Now We Are Fifteen

It's reddwarf.co.uk's birthday!

20 November, 2015

You'll forgive us for getting a bit self-indulgent this week, but how often is it that a site hits a major anniversary, and that said anniversary happens to fall on the day of the week that said site always updates? So we thought we'd take a minute to celebrate the fifteenth birthday of reddwarf.co.uk - and ask you to join us in a trip down memory lane...

The first official Red Dwarf site, known as Red Dwarf Online, launched in 1998 to coincide with the production of Series VIII. It featured latest news, production information and exclusive media content, but was already starting to show its age visually by the time the new millennium rolled around (white text on a black background? So last century.)

So the decision was taken by Grant Naylor Productions to launch a brand spanking new site - one that would update Red Dwarf fans with the latest news relating to the show (and, of course, the then-planned movie) on a weekly basis, as well as giving a place to come and chat with one-another, dig into the rich history of the series, download cool things, and just generally have a pretty smegging awesome time. Dwarf superfan Andrew Ellard was hired to write and edit the site, which was designed by Chris Veale and Simon Burchell and maintained by Andy Neale (who has held the position of ongoing "code monkey" ever since).

A whizzy animated Flash video teased the launch of the site, featuring Doug Naylor himself promising all kinds of spectacular new content (some of which did actually make it onto the site - some of which, for one reason or another, didn't) and was one of the most exciting things to hit online Red Dwarf fandom in its short but extremely active history up to that point. It left fans poised with anticipation for what would come next...

The newly-christened reddwarf.co.uk went fully live on Monday 20th November 2000 (following a sneak preview earlier that month at the 2000 Dimension Jump convention). And fifteen years later, here we still are. In that time, we've brought you 783 weekly updates, consisting of 1266 news articles and 360 longer features. With the exception of the infamous "Red Out" in July 2001 (where a server outage took the site down for a fortnight) we've kept the place updated with at least one new piece of news or content every single Friday since launch, which is no mean feat given that for the first eight years of the site's life, there was no new series of Red Dwarf in production.

Of course, in all that time, there was plenty of other stuff to cover: the pre-production of the ultimately aborted movie, with exclusive behind-the-scenes material and content that can still be found here on the site, and which still offers a fascinating glimpse into the movie-that-never-was. Then there was the production cycle of a full set of Red Dwarf DVDs - that's right, when the site launched, you couldn't buy a single episode of the show on shiny disc - which stands as probably the most comprehensive ongoing detailing of a DVD production that anyone anywhere has ever published. And there was, of course, the time we brought you the exclusive news that the site had a new Bookmark icon for use on iOS devices. We won't see the likes of those days again.

And then finally, when the glorious prospect of Red Dwarf's television return became a reality, we were right there with the news: and again, the editors' position at the heart of Grant Naylor has meant that we've been there all along to give you the scoop first on Back to Earth, and then on Red Dwarf X and the upcoming eleventh and twelfth series. In particular, the buzz around the Back to Earth comeback saw the site scale new heights of popularity, with an incredible quarter of a million visitors dropping in around the time the specials were broadcast.

Along the way, we've been through a few cosmetic redesigns - first to ditch that unwieldy Flash navigation in 2001, then a suitably red revamp in 2002; before a more significant overhaul in 2008 both in celebration of the show's twentieth anniversary, and as a way of keeping up with higher resolution device displays. And in November 2011, there was a change in personnel, too: with Andrew moving onwards and upwards in his career as a TV and movie writer/script editor (including working on some sci-fi sitcom or other) to be replaced by former fansite writer and podcaster Seb Patrick (who still hasn't got fed up of the job four years later, and is typing these very words right now).

In case you missed any of them - or even if you just want to rediscover them - here's a reminder of some of our favourite highlights of the past fifteen years:

Movie Storyboards

Beginning publication in March 2001, these three sets of storyboards were published one per week, showing the first visual glimpses of the then-in-development Red Dwarf: The Movie. You can still find the sets here on the site: first, a random grab-bag assortment, followed by a cryo-chamber sequence and finally, from early 2002, a sequence showing the launch of the Red Dwarf ship itself!

Time Hole

One of the first pieces of in-depth content on the site, the Time Hole set of articles burrowed into the production of every series of the show - from conception, through writing and production to broadcast and reception. As part of the 2008 revamp, they were folded into a newly-restructured Complete Guide section, where they still stand as the first port of call for anyone who wants to know more about how the show was made, who appeared in it... and even where the library music came from!

Down Time

When Time Hole was completed, we weren't content to sit around kicking our heels: and so the new Down Time series was intended as an even more in-depth look at various aspects of the show both on and off the screen. From in-depth thematic analysis to historical overviews of merchandise and other media, the articles have continued to be added to as part of the Analysis and History sections of the current site.

Mr Flibble Talks To...

If there's someone even tenuously connected to Red Dwarf, you can bet our favourite penguin glove puppet has managed to have a chat to them at some point: just go digging through the Interviews archive to see what we mean. Mr Flibble went into semi-retirement with the departure of his "right hand man" Andrew in 2011, but made a brief comeback for a huge and in-depth 25th anniversary interview with Doug Naylor on the past, present and future of the show.

Prelude to Nanarchy

Just what did happen between Series V and VI to cause the loss of Red Dwarf? It was a question only partly answered by the Series VII episode Nanarchy, but fleshed out with more detail by this web-exclusive comic strip, written by Andrew Ellard and first published here in 2005. It marks the first time since the closure of The Red Dwarf Smegazine that the crew's adventures have been officially told in comic book form!

Geek Chase

This amazing online treasure hunt was created to tie in to the Beat the Geek DVD game release in 2006. You can't win £5,000 by playing it any more - but you can still gain the immense satisfaction of getting to the end, if you can overcome its incredibly fiendish and inventive difficulty...

Space Corps Database

Our not-entirely-serious but nevertheless pretty darned comprehensive guide to almost every person, creature, droid, ship, gadget and - um - illness that has ever been featured in the show.

Whether this is your first visit to reddwarf.co.uk, or if you've been here since the very beginning - or anywhere on the scale in between - then we thank you heartily for being a part of the last fifteen years. We're proud of the work we've done in keeping an active web presence for the show over all this time (heck, even Star Trek hasn't managed that), and hopefully you've enjoyed it too. We hope you'll continue to stick with us for Red Dwarf's bright and ongoing future - after all, who knows how many series we might be talking about by the time the next fifteen years are up...?

Keep up with reddwarf.co.uk every Friday for the very latest Red Dwarf news and updates!