Red Dwarf Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List
				Part 2 of 7
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The questions:

   1. What is alt.tv.red-dwarf?
   2. What is Red Dwarf?
   3. Did Red Dwarf start on radio?
   4. Is there an American version of Red Dwarf?
   5. Who is Grant Naylor?
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   1. What is alt.tv.red-dwarf?

  alt.tv.red-dwarf is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to the discussion of
  Red Dwarf. There is a Web page for readers of the newsgroup at:
  http://www.cobalt.demon.co.uk/alt.tv.red-dwarf.

  Warning: Read the alt.tv.red-dwarf Primer before posting to the
  newsgroup! The Primer explains how the newsgroup works and provides
  some informal rules. Everyone who posts to alt.tv.red-dwarf is
  assumed to be familiar with the Primer, and people who don't bother
  to read it tend to get yelled at. So take a few moments to look it
  over: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2456/primer.html
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   2. What is Red Dwarf?

  Red Dwarf is a British TV show that has been airing on the BBC since
  1988. It's a half-hour science fiction comedy that tells the story of
  the last living human being and his nonhuman companions in the
  distant future. The premise of the show is best summed up in the
  opening narration (by Holly, the ship's computer) used in the first
  series:

    This is an S.O.S. distress call from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The
    crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak. The only survivors are
    Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the disaster,
    and his pregnant cat, who was safely sealed in the hold. Revived
    three million years later, Lister's only companions are a life-form
    who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation
    of one of the dead crew.

  Accompanied by the Cat, Rimmer, Holly, and an android named Kryten,
  Lister pursues his dream of returning to Earth and settling down with
  his long-lost girlfriend. Along the way, he encounters parallel
  universes, time warps, genetic mutants, holes in space, and a moon
  shaped like Felicity Kendal's bottom.

  The regular cast of the series is:
  Dave Lister - Craig Charles
  Arnold Rimmer - Chris Barrie
  Holly - Norman Lovett (series 1, 2, 8)  Hattie Hayridge (series 3-5)
  The Cat - Danny John-Jules
  Kryten - Robert Llewellyn (Series 3-8)

  (Another regular character, played by Chloe Annett, is added in
  Series 7, but giving away that character's name here would spoil one
  of the episodes for some viewers. See "What's new in Series 7?".)

  Red Dwarf is also a series of novels based on the TV show. The novels
  greatly expand on, and are greatly different from, the show. Many of
  the same ideas appear in the novels, but these ideas are put together
  in new and interesting ways. Four novels have been published so far:

  Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
  by Grant Naylor
  ISBN 0-14-012437-3
  Penguin, 1989

  Red Dwarf: Better Than Life
  by Grant Naylor
  ISBN 0-14-012438-1
  Penguin, 1990

  Red Dwarf: Last Human
  by Doug Naylor
  ISBN 0-67-085255-4
  Penguin, 1995

  Red Dwarf: Backwards
  by Robert Grant
  ISBN 0-670-84574-4
  Penguin, 1996

  The first two novels have been reprinted in a single volume:

  Red Dwarf Omnibus
  by Grant Naylor
  ISBN 0-14-017466-4
  Penguin, 1991

  This combined rerelease also contains the script for "Dave Hollins,
  Space Cadet" (one of the Son of Cliché sketches that started it all),
  a reproduction of the beer mat on which the idea for Red Dwarf was
  allegedly first written, and the original script for "The End" (the
  first episode of the series).
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   3. Did Red Dwarf start on radio?

  Not exactly. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor wrote the short-lived radio
  series Son of Cliché (broadcast in two six-episode runs on BBC Radio
  4 in 1984). In an ongoing series of sketches, a space cadet named
   Dave Hollins was trapped alone on a spaceship with a slightly senile
  computer called HAB. (The voice of HAB was provided by Chris Barrie,
  the actor who plays Rimmer in Red Dwarf.) Many of the ideas and jokes
  from these sketches were later incorporated into Red Dwarf, but there
  is no direct connection.

  The script for one of the "Dave Hollins, Space Cadet" sketches is
  included in the Red Dwarf Omnibus.

  Audio book versions of the Red Dwarf novels exist, and one of them
  (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, read by Chris Barrie) has been
  aired on BBC radio. Sound effects were added and the recording was
  divided into parts for broadcast, but the show was otherwise
  identical to the audio book. The result is available for purchase as
  Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers: The Radio Show.
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   4. Is there an American version of Red Dwarf?

  No, not really. The NBC network expressed interest in an American
  version of the show and two pilots were made by Universal, but no
  series was ever produced.

  The first pilot was written by Linwood Boomer and filmed on 22
  January 1992 at Universal City Studios in Los Angeles. The cast
  included the following actors:
  Dave Lister - Craig Bierko Arnold
  Rimmer - Chris Eigeman
  Holly - Jane Leeves
  The Cat - Hinton Battle
  Kryten - Robert Llewellyn
  Kristine Kochanski - Elizabeth Morehead
  First Officer Munson - Michael Heintzman
  Captain Tau - Lorraine Toussaint

  Grant Naylor served as technical consultants. Robert Llewellyn (from
  the BBC cast) reprised his role as Kryten. (Some fans may also
  recognise Jane Leeves from the American comedies Murphy Brown and
  Frasier. Law & Order fans may remember Lorraine Toussaint as public
  defender Shambala Greene.) The plot was a retelling of "The End",
  with some elements of "Future Echoes" thrown in for good measure.
  Some surprising and odd changes were made: for example, Lister was
  transformed into a clean-cut and well-dressed Caucasian, and the H on
  Rimmer's forehead was replaced with a silver marble. (You can see a
  transcription of the first pilot at:
  http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7439/ams.htm.)

  After this version was rejected, Grant Naylor filmed a second pilot
  with the following cast:

  Dave Lister - Craig Bierko
  Arnold Rimmer - Anthony Fuscle
  Holly - Jane Leeves
  The Cat - Terry Farrell
  Kryten - Robert Llewellyn

  The second pilot was not a complete episode, but rather a promo that
  combined scenes from the first pilot, bits from the BBC series, and
  newly filmed segments spotlighting the new cast members. This pilot
  fixed some problems (such as restoring Rimmer's H), but had more odd
  changes, such as a female Cat. (Terry Farrell went on to play Jadzia
  Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.) The second pilot was also
  rejected, and the proposed series was shelved indefinitely.

  [Does anyone know who wrote the second pilot, or when and where it
  was filmed? -- PMB]

  Neither pilot has ever been aired or released on videocassette, but
  bootleg copies can be found at science fiction conventions.

  A redesigned Kryten suit (of somewhat better quality than the old BBC
  version) was made for the U.S. pilots by Joseph Kerezman and Mike
  Moore of JK2 Costumers. After the pilots were rejected, the BBC
  created a new Kryten suit (based on the U.S. one) for Series 6.

  Some U.S. fans observed that the series Homeboys in Outer Space (UPN,
  1996-97) imitated Red Dwarf in a number of superficial ways.
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   5. Who is Grant Naylor?

  "Grant Naylor" is the collective name used by the creative team of
  Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who created Red Dwarf, wrote and produced
  Series 1 through 6, and wrote (individually or as a team) all of the
  Red Dwarf novels.

  In 1996, Rob Grant resigned as coproducer and cowriter of the show.
  When asked why, he told the Radio Times, "We wrote the pilot for the
  series in 1983 . . . It's been a long time and it's taken up a lot of
  time . . . I thought, 'Enough's enough; I want more than just Red
  Dwarf on my tombstone.'" Grant plans to write additional Red Dwarf
  novels and may also be involved in the Red Dwarf movie tentatively
  planned to follow Series 8.

  The "About the Author" note in the Red Dwarf novels has this to say
  about the creator(s) of the series:

    Grant Naylor is a gestalt entity occupying two bodies, one of which
    lives in north London, the other in south London. The product of a
    horribly botched genetic-engineering experiment, which took place
    in Manchester in the late fifties, they try to eke out two
    existences with only one mind. They attended the same school and
    the same university, but, for tax reasons, have completely
    different wives.

    The first body is called Rob Grant, the second Doug Naylor. Among
    other things, they spent three years in the mid-eighties as head
    writers of Spitting Image; wrote Radio Four's award-winning series
    Son of Cliche; penned the lyrics to a number one single; and
    created and wrote Red Dwarf for BBC television.

    They have made a living variously by being ice-cream salesmen,
    shoe-shop assistants and by attempting to sell dodgy life-assurance
    policies to close friends. They also spent almost two years on the
    night shift loading paper into computer printers at a mail-order
    factory in Ardwick. They can still taste the cheese 'n' onion
    toasties.

    Their favourite colour is orange.

  Grant Naylor's number one single was "The Chicken Song," a Spitting
  Image spinoff. Philip Pope composed the music and produced the
  record, which was released in 1986 by Virgin Records.
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