Red Dwarf

[Slim]

III:4 Bodyswap

In my opinion, this episode contains the single funniest gag of any Red Dwarf episode. It involves the ship's auto-destruct mechanism. Absolutely brilliant.

But the main theme of this one is Rimmer's idea to swap his own mind into Lister's body, ostensibly so he can get it fit and healthy for him, by eating and exercising properly and cutting out the booze and ciggies. Lister's concerned that he's putting on weight (and actually Craig Charles had filled out a bit by this time), so he agrees to it.

Naturally, Rimmer abuses this arrangement.

Fun to see Barrie and Charles impersonating each other's characters, with the assistance of a bit of vocal dubbing of course. They both do it very believably.

Mainly set in Red Dwarf again, and once again the industrial look is preferred - looks like it was filmed in some gloomy interior of a power station or a chemical works, or something. All metal walkways and pipes.

Superb.

[Slim]

III:5 Timeslides

Lister is depressed; tired of life as the last human, maroooned on a huge mining vessel.

Meanwhile, Kryten is developing some snaps in the photo lab. This yields some surprising results: the slides he's developed have become portals to the scenes depicted in them, so that when they're projected, the boys can jump through the screen into the past!

This is because the developing fluid has mutated. It's a stretch, isn't it? But what didn't seem so much of a stretch when I first saw this was the idea that film processing would still be a thing in the late 21st century.

Anyway - Lister manages to take advantage of this, so he can alter the timeline and avoid being marooned in a huge spacecraft, three million years in the future. And naturally, Rimmer manages to mess it up for him.

Ruby Wax appears briefly. Koo Stark has a speaking part! I'd forgotten about that.

There's some incidental music with the lyrics:

He's got a Swatch watch and a Filofax
So he can correlate his facts

Don't think you can get much more late '80s than that.

Really a very good one. Watching these in quick succession has confirmed for me that Red Dwarf really hits its stride in the third series.

[pxr5]

Red Dwarf is one of my, and my wife's, favourite TV shows of all time. (I have the box set on DVD; 2 of the series came with a Scutter  and a Starbug model - which are displayed prominently on a shelf here). I've seen every episode so many times - brilliant stuff.

[Slim]

III:6 The Last Day

The crew receive a notification from Kryten's manufacturers: he's about to be shut down and replaced. There's even a video message, featuring a representative (from "Diva-Droid International").

This raises an interesting question. Kryten was was not part of the original crew, so presumably he - and Diva-Droid International - have their origins three million years in the future. The man who presents the message seems to be human, so - is Lister the last human, or not?

Furthermore, humanity doesn't seem to have advanced (or indeed evolved) much over three million years. Sure, there are sentient androids, but even aboard Red Dwarf three million years previously there were conscious holograms and an advanced AI ship's computer.

Anyway it's not a bad one, not a great one. It certainly has some good gags and funny moments. The would-be replacement android definitely owes something to Terminator.

[Slim]

IV:1 Camille

And so, Red Dwarf IV begins. I'd say that IV and V are peak Red Dwarf. This was first shown in February 1991. At the time I'd moved out of the house in Markfield I'd bought with my first partner Sara, and I was lodging with one of the mechanical engineers at the Rolls-Royce site where I worked. I was about to buy my own place in Derby.

I'd go out with my work pals on a Thursday night to a pub in Derby called the Blessington, so I used to set my VCR, which I'd set up with a little telly in my room and watch Red Dwarf when I got back. I saved all the episodes for posterity of course, so I've probably seen this one at least five times - it's a bit of a classic. So I wasn't particularly looking forward to watching it again, but actually I really enjoyed it.

The crew answer a distress call and rescue a lifeform from a crashed spaceship, but the lifeform appears different to each one of them. Ends with a nice pastiche to Casablanca, which is one of those films I've never got round to watching. I must do that.

Robert Llewellyn's performance as Kryten in this one is brilliant, especially when Lister is trying to teach him to break his programming and call Rimmer a "smeghead".

One thing that annoys me about this episode is that Kryen pronounces ASCII as "A S C 2".

[Slim]

IV:2 DNA

Another absolute classic. The crew detect and board another spacecraft, with the remains of a hideously mutated human aboard. It contains a DNA modifier device, capable of altering organic life at the molecular level.

Lister gets turned into a chicken after the cat fiddles with the controls. Fortunately, it's only temporary. Then Kryten is transformed into a human.

The dialogue between Kryten and Lister while the former android is attempting to adjust to life as a human is absolutely priceless. I don't think Red Dwarf ever gets any better than this. There's prolific squealing in the audience. And Llewellyn's timing and delivery are pure gold.

Later, as an unexpected consequence of a test, Lister's curry gets transformed into a vindaloo monster. The ensuing scenes are strongly reminiscent of the Polymorph episode from Red Dwarf III. But the script acknowledges this.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in Red Dwarf. Lister is implied to be from the 23rd century in this episode, though in one of the first series episodes it's claimed he's from the late 21st century. Actually the scenes in which he visits his younger self in Timeslides look a lot like the 1980s.

Also, in this episode, while telling one of his anecdotes, Lister states that "Kochanski had just finished with me and I was feeling pony". It's already well established that he never asked her out.

Curious, considering the same two writers are involved throughout (until Red Dwarf VII, when there's  only one of them).

Anyway, nitpicks aside - this is brilliant telly.

[Slim]

IV:3 Justice

Red Dwarf takes an escape pod from a prison ship on board. But does it contain one of the prison officers, or a criminal psychopathic simulant? (clue - it's not a prison officer). The boys attempt to return it to the prison ship.

I think this would be a run of the mill one except for three things. The idea of the "justice zone" on the prison ship which is clever as well as nicely surrealist. Rimmer's appeal scene (the prison ship computer immediately gives him a very long custodial sentence for second degree murder, because he's responsible for the drive plate accident that killed the Red Dwarf crew) -in which Kryten delivers a brilliantly funny case for the defence. And a mainly visual joke about Lister having space mumps, which has nothing to do with the plot but is very funny nonetheless.

I actually don't mind the inconsistencies in Red Dwarf because it is after all a half hour comedy, but this episode does highlight an interesting one. If Rimmer's main duties, while alive, were maintaining the ship's vending machines, how could he be responsible for a job that, if not done properly, could kill the entire crew?

Another one that arises from this episode is that in the first series, we're told that Lister is the lowest ranking of 169 crew members. In this one, we're told that Rimmer's failure to do the drive plate properly killed 1,167 crew members.

Still - a good one.

Nicholas Ball, best known for playing the title role of Hazell at the end of the '70s (I never watched it) and for once being married to Pamela Stephenson, plays the simulant.

[Slim]

IV:4 White Hole

Of all the fourth series episodes listed on the iPlayer's Red Dwarf IV page, this was the only one I couldn't remember from the title or brief synopsis. Yet it contains one of the entire canon's most memorable characters - Talkie Toaster, seen briefly in the first series (though redesigned for this episode).

This one is really an amalgam of two ideas, the first being Kryten's idea to massively boost Holly's intelligence to overcome her computer senility, the second being the existence of a white hole, spewing time and matter into the Universe - causing time to run in random pockets, and the laws of causality no longer to apply.

I think this is the first episode in which we hear one of the Space Corps directives.

The episode concludes with a memorable scene in which Lister, on Holly's advice, plays pool with planets using a nuclear device fired from Starbug (presumably intended for mining). He successfully knocks a planet into the white hole with a trick shot, thereby blocking it up.

Why there's a virtual pool cue interface connected to a nuclear projectile launcher in Starbug is not explained.

[Slim]

IV:5 Dimension Jump

This has always been my absolute favourite Red Dwarf episode. In another, alternate universe there exists an Arnold Rimmer who's an elite test pilot in the Space Corps. He's dynamic, resourceful, selfless, brave. And effortlessly charismatic.

Imagine his surprise when he tests a new spacecraft, capable of breaking the speed of reality - and crosses the boundary into a parallel universe, only to find another Arnold Rimmer there, very different from himself.

Just brilliant.

[Slim]

IV:6 Meltdown

I never much liked this one. I watched it on my VCR on returning home from the pub the night it was first shown. I'd drunk too much and it sort of washed over me. I thought it was poor. Doesn't the idea of setting a timer on a VCR to record a TV programme onto a VHS tape seem improbably crude now? It seemed like the height of technological sophistication at the time.

Anyway I watched it again a few years ago and thought it was alright. And I watched it for the third time tonight and I must admit, it's decent. It's not one of the best Dwarf IV episodes, but it's not bad.

Possibly my biggest complaint about it is that it really symbolises how far we've come from the original concept, a likeable slob and a pompous git being marooned together on a huge spacecraft. In this one, Kryten finds a matter transporter device in one of the research labs. It can "home in on atmosphere-bearing planets within a range of 500,000 light years". Just too much.

The boys use it to visit a planet with a wax droid theme park, where the wax droids - copies of famous people from Earth's history, inexplicably - have broken their programming and split into two factions; one side composed of intellectuals and celebrities like Einstein, Queen Victoria, Pythagoras, Ghandi, Stan Laurel and Elvis Presley; the other warmongers and dictators like Hitler, Goebbels, Rasputin and Caligula.

The Elvis impersonator they hired for the job does raise a few laughs. And I must admit Chris Barrie is brilliant in this. He really squeezes every ounce of ridiculous egotistical, self-aggrandasing vanity out of Rimmer, who makes the situation far worse.

But why would a wax droid theme park three million years in the future on a distant planet be mainly concerned with Earth's history leading up to the 20th century?

[Slim]

V:1 Holoship

And so, the next series begins .. this one was first shown in early 1992. I remember it well, but I don't think I ever watched it again, until this evening.

The boys encounter a Holoship - a vessel made of light, crewed by cerebrally superior (and condescending) holograms. They transfer Rimmer aboard. He applies to join the crew, despite being massively intellectually inferior.

Jane Horrocks plays Rimmer's hologrammatic love interest. I shared a tube carriage with her about four years after this was shown, though I didn't say hello. Don Warrington, the posh black student in Rising Damp twenty years earlier also appears. I saw him once as well come to think of it, in Newcastle. He gave me a slightly suspicious look when I recognised him.

Anyway - it's a good one without a doubt but the gags feel a little bit thinner now. Looking at the list of episodes there's at least one brilliant one in the fifth series. But I think Red Dwarf IV was the peak. We'll see.

Another nitpick - The captain of the holoship recognises Rimmer as "one of the old Class 1 holograms". But Rimmer's from three million years in his past.

[Slim]

V:2 Inquisitor

OK. Well, this is still a comedy, no doubt about that. But there's arguably more sci-fi in it than comedy. Quite a convoluted time paradox story and honestly, I think the complexity of the plot (no, really) gets in the way of the laughs.

Based on a good idea, though. A self-repairing simulant who lives for millions of years eventually invents a time machine, then roams all eternity visiting every soul in history. Then he judges them, and if they're found not to have lived worthwhile lives - he erases them from history, and replaces them with someone who never had a chance at life. Perhaps a sperm that swam too slowly.

It's noticeable that there are more scenes on Starbug in the last couple of series, clearly the two writers liked the setting. In a couple of series' time, the big ship will be dispensed with, and the whole thing will be set on the little one.

Not bad.

[Slim]

V:3 Terrorform

Rimmer becomes trapped on a psi-moon, an artificial world which terraforms itself to conform to his psyche. His various nightmares and neuroses turn into physical monsters and he's terrorised by his own self-loathing.

Another one that I didn't remember at all from the title or synopsis. But I certainly remembered the scene in which Kryten's hand goes looking for help and Lister believes he's being menaced by a tarantula. Brilliant.

[Slim]

V:4 Quarantine

Another one of the all-time greats. The boys investigate an abandoned viral research lab on any icy planet, or moon. There they find its only occupant, a Dr Langstrom. She's a hologrommatic virology researcher of some repute, and unfortunately she's contracted a holo-virus herself. She's now not only barking mad, as she happily admits herself, but homicidal and endowed with scary superpowers like telekinesis and "hex vision", which allows her to fire bolts of lethal energy from her eyes.

Unfortunately Rimmer catches it, and becomes a lethal danger to the other three.

Chris Barrie's performance as a psychopathic loony hologram owes something to Donald Pleasance, I think. Brilliant. And very funny.

I also loved the scene in which the cat, Lister and Kryten are locked up in quarantine together, and get on each other's nerves. Even Kryten becomes irritable and cantankerous, especially with Lister.

The daftest idea in this one is the "luck virus", which gives anyone infected by it incredible good luck for a short period of time. The boys find a small quantity of this at the research lab, and Kryten injects Lister with some of it to help them overcome Rimmer. Very silly, but I can accept it as surreal humour.

[Slim]

V:5 Demons and Angels

Kryten invents a "triplicator" by adapting the matter paddle from Meltdown, so that supplies can be replicated. Unfortunately, it creates one "good" copy, with all the best qualities of the object they test it on (a strawberry) and one "bad" copy. One of the new strawberries is succulent; "divine" as Lister puts it. The other one is rancid, riddled with maggots.

But when Kryten tries to reverse the process, it blows up the Red Dwarf and creates two copies .. one a dirty derelict manned by twisted, malignant and depraved versions of the four main characters, the other bright, elegant, sparkling clean and tidy, where they encounter holy and virtuous versions of themselves.

Better than I remembered. Very good. I especially loved the dark and depraved Rimmer character. An absolute pervert.