Justice

While Lister is down with a bout of space mumps, Red Dwarf picks up an escape pod from a prison ship that was transporting dangerous criminals to their final trial, sentence and incarceration on Justice World. The crew head to Justice World themselves in Starbug, hoping to discover whether the pod contains a guard named Barbara Bellini or a homicidal maniac. The Justice Computer puts a spanner in the works when it scans the crews' minds for signs of guilt and convicts Rimmer on 1,167 counts of second-degree murder, a consequence of his faulty drive-plate repair that killed the crew of the JMC vessel Red Dwarf. Kryten proves to the Judge that Rimmer's immense guilt stems from his own inflated sense of importance; a man as incompetent and insignificant as Rimmer, he argues, would never be given tasks that might put the whole crew in danger. Although Rimmer, deeply offended, tries to object to his own defense attorney, he is found not guilty. However, a psychopathic droid emerges from the pod that initiated their trip to Justice World, and tries to hunt them down. He is defeated after a unique trait to Justice World is exploited, namely that anyone who tries to perpetrate a crime on someone else has the effect put on them (i.e., attempting to hurt another person results in you feeling the pain instead).


Trivia

• The industrial prison complex was filmed in Sunbury Pumphouse, a disused water pumping plant that was later used for the ‘oil rig’ set on the second season of the Channel 4 games show GamesMaster.

Continuity

• This episode marked the first appearance of a Rogue Simulant, the villainous androids who would remain recurring antagonists to the "Dwarfers" until Series VII.
• This episode is subject to a large continuity issue. It is stated that the number of crew aboard the Red Dwarf prior to the radiation leak that killed them was 1,169 (The charge is 1,167 counts of murder but the computer does not count Lister who didn't die, or Rimmer, who effectively killed himself). This was an inexplicable increase from the mere 169 crew members mentioned in the first series of the show. The continuity error appears to be have noticed however in the following series, as in the episode "The Inquisitor" the pre-accident crew complement was implicitly reverted to 169. Curiously, in the Red Dwarf novels, the ship had had a complement of 11,169 prior to the accident, suggesting that the increase in crew complement was a deliberate retcon rather than a continuity error. This would mean that Lister's registration code in "Inquisitor" was either a mistake or was not calculated solely based on his rank. One other suggestion states that 169 refers to members of the Space Corps and the additional 1000 were miners of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Or prisoners.
• In series 1, Rimmer's responsibility for the drive plate malfunction is established several times; we even see a film clip of Hollister berating Rimmer for failing to fix it properly.
• Rimmer's sentence is wrong, as each count of second degree murder carries 8 years penal servitude, and 1,167 times 8 is 9,336 years, however he is only sentenced 9,328 years.
• Coincidentally, the pod that the crew find has the name 'Barbara' is mis-spelt 'Barbra'.