red dwarf

I am a geek. As a geek I like many geeky things. There is no way around this. One of the geeky things I like is the British TV comedy Red Dwarf. The problem is I am rather obsessed with the show, like you might expect of a true geek. I have gone for weeks before when most of what I am doing is watching Red Dwarf episodes. This is a little weird because, while I may have a slightly obsessive personality, I usually keep it pretty well in check.

The premise of the show is that this guy (Lister) is on a huge mining ship in space in the future. He is put into stasis (just think deep sleep) as punishment for bringing a cat on board the ship. While he is in stasis an accident kills the crew and, because of latent radiation, he is kept in stasis for three million years. When he is removed from stasis he finds that his cat evolved into a creature that is similar to a human, but incredibly vain. The ship's neurotic computer (Holly) brings back his uptight bunkmate (Rimmer). Later, they find a robot (Kryten) who is obsessed with cleaning. It isn't an incredibly serious show.

The question that I keep asking myself is why I like the show. It doesn't even pretend to border on a realistic description of the future and the comedy is very dry by even my standards. The characters are entertaining but not believable.

I figured out my obsession, though. I determined that the Red Dwarf premise portrays what I would consider a perfect introverted fantasy. The main character is stuck on a ship with a few friends but not too many people and has ready access to entertainment, food, etc when he wants. He doesn't have to work in a traditional sense and he gets to see cool stuff in space. The only thing missing is Golden, and so I just imagine her there with me and that makes everything good.

I think that this is probably not a healthy fantasy. There probably isn't such a thing as a healthy fantasy, but if there is this isn't it. It is fun to dream, though.