Red Dwarf - Season 1
Of course, being British, that only equates to 12 seasons (and a feature-length special). That means there's a lot of rewatching to be done between installments, but thankfully most of the series holds up to repeat viewings, even after more than three decades.
Red Dwarf - Season 1
What makes this compelling is not just Kryten and his journey, but what the character brings out in Lister. His dynamic with Kryten, especially in the earlier seasons, often shows him off in his best light, highlighting the true values that are buried underneath the layers of ambivalence and curry-stained clothes.
Rimmer becoming Ace makes sense as a payoff to all of the character exploration and growth we see from him in previous seasons. It also provides some genuinely moving moments, particularly in his interactions with Lister. It's a great example of the way their relationship truly is the heart of the show.
Red dwarf stars make up the largest population of stars in the galaxy, but they hide in the shadows, too dim to be seen with the naked eye from Earth. Their limited radiance helps to extend their lifetimes, which are far greater than that of the sun.
"There is no true definition of red dwarfs," astronomer Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège in Belgium told Space.com by email. Gillon, who studies stellar objects at the cooler end of the spectrum, was part of the team that identified the ultracool star TRAPPIST-1. Red dwarf "generally refers to dwarf stars with a spectral type ranging from K5V to M5V," Gillon said.
Red dwarfs form like other main-sequence stars. First, a cloud of dust and gas is drawn together by gravity and begins rotating. The material then clumps at the center, and when it reaches the critical temperature, fusion begins.
Red dwarfs include the smallest of the stars, weighing between 7.5% and 50% the mass of the sun. Their reduced size means that they burn at a lower temperature, reaching only 6,380 degrees Fahrenheit (3,500 degrees Celsius). The sun, by comparison, has a temperature of 9,900 F (5,500 C). The low temperatures of red dwarfs mean they are far, far dimmer than stars like the sun.
Their low temperature also means that they burn through their supply of hydrogen less rapidly. While other, more massive stars burn through only the hydrogen at their core before coming to the end of their lifetimes, red dwarfs consume all of their hydrogen, inside and outside their core. This stretches out the lifetime of red dwarfs to trillions of years; far beyond the 10-billion-year lifetime of sun-like stars.
Scientists occasionally have difficulty distinguishing a red dwarf star from a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are cool and dim, and likely form the same way red dwarfs do, but brown dwarfs never reach the point of fusion because they're too small, and therefore, they're not considered stars.
To figure out whether a celestial object is a brown or red dwarf, scientists measure the temperature of the object's atmosphere. Fusion-free brown dwarfs are cooler than 2,000 Kelvin (3,140 F or 1,727 C), while hydrogen-fusing stars are warmer than 2,700 K (4,400 F or 2,427 C). In between, a star could be classified as a red dwarf or brown dwarf.
Sometimes, chemicals in the object's atmosphere can reveal clues about what's happening at its heart. According to Burgasser, the presence of molecules like methane or ammonia, which can only survive at cold temperatures, suggests that an object is a brown dwarf. Lithium in the atmosphere also suggests that a red dwarf is a brown dwarf rather than a true star.
Planets form from the material left over in a disk after their star has been created. Many red dwarfs have been found with planets surrounding them, though enormous gas giants are rare. Because red dwarfs are dimmer than stars like the sun, it is easier to find small planets that may surround these dimmer objects, making red dwarfs a popular target for planet hunting. NASA's Kepler space telescope (which operated between 2009 and 2018) and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS (which started operations in 2018), have surveyed many red dwarf stars for possible Earth-like planets.
In 2016, a potentially habitable planet was found orbiting Proxima Centauri (Earth's closest star). And in 2019, astronomers announced the possibility of a second planet orbiting far outside the star's habitable zone. At least seven Earth-size planets orbit the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, and many studies suggest at least some of those planets could host life.
But unlike the sun, which will become a white dwarf in a few billion years, red dwarfs will take trillions of years to burn through their fuel. This is significantly longer than the age of the universe, which is less than 14 billion years old. Red dwarfs may be a bit dim, but like the tortoise, they slowly but surely win the survival race.
In addition to Lister and the computer (an artificial intelligence named Holly, played by Norman Lovett), there was a hologram named Arnold Rimmer (played by Chris Barrie), and a creature evolved from a house cat named Cat (played by Danny John-Jules). Joining the cast in its third season were Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, a robot, and Hattie Hayridge as Holly, replacing Lovett.
The NBC pilot was a retooled version of the first episode of the British series, with one key difference. The character of Kryten, not introduced until the third season of the British version, would be present in the American version from the start.
Although it failed in the United States, Red Dwarf continued in its home country. After its sixth season the series went on hiatus, returning in 1997 and again in 1999. A decade later, it was revived for a short ninth season (technically a three-part miniseries called Red Dwarf: Back to Earth) in 2009 and a tenth season in 2012.
But it should be done. LP 890-9c is, on paper, perhaps the second best candidate to be Earth-like, after TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized planet orbiting the very tiny red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. That star is the coolest one known to have planets, and LP 890-9 is the second coolest.
I love it when planets are found around red dwarfs. They are by far the most common kind of star in the Universe, they tend to make smaller, Earthish-sized planets, and they tend to make a lot of them. Our own world may be an exception in its class, orbiting a white G dwarf star and not a red M dwarf.
Although Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy arguably merged sci-fi and comedy first, Red Dwarf provided the critically acclaimed second chance that the new genre needed. The most recent episode, The Promised Land, landed in September 2020 (32 years after the show premiered) and follows the crew's experiences when three cat clerics think Lister is their god. It is likely there will be more individual episodes released in the future, something actor Craig Charles has announced, but for now fans can dive into other ongoing sci-fi sitcoms such as Rick and Morty, The Orville, and the final seasons of Futurama.
For many, Red Dwarf 3 is where the series began, which does a disservice to the previous two seasons, but is entirely understandable given the apparent change of production values. That we would have never reached this stage without the incessant grey and sparse sets of the original 2 seasons is indisputable; low cost was a key factor in Red Dwarf getting its important second series when its popularity went through the roof.
After what some would claim the mis-step of season 4, Red Dwarf was most definitely back with a bang for season 5. Despite the absence of perennial director Ed Bye and a slight tilt of focus more towards science fiction, Red Dwarf 5 proved to be a another successful season, boosted by what remains one of its most popular episodes.
A red dwarf star was located in the Pressylla system with three planetary orbits. An asteroid field, Pressy's Tumble, also orbited the star. The star's red glow caused the asteroid field to be cast in a hellish light.[1] 041b061a72