Red Dwarf Favorites: Me2

Hello and welcome to the Jupiter mining vessel Red Dwarf.  Three million years into deep space, this hydrogen gas powered mammoth is over 6 miles long and 3 miles deep containing the last human being in existence, a holographic projection of the former crew and a humanoid that evolved from the domestic house cat.  Powering and running this ship at full tilt is the A.I. known as Holly, who may be senile and gone a bit peculiar.  This episode starts in continuity from Confidence & Paranoia where Arnold Rimmer has an exact duplicate of himself created to torment Lister further and allow Rimmer the drive and ambition to climb up the ranks and earn his command he so desperately craves.  This is Me2.

Beats doing the latrines!

Rimmer: Everything you ever did, you did to pull me back and spoil me.
Lister: Like what?
Rimmer: Like using my Mother's photography as an ashtray.





Lister's (Craig Charles of Red Dwarf, Cyberspace, Captain Butler, Doctors and Coronation Street) dead roommate is moving out of their sleeping quarters and moving in with an exact copy of himself who is equally petulant, whiny, snidely and all around smeghead.  A mid-level technician with a Napoleon complex.  Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie of Black Adder the Third, Spitting Image, The Legends of Treasure Island, The Brittas Empire, Get Fit with Brittas, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) is delighted at this turn of events and cannot wait to improve his rank and station in life now that he is away from the negativity that is Lister.  Lister comes across a tape Holly made for Rimmer as a tribute to his death.   Frankly to me, it sounds like a snuff film but hey to each their own I say.

Beside himself with joy.

Meanwhile the Cat (Danny John-Jules of Labyrinth, In Dreams, Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, The Tomorrow People, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Blade II and Death in Paradise) has once again put on his finest and outlandish wardrobe, greased his skates and is making his moves...  for a mate or three.  Yes he is skating the hallways with a megaphone announcing to all females to form a que and wait their turn.   As the days progress the Rimmers start squabbling, pointing out their flaws to great length and blame one another for the failure to be in command.
In spite of living on a vessel that is the size of a small city the Rimmers constant bickering has driven Lister, the Cat and even Holly batty and it is time for one of them to go.  But who will it be?  The original that had the bright idea of creating a clone of himself or the clone that claims validation in existence as well?

A few comments to make on this episode.  The death sequence for Rimmer as he mutters his final words, Gazpacho soup is of course a homage to Citizen Kane's Rosebud but how they bring the story out of Rimmer is to die for.  Chris Barrie's facial expressions in this scene are priceless as he portrays this haunted and distraught man when the dialogue is making you tear up from laughter.

Smoking in theaters...  IN SPACE!!!!