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Red Dwarf Characters Character descriptions and casting details for the Red Dwarf BBC sitcom and series of novels by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. Major characters: Dave Lister Arnold Rimmer The Cat Kryten Holly Kristine Kochanski Alter egos: Ace Rimmer Duane Dibbley The Dog Shipboard robots: The Skutters Queeg 500 Talkie Toaster Other Red Dwarf crew: Captain Frank Hollister Olaf Petersen Selby and Chen George McIntyre Frank Todhunter Warden Ackerman Kill Crazy Others: The Cat Priest The Polymorph Red Dwarf is a British science fiction sitcom ("Britcom" in the U.S.), created and originally written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. Major characters David Lister David Lister is portrayed by Craig Charles in the television series. The most important thing to know about Dave Lister is that he's the last human man in the known universe. The second most important thing to know is that his best clothes have only two curry stains down the front. An orphan, he was discovered as an infant under a pool table in a Liverpool pub (the Aigburth Arms), nestled in a cardboard box with the word ouroboros scribbled on the side. He was roughly six weeks old at this time, his birthday is officially 14th October 2155. Because of the confusion Lister celebrates his birthday "most of the time". He was adopted, but his adoptive father died when he was six. His adoptive mother apparently followed soon after, and he was raised by his "gran", presumably the mother of one of his adoptive parents. She was a tough, pipe-smoking woman, who nutted the headmaster when he came bottom in French and whose cooking led to his being nicknamed "Fat Boy" until he was thirteen. He decided to lose weight after he was shocked to find that the coroner used so much chalk around his grandmother when she got run over. He suffers from claustrophobia after a vengeful husband caught Lister making love to his wife in the supermarket he worked at. The man kidnapped the naked Lister, locked him in a box and threatened to chuck him into a river. Lister begged for mercy and was finally released onto the stage of a local theatre in the nude, in the middle of the Bootle Amateur Players' production of The Importance of Being Earnest. When he was 17, he formed a band called "Smeg and the Heads." Their only hit song was called "Ommm." The young Lister had the tendency of calling everything "crypto fascist". After visiting his younger self via time travel, the older Lister wasn't impressed. Lister was the lowest ranking officer on a ship of 169, the third technician, and spent his time performing tasks too menial for the skutters, under the hated supervision of Arnold Rimmer, or getting drunk with his friends Olaf Petersen, Selby and Chen. But since then he has lived an astounding life and after awaking from three million years in stasis, Lister has played pool with planets, been attacked by a killer kebab, and defeated cybernetic war-machines time and time again. The most amazing thing that has happened to Lister is eating an edible pot noodle. He is also the god of a race of cat-people who know him as Cloister the Stupid. Lister lost his virginity at the tender age of 12 in one of the bunkers of a golf course in Bootle but he's now dedicated to resurrecting and winning over the one true love of his three-million year life: Miss Kristine Kochanski, the long dead navigation officer of the Dwarf. Lister was an atheist at first, but is now a pantheist and believes God to be in all things. He can understand the international language Esperanto - at least, he can understand it better than Rimmer. It is his ambition to marry Kochanski and start a frugal life at a farm on the Earth islands of Fiji. In the book Better Than Life, which is not consistent with the TV series, Lister eventually discovers Earth, but finds that it is ruled by eight feet cockroaches. He becomes their king and plans to rebuild the planet. The others find him thirty-six years later (after believing Lister was missing for a fortnight due to a time dilation). Later, after Lister is killed by a polymorph, his body is taken to a different universe where time runs backwards and is told that he will be rescued in thirty-six years time. Two accounts of what followed (again, inconsistent with each other) are Backwards and The Last Human. The latter also features yet another alternate Lister, this one adopted by a disturbed upper-middle class couple, rather than "our" Lister's adopted parents, and suffering extreme sociopathy as a result. The former tells how he unspent eight years in prison for murder and had a relationship with Konchanski but backwards. In the series, he has twin sons named Jim and Bexley after the Zero-G football player, Jim-Bexley Speed. Lister gave birth to the twins himself after a sexual liaison with his female alter-ego from a female-orientated alternate universe. Due to them being born in a different reality to their conception both of them grew to be eighteen years old within three days, so in order to make sure they didn't die within a fortnight Lister sent them back to their mother's dimension. Dave Lister is also known as 'the king of crap' for purchasing (among other things) a talking toilet, a talking toaster with artificial intelligence and two robot goldfish, which he named Lennon and McCartney (one which swims backwards and is prone to breaking down). He hates pot noodle. While trapped on an ice planet, and given a choice of either dog food or pot noodle, he exclaimed "Well it's pretty obvious what will get eaten last...I can't stand pot noodle". After eating the dog food, he says "Now I know why dogs lick their testicles...it's to get rid of the taste of their food." The future of Lister is uncertain as several glimpses of this future have been enjoyed by viewers of the show. He may end up as a brain in a jar, or maybe as a 181-year-old man who dies while trying to take a bra off with his teeth, and in one episode where Lister changed the past he ended up as a billionaire who died in a plane crash making love to his supermodel wife. One future that was given in the episode Stasis Leak (in which Lister travels back in time 5 years after the episode and marries Kochanski in the past) apparently did not play out (although it's theoretically possible it happened early in the 200 years between series 5 and 6, and was never referred to again for some reason), so we'll just have to wait for what will really happen. When Lister meets an alternate universe incarnation of his long-lost love, Kochanski, he is given the chance to create an IV child. When the child is born, he takes it back in time and space to the pool table when he was first discovered. Lister is essentially his own father and thus the human race can never die out. Presumably he is also the father of the various alternate universe Listers we've seen (as most of them would not have had this opportunity), lending some credence to his claim to be "the definitive version". Arnold Rimmer Arnold Judas Rimmer BSc, SSc, who sometimes goes by Arnold Jonathan Rimmer is played by Chris Barrie in the television series. He is instantly recognisable by both the permanent sneer on his lips and the "H" (hologram) symbol on his forehead. The creators of the series acknowledge that Rimmer's surname comes from a snobby prefect with whom they went to school. They claim, however, that only the boy's name was used, and not his personality. Personality Rimmer is something of a disgreeable person: his character traits include anal-retentiveness, adherence to protocol and rank, cowardice, misogyny, and a severely inflated ego. This, combined with his utter lack of social skills, has made him fairly unpopular with everybody he has ever come into contact with. The only sexual relationship he had while alive lasted twelve minutes, including the time to eat the pizza. He did have one true friend in his youth, Porky Roebuck, who betrayed Rimmer in a Space Scouts survival course and spearheaded a plan to eat him. While Rimmer was turning on the spit, Porky "bagsied" his right buttock; this experience, naturally, somewhat soured Rimmer on the concept of friendship. He is fond of war, at least in principle, and dreams of being a general. He admires power and strength, regardless of what the power is used for, and his role models include Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and George Patton. However, he is unlikely ever to pursue his martial dreams beyond the Risk board, because he is an utter coward. Life He was born on Io, where he grew up in the shadow of his three older brothers, Frank, Howard, and John. His family life left much to be desired. His father had been rejected from the Space Corps in his youth for being an inch below regulation height, and was fixated on his sons succeeding where he had failed. The boys didn't eat unless they could answer complicated astronavigation questions - Arnold nearly starved - and, to ensure that they would not be held back by insufficient height, stretched them on a rack to make them taller. By the time Frank was 11, he was six feet five. Religion was little consolation to young Arnold; the family belonged to an obscure fundamentalist sect, the "Seventh Day Advent Hoppists" (a play on Seventh-day Adventists), who followed literally a misprinted edition of the Bible. This led them to spend each Sunday hopping, thanks to a passage reading, "Faith, hop, and charity, and the greatest of these is hop." At the age of 14 Rimmer divorced his parents and left home. Despite his loathing of his father, he still felt a perverse desire to vicariously live out his dream. He still left school early to join the Space Corps, and devoted his life to his career. Outside of work, his activities were few. He once volunteered for the Good Samaritans, a suicide-prevention helpline. Sadly, five people committed suicide after talking to him - one of whom had dialed the wrong number and only wanted the cricket results - and he quit the same day, which the newspapers dubbed "Lemming Sunday". His years of ambition finally paid off when he was assigned to the mining ship Red Dwarf as Second Technician, which was not, to his immense pride, the lowest rank on the ship. That honor belonged to Third Technician Dave Lister, his bunkmate, for whom he instantly developed a warm and reciprocated loathing. His deepest ambition has always been to be become an officer, and so he has attempted the exam no less than 13 times without success. Though he tries extremely hard to study and/or cheat, he usually loses his nerve once the exam begins. In one case, he wrote "I am a fish" on the answer sheet four hundred times, did a little dance, and fainted. Still he perseveres. He led a campaign to replace the standard Space Corps salute with an extremely elaborate one of his own design, which failed when absolutely no officers displayed any interest at all. He was invited to the captain's table exactly once in his entire career, and was served cold gazpacho, which he demanded be taken away and brought back hot. He blamed this faux pas for the stagnation of his career (rather than the more obvious culprits, namely his personality and incompetence) and never forgave himself - his last words before he died were "gazpacho soup". Rimmer died in the first episode of the show. He did a shoddy job repairing the engine drive plate, and he, along with almost the entire Red Dwarf crew, died in the resulting explosion. Death, etc. Virtually all of the Red Dwarf series takes place some three million years after Rimmer's death, when he was brought back as a hologram by the ship's computer, Holly. Lister, who was in stasis during the disaster, was now the only known human in the Universe, and Rimmer's mission was to keep him from going insane with loneliness. At first, Rimmer seemed the least obvious possible candidate for the job, but as time went on, Lister came to acknowledge that "driving Rimmer nuts is what keeps me going". Notwithstanding his desperate desire to not be turned off, the holographic Rimmer bemoans his fate he's dead, and is keenly aware that his current sensibility is just a computer simulation of how he would feel if he were alive. As a "soft-light" hologram, Rimmer retained his memories and physical appearance, but was composed almost entirely of light and had no tangible form. Although he hadn't exactly used his body to its fullest during his lifetime, he found himself missing it after his death. He remained very unhappy with his lot for several years after his death. At one point, he managed to trick Lister into generating another Rimmer hologram to keep him company - but, as it turned out, he and his doppelgnger didn't get along well, thanks to their shared self-loathing. The second Rimmer was soon turned off. This conflict between Rimmer's various personality traits has formed the basis of several other episodes, as well. While passing through a penal colony called Justice World, Rimmer's mind was read and he was found guilty of the second degree murder of all 1,167 crew members of Red Dwarf. However, his crewmates proved that this guilt was entirely in his mind. Rimmer's massive ego had simply assumed that all of his actions were of the utmost cosmic importance, and thus that he was directly responsible for their deaths. In a later episode in Series 6, Rimmer attempts to officially claim a small planetoid in the name of the Jupiter Space Mining Corps, only to discover that the planetoid is a 'Psi-Moon', an artificial planet that telepathically reads the mind of the first human(oid) being to land upon its surface and then telekinetically sculpts its landscape to reflect the psyche of its target. Thusly, Rimmer is taken captive by a band of weirdos in black robes with red eyes (his "inner demons"), who plan to sacrifice him to the monstrous incarnation of his Self-Loathing, prompting the other crewmembers to come and rescue him. Rimmer was briefly and inexplicably reincarnated due to some ill-advised meddling with time and causality, but only lived long enough to eat Adolf Hitler's banana and crisps sandwich and to call for his inflatable sex doll Rachel (and a puncture-repair kit) before being re-killed in a freak explosion. He also stole Lister's body at one point, almost destroying it in the process. But, after a few years in his "soft-light" form, Rimmer was upgraded to a "hard-light" hologram, which gave him a physical form and the ability to interact directly with the world. This return to tangibility marked the beginning of a profound change for the better in Rimmer's personality. Though still undeniably obnoxious, his time as a "soft-light" hologram had given him a better perspective on life. Further evidence that Rimmer's personality flaws aren't irrevocable can be found in the alternate universe in which he was kept back a year in school instead of being allowed to pass. That version of Arnold Rimmer learned humility and inner strength, and grew up to become Ace Rimmer, Space Corps test pilot, interstellar hero, and sex god. Naturally, Rimmer hated Ace from the moment he laid eyes on him. However, when Ace died, Rimmer took over for him, to his own great surprise. After Rimmer left, Lister found himself missing him profoundly - until, that is, he went through The Rimmer Experience and remembered just how obnoxious he had been. Shortly after the original Rimmer left to become Ace Rimmer, nanobots reconstructed his body along with the rest of the Red Dwarf crew and brought him back to life. Unfortunately for all concerned, the reconstructed Rimmer had gone through none of the experiences - and thus none of the character growth - that had made him moderately tolerable. Along with Lister, Kryten, the Cat, and Kristine Kochanski, he was sentenced to two years in the ship's brig for misuse of confidential information. The Cat The Cat is played by Danny John-Jules in the television series. The character has no name besides, "The Cat." He is the humanoid descendant of a modern house cat called Frankenstein, which had been Dave Lister's pet cat. He is believed to be the last remaining member of his species, Felis sapiens. His mother was a cripple who whacked The Cat over the head with a frying pan after he tried to have sex with her. His father was mentally challenged and ate his own feet. They were left behind after the truce of the Cats. He has an alternate version of himself in an opposite universe called The Dog. His other alter ego is the 'Prince of Dorks', Duane Dibbley, who is the complete opposite of the Cat. As a humanoid cat, he exhibits the qualities of coolness, vanity, and aloofness. He loves to dress well in extravagant clothing, and to dance and scream like James Brown. He often carries a mirror and is meticulous about his appearance, often saying "How am I looking? I'm looking nice!". He rarely calls his crewmates by name, preferring to call Kryten "Novelty Condom Head" or "half eaten lollypop head", Rimmer "Goalpost Head", "Alphabet Head", or "Toilet-brush-hair", Lister "Buddy" or "Gerbil-face" and Kochanski "Officer Bud-Babe". In early episodes, The Cat exhibits feline behaviors such as licking anyone who gives him food, playing with 'shiny things' and marking his territory, for which purpose he carries a small spray-can (contents unknown) in his pocket. While scent-marking, he repeats, "This is mine, this is mine." He seems totally self-absorbed and unconcerned with the problems facing the rest of the crew. But by series 4 he develops a friendship with Lister--possibly due to their mutual contempt for Rimmer. As he learns to relate to the crew, he eventually stops licking them and marking his territory. He becomes a skilled pilot and develops an ability to "smell" danger, even in space, although he doesn't grasp scientific terms. In the first and second pilot episodes of an American version of the television series, the Cat was also played by Hinton Battle and Terry Farrell respectively. The Cat is an anthropomorphized caricature of a cat, and thus recalls the cats of T.S. Eliot's book, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Kryten Kryten is played by Northampton-born actor Robert Llewellyn in the television series. Kryten (full name, "Kryten 2X4B-523P") is a Series 4000 mechanoid or "slave 'noid"—a robotic servant—and is quite neurotic. He is very humanoid, with the exception of the flat cubic planes visible on his face and head. Once the personal servant of three attractive female crew members of the Nova 5, he is now reduced to serving the slobbish Dave Lister, the only surviving human crew member on Red Dwarf. Kryten also believes in Silicon Heaven, the electronic afterlife. He is often referred to as 'novelty condom head' by the crew. In the character's first appearance, Kryten was played by actor David Ross. Kryten was built by DivaDroid International, one of a number of Series 4000 models based on a design by roboticist Professor Mamet. This design was actually intended as a joke on her ex-fiance, the mechanoids being a caricature of his fussiness and pomposity. Kryten (as played by Ross) was introduced in series 2 as the cleaning mechanoid on the Nova 5 which had crashed, killing almost all the crew (it is possible he was inadvertently responsible for this; in the first Red Dwarf novel, the Nova 5 crashed because Kryten washed the navigation computer; however this may not be regarded as part of the "official", canon story). He looked after the three survivors for three million years, refusing to admit they had died of old age, until he was rescued by the Red Dwarf. Initially Rimmer took advantage of his servility, but Lister persuaded him to rebel against his programming. He took Lister's space-bike and went out to find a planet he could grow a garden on. He was also on the SS Augustus before the Nova 5 but the crew died of old age. At the beginning of series 3, we learn that Kryten smashed the bike into an asteroid. Lister rebuilt him, but was unable to recreate him exactly. (This was intended to explain the differences between Ross' portrayal of the character and Llewellyn's). Most noticeably, whereas he previously had an "English butler" voice, similar to C-3P0, he now had a Canadian accent. Having lost his obedience programs, Kryten has been able to better himself. While he continues to be a sanitation droid, and to enjoy cleaning and serving others, he has also become the science expert amongst the Dwarfers, often leading missions. The dichotomy between these two aspects of his personality has led to Rimmer nicknaming him "Captain Bog-bot". Kryten has also extended his emotional range, which has led to him deactivating his shutdown disk (DivaDroid believe in planned obsolescence). His greatest ambition is to be human, and to this end he has attempted to learn to lie and insult people. Mostly Rimmer, although he has trouble with the words Smeg Head (he says smeeee heee). He did however become human for a few days after a machine changed his structure. He didn't enjoy the experience as much as he thought he would. He was briefly returned to factory settings (including the English accent) in series 8, but his hard won independence broke through. When Red Dwarf was re-built with the crew, Kryten was reclassed as a woman due to his lack of male genitalia (that is, his lack of any genitalia: the only mechanoids given genitals were the ones created to work on Italian starships). Due to this deficiency Kryten decided to make a penis called Archie, who runs around like a mouse. Konchanski commented that Kryten was a real man because "like most men, you just don't have any control over your penis" making Kryten very proud. Kryten had three spare heads, one of which has droid-rot (a condition similar to computer senility). The spare heads can engage in conversation with Kryten. One time the other heads held a poll and voted Kryten as the ugly, big eared one, upsetting Kryten. The others took turns being head head. All of these were destroyed due to the final step of Mamet's joke; eventually a 2X4B mechanoid will "blow its top". The "negadrive" which caused this has been removed, and, luckily, Kryten's personality chips survived, and were placed in a new head. Kryten formed an irrational dislike of the new Kristine Kochanski when he first met her, mostly out of a fear she and Lister will fall in love and abandon him. However he grew to respect her (although not necessarily like her) after she saved Lister's life from the Epideme virus. The name Kryten is a reference to the head butler in the J.M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton. Holly Holly is played by Norman Lovett in series 1, 2, 7 and 8. Following a "head sex change" to look like his parallel universe alter ego "Hilly", Holly was played by Hattie Hayridge in series 3-5. Holly did not appear at all in series 6, and as the male version he appeared in series 7 only in the final episode. Holly is an intelligent computer. Holly's user interface appears on ship screens as a disembodied human head on a black background, and can also be downloaded into a watch worn by Lister. As a male he appeared as around 50 years old with receding brown hair (completely bald on top as of series 8), and as a female she appears as a woman of ambiguous age but probably 30-ish with long blond hair. In series 1 he was pixelated but this idea was dropped in series 2. Holly is the ship's Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer with an IQ of 6000. After releasing Dave Lister from stasis, Holly tells him that the crew have been wiped out by a radiation leak and has spent three million years in stasis. Holly's first love was a Sinclair ZX-81 but she wouldn't load (well for him anyway). After meeting his female counterpart Hilly, he was so in love and based his new face on hers. He is friends with another computer called Gordon, who has an IQ of 8000 and is an Eleventh Generation AI hologrammatic computer. Gordon appears visually identical to Holly and seems just as senile. Holly prides himself on the fact he had an IQ of 6,000 but after three million years by himself, he has become computer senile, or as Holly puts it "a bit peculiar". He claims that 6000 is not that great, saying it's the same IQ as 6,000 PE teachers. Later, with the help of the toast obsessed Talkie Toaster, his IQ expands to 12,368 but his life expectency is reduced to three and a half minutes (luckily this timeline was erased and she went back to being senile). The crew often ridicule Holly on his senility but Holly often comes out on tops. His finest practical joke was when a backup computer, Queeg 500 claims that Holly's IQ is only 6, "a poor IQ for a glass of water" and takes over the ship. Queeg makes the crew's lives hell. Then Holly challenges Queeg to a game of chess and the loser gets deleted. Holly loses the game and supposedly says farewell to everyone. It turns out that Queeg was in fact Holly, who was playing the "jape of the decade". He also fooled Lister that Norweb spacefighters were after him and wanted 180billion (Lister supposedly owned 98% of the Earth's wealth due to interest on an old bank account, and had left a half eaten sausage in his kitchen, which now covered 7/8s of the Earth's surface). He is often cruel to Rimmer. After being called a "stupid ugly goit" by Rimmer (who had Petersen's arm), Holly allowed the arm to beat Rimmer up. He gave Rimmer a haircut that made him look like Helen Shapiro. He also gave Rimmer a massive boil on the back of his neck after being called immature. Holly runs most of Red Dwarf's systems despite now suffering from computer senility. Among Holly's systems are the service droids known as skutters that clean, perform engineering tasks and function as Rimmer's hands since he cannot touch anything non-holographic. While on his own for three million years, Holly invented Hol Rock, where he decimalised music (having ten notes instead of eight), an A-Z guide of the Universe and claims that he has a collection of singing potatoes to keep him sane. He discovered that there were six main Universes, one of which ran backwards. He believed Kevin Keegan wrote the worst book ever (Football, It's a Funny Old Game). He is proud of the fact that he can do moon impressions just by lowering his face on the screen. He often greets the crew with "Alright dudes!" He hates being a watch, especially on Lister's wrist. One of the more worrying aspects of Holly's senility is that he has developed a blindspot for the number 7. When he invented the Holly Hop Drive he claimed that one mistake in his 13 trillion calculations and they would be blown up. He then missed out the seven in his countdown. Holly was lost for some time along with the ship, which had been stolen by Kryten's nanobots. He was found on a planet made of junk from Red Dwarf, having reverted to his male form, and was downloaded into Lister's Holly-watch. When the nanos rebuilt the ship, there were two Hollys, the original, who generally remains in the watch, and a rebuilt version which has not suffered the effects of three million years alone. The non-senile version only appeared in one episode, "Back In the Red, Part III", and was distinguished by having a head shaped like an egg. Kristine Kochanski Kristine Kochanski is Red Dwarf's Navigation Officer, and the ex-girlfriend of Dave Lister before she was killed by a radiation leak. In the first episode (before the accident) she was played by Clare Grogan. who reprised the role in the episode Balance of Power, both in flashback and as a hologram. She also featured in the Series 2 time travel episode Stasis Leak, and made a brief appearance as a hallucination in the Series 6 episode Psirens. In the seventh season an alternate universe version played by Chlo Annett became a permanent member of the crew after Arnold Rimmer left. The writers insist she was not intended to replace Rimmer, but that Chris Barrie had asked to take a leave of absence at the same time as a female lead was required for the cast to be retained in the proposed Hollywood movie. Series 8 features both Kochanski and Rimmer. In her universe, this Kochanski discovered Lister's pet cat, and confiscated her, but couldn't bring herself to destroy her. As a result it was she, not Lister, who was sentenced to six months in stasis for bringing an unquarantined animal on board, and therefore survived the accident. Holly brought Lister back as a hologram, and his intangiablity apparently led to him becoming a near-stereotyped "New Man". The unreconstructed Lister from the "main" universe came as quite a shock. It is not clear what the Cat and Kryten are like in her universe, but she seems unimpressed with their alternates as well. Kochanski adds something of a new dynamic to the show. She is an upper-middle class, female officer, in what was a decidedly "laddish" environment. Much of the humour in her scenes comes from the difference between her frame of reference and that of the others. Although Annette, unlike Grogan, does not have a Scottish accent, it was at this time we were told she was from the Gorbals (apparently the trendiest part of 23rd century Glasgow), and had spent her childhood in "Cyberschool" with perfect computer-generated friends, before entering Cadet School. In many circumstances she has replaced Kryten as the person who knows what is going on. Originally, it was suggested that Lister had loved Kochanski from afar, but never found the courage to ask her out. This was changed to them having had a relationship that ended before the accident in the novel (she went back to her previous boyfriend Tim), and later episodes have followed that version. Kochanski is also, apparently, Lister's mother, due to an unlikely combination of In vitro fertilisation and time travel. Alter egos Ace Rimmer Ace Rimmer is played by Chris Barrie in the television series. He is an alter ego of Arnold Rimmer. Spoiler warning: ''Plot or ending details follow.'' Ace's full name is Commander Arnold Judas Rimmer - he is an alternate version of the Rimmer character who features more regularly in the series, from a parallel dimension. Ace first appears in the episode "Dimension Jump", the 5th episode in series 4 of Red Dwarf. Rimmer has a number of nicknames for himself, none of which have been used by any other character (save for his clone in the episode "Me Squared"): these include Ironballs, I.B. (a derivative of the former) and Ace. Ace Rimmer became known as Ace at school, when he was kept back a year at the age of 7. He says that being a clear foot taller than the rest of his class inspired him to buckle down and work hard, and it is this which makes him so different from the regular Rimmer. While Rimmer is a snivelling coward, Ace is a hero who travels from planet to planet wearing a gold, fur-lined flight suit and saving the lives of beautiful women. He was originally a test pilot for the Space Corps in his own universe, when he was offered the chance to pilot a brand-new kind of spacecraft, one that can cross dimensions. The first dimension he encountered happened to be the one in which Red Dwarf is set. There are alternative versions of the other characters as well, Dave Lister is Spanners, the Cat is Padre and Kryten is Bongo, who has a gay crush on Ace although married. Since then, he went on an adventure through the universe, adventuring, being a hero, and meeting all the many alternate versions of himself. When he finally became unable to carry on, he passed his wig and his legacy on to another version of himself, who became the new Ace. Previous Ace Rimmers are sent, when they finally die, to orbit a planet in an unknown location, and by the time Red Dwarf's Rimmer takes on the mantle, the billions of Ace Rimmers who have come before him have formed a ring around the planet. His catchphrase is, "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!" and it is a running joke in the series that everyone who comes into contact with Ace Rimmer exclaims "What a guy!" Unlike Rimmer, who complains that his short, curly hair is "unmanageable", Ace wears a blonde blow-dried wig. Rimmer himself is the only one who refuses to see Ace as a hero, and he makes frequent references to Ace being gay or Ace and Lister being in love. However, in the episode "Stoke Me a Clipper" in series 7, Rimmer has to overcome both this jealousy of Ace's success and his own fear when Ace confides in him that he is a hard-light hologram, and that he is dying. Ace recruits Rimmer to be the next Ace, and with a little encouragement from Lister, Rimmer leaves. However, he still manages to mess up the catchphrase - before taking off (or trying to - he hits the ejector seat instead) the new Ace Rimmer's last words are "Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas!" ...followed by, as he realises his mistake, "Whatever." It is unknown how this edition of Ace Rimmer fared. The new Ace Rimmer makes a cameo appearance in the seventh season episode "Blue" in which he appears in a distubingly romantic dream of Lister's. Duane Dibbley Duane Dibbley is the dorky alter-ego of The Cat, played by Danny John-Jules with pudding basin haircut and big overbite. He first appeared in the series 5 episode Back To Reality, as part of a hallucinogenic experience, designed to cause despair in the Dwarfers. His second appearance was in the series 6 episode Emohawk - Polymorph II, and was caused by a polymorph absorbing the Cat's cool. In Can't Smeg Wont Smeg he inexplicably appears after The Cat refuses to take part in the show. In series 8 episode Back In The Red, The Cat, Lister, Kochanski, and Kryten disguised themselves as "The Dibbley Family" by wearing mop head on their heads and large false teeth. The character's brief appearances have proved very popular. John-Jules explanation for this was "No-one's ever written a black nerd before." The Dog The Dog is a minor character played by Matthew Devitt. He is an alternate version of the Cat from a parallel universe. His origins are presumably similar to the Cat, except that Deb Lister (Dave Lister's duplicate) brought a dog on board the ship, rather than a cat. The Dog speaks in a Texan drawl. He is dirty and smelly. He likes to offer his bottom for strangers to smell. He is thrown into a panic by the word "bath" and insists it be spelt so that he can't understand it. He seems to be the last remaining member of his species (probably canis sapiens). He is also hopeless at dancing. The Dog suffers from separation anxiety when the others leave him alone. He believes he can dance when in actual fact he's terrible. The Cat was thrilled when he thought he'd meet a female cat only to be horrified to find a creature that might eat him. They didn't get on very well. Shipboard robots The Skutters The skutters are service robots. They have bodies similar to K9 from Doctor Who and a single limb extending from this. The limb ends in a three-clawed hand with an elecronic eye. The duties of the skutters are to perform basic tasks around the ship. Lister claims they outrank himself and Rimmer, due to having a better union. The skutters are unable to speak, but can usually make their feelings clear. Their hands are particularly well designed for giving V-signs to Rimmer. It was originally implied there were only two skutters ("Pinky and smegging Perky" after the pig marionettes in the 1960s British television programme Pinky and Perky although this could have just been an insult to the skutters), but later episodes suggest these were simply the skutters assigned to Rimmer, and there are many more, as befits a ship the size of a city. In the book, the two Rimmers accidently crushed dozens of Skutters. Kryten referred to a skutter as "Bob" in the episode The Last Day. Series 8 also featured a skutter named Bob, presumably the same one, along with his wife Madge. Rimmer's skutters, if not all of them, are fans of John Wayne and strongly dislike Rimmer. Skutters were not programmed to believe in Silicon Heaven, to keep the cost down. They find the concept ridiculous. Queeg 500 Queeg 500 is a "back-up" computer played by Charles Augins in the television series. Spoiler warning: ''Plot or ending details follow.'' Queeg is actually a practical joke implemented by Holly. In the episode Queeg of Season 2, A back up computer known as Queeg 500 replaces Holly on Red Dwarf view screens when Holly accidentally gives Lister bad advice, resulting in minor injury. Queeg claims to be a backup system, and is keenly aware of Holly's senility. Queeg claims that Holly's IQ is not 6000 but 6. Holly is very upset and exclaims "6? Do me a lemon! That's a poor IQ for a glass of water". He also claims that Holly gets his information from a children's science book and has been going around in circles. Holly is outraged and claims that it's a "load of Tottenham. A steaming pile of Hotspur." He is demoted to nightwatch man and Queeg takes over the ship. Queeg makes the crew's lives hell. Rimmer is pleased at first but when Queeg takes over his body and makes him sprint several miles is angered. The Cat is horrified that he has to do the 'W' word (work) and has no supply of food. Lister feels awful for not sticking up for Holly. Then Holly challenges Queeg to a game of his choice and agrees that the loser gets deleted. Unfortunately it is chess. Holly is hopeless at this and gets it confused with poker, and refers to the knights as "horsies" and pawns as "prawns". Holly loses the game and wishes everyone good luck with their lives and says farewell. Much to the horror of the crew Queeg changed into Holly who grinned smugly and claimed that his prank was "the jape of the decade", "wheeze of the week" and an "April, May, June, July and August fool". On screen, Queeg 500 is a bald African American man of middle age, with the tone and mannerisims of a US Marine drill sergeant. Holly is a balding Caucasian man, and later a Caucasian woman. Holly, in the process of the television show, underwent a "head sex change". The name Queeg comes from the similarly "by-the-book" Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. See also: computer senility, Britcom, Norman Lovett, Hattie Hayridge Talkie Toaster Talkie Toaster is a minor character, a monomaniacal toaster that tries to steer every conversation to the subject of toast. Spoiler warning: ''Plot or ending details follow.'' Owned by Dave Lister, Talkie Toaster is a toaster with Artificial Intelligence who is completely obsessed with making toast and annoys everyone on board. He appears in series 1 (and in a deleted scene in series 2) with a stainless-steel cover and a circular light on the side which flashes as he speaks. He appears in series 4, and is described in the book, as a red toaster made of plastic, with his name "Talkie Toaster" emblazoned on the side and rather more flashing lights, although they have nothing to do with when he speaks, which is indicated by the press-down handle that would usually be used to start bread toasting. In series 1 he is voiced by John Lenahan, and in series 4 by David Ross. In the TV show, the Toaster would keep interjecting in conversations in surprisingly and annoyingly smart ways, and whenever possible would try eventually to steer the conversation towards toast. Eventually this became too much for Lister who smashed the Toaster into 3000 separate pieces with a 14lb lump hammer. Kryten eventually repaired the Toaster in order to use him as a guinea-pig for "intelligence compression" - restoring his former intelligence (his AI chips were very badly damaged) at the cost of reducing his operational lifespan. After it worked with him Kryten tried it on Holly, but a miscalculation made her twice as smart as she used to be and left her with only three-and-a-half minutes to live. Later on by blocking up a "white hole" (opposite of a black hole, and which spews out time) time was reset to before the Toaster was repaired so he didn't end up repaired after all. The Toaster's repaired personality was somewhat different to his original one: it now had a different voice and no longer tried to hide its obsession with toast. Where before, the Toaster would cut into a conversation, insult someone, and then make some reference to toast, the new Toaster was barely able to go more than two sentences without asking if someone would like a cooked bread product. In the book, the Toaster helped Holly double his original IQ but shortened his life to three and a half minutes. He won seven hundred and ninety three chess games against Holly. During this time, the Toaster also saved the crew from death: while Holly was a genius, he explained to the Toaster how to escape from a black hole, information which later came in useful when the crew encountered one. The Toaster did not, however, merely volunteer this information: it forced the crew to eat ridiculous amounts of toast before talking. When the crew were attacked by a polymorph, and the crew lost a certain emotion, (Rimmer loses his anger, Lister loses his fear, The Cat loses his vanity and Kryten loses his guilt), the Toaster is destroyed by Kryten. After getting his guilt back, Kryten rebuilt the Toaster. Unfortunately the Toaster thinks he's a moose. The Toaster was apparently manufactured by a Taiwanese company named "Crapola Inc." Other Red Dwarf crew Captain Frank Hollister Captain Frank Hollister is played by American actor Mac MacDonald in the television series. Hollister is the overweight captain of the interplanetary mining vessel Red Dwarf. He is seen in the first episode, in which he sentences Dave Lister to eighteen months in stasis for bringing a cat on board. When Lister is released Hollister, along with the rest of the crew, has been radioactive dust for three million years. Hollister was briefly seen in the final episode of the season in Arnold Rimmer's video of his own death, (although the credits only list him as "The Captain"). He has just enough time to blame Rimmer for the accident which is about to wipe out the crew before the initial explosion hits. He had a more substantial role in the second season episode, Stasis Leak, in which the regulars travel back in time. He is seen once more upbraiding Lister, this time for slipping hallucinogens into Rimmer's breakfast, and later in a chicken outfit for a fancy-dress party, being assaulted by Rimmer who believes him to be a hallucination. In Season 8, with the crew resurrected by nanobots, Hollister became a main character. While his main purpose still seemed to be railing at Lister and Rimmer, we learnt some more about him, most notably that his wife's name is Martha; that his weight is at least partially due to his love of orange ice-pops, mint choc chip ice cream, cola, and Martha's muffins; and, most interestingly, that he gained his position through blackmail and is really Dennis the Doughnut Boy. He now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after an incident with a baby T Rex. According to Rimmer, Hollister won the "Mr Fat Bastard 2044" award. Olaf Petersen Olaf Petersen is played by Mark Williams in the television series. He is a Danish catering officer on the Red Dwarf mining vessel. Spoiler warning: ''Plot or ending details follow.'' First appearing in the pilot episode, Petersen was the best friend of Dave Lister. He, Lister, Selby and Chen spent most of their free time getting drunk. Rimmer considered him to be "a Danish moron". When Petersen went to have a mind scan for his hologrammatic programme, the machine crashed three times claiming a non human life form was aboard the ship. Like the rest of the crew Petersen was killed in the radiation leak. His remains were found in the Drive Room as a white powder that Lister tasted. However he subsequently appeared in two other episodes: in a first season flashback to before the accident in Balance of Power and when Lister and The Cat travelled back in time to before the accident in the second season episode Stasis Leak. Also in Balance of Power, an error with the ships hologram generation unit resulted in Rimmer being given his arm. Petersen was resurrected along with the rest of the crew in series 8, but was not seen, although he was often referred to. The novel reveals that Petersen was aboard Red Dwarf in order to make his way to the dome colony on Triton, where he had bought an extravagant house for only two thousand dollarpounds - the cheapness being because the colony's oxygen atmosphere had not been installed yet. It also explains that he was not chosen to keep Lister company as a hologram despite being his best friend, because "The only thing you had in common was consuming ridiculous amounts of alcohol." and that he couldn't keep himself sane let alone others. In the novel Backwards a Petersen from an alternate reality where the radiation leak never happened makes an appearance - he explains that he is still aboard Red Dwarf and not living in his house on Triton because alcohol was prohibited. He also bought a Marilyn Monroe droid on Callisto, which turned out to be a load of rubbish (apart to other androids). Selby and Chen Selby and Chen are played by David Gillespie and Paul Bradley, respectively. Chen works in the ship's kitchens and is always drunk. Selby is always drunk, too. They both have a crush on Kochanski. First appearing in the pilot episode, they spent most of their free time with Lister and Petersen getting drunk. Their motto was "Skive hard, play hard." Like the rest of the crew they were killed in the radiation leak. However they subsequently appeared in a flashback to before the accident in the first series episode Balance of Power. When the crew were resurrected in Series 8, Selby and Chen were the first crewmembers the regular characters encountered. They have not been seen subsequently. An unbroadcast scene would have revealed that they would have done everything in their power to prevent Lister being sent to the Tank (the ship prison), but the pub was open. Chen came up with the theory that everyone has two people inside themselves, Confidence and Paranoia when it comes to meeting women. When Lister contracts a mutated form of pneumonia, his hallucinations of his Confidence and his Paranoia become real. George McIntyre George McIntyre was a minor character in the first Red Dwarf book. McIntyre was an officer on Red Dwarf who was severly depressed due to growing debt problems. After a horrifying experience in the hands of thugs (he was force fed his own nose), McIntyre committed suicide. He was brought back as a hologram and replaced the ship's first hologram, Frank Saunders. Saunders was extremly upset as he'd only died a couple of weeks before his own death. McIntyre came back at his "Welcome Back Reception" and thanked everyone for flowers and turning up at his funeral. His choice of music at the funeral was "See Ya Later Alligator" as his ashes was blasted into space. He was presumably switched off during the radioactive disaster for Rimmer to replace him to keep Lister sane. Frank Todhunter Frank Todhunter appeared in the first episode only. He was played by Robert Bathurst. Todhunter's job title was never explained. He was in charge of the stasis booth and tried to describe how it worked to anyone who went there. He was also an examinator. When Rimmer took his exam, he panicked and did his Full Rimmer salute to Todhunter, then fainted. Rimmer described Todhunter as a "total gimp". He also claimed Todhunter's success was due to a privileged background, speculating that he had been breastfed on chilled champagne and gazpacho soup. In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Rimmer attempted to pass himself off as "Christopher Todhunter" when, on their first meeting, Lister attempted to blackmail him about his visit to an android brothel. Whether this was a reference to a genuine Red Dwarf crewmember, or a made-up name is unclear; Todhunter's role later in the story was taken by First Technician Petrovich. Warden Ackerman Warden Ackermen is played by Graham McTavish. He is a stereotypically sadistic warden, enjoying his power over the inmates in Floor 13 (Red Dwarf's brig). He has a glass eye, which at one point is stolen from him. Prone to overreaction, he is a victim of pranks from the inmates on more than one occasion. After having sodium pentathol put into his inhalor as a prank, it is revealed that he has a fetish for dressing up as Batman. Kill Crazy Kill Crazy is a minor character played by Jake Wood in the television series. Kill Crazy is a psychopathic inmate who is obsessed with killing things. He isn't very bright, thinking that he could fight a Tyrannosaurus Rex using his fists. His fighting buddy is Baxter. Others The Polymorph A polymorph is a shapeshifting organism that can change into anything it pleases and lives by draining a person of a negative emotion. Spoiler warning: ''Plot or ending details follow.'' It was designed to be the perfect warrior, blending into any background, but mutated into something terrifying. When it boarded Red Dwarf, in the episode Polymorph it drained Lister of his fear, the Cat of his vanity, Kryten of his guilt and Rimmer of his anger. The crew managed to defeat the monster. In the book, Better Than Life, the polymorph has similar effects, except that the shock of regaining his fear kills Lister (who at this time is in his 60s, due to time dilation). The crew then takes Lister's body to a backwards universe, where they will pick him up in 36 years time, when he has de-aged to his "normal" age. In Backwards he stays for half a century. According to the placid Rimmer, the polymorph in his true form may be "an armour plated alien killing machine that salivates unspeakable slobber." The Emohawk in the episode Emohawk: Polymorph II is a domesticated variant. It drained Rimmer of his bitterness and Cat of his cool, turning them into Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibbley. The Cat Priest The Cat Priest was the only member of the species felis sapiens seen on the television show Red Dwarf apart from The Cat. The Cat Priest was blind. He was the Cat's teacher and guardian after his parents died, but Cat was never really interested and preferred to go off investigating. The Cat Priest was once a devout follower of the Cat religion, but over time as the Cat race died he lost his faith. When the Cat Priest was dying, Lister appeared and told him that he was the Cat god Cloister (the Priest believing him, being blind). The Priest apologised for losing his faith, saying "You tested me, and I failed you." Lister assured him that had not failed, and he would get into Fuchal. The Cat Priest's last words before he died were "This is the happiest day of my..." In the remastered version of the episode in which he appeared, the Cat Priest's body was cremated and the ashes jettisoned into space. External links Duane Dibbley appearances Queeg 500
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