Despite dubbing it a “rip off” of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart is a big fan of a science fiction sitcom that first aired a year after TNG. The Star Trek format has lent itself well to comedy and parody for decades, from the movie Galaxy Quest to the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister”. The most notable Star Trek inspired comedy of recent years is Seth McFarlane’s The Orville, which, on airing in 2017, was pitched by the network as a sci-fi sitcom. However, The Orville is really a solid science fiction show that just so happens to have jokes in it.

The UK sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf, which has been written and produced as a sitcom since 1988, also deals with big science fiction concepts. Much like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Red Dwarf‘s popularity earned it some high-profile celebrity fans, like Professor Stephen Hawking. Another of Red Dwarf‘s celebrity fans is Patrick Stewart, who presented Red Dwarf Night, a celebration of the show on the BBC in 1998. In the video below, Patrick Stewart reveals that he initially believed Red Dwarf was ripping off what he and the cast of TNG had been doing in the US:

Why Patrick Stewart Believed That Red Dwarf Ripped Off Star Trek: TNG

Patrick Stewart’s story about reaching for the phone to call his lawyer is obviously a comic exaggeration on the Star Trek: The Next Generation star’s part. However, there is a possibility that Stewart did believe that the Red Dwarf episode he was watching had ripped off TNG. Patrick Stewart says that he first watched an episode of Red Dwarf during a visit to the UK in either 1993 or 1994. If it was 1993, then there’s a possibility Stewart watched Red Dwarf VI episode 3, “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”, which aired in October of that year.

“Gunmen of the Apocalypse” sees the Red Dwarf crew enter a virtual reality simulation of a Wild West town to defeat a computer virus affecting the ship’s android, Kryten (Robert Llewellyn). The storyline bears similarities to Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6, episode 8, “A Fistful of Datas”, which was directed by Patrick Stewart in 1992. However, “A Fistful of Datas” didn’t air in the UK until July 1993, two months before “Gunmen of the Apocalypse” aired on the BBC, so it’s unlikely that Rob Grant and Doug Naylor had seen the TNG episode before writing Red Dwarf‘s own cowboy episode.

What Star Trek: TNG Could Learn From Red Dwarf According To Patrick Stewart

The funniest element of Patrick Stewart’s Red Dwarf anecdote is that he chose not to phone his lawyer after the show made him laugh. The implicit suggestion being that Red Dwarf couldn’t possibly be ripping off Star Trek: The Next Generation because it was making people laugh. While TNG had its fair share of comedy episodes, there was a base level of self-importance that could prevent the cast from cutting loose. This was something that Patrick Stewart clearly lamented, as he told the Red Dwarf A-Z documentary in 1998:

“I sometimes wish we could have introduced that wild, ironic humour into the Next Generation”

Star Trek: The Next Generation is the most serious of the 1990s Trek shows, so it’s understandable that Patrick Stewart wished they could be a bit more like Red Dwarf. However, Stewart is also being a little hard on TNG, which delivered some of Star Trek‘s best comedy episodes. One of those episodes is “A Fistful of Datas”, and while it may not be as funny as Red Dwarf‘s “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”, it does provide insight into the level of “wild” comedy that Patrick Stewart wanted to bring into Star Trek: The Next Generation.