Red Dwarf

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Red Dwarf is one of the best known cult British sci-fi TV shows that aren't Doctor Who, a "science comedy" series that only got green-lit by convincing the BBC it was going to make fun of sci-fi shows, such as the mega-hit Star Trek, but which developed a cult following for its unique blend of pseudo-hard sci-fi, black comedy, slapstick, and enough clever tech and space-related jokes to show the creators A: knew the science they were talking about, and B: were having plenty of fun taking the piss out of it all. It was sort of a live-action Futurama before Futurama was a thing, for any anons that still remember Futurama being a thing.

The Plot

In a not-too-distant future, humanity has colonized the solar system, and a megacorp called the Jupiter Mining Corporation runs a fleet of massive sub-light ships which flit around the system, snaffling up asteroids and breaking them down into usable minerals to then sell to the ever-resource hungry consumers of humanity. One such mining ship is the Red Dwarf, and amongst its crew of hundreds of miners and support staff, our protagonist is the lowest of the low; Dave Lister, a genial but unambitious bloke from Liverpool, stuck with the rank of 3rd technician. This is the lowest rank aboard ship, and just about qualifies him for the most pathetic of maintenance tasks, such as restocking the candy vending machines with fun-sized chocolate-covered honeycomb pieces and cleaning the gunk out of soup dispensing tubes from the various auto-chefs scattered around the ship. In Dave's own words this makes him lower down the ship's pecking order than the Scutters - the simple service mechs that infest the ship like rats and consist of a primitive, three-fingered gripping claw on a little four-wheeled body - and the guys who restock the toilet paper. The only person of equally low rank is his immediate superior; Arnold J. Rimmer, the ship's resident smeghead.

Aside from a crush on a navigation officer named Kristine Kochanski, whom he pines after from afar, Lister's primary friends are a couple of comparatively low-level roughnecks like himself, and a heavily pregnant pet cat. As our series starts, this illegal pet is discovered by the ship's captain, who demands that Lister give the animal to them to be destroyed, or else he will spend the rest of the Red Dwarf's flight in temporal stasis before being fired once they get back to Earth. Dave chooses the latter... and is greatly confused when time restarts itself and Holly, the ship's controlling AI, greets him with the welcome that the radiation levels are now safe.

See, once Lister went into stasis, for some insane reason, Rimmer was given responsibility for performing maintenance on the shielding surrounding the ship's lethally radioactive core. Rimmer being an even bigger incompetent than Lister, whose primary fault is a lack of ambition, Rimmer botched the job and causes a massive radiation leak that killed the entire crew and sent Holly, as per safety regulations, rocketing on an unplotted course into deep space until the background radiation levels reached a safe level. It only took a mere 3 million years, and by now the Red Dwarf is hopelesly lost somewhere in deep space.

Although he is now presumably the last human left in the galaxy, Lister is not alone. Holly had the ability to create a single hologram simulation of a deceased crewmember, and chose to ressurect Arnold Rimmer in this faction based on the observation he was the individual Lister spent the most time talking to. In addition, Lister's cat was able to survive the radiation leak by being sealed in the ship's hold, and the kittens it gave birth to evolved over millions of years into a race of humanoid cat-people. The cat race eventually left Red Dwarf in search of the holy land of Fuchal (their misremembered interpretation of Lister's dream to live in Fiji when he returned to Earth), leaving behind only one of their kind, who simply goes by the name "The Cat". From the third season onwards the service mechanoid Kryten also joins the crew, originally hailing from the starship Nova 5 but being taken in by the Dwarfers after it crashed and he spent millions of years attending to the crew's skeletons under the delusion they were still alive.

Rather than give in to despair, Lister assembles a small crew of crazies around himself and sets off to try and find Earth again, determined to see what has become of humanity over the eons. No matter what dangers or batshit crazy things he has to get past to do it.

The setting is notable for having no aliens, further emphasizing the crew's isolation in the emptiness of space. Later seasons would add in GELFs (Genetically Engineered LifeForms) and Simulants (rogue androids that rebelled against humanity), but both were ultimately created by humanity.

/tg/ Relevance

Aside from being Approved Television for anyone with a love of sci-fi and comedy, especially fans of the earlier, more comical forms of Warhammer 40,000 or Rogue Trader, Red Dwarf has its own licensed roleplaying game; Red Dwarf - The RPG.