20 works of upbeat science fiction to brighten your day

6. Red Dwarf

On screen, science fiction seems to tend most towards grimness. At least it makes for some good cinematic visuals, with dramatic space battles and cool mech suits. But what if you’re sick of the galactic drama and conflict? What if you maybe want the characters you’re watching to just enjoy their lives every once in a while? If nothing else, their ill luck and poorly considered exploits can at least become fodder for laughs.

Red Dwarf is primarily a sitcom that aired on BBC Two beginning in 1988. It ran there until 1999 and then, since 2009, on a TV network named Dave (a name which is equal parts annoying, adorable, and subtly terrifying).

The series is generally set on the Red Dwarf, a mining spaceship of massive proportions. In the first episode, a radiation leak kills everyone on board except for technician Dave Lister and his pregnant pet cat, Frankenstein. The ship’s computer keeps Lister in stasis until the radiation goes back down to manageable levels — which takes three million years.

Lister awakens into a world where he is the only remaining human. Holly, the ship’s computer, resurrects Liser’s bunkmate Rimmer as a hologram in a bid to keep him sane. Frankenstein’s descendants have also become relatively intelligent and humanoid. They, too, have experienced a decline in numbers, however. When Lister wakes, the only remaining representative of Felis sapiens is an individual known as, uh, Cat.

It’s all a pretty dark start to the series, but hardly one that keeps this ersatz crew down. Of course, they are largely aided by the fact that none of them are especially intelligent. But their bumbling, along with the absurd strangeness they encounter on their journey, is plenty funny.