Aftermath

The episode order for Red Dwarf IV was heavily altered by the Gulf War. The 'war hero' character of Ace Rimmer forced Dimension Jump back, and the storyline of Meltdown was deemed completely inappropriate. Thankfully, the War ended and the last episodes could be attached to the end of the run. The episode order has since been adopted as the 'correct' one - not least because it meant Meltdown (considered the weakest of the series) could go out last.

It was during production of series IV that the BBC had seriously begun talking to Grant Naylor about a video release for the show. The writers toyed with the idea of re-editing the shows for release, having never been happy with the first series, although the BBC were reluctant to fund such a move. Eventually the tapes were released as-is - the chance to re-edit only arriving with 1998's Remastered episodes.

The video release of Red Dwarf IV stuck to the altered broadcast order, despite a repeat screening of the episodes following the original plan (aside from moving Meltdown to the end). The second tape was entitled Dimension Jump - after its most memorable episode - although the first episode was actually White Hole.

Finally, among the reviews for Red Dwarf IV was a comment that Hattie Hayridge's hair was now too long for a computer. Quite what determines the standard hair length for artificial intelligence units is undetermined.