Red Dwarf

Timeslides - S3-E5

Corrected entry: Paradox - If Lister went back in time, and prevented Kryten from being rescued, Kryten wouldn't have discovered the mutated development fluid, and Lister wouldn't have been able to go back in time.

Correction: This is a self correcting entry - it's a paradox, not a mistake. Time travel stories are full of paradoxes, they can't exist without them.

Queeg - S2-E5

Corrected entry: When Queeg is telling Rimmer to work on the computer, how can Rimmer do this if he's a hologram and therefore can't touch anything?

Correction: As Red Dwarf is designed to support a holographic crewmember, obviously all its systems would be set up in such a way that a hologram would still be able to use them - not much point otherwise.

Tailkinker

Demons & Angels - S5-E5

Corrected entry: In the scene when the crew arrive on the "low" ship and the "high" Kryten is shot five times with a bazookoid, Lister drags him to safety behind a pile of boxes. However, he is not dragged far enough, so you can see the actor get up after he believes he is out of shot.

Correction: Because Kryten isn't dead (he walks back into shot seconds later), he doesn't need to be out of shot to stand up. It's therefore not a mistake.

Back in the Red (1) - S8-E1

Corrected entry: We learn in this series and at The End of series 7 that the nanobots have 'resurrected' the entire crew and red dwarf itself. If this is so where is Kristine Kochanski? The Kochanski we see is from a different dimension. So when the Starbug crashland on Red Dwarf, surely Captain Hollister who had them arrested would have been a little confused as two Kochanshkis would have been present. And as Kochanski is a Navigation Officer, surely she would have had a lot of contact with the Captain?

Correction: Kryten's nanobots are intelligent enough to realise that there is already one Kochanski. It would be simple for them to ignore anything with her DNA (or Lister's as well) so you don't create another.

Andy Benham

Timeslides - S3-E5

Corrected entry: A short while after Lister unwittingly saves Hitler from the bomb, he holds up a newspaper which says on it that he saved Hitler's life. But where did he get that paper from? If it was a paper in Hitler's briefcase, and the front cover changed to coincide with Listers implications on the past, then how come the headlines are written in English, and not German? Not only that, but if the newspaper was already in Hitler's briefcase, did it predict that Lister would save Hitler's life? Surely a newspaper in Hitler's briefcase on that day would be about events the previous day?

Padzter

Correction: It's more likely that Lister was able locate a copy from the ship's library or have one replicated, unless Nazi scientists were somehow able to give Hitler the next day's newspaper before the events took place.

Correction: Once Lister saved Hitler, Kryten loaded up the altered news from the day after and printed it out for Lister.

Back in the Red (1) - S8-E1

Corrected entry: None of the crew seem to have noticed that Kochanski's hair has grown considerably longer given the fact this episode is set straight after the events that happen in 'Nanarchy'.

Padzter

Correction: Considering the havoc the nanites have been playing, it's entirely possible they added a few inches onto her hair. And given the situation that they're in, the length of Kochanski's hair probably isn't the foremost thing on their minds.

DaveJB

Correction: This is intentional. The photo reflects Lister's mood. When he believes he is the groom he is smiling but when he thinks he is the best man he is not smiling because he believes he has just seen the woman he loves marry someone else.

Correction: We are told there were 169 crew members on board but 1169 PEOPLE. The others could be non-crew members such as miners (it was a mining vessel, after all), passengers (commercial ships often carry them) or even crew members families (not unreasonable on a five year trip). There are many possible explanations.

Correction: Simple. Alburn's trial merely occured off-screen.

The End - S1-E1

Corrected entry: It's established that Rimmer's shift of technicians get useless, irrelevant jobs (such as repairing chicken soup machines) - so why would Rimmer have been trusted to repair a drive plate that, if not repaired properly, could (and in fact did) lead to the deaths of the whole crew?

Moose

Correction: Perhaps it was too urgent to leave for another shift. If the ship was in danger, wouldn't you get the shift on duty to repair it pronto?

Andy Benham

Back To Reality - S5-E6

Corrected entry: In the recuperation room when they're all finding out who they are, Kryten tells Lister and Rimmer that they are half-brothers, sharing the same mother. Rimmer's "real" name is given as Billy Doyle. Later in the parking garage, the man Kryten shoots calls Lister Sebastian Doyle. If they have different fathers, why do they have the same last name?

Correction: Doyle is most likely their mother's maiden name, which they decided to adopt for some reason (like she divorced their fathers or something).

Xofer

Ouroboros - S7-E3

Corrected entry: At The End of the episode, Ouroboros, when the adult Lister places the infant Lister in a cardboard box (under the Grav-Pool table at the Aigburth Arms) the caption states "EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER". At The Beginning of the episode, a definite date is stated - 26th November 2155. Presuming a normal full-term pregnancy, this indicates that (a) Lister was conceived in late April 2154, (b) born nine months later in the last week of May 2155, and (c) nine months old when he is found in the cardboard box.

Correction: Parts a and b are unfounded since Lister was conceived, born, and raised for 9 months in what is 'the present' for the show (3 million years in the future). He is then transported back through time and left as a 9 month old baby in a box under a pool table.

Out Of Time - S6-E6

Corrected entry: When it is believed that Lister is a droid, why does Kryten be so rude to him, considering that this is the same person who helped him override the program preventing him from lying to humans? Also, wouldn't he have realised that Lister came out of Stasis with a long beard and nails? These wouldn't grow on droids.

Andy Benham

Correction: Kryten is rude to Lister because he feels betrayed - he believes that the individual who taught him about being human is a droid, and a less sophisticated one that he is. Kryten also states that the 3000 series mechanoids, which he believes Lister is, was disliked because it was too realistic - authentic hair and nail growth is presumably part of the realism that he's referring to.

Tailkinker

Correction: Lister never actually says that he's a pantheist - Kryten merely asks him if he's a pantheist, and Lister says that he isn't a "frying pan-theist". Also, it might be that since he's apparently done such a bad job of the Red Dwarf "game", he never even realised that Lister was supposed to be an atheist.

DaveJB

Timeslides - S3-E5

Corrected entry: When Lister changes the past so he does not get stuck on Red Dwarf, Rimmer is still there as a hologram, but he was only revived in order to keep Lister sane. If the history of Red Dwarf still remained the same (the radiation leak, Red Dwarf flying 3 million years into deep space etc.), despite Lister's absence, the captain would have surely been the only one revived as the most senior person on board. However, if for some reason, Rimmer WAS revived as a hologram, then he would have no memory of Lister as he would never have met him. Also, Kryten would still be aboard Nova 5, would never have discovered the developing fluid and would not have been able to show it to Lister anyway, so Lister could have never gone back to his 17 year old self to give him the tension sheet, therefore this whole episode is a paradox of itself and the Universe will now implode. Well, that's what you get for messing with causality.

Correction: Consider each the first two parts of this mistake - First, perhaps Holly prefers rimmer as opposed to the captain. Secondly, Rimmer WILL have met Lister as he has not changed timelines.

Andy Benham

Back To Reality - S5-E6

Corrected entry: When the crew are in the recuperation lounge, a woman comes in and asks if anyone in the room is called Dwayne Dibley. After everyone denies that it could be them, the woman leaves the case for someone to look at. After she leaves, Lister looks at the case and says it has to be Cat because his photograph is on the case. If this is so, then why did the woman not just look at the picture and tell for herself who Dwayne was instead of repeatedly asking?

Padzter

Correction: It's probably standard procedure to do so in order to jog players' memories - after 4 years being someone else in a total immersion video game, wouldn't you forget who you are?

Andy Benham

Pete (1) - S8-E6

Corrected entry: In the episode "Pete: Part 1", when the crew play basketball (and are losing badly), they have scored three points. After half time the 'stiffining solution' allows them to make a comeback. Lister scores a basket, followed by the cat. The scoreboard then says the crew have 5 points. They should have 7 points because basketball points are in 2's and 3's.

Correction: Free-throws are worth only one point each.

Brian Dillree

Correction: Perhaps they didn't. It has been established that Kryten has a few replacement parts on Starbug - more than likely he used those.

Andy Benham

Correction: First explanation ; maybe you're right - he wasn't listening. Second explanation; Ace thinks Rimmer knows how Starbug works, and he can help with technical instructions and advice. Third explanation; he knows Rimmer is a total smeghead and he wants him where he can keep an eye on him to stop him causing any more problems. Fourth ... get the idea?

Correction: Perhaps he'd like to get to know this alternate version of himself in private, ask him some personal questions about where their lives diverged, etc, and fixing the engine on their own would be a good opportunity for this. He has no idea that Rimmer is such a smeg head.

Camille - S4-E1

Corrected entry: In this episode Lister talks about his break up with Kochanski, but in the early episodes of the show, it is established that Lister always wanted ask Kochanski out but never worked up the courage.

Padzter

Correction: He says he never asked her out, not that he never went out with her. Maybe she asked him? Maybe Petersen arranged a double date? Maybe Holly is programmed to arrange blind dates amongst random crew members? Why not?

Correction: It's kind of an acknowledged continuity error. In an early episode, Holly states that Lister and Kochanski had only exchanged a few hundred words; they hardly could have had a relationship. But in 'Time Slides' Lister talks about when she dumped him. The writers retroactively gave them a failed relationship to make Lister's obsession less weird.

Timeslides - S3-E5

Factual error: The writer's understanding of the history of Nazism and its leaders is a bit shonky. Claus von Stauffenberg did not plant a bomb in Hitler's briefcase - he put it in his own briefcase which he planted in a meeting room next to Hitler (some berk moved it). This was in July 1944, while the last Nuremberg rally - which Lister visits, bringing back the briefcase - was in 1938. Stauffenberg didn't even join the anti-Hitler conspiracy until 1943. Red Dwarf is not an 'alternate history' - they correctly identify elements of the Stauffenberg plot and the Nazi regime, they just get them wrong.

More mistakes in Red Dwarf

White Hole - S4-E4

Rimmer: The thing about Captain Oates... The thing you have to remember about Captain Oates... Captain Oates... Captain Oates was a prat.

More quotes from Red Dwarf

Meltdown - S4-E6

Trivia: "Meltdown" was originally planned to be the first episode of Series IV of Red Dwarf. However, the militaristic tone of this episode - and in particular Dave Lister's strident anti-war speech near The End of the episode - meant it fell foul of the BBC censors. The original planned transmission date (Feb 14 1991) coincided with the outbreak of "Operation Desert Storm" - the Gulf War...and the BBC felt that an "anti-war" episode of Red Dwarf would be inappropriate for a country at war with Iraq.

More trivia for Red Dwarf

Answer: Presumably he does, but it's never been used in any material related to the show. He is the only Cat left (as shown in Series 1), so even if he had once had a name, nobody would know it.

Moose

Answer: In the book, the Cat finds the concept of a name confusing, as he's convinced he's the center of the universe and the idea that someone wouldn't know who he was is baffling.

Brian Katcher

More questions & answers from Red Dwarf

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