Sports Calendar

E is for Eight

The number of series that ran on BBC2 between 1988 and 1999. The series attracted more than eight million viewers - its highest ever ratings - during the eighth series in 1999.
Watch the brilliant promo for series eight

F is for Frankenstein

Dave Lister's pregnant cat is safely sealed in the cargo hold. At the time of the radiation accident, Lister was imprisoned in a stasis booth because he had smuggled the cat aboard the ship and denied its whereabouts to Captain Hollister.
Watch Lister trying to keep Frankenstein secret

F is also for The Flintstones: in a classic episode, Lister and Cat discuss whether Wilma is sexier than Betty. Watch the clip

G is for Gunmen of the Apocalypse

1994 episode from the sixth series, which won an International Emmy Award. The crew find themselves in a virtual reality Wild West, facing a gunfight against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Each character acquires skills from an old arcade video game: Lister is a superb knife thrower, Cat a deadly six shooter and Rimmer a bare knuckle brawler. Watching the show, Patrick Stewart apparently thought it so similar to a Star Trek episode he considered calling the show's lawyers - before realising Red Dwarf was a spoof. Watch the episode here

H is for Holly

The ship's ultra intelligent computer, who keeps Lister in suspended animation until the radiation dies down, three million years later. Holly appears on Red Dwarf's monitors as a disembodied human head on a black background.

Holly is played by Norman Lovett during series one, two, seven and eight, and by Hattie Hayridge in series three to five. The character has an IQ of 6,000.
Watch Holly play an April Fool I Watch Holly quizzed by a talking toaster

I is for Influences

Former Spitting Image show writers Grant and Naylor were influenced by films such as Alien and Dark Star and television series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Blended with lashings of British satire, Red Dwarf is essentially a sci-fi sitcom. After being unsuccessfully hawked around the BBC, it was eventually commissioned by BBC North in 1986.
Watch the opening of comedy sci-fi classic Dark Star

Editor's choice

• Alicia Keys lets rip
• Streep and Baldwin get complicated
• Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes