They eventually track down Kryten and Rimmer at the club where they work, whereupon Lister finally discovers that everything is backwards. However, Kryten and Rimmer are quite content on this planet because people do not die, there is no crime, war is a good thing, and diseases make one better. Lister comments that people would consider St. Francis of Assisi a petty minded sadist who went around maiming small animals and Santa Claus an evil old bastard who goes down people's chimneys and steals all the children's favourite toys. Lister tries to convice them to come back, but they intend to stay. Right after their show, the club owner fires them for starting a fight. Kryten argues that they have not started any fight, but, as Lister has just "uneaten" someone's pie, they discover that the bar is a mess, and they realise that they did start the fight, but it has not happened yet. Lister gets punched in the face, leading a barroom brawl (or rather, a "barroom tidy") and a huge fight breaks out in reverse, restoring everything to its original state.
They eventually realise that they cannot stay in a backwards Universe, and go back to board Starbug, only to discover that another downside is that the toilet arrangement can be extremely disturbing for someone who was born in a forwards Universe (as the Cat pops up from behind a bush, and is too shocked to say anything except "Don't ask", much to the amusement of Rimmer and Lister).
Opening Crawl (Text)
This was one of two episodes to parody the Star Wars opening crawl, the other episode being "Dimension Jump". The titling explains the changes that were made going from series two to three, however, the scrolling was sped up faster than someone could actually read.
The following text of the opening crawl is taken from a Red Dwarf FAQ created by the newsgroup alt.tv.red-dwarf:
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.
Trivia
- Rob Grant appears in this episode as the man smoking the cigarette.
- A hidden backwards message was placed in this episode.
- This episode marked the first appearance of the transport shuttle Starbug, which replaced the Blue Midget for Series III. Later, two whole series of the show (Series VI and VII) would be based aboard Starbug.
- On the Series III DVD this episode can be played in reverse.
- A rather unknown joke in this episode is when the four protagonists are sitting in the make-up room, and the show runner bursts into the room and shouts at them backwards. When put forward, his words are: "You are a stupid, square-headed, bald git, aren't you, eh?! I'm not pointing at you, I'm pointing at you, but I'm not actually addressing you. I'm addressing the one prat in the country who's bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round, and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying! What a poor, sad life he's got! Frankly, your act's crap, anyway. Anybody could have done it! I hate the lot of you! Bollocks to you!!"
- This is the only reference to there being two Starbugs until Series Five in which one is destroyed and another is used by Lister to find Kryten.
- This is the first look at Rimmer as a different hologram. The "H" on his head is slightly smaller and has a holographic effect, unlike the silver effect of his previous one.
