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COMIC-CON@HOME: Doug Naylor says there’s infinite stories to be told with the Red Dwarf crew

July 27th, 2020 by Marc Comments

Following the airing of Red Dwarf: The Promised Land in April, writer – and co-creator – Doug Naylor said he still has loads of ideas for the crew of Red Dwarf (here) and at Comic-Con@Home he knuckled down on that idea.

During the Red Dwarf: The Promised Land panel starring Naylor, Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister) and Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), host Kyle Anderson asked Naylor if he had a favourite character to write for, to which he replied: “The truth is it wouldn’t have lasted [if I’d written primarily for one character]. They’d have left,” he said.

“You have to be able to write a part for each of them, you know? And you wouldn’t be able to do that if you thought, ‘Oof, this person. There’s nothing left in the tank. There’s no new stories.’ But it just seems there’s an infinite amount of things we can do and always has done, so there’s a wonderful opportunity to explore all kinds of things.”

Red Dwarf: The Promised Land is now arriving on streaming platform BritBox in the US.

On The Promised Land’s creation, Naylor said: “What would happen if we revisited the cats and they thought Lister is a god?

“And what effect what that have on Lister? He wouldn’t be able to tolerate that. He’d fall apart. What would happen to Rimmer because Rimmer’s got no story there? And you start to piece the thing together. That’s the kind of process.”

The special was released in the darkest days of the lockdown due to that damned virus, so it was a ray of sunshine to fans and gave Dave, the channel behind it, a new record audience of two million views: “Hopefully, people in the States will take it in the way that the folks in the UK did,” Naylor adds.

What say you all? Would you be up for spending more time with Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten or are you a smeghead? Let us know your thoughts, gang.

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….