旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � The RED DWARF SmegBook � � "The End" - "Out of Time" � 읕 1988 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 1993 켸 written by Earl Green special thanks to Joe Siegler, Steve Quarrella and Chris Bray "Red Dwarf" created by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Series One - 1988 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� "Rimmer, you *are* a smeghead!" 01 THE END Feb 15, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye The Beginning: It's an abysmally average day about the Red Dwarf, a mining ship of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. The two lowest-ranking members of Red Dwarf's crew, second technician Arnold J. Rimmer and third technician David Lister, are - as one gets the impression is common - unable to agree on anything. Lister's laid-back lifestyle and his refusal to deal with or, for that matter, acknowledge the existence of any problem unless his life depends on it irritates Rimmer, who sees himself as prime officer material despite his chronic inability to pass the ship's navigation exams. As Rimmer undertakes the nav exam one more time (only to realize that he once again knows nothing about the subject), Lister opens a ventilation duct in their quarters to let his pet cat Frankenstein out. The cat in question later becomes something of a point of contention between Lister and Captain Hollister, who calls Lister to his office and demands custody of the unauthorized and unquarantined animal. When Lister refuses, he is sentenced to make the rest of Red Dwarf's journey in suspended animation without pay. He is awakened from his time in stasis by the ship's computer, Holly, who, moments after Lister rejoins the world of the living, breaks the news to him that the rest of that world has apparently vacated Red Dwarf - an improperly repaired drive plate (improperly repaired, naturally, by Rimmer) released deadly cadmium-2 radiation into the ship's habitable areas, killing all aboard except Lister, who was sealed safely in stasis, and his cat, who was safely sealed in a cargo bay. Holly then comforts Lister by revealing that this tragedy happened a long time ago - three million years, to be exact. As if that's not enough, Rimmer has been revived as a hologram, unable to touch anything, but fully capable of getting on Lister's nerves. And the generations of kittens born to Lister's cat have evolved into a humanoid form of cat, with the outward appearance of a human being but the vanity and attitude of a tomcat on the make; one such creature, who winds up with the highly original name of Cat, is "adopted" by Lister. Having had enough surprises for one day, Lister orders Holly to set a course to Fiji. Our Heroes: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Norman Lovett (Holly) Guest Cast: Robert Bathurst (Todhunter), Paul Bradley (Chen), David Gillespie (Selby), Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister), Robert McCulley (McIntyre), Mark Williams (Petersen), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski) "Look, we're traveling faster than the speed of light. That means by the time we see something, we've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still brown trousers time." 02 FUTURE ECHOES Feb 22, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Things That Will Have Been Were Did Happening: Lister is preparing to go back into stasis, hoping to be alive and well after a few million years more when Red Dwarf should arrive back at Earth. Lister is also trying unsuccessfully to get Cat to join him in suspended animation, but is having a hard time convincing Cat to leave most of his wardrobe behind. In the meantime, Rimmer - by insulting Holly when asking for a holographic crew cut - sports a dashing and rakish beehive 'do from Earth's 1950s, and is outraged at the others' plan to leave him behind while they sleep through the aeon or so it will take the ship to return home. Shortly after Lister argues with his artificially intelligent Toaster over which of them is a better singer, the ship lurches wildly as it breaks the light barrier once more to make its way home. Lister continues shaving when he notices that the Lister in the mirror isn't doing the same things at the same time he himself is. (Confused yet?) Holly claims that, since Red Dwarf is traveling faster than light, events that are about to happen are catching up with the crew before they actually do happen. The Toaster backs this theory up, so it must be true, and everyone goes on about their merry way, though the echoes of future events get stranger and stranger, from Cat breaking his tooth to Lister finding a Polaroid (though luckily not a double Polaroid) of himself holding two babies. Then Rimmer witnesses a future event which casts a bit of gloom on the proceedings - Lister's death while making emergency repairs in the drive room. Guest Cast: John Lenahan (Talkie Toaster), Tony Hawks (Dispensing Machine) "See this hand? It is mine. See these things? They are mine!" 03 BALANCE OF POWER Feb 29, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Current Pecking Order: Lister tires of Rimmer's plan to catalog all the irradiated haggises aboard Red Dwarf and decides instead to take the day off. Lister complains to Holly that instead of Rimmer, the hologram of Kristine Kochanski, a navigator who Lister had a crush on, should have been brought back. Lister goes to Rimmer with the very attractive proposition that Rimmer could be shut down for a while so Lister can spend time with Kochanski. (It's attractive for Lister, anyway.) Rimmer naturally refuses, so Lister resorts to desperate measures to take a computer course and become the ship's chef, therefore outranking Rimmer. Holly tries once more to dissuade Rimmer from insulting him by replacing one of Rimmer's holographic arms with that of Olaf Petersen, a dimwitted Dane and old friend of Lister's. Rimmer is also getting a little desperate, and so he tries to get Lister to give up the chef's exam by walking in the guise of Kochanski's hologram. Even that backfires when Lister sees through Rimmer - well, more so than usual, anyway! Guest Cast: Rupert Bates (Trout a la Creme/Chef), Paul Bradley (Chen), David Gillespie (Selby), Mark Williams (Petersen), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski) "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing, give it to Rimmer." 04 WAITING FOR GOD Mar 7, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Let Us Pray: When Holly spots an unidentified pod floating through space, Rimmer hopes he's found aliens with the technology to return a hologram to physical form. Lister, in the meantime, is learning how to read cat writing with the aid of Cat's dictionary, written entirely in smells. Lister advances far enough in the cat language to move on to their Holy Book, which tells the story of Cloister the Stupid, who was frozen in time so that the cat race could live. Lister quickly recognizes from the pictures in this book that he is Cloister, who was sentenced to stasis when he refused to reveal the whereabouts of his unquarantined cat. Lister tries to convince Cat that he is the cat equivalent of God, though for some reason Cat isn't impressed. Upon the arrival of the mysterious pod, Rimmer decides to embark on an all-out investigation of its origins. Lister quickly discovers that it's one of Red Dwarf's own garbage pods, but doesn't tell this to Rimmer right away or, for that matter, at all. Holly has also been hard at work deciphering Cat's Bible for Lister, and it reveals that the cat race took all too seriously Lister's humble desire to go to Fiji and open a donut stand - the cats made this goal their own, with the exception of the colors on the little cardboard hats. Factions who believed the hats should be one color or another divided and took up arms, and most of Cat's ancestors died in terribly holy wars, with the exception of an ark full of cats which escaped. As Rimmer continues theorizing about his discovery of "Quagaar warriors," Lister tries to find Cat so he can apologize for being God. In the end, Rimmer sees it is a garbage pod, says it is a smegging garbage pod, and yea, it is a garbage pod, amen. Lots of smeggy little tidbits in this story for those who are interested: at the time of this episode, 18 weeks had passed since Lister had come out of stasis; Cat's parents were a cripple and an idiot (and his father ate his own feet), and the last of the cats aside from the Cat we know and...well, know, is seen here. Guest Cats: Noel Coleman (Cat Priest), John Lenahan (Talkie Toaster) "Oxygen's for losers!" 05 CONFIDENCE & PARANOIA Mar 14, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Prognosis: Having gone to the senior officers' quarters to visit Kochanski's cabin, Lister has unknowingly wandered into a quarantined area and caught a disease which was pneumonia 3,000,000 years ago, but is much worse now. Not only does the mutated strain leave its victims susceptible to hallucination, but it can also make those hallucinations real, and it does - when Lister imagines the two personas of his own confidence and paranoia. Rimmer tries to convince Lister that the two new arrivals are nothing but trouble, but when Lister's confidence treats him like king of the hill, and his paranoia irritates the smeg out of Rimmer, how could it get any better than this? Guest Cast: Lee Cornes (Paranoia), Craig Ferguson (Confidence) "I don't believe it. I've been ippy-dippied to death." 06 ME2 Mar 21, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye In Stereo Where Available, Baby: It could only get better, Rimmer decides, by tricking Lister into activating a second hologram which he thinks will be Kochanski, but is instead a backup copy of Rimmer himself. It's love at first sight for Rimmer, who moves into the next room with his duplicate. But all isn't well - Rimmer's ambition gets the best of him, as does Rimmer's amibiton. In the meantime, Cat leaves a present in Rimmer's closet for future archaeologists to puzzle over, while Lister watches a video of Rimmer's death and discovers the deadly secret of gazpacho soup, a mystery Rimmer took with him to the grave. But since Rimmer unfortunately didn't stay there long, Lister will do anything to find out why his dying words were "gazpacho soup." Guest Cast: Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Series Two - 1988 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� "They're dead." "My God! I was only gone two minutes!" 07 KRYTEN Sep 6, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye This Week on "Androids": Holly interrupts Rimmer's futile attempts to learn Esperanto to inform the gang that he's receiving a real live distress call which turns out to be from an android named Kryten aboard a crashed spaceship occupied by three lovely women. But when Red Dwarf arrives to save the doomed ship's damsels in distress, they turn out to be very, very dead, to the point where even Rimmer can't turn their emaciated heads. But Lister insists on taking Kryten back to Red Dwarf, where the android is totally lost until Rimmer gives him a list of chores that mainly involve cleaning every inch of the ship. Lister is determined to make a rebel out of Kryten. Our Heroes: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Norman Lovett (Holly) Guest Cast: David Ross (Kryten), Johanna Hargreaves (The Esperanto Woman), Tony Slattery (Android Actor) The Cast of "Androids": Android 14762/E, Android 87542/P, Android 442/53/2 Android 72264/Y, Android 24/A, Android 960212/L "Two million years is about average for second-class post." 08 BETTER THAN LIFE Sep 13, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye What Goes Down: Rimmer upon Red Dwarf's wrestling champion Yvonne McGruder, or so he claims; however, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. A mail pod arrives, containing all kinds of junk mail, a few Total Immersion Video Games (addictive virtual reality games that sense the player's subconscious desires and brings them to life), Rimmer's tax notification, and a letter from Rimmer's mother which informs him that his father is dead. Despite Lister's best efforts (and Cat's worst) to cheer him up, Rimmer becomes very depressed. Lister and Cat talk Rimmer into joining them in a T.I.V. game known as "Better Than Life," which was all the rage three million years ago in Earth's solar system. They find themselves in a world where their innermost desires come true; Lister and Cat find a restaurant where they can at last order, respectively, a caviar vindaloo and a tank of live fish. Rimmer imagines McGruder, the victim/partner in the one and only sexual experience of his entire lifetime, and Cat imagines Marilyn Monroe as well as a mermaid whose body is fishlike on top and humanoid below the waist. Too much of a good thing, however, is the first half of an overquoted cliche', and Lister and Cat haven't counted on Rimmer's self-abusive psyche... Guest Cast: John Abineri (Rimmer's Dad), Debbie Ash (Marilyn Monroe), Jeremy Austin (Rathbone), Nigel Carrivick (The Captain), Judy Hawkins (McGruder), Tony Hawks (The Guide), Tina Jenkins (The Newsreader), Ron Pember (The Taxman), Gordon Salkillo (Gordon) "The woman I loved most in the whole world had her tongue down your ear." 09 THANKS FOR THE MEMORY Sep 20, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye A Quick Reminder: It's Rimmer's deathday, which Lister, Holly and the Cat are probably celebrating more elaborately than they would be if it were his birthday. They all get well pissed, but even the worst hangover doesn't account for how they wake up the next morning - Lister and Cat each have one foot in a cast, Rimmer remembers confessing in a drunken stupor to Lister that he's only had sex once with something that wasn't inflatible, there are gaps in Holly's memory, and worst of all, someone's finished the puzzle that Lister had been trying to finish. Naturally, the ship's black box recorder would have the information they're after, but even this has gone missing, at least until it is found buried on a nearby moon. When they find out just what has happened, Rimmer and Lister wish they could just forget all about it... Guest Cast: Sabra Williams (Lise Yates) "Don't worry. It's the personality that counts!" 10 STASIS LEAK Sep 27, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Contents Of Rimmer's Diary: After Lister discovers an unusual entry in the diary of the late Arnold J. Rimmer, a stasis leak is discovered on Red Dwarf which allows the guys to visit the past only a few weeks before the accident that killed the ship's entire crew. The catch - they can't bring anything or anyone back with them, since the time differential will reduce that person or object to a pile of albino mouse droppings. Lister and Rimmer each embark on a quest to convince someone from the past to go into stasis and thus join them in the future - Lister, of course, tries to find Kochanski. Rimmer also tries to deliver the message to the person he cares about most: himself. But they discover that smegging about with time can have truly bizarre results. Guest Cast: Morwenna Banks (The Lift Hostess), Sophie Doherty (Kochanski's Roommate), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski), Richard Hainsworth (The Medical Orderly), Tony Hawks (The Suitcase), Mac McDonald (Captain Hollister), Mark Williams (Petersen) "You're about as much use as a condom machine in the Vatican." 11 QUEEG Oct 4, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Damage Report From The Damaged Damage Report Machine: Holly kicks off a banner day in Red Dwarf history by neglecting to tell anyone that there's a meteor about to collide with the ship. The resulting collision manages to nearly destroy the hologram simulation suite, sending various parts of Rimmer's mind and body off in different directions simultaneously, and Lister nearly gets electrocuted trying to fix it. When they return to the drive room, a new face appears on the screen - Queeg 500, Red Dwarf's backup computer, a supposedly more efficient system with all the caring concern of a drill sergeant. Queeg ousts Holly from the main computer and takes control. Guest Cast: Charles Augins (Queeg) "I've flamingoed up. It's like a cock-up, but much, much bigger." 12 PARALLEL UNIVERSE Oct 11, 1988 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye choreographed by Charles Augins......an example: "Move, sucka!" Preface To How To Pick Up Girls By Hypnosis: Saving Lister from further discussion of Rimmer's maladjusted view of women, Holly announces the invention of the Holly Hop Drive, which can instantaneously transport Red Dwarf across vast reaches of space, at least in theory. When Lister activates the Hop Drive, Red Dwarf winds up in another dimension parallel to Red Dwarf's, but different - the roles of men and women are reversed, and Lister, Rimmer and Cat run into another Red Dwarf, occupied by a female Rimmer, a female Lister, a female computer named Hilly, and a creature that evolved from the ship's dog. Rimmer is confronted with his sexist alter-ego who keeps trying to pick him up by hypnosis, and Lister winds up in bed with himself - in a more literal way than usual - and has to contend with getting pregnant. Our Heroines: Suzanne Bertish (Rimmer), Angela Bruce (Lister), Matthew Devitt (Dog), Hattie Hayridge (Hilly) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Series Three - 1989 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� "When in Rome, do as the Snamor do!" 13 BACKWARDS Nov 14, 1989 Rolyan Guod & Tnarg Bor yb nettirw Eyb De yb detcerid Eugolorp Yhtgnel Eht: Three million years in the future, Dave Lister, the last human being alive, discovers he is pregnant after a liaison with his female self in a parallel universe. His pregnancy concludes with the successful delivery of twin boys, Jim and Bexley. However, because the boys were conceived in another universe, with different physical laws, they suffer from highly accelerated growth rates and are both eighteen years old within three days of being born. In order to save their lives, Lister returns them to the universe of their origin, where they are reunited with their father (a woman), and are able to lead comparatively normal lives. Well, as normal as you can be if you've been born in a parallel universe and your father's a woman and your mother's a man and you're eighteen years old three days after your birth. Shortly afterward, Kryten, the service mechanoid, who had left the ship after being rescued from his own crashed vessel, the Nova 5, is found in pieces after his space bike crashed into an asteroid. Lister rebuilds the 'noid, but is unable to recapture his former personality. Meanwhile, Holly, the increasingly erratic computer, performs a head sex change operation on himself. He bases his new face on Hilly, a female computer with whom he'd once fallen madly in love. And now, the saga continuums... RED DWARF III - The Same Generation...Almost Tlop Eht: Whilst giving Kryten flight lessons in the Starbug vehicle, Rimmer and the hapless mechanoid wind up diving into some kind of time and dimension warp, arriving in a strangely different late 20th-century Earth. On this Earth, everything moves backwards - and Rimmer and Kryten are forced to use the novelty of being "forward" to land a job at a nightclub. Lister and Cat manage to track the others down, only to find by now that they've actually gotten to like the idea of watching ancient history unfold...or as the case may be, watching it fold. Seoreh Ruo: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly) Tsac Tseug: Maria Friedman (Waitress), Tony Hawks (Compere), Anna Palmer (Customer in Cafe), Arthur Smith (Pub Manager) "I'm sure the dog food will be lovely." 14 MAROONED Nov 21, 1989 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye What's Going To Happen In The Next Five Minutes: Holly thinks she's spotted five black holes, and the guys split up and evacuate Red Dwarf in case it's not small enough to escape the black holes' gravity. Lister and Rimmer set out in Starbug, while Kryten and Cat depart aboard Blue Midget. En route, Starbug crashes onto an icy moon, and it's unlikely to be found before the meager supplies on board are gone. Faced with the grave choice of eating either a pot noodle or dog food to survive, Lister begins to lose hope and body heat. He asks Rimmer to sacrifice some of his worldly goods to serve as firewood - and Rimmer, naturally, refuses. Lister therefore sacrifices some of Rimmer's worldly goods anyway. Guest Cast: none "Something that, long ago in history, may well have performed a certain popular Jewish operation? I'm supposed to eat with this!?" 15 POLYMORPH Nov 28, 1989 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye And Now A Message From The Committee For The Liberation And Integration Of Terrifying Organisms And Their Rehabilitation Into Society: A spacecraft tumbles through space adrfit, its cargo of highly dangerous life forms having escaped. The genetic mutant that has freed itself seeks out the mentally unstable and the flat-out-neurotic, so naturally it homes in on Red Dwarf in short order. It changes its shape to hide and then to paralyze its victims with fear while it drains their negative emotions. It manages to infiltrate Lister's dinner, but it then induces paralyzing fear by turning into a monster which fits the rough identikit picture of Lister's worst nightmare, and drains all the fear from him. Rimmer, Cat and Kryten, after subduing the now-fearless Lister, set out after the creature, but it manages to snare each of them, removing Kryten's politeness, Cat's sense of style, and Rimmer's aggressiveness. Lister is left in a state of suicidal kamikaze bravado; Kryten is a tactless, insulting jerk; Cat has changed into some comfortable rags and gotten well sloshed; and Rimmer wants to try to negotiate with the alien, or, failing that, launch a ship-wide campaign to non-violently protest its presence. Guest Cast: Frances Barber (Genny), Simon Gaffney (Young Rimmer), Kalli Greenwood (Mrs. Rimmer) "You want to model yourself on a man who has ears so large they can pick up satellite TV?!?" 16 BODYSWAP Dec 5, 1989 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Cat's Underwear Bill: A malfunctioning skutter starts rewiring Red Dwarf, resulting in a malfunctioning everything, including the self-destruct system which could be connected to anything by now. As it so happens, the destruct system starts counting down when Lister orders a candy bar from the vending machine. Using a "mind swap" to load the personality of one of the ship's long-dead senior officers doesn't work, which is just as well - the destruct system countdown was activated by the vending machine, but not the explosive device itself. Rimmer later gets the idea of using the same procedure - the one with the mind swap, not the bomb - so he could occupy a physical form for a brief period, promising to get Lister's body into shape before returning it to its rightful owner. As it turns out, Rimmer has been missing all the excesses of the flesh that holograms don't get to enjoy, and when Lister demands his body back, Rimmer isn't quite ready to return it. Guest Cast: none "You don't just scuffle with the leader of the Third Reich!" 17 TIMESLIDES Dec 12, 1989 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye On This Day In History: Lister is approaching suicidal levels of depression and boredom with his life aboard Red Dwarf, venting his loathing for life upon Cat and Rimmer. Meanwhile, in the ship's photo lab, Kryten is developing photos of a party aboard the Nova 5 when he finds that they have sprung into motion. Repeating the same experiment with other pictures, he finds that the lab's developing fluid has mutated over three million years, and can now bring photos to life. He then uses a slide projector to create life-size pictures that anyone can walk into, interacting with the subjects of photos from any era of history. Lister decides to go back and visit himself as a dismal rock-star-wannabe teenager, taking with him a sample of one of the future's most profitable inventions - a Tension Sheet (a square of air-bubble packing material painted red with "Tension Sheet" written on it) - in the hopes he can pry his junior self away from "the Om song" long enough to get him to register the Tension Sheet as his own invention and get rich. When Lister disappears, it becomes apparent that he has changed his own future and become a millionaire who never signed aboard Red Dwarf. But Lister's non-existence also erases the Cat and Kryten from the present, and Rimmer is left with Holly. Rimmer decides that it is his duty as a complete and utter bastard to set history to rights, unaware that this will bring his greatest wish to fruition - Rimmer will once again occupy a tangible body! Guest Cast: Robert Addie (Gilbert), Rupert Bates (Bodyguard), Richard Hainsworth (Bodyguard), Emile Charles (young Lister), Simon Gaffney (young Rimmer), Stephen McKintosh (Thicky Holden), Louisa Ruthven (Ski Woman), Koo Stark (Lady Sabrina Mulholland-Jjones), Mark Steel (Ski Man), Ruby Wax (American Presenter), Adolf Hitler (himself) "Hey, it's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone!" 18 THE LAST DAY Dec 19, 1989 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Terms Of This Warranty: A letter arrives from DivaDroid announcing that the latest model of mechanoid will be on its way to replace Kryten, who is expected to shut down and dismantle himself. Lister tries in vain to get Kryten to rebel against this instruction, but Kryten seems perfectly happy and assured of his place in Silicon Heaven. In honor of Kryten's last day online, Lister and the guys throw him the wildest party they can manage on short notice and all parties get thoroughly pissed. The only problem is that, if Kryten hasn't been shut down before his replacement arrives, his replacement will shut him down in any manner it chooses. The fact that the new mechanoid has gone completely insane over the millenia doesn't help out much either. Guest Cast: Robert Llewellyn (Jim Reaper), Julie Higginson (Girl Android), Gordon Kennedy (Hudzen) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � Series Four - 1991 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴켸 "Nice?!? She looks like something that dropped out of the Sphinx's nose!" 19 CAMILLE Feb 14, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye The Old, Old Story: Lister tries once again to teach Kryten to rebel, with only momentary success, though it is promising. Kryten pilots Starbug as he and Rimmer go exploring. When a distress call arrives from someone on a doomed planet, Rimmer decides it's too dangerous to investigate, but Kryten thinks better of it - and why not, he reflects, when Rimmer's such a smee heee? Kryten finds a female mechanoid in a grounded spacecraft, and he's instantly ass-over-nipple-nuts in love. Curiously, when Kryten brings Camille back to Starbug (which she warns him not to do), Rimmer sees a beautiful hologram who can actually stand to be stuck in the same ship with him. Naturally, when Camille is introduced to Lister on Red Dwarf, he sees Kochanski. Cat also sees Camille as a life form with the sexiest body he can imagine - his own. Camille is a pleasure GELF, a genetically engineered life-form who changes its form to please its users, and expects to earn the crew's scorn. Kryten decides to still be Camille's friend, despite her true amorphous appearance. Our Heroes: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly) Guest Blobs: Judy Pascoe (Mechanoid Camille), Francesca Folan (Hologram Camille), Suzanne Rhatigan (Kochanski Camille), Rupert Bates (Hector Blob) "The next thing I knew, my underwear elastic catapulted across sick bay!" 20 D.N.A. Feb 21, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Genetic Profile: At long last, the guys finally encounter a real live alien ship - or a ship from Earth that's advanced enough to be alien. The skeletal remains of one otherwise human-looking crew member has two hideous bird-like heads. Lister and Cat find a strange control room, the controls of which Cat immediately takes it upon himself to play with. This has some nasty consequences when the room turns out to be a device for resequencing DNA, and it turns Lister into a hamster, and then a chicken. Kryten and Rimmer arrive to help, and Kryten figures out how to return Lister to human form. Krtyen is then accidentally turned into a human himself, his greatest wish. Rimmer starts trying to find some cells of his dead body aboard Red Dwarf so he can reclone a body for himself, while Lister is having to explain every little detail of human lifestyles to Kryten, including why the rectal recharge socket doesn't work, and why one should never get a double Polaroid over an electrical appliance. In testing the DNA resequencer before running Kryten through it, Lister's mutton vindaloo is transformed into a mutant vindaloo big enough to eat anyone who's ever eaten any form of curry... Guest Cast: Richard Ridings (D.N.A. Computer voice) "You certainly find out who your mates are when you've got an unsightly, disfiguring ailment." 21 JUSTICE Feb 28, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye The Sentence: Lister, whose head has been embarassingly enlarged by a bad case of space mumps, wonders why Cat and Rimmer haven't been round to see him, when Kryten inadvertently tells him about the escape pod that the ship has picked up, which contains either a security guard or an inmate of a spaceborne prison whose residents revolted against their keepers, and Rimmer starts the pod's cryogenic thawing process in the off-chance that the vehicle contains a friendly human female, which, as it turns out, it doesn't, although Lister and the others don't realize this as they've gotten underway to the aforementioned penal station just in case their new passenger turns out to be a homicidal maniac, though they're not counting on the station's Justice Computer which metes out punishment appropriate to the crimes it discovers in its subjects' memories after a mind scan, and this is certainly bad news for Rimmer, who is sentenced to life behind bars for the disregard of safety regulations that led to the death of the entire crew of Red Dwarf, but Kryten manages to plead Rimmer's case to the Justice Computer and gains Rimmer's freedom so they can all head back to the Starbug, which, in case you forgot, is where they left an escape pod to thaw out, which it has done, releasing a crazed homicidal simulant in the process. Guest Cast: Nicholas Ball (The Simulant), James Smillie (Justice Computer voice) "That planet is off the table and into somebody's pint of beer." 22 WHITE HOLE Mar 7, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Chain of Events: Kryten commits the most heinous, criminal act ever done aboard Red Dwarf - he manages to bring Talkie Toaster, Lister's mortal bread-heating enemy, back online. Not without reason, though - Kryten thinks it may be possible to use the same repair method to help Holly regain her IQ of 6000 at the cost of reducing her operational lifespan. The procedure works all too well, leaving Holly with a vast wealth of genius and only three minutes in which to use it. To make matters worse, Red Dwarf is nearing a white hole which is emitting time, creating disjointed pockets of events that haven't happened yet, have already happened, and may not happen at all. Holly's solution is to plug the white hole up by altering the orbits of a few nearby planets using a nuclear warhead as the cue ball, but Lister insists on making the shot himself. Guest Cast: David Ross (Talkie Toaster) "Smoke me a kipper...can you do that?" 23 DIMENSION JUMP Mar 14, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye Recipe For Kippers Vindaloo: In some alternate universe, there exists one Arnold Rimmer - an incredibly nice, well-liked guy with guts, bravado, skill, decency, an actual sex life, and the nickname "Ace." (Keep in mind, this is an alternate universe we're talking about here.) Ace signs up to test a new spacecraft developed by the Space Corps which can break the dimension barrier and send him into parallel universes, and winds up slamming right into Starbug, which is carrying Lister and the others to a fishing trip they're dreading due to the presence of their dimension's Rimmer. Ace feels it's the right thing to do to help the Starbug crew out when they crash into the ocean of a nearby planet, and all of them develop an immediate rapport with Ace, with the exception of Rimmer, who's just pissed off because no one's ever treated him with the kind of respect and admiration Ace has earned. Ace saves the entire crew and returns to Red Dwarf with them when Cat requires emergency surgery. The "real" Rimmer is determined that either he or Ace has to go. Whether you've smoked him a kipper or not, Ace Rimmer is back for breakfast in "Emohawk: Polymorph II." Guest Cast: Robert Llewellyn (Bongo), Kalli Greenwood (Mrs. Rimmer), Simon Gaffney (young Rimmer), Hetty Baynes (Cockpit Computer) "You don't know what I did with the dice though, do you? For all you know, I could have jammed them up his nostrils, head-butted him on the nose and they could have blasted out of his ears. That would've been quite interesting." 24 MELTDOWN Mar 21, 1991 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Ed Bye The Whole Ball Of Wax: Kryten saves Cat and Lister from the potentially lethal boredom of listening to Rimmer's proud reminiscences of Risk games played in his youth by surprising everyone with the invention of the Matter Paddle, a device found in the ship's labs which can instantaneously transmit the molecules of anyone holding onto it across vast distances. It can also locate the nearest suitable environment for its users. Rather than facing the deadly threat of listening to Rimmer's stories anymore, everyone elects to find the nearest hospitable planet and do some exploring. Unfortunately, Kryten and Rimmer wind up in a grassy plain being pursued by terribly fake prehistoric monsters. Lister and Cat wind up in the war room of the Third Reich, but even stranger things begin to happen - the worst figures of human history have somehow combined their talents to make things even worse. In the meantime, Rimmer and Kryten have discovered that the same unusual convergence of good and decent historical personalities is taking place, but they're being wiped out by history's most hideous. Rimmer sees this as his calling, his destiny, and his chance to put all those Risk skills to valuable use. Unfortunately, for some reason, his army of wax-droids programmed with such personalities as Father Christmas, the Queen Mother, Ghandi, Elvis, Mother Theresa and Noel Coward doesn't offer much hope of victory - or even surviving long enough to retreat. Lister and Cat escape the clutches of Hitler, Rasputin, and others, only to find themselves captured by another war-crazed megalomaniac: Rimmer. It's going to take more than brute force to win the war, get the Matter Paddle back from the bad guys and escape, and whatever that is, Arnie's army probably doesn't have it... Guest Cast: Clayton Mark (Elvis), Kenneth Hadley (Hitler), Martin Friend (Einstein), Stephen Tiller (Pythagoras), Jack Klaff (Abraham Lincoln), Tony Hawks (Caligula), Michael Burrell (Pope Gregory), Forbes Masson (Stan Laurel), Roger Blake (Noel Coward), Pauline Bailey (Marilyn Monroe) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � Series Five - 1992 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴켸 "Well, we go for runs...watch gardening programs on the ship's vid..." 25 HOLOSHIP Feb 20, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Juliet May The Cartoon Before The Main Feature: Out and about in Starbug, the gang encounters a huge hologrammatic starship crewed by only the best and brightest holograms Space Corps has to offer. Needless to say, Rimmer's in love. After a one-man boarding party from the holoship assesses that the rest of the Red Dwarf crew are useless, Rimmer is snatched away. Deciding that he too is among the best and brightest, Rimmer petitions for a berth aboard the holoship, an honor that will only be bestowed if he proves himself more useful than another member of the hologrammatic crew. Rimmer also meets a female member of that crew, whose members are accustomed to constant, commitment-free, meaningless, on-demand sex. Needless to say, Rimmer's in love. Unfortunately, it is this very woman who he must challenge for a position - no pun intended - on the ship of his dreams. And she's willing to give anything up so Rimmer can achieve his lifelong ambition to be a useful member of somebody's crew. Needless to say, Rimmer's in deep smegola when it comes time to make his decision. The Boys From The Dwarf: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Hattie Hayridge (Holly) Guest Cast: Jane Horrocks (Nirvanah Crane), Matthew Marsh (Captain Platini), Don Warrington (Commander Binks), Lucy Briers (Harrison), Simon Day (Number Two), Jane Montgomery (Number One) "You have been found unworthy of having existed." "Is that you, mother?" 26 THE INQUISITOR Feb 27, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by A Horror Tale Told Across The Flickering Embers Of A Midnight Fire Wherever Hardened Space Dogs Gather To Drink Fermented Vegetable Products And Compete In Tales Of Blood-Chilling Terror: In deep space, control of Starbug is wrested from the gang by the Inquisitor, a deranged simulant who has taken it upon itself to remove those it considers worthless from the universe and replace them with someone who could've made more of life. The Inquisitor confronts them aboard Red Dwarf, forcing each to justify his existence. Rimmer complains that he's lucky to have achieved his esteemed status as a corpse-turned-hologram considering his background. Cat insists that his posterior is a work of art and that it'd be cruel to deny the universe of it. Kryten insists that he has behaved as he was programmed but wanted to be much more, and Lister tells the Inquisitor to spin on it. The latter two are selected to be removed from existence itself. Guest Cast: John Docherty (Inquisitor), Jake Abraham (Second Lister), James Cormack (Thomas Allman) "Remember, it's Rimmer's mind out there. Expect sickness!" 27 TERRORFORM Mar 5, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Juliet May Kryten's Personal Black Box Recording: Rimmer and Kryten, who have taken a Starbug out to do a bit of moon-hopping, have crash-landed on a psi-moon, a self-terraforming world which reconfigures itself to conform to its inhabitants' psyches. Since Rimmer has become the only living being on the psi-moon, it has uprooted its surface and turned into the hopeless living hell that is Rimmer's miserable personality. Kryten detaches one of his mechanoid hands and sends it to Red Dwarf to get help. Lister and Cat manage to repair Kryten and set out to find Rimmer. They discover that his persecution complex has manifested itself in an insulting, abusive creature which is about to torture Rimmer just when he is rescued. Returning to the Starbug, they discover that their escape is entirely dependent on how much of a boost they can give to Rimmer's ego. The guys face their most horrific challenge ever - they must look Arnold J. Rimmer in the eye and tell him they care about him... Guest Cast: Sara Stockenbridge (Handmaiden), Francine Walker-Lee (Handmaiden) "Mr. Flibble is very cross. You shouldn't have run away from him." 28 QUARANTINE Mar 12, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Grant Naylor Diagnosis: The guys take Starbug to search for Dr. Hildegarde Lanstrom, a brilliant doctor whose hologram may still be functioning aboard her old ship. Rimmer is dismayed at the prospect of recruiting Lanstrom since only one hologram can operate aboard Red Dwarf or Starbug at a time. As it turns out, his fears are complete unfounded since Lanstrom turns out to be infected with a program corruption called a "holo-virus," and has not only gone murderously mad but has also developed telekinesis and various other deadly powers. Luckily for Lister, Cat and Kryten, the holo-virus runs its course and destroys Lanstrom, but she has already managed to transmit it to Rimmer. Rimmer confines the others to quarantine when they return to Red Dwarf, and begins to develop the same hideous abilities as Lanstrom. If Lister, Cat and Kryten can avoid strangling each other while facing the prospects of months of isolation, they might be able to save Rimmer...as if anyone would want to. Guest Cast: Maggie Steed (Dr. Hildegarde Lanstrom), Mr. Flibble (himself) "The actual chances of it blowing are about one in...one." 29 DEMONS & ANGELS (original title - "High and Low") Mar 19, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Juliet May and Grant Naylor The Lowdown: Kryten and Lister are experimenting with the triplicator, a device Kryten has adapted from the Matter Paddle which can produce two copies of any object; in this case, they're trying it out with strawberries, and the device works perfectly, though it somehow produces one divine and wholesome copy of the strawberry and another teeming with maggots and nastiness (which Lister discovers by biting into it). Kryten tries to reverse the process, and before anyone can sing "Strawberry Fields Forever," the drive room is bursting with explosions and the gang has to beat a hasty retreat to Starbug just in case Red Dwarf explodes...which, rather less than surprisingly, it does soon after Starbug escapes. But, to make up for the predictability of that, the law of averages takes a snooze as Kryten spots two copies of Red Dwarf nearby - which, since he theorizes they were created by a freak field reversal in the triplicator, will be a divine, idealized Red Dwarf, and the other will be, as Lister puts it, "fish bait." Seeking help from the idealized Red Dwarf, they find four individuals who spend their time in pursuit of higher truths and ideologies and spiritual fulfillment. When the "low" Red Dwarf sends out a mayday, our heroes and their "higher" counterparts set out to render assistance, only to find a trap set by four bloodthirsty, murderous individuals aboard a grungy garbage scow of a ship. If they can survive their "low" selves, the guys may be able to combine the two and recreate their own Red Dwarf. Guest Cast: none "You helped an enemy of democracy. She was stealing an apple of the people." 30 BACK TO REALITY Mar 26, 1992 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Grant Naylor SSS Esperanto scenes directed by Juliet May Game Plan: Examining the submerged wreckage of the seeding ship Esperanto, Lister, Kryten and Cat discover that every form of life they find has committed suicide for reasons unknown. Upon the discovery of a venom with hallucinogenic properties, they start high-tailing it back to Starbug, unaware that the enormous, New-Mexico-sized squid from which this rather disgusting substance emerged is heading for Starbug even faster than they are. Trying to run for it, they are caught in a huge blast of the venom and Starbug crashes into the ocean floor. When they come to, the guys find that they've been playing a virtual reality game called "Red Dwarf" for the past four years, and they aren't who they thought they were. Kryten is a cybernetic traffic cop named Jake Bullet; the Cat is Duane Dibbley, a completely uncool individual with no style, grace or dress sense, and an overbite that could eclipse most stars; Rimmer turns out to be the non-hologrammatic bum Billy Doyle; and Lister is revealed to be small-time fascist dictator Sebastian Doyle - Billy's half brother. Things in the real world aren't what they expected, and before they know it, our heroes Jake, Duane, Billy and Sebastian wish they were back on Red Dwarf. Guest Cast: Timothy Spall (Andy), Lenny Von Dohlen (Cop), Anastasia Hille (New Kochanski), Marie McCarthy (Nurse), John Sharian (New Lister) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Series Six - 1993 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� "It's pink and it's moist and it's in my head and that's where it's staying!" 31 PSIRENS Oct 7, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony This Week's "Angling Times" Cover Story: Lister awakens after 500 years of hibernation, finding himself aboard Starbug with Cat and Kryten. Rimmer is rebooted, and Kryten brings everyone up to speed on events. Red Dwarf has been hijacked by an unknown party while Lister and the others were on board Starbug. Since the larger ship is now circumnavigating a large asteroid belt, the more maneuverable Starbug has an opportunity to hazard a journey through the asteroids and head Red Dwarf off at the pass. Upon entering the belt, Starbug enters a graveyard of ships. A scouter survey of one of the dead ships reveals a black box recording of a surviving astronaut being killed by a horrifying insect creature known as a Psiren - similar to a GELF, but instead of changing its shape to please those nearby, Psirens change shape to seduce their prey and then suck their brains out with metal straws. Granted, this may please somebody, but you'd have to be really deranged, or an extremist in the field of accupuncture. The Psirens try every tactic to snare individual members of the crew, and one Psiren manages to stow away aboard Starbug, where the crew are trapped with it... The Few, The Proud, The Dwarfers: Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) Guest Cast: Jenny Agutter (Professor Mamet), Samantha Robson (Pete Tranter's Sister), Anita Dobson (Captain Tau), Richard Ridings (Crazed Astro), C.P. Grogan (Kochanski), Zoe Hilson (Temptress), Elizabeth Anson (Temptress) Guest Hands: Phil Manzanera "Puncture repair kit on standby, sir." 32 LEGION (original title - "Call Me Legion") Oct 14, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony Instruction For Mimosian Chopsticks: Starbug's supply situation is getting desperate, leaving Lister to dine on grilled space weevil (though he doesn't know what incredibly unthinkable morsel Kryten has prepared for him), when Cat sounds a swirly thing alert based upon his nasal instincts. Rimmer orders this alert replaced by the only slightly more formal blue alert, and the intruding object Cat sensed finally appears - a heat-seeking device which envelops Starbug in an energy field and drags it into a huge, amazingly advanced space station which Kryten discovers is a top-secret research facility. A strange being - half organic, half mechanical - greets them by name, bestowing numerous gifts: hospitality, a feast, an impromptu appendectomy for Lister, and a hard light system for Rimmer, allowing him to touch objects. Legion does, however, set one condition upon his guests: they can never leave his station, for Legion depends on them for his own existence. Guest Cast: Nigel Williams (Legion) "Lister, she's a computer sprite and surely that's the point - she's just a load of pixels." "Yeah, but what pixels!" 33 GUNMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE Oct 21, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony The Yarn: Starbug has wandered into a rogue simulant hunting zone, where a gigantic warship confronts the crew and demands assurances that there are no human vermin aboard. Despite Lister's attempt to bluff his way past the simulants by passing himself off as an ambassador of the Vindaloo Empire, the simulants board Starbug. Knocking the crew out for three weeks, they also install more advanced weaponry so the Starbug crew can put up a fight for the simulants' amusement. But to the killer mechanoids' surprise, the Starbug crew decide to attack the simulant warship. The simulants, their ship heavily damaged, fire the Armageddon Virus at Starbug which locks the ship's course on collision with a nearby planet and then renders all systems inoperative. Kryten links into Starbug's computers to absorb the virus but winds up incapacitated. With minutes to spare before crashing into the planet ahead, the others try to help Kryten by linking into his mind with a virtual reality of the wild west. Guest Cast: Jennifer Calvert (Loretta), Denis Lill (Simulant Captain/Death), Liz Hickling (Simulant Lieutenant), Imogen Bain (Lola), Steve Devereaux (Jimmy), Robert Inch (War), Jeremy Peters (Pestilence), Dinny Powell (Famine), Stephen Marcus (Bear Strangler McGee) "He's looking so geeky he couldn't even get into a science fiction convention." 34 EMOHAWK: POLYMORPH II Oct 28, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony The Shape Of Things To Come: Starbug is hunted by a Space Corps robot law enforcement vessel, and after taking several shots from the drone, Starbug is forced to land in the ocean in an attempt to put out uncontrollable fires. Unfortunately, Starbug has landed on a planet populated by hideous GELFs, and the ship's oxy-generation unit is damaged beyond repair. As luck would have it, though, the leader of the local GELF tribe happens to have such a unit handy, and is willing to trade with the Starbug crew. But what he wants in exchange for the OG unit is a husband for the loveliest of his three horrifically hairy daughters, an honor he decides Lister is worthy of. Lister is persuaded to agree to marry the flea-ridden beauty, and the OG unit is given to Kryten. But when Lister runs for his life to escape his honeymoon, the tribal leader sends his pet polymorph after the Starbug crew - and only the combined talents of Duane Dibbley and "Ace" Rimmer can set things right! Guest Cast: Hugh Quarshie (Computer), Martin Sims (GELF), Ainsley Harriot (GELF Chief), Steven Wickham (GELF Bride) "You've got the bedside manner of an abbatoir giblet-gutter." 35 RIMMERWORLD Nov 4, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony The Personal Log Of Space Corps Hard-Light Hologram Arnold J. Rimmer: Starbug returns to the rogue simulant warship it fought before, from which Lister plans to raid the cargo bays for food. One of the simulants turns out to have survived the previous encounter with Starbug, and it isn't happy. Any exchange of fire on the simulant ship will bring the interior crashing down on anyone inside. For a moment, it looks as though Rimmer might actually attempt a daring attack on the simulant from behind, but in reality he's just sneaking over to an escape pod, whose launch destabilizes the ship. The others scramble back to Starbug and escape, but they're unable to catch up with Rimmer's escape pod as it tumbles into a wormhole. Due to relativistic time dilation, by the time Starbug catches up with Rimmer, 600 years will have passed for him. In that time, he will found a new society all his own... Guest Cast: Liz Hickling (Rogue Simulant) "What's his mission, to rid the universe of chicken vindaloo?" 36 OUT OF TIME (original title - "Present from the Future") Nov 11, 1993 written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor directed by Andy DeEmmony The Morale Report: All trace of Red Dwarf has been lost. In the meantime, Starbug has wandered into a stellar fog concealing a reality minefield, which is itself defending something deep within the center of the fog. After stumbling through a number of unreality pockets, they reach the center of the minefield and find a derelict 28th century spaceship capable of time travel. They steal the time drive and install it in Starbug. Not long after, they are contacted by another spacecraft - another Starbug, this one from the distant future, occupied by the gang in their later years, when they have been using the time drive for decades to live the high life, but their time drive has broken down and they want the present Starbug's time drive. And they're willing to engage their past selves in mortal combat to get it. Guest Cast: none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴� � News Update � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴� Red Dwarf could well be over. An article from the London Sunday Mirror, 10 July 1994 (transcribed by Richard Berger)... Craig Charles Charged With Rape The chubby comedian is accused with another man of subjecting a thirty-eight year old woman to a four hour sex ordeal. A third man is being hunted. Charles, 29, stars as space ship crewman Lister in the cult BBC2 series. He was taken to Vauxhall police station in south London where he was quizzed and later charged. Charles, who was arrested on Friday night at his home on Tyler Street, Kennington, south London, was refused bail and is due to appear before South West Magistrates Court, Battersea tomorrow. The assault allegedly occured at an estate in Clapham between six a.m. and ten a.m. on Friday. The second man, company director John Peploe, 36, of Crawford Road, Camberwell was also charged and held in custody pending a court appearance. Scouse comedian, Charles, 29, was briefly married to actress Cathy Tyson, who starred alongside Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa. They have a son, Jack, six. It was Red Dwarf - now filming its sixth series that shot Charles to fame. Current repeats on BBC2 at nine p.m. on Fridays regularly attract 4.5 million viewers. Charles plays curry loving Dave Lister, the sole survivor of a space ship disaster. His only companions are a humanoid robot, a hologram of another crew member and a creature descended over millions of years from the ship's cat. The trials and tribulations have made Red Dwarf the channel's most successful programme. When the last series was shown, an average of seven million viewers tuned in. ---- (23 July) Last week, Craig was brought from his cell to face the magistrate. The charges were formally pronounced, and his application for bail was denied. He burst into tears at that point, and sobbed openly for the next 45 minutes. According to reports, a woman sitting in the gallery also began crying and ran out of the courtroom. He will be held pending his next court date, which is scheduled for mid- August. There is no official word from the BBC regarding the status of "Red Dwarf", although more than one observer thinks that regardless of the outcome, this marks the end of the series. ---- From the London Sunday Mirror, 16 October 1994, transcribed by John Denny... Jail Terror Of Red Dwarf Craig Red Dwarf star Craig is living in terror after he was attacked by a knife wielding thug as part of a jail hate campaign against him. Charles, 30, was left "freaked-out" and a bundle of nerves after the attack. A prisoner at London's Wandsworth jail lunged at the star of the cult BBC series, but was dragged off before he could stab him. Charles told a friend, "It's like hell in here. A guy jumped me with a blade - it was terrifying." The visitor said: "Craig was shaking and looked a nervous wreck. He's having a terrible time inside. He's been getting a lot of abuse from the other prisoners because he is a well known face on television. He is desperate to clear his name and get out." Charles, who has been in custody for three months, is in the tough "A" wing alongside alledged murderers and suspected drug dealers. Friends who have visited the comic said he looked very ill. He has lost clumps of hair and two stone (28 lb.) in weight. "His chubby looks have disappeared," said a friend. Charles was arrested with company director John Peploe, 36, after being accused of subjecting a 38-year-old broadcasting student to a four hour sex ordeal. Last night a prison insider warned Charles could expect an even tougher time. "It's not normal to talk about incidents like this because of the code of silence in jail. No one wants to be branded a squealer." A home office prison spokesman said: "We can't comment on individual cases but if a complaint is made it will be investigated in the normal way." ---- Posted on 28 October 1994 by Connie Sharlow... For all that don't have Internet connections, you may want to know that Craig Charles has finally gotten bail. The man who was jailed on the same charge, John Peploe, was also bailed. The court date is set in February, according to all the newspaper accounts. The news has been on radio, ITV teletext, and most all the tabloids Britain has to offer, which is quite a few! For confirmation, look in the.tv.red-dwarf newsgroup, the group is *choked* with reports quoting every imaginable story about the release. Here's one on the ITV text: ITV Teletext News report, 25 October 1994: BBC Red Dwarf star Craig Charles has been bailed on a rape charge by an Old Bailey judge. More news in the next edition of the SmegBook. (Thanks to Richard Berger, John Denny and Connie Sharlow for passing these updates along via Fidonet. I cannot make any guarantees on the veracity - or lack thereof - of these reports.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Red, White and Blue Dwarf � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� "Parallel universes or time warps...black holes...you know, space stuff?" (First American Pilot Episode) written by Linwood Boomer directed by Jeff Melman What's Different: Quite a lot, but perhaps not as much as one might expect. The major changes occur in the cast. Lister, in the U.S. version, is white, more or less clean-cut aside from a bit of five o' clock shadow, not at all the slobbish Lister of old. The closest Bierko's Lister comes to the original character is a trace of laziness, a Kochanski fixation, and bucking Rimmer's authority. He also doesn't appear to be anything like out of shape or unkempt. Rimmer, on the other hand, is barely even a player in the cast - and his banter with Lister, which was the heart and soul of the BBC's series (and arguably still should be), is barely present at all, certainly not with the lethal volleys of acid wit with which Craig Charles and Chris Barrie won a massive audience. Cat shows promise, but isn't explored enough to see just which way that promise goes; Hinton Battle didn't seem to "preen" as much as Danny John-Jules. Jane Leeves, known now for her role on NBC's "Frazier" as well as her introduction to many Stateside viewers as one corner of the Taster's Choice coffee love triangle advertising campaign, is a passable Holly, and she shows a *lot* of promise after 3,000,000 years pass (no offense, Jane!)! Christine Kochanski (Linwood Boomer must've missed the giant initials "K.K." from the "Better Than Life" novel) is drastically changed - unfortunately into an all-too-typical blue-eyed blonde whose entire opinion of the noncommital Lister is turned around completely by his refusal to turn Frankenstein the cat over to the ship's captain (who has also undergone a change or two). Winning her heart is still Lister's motivation, but give us C.P. Grogan any day... Kryten is played by the original cast's Robert Llewellyn in much the same manner, but of course fans of the BBC's Red Dwarf will be a little surprised to see his function in what amounts to a rewrite of "The End," which had no Kryten in its original incarnation. He does have the same "jerky middle name," however, and gets one really hilarious line in (Lister: "You've been sitting here [dismantled in the ship's lab] for three million years? What've you been doing all that time?" Kryten: "Reading that 'fire exit' sign [over the door - it simply reads 'fire exit']...it's given me a lot of solace over the years.") What remains the same: since the only existing version of this is a presentation for prospective commercial backers, the BBC's special effects shot were slotted in for transition shots. It is unknown whether these would have been used had the series made it past the pilot stage, though it is interesting to note that the computer screens on the bridge display a rotating 3-D "wire frame" graphic of the Red Dwarf as seen in the original series. And that brings us to the bridge - as well as the bunkroom. These sets are almost *identical* to the BBC's third series sets, it's uncanny! It also gives one a fair idea of budgeting for the U.S. pilot - the sets may have been considered *cheap* by the American producers, while building their British counterparts was quite an item in the BBC's budget for the show. As a curious footnote - the sets HAVE made it to the airwaves, as the flight deck of the doomed spaceliner in the Fox Movie of the Week "Lifepod." Also, about one-third of the script, surprisingly, remained untouched. Both Lister and Rimmer used the word "smeg" in the course of the episode, and even more amazingly, in the opening moments a lazy skutter gives Rimmer the bird! In one really surprising instance, the American script gets a bigger laugh than its British forebear. "The End" features a line where Rimmer, when trying to describe the feeling of death to Lister, says it's "like being on holiday with a group of Germans." In the U.S. version, this line is changed to "It's like being at an Amish bachelor party!" But we can't let it get away with a completely glowing review. There are some problems as well, including a horrible $50-Casio-portable-keyboard-demo theme song and an only marginally more listenable score by Todd Rundgren (I hope this just means he was paid a pittance to do this, we know he can do better than that!). Cat and Rimmer are given little time to develop their characters, which is not a good omen since the original Red Dwarf's main point of character study was the constant banter between Lister and Rimmer. Also, some bits of the script - you know it had to happen - ended up getting "Americanized" so the audience could keep up with it (time and time again, how often do we have to tell U.S. TV producers that we can keep up with the British version just fine, otherwise how'd the show get such a following?!), including one line from Lister that after 3,000,000 years, his baseball cards will be worth a fortune. Also jettisoned from the script was the idea of Lister being God to the Cat's ancestors - it was barely even paid mention in this incarnation. Interestingly enough, a "Captain Tau" character appears in the "real" Red Dwarf's sixth series episode "Psirens" - albeit in a far more brief appearance than the completely unrelated character in this story - just in case anyone wants to keep track of these weird little coincidences in their futile attempts to prove international entertainment industry conspiracies. Oh, and the American producers ripped off the far-too-speedy-"Star Wars"- style-scrolling-introduction gag from "Backwards," too. It went something like this: The Lengthy Prologue: RED DWARF - The story so far...by the latter half of the twenty-second century, huge space cruisers powered by hydrogen ram-jet drives had colonized the outer fringes of our solar system. Human kind was poised to explore the dark mysteries of deep space. We wish we could have told you stories about these brave men and women, but we couldn't afford it. Instead, what you're getting is this. This is the story of a beat-up old mining ship which ambles between Earth and the moons of Saturn, transporting raw materials which are someone. Is it just me, or does this sound really tedious? No one's going to like this. A show about people who move rocks from planet to planet? Intergalactic rock movers? Who are we kidding? I didn't even want to be a writer. Do you realize how hard it is to type this fast? My fingers are bleeding. Uh oh. Looks like we're slowing back down. I'd better start making sense again, so all the cheapos who don't have a VCR with freeze-frame will think they really missed out on something important. Ahem......which you really need to know to understand this story. Our Heroes [in another life, maybe]: Craig Bierko (Lister), Chris Eigeman (Rimmer), Jane Leeves (Holly), Hinton Battle (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) Guest Cast: Lorraine Toussaint (Captain Tau), Elizabeth Morehead (Christine), Michael Heintzman (Munson) 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 all text in this file copyright 1994, 1995 Earl Green - all rights reserved