A disillusioned Barrie left and focused on The Brittas Empire – could a greater snub be imagined? – while (re)introducing Lister’s girlfriend, Kristine Kochanski, as ship’s scold gave Chloë Annett nothing to work with. Grant had moved on, leaving co-creator Naylor to soldier on alone, seemingly exposed as the straight man in the partnership: an apparent lurch into comedy-drama may simply have been the result of a drought of comic invention. Perhaps the seventh series could only have disappointed. For a cult sitcom in a niche genre, such mainstream acceptance was an extraordinary achievement. By 1990, it was the best British sitcom on TV, its catchphrases (“Smeg!”, “Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast”) instantly recognisable, with an International Emmy the crowning glory. The array of ideas Red Dwarf explored was dazzling, from the implications of AI to the vagaries of memory, talking toasters to curry monsters. Once Robert Llewellyn had joined as fussy mechanoid Kryten, the conceptual shenanigans – always ambitious and interesting – had a fully functioning ensemble to bring them to life. The wobbly staging added to the charm Naylor and Grant had crafted a lived-in universe with a keen sense of self-awareness, refusing to let budgets act as a brake on their imaginations.

Marrying the slacker aesthetic of Dark Star to the wry humour of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it had both the innate melancholy and odd-couple dynamic central to all great sitcoms.

Red dwarf bouncing ball