Aftermath

The most offensive review of Red Dwarf has become perhaps its most famous. The Daily Mirror complained that the worst thing about the show was 'brown dwarf, Craig Charles'! Even now the writers save the cut out review in a scrapbook. (Although it was recorded under the name 'The Daily Racist'.)

The show itself had unpromising ratings in 1987. From strong start - over four million - viewing figures dipped, to the point where a second season might have seemed unlikely... had it not already been commissioned. Rob Grant remains convinced that the departing Michael Grade wanted to make things difficult for the arriving incumbent, Alan Yentob, by commissioning the most appalling turkey he could find!

The video release of Series I was hotly anticipated, especially as it had never been repeated on TV (well, not until after the tapes were released). Despite the standard BBC practice of naming a video after its first episode, the second tape was titled Confidence and Paranoia to avoid confusion with BBC sit-com Waiting for God. This resulted in a printing error - placing the plot synopses for the two episodes the wrong way around on the video case.