Now some time into their prison sentence in the The Tank, the Dwarfers have been put on probation for good behaviour. The episode begins with Arnold Rimmer attending to Captain Frank Hollister as he recovers from Yellow Fever. After giving him some hot lemon drink, Hollister notices in the directives that Rimmer tried to slip in a form pardoning him from all crimes. The hopeless Rimmer goes on to explain his ambition to become an accomplished officer someday, perhaps even a Captain.
Hollister tells him he is not officer material and dismisses him as an attractive blonde woman, Talia Garret, enters. This is the woman who was rescued from the escape pod of the SS Hermes, and it seems that the Captain and Talia both know each other in some way from the past. Rimmer, disgusted at what he sees as the Captain's apparent virility and his own failure to get a woman leaves. In the corridor he attempts to steal some chocolate by putting in a coin which is tied to a piece of string and then pulling the coin back out with the string - only for the AI of the dispensing machine to berate him. The dispenser says to Rimmer: "You are my nemesis... one day, our paths will cross again, and I - I will *destroy* you...". Rimmer replies with "...And on that day, I will be the Captain of this ship."
Meanwhile, back in The Tank, Kryten comments to Lister on how he is changing Miss Kochanski's calendar, Lister realises what is going on and instructs Kryten secretly on how to behave. Kochanski comes into her cell later and discovers Kryten has attempted to celebrate her period with a banner that reads 'Have A Fantastic Period'. After telling him what's really happened they hatch a plan to get Lister back. Later, in Lister and Rimmer's cell, they discover that Kryten has placed Baxter's illegal moonshine hooch into their cell, just before Holly informs them of a cell inspection. With the water tank full they have no choice but to drink the hooch. Warden Aackerman is able to figure they are drunk by offering them a kebab, which they readily accept.
When Baxter finds out, believing his hooch was stolen by Rimmer and Lister, he threatens to finish off the two, now in sickbay, sleeping off the stomach pump. The two quickly resolve to deciding they need to escape. Kryten and Kochanski pretend to be ill to land in sickbay, while the Cat disguises himself as a nurse, from where they plan their escape.
However as as the Dwarfers escape they find that the particularly nasty chameleonic microbe is eating away at the ship after having being brought on board in the pod from the SS Hermes.
Captain Frank Hollister and the rest of the Red Dwarf crew contemplate escape on board a fleet of Starbugs and Blue Midgets; leaving Rimmer, Lister, the Cat, Kryten and Kris alone and trapped on board a rapidly disintegrating Red Dwarf, without the relevant knowledge needed to cancel out and nullify the destructive microbe.
Kryten and Kochanski devise a plan which involves entering a mirror universe where everything is opposite; negative becomes positive and a virus becomes an antidote. Travelling to a mirror universe may provide an antidote that will neutralise the microbe. Kryten manufactures a perfect prism laser and directs it at a mirror to create a dimensional gateway to a mirror universe. Rimmer crosses over first, only for the prism to break and trap Rimmer in the mirror universe. He realises he is not a failure in this universe but is indeed Captain, and berates the alternative Hollister, now a 2nd Technician, for being useless. When Talia comes in, Rimmer, thinking she is his lover, snogs her, only to be told she is his spiritual advisor. After making a fool of himself yet again Rimmer quickly goes to the science lab to talk to the professor, the alternative Cat, and gets the antidote (Cesiumfrancolithicmyxialobidiumrixydixydoxidrexidroxhide).
However when Rimmer crosses back to his universe he finds himself alone, as it transpires the other Dwarfers repaired the prism and followed him into the mirror universe shortly after he crossed over. However the prism is now fried and burnt out, so Rimmer is trapped, and Red Dwarf is a flaming inferno and falling apart. Even worse, the chemical formula for the antidote, written in the mirror universe, has now become the mirror opposite - it has turned into the chemical formula for the microbe itself. After exchanging insults with the same dispensing machine whom he stole from, a flying can knocks Rimmer unconscious. "Every dog has his day", states the dispensing machine.
In what may be either a hallucination or reality, the Grim Reaper, played by series director Ed Bye, comes to claim Rimmer. Rimmer kicks Death in the crotch and runs off down the flaming corridor, claiming that "only the good die young." as Death winces "That's never happened before..." The episode ends with an ominous "The End" caption, but is soon refuted with its sudden erasure and replacement with "THE SMEG IT IS".
The alternate ending
The ending of this episode, in which Rimmer's death is seemingly imminent, Red Dwarf is on fire and falling apart, and the fate of the other crewmembers is also uncertain, was not popular with a large number of fans. Writer Doug Naylor recalls on the series VIII bonus features that this ending was filmed at the last minute due to a late re-write, and even his own kids gave him hell for it.
An alternate ending where the Dwarfers clearly survive, and indeed even find themselves in a similar situation to the earlier series of Red Dwarf, was scripted and filmed but strangely cut at the at the last minute. However it is available for viewing on the series VIII DVD special features. In this version of the episode, the bumbling Arnold Rimmer successfully remembers the antidote to the microbe that is eating the ship. It takes him over two hours to memorise the name of the antidote, as he has to alternate between the mirror universe and back to read the name of the antidote (which becomes the chemical name of the microbe in our universe as the opposite of the antidote.) However Rimmer memorises the antidote just in time for Kryten to make up some of the chemical antidote up and use it to destroy the microbe.
Red Dwarf having been saved from destruction, and Arnold Rimmer once again being the highest ranking member on board, Rimmer dresses himself in the uniform of the space corps admiralty with various military decorations. Lister, Cat, and Kris party and celebrate at having survived, and due to the fact they are no longer imprisoned in The Tank and once again have free run of the vessel. Kryten resumes his ironing duties. It is not explained why Rimmer would be the highest ranking crew member in this ending, as Kochanski is an officer and should outrank him.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Red Dwarf crew such as Captain Frank Hollister and the rest of the flight officers, look on Red Dwarf helplessly from their fleet of Starbugs and Blue Midgets with which they escaped the disintegrating mothership. Kryten peeks through a porthole at the fleet and guiltily suggests to Rimmer that they should perhaps slow down Red Dwarf, so that the rest of the crew can dock in the hangar bay and come aboard. Rimmer, reminiscent of Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 (in accordance with his military fantasies), replies "I see no ships"!
The alternative ending concludes with Rimmer finally paying the money he owes to the dispensing machine he stole from earlier. The machine still fires a can at Rimmers head though, knocking him unconscious
Trivia
- The formula for the antidote is: Cesiumfrancolithicmyxialobidiumrixydixydoxidrexidroxhide (as spelt in the Series VIII collectors handbook), while the formula for the virus is: Zogothoniumeliumoxiixiexiphulmifhidikalidrihide.
- This episode had a notorious production, having gone through numerous re-writes and re-shoots. In production it had three different working titles: firstly Mirror, Mirror, then Mirror/rorriM and finally Every Dog.
- One proposed ending was to feature Arnold Rimmer's dashing and heroic alter-ego Ace Rimmer returning to save the day (in reality, the "original" Arnold Rimmer). However this ending was not filmed.
- Yet another ending was to have the Dwarfers finally making it back to Earth at the end of the episode. This, too, was not filmed, but would surely have become Series 9. However, this is how the books end.
- Tony Slattery guest starred as the voice of the dispensing machine Rimmer steals from.
- The production team had completely run out of money by the time it came to making this episode and due to the fact there was no budget left, the production designer Mel Bibby asked visual effects designer Bill Pearson to make the model of the SS Hermes escape pod himself at home. Bill Pearson did this for the promise of a bottle of red wine.
- In the show's second episode, Future Echoes, Rimmer tells Lister he "can't whack Death on the head", (when Lister was convinced he has seen the future was about to die) which is a bit ironic seeing that Rimmer kicks him in the groin in this episode. However, the Rimmer who kicks Death in the groin is not the same hologram who featured in the second episode of series one.
- The title spoofs the finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, All Good Things....
