The future of Red Dwarf…

Following the success of Red Dwarf 11 late last year and with Series 12 in the bag ready to be broadcast, one will assume that Red Dwarf’s ‘silver age’ will continue unhindered for many years to come.

However, one has to face facts that the cast and crew are not getting any younger, with the four principal cast members being 57, 53, 61 and 56, and with Doug, the creator and main writer himself being 61. With their advancing ages, it is entirely possible that a situation may arise in the not too distant future which will result in one of the main characters, or indeed Doug himself, being no longer able to be involved in the show for whatever reason, and this brings up an interesting question. How would Red Dwarf cope once one of its main cast members, or indeed Doug himself, is no longer able to be involved? Would the show try to reboot and ‘start afresh’, or would it somehow write around this like when Chris temporarily left in Series 7? It is unlike Doctor Who in that, every few years, the Doctor and his/her companion can be ‘refreshed’ with new actors, continuing the show for a few more years. It is often suggested that the actors in Red Dwarf are so deeply intertwined with their characters, that it would be very difficult for a new actor to come in and play that character. For example, parts of Chris Barrie’s personality make up Rimmer, parts of Craig make up Lister, etc. It is not a case of getting in new actors to play their characters, because as many have suggested in the past, Red Dwarf is not like a typical acting job where you can just come in and play the character, you have to ‘live and breath’ it a bit to get a feeling for the show.

I appreciate that this is a particularly morbid topic, but I feel that unlike ten years ago when it was presumed that Red Dwarf was well and truly dead, there are now rumours of two more series. Whilst this is great for Red Dwarf fans, there will come a point when the show must address this topic, but hopefully not for a few more years yet.