"The End" is the pilot episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf which was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 15 February 1988. The episode introduces the main characters and sets up the story backbone of the series. On the mining ship Red Dwarf, Dave Lister is placed in stasis for refusing to give up the whereabouts of his forbidden pet cat. When he emerges from stasis, three million years later, he discovers that everybody has died from a radiation leak.