There is no
official American version of
Red Dwarf, but
NBC expressed interest and
Universal did film two
pilot episodes (one full
episode, one
promo) with
Grant Naylor consulting. The cast was as follows:
Lister -
Craig Bierko
Rimmer -
Chris Eigeman
Holly -
Jane Leeves
Cat -
Hinton Battle
Kryten -
Robert Llewellyn (the Kryten who stars in the UK show, but not as the first Kryten)
Kristine Kochanski -
Elizabeth Morehead
First Officer Munson -
Michael Heintzman (a hologram)
Captain Tau -
Lorraine Toussaint (Unfortunately, all I remember about the captain in
Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers was that she was a woman. I am not sure if her name was Tau. The captain in the UK show is
Frank Hollister.)
This version was written by and was filmed January 22, 1992 (my birthday!). The major differences are a clean-cut caucasian Lister, and instead of an 'H' on the forehead of all
holograms, there was a
silver marble. The pilot didn't make the cut.
The second, shorter promo-edition of the pilot included the return of the 'H' and two recastings. In the second version, Rimmer was played by
Anthony Fuscle (who?), and the new, female Cat was played by
Terry Ferrel (aka
Dax from
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). When this one didn't make the grade, the project was canned.
Because of problems w/ my
browser and
OS (I'll decline to say which ones), I can't post the script to the US pilot episode (too long). It does not appear to be copyrighted -- a
copyright message is at the end of the script but appears to apply to the show itself, and not the script. The script
seems to be in the
public domain and were I not experiencing browser problems, I would post it here myself. If you want to read it, you can find a copy at <http://www.crosswinds.net/~mvbeast/scripts/ams.htm>.
Paraphrased from The Red Dwarf FAQ at <http://home.interpath.net/pat/rd/faq.html#USVersion>