Red Dwarf - 30 Years of Starbug 1

On this day on the 14th November 1989, the first episode of Red Dwarf III, 'Backwards', introduced a brand new craft, which was to become over time, a legend in her own right - STARBUG 1 !.

The series original craft was the much smaller Blue Midget, but with the inclusion of new-ish character Kryten, now being played by actor Robert Llewellyn, the cockpit of Blue Midget was just too small to house 4 main characters, so a new craft was needed to house them, preferably with a larger cockpit.

Originally, Blue Midget was ment to be replaced by a new ship called the White Midget. During the building of this new craft, the designers noticed the ship was becoming more rounded and bug shaped, so they decided to go for their own name 'Starbug'. The shows creators loved the name, and had no doubt suggested it be painted green . . green was a good idea, because the 2nd episode of Series III, entitled 'Marooned', saw the craft crash landing on an Ice Planet, and if the ship was painted white, then it would be hard to spot among all the white snow, so being painted green was a great idea that time !.

In a way, Starbug 1 seemed to replace Blue Midget for good, but both ship's did appear in use during Series III, but later on, the original craft seemed to disappear from the show and be replaced by Starbug 1 entirely. Blue Midget would return in Series VIII by 1999 with a new look, and appear to replaced Starbug 1 during Series X in 2012 . . thou Starbug 1 was once again the main craft in Series XI and XII for 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Now here's a question for you all reading this -

The answer to that question is NO, because despite being called 'Starbug 1', it it not the same Starbug in every single series since Series III. Allow me to explain.

in her debut episode 'Backwards', the real Starbug 1 was only used by Rimmer and Kryten, and was lost to them after they end up crashing on a version of Earth where time is running backwards. In the same story, Lister and Rimmer go in search of them in Starbug 2, clearly indicated with the number 2 on a door behind Lister and Rimmer in the cockpit. They take Rimmer and Kryten home onboard Starbug 2 at the end of the story, but obviously, never recover Starbug 1 from the backwards Earth, so the original, true Starbug 1 was abandoned, only appearing in that one, single story.

The next episode was 'Marooned', and the Starbug 1 in that story is obviously Starbug 2, with her number repainted as Starbug 1. Lister and Rimmer ended up crashing on an Ice Planet in this story, and once recovered by Kryten and Cat and taken back to Red Dwarf, it is clearly shown right after the end credits of this story, that Starbug 2, now renamed Starbug 1, had also been abandoned.

So the next Starbug seen after 'Marooned' is obviously a Starbug 3 . . renamed Starbug 1 !!! . . it's never mentioned in the series, but obviously each time they lose a Starbug craft, Kryten no doubt is ordered by Rimmer perhaps to repaint the numbers to 1 on the next Starbug they have avalible. This also helped with continuity in the BBC era stories of the series, as footage of the Starbug 1 model was re-used many times, and the name Starbug 1 is obviously noticed throughout.

But just how many Starbug's then have the boys been using and calling Starbug 1 ?. We saw a a fleet of them at the end of Series VIII in 'Only the good . .' being used by the ressurected crew to abandon the Red Dwarf ship herself when she was ment to be destroyed, along with a whole fleet of Blue Midget craft, and in a most recent series of Red Dwarf, the interior of Starbug 1 in the ship's mid-section says that it is Starbug 19, despite still saying Starbug 1 on the outside . . but is it really their 19th Starbug in use ? . . something to think about there I'm sure you'll agree !.

Kryten once claimed "Starbug was built to last, this old babies crashed more times then a ZX-81 !" . . that's a maybe Kryten, but it's obviously NOT the same Starbug you lost on this day 30 years ago !!!.