Category: Red Dwarf

Things That Will Have Been Happening: Lister is preparing to go back into stasis, hoping to be alive and well after a few million years more when Red Dwarf should arrive back at Earth. Lister is also trying unsuccessfully to get Cat to join him in suspended animation, but is having a hard time convincing Cat to leave most of his wardrobe behind. In the meantime, Rimmer – by insulting Holly when asking for a holographic crew cut – sports a dashing and rakish beehive ‘do from Earth’s 1950s, and is outraged at the others’ plan to leave him behind while they sleep through the aeon or so it will take the ship to return home. Shortly after Lister argues with his artificially intelligent Toaster over which of them is a better singer, the ship lurches wildly as it breaks the light barrier once more to make its way home. Lister continues shaving when he notices that the Lister in the mirror isn’t doing the same things at the same time he himself is. (Confused yet?) Holly claims that, since Red Dwarf is traveling faster than light, events that are about to happen are catching up with the crew before they actually do happen. The Toaster backs this theory up, so it must be true, and everyone goes on about their merry way, though the echoes of future events get stranger and stranger, from Cat breaking his tooth to Lister finding a Polaroid (though luckily not a double Polaroid) of himself holding two babies. Then Rimmer witnesses a future event which casts a bit of gloom on the proceedings – Lister’s death while making emergency repairs in the drive room.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: John Lenahan (Talkie Toaster), Tony Hawks (Dispensing Machine)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Current Pecking Order: Lister tires of Rimmer’s plan to catalog all the irradiated haggises aboard Red Dwarf and decides instead to take the day off. Lister complains to Holly that instead of Rimmer, the hologram of Kristine Kochanski, a navigator who Lister had a crush on, should have been brought back. Lister goes to Rimmer with the very attractive proposition that Rimmer could be shut down for a while so Lister can spend time with Kochanski. (It’s attractive for Lister, anyway.) Rimmer naturally refuses, so Lister resorts to desperate measures to take a computer course and become the ship’s chef, therefore outranking Rimmer. Holly tries once more to dissuade Rimmer from insulting him by replacing one of Rimmer’s holographic arms with that of Olaf Petersen, a dimwitted Dane and old friend of Lister’s. Rimmer is also getting a little desperate, and so he tries to get Lister to give up the chef’s exam by walking in the guise of Kochanski’s hologram. Even that backfires when Lister sees through Rimmer – well, more so than usual, anyway!

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Rupert Bates (Trout a la Creme/Chef), Paul Bradley (Chen), David Gillespie (Selby), Mark Williams (Petersen), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Let Us Pray: When Holly spots an unidentified pod floating through space, Rimmer hopes he’s found aliens with the technology to return a hologram to physical form. Lister, in the meantime, is learning how to read cat writing with the aid of Cat’s dictionary, written entirely in smells. Lister advances far enough in the cat language to move on to their Holy Book, which tells the story of Cloister the Stupid, who was frozen in time so that the cat race could live. Lister quickly recognizes from the pictures in this book that he is Cloister, who was sentenced to stasis when he refused to reveal the whereabouts of his unquarantined cat. Lister tries to convince Cat that he is the cat equivalent of God, though for some reason Cat isn’t impressed. Upon the arrival of the mysterious pod, Rimmer decides to embark on an all-out investigation of its origins. Lister quickly discovers that it’s one of Red Dwarf’s own garbage pods, but doesn’t tell this to Rimmer right away or, for that matter, at all. Holly has also been hard at work deciphering Cat’s Bible for Lister, and it reveals that the cat race took all too seriously Lister’s humble desire to go to Fiji and open a donut stand – the cats made this goal their own, with the exception of the colors on the little cardboard hats. Factions who believed the hats should be one color or another divided and took up arms, and most of Cat’s ancestors died in terribly holy wars, with the exception of an ark full of cats which escaped. As Rimmer continues theorizing about his discovery of “Quagaar warriors,” Lister tries to find Cat so he can apologize for being God. In the end, Rimmer sees it is a garbage pod, says it is a smegging garbage pod, and yea, it is a garbage pod, amen.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cats: Noel Coleman (Cat Priest), John Lenahan (Talkie Toaster)

Notes: Lots of smeggy little tidbits in this story for those who are interested: at the time of this episode, 18 weeks had passed since Lister had come out of stasis; Cat’s parents were a cripple and an idiot (and his father ate his own feet), and the last of the cats aside from the Cat we know and…well, know, is seen here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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 Goodall

Guest 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

What Goes Down: Rimmer upon Red Dwarf’s wrestling champion Yvonne McGruder, or so he claims; however, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. A mail pod arrives, containing all kinds of junk mail, a few Total Immersion Video Games (addictive virtual reality games that sense the player’s subconscious desires and brings them to life), Rimmer’s tax notification, and a letter from Rimmer’s mother which informs him that his father is dead. Despite Lister’s best efforts (and Cat’s worst) to cheer him up, Rimmer becomes very depressed. Lister and Cat talk Rimmer into joining them in a T.I.V. game known as “Better Than Life,” which was all the rage three million years ago in Earth’s solar system. They find themselves in a world where their innermost desires come true; Lister and Cat find a restaurant where they can at last order, respectively, a caviar vindaloo and a tank of live fish. Rimmer imagines McGruder, the victim/partner in the one and only sexual experience of his entire lifetime, and Cat imagines Marilyn Monroe as well as a mermaid whose body is fishlike on top and humanoid below the waist. But Lister and Cat haven’t counted on Rimmer’s self-abusive psyche…

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: John Abineri (Rimmer’s Dad), Debbie Ash (Marilyn Monroe), Jeremy Austin (Rathbone), Nigel Carrivick (The Captain), Judy Hawkins (McGruder), Tony Hawks (The Guide), Tina Jenkins (The Newsreader), Ron Pember (The Taxman), Gordon Salkillo (Gordon)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A Quick Reminder: It’s Rimmer’s deathday, which Lister, Holly and the Cat are probably celebrating more elaborately than they would be if it were his birthday. They all get well pissed, but even the worst hangover doesn’t account for how they wake up the next morning – Lister and Cat each have one foot in a cast, Rimmer remembers confessing in a drunken stupor to Lister that he’s only had sex once with something that wasn’t inflatible, there are gaps in Holly’s memory, and worst of all, someone’s finished the puzzle that Lister had been trying to finish. Naturally, the ship’s black box recorder would have the information they’re after, but even this has gone missing, at least until it is found buried on a nearby moon. When they find out just what has happened, Rimmer and Lister wish they could just forget all about it…

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Sabra Williams (Lise Yates)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Contents Of Rimmer’s Diary: After Lister discovers an unusual entry in the diary of the late Arnold J. Rimmer, a stasis leak is discovered on Red Dwarf which allows the guys to visit the past only a few weeks before the accident that killed the ship’s entire crew. The catch – they can’t bring anything or anyone back with them, since the time differential will reduce that person or object to a pile of albino mouse droppings. Lister and Rimmer each embark on a quest to convince someone from the past to go into stasis and thus join them in the future – Lister, of course, tries to find Kochanski. Rimmer also tries to deliver the message to the person he cares about most: himself. But they discover that smegging about with time can have truly bizarre results.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Morwenna Banks (The Lift Hostess), Sophie Doherty (Kochanski’s Roommate), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski), Richard Hainsworth (The Medical Orderly), Tony Hawks (The Suitcase), Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister), Mark Williams (Petersen)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Damage Report From The Damaged Damage Report Machine: Holly kicks off a banner day in Red Dwarf history by neglecting to tell anyone that there’s a meteor about to collide with the ship. The resulting collision manages to nearly destroy the hologram simulation suite, sending various parts of Rimmer’s mind and body off in different directions simultaneously, and Lister nearly gets electrocuted trying to fix it. When they return to the drive room, a new face appears on the screen – Queeg 500, Red Dwarf’s backup computer, a supposedly more efficient system with all the caring concern of a drill sergeant. Queeg ousts Holly from the main computer and takes control.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Charles Augins (Queeg)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Holly thinks she’s spotted five black holes, and the guys split up and evacuate Red Dwarf in case it’s not small enough to escape the black holes’ gravity. Lister and Rimmer set out in Starbug, while Kryten and Cat depart aboard Blue Midget. En route, Starbug crashes onto an icy moon, and it’s unlikely to be found before the meager supplies on board are gone. Faced with the grave choice of eating either a pot noodle or dog food to survive, Lister begins to lose hope and body heat. He asks Rimmer to sacrifice some of his worldly goods to serve as firewood – and Rimmer, naturally, refuses. Lister therefore sacrifices some of Rimmer’s worldly goods anyway.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: none

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A spacecraft tumbles through space adrfit, its cargo of highly dangerous life forms having escaped. The genetic mutant that has freed itself seeks out the mentally unstable and the flat-out-neurotic, so naturally it homes in on Red Dwarf in short order. It changes its shape to hide and then to paralyze its victims with fear while it drains their negative emotions. It manages to infiltrate Lister’s dinner, but it then induces paralyzing fear by turning into a monster which fits the rough identikit picture of Lister’s worst nightmare, and drains all the fear from him. Rimmer, Cat and Kryten, after subduing the now-fearless Lister, set out after the creature, but it manages to snare each of them, removing Kryten’s politeness, Cat’s sense of style, and Rimmer’s aggressiveness. Lister is left in a state of suicidal kamikaze bravado; Kryten is a tactless, insulting jerk; Cat has changed into some comfortable rags and gotten well sloshed; and Rimmer wants to try to negotiate with the alien, or, failing that, launch a ship-wide campaign to non-violently protest its presence.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Frances Barber (Genny), Simon Gaffney (Young Rimmer), Kalli Greenwood (Mrs. Rimmer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green