| The main setting of the series is the eponymous mining spaceship Red Dwarf which is 6 miles (10 km) long, 5 miles (8 km) tall, and 4 miles (6 km) wide. In the first episode, an on-board radiation leak of cadmium II kills everyone except for low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who is in suspended animation at the time, and his pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who is safely sealed in the cargo hold. Following the accident, the ship's computer Holly keeps Lister in stasis until the background radiation dies down—a process that takes three million years. Lister therefore emerges as the last human being in the universe—but not the only life form on-board the ship. His former bunkmate and immediate superior Arnold Rimmer is resurrected by Holly as a hologram to keep Lister sane. At the same time, a creature known only as Cat is the last member on board of Felis sapiens, a race of humanoid felines that evolved in the ship's hold from Lister's cat, Frankenstein, and her kittens during the 3 million years that Lister was in stasis. The main dramatic thrust of the early series is Lister's desire to return home to Earth. As their journey begins, the not-so-intrepid crew encounters such phenomena as time distortions, faster-than-light travel, mutant diseases and strange lifeforms that had developed in the intervening millions of years. During the second series, the group encounter the service mechanoid Kryten, rescuing him from a long-since crashed vessel. Initially, Kryten only appeared in one episode of series two, but by the beginning of series three he had become a regular character. At the end of series five, Red Dwarf itself is stolen, forcing them to travel in the smaller Starbug craft for two series, with the side-effect that they lose contact with Holly. In series seven, Rimmer departs the crew to take up the role of his alter ego from a parallel universe, Ace Rimmer, whose name has become a long-standing legend and a legacy passed down from dimension to dimension. Shortly afterwards, the crew found a parallel version of themselves from a universe in which Kristine Kochanski, with whom Lister was in love before the radiation leak, was the person put into stasis and so became the last remaining human. A complicated series of events leaves Kochanski stranded in "our" universe, and she is forced to join the crew. In the eighth series, Red Dwarf is reconstructed by the nanobots who had originally stolen it and had it broken down into its constituent atoms. In the process, the entire crew of the ship — including a pre-accident Rimmer — are resurrected, but the Starbug crew find themselves sentenced to two years in the ship's brig on a set of convoluted charges. The series ends with Red Dwarf being eaten away by a virus with the crew evacuated, save for Rimmer who is, in the cliffhanger ending, left stranded alone to face Death (and promptly knees him in the groin and flees).
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| Dave Lister: Played by Craig Charles, is a genial Liverpudlian and self-described bum. He was the lowest-ranking crew member on the ship before the accident and has a long-standing desire to return to Earth and start a farm on Fiji (which is under three feet of water following a volcanic eruption), but is left impossibly far away by the accident that renders him the last surviving member of the human race. He deeply enjoys Indian food, especially chicken vindaloo, which is a recurring theme in the series.
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| Arnold Rimmer: Dave Listers bunk mate Arnold Judas Rimmer Bsc Ssc ("Bronze swimming certificate" and "Silver swimming certificate"), played by Chris Barrie, is the second-lowest ranking member of the crew: a fussy, bureaucratic, neurotic coward, who is nevertheless judged by Holly to have the highest chance of keeping Lister sane when chosen to be the ship's one available hologram. Rimmer was the chosen hologram because he was the person who Lister shared the most sentences with and therefore the person most likely to keep Lister sane, but most of the sentences were of Lister telling Rimmer to "Smeg off!" In Series VII, Rimmer left the dimension to become Ace Rimmer (see below). In Series VIII, Rimmer was brought back to life by the nanobots which rebuilt Red Dwarf and the rest of the crew. At some point in the nine years between Red Dwarf Series VIII and the 2009 specials, Rimmer is once again a hologram, but no reason is given for why.
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| The Cat: Played by Danny John-Jules, is a humanoid creature who evolved from the offspring of Lister's smuggled pet cat Frankenstein. Cat is concerned with little other than sleeping, eating and fawning over his appearance, and tends not to socialise with other members of the crew. As time goes by, however, he becomes more influenced by his human companions, and so begins to resemble a stylish, self-centred human.
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| Holly: The ship's computer, Holly (played by Norman Lovett during series I, II, VII and VIII and Hattie Hayridge in series III to V), has an IQ of 6,000, although this is severely depleted by the three million years he/she is left alone after the accident, having developed "computer senility". The change in appearance for series III is explained by Holly having changed his face to resemble that of a computer from a parallel universe "with whom he'd once fallen madly in love".
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| Kryten: Full name Kryten 2X4B-523P (played by Robert Llewellyn from series III onwards, and as a one-off appearance in series II by David Ross), was rescued by the crew from a crashed spaceship Nova 5, upon which he had continued to serve the ship's crew despite them having been dead for thousands or even millions of years. Kryten is a service mechanoid and when first encountered by the crew, he was bound by his "behavioural protocols", but Lister gradually encouraged him to break his programming and think for himself. After an accident involving Lister's spacebike, Kryten was rebuilt by Lister, with a slightly different appearance and voice.
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| Kristine Kochanski: Originally portrayed by Clare Grogan before Chloe Annett took on the role from series VII. She was initially a Red Dwarf navigation officer whom Lister had a crush on (later retroactively altered to be his ex-girlfriend) and whose memory he had cherished ever since. However, a rift between two alternative dimensions revealed that, in the alternative dimension, Kochanski had survived the Red Dwarf cadmium II accident. She joined Lister and the crew after the link to her own dimension collapsed. She appeared to have died at some point in the nine years between Red Dwarf Series VIII and the 2009 specials and Lister is seen mourning at a gravestone that has a plaque that reads "To All We Have Lost". However, it is later revealed that Kryten, the sole witness to her "death", had lied to Lister. Kochanski had instead fled the ship in a Blue Midget when it became clear Lister's complete lack of self-respect and indulgence on excesses was slowly killing him, which greatly depressed her. Lister is advised by fans of the television series to find her in "the next series" and to make amends.
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