Television series

Red Dwarf

Name: Red Dwarf
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction
Released: 1988
Cast: Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, Chris Barrie, Robert Llewellyn, Norman Lovett

Red Dwarf strands the last human alive three million years from home with a sarcastic hologram, an evolved cat-man, and a neurotic service droid for company. It's a sitcom built entirely on bickering, boredom and bad curries in deep space — cheap sets, huge ideas, and jokes that land somewhere between Beckett and a working men's club. Perfect for anyone who wants their existential dread served with chips.

TVMaze rating

7.9

If you liked this

Futurama1999

The closest cousin Red Dwarf has: a hapless everyman thawed out into deep space, stuck with a barely-functional crew and a robot who steals every scene. Same mix of slapstick and unexpected heartbreak.

But American animation gloss and faster gag-rate feel a world away from Red Dwarf's scrappy, four-walls studio sitcom energy.

Blackadder1983

Rimmer's pomposity and Lister's slobbish contempt for him owe a huge debt to this. Same tradition of quick, cruel, brilliantly written British sitcom insults, just with doublets instead of spacesuits.

But No sci-fi at all, and the historical setting/humour needs some patience if you don't already know British schoolroom history jokes.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy1981no page yet

British sci-fi comedy from the same era and sensibility — shoestring effects, deadpan narration, and a universe that's absurd and slightly depressing rather than heroic. If you love Dwarf's tone, this is its closest relative.

But The pacing is stagey and the effects are even cheaper than Red Dwarf's, which some viewers find charming and others find simply rough.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Chernobyl2019

Red Dwarf's entire premise is a throwaway punchline about a radiation leak; Chernobyl is what that sentence actually means, played completely straight.

A devastating dramatisation of a real radiation catastrophe — the exact disaster type that supposedly wiped out Red Dwarf's crew, here rendered with total, unflinching seriousness. It reframes the joke you've been laughing at for decades.

But It is genuinely harrowing television about real deaths and institutional cowardice — nothing here is funny, and it will sit with you for days.

Spaced1999no page yet

Same generation of British sitcom writer-performers riffing on genre obsession, male friendship and shared squalor, with the same rapid-fire, referential wit that made Red Dwarf's fans feel at home.

But Grounded on Earth in a flatshare rather than deep space — no science fiction plot engine, just people and their fandoms.

Star Trek: The Next Generation1987

This is the show Red Dwarf is gleefully mocking — the polished, noble, well-lit version of space life that Lister and company are the scruffy opposite of. Watching both is like getting the joke twice.

But Utterly straight-faced where Dwarf is a farce; if you need jokes every few minutes this will feel slow.

The Orville2017

A spiritual descendant that splits the difference — Star Trek's optimism played with sitcom-level bickering and disaster. Fans of Dwarf's mix of silly and sincere will find a lot to like.

But Bigger budget, glossier effects, and a warmer, less nihilistic streak than Red Dwarf's grubby fatalism.

Community2009

Not sci-fi, but the same delight in genre pastiche, bottle episodes and a small trapped cast turning against and for each other endlessly. The paintball and dungeon episodes are basically Dwarf's spirit in a study room.

But Set in a community college, not space — the fantastical elements are occasional flourishes rather than the whole premise.

Rick and Morty2013

Takes Dwarf's bleak comic nihilism about the universe and injects it with acid — same lineage of jokes about meaninglessness dressed as adventure, just faster, weirder, and considerably nastier.

But Far more cynical and occasionally cruel; Dwarf's warmth toward its characters is largely absent here.

Black Books2000no page yet

If you love the claustrophobic, three-hander bicker-comedy of Dwarf's crew but want it back on Earth, this misanthropic bookshop sitcom has the same rhythm of insults, disasters and odd affection.

But No science fiction, no ship, no scale — just a shop, three people and a lot of drinking.

Cowboy Bebop1998

Both shows use a small, mismatched crew stuck together on a decaying ship as an engine for character comedy shading into existential loneliness — Bebop just plays it as noir rather than farce.

A ragtag crew drifting through space on a barely-functioning ship, killing time between jobs with bickering, boredom and surprising melancholy — just scored by jazz instead of jokes about bad curry.

But Japanese anime with subtitled dialogue and a much cooler, more wistful tone — the laughs are rarer and the tone often turns unexpectedly sad.

The Prisoner1967

Same DNA of being marooned somewhere with no way home and only your own head, plus some unreliable machines, for company — The Prisoner just answers the premise with dread instead of gags.

A man trapped somewhere he can't escape, arguing with an authority he can't trust, in a show that turns confinement into pure paranoid theatre. It's the serious, unsettling cousin of Dwarf's stuck-in-space setup.

But Deadly serious, deliberately cryptic, and allergic to jokes — this is 1960s British psychological drama, not a sitcom, and some episodes resist easy explanation.