Chris Barrie - Red Dwarf makes return to screens

Red Dwarf makes return to screens

'Red Dwarf' returned to TV last night (04.10.12).

The cult sci-fi sitcom - which aired on BBC2 from 1988 to 1999 - attracted 1.5 million viewers in its 9pm time slot on Dave.

'Red Dwarf X' - a six-part series - sees cast members Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Robert Lewellyn and Danny John-Jules all return, with the basic premise of the show, travelling through space on the mining ship Red Dwarf, still in existence.

Last night's episode, 'Trojan', saw the crew stumble upon an abandoned vessel and intercept a distress call from Rimmer's brother, Howard.

Rimmer's hard drive goes into meltdown, brought on by jealousy of Howard's successful space corp so the gang came up with new identities to impress him.

'Red Dwarf' briefly returned to TV in 2009, when Dave aired a mini-series called 'Back to Earth' but Craig said recently the cast didn't regard that as a continuation of the original show in the way they do with 'Red Dwarf X'.

He said: ''I didn't think of 'Back to Earth' as being back.

''We certainly weren't making a sitcom. It was trying to do something else, it was much more filmic. This is 'Red Dwarf' coming back to what it does best, which is making a situation comedy.''