Prognosis: Having gone to the senior officers’ quarters to visit Kochanski’s cabin, Lister has unknowingly wandered into a quarantined area and caught a disease which was pneumonia 3,000,000 years ago, but is much worse now. Not only does the mutated strain leave its victims susceptible to hallucination, but it can also make those hallucinations real, and it does – when Lister imagines the two personas of his own confidence and paranoia. Rimmer tries to convince Lister that the two new arrivals are nothing but trouble, but when Lister’s confidence treats him like king of the hill, and his paranoia irritates the smeg out of Rimmer, how could it get any better than this?
written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard GoodallGuest Cast: Lee Cornes (Paranoia), Craig Ferguson (Confidence)
Notes: Yes, that is future late night talk show host Craig Ferguson, trying to woo Lister to his doom. At this very early stage in his career, Ferguson was a rising comedy star in the UK, and he would have his first shot at writing and performing his own solo material for TV only two years after this Red Dwarf episode aired. Ferguson has recently made it his mission to expose American viewers to Doctor Who, inviting stars Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston on his show. The only appearance by a Red Dwarf star on his show has been Hattie “Holly v2.0” Hayridge, in 2009.
LogBook entry by Earl Green