PICTURES

Rimmer (Chris Barrie) and Lister (Craig Charles) meet their female counterparts (Suzanne Bertish and Angela Bruce) (from: 'PARALLEL UNIVERSE')

EPISODE GUIDE

KRYTEN: Whilst listening to another of Rimmer's sad attempts to expand his mind and learn Esperanto, Red Dwarf comes into contact with the Nova 5, a vessel which has crashed on a nearby moon. The service android on board ship, Kryten, informs the crew of the Dwarf that all of the Nova 5's personnel are dead except three badly injured female officers. It's Red Dwarf to the rescue as the crew dress for the occasion. After all, after years alone in deep space the mere scent of a women is enough to make all of the Cat's six nipples start tingling! Rimmer, in full Admiral uniform, scoffs at Lister's attempts to wear his least smeggy clothes (heck, he's even wearing the T-shirt with only one curry stain!) But then begs his crewmate not to show him up and to call him 'Ace' wherever possible. Once assembled on Blue Midget (with the Cat wearing a gold spacesuit with cufflinks, and Holly sporting a toupee) the boys from the Dwarf are off on their mission of mercy.
Unfortunately for all concerned, it soon becomes apparent that, in fact, Nova 5 actually crashed thousands of years ago and the three female officers now have less meat on them than chicken nuggets. Rimmer especially is a little shocked to find himself staring at three skeletons whilst Kryten fusses around them trying to make their wigs straight. Kryten is dejected when this is pointed out, initially refusing to believe until Rimmer asks all living members to raise their hands. He has to serve someone to exist, and therefore decided to disregard the crew's deaths just to carry on his programming. But none the less the posse persuade him to come back with them to Red Dwarf.
Rimmer takes advantage of this and soon has the hapless android doing all sorts of things for him including tidying the sleeping quarters and throwing away Albert, Lister's pet mould. Lister wants to see Kryten rebel against his core program and be happy just living his life, to fulfil his dreams. With the help of some Western films, including a healthy doce of "The Wild Ones" he helps the android to break his programming and stand up to Rimmer. In triumph, he borrows Lister's space bike and jets off into the stars forever. (Well, until Red Dwarf III, anyway)

BETTER THAN LIFE: A post pod has caught up with Red Dwarf after three million years (which Holly reckons is around normal for a second class post) and three million years worth of mail is there to be waded through. The skutters are more than happy with their latest mailing from the John Wayne fan club and there are some delights in store for the rest of the posse.
For Lister, the two complete seasons of Zero Gravity Football promise to amuse him for month to come but Rimmer is dejected to find the only items of mail he has are a bill for several thousand pounds worth of tax and a letter from his mum telling him that his father is dead. Rimmer remembers how he could never impress his father and how he was always a disappointment to him by not succeeding in the Space Corp. However, the appearance of a total immersion video game which can fulfil desires soon has his attention and the crew plug into 'Better Than Life'.
In the game, anything the crew want can happen. After meeting Napoleon and getting his autograph, Rimmer instantly becomes an admiral and gets a session with Yvonne McGruder. Lister gets the room of his dreams with a guitar shaped water bed and the Cat gets a wardrobe that crosses time zones, as well as the opportunity to dump Marilyn Monroe in favour of a women who has a head like a fish... However, deep down Rimmer hates himself and quickly after meeting his father and still being rejected, his subconscious corrupts the game, conjuring up seven children, an angry wife, a mortgage and an angry tax man. He also succeeds in corrupting everyone else's fantasies, destroying the game. Lister and the Cat know they're in trouble the minutes they appear buried in the sand of a beach covered in jam about to get eaten by hordes of ants. The crew escape and leave the game, but Rimmer has some good news in store, Lister finds another letter for him which confirms following miscalculations on his exams he is, in fact, an officer. His joy is shattered by the reappearance of the tax man and a large hammer. It turns out that the crew are actually still in the game and this time, it really is going to be 'Game Over' for Rimmer.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY: It's the anniversary of Rimmer's death and so the crew celebrate on a nearby planet and party the night away. After a very bad night for all (in which everyone gets drunk, Rimmer reveals he has only had sex once and eats an exceptionally foul sandwich of Lister's creation) Lister and the Cat are surprised to both wake up with their legs in plaster. Also, two days are missing from Holly's logs and Lister's diary. As well as which, Lister's unfinishable jigsaw has been finished.
It is as if two days have been deleted from existence. The ship's black box is also missing, but Holly tracks it down to a nearby planet. Upon arrival, the crew are shocked to find it buried under a gravestone carved 'In Loving Memory of Lisa Yates', especially Lister since he reveals that he once had a girlfriend called Lisa Yates.
As the recording plays, all is revealed. After Rimmer revealed the sad truth about his sex life that night, Lister decided to give Rimmer the best present ever. He went with the Cat to the Hologram Simulation Suite and uploaded Rimmer a whole year of his own memory in which he had a great girlfriend (Lisa Yates), he puts this into Rimmer's mind and so Rimmer dreams of the girlfriend he had forgotten.
Rimmer finds it unfathomable that he suddenly remembers going through a year as a slob and having constant sex with a woman he's only just remembered, and wondered why he went off the rails at that time. Unfortunately, after he thinks about it for some time and finds some letters of Lister which reveal that he used to have sex with her on the same nights Rimmer did, the truth dawns on him and he demands all record of the past two days to be destroyed so he can escape humiliation.
Lister and the Cat take the black box to a planet and bury it under a gravestone (in the process breaking their legs as the drop the gravestone on their feet), then they all have their memories erased of the event. Just as he leaves to do so, Lister rips two days out of his diary and finishes his jigsaw.

STASIS LEAK: A look back before the accident shows an event when Rimmer, suffering the after effects of a plate of hallucinogenic fungi (Lister's joke, obviously) appeared to see his own head rise up from inside a table and tell him that he was from three million years in the future and a stasis leak had been found on Floor 16.
Back in the present, Lister has read Rimmer's diary and realises that this was not an hallucination (as Rimmer had previously thought), but a guide to something on the ship. A trip by Xpress Lift to floor 16 reveals the stasis leak which is a gateway to the past (or, as the Cat prefers to call it, a magic door).
Although they can't bring things back through it, the crew see its potential. Lister plans to make Kochanski use the second stasis booth on board ship so she would survive the accident, and Rimmer wants the same thing for himself so that he can try living with himself again. Unfortunately, when Rimmer attempts to convince his past self, he is simply replaying the event by which they found the stasis leak in the first place. The past Rimmer goes insane and (among other things) starts throwing paint at Captain Hollister. Eventually he is taken to the sick bay.
Lister is even more shocked to find out that he has a photo of himself marrying Kochanski, or so he thinks. When he goes back to find her, she is already married and Lister realises that in the photo he is just an onlooker. Things get even more confused when he bumps into Kochanski and she introduces him to her husband, a Lister from five years in the future. So in five years Lister will go back again and marry Kochanski. He goes to find Rimmer and things get very confusing when all the Rimmers and all the Listers congregate in one room, especially for the Rimmer who has just been returned from the sick bay who, less than politely, shouts at everyone to "Go away!!!".

QUEEG: After a meteor crashes into Red Dwarf, Rimmer goes to pieces, literally. Thanks to Holly's failure to warn the crew of the impending danger, the hologram simulation suite has been damaged. When Lister repairs the hologram, Holy misdirects his wiring and almost gets killed.
The crew blame Holly for the accident, prompting the entrance of the stern looking head of Queeg 500, Red Dwarf's back-up computer. Queeg reveals that Holly has been removed for gross negligence and takes control of the ship. He also reveals Holly's true IQ of 6 and that he gets all his information from the Junior Encyclopaedia of Space (it's the only book that had pictures). Holly is demoted to night watchman and disgraced. Rimmer thinks things will be better, but Queeg is a rigid enforcer of Space Corps rules and soon has Rimmer on a five mile jog every morning (conscious or not) and hours of astro-navigation revision. Lister and Cat don't fare much better, having used all their food credit months ago they are forced to work for their food which, after a hard day’s work, turns out to be a pea on toast.
After much pleading to Holly, he agrees to take on Queeg in a game of Chess for command of Red Dwarf. He very quickly looses. As part of the deal, the loser must be erased and so Holly says a sad goodbye, leaving the crew with Queeg......for about 5 seconds. Holly then reappears and reveals that it was all a joke and that there never was any Queeg. The whole thing was an experiment to see how much trust the crew had in his abilities. And the moral of his story? "Appreciate what you've got, because basically, I'm fantastic."

PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Holly announces that he has perfected the Holly Hop Drive. A machine capable of taking the crew anywhere in the universe in a matter of seconds. Lister is ecstatic at the prospect of returning to Earth immediately, but is more than a little sceptical at the device (a box with two buttons: Stop and Start) but the crew try it on Holly's insistence that it will work. Naturally, something goes wrong and the crew are hurled into another dimension with another Red Dwarf. Except in this dimension, females are the more dominant sex.
Holly meets Hilly, the female version of himself on the other Red Dwarf, and the two are instantly attracted to each other. Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer are pleased to meet their counterparts: Deb Lister and Arlene Rimmer. However, the Cat is less than pleased to meet his counterpart, who is not a female but a Dog. It becomes apparent that there are definite flaws. The other versions of the crew have the same vices and shortcomings, Rimmer is shocked to find is counterpart trying to hypnotise him, a trick he uses on woman. And Lister is not impressed that Deb can belch 'Yankee Doodle Dandee', even though it's his party piece. The woman also treat the Dwarfers as men treat woman in their universe, as a second class. The Cat and Dog never manage to get along, especially when it comes to dancing. The Cat eventually asks for a grenade "I want to play fetch with the Dog!"
After a rather long repair procedure and the appearance of a strange, lipstick shaped 'computer rash' on his face, Holly repairs the drive and the crew prepare to leave, but not before Lister wakes up with a hangover in the same bed as his female half. He is then shocked to find that in this universe he could actually get pregnant, since their physical law applies. Deb has no sympathy, after all, in this universe it's the men who should be responsible for precautions. Lister spends an agonising wait back on Red Dwarf as a pregnancy test is carried out. Holly recalls the events of the future echoes, in which Lister saw himself with children. To Rimmer's delight, it is positive and Lister realises that as he saw in his future echo, and he's not just having one baby, he's having twins!

BEHIND THE SCENES

OTHER DWARF DEVELOPMENTS

© 1999 sculder_mully@oocities.com

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