Effects

Rapidly acquiring a reputation for which he would become infamous, Craig Charles allowed himself to be hurled over a console table amidst a massive explosion in Queeg. Craig insists that, as a Scouser, you can drop him on his head and it won't matter, so continues to put himself in the midst of the action.

Despite the appearance of two Red Dwarf ships in Parallel Universe, costs were kept down by having shots of the one ship matted together. For the most part, there was enough existing Red Dwarf footage to use for the entire season, allowing the money to be spent elsewhere - including the crashed wreck of the Nova V on a deserted moon.

The effects crew were cheered by the news that the crew would begin using a shuttle craft. The design for Blue Midget was based very much on a simple car idea - something to get the crew from place to place. (It even has wing mirrors!) Tiny versions of the three main humanoids were made and are visible through the cockpit's viewscreen.

Shots of the Midget were filmed, with some added to existing footage of the Dwarf. A hangar was built for take-offs and landings, featuring a row of lockers displaying the effects crew's names. There was also a hidden in-joke for the extremely attentive - a hidden version of Dr Who's TARDIS!

The Midget was also cleverly included with live-action footage of the crew in Thanks For The Memory, with the two images composited together, complete with Red Dwarf hanging in the background. The model team also flew the ship on wires as Lister drunk-piloted the craft back to the Dwarf. More wires were used to allow the baby skutters (the offspring of a female skutter, basically one of the old ones painted pink) to trail behind their mother.

Elsewhere, techniques were back to normal - which is to say, as uncomplicated as possible. The host of Better Than Life popped up with merely a jump cut (where the actors on screen stay still, the camera is stopped, the new actor walks on and the action resumes). Blue screens allowed starscapes to be placed behind the cast during scenes in the Observation Dome, and video effects allowed the stasis leak to glow.

Plus, of course, there was the usual provision for split-screen trickery as the crew visited themselves in the past. And for those cunning shots where one Rimmer would walk past another? A body double - the Chris Barrie-esque form of actor Steven Holt.