Rimmer: "What's that smell, has there been a fire in here?"
Lister: "A small one, but I put it out with my beer."
Rimmer: "For goodness sake Lister, that's terrible!"
Lister: "Don't panic I've got another one!"
This episode has been one that has been advertised a lot in Britain, so expectation was high for this one. As the series has progressed the team have got more cohesive and a lot more classic style stories have emerged. This one certainly promised to not disappoint.....
Lister inadvertantly causes a fire in the drive room from spilling his kebab sauce on the console. Cue a brilliantly funny dig at health and safety during his interaction with Rimmer who demands he fills in an accident form.
Lister finds life forms on a nearby planet. When he arrives back (no-one knew he had gone until Kryten found Lister outside in his space suit having forgotten his keys!) Lister explains he found BEGGS (biologically engineered garbage gobblers) and lost Starbug and Rimmer to them in a game of poker.
Lister can't just run away either, he has a groin bomb attached to him by the BEGGS and if he doesn't return with Rimmer the next day, it will detonate. So the team try to fob off the BEGGS and try to negotiate. The BEGGS hilariously choke on something and die, thus Lister's love spuds are still attached to a ticking time bomb.
kryten and Cat have started intermittently speaking in unison after Kryten's experiments with crystals. (coincidence you see) and they manage to find the manufacturer of this deadly device and track down its space station. There they find its creator in stasis....who's a chimpanzee!
The scientist Professor Edgington, had tried to evolve herself and failed. Kryten manages to reverse this and they meet this very charming if ditzy scientist who falls for Rimmer instantly! She is also unable to guess the right combination to free Lister but the gang soon realise its whatever she doesn't think it is. On the last part Kryten and Cat go into unison again and suggest its coincidence for once she could be right with her final choice and Lister is freed!
The blossoming romance between the Professor and Rimmer is short lived as she trips up over the box of accident forms Rimmer left outside the air lock, falls into it and is sucked out into space!
The initial scene with Lister, the kebab and his interaction with Rimmer was like one out of the first few series. The subject of Rimmer killing all the crew and his guilt appeared again, and the fact he was using his guilt to create new regulations and push some of his guilt on Lister was nothing new but funny all the same. It parodied just how ridiculous health and safely regulations have become and became a strong part of the episode throughout, especially when Rimmer's attempts to make things safe ironically killed his new partner. You couldn't help but feel sorry for him though as it would be nice to see Rimmer happy for once!
The Cat and Kryten's initial scene where they speak in unison was very clever and perfectly timed. The Cat yet again also showing some of his earlier characteristics (hunting a space weevil) instead of just focusing on his appearance. Kryten also got a bit more involved in this part, especially the hilarious scene of him drying things in the most unusual way.
The scene where Kryten transforms the Professor into her human form could have been misconstrued as sexist but, anyone who has watched the show in earlier series will know that this is typical Red Dwarf humour, and not meant to be taken seriously!
When they are working out the combination for defusing the groin bomb, the scene appeared to be parodying Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. I half expected the Professor to ask if she could phone a friend (although knowing her luck she would have rung the speaking clock!) I felt her character was similar to Rimmer's in a way. Although she was obviously more intelligent (to a certain extent) she was also a bumbling fool who tried to do things correctly, but always got it wrong.
Although some other reviews think there wasn't any of the old series in this I beg to differ. A lot of the plot and the responses of the characters were very much in keeping with some of the first few series. Rimmer also went to soft light whilst on the space station turning his uniform iridescent red which was reminiscent to series V when his light bee was incapable of hard light. I like the fact the radiation leak was brought up again and this will hopefully get younger and newer fans to explore the older series to catch up on its history.
Yet another good episode, keep up the good work boys!
I agree - this one was the most like the classic series and I liked how they brought up the early part of the series with Lister making fun of him for killing everyone. The biggest laugh for me was when he said he wasn't going to fill out the forms after saying he was agonizing all night about things (delivery was great on that one).
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