Sets

With the shortest preparation period in Red Dwarf history, Mel Bibby did, at least, have one solid fact on his side - no Red Dwarf, just Starbug. The layout of the studio was altered to accommodate the re-jigged sets as Starbug gained a larger cockpit, a scanner table and airlock, full galley, plus a staircase leading to the new sleeping quarters/science room/deep sleep area/whatever. (The stairs, of course, led up to nowhere, with the quarters set located to the right of the 'Bug.)

The set was also made just a little grungier - 200 years of travel having taken its toll. In those years, it was suggested, Kryten had time to augment the ship as much as he liked - hence the new sections. Engine rooms were also included, but were shot on location at Bankside power station. The modern look of Marco Polo House, meanwhile, provided much of Legion's station with its needed style.

Added to the standard studio sets was space for a set required for that week's episode. The interior of the GELF huts, the Gunmen bar, Rimmer's throne room and Legion's dining quarters were all contained here. Around the back of the main set ran the ever-useful generic corridors which served Emohawk's final sequence as well as the simulant's wrecked ship in Rimmerworld.

Out on location, the crew didn't travel too far - although, as it turned out, the Kent location for Gunmen was just a little further than they'd hoped. BBC rules state that, outside a certain vicinity of London, cast and crew have to be organised with overnight accommodation - and the mock-western town of Laredo was just outside of that line. This made a tight schedule even tighter as two day's worth of filming was squeezed into one.

Laredo was built by western fans in the UK who wanted to spend time living the real cowboy life. Abandoning their cars some distance away, men, women and children live in their town and play their roles for weekends at a time. Those caught using anything modern - from a mobile phone to pre-made cigarettes - are fined. (So authentic were the town's creators that they were employed as extras throughout the shoot.)

A quarry near Chislehurst provided Psirens with a suitable landscape for an asteroid - although Craig and Robert were glad to be wrapped up in their costumes in the cold. Similarly freezing conditions were experienced half-way through production when, in a shoot added between studio days, the abandoned Covington Cross set lent its mud huts to the Kinitawowi settlement after Rob and Doug discovered them on the Shepperton lot. (Similarly, the lush verdant Rimmerworld forest was created in the woods at the rear of the studios - with some artificial flora added.)

But, of course, it just wouldn't be Red Dwarf if there wasn't just a little recycling and eagle-eyed fans may have noticed that Rimmerworld's escape pod was a re-dressed version of the simulant cockpit from Gunmen - although, as Mel Bibby argues, a modular ship has many areas that look similar. Look at, well, Red Dwarf!