Dave Lister

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.

I am Holly, the ship's computer with an IQ of 6,000, the same IQ as 6,000 PE teachers.

I don't know if, have you seen Red Dwarf? Okay, good.

But everyone remembers Cap and Lister and Crichton, but I always remembered Holly.

and Holly is an AI and this is for those those that have never seen Red Dwarf and those that aren't even familiar with it it's it's a comedy it's sort of a sitcom it's very amusing it ran for quite a lot of seasons Holly though is senile she's been there she's a very old AI and she goes through all these different processes and she has this interaction with the characters and And Dave Lister is the kind of last human.

And the others are all kind of versions of AI or holograms.

And I just like that because it's almost like every part of that human and tech AI dynamic, that consciousness dynamic, the laughter, the humor, every part of humanity works.

In that vein, I'll quickly wrap up to this point on this other thing.

So in 1992, possibly 1993, there was a show on in the BBC, again, written by a guy called Stephen Volk, who I've interviewed in the past, he's a wonderful guy, called Ghostwatch, which was a fictional... um you know live investigation into a into a haunted house and it had like celebrities on that people would recognize michael parkinson uh craig charles you know better than dave lister all these other people and then it escalates into this thing and there's the ghost called pipes and lots of people watch this thing not realizing it was a fiction and thought it was real um myself included sort of 10 year old me or 11 year old me watching this and going like what the hell is this oh my god Yeah.

No, seriously.

I was sent to bed halfway through it.

He's just very, very, very unlikable.

And Red Dwarf is at its best when it's comparing Dave Lister, the last human on Earth, who is a complete slob, and Rimmer, who is very down the line and completely unlikable, and contrasting them.

And so we find out in this episode that Rimmer has only had one girlfriend ever.

The quote is, I've made love once in my life.

That same issue still would have been there, that they didn't make a big deal about her being there.

And like I said, there's some innate comedy in that she's always prone to errors, and it's her and Lister that need to repopulate things, but she's in love with Rimmer.

I mean, there is its own comedy literally baked into the situation they created.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, did you guys have access to those tapes at all to look at? Which clearly they did because they tried to bring some things back.

One of the first notes I had was, Depressed Dave Lister reads as very insincere to me, which is odd because Craig Charles at times has absolutely done the like, defeated like actually when he was missing Rimmer right yes I thought he did that really well like I thought that that felt I felt like that when he had his little dream and Rimmer kissed him it worked so well because he played it so straight

he's actually a really good actor to be fair I was watching it and he he plays it really really well like you like I don't know what else to say he's a really good actor he plays Lister as if Lister is a real character

I would have never believed that it would all eventually come true.

And even worse than my satire and vision, here we are in Portland, 2026, signed your friend Dave Lister.

Now, and then let me tell you about this state hospital employee who's been on paid leave now for three years.

Now, he said he'd like to go back to work.