Doug Naylor's Definitive Dwarf

"Pilot Show, without it, no series. Mostly written in a week in Wales of round the clock writing, drinking and more drinking and the occasional meal. Took 3 years to sell. If only we'd drunk more." - Doug Naylor on The End. A radiation leak wipes out the crew of the mining ship Red Dwarf, leaving only one survivor – chicken soup machine repair man, Dave Lister. After three million years in suspended animation, Lister emerges to find he is the last human being in the universe. But he is not alone.

"We were told 'Don't write any Science Fiction, no-one likes Science Fiction'. We waited till no-one was looking then wrote this. Rehearsals were a shambles. But the cast and crew stayed with it. Suddenly we were up and running." - Doug Naylor on Future Echoes. When Red Dwarf breaks the speed of light, time dilates, and the crew begin to experience visions from their own future. Sadly for Lister his future appears to include being reduced to his component atoms by a rather large explosion. Happily for Rimmer, Lister's future appears to include being reduced to his component atoms by a rather large explosion.

"First show we got out of the studio, science fiction, mystery, this was what we we'd been trying to sell for all those years; character based, science fiction, comedy." - Doug Naylor on Thanks for the Memory. Rimmer is depressed - his father is dead and no one loves him. Not even his fried egg, chutney and chilli sauce sandwich. It's about time he had a damp dream at least. Then four days go missing and Lister and Cat wake up with their legs in plaster. Have the aliens landed at last?

"Because of its gimmick, the show that put us on the map as far as the newspapers were concerned. The prehistoric machines of the time blew up in the edit, they couldn't cope with playing footage backwards. Anyone with a laptop could do this in ten seconds now. Back then it was 'Quick get a Fire Extinguisher!''' - Doug Naylor on Backwards. It's the day of Kryten's space-driving test and Rimmer is his examiner. After a somewhat jerky start, he exits Red Dwarf, performs a few less than graceful manoeuvres and is sucked into a time hole. They emerge on Earth, only here time is running backwards. Lister and Cat eventually track them down, to find their shipmates have become a successful speciality act. With some brilliant trick photography and ingenious stunts, see Listen undrink a pint, a bar-room unbrawl and Cat left speechless from an untoilet.

"A love story and the first show of Season Four which launched on Valentine's Day. Every newspaper had a piece on Camille. Apparently, we were a hit show. Why now? Who knew." - Doug Naylor on Camille. Kryten rescues a female droid, Camille, from a crashed vessel. She's a 4000 series just like him, only a GTi model with realistic toes and a slide-back sunroof head. Kryten finds himself falling in advanced mutual compatibility on the basis of a primary ident, otherwise known as love at first sight. Sadly he find that such things never run in a non-glitch, bug-free way.

"Best script of the series, directed by the Writers, at last the lunatics were running the asylum." - Doug Naylor on Back to Reality. The crew of Red Dwarf discover an abandoned space ship on an ocean bed but suddenly the salvage operation doesn't sound quite so sexy when they realise all of the occupants of the vessel committed suicide. Attack by a gigantic sea monster soon makes escape the favourite option.

"The BBC said the show was impossible to shoot and to throw it away and write something sensible. Our producer said, 'Actually, we shot it yesterday.' The BBC said, 'Oh.' Won the Emmy." - Doug Naylor on Gunmen of the Apocalypse. Kryten contracts a deadly computer virus, and Rimmer and Co are forced to enter his electronic mindscape. They find themselves in a wild west town, facing a gunfight against metaphysical gunslingers.

"You're not supposed to do stories like this in a comedy series. We didn't know that then. Glad we didn't too." - Doug Naylor on Tikka to Ride. The crew are dead, slain by their future selves in the cliff-hanger that ended series six. But coming back from the dead is a piece of cake compared to the real dilemma confronting Lister - the curry supplies have been destroyed and he's three million light years from the nearest poppadom.

"The biggest audience laughs we got from any show. Why didn't we use laughing gas more often?" - Doug Naylor on Cassandra. On Holly's advice, Lister joins the 'Canaries'. He thinks it's the prison choir, actually it's a battle-hardened convict army, trained to go on suicide missions. And he's also enrolled Rimmer, probably the yellowest of yellowbellies in the whole universe. On their first mission, Rimmer meets Cassandra, a computer with the ability to predict the future with 100 percent accuracy, which prophesies his imminent death.