Red Dwarf

10 Best Episodes of Red Dwarf

The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.

Written by Sophie and last updated on jan 30, 2023.

PS: The following content contains spoilers!

PPS: I will admit that parts of this page was written with the help of AI - it makes my work so much easier to not start from a blank page!

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Red Dwarf - S7E1

#15 - Tikka to Ride (Season 7 - Episode 1)

After Starbug was destroyed, the future crew no longer existed - therefore were unable to go back in time and kill the present crew, hence they survived. But unfortunately disaster has struck. Starbug is completely devoid of curries. Lister proposes that they go back in time to order a couple of hundred curries from an Indian Restaurant. The rest of the crew will not go back in time because they are afraid of becoming the future selves they saw. However, Lister removes a guilt chip from one of Kryten's spare heads and swaps them over, telling the new guilt-less Kryten to reassure them it will be OK. They go back and appear in the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on November 22nd 1963 just as Lee Harvey Oswald is taking his shot at President Kennedy. They knock him out the window where he dies hitting the ground, preventing Kennedy's assassination. To avoid being captured they go ahead a couple of years, however Kennedy's survival causes an alternate reality where he has been impeached out of office and the new president is controlled by the Mafia, allowing the Soviet Union to build several Nuclear Silos in Cuba. Fearing the Soviets will start a nuclear war, all the major US cities are deserted. Lister goes to the airport which would have been renamed JFK Airport where Kennedy is being transported to prison. He persuades Kennedy to go back in time with them, and be the gunman on the grassy knoll, and shoot himself for the ultimate conspiracy theory. After restoring Earth's normal timeline, The gang return to Starbug. Of course they still haven't got any curries...

The episode was rated 8.12 from 268 votes.

Red Dwarf - S7E8

#14 - Nanarchy (Season 7 - Episode 8)

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Lister is quite annoyed that his right arm has been cut off, but seems to enjoy Kryten nursing him 24 hours a day; and Kryten is absolutely loving it. Kochanski becomes fed up with seeing Kryten doing things for him that he could easily do with one arm and comes up with a solution - use nanobots from Kryten's self-repair system to rebuild Lister's arm. Unfortunately, Kryten hasn't last seen the nanobots since they had met the Despair Squid (see Back To Reality) They all go into the deep sleep booths and make their way back to the ocean planet. The computer brings them out of deep sleep and they discover a planet which the Navicomp says is Red Dwarf. They are able to retrieve the original Holly and he explains that the nanobots had deconstructed Red Dwarf, created their own miniscule version of the ship and turned the rest into a planet for safekeeping. They realise that it was the nano version of RD that they were chasing and the nanobots evaded them by coming aboard Starbug and travelling around their own galaxy inside Lister clothes hamper. After much persuasion, Kryten convinces the nanobots to fix Lister and Red Dwarf. The nanobots follow Kryten's orders and reconstruct Lister's body, going one step further and turning him into Mr. Universe! Cat takes control and guides Starbug into Red Dwarf's landing bay. It seems awfully big and Starbug's engines make the sound of a buzzing fly as it passes under another, massive Starbug!

The episode was rated 8.13 from 225 votes.

Red Dwarf - S5E4

#13 - Quarantine (Season 5 - Episode 4)

The crew are on a snowy planet, when they come across an abandoned research centre. Rimmer objects to Kryten being in charge but is ignored by the others and goes to sulk. They send a scouter which reports that there is a scientist named Dr. Lanstrom inside the facility. Unfortunately she is a hologram and Kryten asks Rimmer to go back to Red Dwarf so they can rescue her, using another Space Corp Directive against him. Rimmer questions the validity of the Directives that Kryten uses so Holly gives Rimmer a hologrammatical copy of the directives manual, whereupon Rimmer again goes off to sulk. Going into the research center, they find the Doctor in stasis only to discover that she has contracted a holovirus that has made her insane but has given her extraordinary powers like hex vision and telekinesis at the price of her sanity. They escape when her life force is drained and she disappears, but the disease is transferred to Rimmer. When the rest of the crew get back on Red Dwarf, Rimmer forces them to stay in quarantine (to avoid catching the disease off them) and unbeknownst to him, he goes insane, locking them in without oxygen. The crew escape thanks to a luck virus which Kryten got from the facility. Rimmer chases them down the corridor with his hex vision and thanks to the luck virus injected into Lister, Kryten manages to turn him off and restore him to his previous self… Rimmer wakes up in quarantine only to discover that the other three have now contracted the virus and gone insane!

The episode was rated 8.14 from 274 votes.

Red Dwarf - S6E2

#12 - Legion (Season 6 - Episode 2)

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The crew stumble on an abandoned space station and board it hoping to get some supplies. A man named Legion appears and offers each of them everything they ever wanted in the world but only if they remain on the space station forever, making the Dwarfers suspect that Legion is not at all what he seems.

The episode was rated 8.14 from 270 votes.

Red Dwarf - S10E2

#11 - Fathers and Suns (Season 10 - Episode 2)

Every year Lister sends himself a Father's Day card to celebrate the fact that he is his own father; but when Rimmer points out he's been a lousy father to himself, Lister decides to do something about it. Meanwhile, Rimmer and Kryten install a new computer: the beautiful - but lethally logical - Pree.

The episode was rated 8.14 from 381 votes.

Red Dwarf - S6E5

#10 - Rimmerworld (Season 6 - Episode 5)

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The gang come across the simulant ship they nearly destroyed in Gunmen of the Apocalypse and decide to board the ship and loot it for supplies despite the fact that a loud noise would cause it to disintegrate. They find a time and matter transporter on board and take it with them. One of the simulants is still alive and attacks them. Rimmer, always the brave, jumps in an escape pod but when it releases the ship begins to fall apart. The rest of the crew use the transporter to get back to Starbug and track the pod which is heading down to a planet. Unfortunately, the pod goes through a worm hole on its way causing Rimmer to be on a completely different time stream than Starbug. When he reaches the planet, Rimmer uses technology from the pod to create a woman in his image, but no matter how many times he tries all he can do is clone himself. When Starbug reaches the planet on the normal time stream, 600 years have passed on the planet and the Rimmer clones have taken over, banishing the original Rimmer to a dungeon. The others are captured and also thrown in the dungeon because they are 'different'. They find their Rimmer and use the teleporter to escape but end up on Starbug 2 weeks in the future where they learn that something terrible has happened to Lister...

The episode was rated 8.14 from 239 votes.

Red Dwarf - S6E3

#9 - Gunmen of the Apocalypse (Season 6 - Episode 3)

The gang is attacked by a simulant ship who upgrade Starbug with laser cannons and defensive shields and then force them to play a game of 'cat and mouse'. The crew decide not to flee but to stay and fight which stuns the simulants. Before their ship is crippled by Starbugs new offensive weapons, the simulants upload a killer virus into the navicomp. Kryten then transfers the virus to his CPU in an attempt to eradicate it. The gang watch on a virtual reality screen as Kryten's search for an antidote is manifested as a western setting where Kryten is a sheriff who has to fight the four horsemen of the Apocalypse - Death, War, Pestilence and Famine.

The episode was rated 8.15 from 243 votes.

Red Dwarf - S8E5

#8 - Krytie TV (Season 8 - Episode 5)

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Kryten complains to Lister about being placed in the women's wing of the prison and makes the fatal mistake of revealing he showers with them too. The male inmates want him to sneak in a camera and film them but he refuses. Kill Crazy and some other inmates reprogram him, turning him into a ruthless entrepreneur and he creates "Krytie TV", a pay-per-view service offering "Women's Shower Night" and other events. Lister tries to get Kryten to stop, as he and Rimmer are in the middle of an appeal against their sentences, but Kryten plays a trick on them, getting them to mistakenly trash Ackerman's quarters live on Krytie TV.

The episode was rated 8.15 from 226 votes.

Red Dwarf - S12E6

#7 - Skipper (Season 12 - Episode 6)

Rimmer gets hold of a Quantum skipper and skips his way across the multi-verse looking for a dimension where he's not such a giant loser.

The episode was rated 8.16 from 422 votes.

Red Dwarf - S3E1

#6 - Backwards (Season 3 - Episode 1)

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Under Rimmer’s supervision, Kryten takes a driving lesson at the wheel of Starbug, Red Dwarf’s newly-revealed scout ship. A chance meeting with a wormhole, however, sends student and teacher to a world that literally has everything backwards. Conversations end at the beginning, fights un-blacken eyes, and beer tastes best when vomited into the glass. By the time Lister and the Cat mount a rescue, their crewmates have discovered the bizarre upside of life in reverse motion.

The episode was rated 8.17 from 320 votes.

Red Dwarf - S2E5

#5 - Queeg (Season 2 - Episode 5)

Holly’s absent-mindedness allows a meteorite to hit Red Dwarf, endangering the crew and damaging Rimmer’s hologram generator. As an emergency measure, the backup computer Queeg 500 takes over the ship, subjecting its inhabitants to a physical and mental fitness regime that drives them to the point of despair. In a last-ditch bid to reclaim control, Holly proposes a winner-takes-all Chess match, despite accusations that his knowledge stems from the Junior Encyclopaedia Of Space.

The episode was rated 8.18 from 314 votes.

Red Dwarf - S6E6

#4 - Out of Time (Season 6 - Episode 6)

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After Rimmer conducts a "morale-meeting", the crew find a cloud of fog from an imploded supernova and have no choice but to go through it. They get some bad turbulence, and Lister is injured revealing that he is an android! Kryten is angry that Lister is a lesser model then he and orders him to do all the work and even gives it to him for not having used a setsquare to cut the sandwiches. They find out they were in an unreality pocket, and Lister is indeed human. More of these unreality pockets pass until they decide to go into stasis until they get through the fog. In the centre of the fog they find a Space Corps derelict which is capable of time travel. They take the time drive and hook it up to Starbug's engines. After testing the time drive they are disappointed to find that although they can travel to any time in history, they are still in deep space, no closer to Earth than they were before. They return to their own time to find a future version of themselves. They invite them on board, but everyone except Kryten is sealed in the hold. Lister rigs a camera to see what's going on and he sees that Kryten is wearing a toupee, Rimmer is getting fat and the Cat is bald; but worst of all, Lister himself is just a brain in a jar! He continues to watch the meeting and finds out that their future selves are not only fat, bald and bodiless, but are souped-up snobs, who can never compliment anything, who've socialised all the most evil figures of history (Hitler, Louis XIV, Goering, the Hapsburgs, etc.), and lived in the height of luxury. Now they need help recalibrating the time drive so they can continue with their lifestyles. Lister is horribly dismayed to find out this, so the three blast open the hold, and head down to kick them out of the ship, refusing to fix the time drive. The future crew, deciding they are better off dead than to live without the time drive, stranded in space, attack the present crew. Lister, Cat and Kryten are killed, so Rimmer decides t

The episode was rated 8.21 from 236 votes.

Red Dwarf - S10E6

#3 - The Beginning (Season 10 - Episode 6)

Hiding in an Asteroid, surrounded by a Simulant Death Ship and a fleet of Annihilators, the Dwarfers begin to wonder whether this is the beginning of the end. Only one man can save them. Unfortunately, that man is Arnold J Rimmer.

The episode was rated 8.23 from 350 votes.

Red Dwarf - S4E5

#2 - Dimension Jump (Season 4 - Episode 5)

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An alternate reality version of Rimmer literally crashes into his alter-ego while testing a dimension-jumping spacecraft. With Starbug downed after the collision, the daring, dashing Ace Rimmer attempts a one-man rescue, unaware that his doppelganger is, in this reality, an intolerable coward. Neither a broken arm nor hostile, jealous hologram can keep him from his duty, but when the company is this hopeless, even a hero finds it hard to keep his chin up.

The episode was rated 8.32 from 268 votes.

Red Dwarf - S5E6

#1 - Back to Reality (Season 5 - Episode 6)

The crew are on an ocean planet investigating a seeding vessel called the SSS Esperanto which was studying the life forms that had been introduced by humans. They find 3 people aboard who committed suicide, and a haddock who did the same. Lister notices an oil covering everything and Kryten suggests that it is a hallucinogenic venom much like the oil from an octopus or squid. He does a chemical analysis and rushes the others back to Starbug saying that the oil contains a hallucinogen which induces despair, enough to drive the crew of the Esperanto to kill themselves. They try to escape in Starbug to avoid it happening to them, but the despair squid chases them and they crash into a rock. Starbug is destroyed. The gang wake up to find they were playing a computer game called Red Dwarf for the last four years (and they only scored 4%). Lister is the rich and successful Sebastian Doyle, Rimmer (his brother, Billy) is a bum, the Cat is the saddest geek you will ever see named Dwayne Dibley (Teeth stick out a mile, terrible taste in clothes, etc.) and Kryten is a half-human, half-machine cop named Jake Bullet. While leaving the video game building and adjusting to all that has happened, Sebastian finds out that he is the chief of an organisation called the Ministry of Alteration which organises mass murders to purify democracy. Bullet kills a cop while defending a young girl and they make a run for it and are chased by the fascist police. We then hear Holly trying to tell them that they're hallucinating, but they can't hear her. In their heads they manage to escape the police and run down an alleyway. Bullet, so appalled by his actions decides to kill himself. So do Billy and Dwayne. Sebastian, despising his mass murdering lifestyle, decides the same. Holly communicates to Kryten on a higher frequency and gets him to open a canister of Lithium Carbonate (a mood stabliser), which he thinks is a fire extinguisher. The gas saves them just in time and they reflect on w

The episode was rated 8.38 from 265 votes.

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