Red Dwarf fans were heartbroken when the planned feature-length special was suddenly scrapped. UKTV decided to move away from scripted comedy, which meant no new Red Dwarf episodes for now. But co-creator Doug Naylor has shared what the special would have looked like, and the ideas he had were honestly very exciting.
On The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast, Naylor said he is not giving up. He plans to finish the full screenplay. If he cannot get it made as a TV movie, he will turn it into a novel. So the story is not dead. Just paused.
He also explained some of the plot. The special would have shown Lister travelling back in time to help his 23 year old self escape from stasis. Meanwhile, Rimmer would team up with his own younger version to chase them down on behalf of JMC. It would have been a fun mix of past and present versions of the characters interacting with each other.
Naylor also revealed he wanted to use very advanced de aging technology. His idea was to create a completely computer generated young Lister who looked exactly like Craig Charles in the early days of the show. An FX artist even made a test version. Naylor said it looked so perfect that he could not believe it was CG. The plan was to make viewers feel like the young Lister had been pulled straight out of the very first episode. He thought this tech would allow the older and younger Lister to share a really strong and entertaining dynamic on screen.
Even though the special has been dropped for now, fans have something new to look forward to. The original TV soundtrack collections for Red Dwarf are being released as BBC audiobooks. Both sets, covering Series 1 to 4 and Series 5 to 8, will be available from 20 November.