Into the Toasterverse Features Posted by Ian Symes on 22nd October 2025, 12:31 Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone? From November 2000 until February 2022, Red Dwarf's official website would be updated every single Friday (barring Christmas holidays) without fail. Over twenty years of weekly updates, bringing us the latest news on new episodes, home media releases, merchandise and cast/crew projects. And whenever there wasn't a great deal to report on, they'd simply churn out some of the best fan writing Red Dwarf has ever had. Over the years, editors Andrew Ellard, Seb Patrick and Curtis Threadgold wrote countless features, covering behind-the-scenes history, analysis and commentary on the show's themes, and deep dives into niche rabbit holes. But in the earliest days of what we came to know affectionately as TOS, there was also a little something extra. Read more →
The Defunct Brands of Red Dwarf Features Posted by Ian Symes on 28th June 2025, 14:35 Red Dwarf's attitude towards real world references has fluctuated over the years. In the early days, Rob and Doug were keen to invent their own futuristic pop culture - Mugs Murphy, rastabilly skank, the London Jets - intertwined with more contemporary references to the likes of Kevin Keegan, Felicity Kendal and Ishtar. Generally speaking, the focus then shifted to historical figures, or those whose fame is international and timeless, your Wilma Flintstones, your Jane Austens, and of course, the all time number one. However, when it comes to brands and companies, the writers have never had any qualms with keeping the references relevant to the viewers at home. Other than the likes of the Jupiter Mining Corporation itself, Divadroid, Crapola, Leopard Lager and, much later, M-Corp, you're far more likely to hear about Pot Noodles, Shake 'n' Vac, FIFA, Brylcreem and Chicken (Mc)Nuggets than any invented equivalent. It's much more conducive to good comedy to give the audience a reference they're familiar with, plus Rob and Doug were never averse to leaning back on their observational comedy standards for a quick laugh. But Red Dwarf is thirty seven years old, and the world moves fast. What may have felt like enduring brands in the 80s and 90s - and even the 2010s - aren't necessarily going to have lasted to the modern day. And so we're going to take a look at every product or company name that's mentioned in dialogue throughout the 74 episodes, which has since fallen by the wayside. We'll note all the examples we could find, give a brief history, and outline its demise. Read more →
Draft To Reality Features Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd May 2025, 12:52 It's the best episode of Red Dwarf of all time. Undefeated in all four of our anniversary polls so far, more often than not the winner of other wide-ranging surveys by the Smegazine and Better Than Life, and even given a special BBC2 repeat screening under the title The Best Ever Red Dwarf. It happened to be the first episode I ever saw, probably the one I've rewatched the most, and quite possibly the single piece of media in the entire history of human civilisation that I'm most familiar with. I could quote every line of dialogue word for word, perfectly duplicating the intonation. I can picture each and every visual effect in my mind's eye. It taught me the words "seppuku", "twonk" and "calamari". After 33 years, what more could we possibly learn about this episode? Well... I recently came into possession of a rather special script. Dated 1991. Series V. Show One. Draft One. Back To Reality. The very first draft of the very best episode of our favourite show. Only a small handful of deleted scenes are included on the DVD. A version of the script was released as part of the Primordial Soup book, but that was a much later draft, and doesn't contain anything that wasn't either in the episode or on the DVD. We know a lot about this episode, but we don't know how it started out, before it was honed to perfection. Let's do this. Read more →
G&TV Special: Swirly Thing Alert Features Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd April 2025, 12:15 Previously on G&TV, we looked at Smegheads in Seattle, a 1998 production by KCTS 9, Seattle's local PBS station. They'd arranged a visit from Craig Charles and Danny John-Jules, who came over to be interviewed, take part in pledge drives and meet the show's many fans in the north-west corner of the US / the south-west corner of Canada. But Smegheads in Seattle was actually the second such programme produced by the station, a sequel of sorts to 1997's Swirly Thing Alert, which featured much the same content but with Craig joined by Robert Llewellyn instead. Taking place over the 26th and 27th May to coincide with a Series VII marathon, highlights from the weekend's events were packaged together into a whopping two hour compilation. Both specials were originally posted to YouTube by a user named Harlz, but they seem to have deleted them both within the last year or so. So we're now hosting them on our own channel, as well as on the Internet Archive. And if you've not seen Swirly Thing Alert before, there is much to unpack. Join us below the embed for analysis and a watch-along guide to some of the highlights (and lowlights). Read more →
The G&T Review of the Year 2024 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 31st December 2024, 14:58 Ah yes, it's time for our annual opportunity to take a breather from the relentless pace of Red Dwarf news, and reflect back on the last twelve months' worth of exciting developments. Or at least it would be had there been any. Something nearly happened in the late Spring, but that was about it. Oh well, thanks for coming anyway. While you're here, we might as well look back on the things that nearly happened anyway, plus some bits that did happen but weren't deemed interesting enough for a proper news post at the time, and a reminder of the nonsense that we ourselves churned out to help fill the void. By which I mean: Welcome to the Ganymede & Titan Review of the Year 2024! Read more →
Doctor Dwarf: Who’s Who? Features Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd November 2024, 09:00 The world's longest running science-fiction series (if you ignore the sixteen years where only one actual episode was made) turns 61 today. Doctor Who is without doubt the second best British sci-fi show ever, and unsurprisingly there are multiple connections between it and Red Dwarf. In this article, we list the whopping fifty-five actors who have appeared in both shows, or in the case of Doctor Who, one of its official televised spin-offs. Not all of these people were credited on both shows, and some of them took some significant tracking down, but thanks to resources such as TARDIS Wiki, TOS's Complete Guide, IMDb's collaborations search, Movie Dude's Pictorial Filmography and our very own Smega-Drive, we think we've caught them all. Read more →
Starbug Spotting Features Posted by Ian Symes on 10th October 2024, 12:20 Since its introduction in Series III, Red Dwarf's shuttle craft Starbug has become almost as iconic as the eponymous ship itself, spawning t-shirts, models, playsets, televised competitions and even a giant life-sized version as part of an elaborate ad campaign. Both its interior and exterior have changed dramatically in looks over the years, and it's established almost immediately that there are actually multiple Starbugs in existence, allowing us to headcanon away those inconsistencies with relative ease. When a new set was built for Series XI, a knowing reference to this was included as part of the set design, with the ship's interior baring branding that reads "Starbug 19". But is this number accurate? Does it correlate to the number of Starbugs we've seen on screen, or was it chosen arbitrarily for the purposes of the gag? Let's investigate, as we delve through the episodes to tally up just how many times the ship's been destroyed and then reappeared, and track some of the changes and features which are unique to each iteration. Read more →
Video DwarfCast #5 – Are You Smarter Than A G&Ter? Byte Two Features Posted by Jonathan Capps on 22nd July 2024, 13:27 We've set a lot of Red Dwarf quizzes in our time, but are we any good at answering them? Well, Part 1 of this video should give you a decent idea but unless we are still in any doubt, it's time to find out... again! Want to play along? You'll find a big list of quizzes underneath the video - take them, then watch the vid, then tell us how you did. Oh, and you're probably better off clicking through to YouTube and going full-screen if you want to see what we're typing properly. Read more →
Video DwarfCast #4 – Are You Smarter Than A G&Ter? Byte One Features Posted by Ian Symes on 13th June 2024, 15:18 We've set a lot of Red Dwarf quizzes in our time, but are we any good at answering them? Well, we already know that Cappsy isn't, but what about Ian and Danny? It's time to find out, as we put our reputations on the line by taking on a series of Sporcle quizzes that probe every aspect of our mental capabilities. Want to play along? You'll find a big list of quizzes underneath the video - take them, then watch the vid, then tell us how you did. Oh, and you're probably better off clicking through to YouTube and going full-screen if you want to see what we're typing properly. Byte Two coming soon! Read more →
So What Is It? Features Posted by Dave on 25th May 2024, 14:10 Repetition, Running Gags and Callbacks in Red Dwarf We're once again opening our doors to long term G&T regular Dave, bringing us his latest deep analysis of one of the show's core elements. Like all sitcoms of a certain age, Red Dwarf has a tendency to repeat itself from time to time. I’m not talking about in-the-moment repetition like the White Hole sequence that gives this article its title, or the Terrorform gag about Kryten’s short-term memory being erased – those are deliberate repeated phrases that give a single joke the necessary rhythm and cadence. I’m talking about episode-to-episode and series-to-series recurrences of the same ideas, jokes, lines and structures, and the way that these have accumulated as the show has gone on. Read more →