Red Dwarf Favorites: Quarantine

Howdy smeggers and welcome to Day 5 of Red Dwarf Favorites.  Today we touch base on the first episode I ever saw from Red Dwarf and it was almost an instant like.  Our story begins in Series 5 Episode 4 leads our crew into a salvage mission at an abandoned research center on a ice planet.  The search follows an emergency distress signal leading them to look about the center which leads them to all sorts of danger.  This is Quarantine.

It's only a model.

Rimmer: So let me get this straight. You wanna fly on a magic carpet to see the king of the Spoiler People and plead with for your freedom, and you're telling me you're all completely sane?



As the team took Starbug out for the search and rescue mission Rimmer assumes command...  not that you would know it by the lack of response from Lister and the Cat.  Kryten asked politely for the scouter droid to be launched and the boys jumped right in action.  After a few minutes later the crew informs Rimmer that the research center holds the experiments of Doctor Hildegarde Lanstrom (Maggie Steed of Shine on Harvey Moon, Pie in the Sky, Clatterford, Whites, 32 Brinkburn Street, Stella and Midsomer Murders),  a brillant scientist whose field of studies are positive and negative viruses.  They point out that they need to borrow Rimmer's holo-projector to acquire Lanstrom, who is also a hologram.

She's got Betty Davis Eyes!!!

Rimmer grumbles and points out how Red Dwarf cannot handle more than one hologram at a time.  Lister suggests a time share idea and Rimmer goes through the roof over this.  As Kryten begins to inform Rimmer of Space Corp Directive, Rimmer preps a pod to go back to Red Dwarf claiming that Kryten has made up these rules.  Kryten asks Holly to provide Rimmer with a hologramatic version the Space Corp Directives and Rimmer snarls and capitulates while waiting for the pod to be prepared.

With that out of the way Kryten, Lister and the Cat make their way into the center only to discover the viral projects may be volatile but the scare was unjustified.  Lanstrom was in a stasis pod preserving herself, proceeds to fire beams from her eyes at our boys and they flee.   Kryten deduces that Lanstrom is infected with a holo-virus and she is quite crackers.  Trying to get support from Rimmer via radio, Rimmer behaves smug and petulant as per usual.  Lanstrom speaks to Rimmer and exclaims how quite mad she is.  Rimmer shakes his head and proceeds back to the Dwarf.   Our fellows luck out as the virus burns Lanstrom out and they take her discoveries and research back to the Dwarf.  

Just humor him, fellas.

Finding that Starbug is heading to a different landing bay which is quarantine.  Space Corp Directive 595 (any crew member in direct contact with diseases must enter quarantine for the next three months.)  Leaving the three of them in one bedroom accommodations as per Space Corp Directive 597 (one berth per registered crew member) Lister is the only registered crew member, one room is all they get.  Is the various diseases infected our heroes or is Rimmer being a total git?  Will they be cleared or cash in their chips all together?

Some fun facts about this episode now.  The Mr. Flibble penguin puppet was nothing more than a stand-in prop puppet as the crew was hitting every thrift shop imaginable but could not find anything as comical as the penguin.  In the end, the temporary prop was used for the episode.

It took up to an hour to film a three-minute scene with Cat, Lister and Kryten arguing in the quarantine bay.  The cast kept blowing their lines and cracking up with out and out laughter.  The producers were going out of their minds as they had only booked the studio for two and a half hours overall.

Rimmer out for his constitutional. 

Red Dwarf Favorites: Dimension Jump

Welcome back Dwarfers to Day 4 Red Dwarf Favorites and as before I am jumping ahead to now Series 4.  Lister, Rimmer, The Cat and Kryten together with the ship's A.I. are up to no good as per usual.  They find themselves in a bit of a pickle when their transport shuttle Starbug has a collision and drops in an oceanic moon.  With this ragtag of misfits flailing about who can save them from their soon-to-be gruesome fate of drowning and suffocation?  This is Dimension Jump.

Drink it in, ladies.

Mellie: What are you doing lunch time?
Ace Rimmer: Not sure, why?
Mellie: Because if you're interested, I'll be in my quarters, covered in maple syrup.
Ace Rimmer: I'm sorry Mellie, I don't spoil with the staff.
Mellie: I resign.
Ace Rimmer: I'll be there at 1300.


This episode opens with a flashback sequence of young Arnold Rimmer (Simon Gaffney of Red Dwarf) at age seven and how it is very likely he will be held back a year due to poor grades. His mother (Kali Greenwood of It's a Hudd Hudd World and Red Dwarf) informs him this letter she has received may alter the very course of his life and ruin his chances of getting into the Space Corps.

We cut to twenty years later as a sleek space fighter prototype is being tested on its maiden voyage and Commander Arnold "Ace" Rimmer has successfully navigated it back in when a salute from the fellas.  Running into the best engineer in the business David "Spanners" Lister gives him a greeting of return and offers a hug and handshake.  The two are impressed how the lightship handled and feel confident that she is ready for service.  Moseying on his Exo's office, Ace chats up the lovely secretary Mellie and proceeds to see the boss, not before his is offered a tantalizing lunch from Mellie.  A rather provocative lunch.  Bongo, his boss tells Ace of a vehicle that has just been created that can break the dimension barrier but there is no coming back.    Being the bravo fellow he is, Ace preps the craft for jump and heads into the unknown.

Kryten engages "guilt mode".

At that same time in another dimension; Lister, The Cat and Kryten are heading to an oceanic moon for a fishing holiday...  without Rimmer.  Rimmer wakes up and catches them red handed.  With a round of whining and typical sniveling the crew agrees to allow Rimmer to join them on this relaxing endeavor.   Much to their utter disappointment he agrees and readies for a bit of fun.
Kryten at the helm ends up in a collision crash with an unknown object or ship and the Starbug pummels like a stone through a wet paper bag.  With the starboard engine damaged, The Cat's leg broken and Kryten not being waterproof to deal with the weather, the crew looks done for.
Will Ace be able to save the Dwarfers in time or will they succumb to their watery fate?

The idea for this episode came from Chris Barrie asking both creators/writers/producers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor if he could have the chance to play someone heroic.  Barrie had been playing an arrogant git on The Brittas Empire and he said he was suffering from "git overload".    Ace Rimmer's mannerisms, voice and aimable attitude was based on Sean Connery's James Bond.
Dimension Jump is said to be Chris Barrie's favorite episode given the ability to play both Ace and smeghead Rimmer at equally as they are completely separate men, in spite of being the same man.

When Rimmers collide. 

Red Dwarf Favorites: Bodyswap

Welcome back sci-fi fans to Day 3 of Red Dwarf Favorites as we jump into Series 3.  With the complications of losing Norman Lovett to the Scottish Isles so he could no longer be the ship's A.I. and re-introducing Kryten from Series 2 as a reoccuring character we press on into the deep black.  This is Bodyswap.

Nope, still don't get the appeal to "Friends" at all.

Rimmer: Look, I know it's a stupid idean and there's a high chance of you being a spoiling vegetable for the rest of your life, but if the rest of your life 's only 30 seconds, what the hell?




During a scrolling of Series 3, Kryten crashed his space bike and was repaired but brought back his neuroses of being second class, Lister had given birth cesarean to his twin boys Jim and Bexely and handled them over to his parallel double, their mother to raise them and Holly missing his female doppelganger changes sex to still run the ship but now as a blonde and quite female.

One of the ship's on-board repair drones known as a Skutter has gone completely crackers and proceeds to rewire the ship.  Rimmer and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn of The Corner House, Smith & Jones, Junkyard Wars, Batteries Not Included and Carpool)  are busy double checking and cross indexing every circuit when they realize they cannot find the auto-destruct sequence for the ship and therefore have no control of the bomb going off.  

Awkward silences.

Holly (comedian Hattie Haydridge of Comic Relief, Saturday Live, Jonathan Creek, Lexx and It's Kevin) the ship's A.I. is bibbling on as per usual and makes you question how he/she can even run the basic fundamentals of this complex ship, let alone have a few working brain cells since going senile.  As the auto-destruct gets triggered thanks to Lister ordering a milkshake and a crispy bar the crew scramble to get the bomb deactivated when Kryten suggests using the same technology to create a hologram and swap Lister's mind with one of the dead crew to order self-destruct off.

Later that night Rimmer is just concerned about Lister's lack of diet, health and horrendous habits that he suggests they swap bodies for two weeks while Rimmer gets Lister fit and trim.  Haven't experienced touch, taste or smell in 3 million and 3 years, Rimmer's senses are a bit overwhelmed and well...  the diet and fitness program goes a bit off.  Chastised by Lister now wearing Rimmer's holo-body, Rimmer promises to buckle down.

Tempted by all the sins of the flesh again, Rimmer fails to follow through and the two swap bodies back.  Lister is coughing from all the cigars, booze and food Rimmer has made him ingest and tells Rimmer that will NEVER happen again.   Lister wakes the next day to find himself back in Rimmer's holo-body as Rimmer hijacked Lister's.  Can he convince the rest of the crew to catch Rimmer and swap them back?

Bodyswap was the first episode they could not film in front of the live audience because of Chris Barrie and Craig Charles had to dub their lines over each other talking and make sure it matched up with the difference in speech patterns.  A scene that was taped but deleted was Kryten comes to the sauna with a huge pile of food at Rimmer's(in Lister's body) request and a gag was Kryten had a lighter attachment in his index figure to light Rimmer's cigar. During the lighting and rechecks on equipment Llewellyn's suit became so sweat ridden that his own sweat short-circuited the wires to the lighter and every time they went to ignite the coils he was shocked mildly.

Charles Atlas diet plan.

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.

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!!!!

Red Dwarf Favorites

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen.  This week I can assure you we will NOT being reviewing anything of giallo or supernatural nasty because while I love Argento's work I need to be able to sleep at nights.   That being said I will be diving into the severely sprained minds of writers and creative team of Red Dwarf with Rob Grant and Doug Taylor (Spitting Image and Red Dwarf) and I thought I would share with you my favorite episodes.

You're not gonna rub my belly??!!!!

This goes without saying will bounce through several of the seasons.  With a 20 year hiatus with the promise of a movie that never saw fruition the mini-series of Back to Earth had hit or miss from the fans and breathing life into Season 10, the fans across the pond, around the states and frankly anyone with TV has heard, seen or caught a glance of Red Dwarf.

Whether you have hygiene issues that would unnerve a baboon, so anal retentive you could sharpen pencils with your bum, licked your clothes and took a session of naps or you really liked doing laundry, this show was for you.
That in mind, smeggers we now begin the Red Dwarf Favorites!

Did we scare it off?