Dad (Red Dwarf) - A Lost Episode

A Lost Episode

"Dad" would have been the opening episode to the third series of the show. In plot, it was to be a direct continuation of the preceding episode, "Parallel Universe", the final episode of the second series. In that last episode, Lister had slept with a female version of himself in a parallel dimension, before finding out that he was pregnant, as in that particular dimension it is the men who bear children.

The following "Dad" episode was to cover a number of points in the show, but was to primarily deal with Lister's pregnancy. The idea was ultimately rejected by the show's writers and producers, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who felt that the script was not as funny as previous episodes. In The Red Dwarf Programme Guide, Chris Howarth and Steve Lyons write that another reason "Dad" was rejected was because it was possibly sexist.

The released script extract shows that "Dad" would not have followed the pre-credits sequence of "Backwards" to the letter. For example, Lister would not have been pregnant with twins: instead he would give birth to a single son. Also, apparently Lister would have rebuilt Kryten while "heavily pregnant", and not "shortly afterwards" as the pre-title "Backwards" scroll suggests. Additionally, unless male Holly actor Norman Lovett was to make a guest appearance in the episode it's likely that Holly would have first appeared as a female at the very beginning of the episode.