Closing the Gap

On the 21st March 1988, Danny John-Jules appeared as The Cat in the Red Dwarf episode “Me2“, the final episode of Series 1. On the 6th September 1988, Danny John-Jules appeared as The Cat in the Red Dwarf episode “Kryten”, the first episode of Series 2. But between those dates, on the 30th May 1988, Danny John-Jules appeared as The Cat in something altogether different: a show called Babylon 2, part of the BBC’s brand new youth strand DEF II. * * * I was really too young to watch DEF II. It aired on BBC2 between 1988 and 1994; I was only seven when it started. For that matter, I was also too young for Red Dwarf, at least when it came to our house’s viewing habits; I only got into that during the 1994 repeat run. I certainly don’t remember watching any of the three events listed at the start of this article. Which means I heard about Danny’s appearance on DEF II only as a myth, a dark fable, a horror tale, told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened space…