User:Andymarczak/sandbox

Invented Words

Red Dwarf, like other science fiction series, developed its own vocabulary. Words and phrases such as Dollarpound, Felis sapiens, Fuchal, Rogue Simulants, GELF, Space weevil and Zero G Football appear at various points during the series, highlighting a development in language, political climate, technology, evolution and culture in the future.

Parody and Pastiche

While Red Dwarf is a comedy series, there is a mistaken belief that it exists solely as a 'parody' of existing sci-fi shows. This, however, is untrue — the sci-fi elements of the series are always treated seriously by Grant and Naylor, and indeed there are many concepts introduced by the series that would later go on to be used by more "serious" programmes. Nevertheless, like many sitcoms of its era, a number of its episodes contain references to other (not always sci-fi) television shows, films, books and plays. These include spoofs of films and TV programmes as diverse as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Neighbours, Casablanca, Top Gun, and Pride and Prejudice.

Continuity

Red Dwarf is particularly known for its creators' lax attitude towards continuity. As such, there are many facts and events that go contradicted (sometimes multiple times) from series to series. In the beginning, changing such things as the number of people on-board the ship, or the number of times Rimmer took his astronavigation exam, was a result of Grant and Naylor not bothering to check their facts because they assumed that no-one else would either. Perhaps the best known example is Lister having had his appendix out twice. His romantic relationship with Kochanski was expanded upon to allow greater plot exposition. The number of crew on Red Dwarf also changed. Once the show began to attract a quite large fan base, however, such errors began to be gleefully pointed out by fans the world over, to the extent that they became one of the series' most notable features. Most of the series' continuity errors are therefore now treated with a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek reverence, and cheerfully ignored (just as Grant and Naylor ignored them when writing the show).

One way in which many of the series-to-series continuity errors can be explained away is by exploring the possibilities of different series taking place in alternative dimensions. Indeed, this is often used as a general explanation for the many changes in style (and characters' histories) between Series II and III — with many fans taking the words 'THE SAME GENERATION... NEARLY' in the opening scrolling text of the episode "Backwards" as indicative of this. It was at this point in the series that Grant and Naylor began to introduce elements from the novels' continuity (such as Lister and Kochanski having actually had a prior relationship) into the series.