the sheer amount of grief the red dwarf characters must be feeling off screen all the time astounds me, like even setting aside the incomprehensible reality of being 3 million years away from all of humanity they've all felt such extreme losses over the course of the show im surprised any of them can keep up the whole space adventures shindig
like in the series 2 to 3 timeskip lister had to give up his sons just after 3 days or risk their lives- had to watch them age at such an expedited rate if he blinked he would miss every major milestone, their first steps their first words all of it. and then to have to leave them to save them??? id be bloody inconsolable and then they just kinda move on from it
and rimmer? hes died multiple times, experienced the void and end of existence and been pulled back - and those years as a soft light hologram not being able to touch anything and needing to ask holly to simulate everything for him? never getting much of an actual choice over clothes, his body, what he can actually interact with (this concept was more prevalent in series 1 and 2 but nonetheless) sure he could ask for it but its not the same as getting the free will or real control over anything. AND THE 557 YEARS ON RIMMERWORLD ALSO like ??? they left you in that room, there alone, for five hundred and fifty seven years, thats 28,964 weeks, or 203,305 days thats INSANE. he doesnt even remember the names of his shipmates properly after all that. THATS ONLY AFTER THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW, MIND. before that he'd spent years being belittled and abused by his parents (so much so that a court emancipated him at only 14) his classmates, everyone in his life only tolerated and made snide remarks at him at Best.
cat too, his entire civilisation wiped themselves out, hes the only survivor of a 3 million year long race of people (granted it took them a while to get to humanoid but i rest my case)
even kryten and holly arent excluded from this overwhelming loss that pervades every aspect of the show, kryten spent possibly hundreds of years ignorant to the fact that the crew of his ship had died, i wonder if he ever wondered why they stopped speaking to him? stopped giving him laundry to fold, refusing to eat any food he made for him? and as for Holly, 3,000,000 years alone on a ship in the cold black vastness of space surrounded only by the ashes of the crew you once tended for, guiding them to safety, who were reliant on you, needing you for every part of their lives it would seem. really could make a computer go mad, that sort of thing