"Fundamentally, a Red Dwarf script is a battle plan for making a TV show, and as Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked, 'No battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy'. In Red Dwarf's case the enemy is what's possible, given a tight budget, a short production period, and the physical laws of the natural universe."
This covers a number of areas where real life circumstances alter the plot of an episode, e.g. the lack of suitable locations, timing when filming, the pregnancy of a lead actress (which happens a lot). Occurs often in Professional Wrestling. May overlap with Actor-Shared Background.
Not to be confused with Very Loosely Based on a True Story, Roman à Clef, or Ripped from the Headlines, where real-life events merely provide inspiration for a plot.
Specific instances:
— Grant Naylor, Red Dwarf: The Least Worst Scripts
- Absentee Actor
- Author Appeal
- Author Catchphrase
- Author Existence Failure
- Author Phobia
- Bottle Episode
- Bus Crash
- The Cast Showoff
- Character Aged with the Actor
- The Character Died with Him
- Christmas Rushed
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome
- Couple Bomb
- Creator Breakdown
- Creator Recovery
- Demoted to Extra
- Disabled Character, Disabled Actor
- Enforced Method Acting
- Executive Meddling
- Fake Shemp
- Fatal Method Acting
- Final Season Casting
- Hide Your Pregnancy
- Killed By Request
- Killed Off for Real
- Long-Runner Cast Turnover
- McLeaned
- Non-Gameplay Elimination
- The Nth Doctor
- The Other Darrin
- Out of Focus
- Posthumous Collaboration
- Post-Script Season
- Present Day
- Put on a Bus
- Reality Subtext
- Real-Life Relative
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor
- Screwed by the Lawyers
- Screwed by the Network
- Serendipity Writes the Plot
- The Shelf of Movie Languishment
- Temporary Substitute
- Too Soon
- Troubled Production
- Two Decades Behind
- We're Still Relevant, Dammit!
- Write Who You Know
- Writers Strike
- Written-In Absence
- Written-In Infirmity
