Category: Season 07

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