Question: Is it ever indicated that it's Starbug 1 used throughout the series?
Timeslides - S3-E5
Question: At The End of 'Timeslides', even though all has returned to normal, Rimmer has altered history sufficiently so that he is now alive rather than a hologram. As the Dwarfers walk through the cargo decks Rimmer excitedly yells "I am alive.", The End of which is punctuated by an explosion that presumably kills him. The question is: What in God's name causes this explosion? And why do Lister and the Cat appear completely uninterested that one of their crewmates has just been killed?
Chosen answer: Rimmer pounds his fists on two large crates labelled "Explosives", which causes the explosion. The others had wandered off by the time Holly and Rimmer realised he was alive, so they heard Rimmer yelling followed by the explosion but didn't know Rimmer had been harmed, as they didn't know he was alive to start with.
Question: If in Kochanski's universe, Kochanski was the one put in stasis, why did Holly make a hologram of Lister? Wouldn't Holly have made a hologram of someone who drove her crazy like Lister's Holly did with Rimmer? In Kochanski's universe, would Kochanski's future self not tell her that she is going to hook up with Lister, as it happened in Lister's universe? Does this mean Kochanski in Lister's universe secretly had feelings for him all along?
Chosen answer: In Lister's universe, Holly told Lister that he brought Rimmer back because he spent the most time with him, sharing fourteen million words with each other and that he was the best choice to keep Lister sane. It was nothing to do with who drove Lister crazy the most. In Kochanski's universe, Holly would have brought Lister back as a hologram for more or less the same or similar reason. Holly would likely have seen Lister as the one in Kochanski's universe to keep her the most sane. As for the future self, it is unknown whether or not Kochanski would have met her future self in her universe. All that's known is Kochanski survived the ship disaster and Lister was brought back as a hologram and anything could have happened in that time. Whether or not Kochanski had feelings for Lister in his universe will remain unknown. It is probable that she did not, though it is shown in Stasis Leak that she got married to a version of Lister five years onwards and would definitely had feelings for that version of Lister.
Question: In various episodes in the first series it is mentioned several times that the crew numbered 169 crewmembers aboard the ship. However, when the mindprobe convicts Rimmer of second degree murder it states that he is guilty of 1,167 counts. Where did the other 1,000 casualties come from?
Chosen answer: This is an example of the rather lax attitude to continuity that Red Dwarf subscribed to. Early on, the crew was stated as numbering 169; in later series of the show, this was deemed to be more than a little low, given the huge size of the ship, and the count was upped to 1169. Various arguments have been put forward to try to explain this, most commonly that the ship had 169 registered crew, but families, passengers and so forth boosted the actual number of people on board to the higher level, but, in The End, it's simply an intentional change in continuity by the show's writers.
Question: What caused the Nova 5 to crash?
Chosen answer: It was never stated directly in the series, although Lister does mention at one point that it was Kryten's fault. The first book based on the series states that the ship crashed after Kryten carefully washed the navigation console using soapy water, but it's unclear whether this is intended as a canonical explanation.
Question: Why did the nanobots resurrect the Red Dwarf crew?
Chosen answer: They reconstructed Red Dwarf as it was supposed to be, hence going back to the original plans, rather than the cut-down versions that were actually used to build it. A ship without a crew isn't much use, so they brought the crew back as well, possibly using the physical and personality information stored by the ship's holographic recreation unit as a template. How they might have restored the prisoners is another matter, probably best explained by the venerable science-fiction standby of "don't ask, they just did".
Question: How did the accident originally occur aboard Red Dwarf? I know Rimmer was responsible, but what exactly happened? Also, how come the accident didn't completely destroy Red Dwarf and why was the inside of the ship completely clean and tidy with no signs of destruction?
Chosen answer: The crew were wiped out in a radiation leak, something that killed the crewmembers, but had little effect on the structure of the ship other than rendering it radioactive for the next three million years. Any minor damage was presumably fixed by the scutters in the intervening time. The leak supposedly occured after a faulty part of the drive system wasn't repaired properly, something that Rimmer blames himself for. However, as Kryten argued successfully in the episode "Justice", somebody as incompetent as Rimmer would never have been given responsibility for any task that could potentially have such devastating consequences, suggesting that the true cause of the accident may be considerably more complex than one minor drive plate fault.
Question: If this wasn't supposed to be the last episode, was there any plan on how to explain Red Dwarf's survival, or were they just going to ignore the problem, like they do in "Back to Earth"?
Answer: The original idea was that they would do a feature film which would cover subsequent events, but, despite numerous attempts, they were never able to get it off the ground. By the time Back to Earth aired, years later, it was presumably decided that enough time had passed that it was no longer necessary to address the issue and instead focus on telling an entirely new story.
Question: It's been established that during Lister's time in stasis there was a radiation leak that wiped out Red Dwarf's crew. My questions are, after the radiation leak was The Jupiter Mining Corp aware of what transpired? Was there any attempt at all to salvage Red Dwarf? Also, exactly how did Red Dwarf become lost?
Chosen answer: After the radiation leak, Red Dwarf became an extremely dangerous place, with the majority of the ship irradiated and thus a danger to anyone who ventured near it. As such, Holly boosted the engines to maximum, sending Red Dwarf hurtling out into deep space where it couldn't pose a threat. It would seem likely that the Jupiter Mining Corporation would have been informed, either directly by Holly or by some sort of automated system, but, given the irradiated nature of the ship, they probably would have decided that any salvage mission would be pointless and would simply risk more personnel. Once the radiation finally reached a safe level for Lister to be brought out of stasis, after three million years of thrust, Red Dwarf was well and truly lost.
Question: What is The Inquisitor saying as he is being wiped from existence?
Answer: The direct quote is "But you can't. All my wonderful and glorious work will be undone!"
Question: When this episode was written, did the writers know it would be the very last show? I ask because, apart from the Grim Reaper scene at The End, it doesn't seem to be particularly 'big' or 'climatic' as you would expect the last episode of a long running series to be.
Answer: No, the intent was not that it would be the final episode. At the time, the aim was to follow the eighth series with a full-length movie, before returning to television. Unfortunately, despite many attempts, there have always been problems with obtaining the necessary financing, so the series has never been continued. While the possibility of a ninth series has been discussed on many occasions, no progress has ever been made.
Question: If the Cat only calls Lister by name once, which episode is it in?
Answer: He does it twice: in "Parallel Universe" he says "Lister - female counterpart, Rimmer - female counterpart... where's mine?"; in "The Inquisitor" Cat and Rimmer say Lister's name in unison when The Inquisitor asks "Who's next?"
Question: Why was there dog food on board in the first place? I thought that Red Dwarf wasn't meant to have any animals on board- so why was it needed?
Answer: It's entirely possible there were animals on board. Lister mentions lab mice, there could have been other lab animals too, or pets. Lister got in trouble with the cat because it hadn't been quarantined or vaccinated.
Timeslides - S3-E5
Question: At The End of this episode we see Rimmer accidentally create a reality in which he is alive. He then kills himself by punching boxes full of explosives shortly after. So why, in future episodes, do the other guys still claim that Rimmer died in the explosion that killed all Red Dwarf staff? Wouldn't they remember it as Rimmer killing himself in this new way instead?
Chosen answer: Although Rimmer is dying a different way in this episode, the crew were not paying attention to his death. When Lister, the Cat and Kryten are brought back due to Rimmer changing the timeline, they are too puzzled to pay attention to anything that is going, so they did not notice that Rimmer was alive. After the explosion that kills Rimmer, the Cat asks Lister "What was he saying?" to which Lister shrugs his shoulders, implying that he did not know. Assumedly, Holly would have brought Rimmer back as a hologram once again shortly afterwards and the crew probably wouldn't have known that he was alive after changing the timeline.
Question: What exactly was the point of the 'Tounge Tied' scene at the start of this episode. It doesn't seem to be in any way important to the episode, apart from triggering the conversation about Rimmer's attitude towards women, which could have been done in a much quicker way.
Answer: Originally the episode was to open without any titles or credits due to time constraints. Tongue Tied was used in the remastered episode as an opening, but has no relevance to the story or plot other than to display the Cats views on women. It is simply a dream sequence he recorded.
Out Of Time - S6-E6
Question: Kryten states that their future selves can only travel forwards in time, how are they able to go back to send the message? (00:17:02)
Answer: They must have been visiting an era earlier than the 1600s (when the Dwarfers were) when their time machine broke.
Answer: They do occasionally specify Starbug 1, but it has also been destroyed multiple times and the interior changed. They either rebuild the ship or change the designation of one of the other Starbugs.