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Doug Naylor hints at Red Dwarf revival

‘Red Dwarf’ creator Doug Naylor has hinted at making more episodes of the sci-fi comedy.

The 64-year-old writer has teased plans to revive the show – which first aired in 1988 – although he wasn’t clear on whether it would come in the form of more specials or a whole series of episodes.

Doug shared: "There are still so many areas we can explore. Everyone wants to do more. UKTV wants to do more.

"I’m working on a couple of things right now, and hopefully, when we come on the other side of [the pandemic], we’ll start shooting it. The appetite is there so we’d like to keep going."

The popular sci-fi series featured the likes of Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn – and Doug feels there’s still "an infinite amount" of things he can do with their characters.

He told SyFy: "The truth is it wouldn’t have lasted [if I’d written primarily for one character]. They’d have left.

"You have to be able to write a part for each of them, you know. And you wouldn’t be able to do that if you thought, ‘Oof, this person. There’s nothing left in the tank. There’s no new stories’.

"But it just seems there’s an infinite amount of things we can do and always has done, so there’s a wonderful opportunity to explore all kinds of things."

Chris Barrie – who plays Arnold Rimmer – recently admitted he’d love to star in more feature-length specials.

He recently said: "When you do a special, it’s equivalent to three half-hours, whereas when you’re doing a series, it’s six half-hours and that does take it out of you.

"The shorter shoot time at the moment would suit me, so yeah, a special I think is preferable, and get to do a nice longer story again so you can explore more."