The Plot Inconsistencies Project v5.55
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PLOT INCONSISTENCIES PROJECT v.5.55
* AS SEEN IN 'BETTER THAN LIFE' *
* AS SEEN BY GRANT NAYLOR FOR THEIR WRITERS' BIBLE *
* AS SEEN IN THE CREDITS OF 'SMEG OUTS' *
* THE CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION EDITION *
PART 1 OF 2
A loving look at everything that's not quite right with Red Dwarf.
Edited by Damone ([email protected]).
Editor's editor and head writer-type person: Annette 'El Skutto' McIntosh
([email protected]).
==============================================================================
NOTICE: This document, its format, and all material contained herein are
protected by public copyright, except where it conflicts with the copyright
of Grant Naylor. This document *may* be distributed freely in its entirety and
posted at electronic sites where no fee is charged for its viewing. It
*may not* be sold or published for profit in any form.
==============================================================================
PIP Availability:
The PIP is posted as updates warrant on the USENET newsgroup
alt.tv.red-dwarf.
It is available via the WWW at:
http://www.queeg.dsc.t8000.com/plot/index.html
http://www.gold.net/users/fm24/reddwarf/
http://www.ftech.net/~cobweb/alt.tv.red-dwarf/
It is also available via FTP at:
ftp://ftp.queeg.dsc.t8000.com/pub/red-dwarf/general/
There is also an e-mail distribution list for the PIP so that you can get
new versions mailed to you as they come out. To sign up, mail
[email protected] and request to be put on the list. Please specify if
you want the text-only or MIME-compressed version.
==============================================================================
C O N T E N T S
---------------
Each major section is divided by a line of: =
Each minor section is divided by a line of: -
All new additions from last version are marked with a: *
(Part 1 of the PIP)
0.5 Updates and New Stuff.
1.0 What is the Plot Inconsistencies Project (PIP)?
2.0 What are the Plot Inconsistencies?
2.1 Series 1
2.2 Series 2
2.25 The Universal Explanation
2.3 Series 3
(Part 2 of the PIP)
2.4 Series 4
2.5 Series 5
2.6 Series 6
2.63 Smeg Ups
2.67 Smeg Outs
3.0 What are the Production Errors?
3.1 Series 1
3.2 Series 2
3.3 Series 3
3.4 Series 4
3.5 Series 5
3.6 Series 6
3.63 Smeg Ups
3.67 Smeg Outs
4.0 Additions, Corrections, or Contributions to PIP.
5.0 Acknowledgements.
6.0 Conclusion.
==============================================================================
ABBREVIATIONS:
RD = Red Dwarf, the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship
GSD = Gazpacho Soup Day, day of Rimmer's greatest humiliation
SB = Starbug, the RD shuttle craft
LB = Light Bee, the hologrammatic projection device that creates Rimmer
==============================================================================
0.5 UPDATES AND NEW STUFF
New Stuff for:
Version 0.5: Um, everything. It's the first version. Posted to group.
(4/9/95 - 4/27/95)
Version 1.0: Quite a lot, really. Explanations for most of the
inconsistencies from version 0.5, plus a couple of new additions. All
new additions are marked with a: * (I may have missed a couple).
Also, all book/series contradictions are gone. Not posted to group.
(4/27/95 - 5/3/95)
Version 1.25: Everything got sloshed around again. This is more of a
clean-up run than anything else. Grammatical errors and other
nit-picky stuff were taken care of, as well as a couple of new
additions. Posted to group. (5/3/95 - 5/5/95)
Version 1.5: More minor additions and corrections and the like. El Skutto
yelled at me (I am a *beast* -- El Skutto). Things got fixed.
Added a diagram. Posted to group. (5/5/95 - 5/12/95)
Version 2.0: More tidy-time. El Skutto fixed all the grammar stuff and
small technical-type errors. A couple of new inconsistencies and
explanations have also been added. Posted to group. (5/12/95 - 5/21/95)
Version 2.5: Whole lotta new inconsistencies and explanations have been
added. The debut of the Universal Explanation. Posted to group.
(5/21/95 - 5/31/95)
Version 3.0: Big format changes. More inconsistencies. People seem to have a
lot more to say now that exams are over. New info on accessibility
through the World Wide Web and the e-mail distribution list.
Posted to group. (5/31/95 - 6/14/95)
Version 3.5: Where oh where to begin. The Plot Inconsistencies have been
separated from the Production Errors into two different sections. The
later sections were all pushed back. Millions of new PIs and
Production Errors (PEs) added. Some rather harsh content editing by
yours truly. Posted to group. (6/14/95 - 7/7/95)
Version 3.7: This is a minor change at the moment. It is made to add a
few new inconsistencies that have been submitted, but, more
importantly, to update the availability of the PIP, listing the new
places it can be found. Not posted to group. (7/7/95 - 7/25/95)
Version 4.0: Bunch of new PIs and PEs added. Mild scandals from the n/g.
Whole lot of important stuff done to justify the delay. Really.
Posted to the group. (7/25/95 - 8/15/95)
Version 4.25: New PIs and PEs added as they came in. Other minor
corrections and the like. Not posted to group. (8/15/95 - 9/7/95)
Version 5.00: Oh man...where to begin. I got tons and tons of PIs that
just kept backing up after I rushed out the last version so Grant
Naylor could use it for their new Smeg Outs video and their RD
Writers' Bible. Then my life took a serious turn for the south. And
the stuff kept backing up. And backing up. And my life got ugly. But
I've dug myself out of the PIP backlog at least and at least this
phoenix rises from the grave. Tons of new stuff. Posted to group.
(9/7/95 - 11/7/95)
Version 5.25: Minor section re-adjustments due to inclusion of the Smeg Outs
video. The PIP was split into two parts due to size constraints.
Lots of new stuff to chew on (including stuff from the Smeg
Outs). Fun and games in time for the holidays. Posted to group.
(11/7/95 - 12/6/95)
Version 5.50: New additions to all our wonderful sections. Our valiant
effort begins to get a new version out once a month (if needed).
Posted to group. (12/6/95 - 1/10/96)
Version 5.55: A couple of minor changes. Updated info on availability of the
PIP, and other minor foibles. There are a couple of new additions.
Look for them. (1/10/96 - 2/14/96)
==============================================================================
1.0 WHAT IS THE PLOT INCONSISTENCIES PROJECT (PIP)?
Long answer:
The Plot Inconsistencies Project (PIP) is an attempt to compile, record,
and resolve all of the various plot inconsistencies for the British
television show, Red Dwarf. The writers, Grant Naylor, are famous for changing
established facts when it suited their plots. Through fan efforts, we are
attempting to go through all the available episodes and make this list of plot
holes and problems, and then fix them ourselves. Any blatant contradiction,
minor flub, disappearing plot lines, or any solutions to any of the above are
welcomed. See section 4.0 on how to contribute.
Short answer:
It was a post I made to the Red Dwarf Newsgroup about an idea I had, and
it got out of hand. *Way* out of hand.
==============================================================================
2.0 WHAT ARE THE PLOT INCONSISTENCIES?
Some extra explanation has been added into this section due to
the new divisions, as more stringent definitions are required. A Plot
Inconsistency (PI) is a part of the plot (facts, technology, etc) which
contradicts or does not fit with that which came before it, or it is a part
of an episode which cannot be explained within the information in the episode
itself. It can also be a hypothetical question that was not actually
part of the episode, or a question that arises from actions not
consistent with the normal functioning of a crewmember. For example,
information in two episodes which says that Lister had more than one
appendix is an inconsistency.
The main feature of PIs is that, with proper application of
dubious logic, they can be explained away rather nicely within the confines
of believability through suspension of disbelief. The inconsistency
should actually require some sort of explanation, and events of obvious
exaggeration and intended misdirection are not included.
Some Production Errors can also be PIs if there is an explanation for
them that fits into the plot of the series. The door-opening panels that
activate before they are touched are an example of this. They are listed in
both sections. There is a full description of Production Errors (PEs) at the
beginning of section 3.0.
The PIs will be listed by series, by episode. Each inconsistency
will be listed, and if a resolution exists for it, it will be included
below it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1 SERIES 1
The End (1-1)
- It is said that there are 169 people on Red Dwarf, as opposed to the
at least 1,167 in Justice (4-3).
- These numbers might not take into account crewmembers who were
off-ship for whatever reasons.
- The 169 may only refer to the technicians.
- The larger number may include all personnel on the ship
(miners, etc), which would be counted when charging someone for their
deaths, but the smaller number may just refer to officers or enlisted
Space Corps personnel.
- Because RD is such an enormous ship, individual sections of the
vessel may be called 'ships.' Thus, when Todhunter said 'There are 169
people on board *this* ship,' he may have been referring only to the current
section he was in.
- Why can't Rimmer write Lister down in his report book? Surely Holly
can provide a hologrammatic one, as he provides many holo items for Rimmer
in later episodes.
- Rimmer, unaccustomed to being dead, may not have thought to
ask for one.
- Rimmer mentions that there was a volcanic eruption and most of Fiji is
three feet underwater. However, everything else contradicts this: Lister
still has his Plan, and he also has a postcard and a picture of Fiji on the
wall, both showing Fiji intact.
- Fiji apparently is now mostly underwater and Lister knows it, in
which case the Plan may be just a fantasy that Lister is keeping to preserve
his sanity.
- Lister: 'You can get a drainage grant these days.' And why should
he keep a picture of Fiji in its 'current' submerged state when he can
have one showing its former pristine beauty? Maybe it could look like that
again after land reclamation work.
- Rimmer writes certain exam answers on his thighs. How is he going to
read these during the exam without taking his boilersuit off?
- When Lister first comes out of stasis, the crewmembers' dust remains are
seen in the Teaching Room, Drive Room and corridors. However the piles of dust
have all mysteriously disappeared later by the time Lister has met the Cat.
Holly may have cleaned them up, but why didn't he do this in the three million
years that Lister was in stasis?
- It is reasonable to assume that Holly could not dispose of the
remains until he was given a directive by a human crewmember. Also, Holly
may have left them as eventual proof of what happened, to show to Lister once
it was safe. The maintenance of the piles is apparent over the three million
years and Holly must have had a hand in it one way or the other.
- What happened to the hologram of McIntyre? The accident did not appear to
affect mechanical components of the ship, so presumably this would include
the current hologram. Also, why wouldn't Captain Hollister be generated upon
Lister's awakening, as the ranking dead crewmember?
- At the time of the accident, holograms were presumably only generated
to coexist with a living crew. As there would be no living crew for three
million years, until Holly could release Lister from stasis, there would be
no justification for keeping McIntyre generated (and there may even be a
rule which prevents hologram generation for its own sake, especially given
the enormous power this function requires). After Lister's release from
stasis, Holly generates Rimmer (as opposed to any other crewmember) as a means
of preserving the health (see Balance Of Power, 1-3) of the sole living
crewmember, something which under the circumstances could be expected to take
priority over normal rules of hologram generation.
- Lister was smoking in his bunk (just before Rimmer's exam) while there
was a no-smoking sign not far from him. Why didn't Rimmer crack up
about Lister smoking seeing as how he did elsewhere in this same episode?
- The stress of failing another exam might have distracted Rimmer
from his normal appointed duty of being a nit-picky smeg head.
- Why did Rimmer leap at Cat? He is a hologram and wouldn't be able to harm
Cat in any way. Plus, he is a self-confessed coward, so why be brave and
'defend' Lister like that?
- This was relatively early in the post-accident relationship,
and perhaps Rimmer was still trying to put up a front of bravery as well
as testing his intangibility as a hologram.
- Why did Rimmer fade out as he passed through Cat? The other two times
that he passes through solid objects in this one episode only the part of
him within the solid object is visibly affected.
- Perhaps Rimmer was low on power and this caused his whole
projection to flicker instead of just the area that was passing through
the solid object.
- Lister says that Rimmer is a lower rank than the skutters, yet in
every other episode Rimmer is in command of them.
- Lister actually says that Rimmer ranks below the *service robots*,
so he may not be referring to the skutters, but to some other droid type.
As such then, Rimmer may outrank the *skutters* (and indications are that he
does). After Lister exits stasis, Rimmer would not want robots around that
would outrank him, and there may even be a regulation which states that
the highest ranking 'personnel' on a vessel cannot be robots.
Future Echoes (1-2)
- Lister has a picture of his father, but he said he was abandoned in a
pub (The Last Day, 3-6) and never knew his biological parents.
- Lister's familial life is quite strange. This could either be a
picture of his step-father, or perhaps his real father left him a picture when
he abandoned him.
- When Cat is wheeling his suits in front of Lister by the stasis booth, it
says 'Level 159.' After witnessing Bexley's 'death' in the Drive Room,
the sign is 'Level 147.' It is also 'Level 147' in Me^2 (1-6).
- There is a continuity break between the Cat and Lister calling
to him from the Drive Room, so it is conceivable that the Cat wasn't at
the Drive Room yet, and the Drive Room and stasis booth are on different
levels.
- Lister goes from the sleeping quarters (Level 348) to the Drive Room
(Level 147) via Level 132. Why?
- Why would Lister put his stuff into long-term storage now, seeing as
it had survived for three million years the way it was?
- There is no proof that his stuff *wasn't* in long term-storage
to begin with, and just removed by the skutters previous to his awakening.
- If the food dispenser's vocabulary unit isn't working, why can it hold a
complex and intelligent conversation with Lister, actually above and
beyond what its vocabulary unit should normally have to deal with?
- In the scene where Rimmer is talking to himself with Lister watching,
Lister should be able to see himself as well in the future echo.
- Lister stands by the doorway at a point where the Echo Lister
would also be were he visible, and perhaps this 'overlapping' of a physical
being with its Echo doppelganger cannot occur in the space-time continuum.
Thus Lister can only see those parts of the future echo that would never be
involved in such a situation.
- The malfunctioning food dispenser produces boots and a bucket. How
does a *food* dispenser have access to these items?
- Assuming that the dispensers either create the objects
themselves or have the objects delivered to them, it is feasible that the
malfunction caused a cross-up in the ordering/creation matrix of the
machine and switched it with that of a maintenance dispenser or the like.
- There is a problem with the whole idea of 'future echoes.' Namely, why
do they appear on the ship? If they are from the future, they should
appear where the ship is *going* to be at that time in the future, not
where the ship currently *is* in the past. This is because the ship is
travelling in space. For example, at the speed of light, the ship would
travel 90 million kilometers in five minutes, therefore an echo from five
minutes in the future would also occur *more than* 90 million kilometers
*ahead* of Red Dwarf (because at the time it was travelling faster than
light).
- Since no one has ever travelled faster than light, it is
*extremely* likely that most common-sense applications of physics would
go out the window since you are doing something that is impossible by the
laws of physics.
Balance Of Power (1-3)
- To get the results of his chef's exam, Lister says his ID number is
'16912146.' In Future Echoes (1-2) his number is 'RD52169.'
- The number may be his candidate number for the chef's exam.
- Rimmer says Kochanski is a 'Navigation Officer' and that is written on
her disk in Confidence And Paranoia (1-5). Yet her uniform reads 'Console
Officer.'
- Perhaps one is a subsidiary of the other.
- Why didn't Lister get Kochanski's holodisk from the skutters or Holly
when Rimmer was fooling with it? Why didn't Lister order it back from
Rimmer when he became his 'superior'?
- The whole decision to bring Rimmer back as opposed to Kochanski
or any of Lister's friends was made by Holly (to preserve Lister's sanity).
Since it is unlikely that he has changed his mind, Holly no doubt has taken
precautions to keep Lister from finding the disk. Since Holly runs the
skutters, they can't help, and he can probably countermand any order from
Lister that he believes is not in his best interests.
- Holly tells Lister that his conversation total with Rimmer was over 14
million words. In Me^2 (1-6) it is said that Lister was on the ship for two
years, which would have averaged 13 Words Per Minute (WPM) between the two.
According to Waiting For God (1-4), Lister had only been with the company for
eight months previous to the accident, bumping this up to 40.5 WPM.
- Holly is going computer senile, so his numbers aren't what they
used to be.
Waiting For God (1-4)
- In the illustration concerning the war between the Red Hats and the
Blue Hats, both sides are shown wearing Red Hats.
- This could have been in-fighting within the Red faction. The
vermilions versus the ambers. Kind of like Protestant groups.
- Maybe they were just bad illustrators, as the shades *are*
different, just not accurate.
- The illustrator may have been a Red Hat supporter and could not
bring himself to illustrate the other side.
- Why is the 'Cat Dictionary' labelled as such in English when the Cat
language is all smells?
- Lister labelled the book for his convenience.
- It has been shown that the Cat's ancestors could at least
translate English badly (the Laundry List). They may have put writing on
their important works.
- The Cat and Lister had the 'Cloister-Lister' argument in The End
(1-1). How could Lister forget the fact that a race of people worshipped
him as a god?
- The subject was touched upon in The End (1-1) but not discussed
to that kind of resolution. Lister hasn't forgotten, but is trying to
convince the Cat he is their God (he now has the evidence from the Holy Book).
- Why does Rimmer's bedding move when he lies on it? Since he has no
weight, the bedding should not bend as if under weight. It is not
hologrammatic because most holo items have an 'H' on them, and Lister
interacts with the bedding later, and it behaves normally.
- Perhaps when Rimmer is within the ship, Holly can project
hologrammatic illusions onto normal objects so it seems that they react
like they would if Rimmer were solid.
- When the Cat is playing with the yo-yo, Rimmer reaches towards him, and
the Cat pulls his arm out of the way and claims Rimmer is trying to steal
his yo-yo. Rimmer is a hologram, and the chances of a non-corporeal being
nicking a physical object are unlikely, nor is it likely that Rimmer
could use the yo-yo.
- Both the Cat's actions can be written up to natural reactions.
Although Rimmer is not a *real* threat to get the yo-yo, Cat is instinctively
reacting to a perceived threat to his toy.
- While Rimmer is trying to decipher the writing on the pod, he mentions
something about the quarantine period being almost finished, but Lister
had already broken the quarantine.
- This is just Rimmer being a stickler for the rules. Even though
Rimmer is the only one adhering to the quarantine (and also the least
important person in a quarantine situation given his dead status), Rimmer
has the desperate need to follow the rules to the letter and somehow
seeks the answers through strict rules adherence.
- A couple of things in this episode bring up a big question. We find
that the Cat race knows Lister was a slob and that Frankenstein was
black. This is then compounded on top of information from The End (1-1),
where we see that they know Frankenstein's name, Lister's name
(Cloister), the fact that Lister was in stasis, and the fact that Lister
dreamed of going to Fiji (Fuchal). Now, considering that all these events
happened before the Cat race evolved, and Frankenstein was just a normal
cat, how in the name of Cloister did the Cat race know all this stuff?
- Well, there are several ways. For one thing, there are just the
ancestral familial memories that must have been passed down among
Frankenstein's children about Frankenstein herself. Also, we know that
the Cat race apparently had access to the records of the ship, and its videos.
It is entirely possible that they knew about Frankenstein and pieced together
the rest of the story through videotaped archives on the hearing that
sent Lister into stasis in the first place, or that they didn't know
about Frankenstein at all, and pieced *everything* together from the
videos. Given the fact that they don't get Frankenstein's name wrong, it
seems more likely that Frankenstein was passed down ancestrally. At any
rate, they had about three million years to piece it together. Holly may
actually have known about them and steered them in the right direction or
told them outright, but then forgot all about them due to his senility.
Finally, there also are several direct ties that the Cat race had with
Lister that could have helped them figure things out, including things
like the Laundry List.
Confidence And Paranoia (1-5)
- Confidence's head explodes in the vacuum of outer space when he removes
his helmet. Is this physically likely?
- It depends on Confidence's physical make-up, which is unknown
(though implied human). Massive explosions result from great differences
in pressure, so as Confidence was pressurized, he should explode.
- Rimmer says he was part of the Love Celibacy Society because he believed
in its ideals, yet there is the obvious contradiction of his dalliance
with McGruder.
- Rimmer always tries to keep up proper appearances but he's really
a snivelly smeg underneath it all.
- Why would Rimmer want to drug Paranoia? Wouldn't he love to hear all
the embarrassing information about Lister to use against him at a later date?
- Perhaps Rimmer in his own paranoia thought Paranoia would go on
to talk about him as well.
- How could a hologram stored on a disk know what was said before it was
booted up?
- There may be a continuous feed going into the hologram simulation
equipment so that when holograms are booted up they are up to date with
relevant information.
- Scary Nit-picking From Hell coming up: Two unusual events are described
by Rimmer as 'the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546'
and 'that incident in 12th Century Burgundy when it rained herring.' One
contributor did some research on the subject, and the earliest case of
spontaneous combustion he could find was a poor woman in Paris in 1673
(much later than 1546), and there were no instances of a mayor of Warsaw
ever spontaneously combusting. The earliest fish fall he could find was
in 1666 (again, substantially later than the 12th Century) where small
finger-length fish fell in Cranstead, near Kent, England. The
earliest case of a herring fall he could find was in 1821 in Argyllshire,
Scotland. This is all, sadly, quite serious.
- Rimmer, being Rimmer, has got his facts wrong.
Me^2 (1-6)
- The placement of the dust piles in The End (1-1) conflicts with Rimmer's
video recollections in this episode.
- The skutters moved everything around during the millenia.
- Rimmer says that Lister hummed for the two years that they bunked
together, yet in Waiting For God (1-4) Lister says he has only been with the
company for eight months.
- Maybe it only *seemed* like two years to Rimmer. Also, since he
knew that Lister would never see it, he may have been exaggerating to
increase his heroic suffering.
- This is not necessarily contradictory. Certain discrepancies
elsewhere seem to imply that not everyone on the RD was a member of
the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Lister may have been on the ship for the
first 16 months or so on a 'non-commissioned' basis, and only officially
'joined the company' within the last eight months before the accident.
- The Rimmers have not moved their certificates into their new room, yet
these are probably what the egomaniacs *should* have moved, and the *last*
things that they would forget.
- Perhaps they left them to annoy Lister.
- The 'Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Death' door opens
before Lister touches the panel.
- The panel might be light-sensitive so that holograms could use
it, so Lister would not have to touch the panel.
- Lister goes off about the clippings in the Rimmers' new quarters, but
they were up in the old room anyway, so this is old news.
- The cinema seats were all of the fold-down variety. How did both
Rimmers (who are holograms with no weight) sit normally in these seats?
- Once again, while on the ship, Holly might create hologrammatic
illusions to produce a view of what it would be like if the holograms had
tangible bodies.
- The original Rimmer makes shadow puppets on the screen. How can a
projected light image make a shadow on another projected light image?
- In the case of a hologram the light projection is so sophisticated
that it gives the impression of a real figure. The hologram light appears
to have a 'solid' consistency that other, normal light cannot pass through
(otherwise we would see through Rimmer). This property of hologram light
apparently allows it the ability to cast shadows.
- Rimmer said he would have been an Admiral if it wasn't for GSD, but
GSD was only six weeks before the disaster. How could Rimmer go from a
Second Technician to an Admiral in six weeks?
- Rimmer is as Rimmer does. It was a deeply traumatic event in his
life, and, as Ace later indicates (Dimension Jump, 4-5), Rimmer thinks that a
major setback is a complete setback, and that he could have done anything if
he had only gotten a 'break.'
- Why is it that Holly can support two holograms now, but not at other
times in later episodes where it would have been incredibly useful, such
as in Quarantine (5-4) regarding Dr. Lanstrom?
- This was a major effort, with Holly cutting down all
unnecessary systems. By the later dates, the addled Holly probably
couldn't keep up with it all.
- Holly cannot sustain two totally separate holograms for any
significant length of time (eg. the interviewees in Holoship -- 5-1 -- only
made very brief appearances). Because the two Rimmers were practically the
same person, with the same personality, it was not so much a drain on the
artificial reasoning circuits of Holly because the two Rimmers, when put in
similar situations, would make the same decisions. Two separate holograms
(ie. Rimmer and Lanstrom), who would have contrasting personalities, would
cause too much of a drain on Holly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2 SERIES 2
Kryten (2-1)
- People who speak Esperanto are referred to as 'Esperantinos.' They are
really Esperantists.
- Rimmer is an idiot.
- It is said that this is the first contact with intelligent life in three
million and two years. What about the Cat race?
- Considering it is Rimmer saying it, it is not surprising given
his extremely low opinion of the Cat race.
- Lister says 'You're beginning to sound like my mum.' However, Lister claims
to have been abandoned at six weeks old and that he 'never had a mum' (The
Last Day, 3-6).
- Probably referring to his step-mother.
- How can Rimmer's eyes tear about Lister's boots if he is a hologram and
cannot smell?
- Rimmer's sensors can pick up smells and then translate them
into the appropriate responses.
- After three million years, the skeletons should be dust, not still
skeletons.
- Kryten may have put the corpses into stasis and taken them out
a while ago. Perhaps Kryten's meticulous care also preserved the skeletons.
- Kryten disobeys and insults Rimmer before his programming is broken by
Lister in Camille (4-1).
- This may have been a temporary lapse or partial break in his
programming, that, while he probably felt very, very guilty about it
afterwards, would soften up his defences for their formal breakdown in
Camille (4-1).
- Lister broke Kryten's programming in this episode, but then
had to do it again after Kryten's subservience programming was restored by
repair after Kryten's accident (Backwards, 3-1).
Better Than Life (2-2)
- How did the mail ship *ever* track and catch up to the Red Dwarf?
- It is possible that it tracked the postal-pod homing beacon all
the way, but it can't have expected so long a journey. The fuel
consumption must be really low and it could work on maneuvering
thrusters. It also had less distance to cover once the RD turned around.
- Lister says 'I remember when my dad died.' No he doesn't. He was
abandoned as an infant.
- He's probably referring to his step-father.
- Rimmer appears to be putting on a normal helmet like the others, yet he
shouldn't be able to touch it and if it was put on his head, it would
fall right through him.
- It is probably a hologram projected by Holly. Holly does such
things, for example, in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) and Parallel Universe
(2-6).
- Cat says that he always licks someone when they give him food, yet he
never did it before, and will never do it again.
- Let's look at the previous times the Cat has been fed. In The
End (1-1) Lister puts Krispies on the floor for Cat, and Cat is repulsed
by it, so it is not likely he would lick Lister over it. In Waiting For God
(1-4), Lister again gives Cat food but Cat is generally repulsed by *Lister*
himself, so he's not likely to be doing any licking of Lister (for whatever
reason). In Polymorph (3-3) the Cat is again repulsed during the dissection
dinner. Again, not a likely lick situation. The only other time is in Legion
(6-2) and by this time Cat may have broken himself of the habit due to Lister's
chastisement now, or just the passage of time with people who do not do it.
- In this episode, Rimmer gets news that his father dies, but in Future
Echoes (1-2) there is 'that unfortunate suicide business.'
- It is never actually stated that Rimmer's father killed himself.
- It may have been an attempted suicide.
- Why did Rimmer have the 'H' on his forehead when he was grabbed and hit
by the hammer? If he was tangible, he would not have the 'H' on his
forehead. If he was intangible and justifiably had the 'H' on his
forehead, he should not have been able to have been grabbed and hit.
- Rimmer's 'H' reappeared before he 'left' the game, presumably to
signal a return to truth and bad times. The incident of the shipboard game
was one last stab at Rimmer by his own subconscious. In order to make the
incident most cruel, Rimmer's 'H' must be present to support the illusion
that it is reality, and something good is happening to him. The realisation
comes that he is still playing the game, where he *is* a tangible form (and
can thus be hit), and after this the presence or absence of the 'H' is
no longer relevant.
- By this episode, the ship has turned around. Yet, in Future Echoes
(1-2), it is said that it will take 4000 years for the RD to turn around.
- The ship had approximately two years to slow down, and then went
into orbit around a celestial body (Kryten, 2-1). Using this method apparently
allowed the ship to turn around faster than it would have in the other case.
- Rimmer doesn't seem to know who Marilyn Monroe is, yet there are
pictures of her in his locker.
- It's a shared locker, so the posters are more likely Lister's.
Even if not, Rimmer being Rimmer would not necessarily get the name
right (eg. 'Wilfred' Shakespeare in Waiting For God, 1-4).
- Rimmer's 'Admiral' outfit is the same as his 'Captain' outfit in
Kryten (2-1). Why couldn't Holly give him a proper uniform?
- Holly isn't responsible for Rimmer's uniform in the TIV Better
Than Life, so the fact that Rimmer is wearing what appears to be a
Captain's uniform is entirely the doing of his own psyche. The simplest
explanation would be that the uniform is that of Captain, but a favorite
style that Rimmer gets Holly to make for him (even though he has no rank
claim to it). In BTL, his psyche can make things the way he wants it,
therefore he can be wearing his same favorite uniform but have it
designated Admiral to suit his fantasy (in a TIV the rules of reality
don't necessarily apply).
- The Red Dwarf's address is given as 'Deep Space,' yet the pod had been
following them since they left Earth. If that's so, then the message
was originally mailed *before* the accident, so they weren't in 'Deep
Space' yet.
- This can be related to the one above about the pod tracking the
RD for so long. The pod, in good postal service bureaucratic tradition,
could keep updating the addresses 'to ensure proper delivery.' If it was
built to track the RD for any length of time, it probably had this
capability as well.
Thanks For The Memory (2-3)
- The Projection Cage is used for Rimmer, even though it is established
in later episodes that he has the Light Bee, and therefore doesn't need
the cage.
- The LB might have arrived on the mail ship from Better Than Life
(2-2), and was not found until they sorted through all the extraneous mail.
- Perhaps this was before they had explored the entire ship and
found the science section with the LB.
- Maybe the LB sometimes does not work properly in non-S3
planetary environments. However, this might be contradicted by the crew
deciding to send Kryten and Rimmer to see if the atmosphere is toxic in
Meltdown (4-6).
- 'Mr. Fat Bastard 2044': Is 2044 just a number, or a reference to a
year? The year would conflict with times established in Stasis Leak (2-4).
- Maybe it is the number of times Hollister scooped the title.
- He may also be the 2044th Mr. Fat Bastard.
- It could be a made-up year when Hollister supposedly first won
the title.
- Captain Hollister may have spent a period of time in stasis,
in which case he could have been a Fat Bastard in 2044 and still be
commanding Red Dwarf in the 21st/23rd Century. The stasis booths were
used during interstellar travel -- it is indicated that Todhunter experienced
this (The End, 1-1), so quite possibly Hollister did too.
- Lise Yates says 'I love you, Rimmer' when she should have called him
'Arnold.'
- Since it was Lister's script, it is what Lister would call him.
- When you get right down to it, Rimmer has mostly been called
Rimmer, even by family. The letter from his mother in Better Than Life
(2-2) begins 'Dear Rimmer.' Only on specific occasions has he been
referred to as Arnold.
- When Lister and Rimmer are discussing Lise Yates, Rimmer's attire goes
from scruffy (shirt and tie undone) to all correct (everything buttoned
and tied).
- Holly probably snapped up Rimmer's appearance, in keeping with
how fastidious Rimmer usually is.
- Lister protests at being told how many times Rimmer has had sex, yet
the likely figure had been implied previously (Me^2, 1-6).
- Lister probably dreaded hearing the awful, detailed 'truth'
truth from Rimmer.
- Lister, while in the sleeping quarters (Level 348), says, 'I went down to
the Hologram Simulation Suite.' To be correct he should say 'went
up' as the Suite is on Level 592.
- Lister is Lister. Knowing which way is 'up' is not a requirement.
- *However*, Lister *should* be right, as every single ship in
history has been numbered top-down instead of bottom-up. This does not
seem to be the case, however, as the Xpress Lifts on the ship confirm a
bottom-up numbering (Stasis Leak, 2-4).
Stasis Leak (2-4)
- Wednesday, 2nd March, 2077: This date conflicts with later 23rd Century
references. It is also stated as three weeks before the crew dies, and
thereby conflicts with Rimmer's diary entry from Me^2 (1-6).
- March 2, 2077 will be a Tuesday.
- The calendar as we know it today may be rearranged in order to
accommodate a space-faring society. This is supported by the use of the
new month 'Geldof' by the newscaster in Better Than Life (2-2).
- Rimmer and Lister are in the Captain's Office three weeks before the events
of The End (1-1). Yet then Lister doesn't know where the office is.
- Perhaps he is pretending so he can flirt with Kochanski.
- Rimmer laments that 'Everyone always leaves me in the end: girls,
parents...' Rimmer divorced his parents, so he left them. What girls is he
talking about?
- Rimmer probably thought that his parents deserted him first.
- Well, he did have *some* women: McGruder (Confidence And Paranoia,
1-5) and Lorraine (Parallel Universe, 2-6) for example.
- The crew routinely wander between levels 100-something (The End, 1-1:
Level 159) and 500-something (Queeg, 2-5: Level 592). Yet they have to
travel down 2567 levels in the Xpress Lift to get to Level 16 in this episode.
What in the hell were they doing on Level 2583?
- As a corollary to the above, if the RD was four miles deep, with 2583
levels at least, they would be 8.1 ft (2.48 m) each.
- If the floors are staggered in front and back (see below),
this would not be the case and also explain some short staircases seen in
certain episodes.
Diagram 1
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-------
------
-------
------
- The photo at the end of the episode is different from the photo in the
beginning.
- Perhaps it is some 'Back To The Future' retro-history change.
- The crew do not go to the parallel universe in three years' time, nor do
they go back in time so that Lister can marry Kochanski five years from then.
- The passage of 'real' time and 'awake' time is really
subjective here, so it still may be accurate.
- Rimmer hides under a table, passing completely through it in the process.
How is that possible with the solid Light Bee in conjunction with the fact
that Holly couldn't be projecting him?
- This lends credence to the theory of sometime-use of the
really small LB.
- Present-Holly might have warned past-Holly that a hologram was
slipping through time. Past-Holly, not having a hologram to support yet
(McIntyre wasn't dead), took over projection of Rimmer.
- The soap ages three million years going forward in time, but the crew does
not age negative three million years going back, or three million years
when they come back. If it doesn't work on organics, what about their clothes?
- Nothing 'ages.' Apparently, something can enter a past environment
(eg. the crew back to 2077), but something cannot enter a future environment
that it did not originate in (eg. the soap). Trying to shift something
against this time-grain causes its disintegration. Thus the crew and their
accompanying inorganics are safe because they move to a past environment and
then *back to their own* future one.
- If Rimmer mentioned the head popping out of a table in his diary, why
did he not also mention the two other Listers or the other Rimmer?
- He may simply have stopped writing about his 'hallucinations,'
especially if he thought these details were just too crazy and he wanted
to forget them.
- Maybe he did write about the other Listers and Rimmer, but Lister
never read that far.
- The Cat identifies his question, 'What are you talking about, dog-breath?'
as 'a wise old Cat saying.' However, the Cat apparently had no knowledge of
dogs before Future Echoes (1-2), so how would he know of this saying?
- The Cats as a species obviously knew of dogs. It is perhaps
improbable that the Cat did not encounter or remember dog references before
Future Echoes, but not impossible, given his lonely life before meeting Lister
and company. At any time after Future Echoes, the Cat could have come across
a reference to this saying (which would then have some meaning for him),
especially as his 'investigations' among Cat artifacts had been stimulated by
Lister (eg. the request to find the Holy Book -- Waiting For God, 1-4).
- When Lister is looking for Kochanski at the Ganymede Holiday Inn, he
and the desk clerk apparently consult the guest register to find her room.
If Kochanski is now called Mrs. Lister, then Lister may not be able to find
her in the register at all, or he may be alerted to the temporal incident (by
finding his own name) or the marriage situation (by finding either name listed
for the Honeymoon Suite).
- Room 008 may not be identified in the register as the Honeymoon Suite.
Also Kochanski being married is no guarantee that she has changed her name,
and the name of Kochanski (as opposed to Lister) may even be registered in
order that the Future Lister can have his joke at his younger self's expense
(and necessarily the room must not be in Lister's name, in order for the
temporal events to play as they do).
Queeg (2-5)
- Lister claims that the tape of 'Robert Hardy reads...' that he and Cat
are listening to got twisted, but they are listening to a CD.
- Maybe it is some futuristic tape/CD combo.
- When Lister claims the tape is 'twisted,' he could be making an
aesthetic judgement, not a physical one.
- Rimmer is thrown back by the force of the explosion. Why would this
happen to an intangible hologram? Also, he falls onto, not through, the
table.
- The Light Bee might have gotten jolted by the explosion, though
the effect should have been different. The LB may be able to sense the
explosion and make an appropriate simulation. There *is* a pause before
Rimmer gets thrown. The LB might also try and project an image consistent
with physical reality, so Rimmer ends up slumped on top of the table instead
of falling through it.
- Rimmer's legs walk off without him. How?
- The LB could have malfunctioned. The positive Z coordinates
might be alright, but the Xs and Ys of the negative Zs got messed.
- If Holly was projecting Rimmer then he could go off in two
directions at once.
- Rimmer turned into Cat, but Cat was not in the original crew, so he
wouldn't be stored on disk.
- Rimmer might have been able to do it from his memories of the Cat.
- Queeg says that they've been going in circles for 14 months, when there
are other things outside of his word that indicate otherwise. How come
no one picks up on this?
- Since Queeg is Holly's joke, he doesn't have to tell the truth.
- When Lister, the Cat, Rimmer, and Holly arrive at the Hologram
Simulation Suite, Holly (in his monitor) enters first. Holly's monitor
clearly has a thick cable running from it. Why should Holly, who can
project himself remotely quite easily (Stasis Leak, 2-4, for example),
need a connector cable to his monitor?
- Perhaps the added involvement of the whole Queeg ruse made
Holly cut corners in other areas such as remote projection of himself as
opposed to a hard connection, which would take less effort.
Parallel Universe (2-6)
- Why didn't Hilly and company hop at the same time Holly and company did?
- Perhaps the universes are not mirror equivalents.
- How could Lister still be pregnant in his own universe when it is
physically impossible there?
- As the amazing pseudo-science of the movie 'Junior' showed, it
is technically possible for a man to be pregnant. With Holly's help, I
suppose it is feasible.
- Cat spells 'B-A-T-H' but never learned to spell.
- He might have learned some of his favorite words in English so
he knew where to find his grooming goods on the ship.
- The Cat's forefathers must have known how to spell because in
Waiting For God (1-4) it was said they had translated the Laundry List.
Their comprehension, on the other hand...
- 'If we don't go now, we won't be able to get back at all.' How did
they get Lister's kids back then?
- Perhaps on the way back, Holly figured out the way back with
the Holly-Hop.
- The pregnancy-test packet shows that a dark pink color signifies a
negative result, while a positive result is indicated by either of two shades
of very pale pink. Yet just a minute later, the crew state that blue is for
not pregnant and red is for pregnant.
- This is our favorite crew we are talking about. Just screwing
up the colors only is a great achievement.
- After using the Holly-Hop drive, Holly says there's nothing out there
but space, then he notices the other ship and there is a camera shot of
the ship, in the foreground of which is obviously a planet or asteroid.
Why didn't Holly report the planet/asteroid?
- Holly was too busy searching for Earth to notice a small asteroid.
- When he said there was 'nothing' out there, he wasn't including
'useless' space debris such as a small asteroid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.25 THE UNIVERSAL EXPLANATION
In between Series 2 and 3, many changes took place in the show.
The actors who portrayed Holly and Kryten were both changed, and
continuity between Series 1 and 2 and all things after it is very tenuous
at best. It is all explained away in the opening montage of Backwards
(3-1), where a description of why everything is the way it is now is
scrolled quickly on screen. For a complete transcript of this, refer to
the Red Dwarf FAQ. The important bit is at the end, where it says: '- the
same generation - nearly.' This implies that the things that happen
before Backwards (3-1) and after it can occur in slightly different
universes. Apparently, Grant Naylor have used this excuse themselves.
However, I find it to be a lame cop-out. It is presented here for
completeness, and because some inconsistencies defy all explanations but
this. Whenever there is a discrepancy between facts before and after
Backwards (3-1), you can rest assured that there is at least one reason for
it all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.3 SERIES 3
Backwards (3-1)
- How could Lister completely rebuild Kryten when he can't even do some
basic tampering with him in The Last Day (3-6)?
- Kryten's auto-repair unit as shown in Psirens (6-1) may have helped,
but it does not explain the new appearance.
- When Kryten accidentally ejects Rimmer during his flight test, the
ejector seat should have just flown through Rimmer, leaving him sitting above
open space in SB.
- If Rimmer was under LB power, it would have been physically
thrown out with the ejector seat, and would have projected images to reflect
this. If Rimmer was under Holly's power, she probably simulated what would
have happened, just to annoy him.
- During Kryten's test in Starbug, it is said that when travelling
at half the speed of light it takes four years and three months to stop.
This seems excessive seeing as how Red Dwarf took under two years to
decelerate from light-speed (Future Echoes, 1-2) to slow enough to enter
orbit around a planet (Kryten, 2-1).
- Maybe the stopping times/distances are different for SB and RD.
The two ships are vastly different in everything -- size, sophistication,
purpose, etc. Seeing as how the test is being taken in SB it is reasonable
to assume that the capabilities being discussed are specific for SB, which
may operate under an inferior, slower acceleration/deceleration system than
RD. Even taking into account its greater speed, the RD may still be able to
accelerate/decelerate in less time than SB due to RD's much more efficient
and technologically-advanced machinery and capabilities.
- If Holly can be on all vehicles and machinery from RD any time she
wants to, as seen in other episodes, why can't she tell the others
where Kryten and Rimmer went?
- Over long distances and time dilations, Holly has to splinter
to do all her jobs, so one part is not necessarily up to date with the
other parts.
- Holly may have lost them after they went into the whirly thing
and then computer senility prevented her from finding them again.
- Holly's consciousness can only be in one place at one time due
to her senility and she thought it better to stay with the rescuers in case
Kryten and Rimmer got hopelessly lost and she couldn't find her way back.
- How does Rimmer change into the Reverse Brothers outfit?
- The LB can make changes in Rimmer's appearance without Holly's
assistance.
- Why would Rimmer, a hologram, be scared of a fist-fight?
- He could fear damage to his LB.
- This could just be Rimmer's natural cowardice taking effect.
- When Lister gets off SB and feels his physical injury before it
happens, he should also be wet and drying off, as he later goes into the
lake. He is dry when he comes out *after* the event, so, in keeping with the
timeframe, he should be wet *beforehand*.
- In keeping with backwards reality, Lister after stepping off SB
would actually be 'dry and wetting on,' as the water from the air condensed
onto his body. He would then progressively get wetter up to his entering of
the lake. There is no indication of the time taken from finding SB 1's
signal to Lister entering the lake, so this could be sufficient time for
his backwards wetting to occur.
- The backwards force may be *trying* to operate perfectly on the
crew, but does not always succeed due to them being alien to the reality.
There are many examples of the backwards force working inefficiently when
events involve the RD crew. To name a few: Starbug's crash-landing, Lister
and Cat's bicycle ride, the firing of Rimmer and Kryten from the pub, the
order of events of the barroom tidy -- all of these make missense if played
in forwards. The backwards force operates properly on the backwards Earth
natives *alone*, but can encounter problems whenever trying to work on any
events involving the RD crew in any way.
- The words are backwards in this universe, but not all of the individual
letters and numbers, as would be logical.
- Lister says he is 25, yet in Future Echoes (1-2), one to three years
earlier than this, he also says he is 25.
- Lister's age is *extremely* subjective. He has physically
existed for over three million years. His 'actual' age has been affected by
such things as the stasis booth, reverse time, etc etc, so it is entirely
possible that he still *is* 25 several years after first stating this.
- When undertaking long trips unpreparedly, and with few frames
of reference, keeping and comprehending an accurate representation of
the passage of time is extremely difficult.
Marooned (3-2)
- Starbug 1 seems to have been recovered and repaired since Backwards (3-1).
- The 1 could have been added by the crew to another ship. Maybe
there is a Space Corps regulation that says there has to be a Starbug 1.
Then Rimmer would have insisted upon it.
- The 1 may be a model number, but it has been said before
(Backwards, 3-1) that the controls on both ships are exactly the same.
- Rimmer, a hologram, is pressing the com button while doing the 'Mayday'
message.
- It may be a light-sensitive panel to accommodate holograms.
- How can Rimmer smell when he's a hologram?
- The LB is able to analyse the air.
- Rimmer talks about his first sexual experience in a car, but in
Thanks For The Memory (2-3) he drunkenly admits he has only had sex once,
with the ship's female boxing champion, Yvonne McGruder.
- The book versions do deal with this, but we can deduce some
things without them. First, given Rimmer's character, he would never
admit to something that embarrassing unless he was drunk. Either he was
admitting the horrible truth under the effects of alcohol previously and
is lying here to cover it up (since obviously neither Rimmer nor Lister
seems to remember the incident), *or* he was lying while drunk to get
sympathy and he is telling the truth here. Either way fits in with his
character.
- When Lister puts the snapped 'guitar' into the barrel of burning books,
the split end of the guitar's neck is visible. Yet in the next shot it is
the other end of the guitar neck that is visible.
- There is a continuity break between the two shots and a small
passage of time is implied. Even though the guitar neck should be burning
and Lister *probably* would not be fiddling with the wood, it is not possible
to say for sure that he didn't in fact move it.
- Initially the shot of the fire in the barrel shows the 'guitar' neck
protruding above the barrel rim, yet in all following shots the neck is below
the rim.
- The wood shifts further down in the barrel as it burns.
- When Rimmer looks at the guitar-shaped hole in his camphorwood trunk, a
'free area' is clearly apparent around the trunk. Yet a split second
beforehand (when Kryten lifts the lid), the trunk is seen to be flush against
the wall, where Lister put it to hide the hole he had made.
- Kryten's action of lifting the lid does in fact create a small
gap (probably no more than an inch) between the trunk and the wall. As the
'free area' is indicated only by the fact that light is shown to be falling
on the hole-side of the trunk, a gap of this size could be enough to
let light through between the trunk and the wall.
Polymorph (3-3)
- The polymorph touches Rimmer even though he is a hologram.
- The polymorph can transform into anything, and could have
transformed into another hologram to touch him.
- The polymorph could have latched on to Rimmer's LB,
although if it did, and stopped it from moving, Rimmer wouldn't be
projected correctly.
- Rimmer, Kryten and Cat decide that running away, rather than fighting
the polymorph, is the best option. Why then in the next scene do they
appear to be actively hunting the polymorph through the cargo decks?
- Rimmer says '...let's load up Starbug and get out of here' and
'He'll (Lister) be safe here (the medical bay) until we're ready to go.'
This indicates that the getaway is not intended to be immediate, and that
supplies will be needed for the trip in Starbug. Thus it makes sense that
they then have to go to the cargo decks to get these supplies. They are
kitted up with bazookoids probably on the idea that should they meet the
polymorph (likely *it* is hunting *them*), the best form of defence is attack.
Also some time has definitely elapsed between the two scenes, as needed for
the weapons and inventory organization, and of course for the Cat to change
into a different outfit (as he is wont to do several times a day, for all
occasions, probably including meeting polymorphs).
Bodyswap (3-4)
- Lister mentions using the White Midget shuttle, but it is obviously the
Blue Midget that they use.
- Lister made the mistake in his eagerness to get going, or he may
have changed his mind.
- At the beginning of the episode, when Lister accidentally sets off the
Autodestruct Sequence, Rimmer asks Holly for advice. She offers three
realistic alternatives: 'Sit here and get blown up...stand here and
get blown up...jump up and down, shout at me for not being able to
think of anything, then get blown up.' Yet, once the countdown reaches
zero, the ship fails to blow up because Holly got rid of the bomb ages
ago. She seems perfectly aware of this fact, telling Rimmer that she
didn't mention it because, 'You never asked!' If there was no bomb,
and she knew it, how could anything ending with them getting blown
up have been considered a realistic alternative?
- Holly has galloping computer senility. She gets confused.
She still has her pride though (eg. Backwards, 3-1), so rather than admit
she's stupid, she hides behind the 'You never asked!' response to cover
her failing faculties.
- Once Lister's mind is swapped into Rimmer's body, he asks Holly to
change his clothing to look more like his traditional black leather garb.
She complies, having done this for Rimmer on numerous occasions. Still,
if he really wants to look more like himself, why doesn't he ask Holly to
change his appearance to look like Lister? As a hologram, he should have
that ability: Rimmer gets Holly to make him look like Kochanski in
Balance of Power (1-3).
- Lister, although he has seen Rimmer do things in the past, is
new to the whole hologram thing and may not have thought of it.
- The added stress of the bodyswap plus the hologram projection
might preclude Holly from doing full-scale imaging changes.
- In Balance Of Power (1-3), Rimmer could be Kochanski only by
getting data from her disk (Rimmer-Kochanski: 'Okay Holly, swap disks').
If Rimmer has hidden Lister's disk and Holly has no access to it, then
Holly would be unable to make Rimmer's body into Lister's.
- A person's voice is a product of the size and shape of their vocal
cords, as well as some other factors. It is almost unique to each
individual, and is used for identification purposes in this episode. If
so, why does the voice travel with the mind whenever someone bodyswaps?
- The Bodyswap technology is based on hologram technology, yet the Cat
is able to bodyswap. How is this possible, considering that he was never
an official member of the RD crew, and thereby never had a personality disk
of himself made?
- It is *based* on hologram technology. The personalities are
actually stored on the tapes seen throughout the episode.
Timeslides (3-5)
- Lister's locks, cut off by the swapping Rimmer in Bodyswap (3-4), have
grown back.
- Lister may have sewn his locks back on.
- The photos of Kryten's party are obviously aboard the Nova 5, *before*
Lister completely rebuilt him, so it should be the OLD Kryten we see.
- In the picture of Frank's wedding, he is a lot less than the 6'5" that
Rimmer said he was in Better Than Life (2-2). From White Hole (4-4) we
know Kryten is about 6", which makes Lister about 5'6" - 5'9". Frank is
not taller than Lister by enough to sustain the 6'5" claim.
- Rimmer's envy and adulation of his brother caused him to
exaggerate his height.
- In entering the photo, Lister becomes reversed.
- Kryten put the slide in backwards.
- How could a young Lister not recognise Rimmer as a hologram, since the
technology *must* have existed when he was that age?
- Lister is Lister. The technology may have only existed for the
Space Corps, *but*, in Better Than Life (2-2) a hologram is shown doing a
news report.
- Lister, as Tension Sheet inventor/millionaire, does not remember
Rimmer even though he met him in the pub when he was 17.
- Given the state and attitude of the young Lister, this isn't
surprising, though Rimmer did like 'Om,' so you'd think even Lister would
remember him.
- How can hologram Rimmer, controlled by the ship's computer, travel back
in time with no connection to Holly?
- The LB is able to operate independently of Holly.
- When the crew enters a photograph and becomes part of its reality,
they should be able to see the photographer who took the picture. Yet,
except for the wedding, not only does the photographer not seem to be
around, but any photographer at all seems unlikely.
- Even though they become part of the photograph, the crew are still
operating under slightly different rules than are the original photograph
contents (eg. left/right movement outside of the photograph confines). Thus,
while the photograph originals *may* be able to see a photographer, it does
not necessarily follow that the crew can.
- The existence of the photographs at all shows that each had a
photographer. People just take photographs of strange things.
- After Lister goes back to become the Tension Sheet inventor, why do
Holly and Rimmer even remember Lister and the Cat? Since history was
changed, they should not remember either of them, as, in the changed
reality, they never met them. Also, the mutated developing fluid would
be gone as well, as the conditions that created it would never have happened.
- People outside of the photographs may be in a 'neutral' reality
where events can change around them, yet they remember what the previous,
unaltered reality was like.
- The newsclip that Holly uses to send Rimmer back to Tension Sheet
Lister's mansion only shows the front of the mansion, yet Rimmer shows up
in the dining room, which is outside of the photograph.
- The dining room is contained within the house, which *is* within
the photograph. The photographs have been made three-dimensional (else the
crew would not be able to enter them); presumably this effect allows entry
to any house within a photograph. Also, the point at which a crew member
appears in the photograph reality may not be strictly precise.
- Why don't the crew use the technology to get back to Earth? They could
presumably get an orbital photograph of the planet, and thereby have free
reign of the planet.
- They probably ran out of the mutated developing fluid before
they thought up this plan.
- Once inside a photograph, the crew proportionally alter to match
the environment. However, the photograph must be initially made big enough
(eg. as a slide projection) for them to enter in the first place. Perhaps
they could not find a way to *clearly* enlarge an orbital photograph of
Earth such that SB could enter (once proportional adjustment was made, SB
would be needed to travel from the entry point into the photograph, ie.
somewhere in space, down to the Earth's surface). However, if they got
the idea, and clarity was retained, they could go into a shuttle bay and
project the image from the far wall, thus making it large enough for the
SB to enter.
- When Kryten was developing his photographs he had pictures of his
birthday and a car driving down the street. As it is known from Backwards
(3-1) that Kryten has never been to Earth, why would he have photos of an
Earth street with a painfully obvious 20th Century car in it?
- It is not impossible that 20th Century Earth vehicles
were used wherever his birthday party was. It may even have been a 20th
Century theme park. Also, even though it was Kryten's film, it's not
possible to know how long the film had been in the camera, how many
places the camera had visited, or even who might have borrowed the
camera and taken it anywhere.
- Kryten might have taken some pictures during Backwards (3-1).
The car in the photograph could travel forwards as the pictures were
developed in a forwards reality.
- In Backwards (3-1), Kryten spends three weeks performing in a pub as
part of The Sensational Reverse Brothers. Yet in this episode, when the
crew enter the photograph of Smeg And The Heads playing in a pub, Kryten
doesn't appear to know what a pub is, apparently calling on his databanks
after Rimmer answers his question of 'What is this place?' Kryten should
be able to recognise a pub layout for himself immediately.
- In 'Lifestyles Of The Disgustingly Rich And Famous,' Blaize
Falconburger says, 'But like many people who appear to have everything,
Dave's life has been tinged with tragedy. Well actually it hasn't, but
we can only hope.' This Lister was still abandoned in a pub as a baby --
wouldn't this constitute a personal tragedy that might be worth a mention?
- By 'inventing' the Tension Sheet at the age of 17, Lister has
had seven or eight years in which to become Disgustingly Rich and Famous (as
he seems to be in his mid-twenties at the time of the programme). We know
from The Last Day (3-6) that his abandonment as an infant affected him
deeply, so it's not unreasonable to think that in this time, with all his
wealth and fame, he was able to track down his natural parents and effect
a touching, joy-triumphs-over-initial-heartbreak reunion -- not the sort of
scenario that bears mentioning if one is looking to cite instances of
unhappiness.
- After the time line has been changed, shouldn't Holly go back to having
a man's face, since they would have never visited the Red Dwarf's twin in
the Parallel Universe (2-6) and Holly would've never met Hilly, the model
for his head-sex change?
- There's every evidence that Rimmer and Holly *did* take a trip
to the parallel universe at some stage, as Holly's head does remain female.
The changed pasts don't need to be greatly different from the originals --
the parallel universe trip has still occurred, but obviously just not in the
same manner as previously.
The Last Day (3-6)
- How did Kryten's company find him when they could not have known he was
on the Red Dwarf as opposed to the Nova 5?
- The replacement ship tracked him down from the wreck (Kryten may
have a built-in homing beacon for his replacement to follow).
- How could Kryten put 'all his original parts' back into the packaging
when the introduction to Series 3 says that Lister completely rebuilt him?
- The statement made by Jim Reaper is actually 'Your droid should
use this period to tie up his affairs, dismantle his body and pack himself
neatly away in his original supply case.' Thus it is the *case* which is
the original, not the parts. Also, there would be no sense in returning
'original parts,' as these may have been replaced during routine maintenance
anyway.
- Kryten is not *grossly* different from Series 2 (Kryten, 2-1), so
it is a fair assumption that even his rebuilt parts would fit in his original
case.
- If Lister completely rebuilt Kryten at the beginning of the series, he
at least should be able to do something simple like disable the shutdown
switch.
- The shutdown switch might have defence-mechanisms to prevent
this from happening.
- Lister probably rebuilt Kryten with help from the Owner's Manual
and the self-repair unit (Psirens, 6-1). It is unlikely that either of
these sources would supply information about how to disable a feature
designed to allow the company to charge the owner for an upgrade at
a later date.
- Kryten lies to Hudzen 10 *before* his truth routine is broken in Camille
(4-1).
- Mechanoids may be able to lie to other mechanoids.
- Lister said he'd been sick off the Eiffel Tower and the result landed
in Montmartre, five miles away. The distance is no more than three miles.
- Considering he had been drinking previous to this incident
(thus precipitating it), it is no wonder he got the exact distance wrong,
and should be applauded for his close approximation, given his state
of mind.
2.4 SERIES 4
Camille (4-1)
- Lister should see Camille as Kochanski. While it may seem too obvious,
Lister was fooled by it in Psirens (6-1).
- He already knew her name was Camille, so even *he* wouldn't be
fooled.
- There is a difference between your true love and your ideal
mate. The GELF might have taken the information for Lister's ideal mate
out of his head, but Lister may not even be aware that he knows this.
- The episode credits show that the GELF was *supposed* to be
Kochanski. Most likely, the GELF scanned Lister's mind for what his idea of
the perfect woman was, which was Kochanski. The GELF may not have known
exactly what Kochanski looked like, but could roughly simulate someone
with close to her personality type and appearance.
- Why does Lister have to break Kryten's programming again considering
he already did it in Kryten (2-1)?
- At the beginning of Series 3, it is stated that Lister's
rebuilding of Kryten was 'unable to recapture his former personality.'
Assuming that Kryten's self-repair unit (mentioned in Psirens, 6-1) helped
out the clueless Lister, this would explain why and how Kryten's non-
rebellious programming was restored.
DNA (4-2)
- How can Kryten have his replacement heads since he was completely
rebuilt at the beginning of Series 3?
- Lister, not 'a qualified service agent' screwed it up and had
parts left over. It could explain the accent of head 3.
- Lister says he is 'an enlightened 23rd Century guy' yet going by the
2077 of Stasis Leak (2-4) he'd be 'an enlightened 21st Century guy.'
- Kryten says all human cells have DNA. Not true. Mature red blood cells in
adult humans are hemoglobin-filled disk-shaped bags lacking their DNA
organelles.
- This may have changed. Since Lister is the only one left, one of the
adventures might have caused a mutation to make this true, so when Kryten
says that *all* humans have it, he is technically right.
- Kryten is a service mechanoid. He makes mistakes.
- How does the DNA machine cope with all the inorganics it manages to
transform (Kryten's body, clothes, etc)?
- Perhaps the transmogrifier has an auxiliary reserve component to
deal with the companion inorganic parts of the organic substances it
transforms.
- Kryten says this is his first meal, yet he has eaten in The Last Day
(3-6) and Backwards (3-1).
- Well, his first meal as a human, maybe.
- Lister talks about after his break-up with Kochanski. In Confidence And
Paranoia (1-5), it is shown that they never went out.
- Kryten says his right nipple-nut regulates temperature. In Polymorph
(3-3) it is shown that mechanoids don't give off any heat.
- It may be a cooling system, and that is why they do not give
off any heat.
- Spare head 3 says that he is 30,000 years old. That would place his
creation in about the year 2,972,000, long after the extinction of the
human race. Kryten has also implied that he himself is only thousands (as
opposed to millions) of years old, when in The Last Day (3-6) he commented
on how long Hudzen 10 had been tracking him.
- Head 3 has droid rot.
- He may not be counting the time he was turned off.
- The human race may still have been extant 30,000 years ago (although
further evolution should probably have taken place). It is only assumed
that the human race is extinct, even though the evidence for this is
only indirect (three million years is long enough for several species
to rise and fall, using the Earth's history for examples).
- Kryten may be only about 30,000 years old (to match the age of
spare head 3); however, it *is* possible that he is indeed about three
million years old, and that the Nova 5 had a transport system to
allow it to get three million years into deep space in a much shorter time.
- The spare heads should look like the old Kryten.
- Lister may have fiddled with them, or the self-repair unit may
have had a hand in this.
- Kryten as a human doesn't appear to know basic human anatomy or
physiology (eg. eye functions, nipples; and especially he should know that
humans would *never* charge themselves with electricity). As a mechanoid
Kryten knows human anatomy to the extent where he discusses human cellular
composition.
- Perhaps the transformation process affected his brain to cope
with his new genetic situation, or just the sheer novelty of the situation
caused Kryten to go a little batty.
- If an individual's DNA is altered in any way, death will occur if the
body's immune system attacks the new proteins created from the modified
genetic code (along the same principles as a body rejecting transplanted
organs). Maybe this wouldn't have affected Kryten, but it would
certainly have affected Lister.
- The fantastic future technology has overcome this problem by
virtue of the fact that the machine is actually a *transmogrifier* which
converts one form *totally* to another, including rewriting the body's
immune system to match its new DNA (no mix of old and new means no
autoimmune syndrome). On a purely *modifying* level, there would still be
these problems, as the gruesome failures strewn about the vessel are
probably testament to.
Justice (4-3)
- Lister says the Cat has never met a real woman. Yet in Stasis Leak
(2-4) Cat meets Kochanski and her roommate.
- Maybe he means a real *Cat* woman.
- Depending on your definition of 'meet,' Cat never did meet
them. He certainly never talked to them, and the Lord only knows what the
promiscuous buggers consider 'meeting' to entail.
- Rimmer is charged with 1,167 counts of murder. This contradicts the
figure of 169 crewmembers in The End (1-1). Also, why is he only sentenced
for 1,166 counts?
- Rimmer's mind could have inflated the figures, along with his
culpability.
- Perhaps the law at this time counts killing oneself through
negligence as murder. However, Rimmer being dead may constitute punishment
for his own death, therefore he only needs to be sentenced for the remaining
1,166 deaths he caused.
- When the Justice Computer says that Rimmer caused the deaths of the
entire crew of Red Dwarf it is incorrect, as Lister wasn't killed, he was
in stasis (and the Justice Computer should have picked this up from probing
Rimmer's mind).
- The Justice Computer may have been making a general speech, based
on possibly picking up from Rimmer's guilt-feelings something like: 'I
killed them all.'
- Kryten says that Rimmer failed his astronavigation exam 13 times. This
contradicts *everything* ever said on the subject before this. In The End
(1-1) Rimmer is taking an engineering exam. In Waiting For God
(1-4) it is said he failed his engineering exam 11 times. In Future
Echoes (1-2) it is said he took his astronavigation exam nine (ten) times.
- Given Rimmer's bizarre test record (as well as activity during
tests), it is not surprising that these numbers are messed up. There are
probably contradictions in what actually counted as Rimmer attempting a
test, or showing up, and all that.
- What is the purpose of sentencing a hologram to a prison term? He's
dead already and would surely 'live' forever anyway, so why not just turn
him off? Also, why not just alter the programming of his personality disk
to prevent the crime from happening again?
- When talking about Rimmer's 'friends,' Lister said Rimmer had 'Only
one, but she's got a puncture.' However, in Timeslides (3-5), we hear
about Rachel and the puncture repair kit, and in Queeg (2-5), we hear about
Inflatable Ingrid.
- Perhaps Ingrid or Rachel got too badly 'damaged' to be
repaired, leaving Rimmer with just one friend.
- Holly tells the crew to hang around for 24 hours to see who's in
the pod, yet the pod has over 29 hours' defrosting to do.
- Perhaps by the 24th hour, the identity of the person in the pod
would be readily apparent even though it wasn't fully defrosted.
- The Cat says of the escort boots, 'I'm supposed to wear these? These
look like Frankenstein's hand-me-downs.' Given that Frankenstein is one
of the holiest figures in the Cat religion, and any belongings of hers
would be sacred relics, this statement by the Cat seems horribly
inappropriate.
- As indicated elsewhere (The End, 1-1; Waiting For God, 1-4), the
Cat does not seem to be particularly religious. At some point he has obviously
picked up the reference to Mary Shelley's work (see also Quarantine, 5-4).
His apparent inability to define Frankenstein as the creator and not the monster
notwithstanding, it is most likely Shelley's Frankenstein he is referring to.
As such, his distaste at the fashion blasphemy that the shoes represented would
be greater than any distaste at any religious blasphemy he was committing.
- He may only be referring to the *age* of the shoes, i.e. his
statement could mean that the shoes are so old (and out of style) that
the last time they were in fashion was when Frankenstein (the cat) was alive.
- What exactly is it that the Justice Field punishes: intention,
ability, or action? Lister lights the sheets on fire and his jacket
catches fire, but physically, his leather jacket shouldn't burn. He is
punished for his intention (arson) by a reciprocal action (fire). When Lister
attacks the simulant, he tries to murder him. However, instead of being
killed himself, he just suffers the effect of his action, but not as it
would affect the simulant (his attack would have little or no effect),
but as the attack would affect him. When the simulant counterattacks, he
is not murdered for his murderous action, but suffers the damage that his
attacks would on *Lister* instead of himself (where the gunshots and
knife wounds would have had little effect). Cat tries to knock out the
simulant with a shovel, and he receives the effects as if it was the
Cat that had been hit. Add to this that Lister goads the simulant on, in
effect trying to kill the simulant, but he is not punished for these actions.
- It seems that the Justice Field is very simplistic. It cannot
take action based solely on intent at all, just physical actions. You can
*think* about doing crimes all you want, and cause criminal things to happen,
but as long as you don't physically do it yourself, no action can be taken
by the Justice Field. When a physical act happens, the field acts to bring
an equivalent consequence to the perpetrator as to what would have happened
to his victim, even if it should be physically impossible (if this were
not so, then those of superior strength/fitness/construction would be able
to escape many of the effects of the Justice Field and so the field
would not be a fair mechanism, nor would it be able to achieve its
rehabilitation aims). Lister sets fire to something, so something of his
gets set aflame. Lister tries to hit the simulant, and gets the effect of
being hit. The simulant tries to shoot Lister, so the simulant suffers a
gunshot as Lister would. However, Lister, figuring this out, can manipulate
the field by *intending* to kill the simulant, and tricking the simulant
into doing it himself; yet Lister suffers no ill effects because he didn't
do any criminal physical actions himself. This does not mean that the
Justice Field can be manipulated into murdering someone at another's
behest. After all, an innocent individual making no murderous actions will
be safe.
White Hole (4-4)
- The Talkie Toaster is completely different from his previous
appearances in Future Echoes (1-2) and Waiting For God (1-4).
- The Toaster has been completely rebuilt, which could alter his
appearance and voice.
- The figure '345' is displayed on Holly's monitor when she is calculating
her remaining run-time, yet when Talkie Toaster quotes this later he
says '3.41 years.' Holly then reiterates this number as minutes.
- Talkie Toaster first says the figure of 345 years ('...better than
a kick in the bread tray'). Holly then says, 'Where's the decimal point?'
Presumably Talkie Toaster then looks back at the monitor to see where the
decimal point is, before quoting 3.41 years. Then, before he can query why
the '5' has now become a '1,' Holly replies that it is not years but minutes.
- Two minutes of Holly's run-time are stated to have been used up, in less
than one and a half minutes of real time.
- Holly is very angry and being very sarcastic here, and is possibly
exaggerating her crisis (she contradicts herself twice) to make her point to
Rimmer (who is being incredibly stupid).
- Kryten agrees with Lister because Lister is a human and a human
outranks a hologram. In that case, why doesn't Rimmer follow Lister? He's
explained many times that he follows his superiors, no matter who they are.
- This may only be the case for Kryten, where a living human
would take precedence over a hologram human for a mechanoid. This may be
core mechanoid programming as opposed to Space Corps policy, which may
allow a dead crew member to outrank a living one.
- In the same vein as above, Kryten is siding with Lister here because:
'It's in my programming sir. A living human outranks a hologram.' Yet,
in Bodyswap (3-4), Kryten chloroforms Lister against his will ('It's in
my programming to obey all humans, no matter how insane'), and in Meltdown
(4-6), Kryten stood by while the Elvis waxdroid tied up Lister and Cat,
even though he knew that they wanted to stop Rimmer.
- In this episode, Kryten is told to choose for himself who to
vote for, and in this case, the living human's *wishes* outrank the
hologram's (because neither gave Kryten a direct *order*) -- this may be
Kryten's core mechanoid programming. However, once *direct* orders are
given (as in the other two instances), another level of mechanoid programming
must come into effect whereby the mechanoid now obeys according to an
*external* ranking system governed by Space Corps policy; ie. Rimmer as Second
Technician is superior to Lister as Third Technician.
Dimension Jump (4-5)
- Why is the Cat wearing the fish-shaped earring that he gave to Kryten as
a present (The Last Day, 3-6) when he supposedly hates / can't stand it?
- It is *not* the same earring. The earring here is much shorter and
more planar than the one from The Last Day (3-6), and presumably does not
offend the Cat's aesthetic sensibilities the way the one he gave to Kryten
obviously did.
- How can Ace expect Rimmer to fix the engine when Rimmer can't touch
anything? Ditto re-routing Kryten.
- Perhaps hard-light bodies (seen in Legion, 6-2) are common
in Ace's dimension, and so he assumed Rimmer would be able to perform the
tasks. If hard-light bodies have long superseded soft-light, then Lister's
comment of 'He can't touch anything' may have initially gone unnoticed by
Ace as it wouldn't have meant anything to him.
- Kryten is identified as a Series 4000 mechanoid, when in The Last Day
(3-6) he is called a Series III.
- Perhaps his reconstruction by Lister caused him to make this
mistake. It is possible as well that Kryten's self-repair unit which
may have helped Lister was directed to upgrade the unit in case of
massive damage.
- The 'Series III' and 'Series 4000' could be referring to two
different aspects of the same model, like body type or memory capacity,
for example.
- Kryten is not supposed to be waterproof, but he has gotten wet in Meltdown
(4-6) and Backwards (3-1).
- This may be a result of his rebuilding by Lister.
- The Cat can read English in this episode, yet the Cat language was all in
smells with no words.
- It is conceivable that somewhere down the line the Cat learned
to read English, if only to search the fashion magazines to find a way to
do the impossible and make himself more attractive.
- We can once again point to the fact that the Cat's ancestors
at one time did know how to read English (Waiting For God, 1-4), so he
may have learned it previously.
- Ace travels from his dimension to that of the RD. The dimensions are
supposedly parallel. Yet for this to be true, Ace would be three million-plus
years old and most likely dead like our Rimmer, since it is three million
years since both Rimmers were born.
- It has been shown that time dilations and abnormalities can
occur when travelling between realities (eg. Backwards, 3-1; Rimmerworld,
6-5), so this is not unlikely.
- Ace's craft was an experimental prototype, so abnormal effects
like radical time shifts between dimensions are not unthinkable.
- If Ace cannot go back to his own dimension, how are Bongo and the
others going to know whether he successfully dimension-jumped, or died
in the trying?
- Engineering may have instruments which can tell them whether
the jump was successful or not; after that, Ace is on his own. If
however every possibility is played out in the other dimensions, it's
not impossible that Ace might one day jump to a dimension in which the
technology *has* been developed which could get him home.
- In Ace's dimension, how can Kryten and Holly have *human*
counterparts?
- While Spanners *is* actually another Lister, if there is an
infinite number of dimensions, then no matter how *improbable*, it is
not *impossible* that this is a dimension in which some of Ace's
friends look like, but are otherwise unconnected to, the other RD
crewmembers.
Meltdown (4-6)
- In some of the outdoor scenes, you can see Rimmer's breath. Holograms
don't breathe.
- If the program is sophisticated enough to reproduce a human
being, it is sophisticated enough to simulate breath condensation in the
air.
- Where does the teleportation paddle go to after the episode and why don't
they use it to get back to Earth?
- There are several reasons: the RD can't be teleported,
the paddle can't be used more than 500,000 lys from the RD, and they
are more than 500,000 lys from Earth.
- The teleportation paddle became the triplicator in Demons And
Angels (5-5).
- How can Rimmer ride the motorbike around, when as a hologram he can't
touch anything?
- The motorbike is also a hologram, projected by Holly (see Better
Than Life, 2-2).
- The motorbike is real, but controlled by Holly (her consciousness
is projected on the bike's headlight), not by Rimmer. Rimmer is projected as
if he were riding the motorbike. When Rimmer wants the motorbike to
actually move, he tells Holly: 'Let's go Holly,' and Holly replies: 'Okay
Matey.' *Then* the motorbike moves off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.5 SERIES 5
Holoship (5-1)
- Commander Binks from the holoship says Lister's chronological age is
mid-20s. In Future Echoes (1-2) he is said to be 25. Given that likely at
least three years have passed since then, he would not be in his mid-20s.
- Time passage and actual versus apparent age is mighty screwed
up where Lister is concerned.
- When interviewing new crewmembers after Rimmer is thought to be gone,
why didn't they bring back Kochanski?
- Rimmer might still have Kochanski's disk hidden.
- Commander Binks refers to Cat as Felis sapiens, yet in The Last Day
(3-6) Hudzen refers to Cat as Felix sapiens.
- Hudzen was insane.
- It is not necessarily a contradiction. Both were dealing with a
species that had developed entirely on the RD, which had been out of
touch with humanity for over three million years. Both could have used the
analytical devices available to them to determine that Cat was an
intelligent species derived from the feline family, and given him two
slightly different scientific nomenclatures. Between the two of them,
however, it is more likely that Binks is correct with his name.
- Rimmer operated on the holoship freely without one of the other crewmembers
needing to be deleted. Why couldn't he just join their crew with no ill
effects?
- The holoship might have had the temporary ability to hold
more than its requisite holograms (as the RD does), or Rimmer may have
been operating under the power of his LB.
- If the ship has zero mass, what is projecting it and the hologrammatic
crew? What is running their programs? Shouldn't there at least be a
Light Bee and a computer somewhere?
- Something contained within the tachyon technology must have found
a way to circumvent such (former) projection problems.
The Inquisitor (5-2)
- Thomas Allman has no idea about his demise and its justification.
Therefore, the Inquisitor apparently did not give him trial-by-himself,
which is supposedly standard practice.
- When Kryten went back in time to save himself and Lister, he should have
known to say 'Enigma' and not 'Enig' since he was just talking to Lister
about it.
- If Kryten said 'Enigma' Lister and Kryten would never have
figured it out for themselves at the start of the time loop.
- Lister collects the hand of the alternate timeline Lister, for
the purpose of getting through security locks. Later the Inquisitor is
erased from history and all his bloodshed is undone. Ignore the fact
that they wouldn't remember the event as it wouldn't have happened and
that they would still be heading out on Starbug, how could Lister give
Kryten '15' as they would never have met the other Lister and he
wouldn't have been blown up anyway?
- Sometimes timeline readjustments take a little time to sort
themselves out (eg. White Hole, 4-4). Give this episode another 30 seconds
and the original opening scenario would probably be restored.
- Lister shouldn't be able to collect his alternative's hand, as the
Inquisitor habitually vaporizes his humanoid targets, leaving no bits behind.
- It was actually the alternative Kryten who was blown up by the
Inquisitor (perhaps 'vaporize' doesn't work on mechanoids). The alternative
Lister was apparently killed by the force of the alternative Kryten
exploding, in the process having his left hand severed from the arm.
- Kryten's number on the RD is 'Additional 001.' Why isn't Cat 'Add. 001'
and Kryten 'Add. 002'?
- As a computer, Holly might have started the count at 'Additional
000.'
- How does Holly scan Lister's palm-print when he's wearing gloves?
- Holly is able to scan through clothing. This would make sense
(especially on a mining ship) so that crewmembers would not have to
keep removing their gloves to open doors all the time. Also, the scanner
would have the ability to permeate mechanoid 'skin' in order to read the CPUs.
- Kryten uses the Inquisitor's gauntlet to age his and Lister's manacles by
half a million years, causing the metal to 'decay' away to nothing. Red
Dwarf is over three million years old, so why has it not 'decayed' in the
same fashion?
- Red Dwarf may be made of a special metal, or could have undergone
a special treatment to prevent its metal 'decaying.'
- Red Dwarf may have specific self-maintenance capabilities for
counteracting such ageing.
- When trying to convince Rimmer he knew him, Lister said that four people
had died while Rimmer was on the Samaritans Line in the afternoon. In The
Last Day (3-6) it is said he killed off five people in the morning.
- Lister is close enough in his facts for this to be simply an
inaccurate memory on his part.
- Rimmer has said he got off with Fiona Barrington in his dad's greenhouse
at 15, but in Better Than Life (2-2) he said he divorced his parents at 14.
- Rimmer could have been lying about the whole incident, or this might
have occurred during one of his visits to the dog.
- In this episode, Kryten cannot attack the Inquisitor (another droid)
because of his anti-kill programming. Yet in The Last Day (3-6), Kryten
was learning to use the bazookoid in order to attack Hudzen 10, also another
droid.
- Perhaps Kryten was hoping to only disable Hudzen 10 in direct
self-defence, which may be an applicable way to circumvent the anti-kill
programming.
- Perhaps the Inquisitor had used his sizeable powers to make
sure that he would be taken for human in every droid's anti-kill programming.
- The breakdown of Kryten's core programming, which gave way in
Camille (4-1), was in such an advanced state by the time of The Last Day
(3-6) that he was able to act that way in selfish self-preservation,
overriding his anti-kill programming.
- If Ace Rimmer (Dimension Jump, 4-5) is what Rimmer *could* have become,
then Rimmer didn't live to his full potential, so why didn't the
Inquisitor delete him?
- The Inquisitor seemed to be more concerned with what people
*thought* they could achieve. As Rimmer was convinced that Ace's good
life was due to 'breaks' that Rimmer didn't get, Rimmer was still living
up to his own low standards.
- Why would Rimmer be judged with the others? Wouldn't the Inquisitor
have questioned him when he was alive?
- The Inquisitor is concerned with *existence*, not life. Rimmer
is dead, but he *had* existed. All the Inquisitor needed was a point in
an individual's existence (be it living or hologrammatic) at which enough
time had passed for the individual to have indicated his/her life's
worthiness (or potential worthiness). For this purpose, Rimmer-hologram
could serve just as well as Rimmer-human.
- If the Inquisitor can 'read minds' to enable him to do
judgement-by-self, why can he not discover what Lister plans for him with
the backfiring time gauntlet?
- Perhaps the Inquisitor's telepathic powers only operate when he is
'in character' for a judgement, which he was not at the time of Lister's
trick.
- How can Rimmer and Cat still exist, with their same circumstances and
histories, when an alternative Lister and Kryten have been produced who
should have lived worthier existences than the old versions, and,
presumably, these worthier, different actions should have altered or even
deleted Rimmer's and Cat's circumstances, or even existences? If the
Inquisitor's powers extend such that those he isn't replacing (Rimmer
and Cat) are not changed because of those he does replace (Lister
and Kryten), then why shouldn't he be able to determine which lives will
be 'worthy,' and cause those to exist from the outset? And then, why
would unworthy existences, such as those of criminals, be allowed to
occur?
- The premise of the Inquisitor is that everyone is judged by
their *own* standards. Thus worthiness is not judged by external deeds
or happenings, but how an individual measures up within himself. There
is no indication that the Inquisitor can either permanently alter historical
events or choose what personality replaces that which he has deleted.
"All will be judged," so presumably the Inquisitor keeps on judging and
replacing until he gets one who believes his life was lived to its best
potential. The *circumstances* need never change, thus the alternative
Lister *behaved* in exactly the same way as the original Lister, and had
exactly the same history (thus Cat's and Rimmer's existences would be
the same), only his motivations/behaviour may be *perceived* and judged
by himself in a different way than what the original Lister's were. The
Inquisitor thus cannot choose who would be 'worthy,' but eventually
would come to judge the alternative Lister, who may or may not be replaced
in his own turn, depending on how he judges his own existence. In this
way too, some who would seem unworthy by external standards (eg.
criminals) may be able to justify their own existences by applying their
own (warped) standards.
- Kryten talks about Virgil's Aeneid as the tale of Agamemnon's pursuit
of Helen of Troy. Shouldn't he mean Homer's Iliad (tale of the Trojan
War), as Virgil's Aeneid deals with Aeneas's life after Troy?
- As a service mechanoid, Kryten's epic-poetry chip may not be up
to standard.
*- At the beginning of the episode, Rimmer is wearing his green uniform.
After Lister and Kryten are removed from the timestream and are confronted
in the RD hallway by Rimmer and the Cat from the alternative reality, Rimmer
is now wearing his red uniform.
* - There are many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the features of
this alternative reality -- majorly of course, the alternative Lister and
Kryten look different to their originals. Minor changes such as apparel or
coiffure are probably specific to each reality (and help us keep track of
which reality the crewmembers are from); both Rimmer *and* the Cat are
wearing different clothes in the different realities (original = Rimmer,
green uniform and Cat, leopard-spot outfit -- alternative = Rimmer, red
uniform and Cat, red plaid outfit). This then means that at the end
of the episode when Rimmer and Cat rematerialise, they should probably be
wearing respectively their original green and leopard-spot clothes; instead
they are still in the alternative-reality outfits. This is presumably for
the same reason that Lister still has the alternative Lister's hand -- the
timelines have not sorted themselves out properly yet. Give the episode
another 30 seconds and then, along with the vanishing of the severed hand,
Rimmer and the Cat will be restored to the apparel they were wearing before
the Inquisitor arrived on the scene.
Terrorform (5-3)
- Kryten's readout says he is a Series 4000 mechanoid. In Dimension Jump
(4-5) he is also identified as a Series 4000, but in The Last Day (3-6)
he is called a Series III.
- The new readout may be indicative of Kryten's 'upgrading' by Lister
and/or the self-repair unit (see Dimension Jump, 4-5).
- Once again, the 'Series III' and 'Series 4000' might be
referring to different characteristics of the same model.
- While the Psy-Moon may be based on Rimmer's mind, it does not change
the fact that he should not physically be able to touch anything and
should not be in any real danger.
- The inhabitants may be mentally-controlled GELFs, which would
explain how they could mutate into forms that could touch him. Or it
could quite literally all be in his mind and he could do mental damage to
himself, which is the most serious thing that Rimmer has to worry about.
- Why can Holly track Rimmer now, but not in other episodes?
- Perhaps the fact that the Psy-moon becomes the personification
of its visitor's mind amplified Rimmer's presence, and thereby made it
easier for Holly to track Rimmer.
- Kryten is firing the bazookoid at Rimmer's Self-Loathing, presumably
trying to kill it, yet in The Inquisitor (5-2) Kryten cannot tackle the
Inquisitor himself because he is programmed not to kill.
- Maybe Kryten's 'anti-kill' programming only applies to equal
(eg. the Inquisitor, another droid) or 'superior' beings (eg. humans).
Self-Loathing, as only a personified psyche component, may be fair game.
- Maybe Lister's latest repair job on Kryten in this episode
has caused a malfunction in Kryten's 'anti-kill' programming.
Quarantine (5-4)
- Rimmer says the RD can only sustain one hologram, yet on several
occasions (eg. Holoship, 5-1 and Me^2, 1-6) it has had two while supposedly
cutting off unnecessary power.
- While Rimmer was affected by the Holovirus, where was Holly? Couldn't
she have turned him off or otherwise prevented him from taking over?
- Holly: 'Well, it's a laugh, innit?' The crew were in no actual
danger until Rimmer turned off the oxygen, so no need for action. Rimmer
*was* following the rules, after all.
- Rimmer was operating on his LB, independent of Holly, so
she might not have been able to do much even if she wanted to.
- Holly might not be able to disable a hologram without an order
from a superior officer. Rimmer was ranking 'officer' on RD.
- Why did the crew need to send Rimmer back to RD? If Dr. Lanstrom had her
own LB, it was unnecessary. Even if she didn't, we saw in Me^2 (1-6)
that the RD can support two holograms if necessary.
- How can the hex vision of a hologram hurt anyone? If it is a mental
power, how can a hologram use it if he/she has no physical brain? How can the
hex vision shorten the lifespan of a hologram?
- The 'brain' of the person still exists on his/her holodisk. The
hex vision caused by the holovirus is a feature of the virus's adaptation
to this particular type of 'brain'-state. In a hologram, the hex vision could
draw on the power source of the hologram and manifest as energy bursts,
shortening the life span of the hologram by overloading or draining its power
generator.
- The Cat insults Kryten by calling him 'Frankenstein.' Frankenstein,
according to Cat religion, is the most holy entity next to Cloister.
This is like a human insulting someone by calling them Virgin Mary.
- The Cat never seemed particularly religious to begin with, and
with all the human influence around him, he has obviously picked up the
reference to Mary Shelley's work. Remember how short his memory is with
religious topics in the previous episodes.
- Kryten had been on his own for thousands/millions of years with only
(in his mind) the three girls for company on the Nova 5. How could he get so
tetchy after only five days alone with Lister and the Cat?
- While the girls were the perfect company for Kryten (not
causing any major philosophical problems in his life and just letting him
clean up after them for millenia), our favorite crew are an entirely more
trying experience -- being trapped interactively with someone is different
to being alone and having no one to conflict with (also it's not possible
to know that Kryten did not go totally crazy at some point on the Nova 5 --
after all, it was not quite a sane thing to deny the dead state of the crew).
Lastly, Kryten's different personalities in each situation may react very
differently to the given situation.
- The luck virus seemed to make everything the crew wanted come true. Why
didn't Lister shoot up on it, get Kochanski back and zoom back to Earth?
- Perhaps Lister was a little too concerned with saving his skin
from Rimmer at the moment to consider more far-reaching plans.
- The virus only lets extremely improbable, fairly simple events
happen, not extremely complicated, practically impossible ones. Kochanski is
dead, and *major* events (probably more than the luck virus could facilitate)
would need to happen to change that fact.
Demons And Angels (5-5)
- If Low RD fades away, the Low Lister should fade away as well,
instead of staying on Starbug.
- Hang on for this one. The crew were scanned before leaving the RD. It
explodes soon after, destroying everything including Holly. The Highs and Lows
are born from the scan. All Highs except Holly are killed. As only things with
both High and Low parts can re-merge, the High and Low RDs and Hollys merge
back when Kryten reverses the process. Low Cat, Kryten, and Rimmer
remain, but are left in the vacuum of space and die after their RD
re-merges. Low Lister is on the SB so he survives.
- Kryten says he threw the triplicator in reverse, yet it is Lister who
actually did this.
- Kryten told Lister to do it. Maybe, now that his lying protocol
is broken, Kryten is looking for some glory.
- Kryten says that the triplicator could produce four or even five
strawberries a week. With one original strawberry, after two runs, the
tally could only be *either* four triplicator-produced strawberries *or*
five total, counting the original strawberry; not both numbers sequentially.
- While tasting the pot noodle, Lister talks about playing pool with
planets. The only time he's done that is in White Hole (4-4) and he
shouldn't remember it.
- In White Hole (4-4), Kryten says 'I've never seen one before, no
one has, but I'm guessing it's a White Hole.' Thus, Kryten himself has
probably only read the theory behind White Holes. If nobody has ever seen
one, Kryten could well be wrong, meaning that the events could be able to
be recalled. Kryten, for all his knowledge, is not infallible.
- Why is only half the triplicator on each ship? Each ship is a
fully-functioning entity and should have a full version of the
triplicator on it.
- Perhaps, because the triplicator was the source of the abnormal,
outgoing beam, it was unable to copy itself, but instead had its parts divided
between its two creations so that there was still 'triplicator representation'
on both ships.
- How can a holowhip harm a human?
- Simple. While the holowhip has to be some form of projected
light, there are many types of light that can cause physical damage.
Lasers are just condensed beams of light. Modified light pulses can cause
neurological seizures. It could also work along the lines of a controlled
version of the hex vision from Quarantine (5-4): it just sends stored-up
energy through the victim.
Back To Reality (5-6)
- As a hologram, Rimmer should *not* be affected by the squid's venom (or
the lithium carbonate), and so would not have hallucinated.
- If he can pick up smells, he might also be able to pick up and
be affected by the hallucinogens.
- Kryten says 'The venom secreted from a piscine source, not unlike Earth
octopus or giant squid.' 'Piscine' means pertaining to fish, and squid
and octopi are mollusks.
- Kryten is, ultimately, just a service mechanoid.
- Andy the Technician talks about the irony of Lister becoming God when he
was an atheist, but in The Last Day (3-6) Lister is said to be a
pantheist. Why can't Lister even get his own religion right?
- When the crew are delusionally pretending to jump speed bumps in their
'car-chase,' Rimmer's seat is moving under him, which it should not do
because Rimmer, as a hologram, has no weight.
- This may be another case of a hologrammatic projection of what
would be happening if Rimmer were real.
- In this alternate reality, 'Red Dwarf' is a Total Immersion Video Game
designed for four players, who take on the roles of Lister, Rimmer, Cat,
and Kryten. In fact, we see four new players entering as the boys leave.
Since the game would cover all the events of the RD, there is a problem.
What was Jake Bullet (Kryten's player) doing until Kryten showed up in the
events in Kryten (2-1)?
- Perhaps he was off playing a solo adventure on the Nova 5.
- Kryten took two years from Lister leaving stasis to join the Red Dwarf,
so why, when Lister looks in at the new TIV players, are they at a point
in the game much further along than they should be seeing as how they've
only been playing the TIV a very short time?
- Game-time and real time may not necessarily be parallel. Also,
it is possible that if the players play the game properly (as opposed to
scoring just 4%), that (among other differences) Kryten's character joins
the action on Red Dwarf much earlier on in the piece.
- Kryten's gun is a single-shot speargun, but Jake is packing a
futuristic sidearm. When he kills the cop, we hear the sound of four
gunshots before he falls. Jake/Kryten then says that he could have stunned
the cop instead of killing him. So, how do you stun someone with a bullet?
- The gun could well be an energy weapon that has the potential
to stun or kill. When the gun fires, you hear a 'gunshot,' but see no
bullets or blood. Later, when Kryten puts the gun to his head and fires,
the click could be the trigger trying to activate a drained energy cell.
When Kryten reloads the gun, he refers to the 'bullet,' which can refer
to a solid projectile, or the discrete charge of the energy weapon. If the
former is the case, the gun may be able to handle solid projectiles as
well as energy packs.
- A normal hallucination does not explain the group effects that the
crew went through at all. Even if they all are affected by hallucinations,
how is it that they all have the *same* hallucination at the *same* time?
For example, when the nurse asks them who Duane is, they all look at the
Cat. Why do *all* of them hallucinate the *same* person asking the *same*
question?
- The venom might have some sort of telepathic element that links
the minds of all those affected by the same attack.
- The hallucinations are a horribly inefficient way to make people
committ suicide. While the crew eventually grows depressed in their
roles in the fantasy society, there are good points in it for some people.
Rimmer enjoys Cat being reduced to Duane's no-style state; Kryten is
thrilled at being a detective. This seems to be an awfully flawed way to
make people kill themselves.
- The aim is to induce despair by whatever means, while keeping
up the illusion of reality. Rimmer's despair is induced by the fact of
his being such a failure when his brother is such a success. His enjoyment
of Cat's misery is of no consequence in his own despair state, but adds
greatly to the despair state of the Cat -- this could be the purpose of a
group (rather than individual) hallucination mechanism, whereby the
interactions of all players can compound the despair of each to exacerbate
the suicidal intent. Another premise might be 'the bigger they are, the
harder they fall.' Kryten's despair state is cruelly induced by first
giving him a position of principle and success and then making him abuse
it in the way most heinous and contradictory to all he values (and the same
reasoning can be true for Lister's despair induction).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.6 SERIES 6
Psirens (6-1)
- Lister had sex with himself in Parallel Universe (2-6) more recently
than three million years ago.
- Perhaps he meant only in this dimension.
- Maybe he considered that liaison more masturbation than sex.
- Where was Kryten's self-repair unit when he needed it in Backwards (3-1)?
- Perhaps this explains how Lister was able to repair him at all.
- Lister is told he dated Kochanski for three weeks. Yet in Confidence And
Paranoia (1-5) it is clear that they never even went out.
- Why was Rimmer's LB frozen? All they had to do was turn it off, and
freezing it would just make his period of immobility seem longer.
- If the SB survived a collision with a flaming asteroid, why was it
wrecked in previous, lesser impacts?
- How can Cat smell things outside of Starbug, a sealed spacecraft?
- The Cat's 'sense of smell' here is not physically a true
olfactory sense, but rather an intuition (as stated by Kryten) manifested
and described in physical terms. The Cat psychically *senses* things
(eg. danger, approaching craft) but recognises this sense in terms of
'smell.'
- When the psiren pretended to be Kryten, and it read Lister's mind
and was trying to fool him, why would it deliberately call Lister 'Dave,'
a name that would tip Lister off to the fact that it *wasn't* the real Kryten?
- The psiren's abilities are not perfect (as the guitar incident
shows). Perhaps, Lister subconsciously *wants* Kryten to call him 'Dave'
instead of 'Mr. Lister,' because it would make Kryten more of an equal.
The psiren picked up on this, and thereby called him 'Dave' as part of a
wish fulfilment or a misreading of their relationship.
- When the two Listers play guitar, the psiren plays like Lister
believes he can play. The psiren isn't trying to convince Lister, it's
trying to convince the rest of the crew. Wouldn't it have read their
minds instead?
- The psirens aren't infallible, and this one probably thought
that a scan of Lister's mind would be sufficient for the subterfuge.
Legion (6-2)
- Legion removes Lister's appendix, which is about to burst from
appendicitis. It was apparent in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) that Lister
had already had his appendix out.
- In DNA (4-2) when Lister's body was reconstituted, his appendix
may have been restored.
- In Backwards (3-1) Lister's appendix may have grown back in
reverse-time.
- In Timeslides (3-5) Lister's past was changed several times.
It is conceivable that one of these changes resulted in his appendix not
being taken out previous to this event.
- Rimmer says that in all his previous lives, he has been a soldier. That
must be excepting the time he was Alexander the Great's Chief Eunuch
(Marooned, 3-2).
- Well, he was still *in* an army (sort of).
- Rimmer says that they have met exactly 31 individuals (Legion being 32)
in their travels. The number of 'individuals' is much higher.
- It's a tricky definition, and depending on the way you swing
it, it can be a true statement.
- Legion's total appearance changed to match that of Kryten when Kryten
was the only one left conscious, yet previously only Legion's face had
changed to reflect his diminishing status when all the others were being
knocked out in turn.
- Perhaps when left with only one 'creator,' Legion has no gestalt
conflict and so can more truly and easily depict his single-being status.
- When Kryten is knocking everybody out, Legion, who has proven himself
capable of violence to stop the crew from leaving, just stands there and
watches. Even if he didn't want to harm them, he could have at least
restrained Kryten from performing his actions.
Gunmen Of The Apocalypse (6-3)
- The escape pod escaped last Thursday. Does that take into account the three
weeks that the crew spent knocked out courtesy of the simulants?
Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4)
- Lister should say 'Butts bony our move let's' not 'Bony butts our move
let's' to mimic the Space Corps External Enforcement Vehicle correctly.
- Where did Kryten learn to speak GELF?
- Perhaps he downloaded this information from a database on one
of the derelict spaceships the crew have visited.
- Another door opens before 'Ace' touches it.
- Rack it up to those light-sensitive, hologram-friendly doors.
- Duane said that the gun Rimmer ejected was the last one on the ship,
but Kryten has one later.
- Duane actually says: 'We just flushed away our only gun,' so
probably in this case the 'our' he is talking about comprises of only
himself and Rimmer.
- The crew still moves after getting hit by the gas.
- Why were Kryten and 'Ace' worried about the effect of the grenade on
'Ace,' since the hard-light body was pronounced practically indestructible?
- Kryten and 'Ace' were probably worried due to the element of
doubt (about the hard-light body's strength) introduced by Legion's qualifying
word 'practically.'
- When the Emohawk turned Cat into Duane, how did Cat's physical
features alter if the Emohawk can only change emotions?
- Perhaps this type of emotion-stealing GELF is a species which
needs to extract the genetic complement of an emotion in order to obtain
that emotion. In this way it may be possible for Cat's physical appearance
to alter to reflect his changed DNA status, especially if the Emohawk has
to facilitate this process quickly in order for the relevant DNA to be free
for it to take. The DNA apparently must be taken from the Emohawk and
injected back into its rightful owner in order for the original character
to be restored -- a process which was not necessary with the other GELF in
Polymorph (3-3) -- so indicating that the two emotion-stealers are of
different types.
Rimmerworld (6-5)
- When Kryten says to Rimmer 'Your activities over the past couple of years,'
presumably he means years broken up by the 200-year deep sleep hiatus
of Psirens (6-1).
- Rimmer talks about letting Lister play the guitar, but the guitar was
destroyed in Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4).
- While one guitar might have been destroyed, Lister was
given another guitar in his room during Legion (6-2), so one may be
in a box of Lister's 'valuables,' unbeknownst at this time to the rest of
the crew.
- Rimmer is hyperventilating and 'breathing.' He's a hologram.
- It may be a manifestation of the hologrammatic illness.
- Since the crew obviously had some of Rimmer's DNA, why didn't they
try cloning him back in DNA (4-2)?
- They might have been unaware of the DNA's existence.
- They probably did not trust the DNA machine given all they saw.
Out Of Time (6-6)
- If by destroying the time drive, Rimmer saves the crew, they would have
been saved anyway when the ship was destroyed, thus blowing up the time
drive.
- Getting killed by themselves may have produced some huge
paradoxes though.
- They had no assurances that the future crew was actually going
to go through with it and finish them off.
- Why did Future Rimmer gain weight when it could be expected that he
wouldn't have wanted to?
- Unlike on Rimmerworld (6-5), where Rimmer's appearance did not
(and had no need to) change, Future Rimmer may be changing himself in
order to match better with his 'friends' who are growing old and/or
altering their appearances to be inconspicuous with their historical
acquaintances; the others may even have insisted upon such a change
(though the design may be a bit overdone!).
- What may have been a voluntary on and off process for a
hologram could have been damaged by the holovirus (Quarantine, 5-4). The
virus could have destroyed Rimmer's capability to control his aging,
causing the aging function to kick in at a random time. Thus he could
have gone 557 years without aging, as happened, or just as likely he might
have added holo-years at any time. And sometime during the fifteen years
after Rimmerworld, the aging function *has* kicked in.
- Kryten asked Lister if he remembered his parents, and Lister said no.
- Given the context and wording of the actual conversation, Lister
would probably initially think that Kryten meant his biological parents,
and so his answer is the truth.
- Rimmer offers to write Kryten/Cat into his will, but since Rimmer is
already dead, the point seems quite moot.
- Rimmer as a human is dead, but holograms can also 'die' as shown
in Rimmerworld (6-5). Thus Rimmer may have a 'will' for the case of his
hologrammatic death.
- Rimmer may be just making a point of showing the lengths he would
go to (especially given his known stinginess) to be allowed the pleasure
of telling Lister the bad news.
- Considering the number of times Lister has been in the medical bay, it
is *highly* unlikely that they wouldn't have noticed he was a mechanoid
before this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.63 SMEG UPS TAPE
- Kryten is called a Series 3000 mechanoid, when in Dimension Jump (4-5)
he is identified as a Series 4000, and in The Last Day (3-6) he is
called a Series III...and all of it is moot because he was completely
rebuilt by Lister at the beginning of Series 3 anyway.
- The Top Ten List has more than ten items.
- In the Top Ten List, one of the questions that Kryten asks is why
Lister's hair and nails grew in Psirens (6-1) when he was in stasis. He
wasn't in stasis, he was in deep sleep.
- Kryten says that the radiation leak was six weeks *before* Gazpacho Soup
Day, yet in Me^2 (1-6) it is six weeks *after* GSD, which makes a hell of a
lot more sense.
- The alternative ending to Out Of Time (6-6) could not have happened because
no one would have remembered that Rimmer had been brave or that the SB had
been attacked at all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.67 SMEG OUTS TAPE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============================================================================
3.0 WHAT ARE THE PRODUCTION ERRORS?
This is a new section to deal with the obvious divisions between
mess-ups on the show. What is a Production Error (PE)? I'm glad you asked. A
Production Error is something that was done wrong with a technical
aspect of the show. This can include continuity errors during filming,
special effects devices visible in the shots, cast members doing
unscripted actions, or complete incompetence during the research stage of
the show that makes glaring and unforgivable (as well as unexplainable)
errors in the show. If they screwed up so bad we couldn't explain it
away, it ends up here. Given the choice between some sort of cheesy
explanation ('Well, the Captain's office was completely redesigned during
this time period, and then redesigned again, and again...') or listing
it as a PE, it will be listed as a PE. The PIs are for legitimate plot
screw-ups that we can explain away. The cable line dragging Rimmer out of
the SB in Backwards (3-1) is an example of a PE.
If there are obvious PEs that can be explained away in the
context of the show, they are listed in both sections, but their
explanations are not included here. PEs have no explanation except the
universally accepted, 'Someone goofed up, and the editors didn't earn
their pay that day.' Also, if the PI that was made was so basic and stupid
that any explanation wouldn't be any fun even as an exercise in
semantics, it ends up here.
The PEs are listed by series, by episode, as in the previous section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1 SERIES 1
The End (1-1)
- Two posters on the wall between the door and the window in Rimmer and
Lister's quarters disappear and return.
- When Rimmer is taking the exam, the arrangement of the pens on his desk
suddenly changes.
- A wall appears where the main entrance to the Captain's Office used to be.
- When Lister is about to wave his hand through Rimmer, half of
Lister's hand disappears into thin air while it is still above Rimmer's
shoulder.
- The incredible, inappropriate Chicken Soup Dispenser: Noting
the way the 'shelf' comes down, it seems to go right through the nozzle
Rimmer was unclogging, and the placement of the nozzle would make it
incredibly difficult to fill that cup with chicken soup in the very short
time that the shelf bearing it was at rest at the bottom of its range of
movement. As a further extension of this, if the cup is filled
with soup before the shelf is lowered, what was Rimmer playing with,
because that couldn't have been the dispensing nozzle?
- When Lister tells the door to lock, and it finally does, something can
be seen moving briefly at the left edge of the window (as if a stagehand
moved into its shot when pushing the door closed).
Future Echoes (1-2)
- The sign above the stasis booth seems to have changed color as opposed
to The End (1-1).
- For the future echo in the Drive Room, Rimmer first says 'You're space
crazy,' then the second time clearly says '*You* are space crazy.'
- Lister and Rimmer both use a door in the Captain's Office that wasn't
there before this episode.
- When the skutters are hitting their heads on the wall, one skutter
(the far one) constantly misses, and the person controlling it cannot get
it straightened up correctly during the shot (even though he tries).
- As Holly gives Rimmer a clean uniform after Rimmer's jog, Holly's
image can be seen to jump, due to his transposition between the two shots
not being perfect.
Balance Of Power (1-3)
- A food dispenser appears in front of a wall where the main entrance to
the Captain's Office used to be.
- The butts that Lister tips out of his beer can have obviously come from
his palm.
- Lister walks through Rimmer on his way to his chef's exam. Rimmer
fades out (as a hologram, that's an acceptable occurrence), but Lister,
who shouldn't fade out, also becomes temporarily transparent.
Waiting For God (1-4)
- When Lister is reading the 'Run, Dick, run' part of the Cat book, he
is actually sniffing a red end-page at the start of the book instead of
the white paper pages.
- When Cat gives Lister the Holy Book, he reads it the wrong way (i.e
from the spine out on the left hand page) despite reading the other book
in the normal way.
- When Talkie Toaster says 'I toast, therefore I am,' seen in his chrome
casing is what can only be the reflection of a stagehand.
Confidence And Paranoia (1-5)
- An unpainted medical unit (with the letters 'EDICAL' clearly visible)
appears in the Captain's Office. In the scenes before and after this one,
the correctly-attired unit appears in the room with 'MEDICAL UNIT'
written on it.
- Lister mouths one of Confidence's lines as he says it. ('I don't know,
is it some place near Uruguay?')
- Just after the Cat says 'S-E-X, I think I found it,' Lister, who is
supposed to be unconscious, breaks briefly into a wide grin.
Me^2 (1-6)
- The 'Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Death' door opens
before Lister touches the panel.
- When Lister is looking through Rimmer's diary, he keeps flipping to the
front of the book while reading entries from July and November.
- In the RD cinema, the two Rimmers keep changing seats so they can
be in front. The Original Rimmer goes to the back to make rude shadows on
the screen. Then Lister calls both of them to the middle so he can choose
which one to turn off. It is then obvious that it is the New Rimmer who
comes from the back and the Original Rimmer who comes from the front.
- When Lister's laundry basket rolls away from the bunk, the opening is
towards the viewer's right, but when Lister picks it up to put his socks
back in, the opening is towards the left.
- In the videotape of Rimmer's death, we see in the Drive Room
Rimmer, Captain Hollister, and two other unidentified crewmembers, all of
whom are then subjected to the Cadmium II accident. However, in The End
(1-1), Holly positively identifies Petersen's remains on a console in the
Drive Room, and also (by implication) the dust pile that is Christine
Kochanski, in Kochanski's chair. As seen in the video, neither of these two
is present in the Drive Room or Captain's Office at the time of the accident.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.2 SERIES 2
Kryten (2-1)
- The spray can that Lister was using to repair his attire disappears
when he throws up his hands after he is done.
- The heights of the crew of the Nova 5 are listed as: Anne (164 cm), Jane
(161 cm), and Tracey (158 cm). Yet when they are in shot together, Tracey
is noticeably taller than the others.
Better Than Life (2-2)
- The Outland Revenue envelope and Rimmer's mother's letter are already
opened when Lister takes the letters out (and at least one other letter in
the pile is also unsealed).
- When Holly is talking about postal chess with Gordon, his black turtleneck
can clearly be seen.
- In the Observation Dome, there is a square outlined around the areas
Rimmer and Lister stand in, showing the boundaries of the bluescreen (also
in Thanks For The Memory, 2-3).
Thanks For The Memory (2-3)
- Lister and the Cat both injure their left feet when they drop the
gravestone, but the Cat has a cast on his right foot.
- The pom-pom and the top of Holly's cap are both in *front* of the edge
of his monitor.
- Background stars can be seen superimposed on Lister's head/face
when he and Rimmer are in the Observation Dome.
- During the black box recording, when Rimmer is telling Lister how many
times he's had sex, Lister visibly has his hat on. When this originally
happened, he had no hat.
Stasis Leak (2-4)
- Lister, Rimmer, and the Cat are in a shower cubicle when they are
discovered by one of the men in the bathroom. In the mirror, we see the
man's back and the cubicle, but we do not see Lister or the Cat's head, as
we should from that angle.
- When Rimmer is talking to 'Captain Paxo,' the blue bucket noticeably moves.
- The scene where Lister and Rimmer are at the dispensing machine after
Rimmer's PD incident in the Captain's Office is seen from two
perspectives: the present day, and three million years ago. It is the same
scene from two different perspectives, and while the main components are
the same, the background is horribly out of synch.
- The contents and decorations of the sleeping quarters (eg. styles of
furnishings, poster arrangements, the number plates, the inflatable banana,
the stuffed donkey) are identical for both the present-day quarters and those
of three million years in the past (three weeks before the accident). The
three-million-year-old sleeping quarters *should* be arranged in similar or
identical fashion to that in The End (1-1).
- The scene where Rimmer's hologram head comes through the table is seen
from two different times -- three million years ago, and present
day -- yet it is the same scene. In the three million years ago version,
the first thing the visible head says to Rimmer is 'There, that wasn't too
bad, was it?' yet this is cut from the present day version so that the
first thing said here is 'Look, we found a stasis leak on Floor 16.'
- When hologram Rimmer climbs through the table, he should be visible
crouched *under* the table -- instead, he disappears.
- In the credits, Petersen's name is spelled with an E, whereas in both
The End (1-1) and Balance Of Power (1-3) the name is given as 'Peterson.'
- The Kochanski at the end is not the same girl as seen earlier in the
Honeymoon Suite.
Queeg (2-5)
- When Queeg first appears, Rimmer asks what Article 5 is. When Queeg is
answering, he is facing slightly side on, yet after no time-break in the next
shot, he is looking directly ahead.
- At the conclusion of the chess match, the chess board shown on the computer
screen does not show the end of the game. The chess board does accurately
show the first three moves.
Parallel Universe (2-6)
- All of Arlene's newsclippings are about 'Arnold,' and she also has all
his certificates.
- The wire/string can be seen that pulls the baby skutters along behind the
parent skutter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.3 SERIES 3
Backwards (3-1)
- When Rimmer is accidentally ejected from the SB during Kryten's driver's
test, the wire that lifts Rimmer is clearly visible.
- The crew's attire is in mirror-image at several stages during the episode
(eg. Rimmer's hat, Cat's 'brooch,' Lister's bandannas).
- In situations involving the Red Dwarf crew on backwards Earth, the
backwards force works only partially or not at all (see relevant PI section).
Nevertheless, every backwards thing that happens on backwards Earth (whether
distorted or not by the crew's involvement) would be physically possible
were the sequence to be played forwards. The exception is the waitress who
comes to 'dirty' Kryten and Rimmer's table. She tips a box of rubbish out
onto the table. In forwards this means that the rubbish would be leaping
up off the table, which is impossible (if the waitress had instead scraped
the rubbish onto the table with her cloth, this would have worked).
- Lister mouths the Cat's line: 'Your gajimbas will suddenly rise back
into your body, and the next thing you know you're singing soprano in the
school choir!'
- Since everything in this world is the same as ours, but the people
just *do* things backwards, the writing should be *forwards* but the people
would just *read* it backwards.
Marooned (3-2)
- When looking at 'Lolita,' Rimmer says to keep page 61. Lister then
tears out the *left* page, which would be page 60.
- When Lister cuts the guitar-shaped piece of wood from Rimmer's camphorwood
trunk, the edges of the 'guitar' and the cut section of the trunk are the
same uniform black color as that of the trunk. However, when Lister snaps
the guitar over his knee, we see that the wood inside is a much lighter
color. The edges of the guitar and the cut-out section of the trunk should
be the same color as the snapped section, so it is obvious that the
guitar wasn't cut out just then, and may even be from a different type of
wood.
Polymorph (3-3)
- This is in the scene where Lister gets attacked by his shorts. There is
a shot of Kryten throwing the offending red undergarment onto his bunk. It
cuts back to Lister who asks where they went. Kryten says on the bunk,
and there is a cut to the bunk, with no red shorts. It cuts back to
Lister who asks if he's sure. It cuts back to Kryten at the bunk who
looks under the blanket and says 'No,' but you can see the red shorts
(or another red object not present in the previous shot of the bunk) on
top of the blanket.
- The capsule shown at the end of the episode before the second
'Lister' polymorph sneaks up on the group has the 'Contents: 2' sign on
it. This is, presumably, the same and only container that they
encountered at the beginning of the episode. A complete shot is made of
the capsule at the beginning of the episode, and no sign is apparent.
Bodyswap (3-4)
- When Cat drops the tape of Lister's mind into the cup, Lister (who
is in a 'trance' and has no mind) can be seen starting to grin (before
Kryten moves across and blocks the view).
Timeslides (3-5)
- In the episode, Fred Holden's nickname is 'Thickie.' In the end credits
it is spelled as 'Thicky.'
- The banana and crisp sandwich that Rimmer bites at the end is supposed
to be the same sandwich Lister initially took out of the briefcase.
However, the colour and intactness of Rimmer's sandwich indicate it is a
different sandwich from the one originally seen.
- The crew cannot move outside the confines of a timeslide photograph.
Yet in the photographs of the pub and of Rimmer's dormitory, they move
into areas not seen in the initial projected images.
- The assassination attempt is by Staff Colonel von Stauffenberg, and twice
is identified as being at Nuremberg. The von Stauffenberg assassination
attempt actually happened at Rastenburg in 1944, whereas the Nuremberg
Rallies had ceased after 1938. By the labelling of von Stauffenberg as 'Staff
Colonel,' the assassination attempt *must* be the 1944 Rastenburg, as von
Stauffenberg was only given this post in this same year.
*- In the pub photo, Dobbin, drummer for Smeg And The Heads, is initially
nowhere close to being in synch with the soundtrack being played.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.4 SERIES 4
Camille (4-1)
- ASCII to hex for 'love' would be 4C, 4F, 56, 45. The code Kryten says
translates as 'theta, graphics-character, backspace, graphics-character.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.5 SERIES 5
The Inquisitor (5-2)
- When Future Kryten cuts off the Inquisitor's gauntlet, he kicks it
down the corridor towards Lister and Kryten. It only goes about
one-third of the distance before stopping, yet after no time-break,
Lister in the next shot makes no advance down the corridor, but just
picks the gauntlet up from at his feet.
Terrorform (5-3)
- In all practical sense, Lister and Cat's typing is too perfect and does
not match what is being typed. Not even close.
- Rimmer and Kryten crash SB 1 badly on the moon. Lister and Cat then
leave RD in SB 2, yet it is SB 1 again which is later struggling in the
swamp.
- At the beginning of the episode, the actor's wrist can be seen between
Kryten's hand and forearm (which should be a solid piece).
Quarantine (5-4)
- When proving the potency of the luck virus with the deck of cards,
Lister shuffles the top few cards, then draws four cards from the bottom.
- In one scene, Kryten holds the hypodermic gun in his right hand and
gives Lister a shot in the neck of the luck virus. It then cuts to Lister
before he tries to break the door code. Kryten now does not have the
hypodermic gun in *either* hand. Lister does have something in his hand
which he quickly puts down; this may or may not be the gun. Kryten's and
Lister's positions mean there was definitely no time for Kryten to have given
the gun to Lister between the scene change as Kryten is simply too far away.
Either way, Kryten should still be holding the gun.
Demons And Angels (5-5)
- The Low Cat's teeth tilt and then straighten again in the scene where he
is first seen by Lister.
- When the remote-controlled Lister swings the axe at Cat, he hits the doorway
when he misses, clearly bending the axe-head. He struggles to remove the axe
from the wall, and when he does so, the axe is repaired.
Back To Reality (5-6)
*- In the opening panning shot over the SSS Esperanto, it is obvious that
the film is running backwards as the bubbles are heading down to the sea
floor rather than correctly floating to the sea surface.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.6 SERIES 6
Psirens (6-1)
*- When Starbug is hit by the flaming meteorite and crashes on the asteroid,
the falling ship can clearly be seen to have 'Starbug' written on it in
mirror-writing; ie. the film has been reversed.
Legion (6-2)
- Lister mouths the Cat's line as he says it. ('The whole panel's
deader than A-line flares with pockets in the knees.')
- In the scene where Legion stabs his left hand, causing everyone to
grab and shake their left hands, Lister grabs and shakes his right hand.
- When Rimmer extracts his own Light Bee, where does it go? All trace of
Rimmer just disappears.
- After Legion gets hit, for a brief second his real face can be seen as
he adjusts his mask.
Gunmen Of The Apocalypse (6-3)
- The bullets that hit the ground are perfectly formed and not violently
mutilated as they should have been by the impact with the other bullets.
- The other two bullets (four were fired) are not heard to fall or are
heard of ever again.
- Lister again mouths the Cat's lines as he says them. ('...lying
cartoons.' 'Why not?')
Rimmerworld (6-5)
- When 'Rimmer' kisses his concubine, the shot shows that the concubine
is kissing a woman.
- Lister again mouths the Cat's lines as he says them. ('All in all a
hundred per cent successful trip.' 'Form an orderly queue behind the
gunsight.')
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.63 SMEG UPS TAPE
- In the Smeg Up for Meltdown (4-6) that was tossed because of the noise
in the air, the print would have been useless anyway because glimpses of
the backstage crewmembers are seen in the background.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.67 SMEG OUTS TAPE
- The smeg out from Queeg (2-5) where Rimmer flubs his line 'I'm lucky I
can keep my legs on with you in charge' contains a prior smeg out which
would have made the footage useless anyway. In the line immediately before,
Holly says, 'All right, keep your hair on,' without moving his lips.
- In Question 10, the conversation total statement is wrongly attributed
to Future Echoes (1-2) when in fact it comes from Balance Of Power (1-3).
[El Skutto says: This is actually my fault because I didn't pick up this
error in time for the PIP edition that went to GN for the Smeg Outs.]
- In Question 8, Kryten says that in DNA (4-2) it's mentioned that
Rimmer failed his astronavigation exam 13 times. This statement was
actually made in the episode Justice (4-3), not DNA.
- In Question 6, Kryten says that people who speak Esperanto are referred
to as Esperantinos throughout the first series. The Esperantino/Esperantist
question is only raised in the episode 'Kryten,' which is the first
of Series 2.
- In Question 4, Kryten says that Lister said to Rimmer 'You're
beginning to sound like my Mum.' Lister actually said this to Kryten
(Kryten, 2-1). If we want to be really picky, Kryten also said that
Lister asserts he was abandoned at birth. Lister actually says that he
was six weeks old when abandoned (The Last Day, 3-6).
- In Question 3, Lister says that he did tear out page 61 of Lolita (not
page 60) because he was holding the book upside-down. A quick look at
Marooned (3-2) shows that he was indeed holding the book right side up,
and therefore must have torn out page 60.
- In Question 1, Kryten says that his 'all human cells contain DNA'
statement comes from 'episode four, series two.' This would be Stasis
Leak, and Kryten wasn't even in this. The episode was DNA (4-2) --
Kryten has misread the episode notation for the question as
(episode-series) instead of, correctly, as (series-episode).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
==============================================================================
4.0 ADDITIONS, CORRECTIONS, OR CONTRIBUTIONS TO PIP
I doubt this list can ever be comprehensive. If you have an
inconsistency, resolution, or other input about the PIP, please address
your e-mail to: [email protected]
When you write your e-mail, please contain 'PIP' as the subject line, or
reply to this if this is the USENET posting. E-mail is preferred. Please
limit your contributions to one message a day. Include as much information as
possible about the episode in which the inconsistency occurs, as well as
other episodes you may refer to in your post (i.e. use episode numbers
PLEASE). You may include as much information as you want in that one
message, however.
Do not be offended if I do not write back to you, as my mail volume is
pretty high. If I use anything, you will be included in the
Acknowledgements section. I have gotten better at getting back to
everyone, though, and most likely will reply to all e-mails now. If you
are going to be derogatory and hostile, do not expect a reply, but be
assured you will make my mail filter in record time.
All book/series references are gone. They are too much completely
different entities to be included together. While Grant Naylor may have
forgotten which plot they were working with at the time, this project
will not, and will stay only with series/series contradictions. If any
foolish person wishes to do book/series, I've got some stuff you could
probably use. For those looking for book/book inconsistencies, please see
the Book Plot Inconsistencies Project (BPIP), by El Skutto.
==============================================================================
5.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost to:
*** El Skutto ***
...who pretty much did all of the research and writing for the first
version and got this thing off the ground and hopelessly lost in space.
(Thanks Damone for putting up with my nagging so well -- El Skutto.)
She is also the author of the Book Plot Inconsistencies Project
(BPIP), the Red Dwarf References List (RDRL), and the Red Dwarf Fishlist.
Check them out on an internet near you. And you thought you had too much
free time?
Honorable mention as 'Annoying Aussie Of The Year' goes to:
*** Matt Dawson ***
...who pretty much sent me volumes and volumes of plot errors from all of
the episodes whether I wanted them or not, in a coordinated attempt with
another Aussie (who shall remain nameless) to drive me completely insane.
The 'Iron-Man Awards For HTML Conversion' go to:
*** Michael Nagy ***
*** Dave Williamson ***
*** Friday ***
... who convert all the new versions into HTML format at their wonderful
little web pages and save me more nightmares and heartaches.
BUT...
Without the help of these wonderful people, this never would have been:
(Those bound in stars were dedicated workers for this project, viewing
entire series to find inconsistencies, and helping with the beta-ing of the
PIP.)
Helen Bates
Beorahood
BertGordon
Andrew Blume
Edward Buckley
The Cat
CherStrand
*Cma*
Miffy Coghill
David Coombes
Oliver A. Corrigan
Charles Daniels
Brenda Daverin
Dion
John Doyle
Elliedra
Ben Erickson
Gareth Evans
Vicky Evans
Fraser
Friday
Jackie Fuchs
David L. Gilbert
Theodore Graham
Richard Greene
Eric Haas
Holly 512
*Nick Honeywell*
Steve Howell
Graeme Jefferis
Coran Jones
Paul Jones
JJ Flash
Jonathan Kallay
Kevin
Martin King
Christopher M. Kribs
Chris Kuan
Legion
*Lizbeth*
Bette Llewellyn
Lisa Manekofsky
Ned Martell
Tony Martin
Tom Marwede
Dave McRae
Yossef Mendelssohn
Michael Micallef
Sami Mikhail
Mark Moir
Glen Montgomery
*Craig O'Neil*
Chris Nielsen
Boris Pelakh
James Peterson
Will A. Phillips
Todd Pinarchick
Raz
Jill Rhodes
Jim Richards
Eric Rochkind
Alan Salt
Jeremy Schroeder
Barny Shergold
Nick Sim
Daniel Snyder
Charles Sundt
Eddie Talbut
*Maggie Thomas*
John Tudek
Daniel Vasconcelos
Jamie Watson
Lee Weinert
Craig Young
Zanndraa
... and to all I may have missed. Please e-mail me so I may rectify the
error.
... and of course, to Grant Naylor, who really made it all possible (and
who now have a copy of this thing apparently). Not only that, they put
El Skutto and myself in the credits of the 'Smeg Outs' video. To wit:
SPECIAL THANKS TO
DAMONE & EL SKUTTO
FOR PLOT INCONSISTENCIES
INFORMATION
==============================================================================
6.0 CONCLUSION
That's it. Go home.
There are groups of small, yellow fish eating my feet,
Damone.
[email protected]
==============================================================================
