I've said elsewhere on the "Babylon 5" discussion that Kubrick's "2001" has aged better in many ways than Hyams' "2010" which came out many years later. In the same vein, CGI has a nasty habit of aging more quickly than practical effects. There is stuff from the nineties which looks worse than the seventies as a result.

In the case of "Red Dwarf", the genius was in having the ship be an ugly industrial environment in the vein of "Dark Star", "Alien", "Outland" etc. That allowed for sets to be built easily and cheaply. I think some of it was even filmed in a BBC canteen/cafeteria.