Tag: Season Finale

The Whole Ball Of Wax: Kryten saves Cat and Lister from the potentially lethal boredom of listening to Rimmer’s proud reminiscences of Risk games played in his youth by surprising everyone with the invention of the Matter Paddle, a device found in the ship’s labs which can instantaneously transmit the molecules of anyone holding onto it across vast distances. It can also locate the nearest suitable environment for its users. Rather than facing the deadly threat of listening to Rimmer’s stories anymore, everyone elects to find the nearest hospitable planet and do some exploring. Unfortunately, Kryten and Rimmer wind up in a grassy plain being pursued by terribly fake prehistoric monsters. Lister and Cat wind up in the war room of the Third Reich, but even stranger things begin to happen – the worst figures of human history have somehow combined their talents to make things even worse. In the meantime, Rimmer and Kryten have discovered that the same unusual convergence of good and decent historical personalities is taking place, but they’re being wiped out by history’s most hideous. Rimmer sees this as his calling, his destiny, and his chance to put all those Risk skills to valuable use. Unfortunately, for some reason, his army of wax-droids programmed with such personalities as Father Christmas, the Queen Mother, Ghandi, Elvis, Mother Theresa and Noel Coward doesn’t offer much hope of victory – or even surviving long enough to retreat. Lister and Cat escape the clutches of Hitler, Rasputin, and others, only to find themselves captured by another war-crazed megalomaniac: Rimmer. It’s going to take more than brute force to win the war, get the Matter Paddle back from the bad guys and escape, and whatever that is, Arnie’s army probably doesn’t have it…

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

Guest Cast: Clayton Mark (Elvis), Kenneth Hadley (Hitler), Martin Friend (Einstein), Stephen Tiller (Pythagoras), Jack Klaff (Abraham Lincoln), Tony Hawks (Caligula), Michael Burrell (Pope Gregory), Forbes Masson (Stan Laurel), Roger Blake (Noel Coward), Pauline Bailey (Marilyn Monroe)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Examining the submerged wreckage of the seeding ship Esperanto, Lister, Kryten and Cat discover that every form of life they find has committed suicide for reasons unknown. Upon the discovery of a venom with hallucinogenic properties, they start high-tailing it back to Starbug, unaware that the enormous, New-Mexico-sized squid from which this rather disgusting substance emerged is heading for Starbug even faster than they are. Trying to run for it, they are caught in a huge blast of the venom and Starbug crashes into the ocean floor. When they come to, the guys find that they’ve been playing a virtual reality game called “Red Dwarf” for the past four years, and they aren’t who they thought they were. Kryten is a cybernetic traffic cop named Jake Bullet; the Cat is Duane Dibbley, a completely uncool individual with no style, grace or dress sense, and an overbite that could eclipse most stars; Rimmer turns out to be the non-hologrammatic bum Billy Doyle; and Lister is revealed to be small-time fascist dictator Sebastian Doyle – Billy’s half brother. Things in the real world aren’t what they expected, and before they know it, our heroes Jake, Duane, Billy and Sebastian wish they were back on Red Dwarf. Since that option seems to be out of the question at the moment, they decide that suicide is comparitively painless.

written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor
directed by Grant Naylor
SSS Esperanto scenes directed by Juliet May
music by Howard Goodall

Guest Cast: Timothy Spall (Andy), Lenny Von Dohlen (Cop), Anastasia Hille (New Kochanski), Marie McCarthy (Nurse), John Sharian (New Lister)

LogBook entry by Earl Green