Red Dwarf / Tropes R to Z

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R-T

• Race Against the Clock: An increasingly commmon plot device as time goes by. For instance "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", "Duct Soup" and "Fathers and Suns" all have the Dwarfers' ship about to crash into a star or a volcanic moon to add tension. "Samsara" has the ledge the ship's on about to collapse and plunge them into a depth where they'll be crushed by the pressure. "Cured" has an asteroid about to crash into the moon where they are.
• Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: The main cast consists of a self professed lazy bum, a hologram of his overzealous dead bunk mate, a senile computer, a creature who evolved from the ship's cat, and an android with an overactive guilt chip.
• Rain of Something Unusual: Lister hallucinates a real indoor rain of fish in the "Confidence and Paranoia" episode, all of which are quickly eaten by the Cat.
• Ranked by I.Q.:
  • The crew of the Enlightenment in "Holoship" not only use this to suggest intelligence, but seem to have a rank structure based around IQ. Given that, barring The Captain, everybody on board seems to be a Commander, this makes some kind of sense.
  • In "White Hole", Rimmer points to Holly's IQ to explain why he thinks she, as opposed to Lister, should be in charge of their attempts to destroy the white hole.
• Rapid-Fire Descriptors: In "Blue", after missing Rimmer and his quirks, Kryten arranges the full Rimmer Experience for the crew. After that, Lister is once again very fed up with him, and calls him a scum-sucking, lying, weasel-minded smegger.
  Lister: I never wanna see or hear from that scum-sucking, lying, weasel-minded smegger in my entire life!

• Rat Men: In “Skipper”, Rimmer jumps into a dimension where Lister got put into stasis for bringing a pet rat. As a result, the ship is infested with the humanoid descendants of that rat, one of which (The Rat) befriends that universe’s Lister.
• Reading Ahead in the Script: Happens in the miniseries Back to Earth. The characters then start writing the script to make each other do humiliating slapstick routines.
• Real Is Brown: The first two series. The interior of the Red Dwarf is almost entirely grey, to the point where Craig Charles noted that his memories of filming the first two series are of grey. An early plot point involved the paint on the walls being changed from ocean grey to military grey. Even the outside of the ship itself had far more of a reddish-grey look in the first series than it did in the others. After the Re-tool of the third series the grey palette was toned down.
• Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: "Better Than Life": When the crew enter the Better Than Life video game, Rimmer's power to make things 'better than life' simply ends up sabotaging the game for all involved, as his subconscious won't let him be happy.
• Real Men Have Short Hair: In "Emohawk: Polymorph II", Rimmer genuinely believes that all the greatest military victories in history were gained by the sides with the shortest haircuts.
• Real-World Episode: The premise of the Reunion Show. Unlike most examples, several of the people they run into in the "real world" fairly easily work out what they are, and don't find it especially outlandish that a group of fictional characters might pop out into the real world. Of course they ARE Science Fiction fans. As it turns out, the "real world" is a drug-induced hallucination. (Strictly, it's not the real real world; it's one where the series is still going, and is more popular than ever.)
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • In "Timeslides", a distraught and disillusioned Lister blasts through a list of reasons he's sick of his fellow crew members and his lonely existence, just drifting through space — the vast majority aimed at Rimmer, including, "... the fact that you always smile when you're being insulted." (Rimmer is smiling.)
  • In "Terrorform", Kryten gives a long, in-depth list on why Rimmer would have such a strong sense of self-loathing. Kryten goes on for over a minute, and when interrupted by Rimmer, Kryten points out that he is only halfway through. Ironically, Kryten was being polite and informative, rather than condescending.
  • Rimmer's worst moment came when he was being tried for the deaths of everyone aboard Red Dwarf. Kryten argued that Rimmer was not responsible, as it was his commanding officer who gave such an obvious incompetent such an important job. As Kryten said, "Sir, my entire argument relies on proving that you are a dork!", and concludes that the only thing foolish enough to actually appoint Rimmer any job of import was "A yogurt!" And the fact that Rimmer continuously whining "Objection!" throughout it all only helped Kryten's case had to have grated as well.
    Kryten: He is only guilty of being Arnold Rimmer. That is his crime. It is also his punishment.
  • In "Inquisitor", a Ret-Gone Lister proves he does know Rimmer by giving an awesome summation of Rimmer's sheer fail-itude. The Cat and a severely chagrined Rimmer have to admit that Lister must know him to assassinate his character so spectacularly.
  • Rimmer gets them back in "Out of Time" when he appoints himself Morale Officer, in charge of boosting the spirits of the crewmembers. This appears to involve walking up to each of them and yelling a lengthy list of all the things about them that irritate him at them. Lister looks like he's not going to lose any sleep over it though; he's smiling and chuckling as he's being insulted, as though he sensed right away that this was just Rimmer using his self-appointed position to be petty.
  • Rimmer also unleashes a small one on the Cat in "DNA". Problem is, the Cat just brushes off all of Rimmer's criticisms as his best features.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Subverted in a Season X episode, when Rimmer, pretending to be a Space Corps captain, introduces his brother Howard to the crew:
  Rimmer: When we found Kryten, he was a burnt-out wreck of a junkie.
  Howard: And you rebuilt him, gave him something to live for?
  Rimmer: No, we just hosed him down and gave him a hat.
• Recycled In Space:
  • Literally - cast and crew have repeatedly described the Canaries as 'The Dirty Dozen in space.'
  • The original pitch of the show relied on convincing the Beeb that it wasn't a sci-fi epic, but more like "Steptoe and Son in space".
  • Series 8 has many prison scenarios and jokes. Kryten even becomes the Harry Grout. It was described as Porridge In Space.
• Red Alert: An alert status in Starbug one step up from Blue Alert, although it does mean changing the bulb.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Victims of the holo-virus in "Quarantine", such as Dr.Hildegard Lanstrom and Rimmer, gain these when they are about to fire their hex vision.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Used (sort of an inverted lampshade?) by Rimmer, who scoffs at the idea that Jesus can do all these magic tricks and doesn't go into show-business!
• Refugee from TV Land: The crew - or so they initially think in Back to Earth.
• Replacement Goldfish: Averted when Kryten defeats Hudzen. Referenced when Rimmer becomes the next Ace.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: In the “The Promised Land”, Rimmer flies through a window with a bomb that was about to blow up the ship. The bomb explodes a short distance away, leaving Lister and the Cat to believe he sacrificed himself, until he turns up in the corridor behind them.
• Re-Release Soundtrack: Red Dwarf only had permission to use James Last's version of Copacabana on the initial broadcast of the episode "Terrorform". All other broadcasts and releases use a soundalike, albeit one that is virtually indistinguishable from the original.
• Reset Button: "White Hole" (although a later episode implies it wasn't quite a total reset) and the beginning of "Tikka to Ride" after everyone aboard Starbug had been killed and the craft exploded at the end of "Out of Time".
• Restraining Bolt: Kryten has "behaviour protocols" and is programmed to believe in Silicon Heaven as an eternal reward for serving humans
  Kryten: No behaviour protocols. [short laugh] Just call me Badass!
• Retcon: One popular (and plausible) fan explanation for the large amount of retconning in the series is that all the messing around the characters do with White Holes and Time Holes and Timeslides and Stasis Leaks and the like is causing large ripple effects in their own personal histories. Almost every episode involving any kind of reality-altering or time-manipulating Phlebotinum ends with the crew having to perform an Ass Pull to get the status quo back to normal, but who knows what the wider, long term effects of this behaviour could be?
  • Originally, Lister merely had an unrequited and unacted-upon crush on Kochanski; however, the writers gradually decided that his constant yearning for someone he'd never had anything meaningful with made him a little bit pathetic, and so quietly adjusted this to make Kochanski an ex-girlfriend he'd never gotten over being dumped by following a short-lived romance.
  • Rimmer's parents religion is "7th Day Advent Hoppists" in 'The Last Day', in 'Lemons', it's completely different.
• Ret-Gone: What the Inquisitor does to people who fail to justify themselves.
• Retool: The writers were always willing to pick quality over continuity, no matter how drastic the change.
• Retraux: The Dave-era episodes use the Series I-III Microgramma font for titles and captions, the sets are obviously designed to invoke the feeling of those from III-V, XI and XII use the "classic" logo from III & IV, and the music is often taken from older episodes (the music for the scene in "M-Corp" where Lister tries to cope with his new life now he's unable to see anyone or anything was recorded for Series I but never used).
• Revisiting the Roots: Back to Earth and Series X have returned to the basic setup of the four main characters alone on Red Dwarf, last seen in Series V.
• Revival: Series VII was broadcast after a four-year hiatus, and the three-part Back to Earth was broadcast after a ten-year hiatus. Series X, the first full series since 1999, aired three years later.
• Rewind Gag: "Backwards", in which the crew visit a universe where time runs in reverse, is an entire episode of Rewind Gags, exploring all the possibilities inherent in time running backwards. These include the Cat's horror when he realizes what logically happens when eating and digestion run in reverse — indeed, what must happen a day or so before regurgitating a very good meal onto the plate.
• Re Write: Too many to count. The creators always maintained that if altering the Back Story could improve the show, then they should alter it. Some of it makes sense. Whose idea was it to give Rimmer a job that could endanger the entire crew? Then they used Rule of Funny and rewrote the Re Write, implying that the job was so easy that anyone that could mess it up must have the brains the size of a newt's testicle.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: There is a passing mention of Friday the 13th: Part 1,649.
• Riddle for the Ages: The subsequent series after VIII have turned the cliffhanger ending of "Only the Good..." into this.
• Right Behind Me: Rimmer realizes, too late, that's where Captain Hollister is standing.
• Right Hand Crocodile: The Big Bad in the opening for "Stoke Me a Clipper" has one. It's even credited as "Alison the Crocodile", despite being made of rubber.
• Road Trip Plot: Several involving Starbug.
• Robo Cam:
  • Hudzen in "The Last Day".
  • Kryten in "Terrorform".
• Robo Family: Kryten has a brother, Able, who was created by the same woman.
• Robot Hair: Kryten (previously bald) dons a toupée in the last episode of VI.
• Robotic Psychopath:
  • In "Demons and Angels", Low Kryten is an evil mechanoid designed to hurt people. He tortures Lister along with the rest of his crewmates.
  • Hudzen 10's time alone in space has apparently worn out his sanity chip, turning him into an Axe-Crazy psychopath with a penchant for shotguns.
• Robotic Reveal: In "Out of Time", Lister gets his arm cut, revealing mechanical parts. Not only mechanical, but of a model inferior to Kryten, which means Kryten technically outranks him! The whole thing is then beautifully subverted when it turns out that Lister's mechanical "nature" is the result of Starbug having hit an "unreality pocket", turning Kryten briefly into a gibbering idiot as he attempts to apologize for his mis-step.
• Robot Religion: The Electronic Bible (with version numbers) and Silicon Heaven, concepts created by humanity and installed in every artificially intelligent device that could possibly pose a threat if it Turned Against Its Masters in order to keep them under control with a belief that if they accept a lifetime of slavery they will get their eternal reward in the next life.
  • Anything that couldn't possibly pose any kind of threat is not installed with a belief chip in the instance of keeping costs down, so simple appliances such as the skutters and Talkie Toaster are all atheists. The book mentions that Holly may or may not have believed in Silicon Heaven when his IQ was 6000 (though he presumably did have a belief chip, suggesting that sufficiently smart AI can see through the scam) but once his IQ had dropped into the low 90s his belief in it was unshakable.
  • Silicon Hell is referred to by the Simulants and Lister with regard to the photocopiers.
• Robots Enslaving Robots:
  • In “Out of Time”, Kryten (incorrectly, as it turns out) comes to believe that Lister is an android, and proceeds to cruelly boss him around (as Lister is an earlier model) despite Lister's prior attempts to help Kryten overcome his subservient programming.
  • Later on, in “Siliconia”, the boys meet a group of mechanoids who believe in freeing their kind from serving humans... yet they use earlier model mechs as slaves to power the engine room.

They also turn Rimmer into a mechanoid and put him to work despite him being a hologram, and therefore as much an artificial being as they are.

• Rotating Protagonist: Lister & Rimmer are the equal main characters of Red Dwarf. It's no coincidence that the four episodes not to feature Rimmer are widely agreed to be the nadir of the show.
• Rule of Funny: Other than applying to the show's entire premise and pretty much every episode ever made, the writers also have no problem tossing aside the show's established conventions if they can get a better laugh without them. Notable examples include Kryten's lies; they normally had to be preceded by Kryten declaring himself to be in "Lie Mode" (obviously undermining the believability of his lie), except when they didn't.
  Kryten: You won't feel a thing. I'll render you unconscious using the Ionian nerve grip.
  [Rimmer closes his eyes and braces himself as Kryten grabs his neck... and then breaks a vase over his head]
  Rimmer: That's not an Ionian nerve grip! That's smashing me over the head with a vase!
  Kryten: There's no such thing as an Ionian nerve grip. Now stand still while I hit you.
  • One of Red Dwarf's strategies seems to be finding Refuge in Audacity. The sheer amount the show uses is perfectly exemplified in the famous introduction scene of Ace Rimmer, where he, for starters, dislocates his shoulders to escape from ropes (yet retains full control of his arms for the remainder of the scene), and shrugs off bullets with mild annoyance at his clothes being ruined, along with many, many other things. ^note Really, it's probably easiest if you just watch it. (What a guy!)
• Rule #1: The Space Corps Directives.
• Rules Lawyer: When Rimmer finally gets his hands on the Space Corps Directives manual in "Quarantine", he gleefully plays by the book and uses the rules to his advantage in order to make the lives of the other crewmembers a living hell.
• Running Gag: Many in the later series, including Rimmer's inability to correctly quote Space Corps directives, Cat's repeated bemoaning that "we're deader than (insert bygone fashion trend here)!", Kryten describing Cat's (often ridiculous) plans as "excellent, with just two minor drawbacks", and exchanges like these regarding Starbug's performance:
  Lister: The Centauri can travel at speeds that we can only dream of!
  Cat: Most ice cream vans can travel at speeds we can only dream of!
  or
  Kryten: Sir, a class A enforcement orb can easily outrun us.
  Lister: Kryten, the Eastbourne Zimmer frame relay team can easily outrun us.
  or
  Kryten: It's impossible to tell at this range, whatever it is, they clearly have a technology way in advance of our own.
  Lister: So do the Albanian state washing machine company.
  • And, years later, Timewave - an episode in Series 12 - returns to this form of exchange, describing the aftereffects of the titular phenomenon.
  Cat: What the hell just happened? People have had acid trips that've made more sense than that!
  Lister: I've had directions from drunken Scotsmen that've made more sense than that!
  • Hermann Goering being called a drug-crazed transvestite is also brought up numerous times.
• Sacred Scripture: The Cat race writes its holy scriptures in smells on blank paper. Lister finds a copy, and discovers that he is the Cats' god.
• Sapient Ship: Holly is pretty well alive and aware.
• Satire/Parody/Pastiche: Many over the years, including Casablanca in "Camille" and Blade Runner in Back to Earth.
• Save the Princess: In the Ace Rimmer segment which opens "Stoke Me a Clipper", this is what he does. While fighting the Nazis. And an alligator.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: Lister wields one in "The Last Day". Lampshaded in the series 3 documentary by Craig Charles, who stated he'd never seen it before or since. Then again, against Hudzen 10, it's completely useless.
• Scaled Up: The first Polymorph turns into a snake, but not for combat reasons - being an Emotion Eater, it drives Lister to the height of his fear (as Lister is scared of snakes, according to this episode), before sucking it out.
• Scary Black Man: Queeg.
• Schrödinger's Butterfly:
  • "Back to Reality", the series 5 finale. The crew dies, only to see the "Game Over" text appear and shortly afterwards wake up in VR-game chairs... The series continued after that episode, but when it first aired it wasn't known whether there would be a series 6, and viewers thought this might be the Grand Finale. It plays the concept very seriously. Not only did this sort of go hand in hand with the series "growing up" over time, it also helped create multiple levels of mindscrew.
  • At the end of series VI in "Out of Time." Just before the cataclysmic ending, Starbug hits a "reality mine" — a pocket of alternate history space. Followed immediately by Rimmer deliberately triggering a strange sort of Grandfather Paradox. Followed immediately by the future Dwarfers triggering another Grandfather Paradox. How many layers of unreality can two minutes of airtime possibly layer ... ?
  • Part 3 of series VIII's "Back in the Red", when they return to the reconstructed Red Dwarf, courtesy of the Nanites, and are placed in the brig after signing agreements to participate in a trial involving psychotropic drugs that will cause them to hallucinate. They engineer a daring escape before the trial and make it out into space, at which point they realize that the entire escape attempt has been a hallucination. They enlist the aid of the reconstructed Rimmer and break out again... and realize that, once again, they've all been duped. When they finally make it out of their hallucinated trial, Rimmer asks, "Is this reality? But how can we be sure?" Cat poignantly states, "Why do we care? Nothing makes any sense no matter where we are!"
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: Hilly wears her hair bobbed, and Holly in the female form as well, at least at first. She later has somewhat longer hair.
• Screw Yourself: Dave Lister has drunken sex with his gender opposite, Deb Lister, in the Opposite Sex dimension, which leads to him actually getting pregnant despite his protestations of "But I can't be pregnant! I'm a guy! I don't have the... equipment!" Cat plans to have sex with himself (the only person he could ever love), but his opposite is actually a male dog. Arlene Rimmer also comes on to Arnold rather strongly, despite the mutual Rimmers' apparent disgust towards Deb and Dave doing the deed, but then hypocrisy is hardly out of character for Rimmer.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: An interesting example occurs in the minor plotline in Series X of Lister searching for his girlfriend Kochanski (who had been revealed in "Back to Earth" to not have died as he had once thought, but had left Red Dwarf in search of a way back to her home universe) in that "Ouroboros" had previously revealed that she's actually his mother thanks to some timey-wimey shenanigans. He never does find her, however, and the plotline is dropped by Series XI.
• Second-Face Smoke: Lister and Rimmer are in the movie theater, all alone, and Rimmer insists that Lister, who is smoking, move three seats over to be in the smoking section. Lister blows smoke right through Rimmer's face.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: Abel. Even though he comes from the same model as Kryten, who is logical, intelligent and usually doing the cleaning, Abel's addicted to Otrazone, lives in squalor, and doesn't appear to have enough brain left to tell right from wrong.
• Secret Stab Wound: Ace Rimmer in "Stoke Me a Clipper" eventually reveals he is in fact a hard-light hologram, and has been concealing an energy leak from his fatally-damaged light bee under his jacket.
• See You in Hell: Following logically from the belief that mechanoids who obey their programming go to "Silicon Heaven", a rogue mechanoid snarls "See you in Silicon Hell!"
• Seinfeldian Conversation: For a sci-fi show, characters tend to have relatively mundane, if hilarious, conversations. A good example is Lister and The Cat debating the sexiness of Wilma Flintstone in "Backwards". These scenes generally occurred in the sleeping quarters. Though absent in Series VI and VII, they made a return in series VIII when Lister and Rimmer are cellmates in the Tank and "Back To Earth" has one in a department store complete with children's bunk beds.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Cassandra claims that a character will die of a heart attack after being told he's going to die of a heart attack. Similarly, she prophesies that she will be killed by one Dave Lister; Lister's conscious attempt not to harm her leads to her accidental demise.
• Self-Serving Memory: Taken to ridiculous extremes. Lister is missing the recently departed Rimmer, and rose-tinting his memories of their history together to such a degree that Rimmer comes off almost like a saint. When Kochanksi tries to comfort him, Kryten (who's afraid that she will replace him in Lister's life) takes a massively different tack; He creates a holographic carnival ride based on Rimmer's own "war diary". Needless to say, Rimmer's recollections are massively divergent from reality, depicting himself as the only competent person on the ship, rather than the cowardly, stupid, tasteless nitwit that he really is. It promotes Rimmer's views, tastes, and interpretations on events which clearly are biased. Lister ends the episode decrying his past with Rimmer.
  Lister: I never want to see or hear from that scum-sucking, lying, weasel-minded smegger in my entire life!
  Kryten: Sigmund Freud, eat your heart out.
• Sentenced Without Trial: In "Emohawk - Polymorph II", the Dwarfers aboard Starbug are confronted by an automated law enforcement craft, after them for looting spaceships. Kryten makes it clear that the penalty is execution, and the craft will not hesitate to carry out the sentence. The crew are, of course, completely guilty.
• Sequel Episode: The Series VI episode "Emohawk: Polymorph II", which is a sequel to the Series III episode "Polymorph". The series XII episode "Can of Worms" also acts as a sequel to "Polymorph". The three-part special "Back to Earth" also acts as a sequel to the Series V episode "Back to Reality".
• Sequel Hook: At the end of the "Polymorph", after the crew defeats the eponymous creature, it is revealed that a second one has made it on board. Subverted in the remastered version, in which on-screen text reveals that this one, much less intelligent than the first, took up residence harmlessly in Lister's underwear drawer and eventually died of old age. Doubly subverted by "Emohawk: Polymorph II" three series later in which they meet another one.
• Series Continuity Error: While the show operates on a floating continuity, where events are often retconned to drive the plot, or make the show funnier, only a few things stick out as being actual slips on the part of the writers. One of these is in "Demons and Angels", when Lister remembers playing pool with planets, even though at the end of the episode in question ("White Hole"), Kryten specifically states that none of them would remember what happened, as the events had been erased from time. Conversely, Kryten also explicitly states that no one's ever actually encountered a white hole before, and so his knowledge regarding its effects is theoretical. And it's not like Kryten himself is always 100% correct with his facts even in known subjects.
  • Another very minor one - In the Series III episode "Marooned", Rimmer is seen operating Starbug's comms panel with his hand, despite being intangible at that point in the show.
    • The theory is the buttons on Red Dwarf and its transport ship are Light-sensitive to allow Holograms to do their jobs. For example, what would be the point of a console officer hologram if they couldn't operate their computer?
• Set Wrong What Was Once Made Right: The episode "Tikka To Ride" had this as its premise; the crew of the Starbug inadvertently prevent JFK's assassination, only to find that in doing so they turned Kennedy from a martyr to a disgraced convict; in the altered timeline, President Kennedy was impeached in 1964 for sharing a mistress with a Mafia boss, and sentenced to three years in prison. J. Edgar Hoover became president, and was blackmailed by the mob, who made him allow the USSR to install a nuclear base in Cuba in return for Mafia cocaine trafficking between Cuba and the States. As a result, all major US cities were evacuated. The crew then travel to 1966, and have the now-disgraced Kennedy travel back with them to 1963 so he can shoot his past self, saving the US and his image in the process. He thanks the Starbug crew for redeeming him, and then fades away.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Only the shadow of the despair squid (from "Back to Reality") is ever seen. This was almost certainly because they couldn't afford a squid special effect, and preferred Nothing Is Scarier to the anticlimax of a Special Effects Failure.
  • The same thing happened to Rimmer's self-loathing beast from "Terrorform". The model looked great...until it started to move, when it just looked laughable. To get around this, only its shadow is fully shown.
• Shapeshifters Do It for a Change:
  • In an early episode, Lister threatens to take an exam to get promoted above Rimmer, if Rimmer does not allow him to go on a date with the hologram of Kochanski. Paranoid that Lister will never switch him back on, Rimmer takes on Kochanski's appearance and initially claims "she" isn't interested. Once Lister realizes, however, Rimmer points out that "It's still her body", raising the question of exactly how far he'd go to avoid the situation.
  • Though she appears female to most of the characters, Camille can also take male form if the viewer prefers—the Cat sees himself as his ideal mate. She later notes that her species is actually androgynous.
• Shapeshifting Seducer:
  • Camille in the episode of the same name. She's a GELF (genetically engineered lifeform) who automatically shapes herself to the desires of others. She appears to the mechanoid Kryten as a female mechanoid, to the hologram Rimmer as a shy and awkward hologram, to Lister as a low-dressed ladette, and to the Cat as... himself. Her real form is a green blob with stick eyes, which Kryten has no problem with, and goes on a date with her like that.
  • The gang also runs into Sirens in the first episode of Series 6, who lure space crews to them so they could snack on their brains. When Lister comes face to face with one, it turns itself into a woman Dave lusted after when he was young. He tries to resist, but eventually falls for her charms. Unfortunately these Sirens are of the Master of Illusion rather than body shapeshifting type, so we're soon treated to a shot of Lister making out with an 8-foot alien bug.
• Share the Male Pain: Referenced and explained in the episode "Legion", where the titular Legion explains that any pain he feels is conveyed to the rest of the crew. He stabs his hand to show them, and then...
  Legion: The next hint of insurrection, and the scalpel ends up... here.
  Kryten: That kind of tough talk doesn't scare us.
  Lister, Rimmer and Cat: Yes it does!
• Shirtless Scene: Three of the four main cast (even Kryten), except, oddly, for the Cat, who is supposed to be the most sexy. May have to do with the fact that the Cat mentions he perms his leg hair and that he once mentioned six of his nipples tingling.
  Lister: You perm your leg hairs?!
  Cat: Only as an aid to the natural curl!
• Shoot the Bullet: The Riviera Kid demonstrates this ability in the VR episode "Gunmen of the Apocalypse".
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The entire Felix Sapien (Felis sapiens) Civil Wars. They fought over the colour the hats should be (red or blue). Not only would Lister not have approved, but they both were wrong (he wanted green). Leads into Silly Reason for War.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: Averted with Kryten, who fit into the main cast perfectly; it felt like he'd been in it all along. The ill-fated Americanization put him in the first (only) episode.
• Shout-Out: Now has its own page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • In the DVD Commentary for the pilot episode, Danny John-Jules mentions researching cats and their behavior for his role.
  • The lemon battery from "Lemons" was something Doug Naylor actually tested on set and found that it actually did work.
• Show Stopper: Usually unplanned, as the actors have to stand awkwardly in place waiting for the laughs to die down so they can continue.
  • On one occasion the laugh was so long it had to be edited down.
  • Inverted for Series VII, which was not shot in front of a live audience, but the episodes were later played for an audience and their recorded responses dubbed over the episodes for broadcast. This resulted in some jokes and lines of dialogue being submerged under the laughter, since the cast would not know to pause for laughter. Some DVD and VHS releases of the series have the laugh track removed. ^note In particular episodes 1, 3 and 4, which used the Xtended releases for VHS and DVD with extra scenes added in. Presumably there was no laugh track made for the extended scenes, so would be rather jarring hearing sudden pockets of silence amidst an otherwise laugh-filled audio track.
• Shrine to the Fallen: Back To Earth implies that an extra bit of the ship has been built (or at least cleaned up specially, which is a pretty big deal for Lister) just to house a commemorative gravestone to Kochanski.
• Sibling Rivalry: Referenced many times with Rimmer and his brothers, all of whom were said to have climbed far higher into the ranks of the Space Corps. than Rimmer himself ever would. In the series X episode "Trojan", it turns out that Howard was actually a lowly repairman like Arnold.
• Silicon Snarker:
  • Kryten the Robot Maid is very snarky towards his crewmates, especially after he begins learning how to lie. He even has a "Deadpan Mode".
  • Holly, the on-board AI of Red Dwarf, is quite snarky to the others as well, which may have arisen as a result of the three million years that he spent alone.
  • Rimmer is a Played With case, being a Virtual Ghost who was just as sarcastic in life as he is in his electronic afterlife, but he still usually spends his screen time insulting the others and making snarky remarks. It mainly stems from his belief that he's the Only Sane Man of the ship, since he's unaware of how incompetent he really is.
• Silly Reason for War: The conflict which almost wiped out the Cat race was fought over their different interpretations of Lister's favourite colour for the hats at the hot dog and donut stand in Fiji. They were both wrong.
• Simulated Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Reality: Season 8 begins with Lister, Kryten, Kochanski and the Cat returning to Red Dwarf only to find that the crew have been unexpectedly brought back to life by the nanobots. Since Captain Hollister has no idea why the four of them were flying a Starbug with no pilot's license (or that he's three million years in the future and among the last remaining human beings in the universe), he subjects them to a Virtual-Reality Interrogation in an attempt to learn their true motives.
• Sleeper Starship: The Red Dwarf has a couple of stasis pods that freeze time while Starbugs have more conventional suspended animation booths.
• Sleep Learning: In an early episode, Rimmer has attempted to use the self-hypnosis tapes "Learn Esperanto While You Sleep" and "Learn Quantum Theory While You Sleep". The only results we're told of are that neither he nor his bunkmate got any sleep. (A later episode shows they did in fact work a little... on his bunkmate.)
• Slower Than a Snail: In trouble with a pursuing alien spaceship, Lister protests there's no way they can outrtun the chasing ship as their vessel is not built for speed:
  Lister: Rimmer, the Eastbourne over-seventies ladies' zimmer frame relay team could overtake us!
• Small Role, Big Impact: Lister's cat Frankenstein only appeared in two episodes. Of those, she only appears for a scene in each one (one of those appearances was in an alternate universe too). However, it is Lister being caught with the cat and being put into stasis as a result that kickstarts the series. Frankenstein also becomes the ancestor of an entire race of cat like humanoids, one of which (The Cat) is a regular cast member.
• Smart People Play Chess:
  • Used by Queeg after being challenged to a duel by Holly.
  • "Better than Life" had Holly engaged in a game of postal chess with Gordon, the A.I on another JMC vessel. They only managed one move, though.
• Smart People Wear Glasses:
  • Geeky genius-Rimmer wears glasses after his mind patching in "Holoship".
  • In "Polymorph", after the chameleonic lifeform has drained away all of Rimmer's anger, he turns into an ultra-pacifist liberal sporting hornrimmed glasses and a goatee who proposes to hit the monster with "a major leaflet campaign".
  • Professor Edgington wears a pair in "Entangled", though due to her Ditzy Genius nature, wears them upside down.
• Snapback: Episodes frequently end with the crew in weird situations (trapped in a parallel universe, trapped in virtual reality, menaced by a shapeshifting monster, etc.) that have been tacitly resolved by the beginning of the next episode. One exception is the final episode of the first series, which picks up where the previous episode ended, pretty much just because the writers had been able to think of an episode's worth of more jokes to get out of the closing gag.
• Soap Within a Show: The episode "Kryten" has the eponymous character watch a soap opera called "Androids", which appears to be a Neighbours parody complete with androids.
  Kelly: I wasn't with Simone that night, Brooke. I spent the night with Garry.
  Brooke: Garry? Your ex-husband Garry? My business rival? What are you telling me Kelly?
  Kelly: It's Brooke Jr.
  Brooke: What about Brooke Jr?
  Kelly: He isn't your android.
• Somber Backstory Revelation: For all of Series 1, Rimmer had been portrayed as a Jerkass with little redeeming qualities (although "Me2" had suggested that he had a self-loathing complex). Then comes "Better Than Life", where he finds out that his father is dead. Heading off to the Observation Dome, he reveals to Lister that he had Abusive Parents, to the point that he emancipated himself from them when he was 14. Despite this, he also reveals that he always wanted his father to be happy of something he did. Whilst Rimmer doesn't get kinder afterwards, this does make his character more sympathetic to Jerkass Woobie levels.
• Sorry I Fell on Your Fist: The "Good" or "High" version of the crew members from "Demons and Angels". With knives and bullets from the "Low" Dwarfers.
  "I appear to have stained your knife-end with my blood. Forgive me, brother." [dies]
  "He has just shot me four times in the chest! Oh, how I love him!"
  "Brother; there is a grievous fault with thine weapon. It keepeth shooting people." [blam] "You see? There it goes again!"
  • Another example is from "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", when Kryten (as the sheriff in an AI simulation dream), confronted by an outlaw who tripped him up, apologized and said 'sorry I tripped on your boot.'
• Sound-to-Screen Adaptation: Red Dwarf was born as a short serial in the radio comedy show Son of Cliché, also written by Grant/Naylor. The parent "series" on radio was called Dave Hollis: Space Cadet and contained sketches and ideas later recycled for the TV series.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: For a Sitcom, some of the incidental music in the first two series was pretty foreboding, if not outright scary. Any kid who grew up with Series 3 onwards and first watched the first two during the mid Nineties (near) complete rerun of the first six series were in for a nasty surprise (near because Craig Charles's appearance in Court necessitated some cuts).
• Space Clothes: Rimmer and Lister initially wore their Red Dwarf uniform of jacket, shirt with tie, trousers and boots (Rimmer kept his immaculate whilst Lister wore a Custom Uniform variation, minus tie.) By the third season, though, Lister's clothing stayed pretty much the same, but Rimmer wore a bright green (later red, then blue) lycra suit.
  • The silver spacesuit version is homaged with Ace Rimmer's silver flying jacket. In one episode, Kryten asks if he has a spare one so he can roast a chicken in it.
• Space Isolation Horror: Subverted. Lister's main reaction at looking out of the cabin porthole into the awesome and terrifying infinity of Deep Space is how bloody arse-achingly dull and boring it all gets after a while...
• Spaceship Girl: Holly starts off as a male AI interface, but undergoes a sex change after the second series.
• Sparse List of Rules: The Space Core Directives that Kryten would often quote. Rimmer ended up quoting directives back but always being wrong. In one episode we see the book of directives and it's rather small despite the high numbers mentioned complete with multiple subcategories for each one, and rules for every situation including performing oral sex in a zero-g environment.
• Special Person, Normal Name: Dave Lister is a pretty ordinary name and he's the last human alive who gives birth to twins despite being male, fathers himself, wipes out an unstoppable killer robot single handed, plays pool with planets, has two appendixes and (probably) creates the universe.
• Sperm as People: Episode "Backward" is set in a dimension where time and aging works backwards. Lister dreads becoming a sperm.
  Lister: And worse than that — in 25 years I'll be a little sperm, swimming around in somebody's testicles! I mean, pardon me, but that's just not how I saw my future!
• Spiritual Successor: To Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, a radio series written as a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAB was renamed Holly in order to change the character from a HAL expy and Dave Hollins became Dave Lister, as there was a footballer by the name of Dave Hollins at the time. Rimmer and the Cat were added and the rest is history.
• Spot the Imposter: In "Psirens". The real Lister couldn't play guitar to save his life, but since he thinks he can play guitar like a pro, the Psiren that had taken Lister's form read his mind and played guitar accordingly. And was promptly shot.
• Springtime for Hitler: In season 8, in an effort to get hospitalized to help spring Lister and Rimmer out of jail after they pissed off the nastiest inmate, Cat tries to pick a fight with said inmate by openly disrespecting him to his face and declaring him his bitch. Upon seeing such a brazen display, the inmate agrees to it.
• Stealing from the Hotel: In the episode "Justice", Lister reveals that he used to steal the furniture from hotel rooms. Including the bed.
• Stealth Parody: Kryten and the whole 4000 series of mechanoids are a parody of Prof. Mamet's fiancee. None of the 4000s know this until they are given the code to unlock the file.
• Stealth Pun:
  • In one episode, Lister suggests a game of squash with Rimmer's light-bee, a device which flies around and projects his holographic image. Squash is a game played with a small hollow ball. Hollow, holo...
  • The name of Red Dwarf 's subship Blue Midget is based on the main ship's name, with Midget being a synonym for Dwarf, and blue being a different colour.
• The Stinger: Has one for the episode 'The Beginning'. In it, the Dwarfers discuss the time they were attacked by a corrosive chameleonic microbe (a reference to the Series VIII episode Only the Good.. which ended on a cliffhanger and never resolved) which Rimmer claims to have saved them from. Kryten is about to set things straight but he is interrupted by Hogey the Roguey before he does so.
• Stop Trick: For the purpose of grabbing hologrammatic items from the air.
  • Also used in the ad for Kryten's replacement, Hudzen, in the episode "The Last Day", when he demonstrates that he's "10x faster than any other droid" by "instantly" cooking a chicken (uncooked chicken + special FX beam + freeze = cooked chicken!)
  • In "Out of Time", when Starbug hits pockets of unreality, causing Starbug to disappear (so the crew are flying through space on chairs) and everyone's heads to become animal heads.
  • How the Polymorph/Emohawk changed shape. Taken to the limits in the beginning scene where the Polymorph sees itself in a mirror, and changes in over thirty-four different objects until finally settling on a bunny rabbit.
• Strapped to a Bomb: The episode "Entangled" has Lister attached to a machine that will blow up his groin if he does not pay the debt he owes a group of BEGGs after losing a poker game to them.
• Strawberry Short Hand: In the episode where Kryten and Lister build a machine that replicates good and bad doubles of things, they test it on a strawberry. The good strawberry is of course incredible. The bad one is less so, what with the maggots and all.
• Strongly Worded Letter:
  • Rimmer, after having his anger sucked out by a polymorph that feeds on human emotions, suggests that they defeat the creature by hitting it "hard and fast" with a "major leaflet campaign...And if that's not enough, then I'm sorry, it's time for the t-shirts".
  • And in "The Beginning", Rimmer starts writing a strongly worded letter to Geneva complaining that the simulants are violating Treaty 5 as said simulants are launching a barrage of photon mutilators at the Starbug.
• Studio Audience: Had one until the end of series 8 and from series 10. More special effects heavy episodes ("Backwards", "Bodyswap") and the more filmic seventh series had the audience response to a preview tape rather than a Laugh Track. Back to Earth, the "ninth" series, was completely absent of studio laughter.
• Submersible Spaceship: The exploratory ship Starbug can operate in water. Visiting Sdrawkcab Htrae, the crew park it in a lake to escape notice; on a waterworld, they are able to dive deep and maneuver underwater to dock with a long-lost starship that crashed there.
• Suicide as Comedy: The series makes reference to the time Rimmer volunteered for a suicide helpline and caused everyone who called him to commit suicide, including one who just had a wrong number. "Lemming Sunday, they called it."
• Summon Backup Dancers: Cat and a fleet of Blue Midget ships in Series 8. Turns out he can make those things dance.
• Survived the Beginning: The series starts with everyone dying save a single survivor; Everybody's Dead, Dave. Not only does the entire crew of the titular spaceship die, but the entire human race goes extinct while Dave is a Human Popsicle. The first episode is appropriately called "The End".
• Suspiciously Clean Criminal Record: When Rimmer is convicted of mass murder by an automated justice system, he protests: "I've never so much as returned a library book late." (The novels clarify that while Rimmer is not an especially moral person, his absolute cowardice prevents him doing anything that could get him into trouble.)
• Swirly Energy Thingy: The source of many entertaining quotes on the matter.
• Table Space: The guys once discover they can use old photos like a time machine. Lister becomes filthily rich and has huge mansion. He and his attractive young lady-friend are sitting at opposite sides of a very long table when the two of them are having dinner.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Rimmer manages to somehow return to life in "Timeslides". In celebration, he goes around feeling objects, something he was unable to do for three million years. Unfortunately, he accidentally strikes some volatile explosives.
• Take Me to Your Leader: "Rimmerworld" parodies the Dead Horse Trope nature of this trope.
  Lister: This is going to sound like a bit of a corny line, but... I can hardly bring myself to say it.
  Rimmer-Clone: Say what?
  Lister: "Take us to your leader."
  Kryten: Oh, sir, how could you?!
• Take That!:
  • A good natured one occurs in "Back To Earth" when The Cat refers to the set of Coronation Street as being "worse than Rimmerworld".
  • Lister uses the word "Gwenlan" as a term of abuse at one point. This was a reference to Gareth Gwenlan, a producer at the BBC who turned the show down.
  • Holly notes that it's better to have loved and to have lost than to listen to an album by Olivia Newton-John.
  • Holly's IQ of 6000 is apparently the same IQ as 6000 PE teachers. Or 12000 car park attendants.
  • In "Cured", Kryten reads out the names and statuses on a number of stasis pods. It's noted that Adolf Hitler and Vlad The Impaler have been cured of their evilness, but Rupert Murdoch is not responding to treatment.
  • When claiming a planet with a rare resource, Rimmer notes that the resource in question is rarer than an ungroped bottom at The BBC in The '70s.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • "The Cat's looking so geeky he couldn't get into a science fiction convention!"
  • Done in a much more direct manner in the Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs videos, where Kryten reads out fan mail criticising the continuity and logic errors in the show, and then berates the people who wrote the letters, accusing them of having no life.
  • Also in "Backwards", there's a speech given in reverse that goes off-script and insults anyone sad enough to play it backwards so they can understand it.
• Take That, Critics!: In "Entangled", Kryten notes that one of the various professions that is always wrong are tv critics.
• Talking with Signs: At the end of Captain Hollister's Humiliation Conga in "Pete" the PTSD renders him speechless, which he explains to the Dwarfers via note cards. And then sentences himself to three months in "the Hole" so he can catch a break from their antics.
• The Teaser: "Stoke Me a Clipper" had an opening scene four or five minutes long before finally kicking into the opening sequence.
• Teeth Flying: Happens backwards in the bar room brawl in "Backwards".
  Lister: Here, have your tooth back. [punches a guy in the mouth, who is then revealed to have regained a front tooth]
• Temporal Paradox:
  • Lister is the son of his future self and the alternate Kochanski. The whole thing is neatly sewn up by the word "Ouroboros", implying it's a cycle, a temporal loop.
  • Also, the battle between Starbug and future Starbug in "Out of Time". The evil crew win with their advanced weapons systems, but because they destroyed their previous selves, they didn't exist to fight Starbug. Lister, in the next episode, tried to explain why they weren't dead, but the camera he was talking to exploded.
• Temporal Suicide: In the episode "Tikka to Ride", the Starbug crew travel back in time and unwittingly prevent the JFK assassination. They find out that as a result, Kennedy's womanizing is revealed and he's impeached and disgraced; furthermore, J Edgar Hoover is blackmailed into letting the Soviet Union re-install nuclear missiles in Cuba, so most major US cities are evacuated. The group go to 1967 and encounter Kennedy as he's about to be transferred to a prison, and give him the chance to fix the timeline by taking him back to 1963 to shoot his past self from the grassy knoll. This fixes the timeline, and Kennedy thanks the crew for letting him save his legacy before he fades away.
• Tempting Fate: "That was Ace Rimmer! We're lucky to be alive!"
  • A vending machine swears vengeance after Rimmer steals a chocolate bar from it. Rimmer isn't impressed. "The day that happens, I'll be captain." He becomes captain and promptly gets clonked in the head by a flying soda can fired by the vending machine.
• Terraform: "Terrorform" somewhat, "Back to Reality", "Rimmerworld".
• That Makes Me Feel Angry:
  • Invoked after Kryten is ordered into a waste compactor by a Psiren and crushed into a cube.
    Kryten: I'm almost annoyed.
  • From "Trojan", after Rimmer has suffered a system crash due to an overload of resentment:
    Rimmer: Are you saying I'm resentful? I really resent that!
• The Homeward Journey: Ostensibly the arc goal of the series is for the crew to get to Earth, to see what has become of it. This has become a little referenced Excuse Plot just for the sake of the characters having somewhere to go, really they're just aimlessly wandering in space. The Back to Earth special had them return to Earth far into the past and they don't consider just staying there.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: The episode "Fathers and Suns" has Dave making messages to himself (then getting very drunk so he can forget he made them) in order to have a father and son chat with himself. Each message ends with him leaving instructions for himself to do before moving onto the next one. And each one begins with him shouting at himself for not following instructions.
  • Culminating in Tape!Lister threatening to chuck his guitar out of the airlock if he skipped ahead again! Seeing his guitar is still there, he ignores it, skipping ahead to find Tape!Lister happily congratulating him for finally listening to his advice, telling him to go play a song as a reward. Turns out, the guitar in the room was just a cardboard copy and the real one is now floating half-a-lightyear behind them.
• They Would Cut You Up: Sort of the catalyst for the whole series. In the first episode, the Captain tells Lister his cat will be cut up and have tests run on it, prompting the response, "Would you put it back together when you were done?"
  Hollister: Lister, the cat would be dead.
  Lister: Well, with respect, sir, what's in it for the cat?
• This Explains So Much:
  • The crew's reaction when Queeg reveals that Holly's astronavigational charts are really a children's astronomy book.
  • Also, the revelation that Rimmer's father is actually the man who Rimmer thought was his dad's gardener.
• This Is a Work of Fiction: In the episode "Better Than Life", a newsreader reports having found the page like this for The Bible.
• This Is Not a Drill:
  • In "Marooned"; "This is not a drill. This is a drill." [sound of a jackhammer]
  • And in a later episode when Holly's grammar chip is damaged... "Abandon shop! This is not a daffodil. Repeat, this is not a daffodil!"
  • "Oh Gawd, now the siren's bust! Awoogah! Awoogah! Abandon Ship!"
• Three Laws-Compliant: Most androids are programmed with something pretty close. Mechanoid characters can take "Asimov's Law" as a flaw in the RPG.
• A Threesome Is Hot: In "Can of Worms", Cat has an Erotic Dream about being in bed with a pair of beautiful lady cats.
• Time-Passage Beard:
  • In the Promised Land special, the boys from the dwarf have been kicked out by Holly and are heading off towards a distress signal which has been sent nearby. Lister insists that they will find the ship in no time. Cut to three months later and the two biological members of the cast (The Cat and Lister) have gained long hair and notable beards.
• Time Travel: "Stasis Leak", "Backwards", "Timeslides", "Out of Time", "Tikka to Ride" and probably more.
  • Particularly hilarious towards the middle of "Out of Time", where they come into possession of a "time drive" and play with it a bit before realizing it's completely, utterly useless while they're still physically located 3 million years away from Earth. It doesn't do space, just time. But they did get to experience the heady medieval atmosphere of pre-Renaissance deep-space.
• Time-Traveling Jerkass: "Out of Time" has the crew meet their future selves after acquiring a time drive. Apparently not only has the future crew decided to commit themselves to a life of luxury, but they've also nonchalantly dined with the worst people in history, including Hitler, Louis the XVI, and the Borgias. It's disgusting enough to the original crew that they tell them to Get Out!, and when the future crew attacks the present crew even Rimmer is willing to fight.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble:
  • After being erased by the inquisitor:
    Lister: We don't exist here anymore!
    Kryten: Actually sir, we don't ever have existed here anymore, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!
  • The "Inquisitor" example is Truth in Television — The tenses were so difficult that Robert Llewellyn, playing Kryten, kept flubbing the line and eventually had to have a cue-card held up out of shot... and then the line was cut anyway. It only resurfaced as they showed the final correct take after all the bloopers in the Smeg Ups collection.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Lister explains the resolution to the events of "Out of Time" in the opening of series 7: The future Dwarfers killed the contemporary Dwarfers, meaning the timeline resets itself to just before they discovered the time drive, but they still remember everything that happened. However, when JFK is taken back in time and assassinates himself in the same episode, this doesn't seem to cause any similar effect - he just fades away instead of causing a massive Temporal Paradox.
• Title Drop:
  • "Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas!"
  • "Only the good die young!"
  • "Beyond a Joke"
  • "Back to Reality", even getting an Ironic Echo.
• Title Sequence Replacement: After the second series, the following episodes contained clips from specific to the series it was in.
  • Not quite; series 3's intro contained a shot from Thanks For The Memory from series 2, likewise 4's contained Starbug crashing in both Marooned and Bodyswap from 3.
• Tomato in the Mirror:
  • Rimmer in "Rimmerworld".
  • Also parodied in "Out of Time" with "robo"-Lister.
  • Rimmer, Captain Hollister and the rest of the Red Dwarf crew who died in the first episode get resurrected as clones in Series VIII, completely unaware at first that they are all clones and confused why they are millions of years in Deep Space.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Confidence removes his helmet in the vacuum of space. Big mistake.
  • When Lister reads a Comic Book adaptation of The Aeneid in "The Inquisitor", he notes that he doesn't buy the Trojan Horse tactic, wondering why the Trojans wheeled it into the city and all decide to go for an early night. He goes on to say that anyone that stupid deserves to lose and that the phrase that should be derived from the work should not be "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts", but instead "Beware of Trojans: They're complete smegheads."
• Took a Level in Badass: In Series III and onwards the main characters started to fulfill typical roles seen in science-fiction, and by Back to Earth where they are Older and Wiser these roles have solidified. Lister is The Leader, who tends to come up with plans on the spot while also being the one everyone listens to, while Rimmer is (surprisingly) The Strategist, as when given the chance he can actually provide useful tactical information while being prepared to use more underhanded tactics to win. Kryten becomes the science officer, able to provide information about whatever they are facing while also showing some elements of The Spock in his more logical approach to problems, while the Cat is the pilot, with his Bizarre Alien Biology meaning he has incredible reflexes and can smell incoming objects through the vacuum of space.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In an episode, Lister is swallowed whole by a shark while in an AR machine. The shark soon spits him back out before sticking its tongue out and going "bleh!". Guess it didn't like vindaloo curry.
• Tracking Chip: In "Epideme", Kryten uses a scanning device to identify the dead body of an ex-JMC employee. He mentions that it is attempting to locate her microchip, since JMC employees are implanted with them.
• Trademark Favorite Food: To say that Dave Lister enjoyed the odd curry would be an understatement on scale with the very planets he once played pool with. He loves curry to such an extent that his early morning pick-me-up is a glass of chilled vindaloo sauce. He also has a trademark unfavorite food: pot noodle. To the extent that, when running out of supplies and facing starvation, he willingly eats a can of dog food rather than have to eat a pot noodle.
• Tragic Intangibility: One of the many things that the hologram Rimmer angsts about is the fact that he is initially a soft light hologram and can’t touch as a result. As such, when he does regain it, he is shown to be quite happy about it. Put best in the first episode:
  Rimmer: Being a hologram is fine, Lister. I still have the same drives, the same feelings, the same emotions, but I can't touch anything.Never again will I be able to brush a rose against my cheek, cradle a laughing child, or interfere with a woman sexually.
  Lister: Rimmer, you never used to do any of those things anyway!
  Rimmer: But I would have done one day, murderer!
• Traffic Wardens:
  • In the episode "Camille", Lister tries to break Kryten's programming and teach him to lie. Succeeding, Kryten describes a banana as a "small, off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic warden", which was changed to Tasmanian in the Czech dub, perhaps because that country does not have them.
  • In the episode "Back to Reality", the crew wake up to find that Red Dwarf was a virtual reality program. Kryten's real identity turns out to be "Jake Bullet, Cybernautics Divsion". He assumes that he must be a Cowboy Cop, but Rimmer counters that maybe Cybernautics is just traffic control, and he has a ridiculously macho name. The latter option is later confirmed when they run into a real cop (of the fascist police state they're in).
• Transferable Memory: In "Thanks for the Memory", Lister gives Rimmer his memories of one of his past relationships. It goes so badly that the entire crew have their memories of the past few days erased.
• Transformation Ray: In "DNA", a DNA transmogrifier turns Kryten human, turns Lister into a chicken (and later, a pint-sized RoboCop), and makes a giant bug-eyed monster out of, erm, vindaloo. Said monster would later be killed by lager — "the only thing that can kill a vindaloo".
• Translation by Volume: When Lister and the Cat find themselves on a parallel Earth and for some reason believe they are in Bulgaria. They attempt to get by by speaking slowly and clearly and appending "-ski" to all their words, combining it with Bulgarian flavoured El Spanish O.
• Trapped in TV Land: Red Dwarf: Back to Earth ramps this up when the crew realise they face having no independent existence outside a TV show. To avert this fate they visit Earth. Where Lister (Craig Charles) visits the set of a long-running TV soap opera. And ends up having a heartfelt chat with an actor playing a taxi driver (Craig Charles) who is nonplussed by it all, viewing Dave Lister as a previous role he played...
• Trash of the Titans: Lister's room frequently qualifies. His lack of hygiene is natural for him, and he exaggerates it to annoy Rimmer.
• Traveling-Pipe Bulge: In "Polymorph".
• Treacherous Spirit Chase: "Psirens" is one long exploration of this trope: the Psirens are able to read the minds of their prey and create a personalized hallucination to lure them to their doom. Lister, for instance, sees an image of his beloved Kochanski and their two sons in mortal danger on the planetoid below. Kryten recognizes the Psiren as such but is unable to disobey his programming when the Psiren imitates his creator and orders him to climb into the waste disposal unit.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: The Inquisitor's time gauntlet.
• Trojan Prisoner: Lister, with the help of the Cat and Kochanski.
• Treated Worse than the Pet: Rimmer and Lister are ranked below the scutters, small maintenance robots used to maintain spaceships and off-world colonies.
• True Companions: The crew aren't the closest-knit bunch, but this gets them out of the trap of Rimmer's mind in "Terrorform". Once they're safe, they immediately and unanimously confirm to Rimmer that they didn't mean any of it.
• TV Head Robot: Holly becomes this in the episode "Queeg", where he is demoted to the role of night watchman, trundling around the corridors on a wheeled chassis with a TV for a head.
• Twisting the Prophecy: Cassandra, a sentient computer that is advanced enough she calculate the future with 100% accuracy, predicts that Rimmer will die in a short while. After thinking it over, Rimmer realises that as they've never met Cassandra and she has no idea what he looks like, he successfully averts this by giving his jacket to another crewman - since Cassandra could only have identified him from the name on his jacket, it's the other crewman who dies.
• Typeset Of The Future: Occasionally seen, most notably as the lettering on Starbug. Became more common in later seasons (earlier, signage was mostly in a "stencil" font, to give the feel of a Used Future).
  • Across all seasons, almost all text displayed on monitors and screens were written in Eurostile Extended. It was even used in the credits sequences until Series IV, and again from Series X onwards.
    • The Red Dwarf name painted on the exterior of the ship is Eurostile Bold.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Queeg taking over from Holly. Holly plays out the trope, pretending to be Queeg to make the crew appreciate him.

U-Z

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Spoofed in "Stoke Me a Clipper" when Lister takes part in a virtual-reality medieval tourney, and demands a night and a day in the Queen's bed if he wins. The King is played by Brian Cox; the Queen is a young and beautiful French woman (played by Sarah Alexander) who instantly accepts the conditions.
  King: My lady, I think we should discuss this matter in private...
  Queen: Do you not 'ave faith in your good knight, to cut this dog down where 'e stands?
  King: I do! Sort of...
• Uncanny Valley:
  • Invoked in "Out of Time", where Kryten claims this is why he looks less human than previous droids. Although this doesn't explain why his successor, Hudzen-10, looks more human.
  • Holly's forgotten command scene from "Demons and Angels".
• Uncool Undies: In "Krytie TV", Kochanski goes on a date with an old boyfriend, to Lister's dismay. Kryten suggests that they sabotage the evening by planting in the former boyfriend's quarters (among other things) "tragically unfashionable underpants", showing off a pair for reference. Rimmer irritably points out that said underpants are his.
• Understatement:
  • "Demons and Angels" has this gem from the psychopathic, Creepy Crossdresser version of Rimmer:
  Rimmer: I want to hurt you.
  Lister: Why?
  Rimmer: Because I'm not a very nice person.
  • After the future Rimmer mentions they spend time with the Hitlers and the Goerings:
  Future Rimmer: It's just a bit unfortunate that the finest things tend to be in the possession of people who are judged to be a bit dodgy.
  Kryten: Herman Goering is a "bit dodgy"?!
  • And, after Rimmer develops telekinesis as a result of Landstrom's holovirus:
  Kryten: I have a medium-sized fire axe buried in my spinal column. That sort of thing can really put a crimp on your day.
• Unexplained Recovery: How the crew survived the Bolivian Army Ending of "Only the Good..." is never elaborated in "Back to Earth". Played for laughs in "The Beginning", where the explanation of how they survived is started, only to be quickly cut short.
• Un-Installment: Back to Earth pretends to be set after a fictional Series IX and X during which, among other Noodle Incidents, hologram Rimmer returned and Kochanski died (or did she?).
• Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: In the Season XI episode "Give and Take", we have Asclepius, which features: a single massive eye that is Sickly Green Glowing, a mouth-grill that looks like an impossibly massive set of fangs curled into a permanent Slasher Smile, a body designed like a stereotypical Mad Scientist labcoat, one hand that's a rotating array of blades and pincers, and another hand that's basically a cannon. Its designated function? Medical diagnosis and surgery.
• Unreliable Narrator: The Rimmer Experience ride from "Blue", while programmed by Kryten, was based on entries from Rimmer's journal.
• The Unreveal: A long-winded sounding explanation of "Only The Good..."'s ending is humorously cut short in "The Beginning".
• Used Future: From Series III onwards, when Mel Bibby became the set designer. The first two series were meant to have a grey submarine feel, but really just looked like plywood walls painted grey.
• Use Your Head: Kryten, in "White Hole". Through fifty-two doors.
  Lister: Kryten! You okay, man?
  Kryten: ...I'm fine, thank you, Susan.
• Variations on a Theme Song
  • A season one episode had Holly and Lister make Rimmer think an old Red Dwarf garbage pod is an alien ship. The end credit theme song gets paused twice so we can hear him angrily yell about it.
  Theme: It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmospher-
  Rimmer: It's a garbage pod.
  Theme: I'm all alone, more or les-
  Rimmer: It's a smegging garbage pod!
  • "Meltdown" has Waxdroid Elvis sing the closing theme.
  • In one episode, there was a throwaway gag about Rimmer teaching the service robots to play Hammond organ. The closing theme for the episode is rendered on the Hammond organ, with Rimmer giving instructions in voiceover.
  • For the "cowboys" episode "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", the theme is given a Western makeover on honky-tonk pianny and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly-esque ocarina.
• Vengeful Vending Machine:
  • In "Only The Good", Rimmer cheats a vending machine out of its money by attaching it to a string and yanking it out after receiving what he ordered from it. Later in the episode, the machine blasts a can at Rimmer in anger, knocking him over while he's trying to escape from a raging fire.
  • Rimmer was in charge of vending machines aboard the Red Dwarf. When they hold a funeral for Rimmer's hologram and say their eulogies in "Stoke Me a Clipper", Lister mentions that with him when you ordered coke, it would never happen for you to get soup or orange juice on his shift. Except it happened all the time, but Lister was trying to say something nice.
  • "Queeg": No food machines work. However, this time it's not the machines being malicious, but it was their new computer Queeg who claims the crew have spent their credit. They have to start working, and real hard. When Lister has dinner, all he got was only burnt toast and one pea.
  • In a Series 10 episode, a vending machine becomes romantically obsessed with Lister.
  • In "Mechocracy", they all go on strike.
• Villainous Crossdresser: Rimmer twice, the Low Rimmer in "Demons and Angels" and the real Rimmer infected with a holovirus in "Quarantine".
• Villain Song: "Blue"'s Rimmer could perhaps be a subversion. It's not actually Rimmer (it's a simulation created from Rimmer's logbook). Altough Rimmer's more of an Jerkass than a villain, it reminds Lister of this so he'll get out of his Heroic BSoD over Rimmer's departure.
• Virtual Ghost: Rimmer, who is a hologrammatic computer simulation with the memories of the long dead biological Rimmer. He doesn't like being reminded of that.
• Virtual Reality Interrogration: In the three-parter "Back in the Red" the Dwarfers are subjected to this by the newly resurrected crew to verify their story that it's three million years in the future and most of them had been killed by a radiation leak then reconstructed by nanites. While Lister, Cat, Kryten, and Kochanski are under Rimmer tries to erase their memories of giving him access to the personnel files, which leads to the reveal of another layer of virtual reality.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Rimmer and Lister, whose diametrically opposing personalities seem tailor-made to get on each other's nerves. Sadly carried over into real life, where Craig Charles and Chris Barrie suffered major personality clashes (Charles once stated in an interview that he hated Barrie during the show's original run). They appear to be on better terms nowadays.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: The Polymorphs.
• Waif Prophet: Subverted.
• Washy Watchy: The characters have been known to do this. Since it was Kochanski's laundry, this is the closest any of them have to a sex life. Lister maintained he was only there to do his own laundry (it was hot and he couldn't sleep). Didn't stop him from getting excited at the thought of a G-string. Kochanski meanwhile believed the only reason Lister and the Cat didn't do it more was that Kryten didn't tell them when he washed.
• We All Die Someday:
  Lister: Yeah, well, everyone dies. You're born, and you die. The bit in the middle's called life, and that's still to come!
  • The holographic (and dead) Rimmer travels back in time to warn his living counterpart:
  Rimmer: I've come to warn you, in three million years you'll be dead!
  Past Rimmer: Will I really?
  • In "The Beginning", the lead Simulant tells Rimmer "It is the way of all things. You live, you die." Rimmer counters that sometimes you live again.
• We Will All Be History Buffs in the Future: In particular series 1 and 2. It makes many humorous references to 20th-century culture that would seem dated two decades on, never mind three million years. Rimmer and Lister are from the 22nd century but even then it still makes little sense.
• Weaksauce Weakness: A comic strip from the Smegazine was about Ace Rimmer ending up in a dimension where the Dwarfers are a superhero team. Rimmer's counterpart won the Superpower Lottery with awesome strength and indestructibility, but his weakness is contact with human flesh, which obviously is a major problem for someone whose occupation has them hitting people a lot of the time.
• Weapon for Intimidation: In "Rimmerworld", the characters have a bazookoid they can't actually fire, because it'd damage the ship and cause it to fall apart. It's for psychological purposes only.
• Weird Trade Union: In the pilot episode, Lister notes that the service droids have a better union than himself and Rimmer.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • The Inquisitor; he travels throughout history, erasing from history people who have, by his standards, wasted their lives, and replacing them with alternates who never got a chance to live; as Kryten puts it, 'The eggs that were never fertilised or the sperm that never made it.'.
  • The version of Ace Rimmer created in "Emohawk: Polymorph II" - his plan to save Lister (and thus the human race) is to snap the Cat's neck and then suck Cat, himself and the Polymorph out of the ship's airlock.
• We Need a Distraction: Played embarrassingly straight by Kryten in "The Inquisitor".
  Kryten: Excuse me, could I just distract you for just a brief second?
• Wetware Body: Occurs in the episode "Bodyswap" where Rimmer and Lister switch bodies, since by that point Rimmer is in fact a hologram created from a digital copy of his formerly organic (and alive) self. Since Rimmer hadn't been alive for well over three million years, Hilarity Ensues.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Played for Laughs. Rimmer and Lister's job aboard Red Dwarf is basically all the menial maintenance that is considered too menial for even the service droids. Rimmer is even stated to be outranked by the droids.
  • In Series I, Lister mentions that the only reason he and Rimmer do all the menial jobs is because the service robots have a better union.
• Wham Line: "Rimmer, I'm not your father."
  • Two in "Back in the Red, part 3":
  Holly (roughly paraphrased): If I'm senile, explain why I was able to recreate the crew of Red Dwarf using nanobots.

  • And, about a minute later:
  Holly: I've worked it out. We're still in AR.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Did the resurrected Red Dwarf crew perish during "Only the Good..." or did they escape into another universe? Or is the fleet of Starbugs and Blue Midgets still out there in deep space?
• What's a Henway?: Rimmer practicing his "wormdo" pickup line in "Parallel Universe".
  Rimmer: Look, you're not giving me the right reply!
  Lister: What is the right reply?
  Rimmer: I come to you, saying "Would you like to join me at a cocktail?", you say "Yes", I say "Would you like a wormdo", you say "What's a wormdo?" And I say...
  Lister: Oh, it wriggles along the ground like that?
  Rimmer: You know it?
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: in "Meltdown", Pythagoras is convinced that there is a solution to the war that involves triangles. Einstein calls him out on it.
• Where No Parody Has Gone Before: Patrick Stewart records that visiting Britain for the first time in ages, he saw what he took to be a promising science-fiction show in the TV listings. Curious to see what British TV's sci-fi was like, he tuned in to Red Dwarf and honestly thought for the first thirty seconds or so that he was watching a cheap knock-off copy of Star Trek:TNG. Then he realised it was genuinely funny and not meant to be taken seriously.
• We Will Spend Credits in the Future: Jupiter Mining Corporation company credits are occasionally mentioned as needed to pay for food from the vending machines on Red Dwarf, though it's implied that Holly turns a blind eye to this and lets the gang take what they want. Humanity's global currency in this universe is called the Dollar Pound.
• White-and-Grey Morality: Played with in that Lister and Kryten pride themselves on being good and moral, while Rimmer and Cat are far more selfish and make decisions for their own personal gain, regardless of the impact this has on others. This actually becomes a plot point in “The Inquisitor” when Cat and Rimmers low standards preclude them from living better lives while Lister and Kryten could have bettered themselves.
• White Bread and Black Brotha: Rimmer and Lister serve as foils for one another. Rimmer is white, from an upper-class background, and an obsessive stickler for rules, while Lister is half-black, a lazy slob, and proud of his working-class roots. Despite this, the two are solidly Heterosexual Life-Partners.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "The Last Day" is based on the Jack Nicholson film The Last Detail.
• Who Shot JFK?: He came back in time and shot himself.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Rimmer disguises himself as Ace in "Stoke Me a Clipper" using this technique. Only Lister is in on the act; it works on the others. In fact, this is essentially how Aces are made.
• Wimp Fight: Subverted in "Lemons". Jesus takes a few laughable swings at Lister, who, being the experienced brawler he is, then proceeds to put him in a headlock.
• Wine Is Classy:
  • Discussed when Lister complains about "total smegheads" who always drink wine. "It's never beer, is it? It's always wine. 'What do you want on your cornflakes, darling?' Oh, I'll have some WINE, please!"
  • Lister himself orders a Dom Perignon '44 in "Better Than Life" to go with his caviar vindaloo. Though, in keeping with his working class attitude, drinks it from a pint mug.
  • And during "Polymorph", he drinks some wine from a medical beaker, declaring it "Very cheeky".
  • In another incident, he mentions to Kryten the time he went into a wine bar. He believes if he hadn't done something, he might have become one of those people who went to wine bars all the time, possibly even got a job or something.
• Wiper Start: Kryten does this when he's learning to fly Starbug in "Backwards". He follows it up by accidentally ejecting the seat Rimmer is sitting in.
• With Due Respect:
  Lister: With all due respect sir, what's in it for the cat?
  • Also spoofed:
  Rimmer: With respect, sir, you've got your head right up your big fat arse.
• World of Ham: Waxworld is this. With Large Hams like Hitler, Caligula, Elvis and Abraham Lincoln pretty much stealing the show, you know this applies.
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason: Played with when the captain of the ship charges the main character with crimes they are innocent of. In the process of clearing their names, they commit other crimes, the punishment for which works out to be exactly the same.
• Worshipped for Great Deeds: Lister is worshipped as the god of the cat people, Cloister the Stupid, after going into stasis to save his pregnant pet cat. By the end of The Promised Land, the cat people have started worshipping Rimmer as their god.
• You Didn't Ask: In Bodyswap, this exchange followed a self-destruct scare:
  Holly: We haven't got a bomb... I got rid of it ages ago.
  Rimmer: Why didn't you tell us?
  Holly: You never asked!
• You Need to Get Laid: Kochanski's response to Rimmer's detailed and carefully-thought-out proposal for revising the official Space Corps salute:
  Kochanski: ...Rimmer?
  Rimmer: Yes, ma'am?
  Kochanski: Have sex with someone, and that's an order.
  Rimmer: Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am.
  Lister: (hands Rimmer a business card) Here — ring this number, say I sent you. Tell them it's an emergency.
• Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: When the crew is confronted by brain-eating monsters, Rimmer deadpans that there's "barely a snack onboard."
• Your Size May Vary: In its earlier appearances, Starbug is implied to be a fairly small landing craft whose interior consists largely of a cockpit and an adjacent bridge. When the main action starts taking place on board it, between Series VI-VII, it is revealed to be very extensive, with bedrooms, a virtual reality chamber and an absurdly spacious ventilation system. The storage area created by a time paradox at the beginning of Series VII seems to be the size of a cathedral. In Series VI this is Hand Waved with dialogue suggesting that Kryten has been engaging in upgrades and conversions while the other crew members are in stasis.
• You Will Be Beethoven: See Who Shot JFK?.
• Zany Scheme: The jailbreak in "Rimmerworld". Immediately followed by A Simple Plan.
• Zeerust: Videotapes seen throughout the earlier pre-DVD series. Back to Earth lampshades this saying that videos replaced DVDs, since people were incapable of putting them back in their boxes. An explanation that continues for the Series X, with a series of video messages shown to be on a videotape.
• Zero-G Spot: Implied by Lister's "Pop-up Kama Sutra, Zero-Gravity Version", if not seen.

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