[DemonHorse]

Ah Red Dwarf. The special effects were awful, the ratings were never great and the continuity, well, didn't really exist, but God it was great.

Ironically the original effects with model Dwarf, Starbug, Blue Midget etc were better than the 'remastered' versions with CGI effects.

[Yudster]

And the continuity only went awry after season 5 (or 6 maybe). Well, whenever they lost Red Dwarf and Kochansky became a regular character instead of a kind of fantasy tangent. Really, thats when it got lost, when they lost Red Dwarf and ditched the original story.

[Console]

The continuity was also messed up a lot between series two and three. For example, Lister's two children were sent to the parallel dimension so one of them couldn't be blown up as seen in future echo's.

[Yudster]

I thought that all panned out in the end didn't it?

[Zoot]

I think the reason they were sent to the parallel universe was to stop them being blown up in the first place...
Season 6 was good, even when they lost the Dwarf. Series 7 they brought Kochanski back and lost Rimmer, so the balance between the characters was lost, then in Season 8, they changed the whole 'last human with his mismatched friends lost alone in space' altogether and it just turned into 'porridge in space'.
Series 2 was my all time favourite though, you can't beat Queeg...

[Console]

They were sent to the parallel universe because they were rapidly aging (due to different physical laws). That means that they cannot come back and be blown up as was seen in series 1.

[DemonHorse]

And the continuity only went awry after season 5 (or 6 maybe). Well, whenever they lost Red Dwarf and Kochansky became a regular character instead of a kind of fantasy tangent. Really, thats when it got lost, when they lost Red Dwarf and ditched the original story.

After series 6 it sort of was an alternate timeline/reality anyways. Lister blows up cameras trying to explain this in the intro to series 7. They were blown up by their future selves, but because their future selves killed them, the future selves couldn't be there to kill them as they were already dead. Love the headaches of timetravel

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

They were sent to the parallel universe because they were rapidly aging (due to different physical laws). That means that they cannot come back and be blown up as was seen in series 1.

Yes they can. Its called fiction.

[Console]

Yes, you're right, they could come back, but not without breaking the continuity, which was my point.