Red Dwarf
"This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak. The only survivors were Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the disaster, and his pregnant cat, who was safely sealed in the hold. Revived three million years later, Lister's only companions are a life form who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew."
Setting: 3 million years into the future, on and around the Jupiter Mining Corp. ship Red Dwarf.
Dave Lister is, among other things, a slob, the lowest ranking member of the JMC Red Dwarf, and the last surviving member of the human race. His greatest loves are beer, curry and Kristine Kochanski. For smuggling a cat onto the ship, he was put into stasis, inadvertently frozen for three million years.
Arnold J. Rimmer is Lister's roommate and ranking superior. Rimmer hopes to become an officer, despite failing his exams over eleven times. Nearly all of his relationships have failed. An aficionado of Morris Dancing, Hammond Organs and telegraph poles, he and Lister don't get on. As a child, he was nicknamed "Bonehead" and believes that everyone gets "lucky breaks" but him. His parallel counterpart, "Ace," received one such "break," of which Rimmer is jealous. When Rimmer improperly repaired a drive plate, he and the crew died. He was hologrammatically revived to "keep Lister sane" and is now the highest-ranking member on Red Dwarf.
The Cat is the last surviving member of the Cat-kind. Selfish, vain and stylish , his only interests include himself, fish, sleep, and "shiny things."
Holly is the Red Dwarf computer with a supposed IQ of 6,000. However, after 3 million years alone, he has gone a bit senile. In the beginning of the third series, Holly changes his face and name to those of Hilly, the computer from a parallel universe he'd once loved.
Kryten 2X4B 523P is a series 4000 service mechanoid, originally serving the Nova V. Rescued by Lister, he's broken his programming by learning to lie and cheat.
Kristine Z. Kochanski is a Navigation Officer, whom Lister fancied. She left him and broke his heart. A Kochanski from a parallel dimension has become stranded with the surviving Red Dwarf crew, much to her dismay.
Grant Naylor's key rule of Red Dwarf: There are no aliens. The crew only meets things that are the result of human action: Simulants, GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Forms), etc.
"Smeg" was intended to be an invented swear word by Grant Naylor.
