Category: Red Dwarf

Starbug’s supply situation is getting desperate, leaving Lister to dine on grilled space weevil (though he doesn’t know what incredibly unthinkable morsel Kryten has prepared for him), when Cat sounds a swirly thing alert based upon his nasal instincts. Rimmer orders this alert replaced by the only slightly more formal blue alert, and the intruding object Cat sensed finally appears – a heat-seeking device which envelops Starbug in an energy field and drags it into a huge, amazingly advanced space station which Kryten discovers is a top-secret research facility. A strange being – half organic, half mechanical – greets them by name, bestowing numerous gifts: hospitality, a feast, an impromptu appendectomy for Lister, and a hard light system for Rimmer, allowing him to touch objects. Legion does, however, set one condition upon his guests: they can never leave his station, for Legion depends on them for his own existence.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Andy De Emmony
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Nigel Williams (Legion)

Original Title: Call Me Legion

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Starbug is hunted by a Space Corps robot law enforcement vessel, and after taking several shots from the drone, Starbug is forced to land in the ocean in an attempt to put out uncontrollable fires. Unfortunately, Starbug has landed on a planet populated by hideous GELFs, and the ship’s oxy-generation unit is damaged beyond repair. As luck would have it, though, the leader of the local GELF tribe happens to have such a unit handy, and is willing to trade with the Starbug crew. But what he wants in exchange for the OG unit is a husband for the loveliest of his three horrifically hairy daughters, an honor he decides Lister is worthy of. Lister is persuaded to agree to marry the flea-ridden beauty, and the OG unit is given to Kryten. But when Lister runs for his life to escape his honeymoon, the tribal leader sends his pet polymorph after the Starbug crew – and only the combined talents of Duane Dibbley and “Ace” Rimmer can set things right!

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Andy De Emmony
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Hugh Quarshie (Computer), Martin Sims (GELF), Ainsley Harriot (GELF Chief), Steven Wickham (GELF Bride)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Starbug returns to the rogue simulant warship it fought before, from which Lister plans to raid the cargo bays for food. One of the simulants turns out to have survived the previous encounter with Starbug, and it isn’t happy. Any exchange of fire on the simulant ship will bring the interior crashing down on anyone inside. For a moment, it looks as though Rimmer might actually attempt a daring attack on the simulant from behind, but in reality he’s just sneaking over to an escape pod, whose launch destabilizes the ship. The others scramble back to Starbug and escape, but they’re unable to catch up with Rimmer’s escape pod as it tumbles into a wormhole. Due to relativistic time dilation, by the time Starbug catches up with Rimmer, 600 years will have passed for him. In that time, he will found a new society all his own…

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Andy De Emmony
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Liz Hickling (Rogue Simulant)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Fresh from his latest round of heroic deeds, Ace Rimmer returns from the past, on a mission to find his counterpart on Starbug. Ace just isn’t the same Ace anyone remembers – in fact, Ace is now a hard-light hologram, having replaced the original Ace. The funny thing about all those heroics is that they seem to lead to a high death rate. And “Ace” is here to recruit Red Dwarf’s own resident smeghead as the universe’s next hero. But “Ace” can’t finish Rimmer’s training before his own light bee powers down for the last time.

The universe is in a hell of a lot of trouble.

written by Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Brian Cox (The King), Ken Morley (Captain Voorhese), Sarah Alexander (Queen), John Thompson (Good Knight), Alison Senior (Princess Bonjella), Mark Carlisle (Lieutenant), Mark Lingwood (Gestapo Officer), Kai Maurer (Soldier), Stephan Grothgar (Soldier), Andy Gell (Soldier), Alison (Voorhese’s crocodile)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A sleepless night on Starbug is made even worse when a generator failure leaves the ship dead in space (with just enough momentum to carry it on an uncontrolled dive toward a rather large star). The only way to get to the backup systems is an arduous trek through the ship’s duct system, facing such hazards as drying cycles and the backwash from urine recyc. Lister suffers from claustrophobia in the tiny crawlways – well, actually, to be honest, they’re not all that tiny. And worse yet, the crew discover that this calamity has been engineered by a force which isn’t so much sinister as it is simply paranoid…

written by Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: two uncredited GELFs

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Lister’s overconfidence in flying the ship results in his almost destroying Starbug by driving through the tail of a comet, which for some reason leaves his fellow crewmembers rather upset. Perhaps it’s the general smegginess of the situation, perhaps it’s the atypical rush of bravado, or maybe it’s just insanity, but one visit to the supply room and one very disturbing dream later, Lister misses Rimmer. Fortunately, Kryten thinks he can help cure Lister of his loneliness, whether it takes hypnosis…or worse!

written by Kim Fuller & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: none

Original title: Heartache

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Kryten prepares a sumptuous dinner in celebration of the anniversary of the day Lister and Rimmer rescued him from the Nova 5. Kochanski derails his plans with a group vacation to a Jane Austen artificial reality program. Kryten ensures that her plan tanks, so to speak, and forces the others to join him for dinner – but Kryten ends up dining on ashes, for two reasons. The first reason is that no one seems particularly grateful to have been led to the dinner table at gunpoint, and the second – and rather more important – reason is that Kryten’s head explodes at the sheer ingratitude of his comrades. His spare heads also blow when Lister tries to repair him. Kryten’s only hope exists in the form of another 4000-series mechanoid named Able, a decrepit old droid who has been reduced to an electronic zombie by a secret which will be revealed to Kryten when he is reactivated.

written by Robert Llewellyn & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Robert Llewellyn (Able), Don Henderson (Simulant), Vicky Ogden (Mrs. Bennet), Alina Proctor (Jane Bennett), Catherine Harvey (Kitty Bennet), Sophia Thierens (Lydia Bennet), Rebecca Katz (Mary Bennet), Julia Lloyd (Elizabeth Bennet)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Kochanski spots a large chunk of ice in space, containing the long-dead Jupiter Mining Corporation supply ship Leviathan. The entire crew, as it happens, is dead – with the singular exception of a former Red Dwarf crewmember frozen in a block of ice. Once brought aboard Starbug, however, the mysteriously preserved human turns out to be a walking cadaver infected with a 100% fatal intelligent virus called Epideme – which is quickly passed along to Lister when his new visitor can’t keep her hands off him. Kochanski and Kryten take extreme measures to chase Epideme out of Lister’s body, but instead of boosting his immune system, they disarm him instead.

written by Paul Alexander & Doug Naylor
directed by Ed Bye
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Nicky Leatherbarrow (Caroline Carmen), Gary Martin (Epideme)

LogBook entry by Earl Green