Out Of Time

Red Dwarf is completely lost. The crew enters a region of space populated by unreality pockets, a security measure around a top-secret Space Corps test ship. Kryten places the crew in Deep Sleep and conducts his own looting mission and Starbug escapes with a time-drive. They are subsequently contacted by another Starbug, populated by their future selves, who explain that their own time-drive is malfunctioning and request to be allowed to copy parts from the present-day time-drive. Lister refuses after seeing what the future crew has become, and they launch an attack on Starbug: they would rather die than be denied their self-indulgent lifestyle. Rimmer shows uncharacteristic bravery by suggesting they fight, stating "Better dead than smeg." The episode ends with Lister, Cat, and Kryten all dying from explosions in the cockpit and Rimmer blowing up the time-drive. The final scene is of Starbug exploding and the promise "to be continued."


Production notes

• The episode was reportedly filmed with Autocue prompts installed throughout the Starbug set, since Doug Naylor did not actually finish the script. He had to type lines for the actors to read, and simultaneously make it look like a well-rehearsed episode to the audience. The cast recall the experience fondly in the DVD commentaries.
• The working title for this episode was "Present from the Future", while Craig Charles script title was "R.I.P. Dave Lister".

Alternate versions

• An alternate ending was filmed (and is on both the 1994 outtake video Red Dwarf: Smeg Ups and the the Series VI DVD) where Rimmer destroys the time-drive and sets things back the way they were by killing their future selves as a result. The Dwarfers then celebrate with margaritas — which they discover to their disgust is brewed from urine recyc.

Rimmerworld

Rimmer is suffering from stress and Kryten prescribes several measures for him to prevent an electronic aneurysm. Meanwhile, the crew decides to replenish supplies by looting the Simulant ship they shot down a few weeks ago ("Gunmen of the Apocalypse"). One of the Simulants has survived and confronts Lister, Kryten and the Cat. Rimmer, however, sneaks into an escape pod and runs away which causes the destruction of the ship. His pod subsequently heads straight for the closest S3 planet, on the other side of a wormhole, and when it arrives Rimmer decides to use the terraforming equipment to create a paradise. He also manages to clone himself, hoping for female company, but instead begins an entire new race of Rimmer-clones who eventually turn against him and imprison him in a dungeon. When his shipmates arrive in Starbug a time dilation effect means that for Rimmer 600 years have passed. They arrive on Rimmerworld only to be promptly captured and thrown into Rimmer's dungeon by power-hungry Rimmer-clones, who consider anything un-Rimmer like to be a crime (i.e., charm, bravery, intelligence). The crew teleport out of the cell and escape with Starbug.


Quotes

Rimmer has discovered that he can make a woman out of his DNA strands. In a voice over, he debates if it would be right for them to have sex, as technically, it would be his sister...

Rimmer: "After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided: What the hell, I just wouldn't tell her." He smiles to himself, and shrugs."


Trivia

"Rimmerworld" was filmed back to back with "Gunmen of the Apocalypse".

Emohawk - Polymorph II

An orb-shaped, computer-controlled, class A Space Corp External Enforcement Vessel warps near Starbug and decloaks to scan the transport ship. After doing this the probe accuses the Dwarfers of looting derelict spaceships (a crime of which they are completely and totally guilty) and sentences them to death under frontier law.

Starbug is pounded with pulse missiles and is nearly destroyed, but manages to flee into a GELF zone where the probe will not follow. With Starbug on fire, the crew deliberately crash-land on a moon with a shallow ocean to extinguish the flames. However the moon is not uninhabited - a primitive humanoid tribe of GELFs, the Kinitawowi tribe, reside on the moon. Lister is forced to marry the chief's daughter, whose name is Echechechechechech, in return for an oxygen generation unit (or O/G unit) so that Lister and the Cat can breathe on take-off. Lister escapes from his new bride as the others are leaving with the O/G unit and they make their escape in Starbug but they are trailed by the chief's pet emohawk, a domesticated polymorph, which begins stealing the crew's emotions. The Cat loses his cool and morphs into Duane Dibbley, while Rimmer loses his cowardice and becomes Ace Rimmer. After Ace makes a failed attempt to snap Duane Dibbley's neck and vent Starbug to get rid of the polymorph (thereby sacrificing himself), Lister and the crew manage to capture the emohawk and freeze it. This allows them to extract the DNA of Cat and Rimmer to return them to normal.


Quotes

After Lister is married his bride wants to consummate their union.

Lister: "All right, I just want to slip into something more comfortable. It's called Starbug." Outside Lister runs past his pals.
Lister: "Change of plan... LEG IT!"


Trivia

• The working title of this episode was "Polymorph II - Emohawk". The cast jokes in the DVD commentary of this episode that the scrubbed title sounds like a football score.
• This episode marked the first appearance of humanoid GELFs in the form of the Kinitawowi tribe.
• The full name of Lister's GELF bride, as it appears in the subtitles on the series VI DVD and the information on the official Red Dwarf site, is "Echechechechechechech"
• Ainsley Harriot played the role of the GELF chief, a role he asked for due to being a fan of the show. Harriot later became a celebrity chef and hosted the television shows Can't Cook, Won't Cook and Ready, Steady, Cook for the BBC. Later, in 1998, Harriott presented a special edition of Can't Cook, Won't Cook called Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg for the 10th anniversary of Red Dwarf with the cast of Red Dwarf cooking a meal while remaining in character.
• Two much loved "alter egos" make an appearance in this episode: Cat becomes Duane Dibbley and Arnold Rimmer becomes Ace Rimmer.
• Danny John-Jules provides a little known fact in the DVD commentaries: Eddie Izzard, now a famous comedian and international movie star, used to be a warm-up man for the Red Dwarf crew.
• A great line said by Ace Rimmer was unfortunately cut from the final edit: as he struggles to break Cat's neck, he ultimately decides against killing him, stating that "It'd be like garroting Bambi."
• The GELF village set was, in fact, an already standing set left over from the short lived series Covington Cross.
• A running gag in the series involving Lister's marriage is seen in Series VII, where a GELF ship attempts to capture him and bring him back to his wife.

Gunmen Of The Apocalypse

Starbug has strayed into a Rogue Simulant hunting zone and is detected by a battle-cruiser whose xenophobic mechanoid occupants despise humanity. The Dwarfers are captured (after trying to convince the Simulants they are not humans but aliens in one scene by using a chinface), but instead of killing them the Simulants upgrade the engines and driver interface of Starbug, as well as fitting armour and laser cannons on the spaceship. They do this so that they can have a battle for the purposes of sport.

By a fluke the Red Dwarf crew cripples the Simulant ship, but before it is destroyed it transmits an "Armageddon Virus" into Starbug's navigation computer, leaving the ship locked on a suicide course straight towards a large volcanic moon. Kryten contracts the virus himself in order to try and formulate a software antidote.

Kryten's battle with the virus manifests itself as a Wild West–flavoured dream; he is the drunken and burnt-out Sheriff of Existence standing against the four Apocalypse Boys: Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death. To try and help Kryten to buy some time, the Dwarfers use an artificial reality machine to enter Kryten's Wild West hallucination. The Apocalypse boys render Lister, Cat, and Rimmer powerless, but it buys Kryten enough time to develop an anti-virus and release it against the Apocalypse Boys and the virus infecting the ship.

Starbug crashes into the surface of the moon, but the deletion of the virus allows the crew to take back control of Starbug and they blast out of the molten lava within seconds, before the ship melts. Starbug flies off into the setting sun and the Dwarfers "yee-haw" like cowboys.


Trivia

• Along with the episode "Back to Reality", "Gunmen..." is often voted "best Red Dwarf episode" in fan polls.
• This episode was Red Dwarf's highest accolade so far, winning an International Emmy Award for the 1994 Outstanding Popular Arts category.
• The International Emmy Award was presented to Robert Llewellyn (who played Kryten) in New York City by Hollywood veteran, Tony Curtis, who is reportedly a fan of the show.
• In the saloon a piano version of the Red Dwarf theme can be heard.
• This episode was filmed in Laredo; a small, privately owned, Wild West-themed resort town in Kent, England. The game with which the Dwarfers enter the battle is called "Streets of Laredo". This is also the title of a well-known song, sung by a young cowboy who's about to die from being shot.
• It was estimated in pre-production that the scenes in Laredo would take several days to film. However, the crew were informed by the BBC of impending time constraints and so squeezed seven days' worth of filming into a mere twenty-four hours.
• During filming of this episode, Janet Street Porter was Head of Art & Culture at the BBC (a post she didn't hold for very long due to public criticism) and she made no secret that she didn't like Red Dwarf. Street Porter received the ambitious script for "Gunmen..." late, and after reading it, sent out a memo that all production for this episode must be stopped immediately due to the fact she believed it too difficult to film, too costly and too time-consuming when the crew could be focusing on other shows. By the time the Red Dwarf crew received her memo, filming had already wrapped and even post-production already started.
• When the crew were horseriding, Craig Charles spurred on the horse on which Chris Barrie was riding with some force and enthusiasm. The horse resorted to running around fields in circles, and it reportedly took two hours to slow the horse down so that Barrie could get off. Ironically, before this incident Charles had never ridden a horse before and Barrie had claimed he was an accomplished horse rider. Barrie supposedly did not talk to Charles again for weeks, due to his anger at him over this incident.
• The working title of this episode was "High Midnight".
• In the original script for this episode, all scenes in Laredo were to be filmed at night and the Apocalypse Boys were to come for Kryten at midnight instead of noon. This proved too time-costly and the idea was scrapped.
• The lava Starbug crashes into was actually slightly liquified jelly.
• In the original script, Starbug was going to crash into the ocean instead of lava. However this was changed as it proved even more of a difficult shot for the effects team if Starbug was to crash into water then lava. The reason being apparently that the after splashing into the water, the bubbles were nearly as big as the model of Starbug itself.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Fistful of Datas" features a similar scenario to this episode. In the A to Z of Red Dwarf, Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard) stated that he at first found Red Dwarf to be similar to Star Trek: TNG and tried to call his lawyers about it, but backed down after he watched it further. The segment with The Riviera Kid shooting the sign was shown immediately after Stewart spoke on this. Since then, Patrick Stewart has been a fan of Red Dwarf.
• Rimmer's alter ego, Dangerous Dan McGrew, was a character from a Robert W. Service poem, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew".
• The third episode with alternate end credits: The theme song is played in a Country/Western guitar style.
• While filming the scene where Lister comes off the VR machine at Kryten's insistence, Craig Charles injured his groin by forgetting to take that part off before walking away. This blooper can be seen on the Series VI DVD.

Plot Inconsistency

• Even though he acquired his hard-light drive in the previous episode, and was still using it by the end of it, Rimmer is shown in his soft-light form at the beginning of this episode. He is also never shown as a soft-light hologram after this one (Except during the different versions of Rimmer in the Rimmer Experience during the episode "Blue"). It is thought that Rimmer was made soft light to conserve Starbug's power for silent running, which was necessary at the beginning of the episode to hide from simulents.

Legion

Starbug is 24 hours behind Red Dwarf and is losing ground on the larger ship. They are distracted when a heat-seeking 'missile' locks onto them and tractors them to a space station inhabited only by a being called Legion, who proves his good faith by converting Rimmer from a "soft light" to a "hard light" hologram, thus making him able to touch and feel. Legion also performs an emergency appendectomy on Lister. Unknown to them, Legion is in fact a gestalt entity, made up of the personalities of those on the space station with him and must keep the crew on the station with him forever if he is to maintain his existence. Kryten saves the crew by rendering the other members unconscious, thus forcing Legion to take on only his personality, which is programmed to assist humans whenever possible. Legion helps put the crew back on Starbug, then comments on the relief it will be to not share in the neuroses of the crew.


Quotes

The crew are tracking a mysterious object through space, and the ship is on Blue Alert – basically, there is a small ALERT sign flashing blue

Rimmer: Step up to Red Alert!

Kryten: Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.


Trivia

• The working title for this episode was "Call Me Legion"; the title is a reference to Mark 5:9, wherein Jesus confronts a possessed man:

"For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"
Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
"My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

(Legion says this when the Red Dwarf crew ask what they should call him).

• The "Ionian Nerve Grip" which Kryten attempts to use on Rimmer is patterned after the famous Vulcan nerve pinch from Star Trek, perhaps with a dash of the Vulcan "death grip" thrown in for good measure.
• Rimmer's statement: "Broadcast on all known frequencies, and in all known languages, including Welsh", has been used by several broadcasts as a nod to the idiosyncracies of the language.
• One of the biggest continuity goofs in Red Dwarf occurs here. Legion is seen removing Lister's appendix though in the episode "Thanks for the Memory" Lister is shown to have had it out at least once, possibly even twice before. This is Rimmer's line "That's why I had my appendix out — twice" (commenting on a memory implant of Lister's life over his own). The Red Dwarf writers have since said that, when Lister was turned into a chicken and then turned back into himself (in "DNA"), the computer restored him with his appendix, hence explaining why Legion took it out here. A variant explanation provided in the novel Last Human suggests that Lister was born with two appendix.
• The list of names of the scientists involved in the Legion Project begins with Heidegger, echoing a noted 20th century philosopher, but then continues with the names Holder, Davro and Quayle who echo Noddy Holder, Bobby Davro and Dan Quayle and are far from noteworthy in academic fields.

Psirens

Lister comes out of Deep Sleep (a less-efficient version of stasis) aboard Starbug. Kryten brings him up to speed on the situation: Red Dwarf was lost 200 years ago and he has been chasing the ship alone and upgrading Starbug for long-term habitation. There is a chance of recovering Red Dwarf at last by heading through an asteroid belt that Red Dwarf is forced to circumnavigate. However, the belt turns out to be a spaceship graveyard inhabited by Psirens, shape-changing GELFs who lure unwary travellers to them and suck out their brains through a straw. Cat is almost lured away by two attractive women and Lister sees Kristine Kochanski (who tells him that she has two children, Jim and Bexley, that are his). Starbug crashes and Lister has to blast the front landing gear out, but is tricked twice while on the surface: once by an attractive woman, then by a Psiren masquerading as Kryten. Two Listers manage to get on board, however. It is determined who the wrong Lister is by asking them to play guitar, which Lister does poorly but the Psiren does extremely well. Lister is suitably upset by their accusations that he is a poor guitar player, though.


Trivia

• The scene where Lister has to convince his crewmates that he is the true Lister and the other Lister is in fact a psiren, seem somewhat inspired by a similar scene in Star Trek VI where there are two James T.Kirk and the real one has to convince someone not to kill him but the other.
• Captain Tau was named after the commanding officer in the American pilot of the show.
• Anita Dobson was cast in the role of Captain Tau, after Rob Grant had approached her husband (Queen guitarist Brian May) to be Lister's hands in the guitar scene (he was unavailable however)
• The actress Samantha Robson (Pete Tranter's sister) later went on to a successful career in The Bill as Vicky Hagen.
• The snogging scene between Lister and the Psiren was a result of Craig Charles being frustrated that Chris Barrie got more kissing than he did on screen. Naturally the Red Dwarf crew decided it should come at a price, in this instance a mouthful of KY Jelly. This became a running gag, with Lister being forced to kiss a number of disgusting creatures over the course of this and the next series.
• This is Clare Grogan's final appearance as Kristine Kochanski. When Kochanski returns in Season VII, she is played by Chloë Annett
• An episode of The X-Files pits Mulder against a creature similar to the Psirens.
• In the scene where the Psiren, disguised as Lister, plays the guitar, the hands didn't belong to Craig Charles: they in fact belonged to Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music.

Season 6

Red Dwarf is lost and Lister can't remember where he parked it. Chasing their mother ship leads the crew through simulant hunting zones, hostile GELF space and a Wild West reality.

Episodes:

• Psirens
• Legion
• Gunmen of the Apocalypse
• Emohawk - Polymorph II
• Rimmerworld
• Out of Time

On The DVD (Buy The DVD)

• Cast Commentary
• Fan Commentary - Gunmen of the Apocalypse
• "The Starbuggers" Original Documentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Smeg Ups
• Howard Goodall: Settling the Score
• "Sick" Featurette
• "Return to Laredo" Featurette
• Behind the Scenes Footage
• Andy de Emmony Interview
• Trailers
• Raw FX Footage
• Isolated Music Cues
• "Dave Hollins" Radio Sketch
• Photo Gallery
• Weblink
• PLUS Hidden Easter Eggs
• And Collector's Booklet