Something Completely Different

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Red Dwarf stands as something of a rarity: a show that is set in space but is essentially a comedy series, while at the same time taking an (almost) serious approach to science-fiction. I don't know of any series, before or even since, that has so successfully melded the two genres into something which is so much more than the sum of its parts. Almost unique, it's certainly never been bettered, and unless you count Douglas Adams' Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, nothing has even tried. And it's not because the concept was shown to be flawed, was unsuccessful or failed at what it atttemped, as Red Dwarf has gone down as both a cult sci-fi series and a cult comedy series, though in fairness the balance does tend to be heavily on the latter.

Because of its uniqueness then, it's hard to judge it, as there's no yardstick against which to measure. Most sci-fi series can be compared to the greats, like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica, or Babylon 5 even, while there are certainly hundreds of classic comedies you can put up against any newcomer to see if they measure up. But no show has ever straddled both genres so successfully, or indeed ever, and managed not to piss off the fans of either side. Spaced comes closest, probably, but even then that's not a sci-fi series, just references popular geek culture. Red Dwarf is set IN space, on a spaceship, and though the writers were proud to proclaim that the crew never met any aliens (which they didn't, through frankly amazingly inventive storylines) or used lasers or phasers, they manage to have the same kind of adventures as Captain Picard or Buck Rogers, albeit usually with a hilarious twist.

At its core, Red Dwarf is a story about characters, indeed one man, Dave Lister, the last human left alive. As the series gets going he surrounds himself with, well, let's not call them friends, eh? He wouldn't accept that. Let's just say they're, um, people he met. If you know the series that line will carry a little more weight than it would otherwise. Through a series of unlikely mishaps, Lister has ended up three million years in the future and light-years away from Earth, and must assume that by now either the planet is toast or at least that Man has died off or destroyed himself, or possibly, outside chance, moved out into space to colonise the galaxy. And destroyed himself. Lister's only companions, as the terrible truth begins to sink in about his isolation and what he can look forward to, are a hologrammatic simulation of perhaps the man he would least have wanted to spend the rest of his life with, a creature which was once a cat but has, over millions of years, evolved into a humanoid being, though still with the intrinsic characteristics of the household moggy and who, with trademark deadpan humour and lack of inspiration Lister names Cat, and the ship's computer.

Clear so far? Well perhaps you'll begin to understand better as the series develops. Red Dwarf has a small cast, always had and still does. Essentially, we're talking four characters, with later seasons allowing for a maximum of six. These are the four that make up season one and two.

Dave Lister, Technician Third Class, played by Craig Charles
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Lister is probably the last man who should be in space. Unlike Kirk or Picard or Spock, he never went to any space academy, knows bog-all about astronavigation, and is essentially, as the illustrious Captain Kirk once grinned, someone who merely works in space. And when I say work, I mean more skives than works: Lister is workshy, lazy, a slob who probably showers once a month if he has to, wears the same clothes, eats unhealthy food and drinks beer. For breakfast. He has no ambition, no goals in life and is, metaphorically and literally, drifting through his life. He does have a plan (see further) but it's about as viable as building a bridge out of sugar, and he is one of the lowest ranks on the ship, a fact gleefully and mercilessly capitalised upon by his superior.

Arnold Judas Rimmer, Technician Second Class, played by Chris Barrie
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Arnold Rimmer (who almost always answers to his surname, as he also refers to Lister) is an entirely different man altogether. Or, he was. Rimmer is desperate to be an officer, and has taken the examination he needs to be promoted no less than nine times, failing miserably each time. We will learn that he comes from a family whose men are all in the Space Corps, and he is seen as the disappointment, the intellectual runt of the litter. When he dies following the radiation leak, you could say his is a life not really wasted and best disposed of as soon as possible, but it is him whom the ship's computer, Holly, decides to bring back to life as a hologram to keep Lister company. Neither men are happy about that, and despite being technically dead, Rimmer is quick to try to re-establish the pecking order, talking down to Lister and giving him orders, none of which of course the last human takes the slightest notice of.

The Cat, played by Danny-John Jules
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The Cat's genesis has been explained above, and as we get to know him we will marvel at how much of his ancestors' instincts and mannerisms remain, after 3,000,000 years of evolution. Seems you can take the ape out of the man, but not the cat out of the, um, felis sapiens! Cat takes an instant dislike to Rimmer, which, if you knew the hologram, is exactly what you would expect.

Holly, the ship's computer, seventh-generation A1
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After three millions years alone in deep space, Holly, the operational heart of the ship, has gone somewhat senile. From having had an IQ of 6,000, he is now almost a simpleton, still able to perform all his tasks luckily, but unable to grasp many simple concepts. He, too, hates Rimmer (though he is the only one ever to refer to him by his first name) and quite likes Lister, the only one to call him Dave. Holly is represented by a huge head on a screen.

Season 1: Three Million Years From Earth...

Episode 1: The End

It's typical of the sort of humour we would see in this series that the first episode is titled "The End", though in many ways it is. The end of Lister's old life, the end of the crew, the end of Earth. In many more ways, of course, it's the beginning. We meet Lister and Rimmer, two lowly technicians aboard the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship Red Dwarf, whose mission is to mine planets for minerals. Lister and Rimmer have a very important role onboard the ship: they must ensure that never, on any occasion and under any circumstances, do the chicken soup vending machines run out. Rimmer is a Technician Second Class, and so slightly above Lister in the pecking order, and he makes sure to pull rank on him every opportunity he gets. Lister, a lazy, bored, lackadaisical layabout who would much rather be back in his quarters knocking back cans of beer and eating five-alarm curries, is distinctly unimpressed by his "superior", and never misses a chance to wind him up.

After a particularly heated exchange during which Rimmer puts Lister on report (for about the 8,000th time) Dave is summoned to the captain's office, where it is put to him that he has a cat, contrary ot ship's regulations and quarantine rules, which he has smuggled onboard. When he denies this, Captain Hollister (played in brilliant deadpan mode by the wonderful Mac MacDonald) produces a photograph of Lister with the cat. Lister is then told he can hand over the cat or go into stasis, forfeiting a month's pay. Loyal to his pet, Lister chooses imprisonment, and is led to the suspended animation booth, where he is locked in.

A moment later he is released and asks the computer how is it that he has been let out so quickly? Surely a month has not already elapsed? The computer, Holly, does not reply at once but directs him to decontamination procedures, after which Lister asks where everyone is, and is informed by Holly that they are all dead. Shocked, he asks what happened and the computer tells him that a radiation leak developed, killing all the crew but preserving the ship. Lister is now the only human left alive on the ship. Holly tells him he had to wait until the radiation levels had reduced to a safe point before he could let Lister out, and advises him that he was not actually in the booth for a month, but rather longer. Three million years in fact!

Lister is gobsmacked, but even more so when he realises that although he may be the last human alive on the ship, there is someone there who is also alive. Sort of. Arnold Rimmer, his bunkmate and erstwhile superior, has been brought back to life by Holly as one of the ship's holograms. All members of the crew when signing onboard the ship have their identities, personalities and physical characteristics etched on a tiny microchip, which, in emergency cases, the computer is able to use to effectively bring the person back to life. It's meant to be used in situations where, for instance, the captain has been killed. He can be brought back to life and still run the ship. Or perhaps his voiceprint or handprint is needed to activate or deactivate something, and the regenerated hologram can perform this function.

Left basically in charge of the ship, Holly sees his main role (other than flying and maintaining Red Dwarf) as keeping Lister, as the last representative of humankind, alive and sane. He has deduced that the best person to do this is Rimmer, a notion Lister not surprisingly disagrees with. Rimmer is quick to accuse his subordinate of being responsible for the accident, as the drive plate that blew, therby causing the radiation leak, was supposed to have been worked on by the two of them, but as Lister was in stasis Rimmer had to attend to it himself, and did not do a very good job. Whether in truth Lister's help would have prevented this disaster is highly debatable, but Rimmer is livid a) that he is dead b) that it was Lister's fault (as he sees it) and finally c) that he has been brought back purely at Lister's behest. Dave is quick to point out that Rimmer is the last person he would want to see, three milllion years of isolation or not, but before they can get into too much of an argument they are joined by a strange creature...

Having never given up his cat, Lister ensured that the animal lived on and thrived, breeding (although with what we're not told, as it's supposed to have been the only cat onboard!) and raising a whole colony of cats, who over the passage of millennia and without human intervention have now evolved to an upright, homo sapiens creature. They retain the basic mannerisms and idiosyncasies of the domestic cat though: they drink milk, clean themselves with their tongues, are exceedingly fastidious and highly arrogant and self-centred, and have the quick reflexes of their feline ancestors. Amazed at the creature, Lister calls it Cat and they become friends, in time allies of a sort against Rimmer.

Having come out of a three-million-year sleep, which was supposed to have only lasted one month, and found everyone he cared about dead, the human race in all likelihodo extinct and his only real friend a walking, talking descendant of his cat, Lister tells Holly to set a course for Earth, to see if he can make it back home.

And with that, a TV legend is born!

Best lines/quotes/scenes:
Note: Much of this is from memory, but some has been taken verbatim from the Red Dwarf Scripts at Pattycakes' Home Page (http://www.ladyofthecake.com/), to whom I offer thanks.


Lister and Rimmer in the first scene. Lister is smoking a cigarette.
Rimmer: "Lister, is that a cigarette?"
Lister: "No, it's a chicken!"

The Cat, on discovering there is a crease in his flash suit, produces a tiny iron and treats it with the exclamation "Whoa! Crease!"

On being released from stasis, Dave is told by Holly that all the crew are dead. The conversation runs like this:
Lister: "So where is everyone, Holly?"
Holly: "They're dead, Dave."
Lister: "Who is?"
Holly: "Everybody, Dave."
Lister: "What? Captain Hollister?"
Holly: "Everybody's dead Dave."
Lister: "Toddhunter?"
Holly: "Everybody's dead, Dave."
Lister: "What, Selby?"
Holly: "They're all dead Dave. Everybody's dead, Dave."
Lister: "Peterson isn't, is he?"
Holly: "Everybody's dead, Dave!"
Lister: "Not Chen?"
Holly: "Gordon Bennet! Yes, Chen. Everybody. Everybody's dead, Dave!"
Lister: "Rimmer?"
Holly: "He's dead Dave. Everybody is dead. Everybody is dead, Dave."
Lister: "Wait. Are you tryin' to tell me everyone is dead?"
Holly: "Should never have let him out!"

Lister is called to the captain's office:
Captain Hollister: "Lister, where's the cat?"
Lister: "What cat?"
Hollister: "Lister, not only are you stupid enough you bring an unquarantined  animal on board, and jeopardise every man and woman on this ship, but you take a photograph of yourself with the cat, and send it to be developed in the ship's labs! Now I ask you one more time, have you got a cat?"
Lister: "No."
Hollister (displaying a photo of a smiling Lister with a black cat in his arms) "Have you got a cat?"
Lister: "Oh yeah, that one. Sir, just suppose I had a cat - just suppose! - what would you do with Frankenstein?"
Hollister: "I would send it down to the medical centre and have it cut up and tests run on it."
Lister: "Would you put it back together when you'd finished?"
Hollister: "Lister! The cat would be dead!"
Lister: "So with respect Sir, what's in it for the cat?"

Lister's plan is just hilarious. He and Rimmer are discussing their career options in their quarters, where much of the best banter of the first and second season will take place. Rimmer wants to become an officer, rise up through the ranks, though he has a snowball's chance in Hell of even coming close to this ambition as he can't even pass the flight navigation exam, and he's taken it nine times. Lister, however, is more sanguine.

Lister:  "I've got me plan."
Rimmer: "What's that, the plan to be the slobbiest entity in the entire universe?"
Lister: "No. Me five-year plan.  You see, I'm going to do two more trips. And I've been saving up all me pay -"
Rimmer: "Since when?"
Lister: "Since always.  That's why I never buy any soap or deodorant or socks or anything like that, you know.  Anyway, I'm going to buy meself a little farm on Fiji. And I'm going to get a sheep and a cow, and breed horses."
Rimmer: "With a sheep and a cow?"
Lister: "No, with horses and horses!"
Rimmer: "On Fiji?"
Lister: "Yeah!  The prices there are unbelievable!"
Rimmer: "Yes, because they had a volcanic eruption and now most of Fiji's three feet below sea level!"
Lister: "It's only three feet.  They can wade. That's why the animals are gonna have to be quite tall..."
Rimmer: "Nice plan, Lister.  Excellent plan!  Brilliant plan, Lister! What about the sheep?  What are you going to do, buy them water-wings? Fit them with stilts?  Better still, you could cross-breed them with dolphins and have leaping mutton.  (Gesturing with his pen to represent a woolly dolphin leaping out of the water) Baa, splash, baa, splash!"
Lister: "You can get a drainage grant these days."
Rimmer: "Why bother, Lister?  You could be the first man to produce wet-look knitwear."
Lister: "Look, this is why I never ever said anything to you, 'cause I knew you'd say something like this."
Rimmer: "Lister, you've got the brain of a cheese sandwich. (Miming a swimmer and putting on a country farmer's voice) "Mornin', Farmer Lister! I'm just poppin' down to the shops in my submarine. Can I buy you anything?"


Just having been released from stasis, Lister is sitting at the com deck, idly fiddling with some pools of what appears to be baking soda. "And why is it so dirty around here Hol? What is this stuff", he asks Holly, "It's all over the place. " Holly replies "That is Catering Officer Olaf Peterson." Lister jumps back, having been tasting the stuff on his tongue; he spits the powder out. "Urgh!  I've been eating half the crew! And what about Krissie? What about Krissie Kochanski?" Holly tells him she's also dead (a fact Lister seems to be having trouble accepting). Lister is devastated. "Oh hey no. She was part of my plan" he says morosely. "I never actually got around to telling her, but she was going to come with me to Fiji. She was going to wear a white dress and ride the horses, and I was gonna take care of everything else. It was me plan. I planned it." Holly shrugs. He has no shoulders, being just the representation of a giant bald head, but you get the idea. "Well," he says philosophically, "she won't be much use to you on Fiji now. Not unless it snows and you need something to grit the path with!"

Rimmer studies... something...
Rimmer is studying for his astro-navigation exam, and is not confident. In fact, he knows bugger-all. The last time he took the exam, according to Lister, he write "I am a fish" five hundred times on the paper, did a funny little dance and fainted. To counteract this, he has written all the relevant information on his hands, arms, legs, and any spare scrap of skin he can write on. He is now reading it as Lister sleeps.

Rimmer: "Right. They're bound to ask the right thigh, which is 10 per cent. They must ask the left thigh, which is 20 per cent.  They've got to ask one of the forearms.  Which means I've passed already! Anything on the left shin's a bonus!
(Looking at one arm) Right.  CUTIE:  Current under tension is ... what's this?  Current under tension is equal?  Current under tension is expandable?  Current under tension is expensive?  What does this mean? (Beginning to panic) What does any of it mean?  I've covered my body in complete and utter and total absolute nonsense gibberish!  Aaaargh" (Taking a breath) "Just relax, relax, relax, relax-"

Lister, sleeping in the top bunk, is woken up by Rimmer's raving. Rimmer notices and makes an effort to appear calm.

Rimmer: "Er, plus 20 per cent of the ship's course minus the Pythagoras theorem multiplied by two over the X axis minus one equals the total velocity of Red Dwarf, which means I know everything about astro-engineering.  Good morning, Lister, for probably the last time."
Lister: "You've got it all down, have you, Rimmer?"
Rimmer: "Couple of blanks, (slapping his buttocks) but I think we're there."
Lister: "So you can't remember anything?"
Rimmer: "Think what you will, Lister."
Lister: "Rimmer, F-I-S-H, that's how you spell "fish." Then you just keel over.  I'm sure it'll all come flooding back to you."

Episode 2: "Future Echoes"

For the first two seasons, the episode will be preceded by Holly giving a basic rundown of what happened in episode one, with a joke tagged on at the end, a different joke each episode. The usual announcement runs like this, though later the words "a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew" is changed to "a hologram simulation of his dead bunkmate".

This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship "Red Dwarf".  The crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak.  The only survivors were Dave Lister, who was in suspended animation during the  disaster, and his pregnant cat, who was safely sealed in the hold.

Revived three million years later, Lister's only companions are a life-form who evolved from his cat, and Arnold Rimmer, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew.

The joke: I am Holly, the ship's computer, with an IQ of 6000.  The same IQ as 6000 PE teachers.

As he prepares to make the calculations for the jump to lightspeed that will help them navigate their way home, Holly tells Lister that he and the Cat must go into stasis, and Lister tells Rimmer that he has decided to go the whole hog and stay there for the entire trip home. Rimmer is not impressed, as he knows this means he'll be left alone with Holly. When Lister suggests they could just turn his hologram off for the journey, this still doesn't satisfy him. At any rate, it seems that Holly has made something of a miscalculation and they've broke the lightspeed barrier too early. As a consequence, very weird things are happening aboard the ship.

Conversations are taking place out of synchronisation, effects are being seen and felt before the cause occurs, and Holly tells Lister, Rimmer and the Cat that they are experiencing what are known as "future echoes". As they move closer to the speed of light, time speeds up, and so they begin to catch up on their future selves, seeing and experiencing events before they have actually taken place. The Cat runs by, holding his face and shouting that he's broken a tooth, and a short while later we see him fishing in Lister's fishtank, unaware the fish in there are robotic. So it's now pretty clear what's going to happen: the Cat will bite the robot fish, break his tooth and then go screaming out into the corridor, where the "other" Lister and Rimmer will see him running past. Clear?  No? It gets better...

The strangest thing they see from the future is a photograph of Lister holding two babies, which certainly look to be his. When Rimmer asks  how he gets two babies he grins and says "I don't know, but it's going to be fun finding out!" He's not laughing though when Rimmer calls him to say he has just seen a future echo of Lister dying! Desperate to change the future, Lister reasons that if he can stop the Cat from eating his goldfish and thereby breaking his tooth, he can cheat fate and change the outcome. Rimmer, ghoulishly delighted at the situation Lister is in (and happy that he's in no danger!) tells him it can't be done, but follows him anyway.

Although Lister manages to knock the fish out of the Cat's grip, in the ensuing fall and struggle the Cat hits his head and ... knocks his tooth out. Thus proving the old axiom that you can't change the future, it will always realign to the same outcome. Then Holly calls to say there's an emergency, and he needs help in the drive room. This is where Rimmer said he has seen Lister die, so Lister, realising you can't cheat fate after all, resigns himself to the inevitable and goes to meet his destiny.

After a tense few moments though, he fails to die and Rimmer, making no attempt to disguise his disappointment, is unable to understand it. He knows he saw Lister die, here, at this point, and yet here he is, still alive. When they return to the bunks, they're amazed to see a very old man there, who is quite obviously Lister from the far far future. He tells Lister (well, himself, but his past self, who is his present self --- don't you just love temporal paradoxes?) that it wasn't him that Rimmer saw die in the drive room, but Lister's son, Bexley. He tells Lister to run and get his camera, which he does.

On returning, the old man is gone, but in his place is a Lister not much older than the current one, holding two babies. Lister snaps a photo, and now we know where the photograph they saw in the future echo came from. But as to how Lister gets two babies without a woman on board, well that's another story and believe me, you wouldn't guess it, not if you lived to be a million!

Best lines/quotes/scenes:

Rimmer to Lister, having seen "him" die in the future echo:

Rimmer: "Brace yourself for a bit of a shock, Lister, but I just saw you die!"
Lister: "What?!"
Rimmer: "I did warn you to brace yourself."
Lister: "You didn't give me much of a chance!"
Rimmer: "I gave you ample bracing time!"
Lister: "No you didn't.  You didn't even pause."
Rimmer: "Well, I'm sorry!  I've just had a rather nasty experience. I have just seen someone I know die in the most hideous, hideous way!"
Lister: "Yeah!  Me!"
Rimmer: "You were fiddling around with the navi-"
Lister: "I don't want to know!  I don't want to know!"
Rimmer: "You don't want to know how you die?"
Lister: "No! (Pause) Was it quick?"
Rimmer: "Well, I wouldn't say it was super fast.  Not if you count the thrashing around and the agonised squealing."
Lister: "You're really loving this, aren't you?"
Rimmer: "What a horrible thing to say!"
Lister: "It was definitely me?"
Rimmer: "Oh yes".
Lister: "I don't want to know.  (Pause) How old did I look?"
Rimmer: "How old are you now?"
Lister: "Twenty-five.  How old did I look?"
Rimmer: "Mmmm ... mid twenties."
Lister: "Smeg!  I'm not ready!  I'm not smegging ready!"
Rimmer: "You did seem surprised."
Lister: "Ah! Did you actually see me face?"
Rimmer: "You were wearing a hat, but it was definitely you."

The "future echo conversation" between Rimmer and Lister (and Lister)...

Lister: "Yo, Rimmer, look, I've been thinking--"
Rimmer: "What?"
Lister: "You know, about going into stasis and everything."
Rimmer: "How did I do what?"

(Rimmer walks into the middle of the room, and Lister realises that Rimmer isn't looking at him, but at an empty spot in the air.  Throughout the following conversation,  Rimmer continues ignoring Lister and talking to thin air, while Lister is continually looking around, trying to figure out who Rimmer thinks he's talking to.)

Lister: "What do you mean, "How did I do what?"
Rimmer: "Lister, don't be a gimboid."
Lister: "I'm not being a gimboid!"
Rimmer: "I've just been in the library, thinking.  And I've decided--"

Rimmer stops as though he was interrupted, although Lister hasn't done anything.

Rimmer: "Shut up!  As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I've decided, when you go into stasis, I want to stay behind.  I want to be left on."
Lister: "What, on your own for the rest of your life?"
Rimmer: "What things?"
Lister: "Eh?"
Rimmer: "I said what?"
Lister: "What's going on?"
Rimmer: "You're space crazy!"
Lister: "I'm space crazy?! You're the one who's (waving his hand in front of Rimmer's face, who doesn't notice) space crazy!"
Rimmer: "Well, it probably is deja vu.  It sounds like it."

Rimmer shakes his head and leaves the Drive Room through the near door. As he leaves, a second Rimmer enters through the far door.  Lister is staring after the first Rimmer, and gets a shock when he turns around and sees the second Rimmer.

Lister: (Screams) "Aaahhh!  Rimmer!  (Calms down a little) I've just seen you walk out of that door!"
Rimmer: (Now talking directly to Lister) "What?"
Lister: "How did you do that?"
Rimmer: "How did I do what?"
Lister: "You just this second walked out of that door."
Rimmer: "Lister, don't be a gimboid".
Lister: "I swear, on me grandmother's life, as you walked out of that  door, you came in this one!"
Rimmer: "I've just been in the library, thinking.  And I've decided--"
Lister: "Rimmer, I'm telling ya--"
Rimmer: "Shut up!  As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I've decided, when you go into stasis, I want to stay behind.  I want to be left on."

As he says this, Lister realises that he's heard all this before.

Lister: "Rimmer, you've just come in and said exactly these things."
Rimmer: "What things?"
Lister: "You said that!"
Rimmer: "I said what?"
Lister: "And that!  You said that!"
Rimmer: "You're space crazy!"
Lister: "And then you said, "Well it probably is deja vu."
Rimmer: "Well, it probably is deja vu.  It sounds like it."
Lister: "Well, go on then.  Shake your head and walk out."

Rimmer shakes his head and walks out. 

Lister's idea of freshening up (it's better visually but you'll get the general idea.)

Lister reaches under his T-shirt to scratch with one hand and sprays under his arms with the other. He picks up another spray can in his free hand and sprays his face. He suddenly realises that he's spraying his face with underarm deodorant. Cautiously reaching under his shirt, he discovers that he's been spraying shaving foam under his arms.  He scrapes off a handful and slaps it on his face.

Rimmer, on the drawbacks of being dead:

Lister: "Oh, come on, Rimmer, don't give me this."
Rimmer: "Don't give you what?  I'm dead, Lister, or hadn't you noticed?"
Lister: "I know you're dead, Rimmer.  Don't whinge on about it!"
Rimmer: "Sorry to be a bore."
Lister: "I mean, you're everything you were when you were alive.  Same personality.  Same everything."
Rimmer: "Apart from the minuscule detail that I'm a stiffie."
Lister: "Look, Rimmer, death isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days.  It doesn't screw your career up like it used to."
Rimmer: "That's what they say, Lister.  But if you had two people coming for a job, and one of them was dead, which one would you pick?"
Lister: "It depends which is better qualified."
Rimmer: "Bull pats!  When was the last time you saw a dead newsreader?"
Lister: "Channel 27 have a hologram reading the news."
Rimmer: "Oh, groovy, funky Channel 27.  Big smegging deal.  You livvies hate us deadies!"

Good morning, Lister, Rimmer-style:

Rimmer: "Morning, Lister!  How's life in hippie heaven, you pregnant baboon-bellied space cookie?What's the plan for the day then?  Slobbing in the morning, followed by slobbing in the afternoon, then a  bit of a snooze before the main evening's slob?  God, you're a disgrace to the species!"

The Cat, taking only "the bare essentials" into stasis:

The Cat is wheeling a rack of clothes along and meets Lister.

CAT: (Singing) "This little kitty went into stasis.  Oooo!  This little kitty stayed home.  Ooh!  Yeah, my clothes look good."
Lister: (Laughing) "What are you doing?"
CAT: "I'm doing what you said do."
Lister: "I said, "Take a few essential basics you couldn't bear to leave behind."
CAT: "Right!  These are all I'm taking.  Just these, and the other ten racks. Travel light, move fast!"
Lister: "You can't take all of this.  There's no room."
CAT: (Rummaging around in the rack) "OK, then I'll leave ... this!"  (Pulls out a small red handkerchief.) "I'll just have to do without it."
Lister: "You can take two suits and that's it."
CAT: "Two suits?  Then I'm staying!"
Lister: "You can't stay.  By the time I come out, you'll be dead."
CAT: "Two suits is dead!"

Lister and Rimmer discuss the causality and the inevitability of events. Kind of. With respect to his upcoming death, as witnessed by a Rimmer barely managing to suppress his delight:

Rimmer: "Lister, it has happened.  You can't change it, any more than you can change what you had for breakfast yesterday."
Lister: "Hey, it hasn't happened, has it?  It has will have going to have happened happened, but it hasn't actually happened happened yet, actually."
Rimmer: "Poppycock!  It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future.  Simple as that.  Your bucket's been kicked, baby!"

Episode 3: "Balance of Power"

Holly's joke at the opening: "In the 3 million years we've been away, it is my fond hope that mankind has abolished war, cured all disease, and gotten rid of those little western saloon doors you get in trendy clothes shops."

It's Saturday night (even though they're in deep space and the planet upon whose rotation the days are based is probably now dust) and Lister wants to have some fun. Rimmer's idea of fun - ship's inventory - is not what he has in mind! After arguing with his dead superior, Lister heads off to the ship's disco on his spacebike, where he sits alone, remembering all the good times he used to have there with his friends. He finally decides, after remembering a conversation centreing around Kristine Kochanski, his crush, that he wants to go on a date with her. Trouble is, she's dead.

No problem. All he has to do is get Rimmer to agree to be switched off for twenty-four hours, and he can take Kochanski's personality disc, replace Rimmer's in the hologram and hey presto! The love of his life will live again. Well, for a day anyway. Only problem is, Rimmer ain't having it. He knows Lister hates him, and fears that should his bunkmate get a chance with Kochanski he'll have no reason to return Rimmer to the hologram. Which is probably true. Plus Lister doesn't know where the hologram discs are kept, and Rimmer's unlikely to tell him.

The only solution to the problem Lister can see is to somehow become Rimmer's superior. The one thing Arnold worships above all else is authority, and even if it was Lister, were he a rank higher than Rimmer the hologram would have to obey him. So Lister decides to study and take the officers' exam, in order to become Rimmer's superior. Laughing at such a notion, Rimmer says he's not worried, as he knows the extent of Lister's dedication to study. Nevertheless he keeps a close eye on him.

He soon has other things to concern himself about though, when he wakes and finds that "somehow" his hologram disc has become corrupted, and one of his arms has been replaced with that of Olaf Petersen, one of Lister's laddish mates. The arm seems to have a life of its own, and attacks him. After being poked and punched by it, he apologises to Holly - whom he had insulted earlier, thus leading to the "corruption" of the disc and the wayward arm - and his own arm is reinitialised. Still smarting both physically and emotionally, he goes to see what Lister is up to.

Finding him in the teaching room, he ridicules Lister's preparedness and his lack of knowledge, until he realises that Dave is not sitting the flight navigation exam, but the chef's. Disbelievingly, he asks Lister does he really want to be a chef, which Lister admits he does not: he just wants to outrank Rimmer so he can get the disc he wants. In a final attempt to stop Lister taking - and god forbid, passing! - the exam, Rimmer gets Kochanski's disc and has Holly swap it with his, then goes to Lister telling him "she" never loved him, and so all his preparation and studying is for nothing, so he might as well give up. But Lister is suspicious, and sees through Rimmer's plan.

Rimmer needn't have worried though, because true to form, Lister couldn't pass an exam if he was given all the answers beforehand. But he pretends he does, just to get up Rimmer's nose.

Best lines/quotes/scenes

There's a lot in this episode that became cult quotable Red Dwarf but does not really relate directly to the episode. Here are some of the best ones.

Rimmer, in the exam room: "And Lister, what's this? Learning drugs?  They're illegal, matey!  I'm afraid you're in very serious, grave, deep trouble, Lister.  Where did you get them?  I want names.  I want places.  I want dates."
Lister: "Arnold Rimmer.  His locker.  This morning."

Arnie is attacked by Petersen's hologrammatic arm:
Rimmer: "And when are you going to give me my own arm back?  I refuse to walk around all day with Petersen's arm.  You know what he was like. God only knows where this arm's been!"

The arm suddenly slaps him in the face.

Rimmer: "Ahh!  What's he doing?"
Holly: "Beats me, Arnie.  Seems to have a mind of its own."

The arm sticks out two fingers and goes for Rimmer's eyes.  He grabs it with his other hand and tries to stop it.

Rimmer: "Tell him to stop it!"
Cat: "What is this?  Cabaret?  Entertainment while you eat?"
Rimmer: "No, no, no!"
Cat: "Hey, can you place bets?  My bet is on this arm!  (pointing at Petersen's.)

The arm finally succeeds in jabbing Rimmer in the eyes.

Rimmer: "Aagh!" A bit late, he finally thinks of putting his hand over his eyes.  The other arm continues trying to jab at them. "Holly, you're absolutely gorgeous and handsome and delicious, please tell him to stop it!"
Holly: "All right.  Just give me a couple of seconds."

Petersen's arm gives up jabbing at Rimmer's other hand, trying to reach his eyes.

Rimmer: "Ah, look at that.  I've outwitted him.  He's given up.  Look, he's given up."

The hand suddenly jabs Rimmer in the balls.

Rimmer: "OOOOOO!!!"
He doubles up in pain, and the arm takes the opportunity to punch him in the head.

Holly: "There.  Done it.  Just in time."
Cat: "Hey!  That was good!  You should have finished on a song, it would have been perfect!"
Rimmer: (Still doubled up on the floor) "I hate everything."

Rimmer has shown the Cat how to get his own meals from the dispenser, in return for giving him back Lister's cigarette stash, which the feisty feline had found earlier. He is sitting at one of the consoles, eating.  He finishes the meal and goes over to the food dispenser for another.

CAT: "Mmm-mmm!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Hello.  How can I help you?"
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "Fish!"
DISPENSING MACHINE: "Today's fish is trout a la creme."  (Produces a dish.)
  "Enjoy your meal."
CAT: "I will!"

Rimmer wakes up late, leaps out of bed, and begins some jumping jacks. "Lister!  Rise and shine, el slobbo!  Come on, I've been awake for hours, Lister!  Up, up, up!  Come on!  Exercise, Lister! Exercise,  sonny boy!"
He finally notices that Lister's bunk is empty and looks at the clock.
"Quarter to two?  I didn't set my motivator!  I was supposed to be up at seven!  Why didn't he wake me?  He knows I'm a heavy sleeper. Have I got to remind him to do everything for me?  He's so  irresponsible!"

A "Black Card" situation...
Lister: "Look, what is it, man?  Don't you trust me?"
Rimmer: (Mimes holding up an imaginary card) "Black card, Lister.  I'm holding up a black card. Conversation over."
Lister: "I've always been crazy about her.  I never did anything about it."
Rimmer: "Oh, Lister, you've forgotten the colour code.  White.  The white card is to continue the discussion, but this is a black card situation. Discussion over."
Lister: "Listen..."
Rimmer (singing): "Da da da, black card, black card, black card, da da da, black card..."
Lister: "I was talking about something else!"
Rimmer: "White card.  Go on."
Lister: "Right, for a start, I want to stop all this black card and white card smeg, it's driving me crazy!"
Rimmer: "Black card!"

Rimmer: "I think I've gone video-blind.  Is that painting yours?  It's rubbish!"
Lister: "It's a mirror."

Lister is listening to his favourite, Rastabilly Skank. Rimmer is not impressed.
Rimmer: "Why don't you listen to something really classical, like Mozart, Mendelssohn, or Motorhead?"

The Cat checks his look:
" Aaaoooww!  Ooh, babe!  Hey Yeah!  Jump back!  Come back!  Hep!" (Stops) "How'm I looking?" (Pulling out a little mirror) "I'm looking nice.  My hair is nice.  My face is nice.  My suit is nice.  I'm  looking really nice!  Aaaooowww!  Jump back!  Hoo!  Ack!  Hey!"  (Stops again) "I wonder how I'm looking now?"  (Pulling out the mirror) "Still looking nice.  My hair's still nice.  My face is still nice.  My suit -- I'm just nice, period.  Aaaoooww!  Jump back!  Get down!  Hoo!"

At the disco, in the past...
Rimmer: "Ha ha ha.  Lister, where's my revision timetable?"
Chen: "Sure, it's Saturday night!"
Lister: "Come on, no one works Saturday night!"
Rimmer: "You don't work any night.  You don't work any day!
Lister: "Skive hard, play hard!  That's our motto!"
Rimmer: "Look, I've got my engineering re-sit on Monday.  I don't know anything.  Where's my revision timetable?"
Lister: "Wait, is this the thing in all different colours, with all the subjects divided into study periods and rest periods and self testing time?"
Rimmer: "It took me seven weeks to make it.  I've got to cram my whole revision into one night."
Lister: "Hang on, is this the thing with the note on it in red which said, "Vital.  Valuable.  Urgent.  Do not touch on pain of death?"
Rimmer: "Yes!"
Lister: "I threw it away."

And prior to that, Rimmer's less-than-graceful entry into the disco (you really have to see this one...)
Rimmer: "Excuse me, please.  Could you please excuse me?  Some of us have more important things to do than wiggle our posteriors.  Could you move please?  Please?  Thank you.  Could you move?  Excuse me, please. Excuse me.  Excuse me, please.  Excuse me!"

He runs into Kochanski, who drops her purse.  Rimmer picks it up and throws it away.

Rimmer: "If you want to dance, do it over there!"(Calling in the direction he threw the purse) "Sorry!"

Holly explains to Lister how he worked out who to bring back to keep him sane:
Lister: "Holly, why Rimmer's hologram?  Why did you have to bring Rimmer's hologram back?  He was the most unpopular man on board this ship.  I mean, he even had to organise his own surprise birthday parties!"
Holly: "And who should I have brought back, then?"
Lister: "Anyone!  Chen.  Petersen.  I mean, Hermann Goerring would have been more of a laugh than Rimmer! I mean, OK, he was a drug-crazed transvestite, but at least we could have gone dancing!"
Holly: "I brought Rimmer back because he's the best person to keep you sane.
Lister: "Oh, crap!"

(A panel on the wall swings around to reveal a toilet.  A sign over the toilet reads, "NOW IRRADIATE YOUR HANDS.")

Lister  "Not you!"
Toilet: "I do apologise, I wasn't paying attention.  See you later!"
Lister: "What about Kristine Kochanski?  You could have brought Kristine back."
Holly: "In your entire life, your shared conversations with her totalled 173 words."
Lister: "So?"
Holly: "In terms of wordage, you actually had a better relationship with your rubber plant."
Lister: "I know, but Rimmer?!"
Holly: "He's the person you knew best.  Over 14 million words in all."
Lister: "Holly, 7 million of those were me telling him to smeg off, and the other 7 million were him putting me on report for telling him to smeg off!"
Holly: "Jean Paul Sartre said Hell was being locked forever in a room with your friends."
Lister: "Holly, all his mates were French."

And finally... four thousand, six hundred and ninety-one irradiated haggis!

Rimmer is standing, Lister sitting with his feet up on a console.  He's checking things off on a clipboard as Rimmer lists them.

Rimmer: "140,000 rehydratable chickens."
Lister: (Extremely bored) "Check."
Rimmer: "72 tons of reconstituted sausage pate."
Lister: "Check."
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated haggis."
Lister: "Oh, Rimmer, it's Saturday night!  I've had enough."
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated haggis."
Lister: "Rimmer, it's Saturday night!  I want to boogie on down!"
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated haggis."
Lister: "We've been doing this for four hours!  Let's have a break!"
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated hag-g-gis."
Lister: "Rimmer, will you stop saying 4,981 irradiated haggis and speak to
  me!"
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated haggis."
Lister: (Beginning to lose his temper) "Rimmer, I want to go for a drink!"
Rimmer: "4,691 irradiated haggis!"
Lister: "I want to have some fun!"
Rimmer: "This is fun!  Are you mad?"
Lister: "You read something out.  I say check.  Where's the fun?"
Rimmer: "All right.  We'll put you in command for a few seconds, Capitaine.  (Salutes.) What's the plan, sir?  Come on, lickety split!"
Lister: "Go back to Earth."
Rimmer: "And in the meantime?"
Lister: "I don't know, generally slob around, have a few laughs."
Rimmer: "Excellent plan, Lister!  Excellent plan!  Brilliant plan! There was me thinking you hadn't thought about it, when clearly you have.  Right, I'll just stand over here and laugh slobbily, shall I?"
Lister: "Rimmer, I'm going for a drink."

Episode 4: "Waiting for God"

Holly's joke: The most interesting event that happened recently was that Lister pretended he passed the chef's exam, although really he failed. That gives you some idea of how truly exciting some days can be around here.

Rimmer orders Holly to give him access to the crew's confidential reports, and is happy when he hears Captain Hollister's remarks about Lister, less than complimentary. However, he is less than pleased to hear his own report, which is little better. Holly tells Rimmer that he has detected a UO (Unidentified Object), but Rimmer stalks off in a huff. Meanwhile, Lister is reading a book the Cat has given him; Cats read differently than humans, by sniffing scents impregnated into the paper on their books. As he is reading, Talkie the Toaster bemoans the fact that no-one wants to eat toast.

Rimmer comes in, and is more than annoyed that Lister is using his clothes. Even though he's dead, he doesn't like Lister taking his things. The two discuss the possibility that they are alone in the cosmos. The Cat returns with the Holy Book, which tells the Cat people's history, and Lister sees that there are pictures in this one, which depict him as Cloister, the Cats' god. All the facts fit, and in truth this is the case - Lister is their god, but the Cat scoffs at the idea. Lister asks Holly to translate the Holy Book for him, and Holly says he'll give it a go.

Rimmer runs in, excited and tells Lister that the UO is in fact a pod. Lister goes into the quarantine, and when Rimmer tells him he's to stay there for a month, he walks right out again. When Rimmer goes off to get the scutters, Lister discovers that the pod is in fact one of Red Dwarf's old garbage pods! He asks Holly why he didn't tell Rimmer, and Holly replies that "Well, it's a laugh, innit?" Later, Lister and Rimmer discuss their beliefs, and Lister puts forward the theory that humans may be regarded as a galactic disease, with the result that aliens stay away from Earth. Rimmer, however, dreams of aliens giving him a new body...

The next morning, Holly has deciphered the Holy Book, and reveals that indeed Lister and Cloister are the one person. He tells Lister of a great war that broke out on Red Dwarf between the Cats, as they took Lister's plan to open a hotdog stand on Fiji as their holy doctrine. The Cats fought over the colour the hats were supposed to be that they would wear in the diner, and after the war the two factions piled into space arks, one of them smashing into an asteroid, having used Lister's old laundry list as their starchart! Rimmer has no sympathy or time for Lister, who is somewhat shaken by the amount of destruction and carnage his plan has caused.

Finding no joy with Rimmer, Lister heads off in search of the Cat, and comes across him in the cargo bay, in company with an old priest, who regrets wasting his life living the way Cloister preached, and now no longer believes that his god exists. Lister appears to him, dressed as Cloister, and tells the old man that he has in fact performed well, and will be received into Fiji as a loyal worshipper.

Back at the quarantine room, Rimmer waits with bated breath to see the emergence of the Quagaars (a name for the aliens he has made up!), and is a little miffed when Lister draws from the garbage pod.... a rancid chicken carcass!

Notes:
This is where you really start to appreciate that Red Dwarf is more than just a comedy series, indeed, more than just a sci-fi series. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, the creators and writers of the series, have set up a whole mythology and religion for the race known as Felis sapiens or Cats. But they've put it together in a way that is weirdly logical, if you look at it, and if you don't have all the facts. In fairness, we can't really scoff can we, when some of us revere the memory of, as Douglas Adams once put it, "a guy who was nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to each other for a change", and others who believe their god wants them to kill in his name? In fact, in my view, all religion sucks, as Lister points out in this episode when he says of the Cats: "They're just using religion as an excuse to be crappy to each other!" to which Talkie the Toaster replies, "So what else is new?"

But the Cat mythos is all built around a real event, if somewhat distorted through the lens of three millennia of their history. Lister - whose name has become corrupted to Cloister (perhaps because he was cloistered away in stasis, perhaps not) - did indeed save his cat Frankenstein's life. She was pregnant, and due to his sacrifice was able to give birth and basically begin a bloodline that would one day lead to the emergence of a sapient species, of whom we believe the creature currently known as Cat is the last survivor. Yea, as it is written in the Holy Book: Cloister, the Holy One, who gave of his life that we might be saved. In a twisted, very funny way, it all fits.

But because Lister was and is such a slob, Frankenstein (or her later sentient descendants) taught their offspring to emulate his ways: be lazy, eat food that's bad for you, never wash, and so on - none of which of course Dave had ever envisioned happening or he might have explained to them that his life choices weren't for everyone. The Cats then inevitably as they became more humanoid had a war, splitting into two factions and after the war leaving Red Dwarf in search of "Fyushal" (Fiji), their Promised Land. Sadly, one faction used Lister's old laundry list, believing it to be a star chart, and flew straight into an asteroid!

When Lister and the Cat meet the old Cat priest belowdecks he has been left behind, in a typical cat move, because he is old and infirm, and the other cats did not want to have to look after him: cats are of course notoriously selfish. Quite how he's survived down there is not clear - though it appears the Cat (our Cat) has been bringing him food, and anyway how did he survive on his own for as long as he did before Lister was revived, having no access to Red Dwarf's computers and thus no way of getting food? That's never explained, but cats are hunters and we assume he was able to catch enough food to remain healthy. Of course, there's then the question too of how he manages to keep looking so cool and unruffled if he's foraging for food, but I guess that's one of the never-to-be-solved mysteries of the universe!

There is a change in the script here, and it's pretty obvious, but maybe it can be explained, like much of the Cats' teachings, by the details changing with the passage of time and the story being handed down from generation to generation. Lister's original plan, which he confided to Rimmer in the first episode, is to have a farm on Fiji, however here the Cats have decided it was to open a hotdog stand. It's a small point, but without the change the war would not have made sense, as the main point of contention was over the colour of the hats to be worn. Wouldn't really have worked with a farm, and can you really see Cats labouring on the land?

Best lines/quotes/scenes

Rimmer asks Holly for his confidential report:

RIMMER: "Holly, give me access to the crew's confidential reports."
HOLLY: "Those are for the Captain's eyes only, Arnold."
RIMMER: "Fine.  Well, we'll give him ten seconds to come back from the dead, and if he hasn't managed it, we'll presume I'm in charge." (Waits) "No, he hasn't managed it."
HOLLY: (With resignation) "Whose do you want?"
RIMMER: "Give me ... give me Lister's.  Just the remarks."
HOLLY: "David Lister, Technician, 3rd class.  Captain's remarks:  Has requested sick leave due to diarrhea on no less than 500 occasions. Left his previous job as a supermarket trolley attendant after ten years because he didn't want to get tied down to a career.  Promotion prospects:  zero."
RIMMER: "I always liked Captain Hollister.  Such a great reader of men, was Captain Hollister.  A marvellous, marvellous man and a tragic loss to us all.  All right, Holly, give me ... give me mine."
HOLLY: "Arnold Rimmer, Technician, 2nd Class.  Captain's remarks: There's a saying amongst the officers:  If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.  If it's not worth doing, give it to Rimmer.  He aches for responsibility but constantly fails the engineering exam."
RIMMER: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Holly, Holly.  I want my report.  Rimmer. Two M's, E, R."
HOLLY: "Astoundingly zealous.  Possibly mad.  Probably has more teeth than brain cells.  Promotion prospects: comical."
RIMMER: "No no no no no, Holly.  I want Rimmer.  That's two R's, one at the front, one at the back."
HOLLY: "Arnold, this is your report."
RIMMER: "I always hated that pus-head Hollister.  He always resented my popularity.  That's why he never put forward my proposal to reduce the minimum haircut length by an eighth of an inch.  Small-minded, petty-thinking modo."
HOLLY: "Arnold, I'm picking up an unidentified object."
RIMMER: "Constantly fails the exam?  I'd hardly call eleven times constantly. I mean, if you eat roast beef eleven times in your life, one would hardly say that person constantly eats roast beef.  No, it would be a rare, nay, freak occurrence.  Possibly mad?  What is he dribbling about?"



Rimmer is angry that Lister has borrowed one of his shirts:

RIMMER: "What's that down the front?"
LISTER: (Checking the various stains) "That's definitely biscuit, um, that's custard, that's definitely ink, and just general sort of dirty marks."
RIMMER: "You can't just go through my possessions!"
LISTER: "Come on, you don't need them any more."
RIMMER: "Because I'm dead?"
LISTER: "Yeah. You're a hologram, and holograms don't need clothes."
RIMMER: "They're my things, Lister!  Would you steal verruca cream from a man with no feet?  I mean, how would you like it if I stole your T-shirt?  Your favourite one, with the custard stains down the front?"
LISTER: "I wouldn't care".
RIMMER: "You've got no right to go through my wardrobe."
LISTER: "OK, OK. (Grins) "You keep your underpants on coathangers, don't ya?"
RIMMER: "That's private!"
LISTER: "OK, Rimmer, OK.  Take the shirt back."
RIMMER: "I don't want it.  It's ruined.  You've (shudders) sweated in it!"
LISTER: "Well, if you don't want the shirt, what do you want, Rimmer?"
RIMMER: "Just keep out of my things, all right?"

Lister waxes philosophical about the possibility of life in the universe:

LISTER: "Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know.  There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say, "Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing." There's just you, me, the Cat, and a lot of floating smegging rocks. That's it.  Finito."

Tha Cat shows Rimmer his "shiny thing"...

CAT: "Hey!  You can't have my shiny thing!  I found it, it's my shiny thing."
RIMMER: "What are you dribbling about?"
CAT: (Pulls out a silver yo-yo) "This is my shiny thing, and if you try and take it off me, I may have to eat you."
RIMMER: "It's a yo-yo, you modo."
CAT: "It does two amazing things. One, you have the shiny thing at the top, and the string down below, or, and this is the clever part, you have the string at the top, and the shiny thing down here where the  string used to be."
RIMMER: "Yeah ... woweeee! You haven't the slightest clue what it's for, do you?"
CAT: "Why sure I do, grease stain.  You hold the shiny thing in one hand, and you go ... aaaooowww!  The string's moving!  Hey!  Stop that thing! Catch that string!  Aaaooowww!"

Lister reads the Cats' Holy Book and finds out he is their god...

LISTER: "This is me!"

The picture depicts a noble-looking individual, vaguely resembling Lister, wearing biblical-style robes and carrying a black cat (an ordinary cat, not a humanoid cat) on his shoulder.  Above his head is a
doughnut-shaped halo.

CAT: "No, that's not you, that's Cloister.  He was the father of the Cat people.  He lived years ago, at the Beginning."
LISTER: (Turns the page) "Who's that?"

The next picture shows the same guy (without the cat) sitting lotus-style inside what seems to be a giant ice cube.

CAT: "That's him frozen in time."
LISTER: "No, that's me!  I was sent into stasis. That's what "frozen in time" is."
CAT: "He did that to save Frankenstein."
LISTER: "Look, Frankenstein was my pet cat!  (Points back and forth  between himself and the picture) "Look: Lister, Cloister. Cloister, Lister! See?"
CAT: "Listen, you stupid monkey, Cloister's another name for ... for God!"
LISTER: "That's what I'm saying! I am your God!"

CAT looks LISTER up and down.  He's not impressed.  (Well, who would be?)

CAT: "OK."  (Points to his bowl of crispies) "Turn this into a woman."
LISTER: "I'm serious."
CAT: "So am I!"
LISTER: "Look, Frankenstein was my pet cat, right?  And she was pregnant. Now, I got put into suspended animation.  I was supposed to be there for 18 months, but I didn't get out for three million years."
CAT: "You oversleep?  So do I."
LISTER: "No! What I'm saying is that over those three million years, your entire race of people evolved from my pet cat."
CAT: "Ah, I gotta go now, man.  But let's do lunch sometime.  I'll put it in my diary: 12:30, lunch with God.  And, ah, formal dress, you know what I'm saying?"
LISTER: "It is true, you know."
CAT: "Yeah?  Then I gotta ask you the ultimate question.  If you're God, why that face?"

Lister works out what the "UO" - the pod - really is:

LISTER: "Give me an R, give me an E, give me a D ... give me a Red Dwarf Garbage Pod!  Holly?  Did Rimmer never work in waste disposal?"
HOLLY: "No, Dave."
LISTER: "It's one of our Red Dwarf garbage pods with, like, the writing burnt off in places.  Why didn't you tell him?"
HOLLY: "Well, it's a laugh, innit?"

Rimmer, blissfully unaware of what it is, ruminates on what might be inside the pod, and on the nature of, again, intelligent life in the cosmos:

RIMMER: "You can scoff, Lister.  That's nothing new.  They laughed at Galileo.  They laughed at Edison. They laughed at Columbo."
LISTER: "Who's Columbo?"
RIMMER: "The man with the dirty mac who discovered America."
LISTER: "What makes you think these aliens exist?"
RIMMER: "They must do, Lister!  There's so many things that are strange and odd.  So many things we don't have any explanation for."
LISTER: "Like, um, why do intelligent people buy cinema hot dogs?  Do you mean that sort of weird and mysterious thing?"
RIMMER: "No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids.  How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?"
LISTER: "They had massive whips, Rimmer.  Massive, massive whips."
RIMMER: "All right, then, the Bermuda Triangle. Go on, explain that one. You know all the answers."
LISTER: "No, I agree there. That is a genuine mystery.  How did a song like that ever become a hit?  It defies all reason."
RIMMER: "I just don't know why I bother.  I'd get more sense out of a squashed hedgehog.  Lister, don't you ever stop and wonder:  why are we  here? What's the grand purpose?"
LISTER: "Why does it have to be such a big deal?  Why can't it be like, like, human beings are a planetary disease?  Like the Earth's got German measles or facial herpes, right?  And that's why all of the other planets give us such a wide berth.  It's like, "Oh, don't go near Earth!  It's got human beings on it, they're contagious!"
RIMMER: "So you're saying, Lister, you're an intergalactic, pus-filled cold sore!  At last, Lister, we agree on something."
LISTER: "What do you believe in, then?  Do you believe in God?"
RIMMER: "God?  Certainly not!  What a preposterous thought!  I believe in aliens, Lister."
LISTER: "Oh, right, fine.  Something sensible at last."
RIMMER: "Aliens, Lister, with technology so far in advance of our own we can't even begin to imagine."
LISTER: "Well, that's not difficult.  Mankind hasn't even got the technology to create a toupee that doesn't get big laughs."
RIMMER: "Aliens, Lister, who can give me a real body."
LISTER: "Ooohhh, I can't wait to see your face in the morning, I really can't."
RIMMER: "And nor I yours, Lister.  When that pod opens and from it emerges a beautiful alien woman with long green hair and six breasts."
LISTER: "Six breasts?! Imagine making love to a woman with six breasts!"
RIMMER: "Imagine making love to a woman!"

Having asked Holly to translate the Cats' Holy Book for him, Lister learns the full truth of what their beliefs are, or were:

LISTER: "Who's Cloister?  Is it me?"
HOLLY: "Yes, Dave. The Cats have made you their God."
LISTER: "Hey!  Working class kid makes good!"
HOLLY: "Your plan to buy a farm on Fiji and open up a hot dog and doughnut diner has become their image of heaven." (Trollheart's note: this is perhaps a hollow attempt by the writers to claim that Lister's plan all along was to run a farm AND open up a diner. Well if it was he certainly didn't mention it to Rimmer...)
LISTER: "What?"
HOLLY: "And Cloister spake, `Lo, I shall lead you to Fyushal, and there we shall open a temple of food, wherein shall be sausages and doughnuts and all manner of bountiful things. Yea, even individual sachets of mustard.  And those who serve shall have hats of great majesty, yea, though they be made of coloured cardboard and have humorous arrows through the top.'"
LISTER: "Does it say what happened to the rest of the Cats?"
HOLLY: "Holy wars.  There were thousands of years of fighting, Dave, between the two factions."
LISTER: "What two factions?"
HOLLY: "Well, the ones who believed the hats should be red, and the ones who believed the hats should be blue."
LISTER: "Do you mean they had a war over whether the doughnut diner hats were red or blue?"
HOLLY: "Yeah. Most of them were killed fighting about that. It's daft really, innit?"
LISTER: "You're not kidding. They were supposed to be green! Go on, Hol."
HOLLY: "Well, finally they called a truce, and built two arks and left Red Dwarf in search of Fyushal."
LISTER: "But there's no such place as Fyushal. It's Fiji. I mean, how are they supposed to find it?"
HOLLY: "And Cloister gave to Frankenstein the sacred writing, saying, `Those who have wisdom will know its meaning.' And it was written thus: `Seven socks, one shirt--'"
LISTER: "That's my laundry list!  I lined the cat's basket with me laundry list!"
HOLLY: The Blue Hats thought it was a star chart leading to the promised land."
LISTER: "Well it wasn't, it was my dirty washing.What happened next, Hol?"
HOLLY: "And the ark that left first followed the sacred signs, and lo, they flew straight into an asteroid. And the righteous in the second ark flew ever onward, knowing they were indeed righteous."

Is this an old journal you're reviving from MB? I hadn't caught it prior to syndication. But either way, it's a delight to see a tribute to one of my all-time favorite programmes. I taped every episode off PBS in the early 90s and downloaded the complete series and all the mini-revivals years later.

Always hilarious and endlessly quotable, Red Dwarf is a comedy for the ages. Thanks for breathing some life back into the boys from the Dwarf!

CHARACTER PROFILES

Disclaimer: I wrote these character profiles of the Red Dwarf crew over twenty years ago, for my Red Dwarf website which is now defunct thanks to the hoster going belly-up, and I thought it might be nice to resurrect them here. But be warned! These profiles give away a LOT of information about the show, so if you haven't seen the programme or are currently watching it for the first time, you might want to skip these sections till you finish watching, as there will definitely be spoilers here you'll want to avoid.

These profiles only cover up to season seven (though I may update them later) and do not take into account the events in Back to Earth or the current new seasons shown since. 
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvaj0VolrFAHa3thJKcp9v4ZqWuE5po6UbCjuAjeOxMGgssR-nGciqUF2OrXE3Kn5vioVOUAfZ8JNAle0fNqOoX1lpBZtdtWclx_Pz2CfNUxZaiVUa6-zU1p_bZCRcFPKgnmt_65U/s1600/arnold+rimmer+1.jpg)
Arnold Rimmer
An officer and a gentleman, respected and admired by all his fellows, a lover of women, hero, space adventurer and model for future generations... these are just a few of the many things that Arnold Rimmer is not. With his three high-flying brothers, John, Frank and Howard top-notch members of the Space Corps, Arnold is looked down upon by his mother and his father.

Early on in life, the father of the Rimmer family had bought a rack, and every morning he would measure his sons to see if they had grown overnight. If they hadn't, then they would go on the rack! This was due to their father's irrational fear that his four sons would miss out on joining the Space Corps by failing to reach the regulation minimum height, as he himself had done. Rimmer's father also tested his sons on astro-navigation and engineering theory before they were allowed to be fed: no correct answers, no food. Arnold nearly died of malnutrition!

When he is old enough, Rimmer applies to the Space Corps academy but fails every test. Scorned by his parents, ashamed that he will be unable to live up to their expectations and also jealous of the success his brothers are enjoying, Arnold joins the crew of the Jupiter Mining Corporation vessel, Red Dwarf, in the hope that he can sit the exams independently, but even in this he proves useless, and is doomed to remain at the rank at which he joined the ship: Second Technician, which essentially means that he and his ilk check vending machines around the huge vessel and ensure they don't run out of chocolate bars or chicken soup!

In this he is joined by Dave Lister, who is part of his Z Shift, the very worst of the dregs of the technicians. Lister and Rimmer take to each other like a dog to a cat, hating each other on sight, and indeed Red Dwarf is not their first meeting place: Lister had in point of fact ferried Rimmer (using the name of one of his superiors as cover) to a brothel on Mimas, an incident which had haphazardly led to Lister's joining the Red Dwarf crew.

To others, especially Lister, Rimmer is a small-minded, petty man who delights in enforcing and observing pernickity regulations and awards the slightest breach of such by putting his subordinate (usually Lister) on report. The tale is related of how Rimmer accused and put Lister on report for mutiny! He tells Lister that he stepped on his foot, thereby impairing his ability to perform his duties, thereby clearly putting the ship at risk and thereby clearly mutiny!

This small episode gives a good idea of what the man known as Arnold J. Rimmer is like. Rimmer spends so much time in the run-up to his exams devising a revision chart, complete with symbols for rest periods, cram periods and so forth, that by the time he is finished making the chart it is time to take the exam. He thereafter decides to cheat, by copying out as much of the textbooks onto his arms and legs as he can, intending to glean the answers from his tattooed body and thus pass. His plan is foiled however when the ink runs, and he can't make out any of the writing. Once again, he fails. This is, however, to be his last attempt at this exam, or any exam, as shortly afterwards the entire crew of Red Dwarf is subjected to a lethal dose of radiation, which leaves the mighty ship lumbering on through space, a massive graveyard with Holly, the ship's AI computer, ensuring that the leviathan remains on course.

Lister has, a short time previous, been put into stasis, and therefore he manages to survive the holocaust that wipes out the rest of the crew. Reviving him some three million years later, Holly decides that the last human being alive needs some companionship to save him from going insane due to loneliness, and settles on Rimmer as his partner. He reinitialises Rimmer's personality from the computer disk every member of Red Dwarf was required to download onto before departure, and brings Arnie back as a hologram.

Being a hologram means that though Rimmer can talk and see and hear, and has the same memories, ambitions, drives and desires as the man he once was, he cannot touch anything, nor can anyone touch him: he is entirely composed of light, a computer simulation maintained by Holly, and dependent on the power source of the huge ship. This does not, however, stop him from haranguing Lister as soon as he meets him again, blaming him for not being there to help him seal the drive plate that allowed the lethal radiation to escape and poison the ship.

Rimmer has never been able to accept failure, or the responsibility for failure or indeed anything. He blames his parents for his upbringing, his lack of contacts for the pathetic way his career went, and Lister for just about everything else. He says that if people had not kept dragging him back he could have achieved the rank of an officer that he so desperately desired. He never once stops to consider that the reason he has not achieved any of his goals, least of all promotion, might just be down to the fact that he is arrogant, overbearing, incredibly hard to get on with and not in the least reasonable or likeable. In short, he is a total and utter smeghead.

But Rimmer does not believe this, and continues, even after his death, to blame Lister for everything he can, and find fault with him at every opportunity. When they encounter the Cat, he wants to throw "it" off the ship, but having no physical presence must bow to the wishes of his erstwhile subordinate. Even though he is dead, Rimmer still retains his right of rank over Lister, despite the fact that Lister points out to him that both of them were ranked lower than the man who changed the bog-rolls in the ladies' toilets! Rimmer is unanimously despised and scorned by everyone aboard the ship: Holly can't stand him, the Cat thinks he's a waste of space, and when Kryten joins the crew later on, he fights against his programming until he can call Rimmer a smeghead! Even the scutters hate Rimmer!

When Lister, who has been trying to get Rimmer to allow him to switch his former superior off for a short time so that he can reinitialise the hologram personality disk of Christine Kochanski, and go on a date with her, finally declares that he is going to sit the exam for chef, Rimmer worries, as this would mean that Lister would technically outrank him, a situation which could not be allowed to develop! Having failed to talk Lister out of the exam, Rimmer poses as Kochanski and tries to trick Lister into giving it up, but Dave sees through the disguise and goes ahead with the exam, which in the end he fails.

Rimmer is constantly on the lookout for aliens with a technology in advance of Earth's, aliens who can replace his hologrammatic form with a real, solid human body, so when Holly picks up a pod on the scope he is disappointed to find that it is nothing more than a garbage pod. His disappointment comes hot on the heels of anger at Lister, who has discovered, somewhat to his dismay, that he is the being the Cat race revere as Cloister, their god, and is indirectly responsible for the war that wiped out thousands of their kind. Sneering at Lister, he declares "I could have been God, given the lucky showbiz break you got!"

When Lister finally succeeds in getting his hands on the disk he believes to be that of Kochanski, Rimmer warns him that the disk will only bring him misery. How right he is! Rimmer has swapped the disks, and what energises in front of Lister is not his long-lost love, but a second Rimmer! Delighted to have another him to talk to, Rimmer the Original decides to move in next door with his double, and packs up his things. Lister, glad to help his former bunkmate move out, comes across a video, which Rimmer tells him is a tape of his own death. Watching the video surreptitously, Lister hears Rimmer's final words as "Gazpacho soup!", and wonders why Rimmer would end his life with such a phrase on his lips. He asks Rimmer, but of course the hologram will not tell him.

However, it soon turns out that  life with Rimmer is not working out for Rimmer. The two holograms are not getting on as well as they would have thought they would. Because Rimmer in any incarnation (with the exception of Ace Rimmer) is a pain in the neck, the two snipe at and fight with each other, and it is not long before they are at each other's throats. As their quarrel turns to petty bickering and spills over to encompass Lister and the Cat, one of them has to go. But before he erases the orginal Rimmer, Lister must know about Gazpacho soup. Seeing as he is to "die" anyway, Rimmer tells him. Gazpacho Soup Day: it was the greatest day of his life, he tells Lister.

After only being with the company fourteen years (!) he was invited to dinner at the captain's table. Unfortunately for him, they had gazpacho soup for starters, which Rimmer didn't realise was supposed to be served cold. He made the chef take it away and bring it back hot, and believes that this rather small faux pas in front of the men he had hoped one day to join was instrumental - nay, directly responsible for his never being promoted.

He soon has other things to occupy his mind however, when the crew pick up a distress call from a ship called the Nova 5. The service mechanoid, Kryten, tells them that there are only three survivors, all female, and the boys rush to the scene, Rimmer kitting himself out in his best officer's uniform, complete with rows and rows of medals, and an extra pair of socks shoved down the front of his trousers! He asks Lister not to put him down in front of the girls they are about to meet, saying that Lister should mention the fact that Arnie died and was pretty brave about it. He wants his shipmate to refer to him as something other than Rimmer: Ace, perhaps, or Big Man.

However, romantic liaisons are not to be, as the three women in question are in fact dead, and have been for centuries. Left alone for so long, Kryten has turned somewhat peculiar, and at first refuses to believe that his young female charges have passed on. Eventually though he is convinced, and the crew take him back to Red Dwarf, where Rimmer wastes no time in taking advantage of the fact that they now have a live-in servant: and what's more, he doesn't backtalk or outright refuse to do things as Lister does. Kryten is happiest when serving, and Rimmer is happiest when being served, so the two should get on famously. But Lister is not standing for this, and urges Kryten to break his programming, which after some effort he does, flipping the bird to Rimmer and heading off on Lister's spacebike.

Some time later a post pod catches up with Red Dwarf, and Rimmer learns in a letter from his mother that his father is dead. Seeing how totally blown away by this news the hologram is, Lister tries to comfort him, but it emerges that Rimmer hated his father, for the reasons outlined at the beginning of this piece. To help him forget about the bad news he has just received, the Cat and Lister offer to take him with them into a TIV: Total Immersion Video game, called Better Than Life. Here, one can live out all one's fantasies, and be whatever they want to be. Rimmer enjoys it for a while, being made an admiral, getting a solid body and making love again to Yvonne McGruder, his one and only romantic tryst, but soon his brain rebels at nice things happening to him, and he ends up ruining it for everyone.

On his Deathday however (the anniversary of the day he, and all of Red Dwarf's crew except Lister met their deaths), he puts himself in a tight corner by getting drunk and telling Lister how many times he has ever made love. Lister, unable to listen to Arnie's whimpering any longer, goes down to the hologram simulation suite and downloads eight months of his own memory into that of Rimmer, giving him a love affair that Lister experienced. Dave's memories of this period are now Rimmer's, and he indeed believes that he, not Lister, loved the beautiful Lisa Yates. The ruse eventually comes to light though, and Rimmer is even more upset.

When they find a stasis leak on one of the decks, Rimmer encounters his own self, three million years in the past, after Lister reads from Rimmer's diary, telling him that what the then Rimmer thought was a hallucination may in fact have been the now Rimmer coming back in time to warn his past self that he would be dead in three million years (which comes as no surprise to Arnie-three-million-years-ago!). Lister goes back himself with the Cat to try to rescue Kochanski, but Rimmer has  as much success convincing himself that he must go into stasis to avoid the accident as Lister has with Chrissie. It's interesting to note that even after the "double Rimmer" episode earlier, Arnie has not learned his lesson, and still thinks that a second him on the ship would be a good idea.

When Holly is replaced by Queeg, the Red Dwarf backup computer, things begin to go very badly for Rimmer! Advised by the computer that the company is paying to keep him online, Queeg takes control of Rimmer's hologrammatic body, and forces him to exercise, go for runs, and revise! It's only when Holly regains control of the ship that Rimmer is let off the hook.

Some time later the fruitbat computer mistakenly brings Red Dwarf into an alternate dimension, where female opposites of Rimmer and Lister exist. Faced with his own sexual attitudes and manners in Arlene Rimmer, the hologram refuses to accept that this is in fact the way he behaves towards women! Arlene tries everything to get him into bed, including attempting to hypnotise him, a trick Rimmer had used once before himself, to convince a girl to go out with him. However, it is in fact Lister who ends up in bed with his female double, and the Rimmers both look down their noses at them for it, and enjoy every minute of Lister's discomfort, especially when, after they return to their own dimension, Lister's pregnancy test proves positive!

Rimmer and Kryten end up in another parallel Earth, this time one where time goes backwards, and earn themselves something of a reputation as The Sensational Reverse Brothers, before their promising career is cut short. Marooned on an ice planet with Lister, Rimmer tells his compatriot that he once used hypno-therapy to have himself regressed to a past life, and discovered that he was once Alexander the Great's chief eunuch! During the time they spend together as they wait for a seemingly hopeless rescue, it comes to light that Rimmer has in his camphorwood chest over £24,000 in notes, priceless (as they are now the only copies left) books, and a collection of hand-carved Napoleonic miniatures. The money, books and soldiers all go to feed the fire which is keeping Lister alive, and Rimmer is less than happy when he discovers that, far from burning, as he thought, his guitar, Lister has in fact cut out the shape of the guitar from Rimmer's chest and burned that!

When they discover how easy it is to switch personalities, Rimmer badgers Lister into allowing him to occupy his body for two weeks, with the intention of getting it fit again. However, not having had a solid body for 3,000,002 years, Rimmer snaps and when Lister regains control of his own body Rimmer steals it back, taking Starbug and almost killing Lister's body in the process!

When Lister reorganises the timelines so that he never joins Red Dwarf but instead invents the Tension Sheet and becomes mega-rich, Rimmer, left facing the prospect of life alone with Holly, tries to sort it so that he and not Lister invents the Tension Sheet, but he only succeeds in putting things back the way they were originally.

Sentenced by the Justice Computer to a total servitude of 9,328 years for his believed culpability for the deaths of all aboard Red Dwarf, Rimmer is saved from this fate by Kryten, who presents a case that proves beyond all doubt that there is no way in hell anyone with an ounce of sense would put Rimmer in charge of anything important, much less the safety of the ship.

Some time later, Rimmer meets his double from yet another dimension, this being the universally-liked, brave and courageous Ace Rimmer. Arnold hates him on sight, as he is a reminder to him of what he could have achieved. It turns out that the only difference between the two is that Ace was held back a year in school, and this made him buckle down and determine to do well. Rimmer finally realises his destiny (or so he thinks), when transporting to a world where wax-droids fight a war against one another; he takes over the leadership of those deemed "the forces of good", and leads them into battle. Unfortunately, he manages to wipe out not only the bad ones but his own small army as well. Little wonder, with strategies like "We attack tomorrow, under cover of daylight!"

But when they encounter a holoship, crewed by top-flight holograms, Arnie is in his element! He petitions the captain to let him join, but has to battle another crew member for that privilege. He uses a mind patch- downloading the minds of the most brilliant scientists that were in the crew - but this goes wrong and he declares that he will withdraw from the contest, defeated. His opponent, however, is Nirvana Crane, with whom he has fallen in love, and she withdraws herself to let him win. When he discovers what has happened though, Rimmer uncharacteristically gives it all up to allow Crane be reinstated - and no-one more surprised than himself!

Left alone on a psi-moon, a sateliite which reconfigures its terrain to the mindset of anyone who lands on it, while Kryten is incapacitated, Rimmer is taken before the Unspeakable One, which is a manifestation of his own self-loathing. The entire planetoid has reconfigured itself to mirror his own personality, and has created such things as The Swamp of Despair and The Chasm of Hopelessness. Rimmer is rescued by his mates who pretend they like him, in order to get off the moon.

He contracts a holovirus and goes completely mad, imprisoning his friends in quarantine and turning off their oxygen. In his holovirus-enhanced state, Arnie is capable of telekinesis and hex-vision, a powerful form of psi weapon. He is eventually defeated (along with his friend, the glove puppet Mister Flibble!) just before the virus would have taken his life. When they meet Legion, the ancient creation of some of the most brilliant minds in history, Rimmer is given a hardlight body, this being a hologrammatic form that can touch and be touched, allows him to eat, taste, feel but makes him almost impervious to harm.

Despite this, Kryten runs a routine check on him and finds that he is suffering from a hologrammatic version of nervous disorder. He is instructed to take things very easy, but this is not helped when he is catapulted into a wormhole and emerges on an uninhabited planet, light years from anywhere. Having successfully created a clone of himself, Rimmer is soon overrun by more clones, all of whom are using his basic cowardice, snideness, sarcasm and treachery as the template for what they consider normal behaviour. Rimmerworld is born, and the original Rimmer left to rot in a cell until his friends come to find him, 557 years later!

Rimmer does however in the end reveal that there is a spark of decency and courage in him when, when faced with the prospect of fighting their future selves in a battle for Starbug, and hopelessly outclassed by the latter, he declares that they should fight. As he says: "Better dead than smeg!"

When the charismatic Ace Rimmer comes on board Starbug, Arnie is concerned: "We're down to our last three thousand vomit bags!" he declares, shaking his head. "It'll never be enough!" Ace, it transpires though, is dying. In point of fact he is a hardlight hologram, and not the original Ace which the crew met in "Dimension Jump": the story will be further related in the profile on Ace. He wishes Arnie to take over as guardian of the universe, a position at which Rimmer scoffs, but eventually, goaded to it by Lister, he accepts and with the help of his old friend settles into the role.

Eventually, Ace having died and Lister having convinced the crew that what stands before them is not the sad shell of a man that they used to know as their crewmate (or, as the Unspeakable One put it, "That walking vomit-stain that the world knows as Arnold Rimmer"), but the dashing, brave and handsome Ace, Rimmer, having sat through his eulogy and watched his funeral, bids the boys farewell and leaves to take up his new post.

This episode, "Stoke Me a Clipper", shows for the first time a glimmer of the man Rimmer could have been, and the traits we saw embodied in Ace, as he stares out at all the thousands (millions?) of previous Rimmers who have held the post of Ace Rimmer, and declares "All those Rimmers!" Lister looks at them, and says "They all did it. They all passed on the flame. Are you going to be the one who breaks the chain?" And we finally see the humanity, the compassion and the belief in Arnold Rimmer that he can finally make a difference, be appreciated in the world. Somehow, it looks like the man we knew will be nothing like we remembered when he returns!

Again, the scene in which Arnold Rimmer is remembered, spoken of and posthumously promoted to First Officer by Lister, and then taken to his final resting place with all the other Rimmers, is enough to bring a tear to the most jaded eye. The scene is, typically, lightened by the presence of Rachel, the inflatable sex-doll, whom Lister solemnly refers to as Rimmer's widow (and yes, she is dressed in black)! And that is the last we see of Rimmer, but for his finest hour to date, when in a dream he returns to Lister, seeming to have lightened up, learned to have fun, and even kisses Lister!

Worried by the suddenly good memories he is having of his old bunkmate, Lister seesks Kryten's help, and the mechanoid constructs The Rimmer Experience, which depicts Rimmer as he believed he was: a leader, a hardened space adventurer to whom the others looked to in times of crisis, and who always knew what to do no matter the situation. Rimmer sings The Rimmer Song, below, showing exactly what type of man Arnold Judas Rimmer believed he was, no matter how others saw him. We can only look forward to his return in season eight!

Quote from: innerspaceboy on Jan 05, 2025, 10:08 PMIs this an old journal you're reviving from MB? I hadn't caught it prior to syndication. But either way, it's a delight to see a tribute to one of my all-time favorite programmes. I taped every episode off PBS in the early 90s and downloaded the complete series and all the mini-revivals years later.

Always hilarious and endlessly quotable, Red Dwarf is a comedy for the ages. Thanks for breathing some life back into the boys from the Dwarf!

Ah yes, I ran this as the second original series I tackled in my journal The Couch Potato back on MB (The first was Babylon 5 followed by Supernatural, before I expanded it to other series such as The Onedin Line, Spooks and Frasier). I was a Dwarfer from the beginning, and have followed the series right through to today. Wonderfully quotable as you say, and my brother is almost the template for Rimmer!

Good to have you along, ISB! Nice to know someone is reading.

1.5 "Confidence and Paranoia"

Holly's joke: We have been travelling through the galaxy now for three million years and there are many things we've discovered. The highest form of life in the universe is Man and the lowest is a man who works for the Post Office.

After having visited the officers' block on the ship, which he had thought decontaminated but which Rimmer had left on the long finger, Lister develops a mutated form of pneumonia, which results in his fever-induced hallucinations taking physical shape and form. Rimmer accuses him of having gone to the officers' quarters in order to sit in Kochanski's quarters and wallow in self-pity. Lister wakes in the night feeling terrible, and goes down to the medical unit. On the way there however he collapses and is found by the Cat, who is no help to him at all, totally self-centred as ever. Rimmer comes by, having found Lister, and tries to get the Cat to help him, as being a hologram Rimmer can lift nothing. The Cat, however, shallow and self-serving as always, is more interested in his lunch, and so it is left up to Rimmer and the scutters - the little manual robots that look after menial tasks onboard the huge ship - to look after Lister.

Lister bemoans the fact that he never had the guts to ask Kochanski out, and Rimmer declares that if she had accepted, then the only things stranger than that occurrence, in his opinion, would be the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546, and the time in 12th century Burgundy when it rained herring. Lister tells Rimmer of a theory he and Chen had, that everyone has two people inside them: the person that tells us we are great, and gives us our confidence (and so they called this facet of personality Confidence), and the person that puts us down and tells us we are useless, holds us back and is known as Paranoia.

That night, sleeping after his treatment in the medical unit, Lister dreams of fish falling from the sky, having listened to what Rimmer had been saying earlier, but the dream becomes real, and it does rain fish in their sleeping quarters! A moment later, the Mayor of Warsaw appears and then spontaneously combusts! To complete the list of hallucinations which have become solid, two figures have materialised in the drive room; these are Lister's Confidence and his Paranoia...

As expected, Confidence builds Lister up from the moment he arrives, and tells him he can do anything. Indeed, with the hallucination's help, Lister divines Rimmer's hiding-place for the rest of the personality disks of the crew, and prepares to retrieve them from outside of the ship so that he can bring back Chrissie Kochanski as a hologram. In opposition to Confidence, Paranoia brings Lister down, telling him he is useless, and that he should listen to Rimmer (which wins him a measure of kinship from the hologram), but Lister goes off, not surprisingly, with Confidence. They can't go outside the ship yet, because there is a magnetic storm in progress, but as soon as it passes, they are ready to make the trip outside.

Meanwhile, Rimmer tries to get rid of Paranoia, but his plan fails. The dust storm passes, and Lister and his Confidence go out in spacesuits to retrieve the disks. Rimmer notices however as they leave that the medicomp has been wrecked, and challenges Lister to explain that. He can't, and Rimmer points out that both Lister's Confidence and his Paranoia have a vested interest in ensuring that Lister does not get better, as they are both symptoms of his sickness, and once he recovers they will both disappear. Lister is unconvinced however, and out they go.

Outside Red Dwarf, Confidence admits that he has killed Paranoia, but when Lister makes to go back inside, Confidence says he should take his helmet off; "Oxygen is for losers!" He goes to prove it by removing his own helmet, and the inevitable happens. With both his Confidence and his Paranoia gone, Lister is cured and now has the disk back. He is warned by Rimmer that the disk will only bring him misery, but he ignores his bunkmate, which as it turns out is unfortunate, as Rimmer has swapped the disks, and what Lister brings back is not Kochanski but ... another Rimmer!!

Note: this is the first of what could be called a two-parter in this series. Every other episode up to now has just ended, with little or no reference to what happened in the next one, but "Me2" (me squared) follows on directly from this, carrying through the consequences of Lister's ignoring Rimmer's warning, and indeed brings to a close the first season.

The idea of Confidence and Paranoia is a great one, and just one of many clever and innovative ideas Grant and Naylor will come up with over the course of the coming seasons, with some theories and plots which would not be out of place in a normal sci-fi drama - minus the laughs, of course!

Best lines/quotes/scenes

Holly is bored. He's read everything that's ever been written anywhere, on any subject, and come to the conclusion that the worst book in the history of man is "Football: It's a Funny Old Game" by Kevin Keegan.

HOLLY: "I'm at a loose end now.  I don't know what to do with meself."
LISTER: "Holly, why don't you just read everything all over again."
HOLLY: "I was thinking it might help pass the time if I created a perfectly functioning replica of a woman, capable of independent decision-making and abstract thought and absolutely undetectable from the real thing."
LISTER: (Sitting up eagerly) "Well why don't you, then?"
HOLLY: "Because I don't know how. I wouldn't even know how to make the nose. Heh."
LISTER: "Holly, is there something that you want?"
HOLLY: "Well, only if you're not busy.  Would you mind erasing some of my memory banks?"
LISTER: "What for?"
HOLLY: "Well, if you erase all the Agatha Christie novels from my memory bank, I can read 'em again tonight."
LISTER: "How do I do it?"
HOLLY: "Just type, HolMem.  Password override.  Then novels Christie, Agatha. Then press erase."
LISTER jabs two-fingered on a keyboard. "I've done it."
HOLLY: "Done what?"
LISTER: "Erased Agatha Christie."
HOLLY: "Who's she, then?"
LISTER: "Holly, you just asked me to erase all Agatha Christie novels from your memory!"
HOLLY: "Why should I do that?  I've never heard of her."
LISTER: "You've never heard of her because I've just erased her from your smegging memory!"
HOLLY: "What'd you do that for?"
LISTER: "You asked me to!"
HOLLY: "When?"
LISTER: "Just now!"
HOLLY: "I don't remember this."
LISTER: "Oh, I'm going to bed.  This is gonna go on all night!"

Rimmer's to-do list, sadly not quite properly prioritised...

Rimmer: "Ah! Had a good day, Lister?  Scrummed enough choccies?  Watched enough drivel, have you?  Look at you:  you're turning into a sad, middle-aged woman. Next thing you know you'll be varnishing your nails and buying girdles."
LISTER: "Oh yeah?  And what've you done that's so great?"
RIMMER: "I've achieved seventeen things today off my daily goal list, whereas you've never achieved anything ever in your entire life."
LISTER: "Don't know, you know.  I went to the Officer's Block."
RIMMER: "When?!"
LISTER: "This morning."
RIMMER: "But it hasn't been decontaminated!"
LISTER: "You said it had last week!"
RIMMER: "No, I said it was on last Thursday's daily goal list!"
LISTER: "And you haven't done it yet?!"
RIMMER: "Tomorrow.  It's on tomorrow's daily goal list.  Item 34, right after "Learn Portugese."

The Cat finds a sick Lister crumpled on the ground:

CAT: "Hey, this is mine.  That's mine.  All this is mine.  I'm claiming all this as mine.  Except that bit.  I don't want that bit.  But all the rest of this is mine.  Hey, this has been a good day.  I've eaten five times, I've slept six times, and I've made a lot of things mine.  Tomorrow, I'm gonna see if I can't have sex with something!  (Dancing away) "Oooooooooow, yeaaaaaaah..."

(Coming across Lister's prone body)

CAT: (Singing) "S-E-X, you know I want it!  S-E-X, I'm gonna get it! (Seeing Lister) S-E-X, I think I found it!"  (Recognizes Lister and crouches down beside him.) "Oh, it's you!  Hey, monkey, you're sick. Sick, helpless, and unconscious.  If you weren't my friend, I'd steal your shoes! Time for a snack. This way!" (Dances away.)

On discovering Lister is unconscious, Rimmer tries to get the Cat to help, as being a hologram he can't pick him up. The Cat though, is not budging. Hey, he's eatin'!

RIMMER: "Is there something wrong with you?  Lister's collapsed!"
CAT: "Yeah?"
RIMMER: "What do you mean "yeah?" He needs help!"
CAT: "And?"
RIMMER: "And if you don't help him he might die."
CAT: "Aw, no. That's too bad.  I really liked him, too."
RIMMER: "So, come and help him."
CAT: "What? And interrupt my lunch?!"
RIMMER: "What is more important:  a man's life or your smegging lunch?"
CAT: "That doesn't even deserve an answer."

Rimmer tries to cover up the fact that he's been trying to get rid of Paranoia, one half of Lister's delusional hallucination:

RIMMER: (Shouting to the scutter, who is armed with a syringe) "NOW!  STAB HIM!  STAB HIM!  STAB HIM! QUICK!  STAB HIM!"

PARANOIA turns to look at the scutter which has hardly moved.

RIMMER: (To PARANOIA) "Uh, you haven't met "Stabem," have you?  He's one of the scutters.  Stabem, meet Lister's paranoia.  Lister's paranoia, this is Stabem."

Lister susses out where Rimmer has hidden the personality discs (with a little help from his Confidence):

CONFIDENCE: "Come on, King, you know Rimmer. Where would he hide 'em?"
LISTER: "I don't know."
CONFIDENCE: "Yes, you do."
PARANOIA: "No, he doesn't."
CONFIDENCE: "Come on! Think : winner!"
LISTER: "Outside. Outside the ship."
RIMMER: "Uh... Wrong, actually!"
CONFIDENCE: "Where outside?"
LISTER: "Well, he'd have to send the scutters... and the disks would have to be safe...."
RIMMER: "Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrong-ability."
LISTER: "And they'd have to be right under me nose so he could laugh at me."
RIMMER: "Wrong and getting wronger all the time."
LISTER: "Outside out sleeping quarters.  The solar panel outside our sleeping quarters!"
RIMMER: "You followed me, you goit!"
LISTER: "Is that where they are?! That's incredible! I did it!"

Rimmer tries to be cool...

RIMMER: "Holly, put a trace on Paranoia."
HOLLY: "What's a trace?"
RIMMER: "It's space jargon. It means find him."
HOLLY: "No, it doesn't. You just made it up to be cool."

As Dave switches on the hologram generation unit, the awful truth is revealed..

On the other side of the room, another hologram of Rimmer appears.

RIMMER #2: "Well, he did warn you!"
RIMMER: "I certainly did."  (To LISTER) "Do you honestly think I'd put Kochanski's disk in Kochanski's box where any Munchkin could find it? You think you had it bad before, Lister?  Well now you've got it in stereo, baby!"  (To RIMMER #2) "Welcome aboard, Rimmsie!"
RIMMER #2: "Nice to be here, Mr. Rimmer, you son of a gun."

1.6 "Me2"

(As mentioned, this episode title is written like the mathematical sign for Me squared, though I suppose at a stretch it could also be called "Me too"... also as mentioned in the previous episode, this follows on directly from "Confidence and Paranoia", picking up at the very scene that one ended, and as such is the first two-parter, though the episodes are named separately. It's also the season finale.)

Holly's joke: We have enough food to last thirty thousand years but we've only got one "After Eight" mint left. And everyone's too polite to take it.

With the arrival of the second hologram of Rimmer (see previous episode, "Confidence and Paranoia"), Lister and Rimmer are preparing for the parting of the ways. Rimmer is going to move in with the duplicate him, next door, while Lister will remain in the cabin they have shared since he emerged out of stasis to find that he was the last human being alive. While sorting through their things and deciding what belongs to who, Lister comes across a video, which Rimmer tells him is a record of his death, which he had had Holly make for him. Lister shakes his head...

Lister helps Rimmer move out (the sooner the better, as far as he is concerned!), and then retires to their, now his, cabin, where he promptly proceeds to do all the things that used to get on Rimmer's nerves: he cracks his knuckles, he grinds his teeth, he leaves the top off the shampoo and squeezes the toothpaste tube from the middle. Then he finds Rimmer's death video, and on watching it hears Rimmer's last words as he dies: "Gazpacho soup!" He is most perplexed as to what this might mean, and determines to find out.

Meanwhile, next door the new Rimmer drives the other hard, pushing him to the limit as they exercise. Each tries to outdo the other in setting an ever earlier time to rise, and when they have settled on a rising time of 04.30, the time being 02.00, the new Rimmer pushes the old to revise instead of going to bed. Wandering the corridors of Red Dwarf at 05.00, Lister asks Rimmer about gazpacho soup, but the hologram will not tell him what it means, which only makes Lister more determined to find out. He slips into Rimmer's quarters and finds the hologram's diary, wherein he sees a day marked as Gazpacho Soup Day, the date 6 weeks before the crew were all wiped out.

Raised voices are soon heard next door, as the Rimmers, each as fundamentally unlikeable as the other, argue and then the original Rimmer comes back in to Lister, advising him that they have had a little tiff. From this point onward, Rimmer and Rimmer are at war, with the result that Lister is eventually driven to erase one of them. He uses "ippy dippy my space shippy" to decide, since it is otherwise impossible to divine which Rimmer should be deleted, and ends up picking the original. He orders him to report to the drive room in ten minutes for deresolution, and before they proceed he gets Rimmer to explain about Gazpacho Soup Day. Seeing that he is going to be erased anyway, Rimmer decides to tell Lister.

Having been fourteen years with the Jupiter Mining Corporation, Rimmer was invited to the Captain's Table for dinner, but when he was served gazpacho soup he did not realise that it was supposed to be served cold! He complained to the chef, and got him to bring back the soup, heated up. The looks on the faces of the officers still haunt him, and he knew then he would never again eat at the Captain's Table. Lister tells him that it was a mistake anyone could have made, but he is not to be mollified. However, after having him spill his soul, Lister tells Rimmer that he has in fact erased the other Rimmer, but didn't tell this one because he wanted to get the truth behind Rimmer's last words.

Best quotes/lines/scenes

The parting of the ways:

RIMMER: "Ah, Lister, this is one the best decisions I ever made.  No more you and your stupid, annoying face.  No more you and your stupid, annoying habits."
LISTER: "Me?  What did I do?"
RIMMER: "You hummed. Maliciously and persistently for two years. Every time I sat down to do some revision: MMMMmmMMmMmMMMmMMMMMMMmmm--"
LISTER: "Hang on, hang on. Are you saying you never became an officer because you shared your quarters with someone who hummed?"
RIMMER: "Obviously not just that, Lister. Everything! Everything you ever did was designed to hold me back and annoy me."
LISTER: "Like what?"
RIMMER: "Like using my mother's photograph as an ashtray."
LISTER: "I didn't know! I thought it was a souvenir from Titan Zoo."
RIMMER: "Exchanging the symbols on my revision timetable so instead of taking my Engineering Finals, I went swimming."
LISTER: "The symbols fell off. I thought I put them back in the right place."
RIMMER: "Swapping my toothpaste for a tube of contraceptive jelly."
LISTER: "Come on! That was a joke!"
RIMMER: "Yes, Lister, the same kind of joke as putting my name down on the waiting list for experimental pile surgery."
LISTER: "It's not only one-way, Rimmer. You're hardly Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Easy-To-Live-With!"
RIMMER: "What are you talking about?"
LISTER: "I'm talking about playing your self-hypnosis tapes all through the night.  Learn Esperanto While You Sleep. Learn Quantum Theory While You Sleep."
RIMMER: "We both got the same benefit."
LISTER: "Yeah, neither of us got any sleep. And what about the time you tied me hair to the bedpost and then sounded the fire alarm?"
RIMMER: "Lister, I did that because I was sick of you annoying me. I don't have to explain it."
LISTER: "I nearly needed brain surgery!"
RIMMER: "What brains?  The point is you've always stopped me being successful. That's a scientific fact."
LISTER: "Rimmer, you can't blame me for your lousy life."
RIMMER: "Oh, yes, I can."
LISTER: "See?  It's always the same.  You never had the right pens for your G.E.  drawing.  Your dividers don't stretch far enough."
RIMMER: "Well, they don't!"
LISTER: "See? In the end you can't turn around and say, I'm sorry I buggered up my life. It's all Lister's fault!"
RIMMER: "Well, I'm not, am I?  I'm moving out. Out of Slob City and into Successville."
LISTER: "What, you mean next door?"
RIMMER: "It's not the place, Lister.  It's the company. I'm about to share my life with someone who'll give me encouragement and understanding. The thrust and parry of meaningful conversation."

Lister watches Rimmer's death-video...

On the monitor the words:  "A Tribute to Arnold J.  Rimmer, BSc, SSc" appear, accompanied by dramatic music.

HOLLY: "BSc, SSc?" What's that?
LISTER: "Bronze Swimming certificate and Silver Swimming certificate. He's a total lunatic."
RIMMER: (On the video) "Hello. This video pays homage to a man who fell short of greatness by a gnat's wing.  Before we see a digitalised recording of his final moments, there's going to be a lengthy tribute, interspersed with poetry readings, read by me."
LISTER: "Whoa-ho! Spin on!"  (The video fast forwards.) "Okay, Hol. Put it in motion."  (The video continues.)
RIMMER: (On the video) "...and if it hadn't been for those people who kept dragging him down, pulling him down, pulling him back..."
LISTER: "Spin on!"  (The video fast forwards and continues.)
RIMMER: (On the video) "...if you put Napoleon in quarters with Lister, he'd still be in Corsica, peeling spuds."
LISTER: (A mite peeved) "Spin on!"  (The video fast forwards and continues.)
RIMMER: (On the video) "...we see the final moments of Arnold J.  Rimmer."
LISTER: "Yes!"

On the video, Captain Hollister is in the Drive Room yelling at Rimmer who is standing at attention.  A few random officers stand in the back.

HOLLISTER: (On the video to Rimmer) "Look, it was your job to fix it, Rimmer!  You can't do sloppy work on the drive plate!"
RIMMER: (On the video) "I know, sir, and I accept full responsibility for any consequences."  (Executes a Full-Rimmer salute.)

A blinding white light glares and everyone is blown across the room by a tremendous wind.

HOLLY: (On the video) "Emergency.  There's an emergency going on. It's still going on.  Will Arnold J.  Rimmer please hurry to white corridor 159. This is an emergency announcement."

We see RIMMER as he is thrown against a wall, screaming.

RIMMER: (On the video) "Aaaaaiiiiiiiuuuuurrrrghhhhh... Gazpacho soup!"

Rimmer pushes Rimmer...

The two Rimmers are exercising by squatting then leaping high into the air, throwing their arms above them.

RIMMER #2: "Stretch further!"
RIMMER: (Stopping) "And rest."
RIMMER #2: (Still jumping) "No! Keep jumping!"
RIMMER: (Jumping some more) "Absolutely. Keep on going. Through the pain barrier."
RIMMER #2: "Jump, jump, jump!"
RIMMER: (Stopping again) "And rest."
RIMMER #2: (Still jumping) "What are you doing, man?!"
RIMMER: "I'm resting! It's going all gray!"
RIMMER #2: "That's the pain barrier! Beat it!"
RIMMER: (Jumping awkwardly) "You're right. You're absolutely right. Keep it going."
RIMMER #2: (Stopping) "And rest."
RIMMER: (Collapsing) "Brilliant! That extra little bit.That's what it's all about."
RIMMER #2: "What time do we get up?"
RIMMER: "Oh, early! Half past eight?"
RIMMER #2: "No, earlier than that. Seven."
RIMMER: "How 'bout six?"
RIMMER #2: "No, half past four."
RIMMER: "That's the middle of the night!"
RIMMER #2: "You wanted driving. I'm driving you."
RIMMER: "Once again, Arnold, you're absolutely right. Holly, alarm call four-thirty in the morning.  Make it the sonic boom, extra loud, emergency one."
HOLLY: "Yes, Arnold. And Arnold."

RIMMER starts to crawl into bed

RIMMER #2: "Uh, what are you doing, Arnold?"
RIMMER: "I'm going to bed, Arnold."
RIMMER #2: "But it's two in the morning! We can get in a couple hours of revision easily."
RIMMER: "But I'm getting up in a minute..."
RIMMER #2: "You take Power Circuits and Esperanto. I'll take Thermal Energy and the History of Philosophy."
RIMMER: (Getting up) "Fantastic! This is what I've always dreamed of! I'm in heaven!"
RIMMER #2: "Better than sex!"

Rimmer's diary:
LISTER: "My Diary, by Arnold J.  Rimmer.  January the first:  I have decided to keep a journal of my thoughts and deeds over the coming year; a daily chart of my progress through the echelons of command, so that perhaps one day, other aspiring officers may seek enlightenment through these pages.  It is my fond hope that, one day, this journal will take its place alongside `Napoleon's War Diaries' and `The Memoirs of Julius Caesar'." Next entry... (Flips ahead.) "July the seventeenth:  Auntie Maggie's Birthday." (Flips ahead.) "November the twenty-fifth:  Gazpacho Soup day!" That's six weeks before the crew got wiped out!"

Holly plays an "April Fool" joke on Lister:

HOLLY: "Busy, Dave?"
LISTER: "Well, yeah, I am, actually!"
HOLLY: "Oh. Then you won't want to know about the two super-lightspeed fighters that are tracking us."
LISTER: "What?!"
HOLLY: "I'll leave you to your bubble blowing, mate."
LISTER: "No, Holly. Hol. Come on."
HOLLY: "They're from Earth."
LISTER: "That's three million years away."
HOLLY: "They're from the NorWEB Federation."
LISTER: "What's that?"
HOLLY: "NorthWestern Electricity Board. They want you, Dave."
LISTER: "Me? Why? What for?"
HOLLY: "For your crimes against humanity."
LISTER: "You what?!"
HOLLY: "Seems when you left Earth, three million years ago, you left two half-eaten German sausages on a plate in your kitchen."
LISTER: "Did I?"
HOLLY: "You know what happens to sausages left unattended for three million years?"
LISTER: "Yeah, they go mouldy."
HOLLY: "Your sausages, Dave, now cover seven-eighths of the Earth's surface. Also, you left seventeen pounds, fifty pence in your bank account. Thanks to compound interest you now own 98% of all the world's wealth.  And because you hoarded it for three million years, nobody's got any money except for you and NorWEB."
LISTER: "Why NorWEB?"
HOLLY: "You left a light on in the bathroom. I've got a final demand here for one hundred and eighty billion pounds."
LISTER: "A hundred and eighty billion pounds?!! You're kidding!"
HOLLY: (Wearing a Groucho Marx glasses-nose-and-moustache) "April Fool."
LISTER: "But it's not April!"
HOLLY: "Yeah, I know.  But I can't be waiting six months with a red-hot  jape like that underneath me hat."

The Rimmers have a tiff:

RIMMER: (Hurt) "I'm not gonna stand here and take this abuse."
RIMMER #2: (Sneering) "Oh, yes, when the going gets tough, the tough go and have a little cry in the corner. You got a sponge for a backbone! No wonder father hated you!"
RIMMER: "That's a lie!  A lie, lie, lie, lie, lie!"
RIMMER #2: "Then why didn't he send you to the academy?"
RIMMER: "He couldn't afford it!"
RIMMER #2: "Oh! He sent all our brothers!"
RIMMER: "You're a filthy, smegging, lying, smegging liar!"
RIMMER #2: "Face facts, man, nobody likes you!  Not even Mummy!"
RIMMER: (Almost crying) "Mummy did like me! Mummy was just busy. She had a lot of meetings to go to."
RIMMER #2: "Twaddle!"
RIMMER: "You better watch what you say about my mummy! I'm a grown man and I'm not going to accept it."
RIMMER #2: (Shouting) "Oh, grow up, Mr. Gazpacho!!"
RIMMER: (Quietly) "Mister what?"
RIMMER #2: (Shouting) "I ... SAID ... MISTER ... GAZ ... PAAAACHO, DEAFIE!!!"
RIMMER: (Crying) "That is the most obscenely hurtful thing."
RIMMER #2: (Shouting) "GOOD!"
RIMMER:  "That is the straw that broke the dromedary, that is. You're finished, Rimmer."
RIMMER #2: (Snarling) "No, YOU'RE finished, Rimmer!"

Following on from this, Rimmer is now back in his old place, sleeping for the night on his old bunk. Rimmer 2, however, is not finished.

LISTER: "It's just I thought I heard, you know, um, raised voices?"
RIMMER: "Heh. It's quite an amusing thought, isn't it?  Having a... a blazing row with yourself."
RIMMER #2: (Shouting in Rimmer's Quarters) "HIT THE WALL!  GO ON!  HIT THE WALL!  GO ON!  YEAH!  YEAH!"

We see RIMMER #2 is directing the scutters to hit the adjoining wall for him.

RIMMER #2: (Shouting through the wall) "CAN YOU SHUT UP, RIMMER?! SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!"
RIMMER: (To LISTER) "Obviously, we have professional disagreements.  But, I mean, nothing with any side to it.  Nothing malicious."
RIMMER #2: (Shouting through the wall) "SHUT UP, YA DEAD GIT!"
RIMMER: (Getting up) "Excuse me a second, Lister, will you?"

He walks calmly to the door.

RIMMER: "STOP YOUR FOUL WHINING, YA FILTHY PIECE OF DISTENDED RECTUM!!!"

He calmly turns back.

RIMMER: "Lister, there's no point in concealing it anymore. Rimmer and me, we've had a bit of a tiff.  Nothing major.  But it goes without saying, IT WAS HIS FAULT!"

Lister has to choose which Rimmer to delete, so uses the most scientific and fair method available to him...

LISTER: "Ippy-dippy, my space shippy, on a course so true, past Neptune and Pluto's moon, the one I choose is you." He ends pointing to RIMMER.
RIMMER #2: "Excellent! Excellent decision, Listie! Turn him off."
RIMMER: "And the one you end on is the one who stays, yes?"
LISTER: (Firmly to RIMMER) "It's you, Rimmer."
RIMMER: "Wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Hold your horses. Hang on."
LISTER: It's your own fault, Rimmer. If you'd've given me Kochanski's hologram, none of this would've happened.  You made the bed, you lie in  it. Drive Room. Ten minutes."
RIMMER #2: "Drive Room. Five minutes."
RIMMER: "I don't believe it. I've been "ippy-dippied" to death."

Gazpacho soup!

RIMMER: "I suppose now I'm doomed, I can tell you. Gazpacho soup. It was the greatest night of my life. I'd been invited to the Captain's Table. I'd only been with the company fourteen years. Six officers  and me! They called me "Arnold." We had gazpacho soup for starters. I didn't know gazpacho soup was meant to be served cold. I called over the chef and I told him to take it away and bring it back hot.  He did! The looks on their faces still haunt me today!!" (Crying) "I thought they were laughing at the chef, when all the time, they were laughing at me as I ate my piping hot gazpacho soup! I never ate at the Captain's Table again. That was the end of my career."

NOTES
I haven't really made an attempt to write much extra material about Red Dwarf up to now, as the show is so funny and clever it really needs nothing added from me, but I feel here I need to talk about the final episode in season one. As mentioned earlier, it's the first episode that follows on directly, scene for scene, from the previous one, and so essentially is the only Red Dwarf two-parter, until season eight, when the opening episode, "Back in the Red" is split into three parts. But up to the end of season seven, there were no other episodes leading into others, bar the ending two episodes from that season, "Epideme" and "Nanarchy", which more or less ran into each other, the story from the one spilling over into, and having resonance with the other. Generally speaking though, these episodes were the exception rather than the rule.

The true awful truth about Arnold J. Rimmer is made painfully apparent to him in this episode. Who else, when given the chance to bring someone back from the dead to be their companion and/or ally, would choose a copy of themselves? But factor in that Rimmer had, in life, no friends at all, no colleagues who didn't despise him, no lover and only one person who had actually slept with him (and that by accident), and you can see his problem. In fact, sad as it may seem, Lister, whom he has nothing but contempt for, is the closest thing Arnie has to a friend. Even the Cat took an instant dislike to the man.

But then, faced with that decision, who to bring back, he could have earned huge brownie points and been a real friend to Lister by allowing him to bring Kochanski back, except he knows that, should that occur, Lister would no longer need him, and so at some point might order Holly to delete him. At best, Rimmer would be left to wander the lonely corridors of Red Dwarf, trying to fill up his time, with nobody wanting to talk to him or spend time with him. You can almost feel sorry for him in such a scenario, until you remember what a total smeghead he is, and realise he brings this treatment down on himself. If he hadn't spent so much time in "Confidence and Paranoia" trying to prevent Lister from retrieving the holodisc, and then, when Dave found it, if he had admitted defeat and let him have his wish, perhaps after all Lister might have been better disposed towards him.

As it is, Lister is delighted to get rid of Arnie, and quickly gets over his disappointment about Kochanski when he realises he will no longer have to share his quarters with Rimmer. The hologram is just as happy, believing that it is Lister, and people like him, who have held him back throughout his career, and his life. Now, with only himself for company, literally, he'll be finally able to achieve all those things he failed to accomplish when alive. Perhaps he can even take the exam and become an officer! Without Lister, as he says in his death video, dragging him back, dragging him down, he'll be able to climb up, up, the ziggaraut, lickety-split!

Ah, but...

Rimmer has failed to factor in one very important fact. He is, in any incarnation (apart from one we will meet in season four) and any life a total and utter smeghead, and multiplying that by two just gives you two smegheads. Worse, two smegheads, each of whom believe they are always right, superior in every way. As he says to Lister later, it's quite an amusing thought, having a blazing row with yourself, but this is exactly what happens. As someone once said, hell is being locked in a room with all your friends forever. Rimmer soon finds it is even worse to be locked in a room with yourself. There's nowhere to hide. All the little annoying things about your "roommate" you now notice, all the little sounds he makes, the way he walks and talks, the things he does, the expressions, the platitudes: they're all you. You're looking in a living mirror, and if there's something wrong with the reflection you're seeing there's something wrong with you.

Rimmer soon learns that living with himself is not the rosebed he had envisaged. You see, Rimmer has a certain view of himself that does not tally with reality. He does not, cannot, see the way he treats other people, the condescension, the arrogance, the lack of a sense of humour, the short temper. He thinks everyone else is wrong and he's right. But when he can see himself doing these things, he is forced to admit that maybe after all he is not the perfect speciment of mankind, the officer-in-waiting, the man who was cruelly denied all the advantages he should have had: he is not the man he thinks he is. He is, to put it quite plainly and simply, a goit.

And what is worse, he realises too (although the episode does not make this clear; the book does) that the Rimmer he has brought back to life is the original one, the one from three million years ago. Like it or not, his exposure to Lister and the Cat, even the batty Holly has changed him. It's a marginal change, for certain, and doesn't do much to soften his approach to people, but day by day, month by month, year by year a little of his self-assuredness and smugness is being chipped away, like the wind eroding a mountain, or water lapping over the course of millennia at a rock. Slowly, very, very slowly, he has changed to be perhaps 0.00000000001 percent less of a git than he used to be. He is, to put it simply, improving, if only the tiniest bit.

His double, on the other hand, has had no such exposure and is exactly as he was before the accident that wiped out the crew. He still thinks he's number one, that everyone else is inferior and determined to prove himself. He sneers at the proper Rimmer's lack of discipline, stamina and mettle. To put it mildly, he hates the current Rimmer, probably more than he hates anyone else. In fact, he doesn't even hate Lister - he doesn't care about him, but devotes no time to annoying or browbeating him the way the original one did. He's more interested in tearing down his double and coming out on top. Maybe somewhere in his hologrammatic mind, the mind of Arnold J. Rimmer, he knows that a time is coming when the computer will have to switch one of them off, and he doesn't intend that it be him!

Rimmer's self-absorption knows no bounds: who else but he would have his death recorded and then narrate poetry and make it into a tribute to himself? Who else would compare himself to Napoleon? He even goes so far in his pettiness as to demand back from Lister, not the posters in their cabin, but the blue-tac that holds them to the wall! But he finds he cannot match the pace of his younger (three million years younger!) copy and as a result the copy looks down upon him with the sort of contempt the real Rimmer usually lavishes only on Lister. It's quite a turnaround: Rimmer is not used to being sneered at, certainly not by someone he looks up to and admires, ie himself. There's no defence: he can't say anything against the other Rimmer, because the two are one and the same person, and they each know the other. All their secrets, all their shames are shared, culminating in the height of the row when the new Rimmer uses the most hurtful insult he can on the old, calling him Mister Gazpacho.

Finally pushed to his limits, and having got what fun he can out of watching the two Rimmers squabble, Lister decides one of them has to go. He tells them it's a toss-up; he doesn't care who it is that's deleted. But in reality he probably knows that if he has to keep a Rimmer it may as well be "his" Rimmer: the copy is too much like the man he used to work under, and as I said, even though it's the very tiniest improvement, Lister must be able to see that the Rimmer who is with him now is ever so slightly better than the one he worked with three millennia ago. Very slightly. Case of the devil you know, really.

Thanks (once again) for your Notes entry. New content on the series is so scarce that quality reflections like yours are a real treat. Even if this was merely rescued from your former blog, I enjoyed it.

Oh yeah I did up to season two originally, but I'll be writing new stuff on the later seasons in due course. I assume you've seen the recent ones? The Promised Land? The documentary Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years?

Great!

I have Promised Land but haven't seen the documentary. I'll have to look it up. Thanks!

Update - I was able to watch the first of the 3 documentary episodes. It was fun! I'll dig up pts 2 and 3 next. Thanks!

There's an old Comic Relief one too, don't know if it's of interest: Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg, where they have to try to cook or something? Might be worth checking out. Also The Smeg-Ups, though I'm sure you know about those. I assume you have all the books too?

Incidentally, I don't know if it would be of interest, but you know Chris Barrie stars in The Brittas Empire, basically almost reprising his Rimmer character, except more annoying? Well worth watching.