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"Dad" is the title of a so-called "lost episode" of the British science fiction comedy television series, Red Dwarf.

"Dad" would have been the opening episode to the third series of the show. In plot, it was to be a direct continuation of the preceding episode, "Parallel Universe", the final episode of the second series. In that last episode, Lister had slept with a female version of himself in a parallel dimension, before finding out that he was pregnant, as in that particular dimension it is the men who fall pregnant.

The following "Dad" episode was to cover a number of numerous points in the show, but was to primarily deal with Lister's pregnancy. The idea was ultimately rejected by the show's writers and producers, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who felt that the script was not as funny as previous episodes. Another reason it was rejected was because it was possibly even sexist.^{[citation needed]}

"Dad" was replaced with the episode "Backwards", which became the first episode of the third series. The events of Lister's pregnancy (and other unseen events which take place in between series II and III) are looked over. Some of these events - such as what happened to Lister's unborn child/children, why Kryten had suddenly reappeared from an appearance as a guest character in one episode of the previous series to become a regular and established member of the cast, where Kryten had been in-between, and why Holly's image had changed from a male to a female - were very briefly referenced in the pre-title Star Wars-eque scroll sequence of the episode "Backwards".

Contrary to what many fans of the show believe^{[citation needed]}, "Dad" would not have followed the pre-credits sequence of "Backwards" to the letter. For example, Lister would not have been pregnant with twins - instead he would give birth to a single son. Also, apparently Lister would have rebuilt Kryten while "heavily pregnant", and not "shortly afterwards" as the pre-title "Backwards" scroll suggests. Additionally, unless male Holly actor Norman Lovett was to make a guest appearance in the episode it's possible that Holly would have first appeared as a female at the very beginning of the episode.

Some of the events were referenced in the pre-title sequence of the episode "Backwards". This was one of two episodes to parody the Star Wars opening crawl (the other episode to do this being "Dimension Jump" in the fourth series of the show). The text explains the changes that were made going from series two to three; however, the scrolling was strangely sped up faster than most viewers could actually read, perhaps for the purposes of comedy. Here is the text:

Red Dwarf Series III

Three million years in the future, Dave Lister, the last human being alive, discovers he is pregnant after a liaison with his female self in a parallel universe. His pregnancy concludes with the successful delivery of twin boys, Jim and Bexley. However, because the boys were conceived in another universe, with different physical laws, they suffer from highly accelerated growth rates and are both eighteen years old within three days of being born. In order to save their lives, Lister returns them to the universe of their origin, where they are reunited with their father (a woman), and are able to lead comparatively normal lives. Well, as normal as you can be if you've been born in a parallel universe and your father's a woman and your mother's a man and you're eighteen years old three days after your birth.

Shortly afterward, Kryten, the service mechanoid, who had left the ship after being rescued from his own crashed vessel, the Nova 5, is found in pieces after his space bike crashed into an asteroid. Lister rebuilds the 'noid, but is unable to recapture his former personality.

Meanwhile, Holly, the increasingly erratic computer, performs a head sex change operation on himself. He bases his new face on Hilly, a female computer with whom he'd once fallen madly in love.

And now the saga continuums...

Red Dwarf: The Same Generation (nearly)

"Dad" is not available for viewing (as it was never filmed) or even to read in written script form (as the script was never actually completed, being abandoned halfway through).

Another "lost episode" of Red Dwarf ("Identity Within") was made available as a DVD bonus feature using the original storyboards and voice talents of Chris Barrie. This process will be repeated in the upcoming DVD release of "The Bodysnatcher Collection" with a lost episode from Series I named "Bodysnatcher". Because the script for "Dad" was never completed, a script extract done in the same style will appear in "The Bodysnatcher Collection", among other such extracts of abandoned stories.