What year did “The End” take place in?

[Lee Bee]

First of all, apologies if this has been asked a million times, OR if the answer is really easy to track down and staring me in the face.

It’s just that I’ve been watching Red Dwarf for 30+ years and never really known quite when our heroes were born.

I remember Lister saying he’s an “enlightened 23rd century guy”, while Google tells me that Dave Lister was born in 2155. Where does this information come from? What canonical information do we actually have about the time these characters were born in?

And then, we have much more contemporary references, such as Felicity Kendal, or Rimmer recalling the day “Cliff Richard was shot” (LOL).

I guess this could be explained by future technology enhancing life-span, so that Cliff Richard lives to be 230. Or it’s a different Cliff Richard. Or the day Cliff Richard gets shot is so historic that the memory lives on culturally. But is there any chance that Lister could actually have been born in THIS century, in the near future?

I was thinking, it would be cool if the final ever episode of Red Dwarf was shot on the actual day of Lister’s birth. It could feature an elderly Craig Charles portraying Lister choking to death on a bra (as predicted by Cassandra), giving a sense of circularity to series – the one point in time when production and fictional future overlap!

[Warbodog]

Series 2 suggests it’s the mid-late 21st century. A calendar seen in Stasis Leak suggests the setting was 2077, Rimmer calls Captain Hollister ‘Mr Fat Bastard 2044.’

2155 birthdate is from Ouroboros, making The End around 2180. This is based on the novels.

Series 4 has Lister say 23rd century. This was after the novels, but disregards it.

[Pete Part Three]

Hollister was the 2044th fat bastard that Rimmer had met, obvs. He keeps a little notebook.

[International Debris]

He was born on the same day it was finally decided exactly what series mechanoid Kryten is.

[Ben Kirkham]

It took place on 15th February 1988.

[Rudolph]

The introduction of Geldof as a month wasn’t the only change to the calendar. This neatly explains how Lister was born in 2155, went into stasis in 2077 and was also an enlightened 23rd Century guy.

[Dave]

Rimmer probably put two Geldofs in his star chart.

[clem]

Ah, I forgot about Geldof. Maybe that explains why Lister says he’s a Pisces in Last Human, even though he was born in October.

[Lee Bee]

LOL, thanks for the responses, especially Warbodog for the summary.

I wonder why the date was changed? It’s not the kind of detail you just ‘forget about’. Any writer knows what century his show is set in.

[Dave]

Important details change all the time in Red Dwarf. The size of the crew, Lister’s relationship with Kochanski, the date. It’s never had a rigid approach to this stuff.

My guess is that “enlightened 23rd century guy” just scans better than the alternatives. If they had used “22nd century guy” then all the syllables in “22nd” get in the way of the line a bit, and “21st century” isn’t futuristic enough.

[Unrumble]

Ah, I forgot about Geldof. Maybe that explains why Lister says he’s a Pisces in Last Human, even though he was born in October.

“she’s obviously an Aries, and me a Pisces…”

[Ian Symes]

Infinity tells us that the zodiac shifted at around the time Lister signed up for Red Dwarf, and everyone moved across one star sign. It must have happened a few more times in the following three million years.

[clem]

You know I remembered there was something like that but must have conflated it with this: https://time.com/5867647/nasa-zodiac-star/

[pfm]

Series 2 suggests it’s the mid-late 21st century. A calendar seen in Stasis Leak suggests the setting was 2077, Rimmer calls Captain Hollister ‘Mr Fat Bastard 2044.’

2155 birthdate is from Ouroboros, making The End around 2180. This is based on the novels.
Series 4 has Lister say 23rd century. This was after the novels, but disregards it.

You’re assuming Lister knows in what Century he’s living…

[Jenuall]

Depends on which Lister you’re dealing with, the “what’s an iguana?” moron from series 1, the street smart guy with “brains he’s never used” from series 5, or the guy who was apparently smart enough to rig the whole stasis thing for his own personal advantage as per the books!

[Ben Saunders]

Lister is stupid and then he gets smart but then he’s stupid again then he’s smart then stupid and now he’s smart

[Rudolph]

I’ve always wondered if Lister describing himself as an “enlightened, twenty-third century guy” was just him trying to express some maturity. Like someone in 1999 saying they’re an “enlightened, twenty-first century guy”.

[q u i n n _ d r u m m e r]

Lister is stupid and then he gets smart but then he’s stupid again then he’s smart then stupid and now he’s smart

Lister’s character does flip from smart to stupid as the script dictates, and it is no more egregious than when he is sucking on wires in, I want to say Skipper??

But early on it’s quite possible for him to be a bright bloke but have general knowledge holes. Like, what is an iguana?

As he says to himself in Inquisitor, he has brains he never used. He was happy coasting along at the bottom of the pile, but had he applied himself he’d have excelled.

And I think that’s what show once he is on his own and he has to rely on his own resourcefulness for the most part. Like, in the books he teaches himself to mine to get the fuel needed to power the Nova 5. In the show he just steps up and does what is necessary.

He likely reads a bit more given all his free time, and as he has all the time in the world to just sit and think his moral philosophy is probably exceeding that of Kant’s at this point.

But that doesn’t stop him being a bit of an idiot too from time to time. That’s sort of just how people are in general.

[Jenuall]

He has to rely on his own resourcefulness? My God, it’s worse than I thought!

[q u i n n _ d r u m m e r]

I did wonder who would bat that one out the park

[Jenuall]

He’s always got his wit, brains and cunning to fall back on I suppose.

[GlenTokyo]

Iguanas might have been extinct for a century in Red Dwarf, Rimmer says stuffed iguana, so maybe Rimmer thinks he’s a smart arse because he’s seen a taxidermied one at the museum, and reckons Lister won’t know what it is, making him superior.

[Rudolph]

I think the early stupidity with Lister was maybe a holdover from Grant Naylor’s original concept of Lister being a bit more like Reverend Jim from Taxi: An older man who’s a bit brain-fried from years as a hippie dropout. I think they flag it up on the commentary for The End that his “bye, George” comment at McIntyre’s funeral was meant to reflect this as well.

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