comes into contact with Ace Rimmer exclaims "What a guy!" in tones of complete adoration.
The original Rimmer has a number of nicknames for himself, none of which have been used by any other character (save for his clone in the episode "Me Squared", a mocking Lister in "Kryten", Series II Episode 1, and Camille the GELF (Genetically Engineered Life Form) in her 'Rimmer's perfect companion' form): these include Ironballs, I.B. (a derivative of the former), Big Man, Duke, and Ace. Sadly, his real nickname was Bonehead.
Rimmer himself is the only one who refuses to see Ace as a hero, and he makes frequent references to Ace being gay, or Ace and Lister being in love. However, in the episode "Emohawk, Polymorph 2" in Series VI, Rimmer is the victim of an emotion-sucking mutant which turns him into Ace. He seems to enjoy his new look and attitude, but is soon returned to his original appearance. Furthermore, in the episode "Stoke Me a Clipper" in Series VII, Rimmer has to overcome both his jealousy of Ace's success and his own fear when Ace confides in him that he is a hard-light hologram, and that he is dying. Ace recruits Rimmer to be the next Ace (in a deleted scene, the Ace Rimmer encountered in this episode was from a universe where he stole the timedrive during the events of "Out of Time", left the others for dead and ended up in Napoleonic times, where Ace Rimmer found him wearing a dress and working in a flower shop to avoid being conscripted), and with a little encouragement from Lister, Rimmer leaves. Before taking off (or trying to — he hits the ejector seat instead), the new Ace Rimmer's last words are "Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas!" ... followed by, as he realises his mistake, "Whatever."
It is unknown how this edition of Ace Rimmer fared, as the Rimmer in later seasons was a copy of the original. The new Ace Rimmer makes a cameo appearance in the Series VII episode "Blue" in which he appears in a romantic dream of Lister's.
[edit] Duane Dibbley
Duane Dibbley is the dorky alter-ego of The Cat, played by Danny John-Jules with a pudding basin haircut and big overbite. He first appears in the Series V episode "Back To Reality", as part of a hallucinogenic experience, designed to cause despair in the Dwarfers. His second appearance is for real in the Series VI episode "Emohawk: Polymorph II", and was caused by a polymorph absorbing the Cat's cool. In the BBC's Red Dwarf Night he inexplicably appears in the Can't Cook, Won't Cook parody (Can't Smeg Won't Smeg) after The Cat refuses to take part in the show.
In Series VIII episode "Back In The Red", The Cat, Lister, Kochanski, and Kryten disguised themselves as "The Dibbley Family" by wearing mop heads on their heads and large false teeth.
The character's brief appearances have proved incredibly popular. John-Jules' explanation for this was "No-one's ever written a black nerd before" (though see Steve Urkel).
[edit] The Dog
The Dog is a minor character played by Matthew Devitt. He is an alternate version of the Cat from a parallel universe. His origins are presumably similar to the Cat, except that Deb Lister (Dave Lister's duplicate) brought a dog on board the ship, rather than a cat.
The Dog speaks in a Texan drawl. He is dirty and smelly. He likes to offer his bottom for strangers to smell. He is thrown into a panic by the word "bath" and insists it be spelt so that he cannot understand it. He seems to be the last remaining member of his species (presumably Canis sapiens). He is also hopeless at dancing. The Dog suffers from separation anxiety when the others leave him alone.
The Cat was thrilled when he thought he would meet a female version of himself, only to be horrified to find a creature that might eat him. They did not get on very well.
[edit] Queeg 500
Queeg 500 is a "back-up" computer played by Charles Augins (a choreographer who was also behind the dance sequences in "Parallel Universe" and "Back In The Red 3").
On screen, Queeg 500 is a bald black man of middle age, with the tone and mannerisms of a US Marine drill instructor.
In the episode "Queeg" of Series II, a backup computer known as Queeg 500 replaces Holly on Red Dwarf viewscreens when Holly accidentally gives Lister bad advice, resulting in minor injury. Queeg claims to be a backup system, and is keenly aware of Holly's senility. Queeg claims that Holly's IQ is not 6,000 but 6. Holly is very upset and exclaims "6? Do me a lemon! That's a poor IQ for a glass of water". He also claims that Holly gets his information from a children's science book, called the "Junior Encyclopedia of Space", and has been piloting Red Dwarf around in circles. Holly is outraged and claims that it is a "load of Tottenham. A steaming pile of Hotspur." He is demoted to night-watchman and Queeg takes over the ship.
Queeg soon makes the crew's lives hell. Rimmer is pleased at first by his efficiency but changes his opinion when Queeg takes over his body and makes him sprint several miles a day (As the company pays for his hologramatic survival and out there in space Queeg IS the company). The Cat is horrified that he has to do the 'W' word (work) and although they do get down to scrubbing the floors he and Lister get almost nothing to eat (at dinner, he gets a pea on toast). The crew feel awful for not sticking up for Holly.
Then Holly challenges Queeg to a game of his choice and agrees that the loser gets deleted. Unfortunately it is chess. Holly is hopeless at this and gets it confused with poker, and refers to the knights as "horsies", bishops as "Bishs" and pawns as "prawns". Holly loses the game, wishes everyone good luck with their lives and, singing the Carpenters hit Goodbye To Love, fades from view. Queeg takes his place on the viewscreen but soon changes into Holly, who grins smugly and announces that he was Queeg all the time. The whole thing was a practical joke to teach the crew to appreciate Holly even though he has gone a bit "computer senile".
Holly describes his prank as "the jape of the decade", "wheeze of the week" and an "April, May, June, July and August fool".
The name Queeg comes from the similarly "by-the-book" Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny.
[edit] Shipboard robots
[edit] The Skutters
The skutters are motorised service and maintenance robots that stand at around two to three feet tall. They have been compared to the K9 robot from Doctor Who, but are different from this in that they have a single limb which ends in a three-clawed hand with an electronic eye. Their claws are usually closed in such a way that they appear to have a beak.
The duties of the skutters are to perform menial tasks around the ship, such as sweeping the cinema floors after a movie, or painting the corridors different shades of grey. Lister claims they have better working conditions than himself and Rimmer, due to having a better union.
The skutters are unable to speak (except with bleeping noises), but can usually make their feelings clear. Their hands are particularly well designed for giving 'up yours' with one or two digits, most often to Rimmer whom they strongly dislike.
One skutter in the original series has the designation '4457', implying there are thousands of skutters - as befits a ship the size of a city.
The tiny, motorised, three-clawed service droids were actual working models. They were made up of parts including old shoe boxes and the engines of radio controlled cars. Interference originating from the radios of a nearby taxi company, which was particularly busy during filming of the episode Future Echoes, caused havoc with the skutter models on set. One reportedly poked Craig Charles in the eye, and another launched an attack on an unsuspecting Chris Barrie's groin. Ironically the skutters were in the script very inept towards their maintenance work and mischievous towards humans.
Kryten referred to a skutter as "Bob" in the episode The Last Day. Series VIII also featured a skutter named Bob, presumably the same one, along with his wife Madge. One of the skutters has also been referred to as Stabbim — Rimmer inventing this name very hastily to cover his not very covert actions when he was trying to stab Lister's Paranoia (the result of a hallucination when Lister contracted highly evolved pneumonia that made his hallucinations real) with a hypodermic syringe in the episode Confidence and Paranoia. Rimmer has occasionally given the skutters not entirely flattering nicknames, including "Pinky and smegging Perky" after the pig marionettes in the 1960s British television programme Pinky and Perky in the episode Better Than Life, and "El Skutto" for the skutter who played draughts against him in Queeg.
The skutters are fans of John Wayne, having their broom cupboard filled with props and pin-ups, and having a letter from the John Wayne Fan Club. In the episode Parallel Universe, it appears that skutters are capable of reproduction, but the precise mechanics of this are not elaborated upon.
Two skutters appeared in the ill-fated US pilot playing poker with one of them giving Rimmer what looks like "the finger". These skutters were given a revamp in design: a wider, rounded body with a complex neck and a narrow head with concealed eyes that pop up. Even though not seen in full action, they appear to be more reliable and workable than the original UK versions. Lister basically describes them as "animated shoeboxes."
In Robot Wars, hosted by Craig Charles, one team produced robots called "Scutter's Revenge" and "Spawn of Scutter", possibly in reference to the skutters. Charles played on this by saying "I wonder what a scutter is?" after the former robot won its bout during a tournament.
It has been proposed use to name "scutter" for Semantic Web Crawlers.
[edit] Talkie Toaster
Talkie Toaster is a minor character, a monomaniacal toaster that tries to steer every conversation to the subject of toast.
Owned by Dave Lister, Talkie Toaster is a toaster with Artificial Intelligence who is completely obsessed with making toast and annoys everyone on board. In Series I (and a deleted scene in Series II), he appears as a standard 1970s Toaster made from stainless steel but with a circular light on the side which flashes as he speaks, and is voiced by John Lenahan. In Series IV, he appears as a red toaster made of plastic, with his name "Talkie Toaster" emblazoned on the side, and rather more flashing red and green lights (originally from Box, the computer in Star Cops) - although they have nothing to do with when he speaks, which is indicated by the press-down handle that would usually be used to start bread toasting - and is voiced by David Ross (who originally played Kryten in Series II). The book's description matches his appearance in Series IV.
In the TV show, the Toaster would keep interjecting in conversations in surprisingly and annoyingly smart ways, and whenever possible would try eventually to steer the conversation towards toast. He likes to greet people with the phrase, "Howdy-doodly-do, how's it going?" Eventually this became too much for Lister who smashed the Toaster into 3000 separate pieces with a 14lb lump hammer (which the Toaster later describes as "First degree toaster-cide"), his change in appearance may mean that Kryten had to fit a different casing.
Kryten eventually repaired the Toaster in order to use him as a guinea-pig for "intelligence compression" — restoring his former intelligence (his AI chips were very badly damaged) at the cost of reducing his operational lifespan. After it worked with him Kryten tried it on Holly, but a miscalculation made her twice as smart as she used to be and left her with only three-and-a-half minutes to live. Later on by blocking up a "white hole" (opposite of a black hole, and which spews out time) time was reset to before the Toaster was repaired so he did not end up repaired after all. The Toaster's repaired personality was somewhat different from his original one: it now had a different voice and no longer tried to hide its obsession with toast. Where before, the Toaster would cut into a conversation, insult someone, and then make some reference to toast, the new Toaster was barely able to go more than two sentences without asking if someone would like a cooked bread product.
In the book, the Toaster helped Holly double his original IQ but shortened his life to three and a half minutes. He won 793 consecutive chess games against Holly. During this time, the Toaster also saved the crew from death: while Holly was a genius, he explained to the Toaster how to escape from a black hole, information which later came in useful when the crew encountered one. The Toaster did not, however, merely volunteer this information: it forced the crew to eat ridiculous amounts of toast before talking (The Cat later explains that the toast was burnt, cold and soggy). When the crew is attacked by a polymorph, and the crew loses a certain emotion (Rimmer loses his anger, Lister loses his fear, The Cat loses his vanity and Kryten loses his guilt), the Toaster is destroyed by Kryten. It was subsequently repaired, but its personality circuits were damaged to the point where it believed it was a moose, and was reduced to making loud bellowing noises and threatening to charge the crew with its antlers.
The Toaster was apparently manufactured by a Taiwanese company named "Crapola Inc."
The Toaster's interviews with various Red Dwarf characters (complete with offers of toast) can be found on Red Dwarf's official website.
[edit] The Chocolate Dispenser
The Chocolate Dispenser has a minor role to play in series VIII, in which it is stolen from by Rimmer and then complains about this.
In its first appearance, having been stolen from by Rimmer, it sets off an alarm to alert the Captain of chocolate being stolen ("Alert, alert. A chocolate bar has been stolen.") It later goes on to inform Rimmer concerning his becoming its 'nemesis'. His last appearance involved it telling Rimmer that the formula which he got from the parallel universe which would stop the virus that was destroying the ship had, in fact, become the formula for the virus again, then firing a drinks can at Rimmer's head.
[edit] Other Red Dwarf crew
[edit] Captain Frank Hollister
Captain Frank Hollister is played by American actor Mac McDonald in the television series.
Hollister is the overweight captain of the interplanetary mining vessel Red Dwarf. He is seen in the first episode, in which he sentences Dave Lister to eighteen months in stasis for bringing a cat on board. When Lister is released Hollister, along with the rest of the crew, has been radioactive dust for three million years.
In the first episode, Hollister is introduced giving a speech at the funeral of a crew member. Later in the episode he confronts Lister about the existence of Lister's pet cat, Frankenstein, giving him a choice between either giving the cat up for extermination or going into stasis. He is also briefly seen in the final episode of the series in Arnold Rimmer's video of his own death. He has just enough time to blame Rimmer for the accident which is about to wipe out the crew before the initial explosion hits. The credits for this series only list him as "The Captain".
He has a more substantial role in the Series II episode, "Stasis Leak", in which the regulars travel back in time. He is seen once more upbraiding Lister, this time for slipping hallucinogenic mushrooms (also known as "freaky fungus") into Rimmer's breakfast, and later in a chicken outfit for a costume party, being attacked by Rimmer who believes him to be a hallucination. Rimmer paints him with a bucket of paint which the Captain has assigned him to paint the ship with, stating "I'm sorry, but I don't take orders from poultry!"
In Series VIII, with the crew resurrected by nanobots, Hollister becomes a main character. While his main purpose still seemed to be railing at Lister and Rimmer, we learn more about him, that his wife's name is Martha; that his weight problem is at least partially due to his love of orange popsicles, mint-choc ice cream, Coca-Cola, and Martha's muffins; and that he gained his position through blackmail and is really "Dennis the Doughnut Boy". He now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after an incident with a baby T Rex. According to Rimmer, Hollister won the "Mr. Fat Bastard 2044" award.
In the Red Dwarf novel, "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" the captain of the ship was not Hollister, but a woman whose last name is coincidentally "Kirk" and is American and overweight. She too met the same fate as Captain Hollister in the TV series.
[edit] Olaf Petersen
Olaf Petersen is played by Mark Williams in the television series. He is a Danish catering officer on the Red Dwarf mining vessel.
First appearing in the pilot episode, Petersen is the best friend of Dave Lister. He, Lister, Selby and Chen spend most of their free time getting drunk. Rimmer considers him to be "a Danish moron". In the novel, when Petersen goes to have his personality recorded for possible later revival as a hologram, he is so drunk the recording crashes three times with the error message 'non-human life form'.
Like the rest of the crew, Petersen is killed in the radiation leak. His remains are found in the Drive Room as a white powder that Lister tasted (and apparently enjoyed, judging by his sampling of other powder deposits). However, he subsequently appears in two other episodes: in a first series flashback to before the accident in Balance of Power and when Lister and The Cat travel back in time to before the accident in the Series II episode Stasis Leak. Also in Balance of Power, an error with the ship's hologram generation unit results in Rimmer being given his arm.
Petersen is resurrected along with the rest of the crew in Series VIII, but is not seen, although often referred to.
The novel Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers reveals that Petersen was aboard Red Dwarf in order to make his way to the dome colony on Triton, where he had bought an extravagant house for only two thousand dollarpounds — the cheapness being because the colony's oxygen atmosphere had not been installed yet. It also explains that he was not chosen to keep Lister company as a hologram despite being his best friend, because according to Holly, "The only thing you had in common was consuming ridiculous amounts of alcohol, and he couldn't keep himself sane, let alone others."
In the novel Backwards a Petersen from an alternate reality where the radiation leak never happened makes an appearance — he explains that he is still aboard Red Dwarf and not living in his house on Triton because alcohol was prohibited. (This may contradict the first book, which says that, on a previous visit to an alcohol-free moon, Petersen was so impressed by sobriety he became a teetotaller overnight. However, this can easily be explained as another difference between the two universes.)
[edit] Selby and Chen
Selby and Chen are played by David Gillespie and Paul Bradley, respectively. Chen works in the ship's kitchens and is always drunk. Selby is always drunk, too. They both have a crush on Kochanski.
First appearing in the pilot episode, they spend most of their free time with Lister and Petersen getting drunk. Their motto is "Skive hard, play hard."
Like the rest of the crew they are killed in the radiation leak. However, they subsequently appear in a flashback before the accident in the Series I episode "Balance of Power".
When the crew are resurrected in Series VIII, Selby and Chen are the first crew members the regular characters encountered. They are not seen again. An unbroadcast scene revealed that they would have done everything in their power to prevent Lister being sent to the Tank (the ship prison), but the pub was open.
Chen came up with the theory that everyone has two people inside themselves, Confidence and Paranoia. When Lister contracts a mutated form of pneumonia, his hallucinations of his Confidence and his Paranoia become real.
[edit] Carol Brown
Carol Brown was a minor character on Red Dwarf, appearing in one episode only. She was played as a voice-over by Lia Williams.
Carol was the Executive Officer aboard Red Dwarf. In the episode Bodyswap Carol's personality is implanted into the body of Dave Lister, during an experimental procedure, in the hope that she would be able to switch off the ship's automatic destruct system, which had been accidentally switched on. Unfortunately the computer was unable to verify her identity. Fortunately, there was no bomb anyway - Holly had thrown it away years ago.
[edit] George McIntyre
George McIntyre was a minor character aboard Red Dwarf.
In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, McIntyre was an officer on Red Dwarf who was severely depressed due to growing debt problems. After a horrifying experience in the hands of gangsters (he returned to Red Dwarf carrying his nose in a Titan Hilton Hotel napkin), McIntyre committed suicide. He was brought back as a hologram and replaced the ship's first hologram, Frank Saunders (much to Saunders' relief).
In the television series, McIntyre was only seen at his "Welcome Back Reception" thanking everyone for flowers and turning up at his funeral, and his choice of music at the funeral was "See Ya Later Alligator" as his ashes were blasted into space. He was switched off during the radioactive disaster, for Arnold Rimmer to replace him afterwards by Holly to keep Dave Lister sane. McIntyre's inclusion in the television series was used primarily to explain how holograms work in the Red Dwarf universe, so that Rimmer's subsequent introduction as a hologram would demand less explanation. The cause of McIntyres death is unknown in the TV series.
George McIntyre was presumably Welsh, as the capsule containing his ashes was decorated with a Welsh flag - he also has a Welsh accent. (Episode 1 Series 1, The End)
[edit] Frank Todhunter
Frank Todhunter appeared in the first episode only (he was not seen after the crew were resurrected in series VIII). He was played by Robert Bathurst.
Todhunter's job title is never explained, though he may be the chief engineer or first technician of Red Dwarf. He is in charge of the stasis booth and tries to describe how it works to anyone who goes there. He is also an exam invigilator. When Rimmer takes his exam, he panics, does his Full Rimmer salute to Todhunter, then faints.
Rimmer describes Todhunter as a "total gimp". He also claims Todhunter's success was due to a privileged background, speculating that he had been breastfed on chilled champagne and gazpacho soup.
This animosity appears to be mutual, as shown in Episode 1 of Series 1 (The End) when Todhunter concurs with Lister in calling Rimmer a "complete smeghead".
In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Rimmer attempts to pass himself off as "Christopher Todhunter" when, on their first meeting, Lister attempts to blackmail him about his visit to an android brothel. Whether this was a reference to a genuine Red Dwarf crew member, or a made-up name is unclear; Todhunter's role later in the story is taken by First Technician Petrovich.
[edit] Prison Governor Ackerman
Prison Governor Ackerman is played by Graham McTavish.
Seen only in the eighth series, Mr Ackerman is a stereotypically sadistic prison governor, enjoying his power over the inmates in Floor 13 (Red Dwarf's brig), "The Tank". He has a glass eye, which at one point is stolen from him. Prone to overreaction, he is a victim of pranks from the inmates on more than one occasion. After having sodium pentothal put into his inhaler as a prank, he shows up late at a meeting with the captain and reveals that he was sorry, but he was busy having "jiggy jiggy" with the Science Officer's wife, and needed time to change out of his Batman costume. Following the prank Lister suggested that a Tarzan costume would be better, since it would take less time to change out of.
[edit] Warden Knot
Warden Knot
Like governor Ackerman, Knot is a fairly sadistic warden. He dies in the episode Cassandra when Arnold Rimmer is due to die of a heart attack, as according to prophecy, but sets up Knot to die in his place.
[edit] Kill Crazy
Kill Crazy is a minor character played by Jake Wood, appearing only in Series 8.
Kill Crazy (Real name - Oswald Blenkinsop) is a psychopathic inmate who is obsessed with killing things. He is not very bright, thinking that he could fight a Tyrannosaurus Rex using his fists (after all, how's the T-Rex going to punch him with those tiny arms?). His fighting buddy is Baxter (played by comedian Ricky Grover). When the prisoners arrive at the destination of a mission, Kill Crazy screams "LET'S GO KILL SOMETHING!" before charging forward at great pace and clattering himself unconscious on a low doorway.
[edit] Other minor characters
Other Red Dwarf crew who appeared briefly in the series include a Ms. Harrison (Lucy Briers) and Deck Sergeant Sam Murray (Tim Yeates), both briefly revived as holograms to potentially replace Rimmer in Holoship. While Harrison preferred to stay dead on meeting Lister and company, Murray was not offered the chance to stay on as Rimmer quickly returned.
[edit] GELFs
While the Red Dwarf universe does not contain aliens, many GELFs, or Genetically Engineered Life Forms, have been featured in the series.
[edit] Simulants
Rogue Simulants are artificial life forms, broadly similar to mechanoids, although designed to be as close to humans as possible: it is stated that they are biomechanical, although they are distinguishable due to the fact that they have two sets of eyebrows. Their synthetic skin also apparently degrades over time, leaving the metal endoskeleton underneath exposed. Apparently many are in this condition due the fact they have been in deep space for centuries, even millennia. All the simulants seen in the show have all been psychotic. Some fans have suggested their name is perphaps a play on the replicants in Blade Runner (in fact, in Czech dubbing they are called "replicants", probably because the word "simulant" means "malingerer" in Czech) .
They were created for a war that never happened; some escaped the dismantlement and commandeered space vessels for themselves. They now prowl around deep space looking for other vessels to challenge in battle and for humans to torture. Some have however made alliances with GELF tribesmen, notably the Kinatowowi tribe (as seen in the episode Beyond a Joke), although this may be due to the fact that many GELFs hate humans as much as Simulants do.
The first simulant featured in the show was in the episode Justice, where it was in stasis pending a trial and incarceration at the Justice Station. The pod it was held in thawed out and it attacked the crew, pursuing them into the Justice Zone, an area in the Justice Station where if you tried to commit a crime, the consequences happen to you. Because of this, it destroyed itself trying to attack Lister.
In The Inquisitor, a self-repairing simulant lasts till the end of time, and, having reached the conclusion that there is no God or afterlife, decides to judge the universe for leaders of worthwhile lives. Lister and Kryten destroyed it by making its gauntlet backfire.
In the episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse, simulants fit out Starbug with laser cannons and armour so that they can have a proper battle. Whilst this may seem honourable to some extent (albeit fairly distorted), simulants are not always so. In some cases they were quite sadistic. In the episode Rimmerworld, it is said that rogue simulants would capture human prisoners for the purposes of torture, and would stock their ships up with food supplies with which to keep their torture victims alive. Some of the simulants' victims had been kept alive in a state of perpetual agony for over four decades.
Simulants have frequently appeared when episodes call for a "general villain", especially in the sixth and seventh series. The last appearance of a simulant was in the seventh series, in the episode Beyond a Joke.
In the novel Backwards the simulants are renamed agonoids. They took control of Red Dwarf while the crew were trapped in a backwards universe, ripping out the machinery comprising Holly and transforming part of Red Dwarf into a 'Death Wheel' that would trap the crew in the centre when they returned and force the agonoids to race for the privilege of being 'The One' who would kill the last human. However, one agonoid killed every single other agonoid in order to ensure that he would be the one to kill Lister, but was then sucked into space when he attempted to attack the crew on Starbug.
[edit] Miscellaneous characters
[edit] The Cat Priest
The Cat Priest was the only member of the species Felis sapiens seen on the television show Red Dwarf apart from The Cat.
The Cat Priest was blind. He was the Cat's teacher and guardian after his parents died, but Cat was never really interested and preferred to go off investigating. The Cat Priest was once a devout follower of the Cat religion, but over time as the Cat race died he lost his faith.
When the Cat Priest was dying, Lister appeared and revealed that he was the Cat god Cloister. The Priest apologised for losing his faith, saying "You tested me, and I failed you." Lister assured him that had not failed, and he would get into Fuchal. The Cat Priest's last words before he died of a heart attack were "This is the happiest day of my ..."
In the remastered version of the episode in which he appeared, the Cat Priest's body was cremated and the ashes jettisoned into space.
[edit] Mr. Flibble
Mr. Flibble is a hologramatical hand puppet penguin. He is fluffy and malevolent, and often "very cross". In the episode Quarantine, Arnold Rimmer wore Mr. Flibble on his hand and together they terrorised the rest of the crew. Rimmer had been infected by a hologramatical virus, the "Hex virus", which gave him mental powers, but also made him completely psychotic. Both Mr. Flibble and Rimmer were armed with the power of Hex vision. When they attack with this power, their eyes glow red, and then a deadly beam of energy is discharged from their eyes.
Mr. Flibble is now an interviewer on the Red Dwarf official website.
[edit] Lise Yates
Lise Yates was the girlfriend of Dave Lister in Liverpool before he enlisted as a crewmember aboard Red Dwarf. She features in the series 2 episode Thanks For The Memory when, as a "death day" present to him, Lister implants his memory of his relationship with Lise Yates in Rimmer's memory causing him to believe that he himself had a romance with her. The "gift" later backfires when Rimmer discovers the existence of the real relationship between Lise and Dave and asks that the implanted memory be removed. In order for this to succeed, Lister, Cat and Holly must also erase their memory of the events. Also, the black box containing all the data from the events must also be removed and so is buried by Lister and Cat on a moon with a gravestone on which "To The Memory Of The Memory Of Lise Yates" is written.
[edit] Guest stars
Many co-stars of the first few episodes have gone on to careers away from Red Dwarf, such as Robert Bathurst, Tony Hawks, Paul Bradley and Mark Williams. But later series have attracted established stars, some of whom were fans of the show.
- Night Club Owner ("Backwards") - Arthur Smith
- Confidence ("Confidence & Paranoia") — Craig Ferguson
- Paranoia ("Confidence & Paranoia") - Lee Cornes
- Lift Hostess ("Stasis Leak") — Morwenna Banks
- Android Actor (voice) ("Kryten") and Vending Machine (voice) ("Only The Good") — Tony Slattery
- Sabrina Mulholland-Jjones ("Timeslides") — Koo Stark
- TV Presenter Blaize Falconberger ("Timeslides") — Ruby Wax
- Hudzen-10 ("The Last Day") — Gordon Kennedy
- Nirvanah Crane ("Holoship") — Jane Horrocks
- Gelf Chief ("Polymorph II: Emohawk") — Ainsley Harriott
- The Inquisitor ("Inquisitor") — Jack Docherty
- Andy The Technician ("Back To Reality") — Timothy Spall
- Fascist Policeman ("Back To Reality") — Lenny Von Dohlen
- Captain Tau ("Psirens") — Anita Dobson
- Professor Mamet ("Psirens") — Jenny Agutter
- Legion ("Legion") — Nigel Williams
- Captain Vorheese ("Stoke Me A Clipper") — Ken Morley
- King Of Camelot ("Stoke Me A Clipper") — Brian Cox
- Queen Of Camelot ("Stoke Me A Clipper") — Sarah Alexander
- Simulant ("Beyond A Joke") — Don Henderson
- Epideme (voice) ("Epideme") — Gary Martin
- Cassandra ("Cassandra") — Geraldine McEwan
[edit] External links
[edit] Images
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