[4] The plot features the crew waking up after a crash to discover that the last four years of their lives has been spent in a "Total Immersion Video Game" called Red Dwarf.
A moment later, the crew awaken from Artificial Reality machines and discover that they have been playing "Red Dwarf – The Total Immersion Video Game" for four years, gaining a score of only 4%, and that the length of time has left them with temporary memory loss.
"Back to Reality" was the first script written for series 5,[6] and it was thought of at the time that this would be the final series as there looked like there would be a cast availability problem: Chris Barrie was starring in the increasingly popular sitcom Brittas Empire, while Robert Llewellyn was appearing in Red Dwarf USA, a Red Dwarf pilot commissioned by American production company NBC, with the possibility of being committed to that for several years.
Timothy Spall and Marie McCarthy played two employees, a staff worker named Andy and a nurse, respectively, attending to the 'Red Dwarf Total Immersion Video Game'.
The episode was originally broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 26 March 1992 in the 9:00pm evening time slot,[3] and is generally considered to be one of the best of the entire series' run.
"[14] At the end of 1992 the episode helped the fifth series gain a nomination for an International Emmy Award,[15] and in 1995, following a BBC viewers vote, it was repeated on 22 December 1995 as 'The Best-Ever Red Dwarf'.