Series X is the tenth television series of Red Dwarf. It first aired from 4 October 2012 through 8 November on the Dave channel.
Filming took place in November and December of 2011 and January of 2012 at Shepperton Studios, and for the first time in many years featured a return to being filmed in front of a live studio audience. The series was commissioned by Dave, the same network who commissioned Back to Earth, although Series X is a return to the more traditional format of the show. Creator Doug Naylor's son, Richard Naylor, joined as a producer on this series.
An eleventh series, Series XI, was broadcast by Dave in Autumn 2016.
Older but still none the wiser, the Dwarfers return only to get entangled in a new series of adventures. Lister grapples with being his own father and perhaps even being a father, as Rimmer has to deal with his own family issues. And although once again on their own on Red Dwarf, the crew still manages to get involved with a variety of unique characters, including at least one potentially famous historical figure and the head of an entire institute devoted to failure. All of this climaxes in a series finale featuring the largest ever dogfight shown on the show to date, and Rimmer in victory reiterating the pilot episode's closing words "The slime's coming home!"
The series consists of six episodes with each lasting a half hour, though they were broadcast in a forty minute time slot to make room for commercial breaks. The six-episode format marked a return to the shorter seasons Red Dwarf aired during its first six series. Episodes titles filtered out onto the Internet in late August 2012, followed by some initial episode synopsis, with all finally revealed 19 September 2012. As a new trend for the show, most of the episodes featured sub-plots, although the success of this move has been questioned.
The Dwarfers' mining ship is still creaking though the wastelands of unchartered deep space, but the posse soon stumble upon the mysteriously abandoned SS Trojan. As they inspect the ship Rimmer receives an SOS Distress Call from a doomed ship commanded by his all-conquering brother, Howard. But Rimmer can't bring himself to save Howard until he’s on an equal footing career-wise. Meanwhile, Lister and Cat become hooked on an intergalactic shopping network.
Every year Lister sends himself a Father’s Day card to celebrate the fact that he is his own father, but when Rimmer points out he’s been a lousy father to himself Lister decides to do something about it. Meanwhile, Rimmer and Kryten install a new computer; the beautiful, but lethally logical, Pree.
Marooned in Britain in 23 AD, the Dwarfers need an 8-volt battery to power up their Returner Remote and get home. Remembering a lesson from school Rimmer suggests they make a battery out of lemons but the nearest lemon to Britain in 23 AD is in India 4,000 miles away. They begin their journey, a journey that will ultimately lead them to a meeting with a historical A-List celebrity that could alter the entire history of civilization.
Lister loses Rimmer in a game of poker to a group of Biologically Engineered Life Forms and in return gets an unwanted gift: a groinal exploder programmed to detonate in 24 hours unless Lister pays his debts. Meanwhile, Kryten and Cat become quantum entangled and do everything in perfect unison.
Lister has women trouble when he gets himself in a love triangle with Snack Dispensers 23 and 34, then to make matter worse gets a letter from an old girlfriend telling him she’s pregnant and it might be his. Lister and Rimmer hunt through the mountain of letters from the mail pod to discover if Lister is finally a dad.
Hiding in an asteroid belt surrounded by a Simulant Death Ship and a fleet of Annihilators, with only two forks and a pencil sharpener to defend themselves, the Dwarfers begin to wonder whether this is the beginning of the end. Only one man can save them. Unfortunately, that man is Arnold J Rimmer.
Background Information[]
First publicity shot
Vindalunar promotion
At Dimension Jump 2011, Doug Naylor stated that he would prefer filming in front of a live studio audience in the style of Series I-Series VI and VIII but suggested that he might have trouble getting Dave to agree. Because of this, Dwarfers were told at the live audience filming to avoid releasing any information, causing sites like Ganymede & Titan to enforce a strict spoiler policy which was largely followed by the fan community.
Filming photo
The set design is made out in a particularly Series V-ish way, but is meant to evoke all the series as well as adding something new. The Series takes place primarily on the mothership, with some later sequences aboard Blue Midget, with both depicted once again using physical models rather than computer generated imagery; Starbug is also shown, but only as an exterior model.
Ratings chart
The jokes and plots too were described by the fortunate few attending the filming as being in many respects closer to classic Dwarf - preview reception equally seemed positive, as stated by both Wired and The Huffington Post in theircoverage of the first episode filming. Ganymede & Titan wrote exclusive set reports after each filming that described what was allowed to be described with fair detail, and also provide a source for initial reactions to the content of the new series. As the air-date approached, Doug Naylor himself and several cast members described also the show as going back to its roots, and thefirstepisodereviews for the Series that were released after select promotional screenings agreed with this assertion.
At Dimension Jump 2011, Doug Naylor hinted in an informal fan discussion that the series might have a consistent plot arc, continuing a tradition started in Series VI onward. Reports on the ground however indicated that the main episodes plots themselves were by and large unique. In the end, there is a vague sub-plot of Lister's search for Kristine Kochanski, as first established in Back to Earth and is referenced in several Series X episodes. The final two episodes of the series were intended to build on this, but were scrapped when the location shooting budget was tightened. The crew's over-riding goal of getting back to Earth is also re-iterated several times as well, and the quantum rod plays a role in two episodes.
The first promotional image was released on April 26, 2012, and on July 21, 2012 the first teaser trailer for the Series was released online, followed every Friday after with new promotional content, although this did not prove to be the exclusive release time for promos. These usually took the form of new images or video clips from the Series, but on one particular occasion, to announce the air-date, the company Dave hired to do the promotion set out an elaborate stunt of blasting a vindaloo and lager into space, although the technical competency of the stunt was questioned, with one particularly bad gaffe being the showing of an utterly unrelated video right in the middle of the web promotional. Craig Charles also appeared on the morning show Loose Women to promote the Series, showing a clip from the finale "The Beginning".
Even though there was technically no Series IX, the series is called Series X. Instead the three-part Back to Earth special can be considered Series IX. This has been referenced as a joke by the creators of the show, stating that as "Series IX was the best, we thought it'd be funny to skip it."
The average rating for the series on Dave itself was 1105167 viewers per episode, with Dave Ja Vu viewings brining it up to 1158333 viewers per episode. "Trojan" is also now the second highest rated UKTV program ever, behind "Back to Earth, Part One".
DVD artwork[]
The Series X DVD contains the first instance of a reversible cover - a trend which continues for the Series XI and XII. One side is mostly black, with artwork of the main characters against a space backdrop. On the reverse, the new red sleeping quarters used by the characters from Series X onwards is the backdrop to the artwork, in the same style of previous Red Dwarf DVD covers. Along the spine, Jesus of Caesarea is featured.
Series X 