Before the accident, Lister (Craig Charles) watches on as Rimmer (Chris Barrie)
attempts to rally support from Kochanski (Chloe Annett) for his latest useless
proposal. (from: 'OUROBOROS')
She can't sleep, there are trainers in the fridge and there isn't a pot of cottage
cheese in sight. Kochanski (Chloe Annett) is finding life tough and Kryten (Robert
Llewellyn) isn't helping. (from: 'DUCT SOUP')
Dinner is served.. Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) gets his point across to the crew who
are in the AI suite's newest environment, Pride and Prejudice Land (from:
'BEYOND A JOKE')
Kochanski (Chloe Annett) and the crew watch on as Lister (Craig Charles) trys to
reason with deadly Epideme virus (Gary Martin) in a hope of saving his own life.
(from: 'EPIDEME')
With the help of Kryten (Robert Llewellyn), Lister (Craig Charles) begins to
adjust to having life without an arm, with disastrous results. (from:
'NANARCHY')
NOTE: Sections in italics refer to scenes only found on the Red Dwarf VII: Xtended videos and not in either the TV edition or usual video release.
TIKKA TO RIDE: A few weeks after Starbug was destroyed
by the crew's future selves, Lister sets the scene by explaining Starbug's future selves
actually destroyed themselves by killing the present crew due to a paradox and so
therefore Starbug has
been restored and brought back to the point before they met their future selves
(simple, eh?). However, this has had a
devastating effect on Lister's curry supplies which were destroyed in the
explosion.
However, the restoration of Starbug means that the Time Drive is still back on the
ship where the crew took it from originally. Lister has developed a scheme to retake
the Time Drive and use it to go
back to Earth (amazing how it suddenly developed faster than light capabilities...).
Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat are against the plan (otherwise they might turn out like
their future selves) but a quick swap of Kryten's heads and the removal of his guilt
chip and behaviour protocols gives Lister the backup he needs to convince the crew to
follow
him.
This also means Kryten has no guilt and no experience with the Time Drive
so
when the crew try to go back to the twenty third century, they find themselves in
Dallas, 1963 and in the Texas Book Depository.... after a quick set of deductions they
realise they have just intruded on the assassination of JFK and they bumpy landing
was explained by them pushing Lee Harvey Oswald out of a window before he fired
the shots. The crew are cornered by the FBI but escape to 1966 where JFK has been
impeached after a scandal and the Mafia run America. The Cubans have allowed the
Russians to build a missile base. The world is on the brink of nuclear war and
America's cities are deserted.
Lister
resolves to change things but is not helped by a guiltless Kryten who, upon asked to
find food, barbecues a dead civilian. After some pitiful attempts to rectify their
mistake, Lister decides that the only way to sort out the
mess is to employ a second gunman to stand behind a grassy knoll in the near vicinity
of the book depository and fire the shot....so he goes to prison and the arrested JFK
and asks him to kill his past
self and restore his respect in history. After all, the conspiracy theorists will never
guess that one! The world is
restored, but Lister still doesn't have a curry and the crew make their feelings of the
subject very evident....
Some time later on board Starbug, as Rimmer is
putting Kryten through some rigorous voltmeter testing, Lister is suddenly enlightened
as to why there was no debris in the explosion. Obviously the curry wasn’t destroyed
and was in fact stolen by him in the future. To Rimmer's annoyance he uses the drive
and gets the curry but not before Rimmer has the last laugh by sealing Lister in the
front of the ship and sending it off into deep space....
STOKE ME A CLIPPER: In a parallel dimension, Ace Rimmer is battling
Nazis and freeing a princess from the evil Captain Voorhese and a band of Nazis but
in the process of escaping an exploding plane on the back of a crocodile, he is shot
and forced to
jump to a nearby dimension before he is weakened beyond the point of no
return...guess whose dimension he reaches! Lister is, at that moment, indulging in a
little indiscretion with the Queen of Camelot on the AR simulator after using, much
to Kryten's disgust, a book
of cheats and hopefully some whipped cream if he can find it.
Lister is therefore a
little upset when Ace's arrival knocks out power to his groinal
attachment. However when they realise who it is the crew's anger is forgotten in
favour of a happy reunion, all except for one. Rimmer is not pleased to see Ace (they
only have 3000 vomit bags on
board ship) but Ace is persistent and wants to speak to him in private. It turns out that
this is not the
Ace Rimmer they met previously, but the latest in a long line who is, in fact, a hard
light hologram like Rimmer himself.
He tells his more weasely counterpart that
he is dying and that he wants Rimmer to become the next Ace in the line, but Rimmer
is less than happy of having to become a man who looks like a reject from a gay pride
disco! Luckily (with some help from Lister) Ace convinces Rimmer to allow him to
train him and he sets out to release the cougar in Arnold, but all Rimmer can manage
is a hamster. Eventually Ace decides the time has come, he gives Rimmer his wig and
tells him he must convince his ship mates that he is Ace and so complete his own
transformation.
After Lister disguises himself as a
knight of Camelot and duels Rimmer, Rimmer is finally convinced that he is brave
and decides to follow Ace's footsteps. When Ace dies, Lister pretends it was Rimmer
and so the crew hold a funeral for him. Rimmer still has cold feet but Ace has left one
final sign, a graveyard of the millions of Rimmers who became Ace. So finally, new
Ace takes his place and leaves his crew mates forever (well, as long as
he can work out the flight controls from the ejector seat). With a final farewell he
departs Starbug for an alternative dimension...Stoke him a Clipper, he will be back
for Christmas!
OUROBOROS: Back in 2155, we see a box put under a pool table...the box
says 'OUROBOROS' on it and contains a small baby... Many years later,
that baby, now Dave Lister, is having trouble staying sane. The fact he has mistakenly
attached a roll of dental floss to his teeth and is wearing a pink dressing gown and
bunny slippers isn't helping either. However, all that is put on hold when the Cat spots
a big wibbily wobbly thing coming towards the ship. It transpires that it is a tear
between two dimensions, a doorway through which the crew can pass and meet
alternative versions of themselves. They go through and are confronted by another
Cat, Kryten and a hologramitic Lister.
It turns out that in their dimension, Lister
died
in the accident which wiped out the crew of Red Dwarf after Kochanski was put in
stasis for
taking care of his cat. What this means is that they have another crew member....a
fully human Kristine Kochanski and Lister isn’t in the best attire he wants to meet her
in. Things look up when she expresses a desire to have children...but then she presents
him with a tube and a request for sperm. However, the arrival of a GELF ship breaks
up the conversation and
Kochanski ends up on the wrong side of the dimensional tear when it closes. Stuck on
'the dustbin
with thrusters', she has to put up with Lister and the Cat's lust and Kryten's hatred of
her 'in and out bits'. She is a valuable asset, however, and when the GELFs return
(who are being commanded by Lister's jilted GELF bride) she gets them out of the
scrape.
However, she wants to go back to her ship and away from 'Priscilla Queen
of Deep Space' and so when the chance arises, and the dimensional linkway reopens
nothing Lister can do will stop her. However, when they swap supplies with their
counterparts, Lister spots a box saying 'OUROBOROS' and realises the child he
helped Kochanski conceive is himself. He is his own father, and Kochanski is his
ex-girlfriend and his mum!
He runs after Kochanski to get the tube containing his
own embryo, but the
GELFs return and this time Kochanski is stuck on their side of the gateway
permanently. Many months later, Lister is born and his 'father' takes him back to the
Aigburth Arms using the time drive, telling him it is a paradox from which the human
race will
never die out. He writes 'OUROBOROS' on the box and then leaves it under the pool
table...
DUCT SOUP: Everyone is having a bad night. Lister is too hot and
Kochanski is going crazy being stuck in the room next to the squeaky pipes. She tries
to console herself
with Kryten, but the jealous mechanoid only wants her to stop looking at Lister like
he was a tin of cottage cheese. Meanwhile, after deciding he can't sleep, Lister has
gone to the laundry room with the Cat and they are having a good night watching
Kochanski's knickers spin-dry in the washing machine.
To Kryten's displeasure,
Lister begins to
get closer to Kochanski by sorting out her pipes and giving her a new uniform,...but
suddenly the power goes out and the crew find
themselves stuck in Lister's quarters and unable to open the doors to get to the
cockpit. The only way through are through the miles of pipes and ducts inside the ship
and so the crew set off towards the engine room. In this time, they all find out a lot
more about each other. Lister reveals how he developed his fear of claustrophobia
after an unpleasant
experience of being trapped in a crate in his childhood and Kochanski mistakenly
reveals to Kryten that she makes a sound like a rusty gate when she makes love.
Kryten
doesn't mind (he files it under 'S' for 'So funny you'll laugh until you're sick').
Lister also relates stories from his childhood orphanage, and Kochanski reveals
that despite her seemingly refined exterior she went through a period off the rails. She
puts it down to leaving cyber-school and realising the Earth didn't revolve around her,
which the Cat agrees with. After all, it must obviously revolve around him!
However, their troubles can only get worse with the constant washing systems
meaning the pipes get flooded with water and
then dried. It is all becoming too much, especially when Kryten works out Starbug is
heading straight into a nearby sun. Luckily, Lister discovers how to reach the exit by
using the backwash to their advantage, but they
only end up back in the sleeping quarters where they begun.
It is only when they
decide all is lost that Kryten reveals that he didn’t
lock the doors and he only took them through the pipes so that Lister and Kochanski
would learn enough about each other to be put off one another. Whilst Lister and Cat
prepare
some electro leads for connection to Kryten's nipple nuts, Kochanski takes out her
frustration on the mechanoid's head with a spanner.
BLUE: Kryten is suspicious when Lister reveals an intention to cut down on
curry, it must be something to do with 'she who must be drooled over'. And as if the
extra
laundry and strange lingerie weren't enough, she keeps taking the salad cream out of
the fridge! However, an
emergency soon stops his moaning. Starbug is about to hit the tail of a comet and if
they don't get through, Kochanski won't be able to get back to her own crew.
Although Kochanski advises against it in the interests of safety and not turning out
like potato salad, Lister
decides to chance it but only manages to damage Starbug so badly that Kochanski
doesn't make it to the rendezvous point.
The explanation Kryten offers is that
Starbug was
carrying
too much weight, so Lister and the Cat decide to dump some rubbish. However, Lister
won't throw anything away because it reminds him of the 'fun' he used to have with
Rimmer back on Red Dwarf such as playing 'the locker room game' whereby they
would open the lockers of the dead crew and keep what they found. Kryten concludes
that Lister is, in fact, missing Rimmer
and when Lister has
dreams about being reunited with the man with the most flared nostrils in the world,
laughing and joking with him and then passionately snogging him, he is
forced to put himself forward for psychiatric help from the mechanoid.
It is
actually
Kochanski who manages to get through to him by concluding that, despite the fact he
hated him personally, he respects the way
Rimmer tried to keep him sane. However, Kryten has a far better solution. Using
Rimmer's diaries, he constructs the 'Rimmer Experience' on the AR machine. It is a
museum of everything to do with Rimmer and it is sickening. It portrays him as a
courageous leader and the other crew members as complete idiots. However, it is the
sickening song
which proclaims Rimmer's greatness with Lister hates the most and he and the Cat
conclude they never want to see that weasely maggot ever again, which is exactly
what
Kryten was intending.
BEYOND A JOKE: Kryten has been busy for three days to prepare a lobster
for the celebration of the anniversary of when the crew found him aboard the Nova 5.
However, Lister and the crew have other plans. Kochanski has found a copy of 'Jane
Austin
World' for the AR machine and wants to show it to Lister and the Cat to try and get
them educated. Kryten is appalled that Lister would rather go with Kochanski than
him and so sets out to ruin everyone’s night. The crew enter Pride and Prejudice
world. Lister and the Cat are introduced to Mrs. Bennett and her daughters whilst
Kryten attempts to kill as many of them as possible by use of a blow pipe. However,
when that doesn't work he decides to import a tank from a war game and blows up the
entire Bennett family.
Now that the crew have his attention they sit down to eat
dinner, which turns out to taste awful. However, things really come to a fore when
Lister asks for ketchup and in disgust and anger, Kryten blows his top, literally.
Without a head, Kryten
can't operate so Lister and the others set out to salvage one from a nearby ship.
However, there is a Simulant aboard and Kochanski and the Cat have to disguise as
GELFs to get past him and get the mechanoid heads. However, whilst they were doing
this, Starbug was ransacked and Kryten's body has been stolen.
The Simulant
takes
Kryten to Able, another Series 4000 mechanoid who he has aboard his ship. Able is
completely
mad after becoming addicted to a droid corrupting drug called Ultra Zone. He repairs
Kryten and the
two realise they are technically brothers, but Kryten is appalled by the state of the
other droid who can't even remember his name without two minutes of thinking.
Meanwhile, Lister and co. are in hot pursuit of the Stimulant’s ship and
manage to fool him into beaming aboard Starbug. However, before he is defeated he
lets a secret slip to Kryten about his creator, Dr. Mamet which sends the droid into
shame overload. The crew defeat the Simulant before he can do any more damage
and he is sent back to
his ship.
Able is brought abroad Starbug and promises to try and give up Ultra
Zone, but Kryten has nearly been destroyed
by the truth. He tells Lister that the Series 4000 mechanoids were built after Mamet
had been jilted at the altar, so they were made in the image of her ex-fiancé as ugly,
'mother clucking' and neurotic and that he is nothing more than a joke. Lister
persuades him that thanks to his corrupted files, he is beyond a
joke, and has become more than a laughing stock.
However, as the crew try to
hide form the Simulant, Able unwittingly leads the Simulant
back to Starbug. Kryten believes him to be a traitor and a failure but he is wrong.
Able throws away his life to save all on board Starbug by using Kryten's negative
energy
as a weapon against the Simulant. Able is killed when the Simulant commits suicide
and blows up his ship. Kryten gets back to his normal self and in the AR machine,
Lister is about to find out that Curry
World is a little hotter than he remembers. But hey, it was only a joke on Kryten's
part!
EPIDEME: The crew are in luck to discover a huge astro glacier nearby and
so can get more supplies of water, but are surprised to find that there is actually as
ship
incarcerated in the ice. The ship (called the Leviathan) has been lying frozen for many
years and the crew are
dead, except for one person. She is a supply engineer who used to work on Red Dwarf
called Caroline Carmen. She is alive, but totally frozen in a block of ice. The crew
take her back to
Starbug but are unable to thaw her.
That night, however, the ice cracks and the
zombiefied Carmen stalks the corridors searching for Lister. She finds him in bed and
gets a lot closer than Lister would like (had he not thought it was Kochanski finally
coming to her senses). They
are interrupted by Kryten, who thinks Lister is with Kochanski, but then she walks
into the room and everything gets confusing (especially when Lister subsequently
comes on to her thinking that it
was her who was trying to sleep with him.) When Carmen appears again, she gets
what she wants and Lister is forced to kiss her. Then suddenly she dies leaving Lister
horrified at having been molested by Tutankhamun's horny grandmother! Kryten
concludes that she was carrying a virus which was keeping her alive by creating an
ice field around her and that virus has
now been transmitted to Lister.
This, in fact, the Epideme virus. It was meant to
stop smoking addictions but cutting off the nicotine in peoples' blood, but in practice
it also cut off their oxygen supplies and killed them. It is intelligent, however, and so
Lister has the chance to try and talk it out of killing him (rather unsuccessfully.
Although the virus does concede it won't be much use for it knowing Lister's skill of
how to open beer bottles with his anus). However, Kochanski has an idea. If they can
force the virus into Lister's arm and the
amputate it, they can destroy the virus. Lister agrees, but on the condition it is his left
arm which they cut off. However, this too does not go according to plan when
Epideme decides to infiltrate Lister's right arm instead. Lister wakes up to find the
arm which he does all his favourite things is gone, and Epideme is still alive in his
body.
As a last ditch effort to save the Cat or Kochanski from a liaison with a
zombiefied version of himself, he attaches a bomb to himself and sets the timer.
However, Epideme stops him by mistakenly revealing the planet which the cure is
on.
The crew race there but find it empty, Epideme has tricked them and Lister is
close to
death. Kochanski has a plan, but she has to stop Lister's heart to do it. Then he
becomes a zombie and bites her arm, thus infecting her with the virus. Before it can
spread and to the horror of Kryten and the Cat, she then cuts her own arm off,
destroying the virus. It was, in fact, Caroline' Carmen's arm injected with blood and
adrenaline. Kryten is impressed, and Lister is quickly resuscitated. But despite beating
the virus, now he has lost his arm. TO BE
CONTINUED...
NANARCHY: Life without a right arm is getting Lister down, but at least he
is
only half crap at the guitar now. Kochanski thinks Kryten should teach Lister to fend
for himself rather than rely on him (especially when she learns he is on 24 hour wipe
alert...) However, Kryten's attempt at a prosthetic limb is sadly inadequate since it has
a mind of its own and can't be controlled. The Cat's attempts at counselling don't work
either, only depressing Lister further. Kochanski then
remembers that Kryten has something which could help.
The droid contains a
number of nanobots, tiny creatures which can deconstruct and object into its
component atoms and then rebuild the atoms into an all new structure. They usually
repair circuit boards, but
they could theoretically work on Lister too, copying his tissue and building a new
arm. It could work, if Kryten had any nanobots. He actually lost them on the S.S.S.
Esperanto, which was just before they lost Red Dwarf. However, the crew all decide
it's worth trying to find and so they fire up the engines to retrace their steps back to
the Esperanto, going into another 200 year deep sleep for the journey.
However,
they are awoken early when
Starbug's scanners detect something strange ahead. Apparently a rather large planet in
their way
is actually Red Dwarf. When the crew explore it further, they realise it is littered with
debris from the ship. They collect some of it and go back to Starbug. One item in
particular interests Lister, an old watch he once used to contain a portable version of
Holly. To his delight, he turns it on and is greeted by the male version of Holly. He
explains everything. It turns out that
Kryten's nanobots rebelled against him and whilst the crew were on the Esperanto,
they stole Red Dwarf. First they deconstructed it into its component atoms and then
created a sub atomic version of the ship for
themselves to pilot. They converted the rest of the atoms into the planet. Holly seems
in perfect order (as far as senile computers go) and is even able to
shed light on the location of the sub atomic version of Red Dwarf.
As Starbug
was
chasing its vapour trail for 200 years, the nanobots would have searched for a place
where they couldn't be
scanned. The only place where this could happen would be on Starbug itself and so
Kryten scans the interior of the ship. To their amazement, the crew find the nanobots
inside Lister's laundry basket. Immediately Kryten sets them to the task of giving
Lister a new arm and restoring Red Dwarf. However, it
is the nanobots who appear to get the last laugh by creating a completely overlarge
Lister. And
when the crew subsequently fly through the hanger bay doors of the newly built Red
Dwarf, they find the ship massively oversized for
Starbug...
Rimmer/Ace Rimmer (Episodes 1-3,5)
Chris
Barrie
Cat
Danny John-Jules
Kryten/Able
Robert
Llewellyn
Kochanski (Episodes 3-8)
Chloe
Annett
GUEST
CAST
John F. Kennedy
Michael J.
Shannon
Captain Voorhese
Ken Morley
King
Brian
Cox
Queen
Sarah Alexander
Simulant
Don
Henderson
Epideme
Gary Martin
Holly
Norman
Lovett
© 1999 sculder_mully@oocities.com