Red Dwarf Favorites: Stasis Leak

Welcome back to Day 2 of Red Dwarf Favorites.  We jump ahead to Series 2 as Rimmer, Lister and the Cat are adjusting to life on Red Dwarf and its endless isolation.  Space is vast and so far there hasn't been an inkling of intelligent life outside the ship or in it for that matter.  Our boys are bored to the point of breaking and Lister decides to idly flick through Rimmer's diary back when he was still alive and has made a startling discovery.  To what end?   This is Stasis Leak.

Now see here, Mr. Potter...

Rimmer: Three Listers???!  Splendid!!!  Perhaps Lister can open a bottle of wine for Lister and Lister.  Rimmer here doesn't drink because he's spoiled but I wouldn't mind a glass!



Our episode opens with a flashback 3 million years ago when Rimmer puts Lister on report for giving Rimmer hallucinogenic mushrooms for breakfast causing him to show up for assignment nude aside from swimming goggles and a pair of gloves.  Captain Hollister (Mac McDonald of Death Wish 3, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Batman, Nightbreed, Delta Wave,Young Indiana Jones and the Phantom Train of Doom, The Fifth Element and Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead) gives Lister two weeks punishment and as usual Rimmer blurts out his disapproval getting 8 weeks painting the 6 mile long ship.  Getting the space suits prepped Rimmer is visited by a floating head of his own face with an H imprinted on it who warns him of the impending future.

Cut to 3 million and two years later, Lister is checking out Rimmer's diary after finding a wedding photo of Kochanski and himself and piecing this whole chain of events together as the lot of them head down to Floor 16 and they conclude there is a pocket of time and space preserved by the very same radiation that caused the accident in the first place wiping the crew out.    To put it a bit more easy than that, a portion of time and space are out of sync with the rest of the universe's causality.

 

The Cat wins yet another Puff Up contest.

The problem is that they can go back in time but not bring anyone back with them as that person would be broken down molecule by molecule.  Lister thinks he can convince Kochanski to go into stasis in the spare stasis pod before the accident and Rimmer is of the mindset to warn his former self of the same.  Being there is only one other stasis pod it is a race to see who can con whom first.

A bit of trivia on the episode now.  The Ganymede Holiday Inn was in fact the Crowne Plaza Midland Holiday Inn in Manchester where the Red Dwarf cast and crew were staying at for more than 4 months. They filmed their shenanigans in the hotel during regular operating hours and apparently discouraged people from staying as a woman was sprayed in the face with a seltzer bottle causing potential customers to vacate.

In the final scene of Stasis Leak the actress Clare Grogan who played Kochanski was sent home too soon and due to equal height, the floor manager (in charge of props, camera, lighting and general safety) Dona DiStefano had to be Kochanski with a wide brim hat and stand in for her.

When Series 3 came around and the lot of them proceeded to head back to book another collection of hotel rooms the Crown Plaza politely turned them down and asked them to never darken their doorsteps again.

3 Listers??!!  Think I will join Rimmer in that bottle of wine.