Red Dwarf: Every Series Ranked From Worst To Best
6. Series 1
"Lister, D, third technician. Offence: obstructing a superior technician by humming, clicking, and being quiet."
Originally conceived as The Odd Couple in space, and playing off some very real animosity between Chris Barrie and Craig Charles at the time, Red Dwarf started as a slower-paced show experimenting to see what worked and what didn't. A very different show from what followed, this laid the foundations that future seasons built upon so magnificently.
Future episodes of Red Dwarf would show that the comedy series has as strong a grasp of the science fiction elements as any serious sci-fi of the time, but it was well-named Future Echoes that first showed this off. Confidence & Paranoia is one of the first to show off Red Dwarf's interest in personified psychological aspects; a concept that would be revisited multiple times throughout the different series.
Waiting For God takes us to visit one of the last surviving Felis Sapiens on board and dips its toe into theology on the way. And the episodes Balance Of Power and Me² show us just how insecure Rimmer actually is, to the point that he literally cannot live with himself.
"Look out Earth, the slime's coming home!"