Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) - Fate

Fate

Throughout the previous series at least several glimpses of Lister's future have been seen:

• In the episode "Future Echoes" in the first series of the show, a vision of Lister is seen with him as a very old man of 171 years old with a mechanical prosthetic hand. This future version of Lister still has his dreadlocks, although they are over two metres long and almost white with age.
• In the episode "Cassandra" in the eighth series of the show, the Dwarfers make contact with a prophetic and clairvoyant computer that has the ability to predict the future without a margin of error. Lister is told by Cassandra that he will live to 181 years old and will die whilst trying to take a bra off with his teeth. Though Lister believed this was an incredibly sexy way to go, the others quickly pointed out that at 181 years old it may be his own bra, and that the teeth may not be in his mouth at the time (It should be noted that Cassandra was aware that Lister would kill her, and hence may not have been entirely honest about his fate).
• In the book Better Than Life, which explores different adventures than the TV series, Lister eventually discovers Earth, having previously become the dumping ground for the other populated planets within the Solar system, however when he finds it, it has left the orbit of the Solar system and finds that eight-foot-long cockroaches are the dominant species. He becomes their king and plans to rebuild the planet. The others find him thirty-six years later (after believing Lister was missing for a fortnight due to a time dilation). Later, after Lister dies of a heart attack in a confrontation with a polymorph, his body is taken to the alternative universe where time runs backwards and is told that he will be rescued in thirty-six years time. Two accounts of what followed are Backwards and Last Human.
• In Timeslides, when transported to an alternate reality in which he is rich and famous, Holly finds a news report stating he died in a plane crash aged 98; he was making love to his 14th wife at the time and lost control of the plane.