Thursday, 1 November 2012
Season 2 Episode 3 Thanks for the Memory.
RED DWARF Series II Episode 3, "Thanks for the Memory"
1 Ext. View of space.
HOLLY: (In space) Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red
Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold
Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved
from the ship's cat. Message ends.
(Reappearing) Additional: supplies are plentiful. We have enough food
and drink to last 30,000 years, although we have run out of Shake n'
Vac.
Additional additional: Last week we found a planet with a breathable
atmosphere.
2 Ext. Barren planet.
We see the surface of a bleak planet with a sun and stars in the
background and pan across it to where there appears to be a rock concert
in progress. LISTER and the CAT are playing and dancing exuberantly.
LISTER has a guitar and the skutters are playing on keyboards. RIMMER is
in a structure labelled "Hologrammatic Projection Cage" and seems to be
enjoying it.
HOLLY: We're grooving tonight! Ahead groove factor five. Yeah! (A
disco type light starts flashing under his monitor.)
LISTER: Hang on everybody, hang on!
LISTER stops playing and the music carries on. He goes to take a pan off
the fire and turns off the music.
LISTER: The sausages are done.
HOLLY: It's the business innit? It's nice to get out once in a while,
stretch your cables.
RIMMER: (Very slurred) I can't understand it. I've had so much to drink
and it hasn't even afflicted me. I'm not in the least bit tiddly.
LISTER: Oh yeah? Why are you dancing then?
CAT: Ha! You call that dancing? I've seen people on fire move better
than that!
HOLLY: We'd better be going. The moons'll be setting in a bit.
LISTER: Whoa, Whoa! OK then! A toast. (Raises cup.) Gentlemen, and
skutters, we are gathered here today to celebrate the anniversery of Mr
Arnold Rimmer's death.
RIMMER: (Belches and looks ill.) Right on baby.
LISTER: And for this very special occasion I have baked -- a cake.
LISTER uncovers the cake. It is covered in icing, with a candle in the
middle.
HOLLY: What's that then?
LISTER: It's in the shape of a spanner, Holly, cos he was a technician.
HOLLY: Well that's very apt that is. If he'd been a postman you'd have
baked it in the shape of an envelope I suppose?
LISTER: Yeah!
HOLLY: Gordon Bennett! It's lucky he's not a gynaecologist.
LISTER: To Rimmer! (Raises cup at arms length.)
RIMMER: To me!
RIMMER mimes drinking a glass of something and appears to get a kick from
it. They all start singing. RIMMER is a bit unsure of the words,
probably due to his state of inebriation.
ALL: Happy deathday to you! happy deathday to you! Happy deathday, dear
Rimmer! Happy deathday to you!
Back in one of the Blue Midgets, LISTER is trying to get it moving.
ALL: (Singing) Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to
bed...
We see them from the outside flying off into space towards RED DWARF.
RIMMER: Are you sure you're alright to drive this?
LISTER: Yeah. (Suddenly sliping it into reverse) Oops!
ALL: I had a little drink about an hour ago to celebrate Rimmer's death.
(Breakdown into laughter.)
3 Int. Sleeping quarters.
The crew is now back on RED DWARF. RIMMER is sprawled out on his bunk
and LISTER is doing a jigsaw.
LISTER: What time is it?
RIMMER crawls unsteadily to the clock and peers at it blearily. He is
clearly suffering the awful after-effects of drinking.
RIMMER: Saturday.
LISTER: Is that the best you can do?
RIMMER: There are some numbers next to it, but they could be anything.
LISTER: Do you know what I fancy right now?
RIMMER: A big, fat woman with thighs the size of a hippo's.
LISTER: No, I want a triple fried egg butty with chili sauce and chutney.
RIMMER: (Managing to sit down in a chair.) Me too.
LISTER: Well no problem then. Nothing's too good for the deathday boy.
RIMMER: Correct! (Punches air.)
LISTER: Hol, Hol!
HOLLY appears on screen with a nightcap on.
LISTER: Hol, give us something to eat.
HOLLY: You what? I'm jiggered man.
LISTER: Oh come on. You don't sleep.
HOLLY: Course I do. I've got to offline. I can't keep up my full tilt,
full power, red hot, maximum pace all the time. I've got to take the
odd breather, haven't I?
RIMMER: I want a triple fried egg sandwich with ...
LISTER: With chili sauce and chutney.
HOLLY: You what?
LISTER: It's a state of the art sarny.
HOLLY: It's the state of the floor I'm worried about. Alright, OK.
RIMMER holds up his hand and the much discussed food item appears in it.
LISTER: Wow, trust me!
RIMMER takes a bite and a succession of expressions are seen on his face.
He ends up at something like a mixture of pain, horror and shock. He may
be drunk but he's still got pain receptors.
RIMMER: I feel like I'm having a baby!
LISTER: It's good innit?
RIMMER: It's incredible. Where did you get the recipe from?
LISTER: I can't remember. I think it was a book on bacteriological
warfare.
RIMMER: It's like a cross between food and bowel surgery.
LISTER: (Nodding) It's well naughty. The trouble is you've got to eat it
before the bread dissolves.
RIMMER: I could never invent a sandwich like this, Lister. You see all
the ingredients are wrong. The fried eggs: wrong; the chutney:
wrong. The chili sauce: all wrong. But put them together and somehow
it works. It becomes right. It's you -- this sandwich, Lister, is
you.
LISTER: What are you saying to me, Rimmer?
RIMMER: You're wrong, right? All your ingredients are wrong. You're
slobby, you've got no sense of discipline, you're the only man ever to
get his money back from the Odour Eater people, but people like you,
don't you see? That's why you're a fried egg, chili, chutney sandwich.
Now me ... now me ... All the ingredients are right. I'm disciplined,
I'm organised, I'm dedicated to my career, I've always got a pen.
Result? Total smeghead despised by everyone except the ship's parrot.
And that's only because we haven't got one. Why? Why is that?
LISTER: I suppose it's because you ARE a total smeghead.
RIMMER: But I'm not! I'm a nice guy -- I'm a goodie.
LISTER: No, Rimmer, see the trouble is you've never got time for people.
You're too busy trying to be successful. It's all midnight revision
and up, up, up the ziggurat lickety spit. (Salutes in a silly way.)
RIMMER: I have got time for people. What about all the time I spent
licking up to Todhunter even though he was a total gimp? And Captain
Hollister? Mr fat bastard 2044. I went out of my way to simp around
him.
LISTER: Rimmer, that's not having time for people.
During the following exchange they speak faster and end up both speaking
at the same time until LISTER interjects forcefully.
RIMMER: Do you know how many times in my entire life I made love?
LISTER: No, and I don't want to know.
RIMMER: I want to tell you.
LISTER: I don't want to know.
RIMMER: No, but I want to tell you.
LISTER: No, I don't want to know.
RIMMER: I want to tell you. I'm going... I am going to tell you. I want
to tell you.
LISTER: (Forcefully) Listen! Listen, Rimmer. If you tell me, right,
you'll wake up in the morning. You'll have your hang over and you'll
feel like death and you'll walk up to the mirror and you'll look in the
mirror and you'll remember and you'll go, "Ahahahahah!!" (Sticks his
fist in his mouth.) See it's not worth it, I don't want to know and
believe me you don't want to tell me.
RIMMER: (Holds up one finger.) Once.
LISTER: Smeg!
RIMMER: One time only.
LISTER: (With ears covered) Don't tell me this, Rimmer. You'll want to
kill yourself in the morning.
RIMMER: Yvonne McGruder. A single, brief liason with the ship's female
boxing champion. March the sixteenth, seven thirty one PM to seven
forty three PM.
LISTER: Please.
RIMMER: Twelve minutes.
LISTER: (Losing patience) Please!
RIMMER: And that includes the time it took to eat the pizza.
LISTER: Please, Rimmer!
RIMMER: In my entire life I have spent more time being sick.
LISTER: So, I mean, you haven't met the right girl yet.
RIMMER: (With overdone sarcasm) No, I haven't, Lister. I haven't met the
right girl and some just might say, (wags finger) given the fact that
the human race no longer exists, coupled with the fact that I have
passed on, some just might say that I'm leaving it a little bit on the
late side.
LISTER: Well you made a decision, didn't you? I mean you chose your
career over your personal life.
RIMMER: Yes, I did. I did, didn't I? Pearls of wisdom there from Mr
fried egg, chili, chutney, sandwich face. (Seriously) Well, I'll tell
you something, Lister. I'll tell you something. I'd trade it all in
-- all of it. My pips, my long-service medals, my swimming
certificates, my telescope, my shoe trees. I'd trade everything in to
be loved and to have been loved.
LISTER is still fiddling with the jigsaw but it's obvious that RIMMER's
speech has touched a chord.
RIMMER: (Starts singing in a reedy voice in a pathetic kind of way) I'm a
little lamb, lost in the wood, maybe I could, really be good, with
someone to watch over me.
RIMMER goes and lies down on his bunk. LISTER watches him.
RIMMER: That was going to be our song. But I never found anyone to share
it with. So now it's just MY song.
LISTER: (Fiddling with jigsaw) Another bit of sky, that's a star.
RIMMER starts making high pitched crying type noises. LISTER gets up and
leaves.
4 Ext. Red Dwarf. Establishing.
5 Int. Sleeping quarters. The next morning.
LISTER is asleep in the top bunk. We descend to see RIMMER, in his "home
sweet home" pajamas, wake up. RIMMER gets up and start doing his
exercises to music provided by himself. Suddenly, memories of the
previous night come flooding back. He sees a picture of him drinking,
but carries on exercising. He sees himself eating the sandwich and
shrugs. He then remembers talking with LISTER: he stops, raises one
finger and sticks his fist in his mouth. He sits back down on the bunk
with an anguished look.
LISTER: Ah, me foot! I must have gone to sleep on it! Oooh!
RIMMER: (Jumps up) Gah! you were really putting it away last night,
Lister. You really fell for my joke, didn't you?
LISTER: Oh god, it's agony!
RIMMER: Ah, that McGruder gag -- fancy falling for that, eh? (Pause)
I'll give you my telescope, anything. Please god, don't tell anyone.
LISTER groans and pulls away the blanket. He discovers that his foot is
in plaster. They both look shocked.
LISTER: Have you done that?
RIMMER: When did you do that?
LISTER: I didn't! I just went to bed and I've woken up with this.
RIMMER: When did you finish the jigsaw?
LISTER: I didn't.
HOLLY comes on the screen looking a bit cross.
HOLLY: Oi. Whose been messing with my star charts! Here I am trying to
do the comprehensive, nay, definitive A-Z of the entire universe with
street names, post offices, and little steeples and everything and some
git's been fiddling with it.
LISTER: It's not us!
The CAT storms in.
CAT: OK, which one of you chimpanzees did this?
CAT puts a foot on the table and points at it. It is also in plaster.
HOLLY: Look there's a perfectly logical explanation for everything. With
the possible exception of little Jimmy Osmond.
RIMMER: Who?
LISTER: Hang on, today's Sunday, right?
RIMMER: So?
LISTER: Well, this clock; this clock says, "Thursday," and that clock
says, "Thursday."
CAT: And my foot says, "Get the person who did this to my foot."
LISTER: (Looks through a book) Four pages have been torn out of my diary.
RIMMER snaps his fingers and points around the room.
RIMMER: Somehow we've lost the last four days.
CAT: Did you look behind the fridge? If you lose something it's nearly
always there.
RIMMER: Aliens!
LISTER: What?
CAT: What are you talking about, grease stain?
RIMMER: It's a well documented phenomenon. They kidnap you, give you a
mind probe, erase your memory, and put you back.
LISTER: OK, aliens came aboard.
RIMMER: Without question.
LISTER: They broke my leg.
RIMMER: For some reason.
CAT: They broke MY leg.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: And then they did a jigsaw.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: Well, that's cleared that up then.
RIMMER: Look, you're not thinking alien. That's what aliens are: alien.
They do alien things. Things that are... (shrugs) alien. Maybe this
is the way they communicate.
CAT: By breaking legs?
LISTER: And doing jigsaws?
RIMMER: Why should they speak the way we do? They're aliens.
LISTER: OK, professor, what does it mean?
RIMMER: Maybe, maybe, OK? Breaking your leg hurts like hell, OK? "Hel."
They do it below the knee, "lo." "Hel-lo," gettit? They do it twice --
twice, "two." "Hello two." And the jigsaw must mean "you." "Hello to
you."
CAT: I wouldn't like to be around when one of these suckers is making a
speech! (He limps out.)
LISTER: Hang on -- the black box. Holly, the black box will have
recorded everything won't it?
HOLLY: Yeah, hang on -- I'll fish it out. (His image disappears briefly
and reappears.) It's gone! It's been half-inched. Wait a minute let
me think about this. It gives off a signal. We can trace it.
6 Ext. Model shot.
Pan past the Blue Midget, making a funny noise.
7 Int. Blue Midget.
We go inside to join RIMMER, LISTER and the CAT.
LISTER: It's the gearbox, man. I'm telling you.
RIMMER: Nothing yet.
LISTER: This is impossible. It could be anywhere. It's like trying to
find a fart in a jacuzzi.
RIMMER: Look! Down there on that moon.
They stare at the screen.
8 Ext. Barren planet.
We draw in closer to a bleak landscape. We see LISTER and the CAT
walking on it.
LISTER: Are you getting a picture now?
RIMMER: Yeah but the quality's terrible. It's like watching Spanish
television.
LISTER: Oh my god!
CAT: What the hell is that?
LISTER: Smegorama!
Err, HOLLY! Errm, start the engines, warm her up. Keep her ticking
over, yeah?
RIMMER: Err, what is it?
LISTER: It's a footprint the size of a surfboard.
CAT: (Measuring it out.) I don't believe the size of these feet. Can you
imagine the problems this guy must have trying to get fashionable
shoes?
LISTER: I wonder if it's true what they about the size of your feet? I
mean, if it is this guy could probably go to a fancy dress party as a
petrol pump.
RIMMER: I think you should come back.
LISTER: There's more of them. They lead round this corner.
RIMMER: So, a surfboard-foot sized monster came aboard, did a jigsaw,
drained our memories and broke a couple of legs. So what? "Forgive
and forget" is what I say.
LISTER: This I don't believe! It's a gravestone. (Reading it) "To the
memory..." (trying to make it out) "To the memory of Lise Yates."
RIMMER: Who's Lise Yates?
LISTER: You're not going to believe this, but I used to go out with a
girl called Lise Yates. It's only shallow, the black box is buried in
the grave. (He picks it up.)
9 Int. Blue Midget.
They open the box and remove the recording.
HOLLY: Right, it's loaded.
LISTER: Well play it, sam.
The words "Black Box Recording, Jupiter Mining Corporation Ship Red
Dwarf" come on screen followed by HOLLY.
HOLLY: Nice looking bloke.
TAPE: I don't know whether anyone will ever find this, but if they do and
it's you Dave, or you Arnold, don't ever play it. Some things are best
left buried.
LISTER: Why have you frozen him, Hol?
HOLLY: You heard what he said. Knows what he's talking about, that dude.
LISTER: Come on, Hol, from Saturday night.
HOLLY plays the recording and RIMMER appears telling LISTER how many
times in his life he's made love. The CAT looks interested.
RIMMER: Yes, well we all remember this bit. Spin on, spin on, spin on!
The recording goes into fast forward. The CAT is disappointed. He
signals to LISTER behind RIMMER's back.
CAT: (Silently) How many?
LISTER: (Silently, pointing at RIMMER) Him?
CAT: (Silently) Yes!
LISTER: (Silently) No, no.
The CAT makes a "Tell me" kind of gesture. LISTER laughs and holds up
one finger. So does the CAT and points at RIMMER who is oblivious of the
whole thing, he's staring at the screen.
CAT: (Silently) Him. (Loudly) That Many?
LISTER and the CAT look busy with the controls as RIMMER turns to glare
at them. The recording has reached the point where RIMMER is making sad
noises, just after his singing. On screen we see LISTER leave.
10 Int. Red Dwarf corridor. We are now in flashback mode. The flashing word
REPLAY appears at the top right of the screen. We see LISTER walking down
a corridor towards camera with the CAT who has a hair net on.
CAT: This better be good. I was sleeping, and sleeping's my third
favourite thing! And you come and wake me up this time of night.
They walk into a square room with wall to wall monitors, on which various
pictures of Arnie can be seen. A sign on the door reads, "No
unauthorised entry."
CAT: What is this place?
LISTER: It's the hologram simulation suite. This is the room that
creates Rimmer.
CAT: Have we come to blow this room up?
LISTER: Look, those are his dreams and everything there. (Fiddles with
controls.) Look, that's what he's dreaming right at the moment.
We see RIMMER in a top hat and dinner jacket carrying a cane and singing
the song he sang earlier. We pull back to see he has no trousers on.
The watchers laugh.
LISTER: I'm going to give Rimmer the best present he will ever get.
LISTER takes of his hat and puts on a helmet connected to the console by
a wire. He starts typing at the console and sees the word LOADING come
up on the screen.
CAT: What are you doing with that?
LISTER: I'm recording my memory.
CAT: Your entire memory?
LISTER: Yeah, everything. Everywhere I've been, everything I've learnt,
my entire knowledge. (The words LOADING COMPLETE come up almost
instantly.) Right, that's it. (He takes off the helmet.) I'm going to
give Rimmer a love affair. I'm going to take eight months out of my
memory and I'm going to paste it into his. So everything that's
happened to me he's going to think happened to him.
CAT: You're going to give him one of your old girlfriends?
LISTER: I'm going to give him Lise Yates.
LISTER presses more keys and they stare at the screen. LISTER covers the
CAT's eyes but he takes the hand away. A rather pretty woman is on
screen running and laughing. She dives to the ground.
YATES: God, I love you Dave, I love you so much.
LISTER: (On memory recording) And I love you Lise.
LISTER: A few minor adjustments. (Presses some keys and the scene
replays.)
YATES: God, I love you Rimmer, I love you so much.
LISTER: (On memory recording) And I love you Lise.
LISTER: Change the voice. (Presses more keys and we see it again.)
YATES: God, I love you Rimmer, I love you so much.
RIMMER: (On memory recording) And I love you Lise.
LISTER: And that's it.
CAT: And when he wakes up he'll think all this happened to him?
LISTER: Yeah, the whole eight months.
CAT: Man, that's a fine present. (LISTER nods.) He was probably only
expecting a tie.
LISTER keeps keying, we see RIMMER asleep and enter his dreams via a
heart shaped zoom. He is walking with Lise, drinking from a beer can and
smoking. He looks a real slob. RIMMER wakes, looking happy. He goes to
sleep again.
Some time later LISTER hears music, jumps in the air, and clicks his
heels. He walks into the room to see RIMMER dancing to the music.
LISTER: You're in a good mood.
RIMMER: Why not Listy? When life's so good? (He makes A-OK sign and
snaps his fingers.)
RIMMER seems to have changed somehow. He seems more normal and less like
the RIMMER we all know. For one thing his shirt is crumpled and
unbuttoned. He seems relaxed and confident.
LISTER: Why is life so good? (Opens a beer.)
RIMMER: (Lying on bunk) You wouldn't understand, Lister, you've never
been in love.
LISTER: I have!
RIMMER: Oh, not real love, Lister, not like I have. Not fireworks-in-
the-sky, from-here-to-eternity, rolling-naked-on-the-beach kind of
love. Not like me and Lise.
LISTER: So, who's Lise? (Smiles to himself.)
RIMMER: Never you mind, Lister. Someone who was absolutely nuts about
me, that's all you need to know.
LISTER: Fine, if you want to keep it to yourself.
RIMMER: All I'm saying is, from now on call me "Tiger." (Growls.)
LISTER: An old girlfriend, was she? Tiger.
RIMMER: (Gets up.) What a crazy, crazy year that was. The first three
months I was at Saturn Tech doing a maintenance course. Then for
absolutely no reason I suddenly moved to Liverpool. I drank too much,
I smoked too much, I became a total slob. I met Lise, of course. I
even started to eat my own toenail clippings.
Behind him LISTER is doing this as RIMMER speaks, but doesn't seem to
notice.
RIMMER: My tastes in music radically changed. I stopped adoring
Mantovani and got into Rastabilly Skank. Crazy!
LISTER: Well, you know, you were in love. You go a bit crazy.
RIMMER: It was weird. I was absolutely nuts about her but yet I started
to treat her really badly.
LISTER: No you didn't!
RIMMER: I did! I started to give her some wishy washy twaddle about not
wanting to get tied down.
LISTER: But you were young! You didn't want to settle down. You wanted
to bum around and have a laugh.
RIMMER: But I hate bumming around and having a laugh.
LISTER: But that's what you're like when you're young.
RIMMER: But I wasn't like that when I was young, so why did I say those
things?
LISTER: But, I mean, she wanted you to have a career. (Spits out the
word career.)
RIMMER: That's what I'd always dreamt of, so why did I finish it with
her?
LISTER: Because, you wanted to play the field.
RIMMER: That's right. I told her I wanted to play the field.
(Wistfully) I told her that. I must have been mad. She was great and
she thought I was great.
LISTER: (With a strange look) Yeah, man, you're right. You were mad.
RIMMER: She was a lover and a friend.
LISTER: And beautiful.
RIMMER: Gorgeous.
LISTER: Great sense of humour.
RIMMER: Terrific.
LISTER: The sex was fantastic.
RIMMER: Amazing sex.
LISTER: Brilliant sex.
RIMMER: Oh, primo dynamite sex!
LISTER: Fantastic sex! Stupendous sex!
RIMMER: Lister!
LISTER: The way she used to-- Oh...
RIMMER: Lister!
LISTER: Oh, sex. Brilliant sex.
RIMMER: Lister, Lister! How do you know?
LISTER: I'm just having a guess.
11 Int. Blue Midget.
We come out of flashback. The crew are watching the recording.
RIMMER: (On the tape) Kindly don't. No one will ever know how beautiful
the relationship between me and Lise Yates was.
RIMMER: How could you do this to me? It's the most heart breakingly
tragic thing it's ever been my misfortune to witness.
CAT: Popcorn? (Offers it to RIMMER who declines but LISTER takes some.)
LISTER: Look, I'm sorry, man. I mean, obviously I thought I was doing
you a favour.
HOLLY: (Appearing on a monitor) What's all this got to do with jigsaws,
broken legs, and Godzilla-size footprints, eh?
LISTER shakes his head in bewilderment.
12 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
We go into flashback again. The word REPLAY appears on screen as it did
last time. On the recording we see RIMMER striding angrily down a
corridor punching the air. He walks into the room where LISTER is again
working on the jigsaw.
RIMMER: Right, smeg brain, prepare to die!
LISTER: Eh?
RIMMER: I found the letters.
LISTER: What letters?
RIMMER: Don't give me "What letters?" The letters.
LISTER: WHAT letters?
RIMMER: You went out with Lise Yates too. I found the letters she sent
you.
LISTER: Oh, smeg!
RIMMER: All the time she was going out with me she must have been seeing
you as well, behind my back. And what is more, to pour salt into the
wound, you used to take her to the exact same places I used to take her
and do the exact same things.
LISTER: Rimmer, it's not what it looks like.
RIMMER: That woman is unbelievable. We spent a night in a hotel in
Southport and made love six times. According to her letter you were in
the exact same hotel and you made love six times too.
LISTER: Listen.
RIMMER: Twelve times a night? What is wrong with the woman? She's sex
mad!
LISTER: Listen!
RIMMER: It's a good job you were there. If I'd been on my own I'd have
been dead within a week. But it doesn't make sense. I mean, she loved
me.
LISTER: Listen, listen. She wasn't going out with us both at the same
time.
RIMMER: Come on, I've checked the dates.
LISTER: She wasn't going out with you at all.
RIMMER: She ... She didn't go out with me at all?
LISTER: No, you've never even met her.
RIMMER: Is that the best you can do, Lister? That's below feeble.
LISTER: I went down to the hologram simulation suite and I gave you eight
months of my memory.
RIMMER: What?
LISTER: It was a present.
RIMMER: You gave me eight months of your memory, as a present?
LISTER: (Nodding) Yeah.
RIMMER: That's why I was an orphan, even though my parents were alive.
That's why I had my appendix out ... twice.
LISTER: I thought it was what you needed.
RIMMER: You've destroyed me, Lister. The woman I loved most in the whole
world didn't love me, she loved you.
LISTER: Rimmer, listen. (RIMMER leaves silently.) Rimmer, listen.
Rimmer! Oh Smeg! (He goes to sit down at the jigsaw looking upset.)
CAT: You should have bought him a tie.
13 Int. Observation dome.
RIMMER is standing alone in the observation dome, staring into space.
LISTER climbs the stairs to join him.
LISTER: Come on, Rimmer, you've experienced love. It made you more
confident, more secure.
RIMMER: It didn't happen. I never even met her.
LISTER: It did happen. I mean, you fell in love with her in a way I
never did. She's yours now and nothing can take her away from you.
RIMMER: That time she stuck her tongue down my ear. It wasn't my ear at
all -- it was your ear. The woman I loved most in the whole world had
her tongue down your ear. The most romantic thing I've ever had down
my ear is a Johnson's baby bud.
LISTER: Come on, as far as you're concerned you had a love affair, right?
Which was wonderful, yeah? And for some reason that you can't
understand it all went hideously wrong. Well, so what? Join the club,
bucko. It's just you, me, and everybody else in the world.
RIMMER: I don't want to feel like this any more.
LISTER: So, so you're in pain, yeah? I know, but Rimmer, if you go
through life without feeling, if you go through life never
experiencing, you're no better than a jellyfish. No better than a bank
manager.
RIMMER: I don't want this feeling any more. I want my own memory back.
LISTER: OK, OK, OK. I'll erase the last four days. The incident will
never have happened.
RIMMER: But you'll know about it!
LISTER: Well I'll erase my memory from Sunday too.
RIMMER: And the Cat's and Holly's.
LISTER: Fine, if they agree.
RIMMER: And what about the black box.
LISTER: (Sighs.) I'll destroy it.
RIMMER: It's indestructible.
LISTER: OK, I'll shoot it off into space.
RIMMER: Someone might find it.
LISTER: OK, OK. We'll bury it. We'll bury it on some planet, yeah?
14 Ext. Barren planet.
The same bleak landscape as before appears before us. We see the black
box buried in its shallow grave. RIMMER is watching as LISTER and the
CAT carry a large slab.
LISTER: I'm going to drop it, I'm going to drop it! Put it down man, put
it down! (They drop the stone heavily.)
CAT: Why does he want a grave stone?
LISTER: He said he just wanted something somewhere. So it didn't, like,
disappear.
They pick up the stone again and carry it on a bit. The crater it left
behind looks rather like a footprint. After a short time they drop it
again and this time it lands on their feet.
LISTER: Aaaagggghh! My foot! I've broken my foot! It's broken!
CAT: Help me find my toes.
15 Ext. Blue Midget.
Jetting back to RED DWARF.
16 Int. Sleeping Quarters.
We are still in flashback. RIMMER is lying on the bunk. LISTER and the
CAT enter. LISTER looks tired.
LISTER: OK, that's it. (He picks up his diary and tears out some pages.)
Let's go and erase our memories.
They all troop out, or limp out in some cases. LISTER stops and puts the
final piece into the jigsaw. The picture is of the RED DWARF in space.
We zoom into it.
The End
Credits:
Rimmer Chris Barrie
Lister Craig Charles
Cat Danny John-Jules
Holly Norman Lovett
With:
Lise Yates Sabra Williams
Written By Rob Grant
Doug Naylor
Music Howard Goodall
Graphic Designer Mark Allen
Unit Manager Kelvin Jones
Associate Producer Ann Zahl
OB Lighting David Parker
Vision Supervisor John Battye
Technical Coordinator Andrew Cowley
Camera Supervisor Melvyn Cross
Vision Mixer Jill Dornan
Prop Buyer Mike Fallon
Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg
Videotape Editor Ed Wooden
Production Team Helen Campbell
Kate Preston
Assistant Floor Manager Dona DiStefano
Production Assistant Anna Staniland
Production Manager Mike Agnew
Costume Designer Jacki Pinks
Make-Up Designer Bethan Jones
Sound Supervisor Tony Worthington
Lighting Director John Pomfrey
Designer Paul Montague
Executive Producer Paul Jackson
Produced and Directed By Ed Bye
Season 2 Episode 2 Better Than Life
RED DWARF Series II Episode 2, "Better Than Life"
1 Ext. View of space.
HOLLY: (In space) Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red
Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold
Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved
from the ship's cat. Message ends.
(Reappearing) Additional: Loneliness weighs heavily on us all.
Personally the only thing that keeps me going is the thought that we
are over sixty billion miles away from the nearest Berni Inn.
2 Ext. Red Dwarf.
A rocket powered metal cylinder approaches RED DWARF from the depths of
space. Cut to inside where LISTER has a medical problem. He is holding
a bottle of liquid to help a bad stomach.
LISTER: (Reading the bottle) "For a mild stomach upset take one
teaspoonful. For acute indigestion take two."
LISTER considers, takes the spoon out of his mouth and throws it away.
Then he empties most of the bottle into a glass and starts gulping it.
RIMMER enters, dressed as a chef.
RIMMER: Well, a highly enjoyable meal all round. Obviously you can't
expect perfection first time but I was quite delighted with the way my
dumplings went down.
LISTER: Rimmer, real dumplings, proper dumplings when they're properly
cooked to perfection, proper dumplings, should not bounce.
RIMMER: True, but compared to what I thought they were going to be like
they were quite superb.
LISTER: So how's the Cat?
RIMMER: He's just sleeping off the stomach pump. He'll be alright. The
lamb was a bit of a flop though.
LISTER: The lamb? Everybody thought the lamb was the cheese and that
lemon meringue pie, man, what was in that?
RIMMER: I thought you liked that, you brought some back.
LISTER: Yeah, I wanted to try some on my athlete's foot.
RIMMER: It's not easy, Lister, cooking. When you're dead, when you don't
exist, when you're made entirely of light.
LISTER: That's your excuse for everything isn't it -- being dead?
RIMMER: I'm just trying to rehabilitate myself, trying to do the
everyday, normal things that most living people take for granted.
LISTER: You've got the skutters to help you.
RIMMER: What? Pinky and smeggy Perky? What use are they? It's like
giving Blind Pew contact lenses.
LISTER: They only do what you tell them to.
RIMMER: Ah, but they don't do they? You say, "Keep an eye on that lamb,"
and they do. They sit there for three hours and watch it burn.
LISTER: So. They've got no emotion have they? It's not built into their
software.
RIMMER: Have you seen their broom cupboard? it's full of pin-ups of John
Wayne. That cannot be right can it? (Indicating shoulder height)
Piled this high with Film Fun magazines. It's not the way spanners
behave in my book.
HOLLY appears on the screen and breaks in.
HOLLY: Oi. What's happening dudes?
LISTER: Hi, Hol.
HOLLY: Guess what?
RIMMER: What?
HOLLY: Go on, have a guess.
RIMMER: What is it vaguely about?
HOLLY: No clues, just have a guess.
RIMMER and LISTER look exasperated. LISTER covers his face.
HOLLY: I knew you wouldn't get it. Post pod's arrived.
RIMMER: What, the mail?
HOLLY: It's been tracking us since we left Earth. Now we've turned round
it's caught up.
LISTER: Do you mean it's taken 3 million years.
HOLLY: Yeah, that's about average for second class post.
3 Int. Corridor.
The skutters are racing around the corridors. One is wearing an Indian
headdress and is being chased by another in a cowboy hat firing a gun.
LISTER and RIMMER walk past.
RIMMER: See what I mean? (Makes Indian warcry.)
4 Int. Mail room.
The pod has been opened. Piles and piles of mail are lying around. The
arm of a skutter takes one from the John Wayne fan club addressed to "The
Skutters, Red Dwarf, Deep Space, RE1 3DW" and disappears.
RIMMER: There's everything here, all the mail, entertainment cassettes, a
new batch of movies.
LISTER: Oh! The new Friday the 13th movie -- Friday the 13th part one
thousand six hundred and forty nine.
RIMMER: Look, Cassablanca! They've re-made Cassablanca!
LISTER: Philistines. I mean how can you re-make Cassablanca? The one
starring Myra Dinglebat and Peter Beardsley was definitive.
HOLLY: I saw that one -- knockout! "Of all the space bars on all the
worlds you had to re-materialise in mine."
RIMMER: Look, a cassette of a whole year of Earth news here.
LISTER: And two seasons of zero gee football. I'll see you in the
spring. (Gets up to leave.)
RIMMER: Ah ah ah ah. What are total immersion video games?
LISTER: Where? Oh these are brilliant. (Picks up canister.) You can't
get hold of these for love nor money! These are like Venus's arms.
These are like Brooke Shield's buttocks.
RIMMER: What are they?
LISTER: Well they're computer games aren't they? But electrodes are
inserted into your frontal lobes and hypothalamus right? So you
actually feel as though you're really, really there. Yessssss.
RIMMER: (Dismissively) Fine. Holly there's something here for you. It's
a video letter.
HOLLY: Bung it on.
LISTER inserts the cassette and a face, somewhat similar to HOLLY's,
appears on the monitor. Except that this one wears glasses.
HOLLY: Strike a light, it's Gordon.
RIMMER: Who's Gordon?
HOLLY: He's the eleventh generation AI computer aboard the Scott
Fitzgerald. He's got an IQ of eight thousand.
GORDON: Alright, Hol? (The voice belies the IQ estimate.) It-- It's
Gordon.
HOLLY: Awesome, his intellect, I'll tell you.
GORDON: I'm just sending on the latest move in our chess game. My move
is Pawn, right -- that's the little knobbly ones down the front -- Pawn
to King four. Your move. Well, I'd better sign off now. See you,
Hol. Bye. (Waits some time and the image still remains on screen.)
How do you turn this off then?
LISTER: (Turning off GORDON) You were playing postal chess with him were
you?
HOLLY: Well. A chance to lock horns with an intellect of that calibre
I'd be a fool not to. Pawn to King four eh? He's a sly one.
LISTER: So who's winning Hol?
HOLLY: Well, he is really. That was the first move.
5 Ext. Red Dwarf. Establishing shot.
6 Int. Mail room.
LISTER is sorting out the newly delivered mail.
LISTER: Me. Me. Me. You. Me.
RIMMER: It's all junk mail yours, you know.
LISTER: Me. Me. Me.
RIMMER: You send off for every bit of rubbish going, you do. Just so
you'll have some mail to open.
LISTER: Me. Me.
RIMMER: (Silly voice) Please rush me my portable walrus polishing kit.
Four super brushes that will clean even the trickiest of seabound
mammals. Yes I am over eighteen, though my IQ isn't.
LISTER: Me. Me. Smeg! "Outland Revenue."
RIMMER: (Sucks in breath and becomes very cheerful.) Oh oh oh oh,
"Outland Revenue."
LISTER: Eight thousand five hundred?
RIMMER: Eight thousand five hundred? (Happily) That's a lot of tax isn't
it, Lister? How on Titan are you going to pay for that, eh?
LISTER: I'm not. (Pause) It's yours.
RIMMER: What? (Jumps up.) No. This is wrong. It's wrong. This is well
wrong, Lister.
LISTER: Relax. It doesn't matter now. They're not going to catch you
now are they?
RIMMER: What do you mean? Just because we're three million years into
deep space and the human species is extinct. That means nothing to
these people. They'll find us.
LISTER: (Returning to mail sorting.) Me.
RIMMER: God, I'll be worrying about this all the time now.
LISTER: Me. No another one for you. Rear Admiral Lieutenant General
Rimmer.
RIMMER: That's from my mother.
LISTER: Rear Admiral?
RIMMER: Every time I take an exam I tell her I passed. It's getting
embarrassing now. I should be Commander in Chief of the whole
universe.
LISTER: Do you want me to open it? (RIMMER nods, LISTER does so and
starts to read.) "Dear Rimmer." Is this from your mum?
RIMMER: That's mumsie!
LISTER: This handwriting's terrible. "I hope this epistle finds you
adequately healthy to discharge your duties." You know maybe I
shouldn't be reading this deeply personal stuff.
RIMMER: Just get on with it.
LISTER: "I write to--" I can't read that. Oh, "I write to inform." "I
write to inform you that your father is dad." Well of course he is.
Maybe it's your father stroke dad.
RIMMER: It's dead.
LISTER: I can't make it out. (Holds letter up and examines it.)
RIMMER: My father is dead.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: My father is dead.
LISTER: Oh yeah it's an E. (Happy to have solved it.) That's what it is.
Your father's dead, Rimmer. (Realises what he's said.) Oh, eh -- I'm
sorry.
RIMMER: Is that all she says?
LISTER: Just that, "He passed away peacefully in his Jeep." (Looking at
the letter again) "...sleep."
7 Int. Observation dome.
RIMMER is staring into space. LISTER arrives.
LISTER: Can't sleep?
RIMMER: Hmmm.
LISTER: No, me neither.
RIMMER: Hmmm.
LISTER: I remember when my dad died you know. I was only six. I got
loads of presents off everyone like it was Christmas. I remember
wishing a couple more people would die so I could complete my Lego set.
My grandma tried to explain, you know. She said he'd gone away and he
wasn't coming back. So, I wanted to know where, like, you know. She
said he was very happy and he'd gone to the same place as my goldfish.
So I thought they'd flushed him down the bog. I thought he was just
round the U bend, you know. I used to stuff food down, you know, and
magazines and that for him to read. They took me to a child
psychologist in the end because they found me with my head down the
bowl reading him the football results.
RIMMER: I knew he was dead. I mean they're all dead, aren't they? Just
getting that letter makes it seem like it happened yesterday.
LISTER: You never said much about him.
RIMMER: No.
LISTER: You must have been pretty close.
RIMMER: Close.
LISTER: Was it very close?
RIMMER: Close. (Pause) I hated him. I detested his fat stupid guts, the
pop-eyed, balding git.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: He always wanted to join the Space Corps -- be an officer. But
they wouldn't take him because he was an inch below regulation height.
One inch. I had three brothers. When we were young he bought a
traction machine so that he could stretch us. By the time my brother
Frank was eleven he was six foot five. Every morning he'd measure us
and if we hadn't grown, back on the rack.
LISTER: Sounds like he had a screw loose.
RIMMER: I don't think he had one screw fully tightened, to be perfectly
honest with you. He had this fixation that we all had to get into the
Space Corps. At meal times he'd ask us questions on astronavigation.
If we got them wrong -- no food.
LISTER: God, Rimmer, how did you cope with that?
RIMMER: I didn't. I nearly died of malnutrition.
LISTER: I had no idea. I thought you adored your parents.
RIMMER: When I was fourteen I divorced them.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: I took them to court. I got paid maintenance until employment
age and access every fourth weekend to the family dog.
LISTER: So why are you so completely blown away about him dying then?
RIMMER: Oh, it doesn't mean to say I don't respect him, didn't look up to
him. It was only natural -- he was my father.
LISTER: There's nothing natural about your family, Rimmer.
RIMMER: It's just I always wanted just once, just once, for him to say to
me, "well done."
LISTER: For what?
RIMMER: For something, for anything. I wanted him to be proud of me,
just once. And now ...
The CAT enters with a flourish, completely wrecking the serious moment.
CAT: Wow!!! My stomach has been pumped and now I'm hungry. Hey, there
you are! Hey man, I'm so hungry, I just have to eat.
LISTER: Shhhhh. Not now, man. Rimmer's dad's died.
CAT: I'd prefer chicken.
8 Int. Sleeping quarters.
RIMMER is watching the news tape. A hologrammatic newsreader is reading
the news. Behind her is a backdrop: "Groovy Channel 27."
NEWSREADER: Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of
Geldof.
Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a
missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated
in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is
believed to read "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within
this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead
is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by
church leaders.
Europe. A terrorist representing the Revolutionary Working Front, a
fanatical left wing group dedicated to eliminating the--
The CAT enters and sits on the end of RIMMER's bunk.
RIMMER: Pause. (The recording stops.)
CAT: About your father. If it's any help, he's in the ground now. Sure
it's bad news for him. But on the other hand it's party time for all
the little worms. (Wiggles him fingers.)
RIMMER and LISTER just stare at him.
CAT: (To LISTER) There's just no consoling him. (Leaves.)
LISTER: Rimmer, listen -- me and the Cat were going to play a T-I-V. We
wondered if you wanted to come?
RIMMER shakes his head no.
LISTER: Oh, come on! Holly says he can key you in.
RIMMER shakes his head no again.
LISTER: No? (LISTER waits a short while and leaves.)
RIMMER: Play.
NEWSREADER: --middle class, was arrested today. The man, Henri le
Clerque, was attempting to poison the mineral spring in france which is
the source of all the world's Perrier water. Had he succeeded experts
believe the middle class would have been wiped out within three weeks.
Techno news. The new sensation sweeping the solar system is the total
immersion video game, "Better Than Life." Using the new senso lock
feedback technology, "Better Than Life" is able to detect all your
desires and fantasies and then make them come true.
RIMMER sits up and begins to take note.
NEWSREADER: So great is the appeal of "Better Than Life" when one store
in New Tokyo ran out of stocks rubber nuclear weapons had to be
deployed to disperse the crowd.
Sport. England's underwater hockey team's tour of Titan--
9 Int. Mail room.
RIMMER and the CAT are eagerly watching LISTER who is searching through
the mail. RIMMER has completely changed his mind about the idea and is
as keen as the rest of them.
LISTER: "Better Than Life," here it is!
RIMMER: Brilliant!
CAT: Let's play! Hee hee hee.
They all put on rather strange looking helmets and press large electrodes
into their heads. A stupefied expression appears on their faces. Their
heads roll alarmingly.
10 Int. BTL corridor.
Suddenly they are seen through a cloud of steam in a corridor. They pass
through two sets of imposing double doors and appear on a beach.
11 Ext. BTL beach.
LISTER: What sort of game is this?
RIMMER: It's incredible. It's just like being here.
LISTER: Yeesss.
LISTER has seen Marilyn MONROE walking towards them.
MONROE: Boop boop bi doo.
She waves and walks past.
RIMMER: That's whatshername, the actress from the 20th century. Err,
Mary Magdelene.
LISTER: It's Marilyn Monroe you gimp. (Nudges CAT.) I think she fancies
you.
CAT: What does that prove? She's not blind. Hey baby I'm a little busy
right now. I'll catch you later ok? (Waves to her and she waves
back.)
RIMMER: It's absolutely incredible. Look, Look!
RIMMER has seen a Napoleonic figure standing in the water and runs over
to him.
RIMMER: Excuse me. You're probably really busy but could I just say you
are my all time favourite fascist dictator and I've read all your war
diaries and I thought your Italian campaign was simply brilliant. Err,
could you just sign this for me. Err, make it out to my good pal Arnie
from your dear chum Napolean Bonaparte. It's not for me, it's for my
sister Alison. Errm, we call her Arnie.
RIMMER points behind Napoleans head as he signs the autograph and then
goes to rejoin the others.
LISTER: Napolean Bonaparte's autograph!
Suddenly a man appears with them. He is the "Better Than Life" Guide.
The crew look rather shocked by his sudden appearance.
GUIDE: Gentlemen! Welcome to "Better Than Life." Well, you must be
hungry and there's a restaurant just a couple of miles down the beach.
LISTER: A couple of miles? How are we supposed to get there.
GUIDE: Anyway you want. After all, this is "Better Than Life."
LISTER: Any way we want?
LISTER concentrates briefly and a powerful Harley Davidson appears on the
beach before them.
LISTER: Hee hee, Yeah! Yo!
LISTER and the CAT get on the bike and sunglasses appear in their hands.
They put on the sunglasses, give RIMMER the finger and drive away,
covering him in sand in the process. RIMMER concentrates and a clapped
out Reliant Robin appears before him.
RIMMER: I'm thinking too small. Think big!
The Robin becomes a flashy Jaguar.
RIMMER: That's more like it. Heh Heh!
12 Int. BTL Jaguar.
He gets into the car and turns on the radio. Martial type music comes
forth. RIMMER salutes. He concentrates again and a woman appears in the
seat next to him.
RIMMER: McGruder!
MCGRUDER: Hi Tiger! (Makes a seductive growl.)
RIMMER: I bet you're wearing a peep-hole bra under that, eh?
MCGRUDER: (Emphatically) Yes, I am!
RIMMER growls and bites his hand. He seems rather pleased with the way
things are going.
RIMMER: We're only one thing away from perfection.
RIMMER concentrate again and fluffy dice appear in the car.
RIMMER: Bliss.
MCGRUDER gives RIMMER a sexy look and he drives off along the beach.
13 Int. BTL classy restaurant.
The restaurant is full of colorful -- you might say strange, if they were
poor -- people. CAT is blowing down straws and LISTER is throwing food
about and trying to catch it in his mouth as usual.
CAT: Where's Rimmer? I thought he was right behind us.
The "Better Than Life" Guide appears and serves LISTER's food.
GUIDE: Your caviar vindaloo, sir. Half rice, half chips and lots more
bread and butter to follow.
LISTER: I never thought I'd see the day when I could eat something as
classy as this, you know?
GUIDE: This is "Better Than Life," sir. (Turns to CAT.) And yours was
the fish, sir?
The CAT nods eagerly and starts to lick the mans jacket.
LISTER: (Mouth full of food) What are you doing?
CAT: I always do this when someone gives me food.
The CAT continues and LISTER puts down his plate. The Guide puts a tank
full of fish in front of the CAT.
GUIDE: As ordered, sir. Small fish. Are you sure you wouldn't like your
fish cooked.
CAT: No, sir! I like my food to move! (Produces a fishing rod, dangles
the hook in the tank and starts singing.) I'm going to eat you little
fishy...
14 Int. BTL restaraunt entry.
RIMMER walks in dressed rather nattily like someone from some years ago
who has just been out for a drive in an expensive car, goggles included.
GUIDE: (Saluting) Mister Rimmer, sir. They're on table K on the second
terrace.
RIMMER: Excellent. (He moves off to join them.)
15 Int. BTL restaraunt table.
CAT: I'm going to eat you little fishy. I'm going to eat you little
fishy cos I like little fish. (Laughs and shakes salt into the tank.)
LISTER looks on with an incredulous expression.
RIMMER: Ah, I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I was driving along
and suddenly there was McGruder. Well one thing led to another and...
Good God! This is a great game! Twice in one lifetime, I'm turning
into Hugh Heffner! (He starts to eat some bread.)
LISTER: Rimmer, you can touch things!
RIMMER: I know. Why do you think I was so late? (Makes gesture with
fist and elbow -- you know the one I mean.)
LISTER: Have you checked into your room yet?
RIMMER: What room?
LISTER: I mean, mine is absolutely brilliant. I've got this vibrating,
leopard skin waterbed in the shape of a guitar.
CAT: Yeah? Well you should take a look at my wardrobe. It's so big it
crosses an international time zone. When it's three o' clock where my
shirts are it's seven in the morning for my socks. (Nods in a smug
manner and goes back to fishing.)
A voice off stage is then heard calling. RIMMER looks round, thinking
someone is showing off.
CAPTAIN: (From offscreen) Admiral!
LISTER: But what about my electonic lavvy? I mean this thing comes when
you call it, take your trousers down, does everything for you. It's
just so stylish.
CAPTAIN: Admiral!
RIMMER: Who is that? Just because some hoity-toity, gonad brain gimp
knows an Admiral, does he have to broadcast it?
CAPTAIN: Admiral Rimmer, sir!
RIMMER: (Makes yawning noise.) Awwwww, yawn-o-rama city. We know an
Admiral. Come on.
The owner of the voice now appears and does a RIMMER-style salute. He is
in a Captain's uniform and remains at salute through the following
speech.
CAPTAIN: Admiral Rimmer, sir. Field Marshall Clifton sends his
compliments and wonders if you would care to join him for port and
cigars.
RIMMER: Errr, I think there must be some mistake. I'm not an Admiral.
Suddenly RIMMER is an Admiral. He is now wearing a uniform with more
decorations than the Cistine Chapel.
RIMMER: I love this game! Gentlemen, do excuse me.
RIMMER gets up and goes to join the Field Marshall and friends. The
Guide reappears with a champagne bucket which he sets down on the table.
GUIDE: Dom Perignon '54, sir. (He brings out a beer glass and puts it
down.) In a pint mug, as requested.
LISTER: Thank you, my man.
LISTER drinks the bubbly in one go, spilling a good deal of it and puts
the empty glass on his head. The CAT looks on.
LISTER: That's a good year.
16 Int. BTL dining room.
We switch scenes to the Field Marshal's party. RIMMER is sat at the head
of the table smoking a cigar. Everyone is laughing good naturedly.
RIMMER: So, I said to Hollister ... well, I can't actually remember
exactly what I said to him. But it was one of the most enormously
cruel and frighteningly witty put downs ever.
The military men look at each other for a moment. But this is "Better
Than Life," so they all burst into laughter. A young cadet comes up to
RIMMER.
CADET: Sir, I know it's a most awful bore but, err, would you mind just
signing this.
He produces a book and pen.
RIMMER: What's that, you little pipsqueak?
We now see that the book has a colour photo of RIMMER on the front in
full uniform.
RIMMER: (Reading the cover) "My Incredible Career, by Admiral A. J.
Rimmer."
CADET: I've read it eighteen times, sir.
RIMMER signs the book and hands it back to the cadet.
RIMMER: There you go, laddo.
CADET: Oh thank you, sir. Gosh, I'll be the envy of the academy.
RIMMER stops as behind the Field Marshall and another officer he sees his
father.
RIMMER: Father.
RIMMER'S DAD: Son.
RIMMER: What are you doing here?
RIMMER'S DAD: I'm sorry to barge in on you and your, err, officer
chummies, but--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to tell you--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to say--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to say-- (pause) You're a total smeghead!
RIMMER: (Looking shocked) What? This isn't my fantasy!
CAT: (Coming into view) No, it's mine. (The CAT steals RIMMER's cigar
and exits.)
17 Ext. BTL golf course.
LISTER and the CAT are playing golf. LISTER is dressed normally but the
CAT has a full golfing costume on. LISTER is not playing with much style
and gives the ball a whack.
LISTER: Yess, Hooooo.
CAT: Hey move over man. I want to plant my egg. (Puts the ball down.)
LISTER: It's called a ball.
CAT: Are you trying to tell me how to play this game? You think cats
never played golf? Ok!
The CAT takes a big swing, spins round three times and throws the golf
club far into the distance. LISTER dives for cover. The CAT hops on one
leg watching the flight of the club.
18 Ext. BTL golf course hill.
We next see the pair pushing their golf bags up a hill and making car
noises.
LISTER: I'm really thirsty you know.
CAT: Yeah?
LISTER: Yeah.
The Guide comes into shot carrying a large drink with a firework in it.
GUIDE: Perhaps a banana bomb, sir.
LISTER: Thank you, my man.
The Guide lights the rocket and it shoots up out of the glass. They
laugh and carry on walking. They pass a large bed on which Marilyn
MONROE is lying.
MONROE: Hi sugar! How about a bit of ooby dooby doo?
CAT: How's about a bit of ooby dooby don't.
They carry on and Marilyn throws a pillow at him.
CAT: What a pest!
19 Ext. BTL golf course green.
A golf ball comes rolling onto it and rolls near to the hole. A golf
club then comes flying onto the green as well, landing nearby. LISTER
and the CAT walk into view and so does HOLLY's monitor from the other
side.
HOLLY: Alright! What's happening, dudes?
CAT: We're having a really nice time. I'm dating Marilyn Monroe and also
I have another girlfriend who's a mermaid. She's half woman, half
fish. (He starts licking and kissing a photograph then turns round.)
It's Miranda, my girlfriend.
As she comes out of the water we see the top half of her is a fish, the
bottom half is a woman.
HOLLY: Somehow I'd imagined she'd be a woman on top and a fish on the
bottom.
CAT: No! That's a stupid way round. (He sticks out his tongue briefly
and grins and waves.)
20 Ext. BTL country road.
A heavily loaded, small, car drives into view down a country lane. We
hear kids screaming and see RIMMER at the wheel. The car stops, it seems
to be in trouble. RIMMER and a woman get out. They start arguing. We
see there are several kids running around and the woman is pregnant
again.
LISTER: Rimmer! What happened to you.
RIMMER: Lister. Ah this a great game lister. I couldn't be happier.
CAT: Who are all those guys?
RIMMER: It's McGruder. She got pregnant so this morning she made me
marry her and this afternoon we had seven kids. Bliss.
LISTER: Where's your E type?
RIMMER: It was too impractical. With all the kids and everything.
LISTER: Rimmer you fantasised that you had seven kids and a mortgage?
RIMMER: (Grabbing hold of LISTER) Help!
MCGRUDER: Arnold! Where are the nappy sacks?
RIMMER is now wearing very old clothes and drinking from a bottle wrapped
in a paper bag.
RIMMER: My brain's rebelled. It just won't accept nice things happening
to me. It just keeps fantasising horribleness.
RIMMER slides down the wall. Suddenly an official looking man appears.
TAXMAN: Mister Rimmer?
RIMMER: (Weakly) Yes.
TAXMAN: Mister Arnold Judas Rimmer?
RIMMER: Yes.
TAXMAN: (Smiles) Outland Revenue, sir!
RIMMER: Oh my God!
TAXMAN: This is a demand for immediate payment.
RIMMER: Eighteen thousand?
TAXMAN: If you are unable to pay, sir, I am instructed by the Revenue to
break both your legs and pull off your thumbs-- (twitches) --sir.
RIMMER: What am I going to do? I'm broke.
LISTER: I'll pay. I'll pay. I'll pay. (Looks through pockets but can't
find any cash.) Where's all my money gone?
RIMMER: Oh no! I just fantasised it all away. This is getting worse.
Help me.
CAT: Ah! Don't move! A huge, black, furry spider with big teeth just
crawled up your trouser leg.
RIMMER: I know. I just put it there. It's the thing I'm afraid of most
in the whole world -- a tarantula crawling up my trousers.
LISTER: Rimmer, this is getting out of hand.
RIMMER: Do you think I don't know that. Ah! he's past my knee. He's
into my boxers.
LISTER: Close your eyes and wish it away.
RIMMER: I can't!
LISTER: Concentrate man.
RIMMER: I can't!
21 Ext. BTL beach.
A sudden change of scene via some form of reality shift. We pull back
from a close up of RIMMER to find the crew buried in sand up to their
necks. Even HOLLY is involved in monitor form.
CAT: What's he done now?
RIMMER: I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.
LISTER: What's going on?
RIMMER: Our faces have been smeared with jam and we're about to be eaten
alive by killer ants.
CAT: Why?
RIMMER: Why not?
HOLLY: Oh dear. You can't take him anywhere can you? (His monitor image
is also covered in jam.)
LISTER: You've ruined this, Rimmer.
RIMMER: We're going to die. We're going to die and it's all my fault.
ALL: Aaaaaarrghhh!!!!!
22 Int. Red Dwarf Mail room.
Suddenly we are back on Red Dwarf. Everyone removes the TIV helmets.
LISTER: You're a total dinglebat, aren't you?
RIMMER: I'm sorry.
CAT: Yeah! We were having a great time until you came along with your
diseased brain.
LISTER: You're a bozo!
LISTER picks up another piece of mail and they all walk out.
RIMMER: I can't help it, nice things just don't happen to me.
CAT: Hey, what's that?
LISTER: It's a letter and it's for Rimmer. (LISTER opens it and reads)
"Dear Sir, Due to a computer error you were wrongly informed that you
had failed the astronavigation exam. In fact you passed with honours
and you are hereby promoted to navigation officer first class. We
enclose your pips and insignia." Smegging hell!
LISTER and the CAT look disgusted and walk off.
LISTER: Who said you was a loser, eh? Who said nice things never happen
to you?
RIMMER does a big salute. The door to the cupboard then opens and the
taxman comes out carrying a big hammer.
TAXMAN: I did!
LISTER: Oh no, we're still in the game!
TAXMAN: You certainly are. Now, what about my eighteen grand? Come on,
it's bone crunching time, me old china. Now, where's those little
thumbies?
He puts RIMMER's hand down on the table and gives it a big thump with the
hammer. The film freezes. Final caption in big letters:
G A M E
O V E R
Credits:
Rimmer Chris Barrie
Lister Craig Charles
Cat Danny John-Jules
Holly Norman Lovett
With:
Rimmer's Dad John Abineri
Marilyn Monroe Debbie Ash
Rathbone Jeremy Austin
The Captain Nigel Carrivick
The Guide Tony Hawks
McGruder Judy Hawkins
The Newsreader Tina Jenkins
The Taxman Ron Pember
Gordon Gordon Salkilld
Written By Rob Grant
Doug Naylor
Music Howard Goodall
Graphic Designer Mark Allen
Unit Manager Kelvin Jones
Associate Producer Ann Zahl
OB Lighting David Parker
Gordon White
OB Cameraman Rocket
Technical Coordinator Andrew Cowley
Camera Supervisor Melvyn Cross
Vision Mixer Jill Dornan
Prop Buyer Mike Fallon
Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg
Videotape Editor Ed Wooden
Production Team Helen Campbell
Kate Preston
Assistant Floor Manager Dona DiStefano
Production Assistant Anna Staniland
Production Manager Mike Agnew
Costume Designer Jackie Pinks
Make-Up Designer Bethan Jones
Sound Supervisor Tony Worthington
Lighting Director John Pomfrey
Designer Paul Montague
Executive Producer Paul Jackson
Produced and Directed By Ed Bye
Notes and Trivia:
The ending seems rather reminiscent of that of a Young ones episode where Neil
gets beaten up 'Oh no, this is the dream!'.
Maybe Lister and Cat were too hard on Rimmer. He did get them out of Better
Than Life and if you've read the books you know what that means. But then
again he didn't did he ? When did they get out ?
Kryten, rescued last episode, has disappeared.
The Taruantula guest starred in a similar (though much funnier) gag in series
V.
Golf and fishing were to resurface in a later series where Lister and Cat play
Junior Angler and Indoor golf!
This episode, along with 'Kryten' and 'Thanks For The Memory' is on BBC Video
BBCV 4749.
1 Ext. View of space.
HOLLY: (In space) Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red
Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold
Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved
from the ship's cat. Message ends.
(Reappearing) Additional: Loneliness weighs heavily on us all.
Personally the only thing that keeps me going is the thought that we
are over sixty billion miles away from the nearest Berni Inn.
2 Ext. Red Dwarf.
A rocket powered metal cylinder approaches RED DWARF from the depths of
space. Cut to inside where LISTER has a medical problem. He is holding
a bottle of liquid to help a bad stomach.
LISTER: (Reading the bottle) "For a mild stomach upset take one
teaspoonful. For acute indigestion take two."
LISTER considers, takes the spoon out of his mouth and throws it away.
Then he empties most of the bottle into a glass and starts gulping it.
RIMMER enters, dressed as a chef.
RIMMER: Well, a highly enjoyable meal all round. Obviously you can't
expect perfection first time but I was quite delighted with the way my
dumplings went down.
LISTER: Rimmer, real dumplings, proper dumplings when they're properly
cooked to perfection, proper dumplings, should not bounce.
RIMMER: True, but compared to what I thought they were going to be like
they were quite superb.
LISTER: So how's the Cat?
RIMMER: He's just sleeping off the stomach pump. He'll be alright. The
lamb was a bit of a flop though.
LISTER: The lamb? Everybody thought the lamb was the cheese and that
lemon meringue pie, man, what was in that?
RIMMER: I thought you liked that, you brought some back.
LISTER: Yeah, I wanted to try some on my athlete's foot.
RIMMER: It's not easy, Lister, cooking. When you're dead, when you don't
exist, when you're made entirely of light.
LISTER: That's your excuse for everything isn't it -- being dead?
RIMMER: I'm just trying to rehabilitate myself, trying to do the
everyday, normal things that most living people take for granted.
LISTER: You've got the skutters to help you.
RIMMER: What? Pinky and smeggy Perky? What use are they? It's like
giving Blind Pew contact lenses.
LISTER: They only do what you tell them to.
RIMMER: Ah, but they don't do they? You say, "Keep an eye on that lamb,"
and they do. They sit there for three hours and watch it burn.
LISTER: So. They've got no emotion have they? It's not built into their
software.
RIMMER: Have you seen their broom cupboard? it's full of pin-ups of John
Wayne. That cannot be right can it? (Indicating shoulder height)
Piled this high with Film Fun magazines. It's not the way spanners
behave in my book.
HOLLY appears on the screen and breaks in.
HOLLY: Oi. What's happening dudes?
LISTER: Hi, Hol.
HOLLY: Guess what?
RIMMER: What?
HOLLY: Go on, have a guess.
RIMMER: What is it vaguely about?
HOLLY: No clues, just have a guess.
RIMMER and LISTER look exasperated. LISTER covers his face.
HOLLY: I knew you wouldn't get it. Post pod's arrived.
RIMMER: What, the mail?
HOLLY: It's been tracking us since we left Earth. Now we've turned round
it's caught up.
LISTER: Do you mean it's taken 3 million years.
HOLLY: Yeah, that's about average for second class post.
3 Int. Corridor.
The skutters are racing around the corridors. One is wearing an Indian
headdress and is being chased by another in a cowboy hat firing a gun.
LISTER and RIMMER walk past.
RIMMER: See what I mean? (Makes Indian warcry.)
4 Int. Mail room.
The pod has been opened. Piles and piles of mail are lying around. The
arm of a skutter takes one from the John Wayne fan club addressed to "The
Skutters, Red Dwarf, Deep Space, RE1 3DW" and disappears.
RIMMER: There's everything here, all the mail, entertainment cassettes, a
new batch of movies.
LISTER: Oh! The new Friday the 13th movie -- Friday the 13th part one
thousand six hundred and forty nine.
RIMMER: Look, Cassablanca! They've re-made Cassablanca!
LISTER: Philistines. I mean how can you re-make Cassablanca? The one
starring Myra Dinglebat and Peter Beardsley was definitive.
HOLLY: I saw that one -- knockout! "Of all the space bars on all the
worlds you had to re-materialise in mine."
RIMMER: Look, a cassette of a whole year of Earth news here.
LISTER: And two seasons of zero gee football. I'll see you in the
spring. (Gets up to leave.)
RIMMER: Ah ah ah ah. What are total immersion video games?
LISTER: Where? Oh these are brilliant. (Picks up canister.) You can't
get hold of these for love nor money! These are like Venus's arms.
These are like Brooke Shield's buttocks.
RIMMER: What are they?
LISTER: Well they're computer games aren't they? But electrodes are
inserted into your frontal lobes and hypothalamus right? So you
actually feel as though you're really, really there. Yessssss.
RIMMER: (Dismissively) Fine. Holly there's something here for you. It's
a video letter.
HOLLY: Bung it on.
LISTER inserts the cassette and a face, somewhat similar to HOLLY's,
appears on the monitor. Except that this one wears glasses.
HOLLY: Strike a light, it's Gordon.
RIMMER: Who's Gordon?
HOLLY: He's the eleventh generation AI computer aboard the Scott
Fitzgerald. He's got an IQ of eight thousand.
GORDON: Alright, Hol? (The voice belies the IQ estimate.) It-- It's
Gordon.
HOLLY: Awesome, his intellect, I'll tell you.
GORDON: I'm just sending on the latest move in our chess game. My move
is Pawn, right -- that's the little knobbly ones down the front -- Pawn
to King four. Your move. Well, I'd better sign off now. See you,
Hol. Bye. (Waits some time and the image still remains on screen.)
How do you turn this off then?
LISTER: (Turning off GORDON) You were playing postal chess with him were
you?
HOLLY: Well. A chance to lock horns with an intellect of that calibre
I'd be a fool not to. Pawn to King four eh? He's a sly one.
LISTER: So who's winning Hol?
HOLLY: Well, he is really. That was the first move.
5 Ext. Red Dwarf. Establishing shot.
6 Int. Mail room.
LISTER is sorting out the newly delivered mail.
LISTER: Me. Me. Me. You. Me.
RIMMER: It's all junk mail yours, you know.
LISTER: Me. Me. Me.
RIMMER: You send off for every bit of rubbish going, you do. Just so
you'll have some mail to open.
LISTER: Me. Me.
RIMMER: (Silly voice) Please rush me my portable walrus polishing kit.
Four super brushes that will clean even the trickiest of seabound
mammals. Yes I am over eighteen, though my IQ isn't.
LISTER: Me. Me. Smeg! "Outland Revenue."
RIMMER: (Sucks in breath and becomes very cheerful.) Oh oh oh oh,
"Outland Revenue."
LISTER: Eight thousand five hundred?
RIMMER: Eight thousand five hundred? (Happily) That's a lot of tax isn't
it, Lister? How on Titan are you going to pay for that, eh?
LISTER: I'm not. (Pause) It's yours.
RIMMER: What? (Jumps up.) No. This is wrong. It's wrong. This is well
wrong, Lister.
LISTER: Relax. It doesn't matter now. They're not going to catch you
now are they?
RIMMER: What do you mean? Just because we're three million years into
deep space and the human species is extinct. That means nothing to
these people. They'll find us.
LISTER: (Returning to mail sorting.) Me.
RIMMER: God, I'll be worrying about this all the time now.
LISTER: Me. No another one for you. Rear Admiral Lieutenant General
Rimmer.
RIMMER: That's from my mother.
LISTER: Rear Admiral?
RIMMER: Every time I take an exam I tell her I passed. It's getting
embarrassing now. I should be Commander in Chief of the whole
universe.
LISTER: Do you want me to open it? (RIMMER nods, LISTER does so and
starts to read.) "Dear Rimmer." Is this from your mum?
RIMMER: That's mumsie!
LISTER: This handwriting's terrible. "I hope this epistle finds you
adequately healthy to discharge your duties." You know maybe I
shouldn't be reading this deeply personal stuff.
RIMMER: Just get on with it.
LISTER: "I write to--" I can't read that. Oh, "I write to inform." "I
write to inform you that your father is dad." Well of course he is.
Maybe it's your father stroke dad.
RIMMER: It's dead.
LISTER: I can't make it out. (Holds letter up and examines it.)
RIMMER: My father is dead.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: My father is dead.
LISTER: Oh yeah it's an E. (Happy to have solved it.) That's what it is.
Your father's dead, Rimmer. (Realises what he's said.) Oh, eh -- I'm
sorry.
RIMMER: Is that all she says?
LISTER: Just that, "He passed away peacefully in his Jeep." (Looking at
the letter again) "...sleep."
7 Int. Observation dome.
RIMMER is staring into space. LISTER arrives.
LISTER: Can't sleep?
RIMMER: Hmmm.
LISTER: No, me neither.
RIMMER: Hmmm.
LISTER: I remember when my dad died you know. I was only six. I got
loads of presents off everyone like it was Christmas. I remember
wishing a couple more people would die so I could complete my Lego set.
My grandma tried to explain, you know. She said he'd gone away and he
wasn't coming back. So, I wanted to know where, like, you know. She
said he was very happy and he'd gone to the same place as my goldfish.
So I thought they'd flushed him down the bog. I thought he was just
round the U bend, you know. I used to stuff food down, you know, and
magazines and that for him to read. They took me to a child
psychologist in the end because they found me with my head down the
bowl reading him the football results.
RIMMER: I knew he was dead. I mean they're all dead, aren't they? Just
getting that letter makes it seem like it happened yesterday.
LISTER: You never said much about him.
RIMMER: No.
LISTER: You must have been pretty close.
RIMMER: Close.
LISTER: Was it very close?
RIMMER: Close. (Pause) I hated him. I detested his fat stupid guts, the
pop-eyed, balding git.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: He always wanted to join the Space Corps -- be an officer. But
they wouldn't take him because he was an inch below regulation height.
One inch. I had three brothers. When we were young he bought a
traction machine so that he could stretch us. By the time my brother
Frank was eleven he was six foot five. Every morning he'd measure us
and if we hadn't grown, back on the rack.
LISTER: Sounds like he had a screw loose.
RIMMER: I don't think he had one screw fully tightened, to be perfectly
honest with you. He had this fixation that we all had to get into the
Space Corps. At meal times he'd ask us questions on astronavigation.
If we got them wrong -- no food.
LISTER: God, Rimmer, how did you cope with that?
RIMMER: I didn't. I nearly died of malnutrition.
LISTER: I had no idea. I thought you adored your parents.
RIMMER: When I was fourteen I divorced them.
LISTER: What?
RIMMER: I took them to court. I got paid maintenance until employment
age and access every fourth weekend to the family dog.
LISTER: So why are you so completely blown away about him dying then?
RIMMER: Oh, it doesn't mean to say I don't respect him, didn't look up to
him. It was only natural -- he was my father.
LISTER: There's nothing natural about your family, Rimmer.
RIMMER: It's just I always wanted just once, just once, for him to say to
me, "well done."
LISTER: For what?
RIMMER: For something, for anything. I wanted him to be proud of me,
just once. And now ...
The CAT enters with a flourish, completely wrecking the serious moment.
CAT: Wow!!! My stomach has been pumped and now I'm hungry. Hey, there
you are! Hey man, I'm so hungry, I just have to eat.
LISTER: Shhhhh. Not now, man. Rimmer's dad's died.
CAT: I'd prefer chicken.
8 Int. Sleeping quarters.
RIMMER is watching the news tape. A hologrammatic newsreader is reading
the news. Behind her is a backdrop: "Groovy Channel 27."
NEWSREADER: Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of
Geldof.
Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a
missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated
in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is
believed to read "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within
this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead
is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by
church leaders.
Europe. A terrorist representing the Revolutionary Working Front, a
fanatical left wing group dedicated to eliminating the--
The CAT enters and sits on the end of RIMMER's bunk.
RIMMER: Pause. (The recording stops.)
CAT: About your father. If it's any help, he's in the ground now. Sure
it's bad news for him. But on the other hand it's party time for all
the little worms. (Wiggles him fingers.)
RIMMER and LISTER just stare at him.
CAT: (To LISTER) There's just no consoling him. (Leaves.)
LISTER: Rimmer, listen -- me and the Cat were going to play a T-I-V. We
wondered if you wanted to come?
RIMMER shakes his head no.
LISTER: Oh, come on! Holly says he can key you in.
RIMMER shakes his head no again.
LISTER: No? (LISTER waits a short while and leaves.)
RIMMER: Play.
NEWSREADER: --middle class, was arrested today. The man, Henri le
Clerque, was attempting to poison the mineral spring in france which is
the source of all the world's Perrier water. Had he succeeded experts
believe the middle class would have been wiped out within three weeks.
Techno news. The new sensation sweeping the solar system is the total
immersion video game, "Better Than Life." Using the new senso lock
feedback technology, "Better Than Life" is able to detect all your
desires and fantasies and then make them come true.
RIMMER sits up and begins to take note.
NEWSREADER: So great is the appeal of "Better Than Life" when one store
in New Tokyo ran out of stocks rubber nuclear weapons had to be
deployed to disperse the crowd.
Sport. England's underwater hockey team's tour of Titan--
9 Int. Mail room.
RIMMER and the CAT are eagerly watching LISTER who is searching through
the mail. RIMMER has completely changed his mind about the idea and is
as keen as the rest of them.
LISTER: "Better Than Life," here it is!
RIMMER: Brilliant!
CAT: Let's play! Hee hee hee.
They all put on rather strange looking helmets and press large electrodes
into their heads. A stupefied expression appears on their faces. Their
heads roll alarmingly.
10 Int. BTL corridor.
Suddenly they are seen through a cloud of steam in a corridor. They pass
through two sets of imposing double doors and appear on a beach.
11 Ext. BTL beach.
LISTER: What sort of game is this?
RIMMER: It's incredible. It's just like being here.
LISTER: Yeesss.
LISTER has seen Marilyn MONROE walking towards them.
MONROE: Boop boop bi doo.
She waves and walks past.
RIMMER: That's whatshername, the actress from the 20th century. Err,
Mary Magdelene.
LISTER: It's Marilyn Monroe you gimp. (Nudges CAT.) I think she fancies
you.
CAT: What does that prove? She's not blind. Hey baby I'm a little busy
right now. I'll catch you later ok? (Waves to her and she waves
back.)
RIMMER: It's absolutely incredible. Look, Look!
RIMMER has seen a Napoleonic figure standing in the water and runs over
to him.
RIMMER: Excuse me. You're probably really busy but could I just say you
are my all time favourite fascist dictator and I've read all your war
diaries and I thought your Italian campaign was simply brilliant. Err,
could you just sign this for me. Err, make it out to my good pal Arnie
from your dear chum Napolean Bonaparte. It's not for me, it's for my
sister Alison. Errm, we call her Arnie.
RIMMER points behind Napoleans head as he signs the autograph and then
goes to rejoin the others.
LISTER: Napolean Bonaparte's autograph!
Suddenly a man appears with them. He is the "Better Than Life" Guide.
The crew look rather shocked by his sudden appearance.
GUIDE: Gentlemen! Welcome to "Better Than Life." Well, you must be
hungry and there's a restaurant just a couple of miles down the beach.
LISTER: A couple of miles? How are we supposed to get there.
GUIDE: Anyway you want. After all, this is "Better Than Life."
LISTER: Any way we want?
LISTER concentrates briefly and a powerful Harley Davidson appears on the
beach before them.
LISTER: Hee hee, Yeah! Yo!
LISTER and the CAT get on the bike and sunglasses appear in their hands.
They put on the sunglasses, give RIMMER the finger and drive away,
covering him in sand in the process. RIMMER concentrates and a clapped
out Reliant Robin appears before him.
RIMMER: I'm thinking too small. Think big!
The Robin becomes a flashy Jaguar.
RIMMER: That's more like it. Heh Heh!
12 Int. BTL Jaguar.
He gets into the car and turns on the radio. Martial type music comes
forth. RIMMER salutes. He concentrates again and a woman appears in the
seat next to him.
RIMMER: McGruder!
MCGRUDER: Hi Tiger! (Makes a seductive growl.)
RIMMER: I bet you're wearing a peep-hole bra under that, eh?
MCGRUDER: (Emphatically) Yes, I am!
RIMMER growls and bites his hand. He seems rather pleased with the way
things are going.
RIMMER: We're only one thing away from perfection.
RIMMER concentrate again and fluffy dice appear in the car.
RIMMER: Bliss.
MCGRUDER gives RIMMER a sexy look and he drives off along the beach.
13 Int. BTL classy restaurant.
The restaurant is full of colorful -- you might say strange, if they were
poor -- people. CAT is blowing down straws and LISTER is throwing food
about and trying to catch it in his mouth as usual.
CAT: Where's Rimmer? I thought he was right behind us.
The "Better Than Life" Guide appears and serves LISTER's food.
GUIDE: Your caviar vindaloo, sir. Half rice, half chips and lots more
bread and butter to follow.
LISTER: I never thought I'd see the day when I could eat something as
classy as this, you know?
GUIDE: This is "Better Than Life," sir. (Turns to CAT.) And yours was
the fish, sir?
The CAT nods eagerly and starts to lick the mans jacket.
LISTER: (Mouth full of food) What are you doing?
CAT: I always do this when someone gives me food.
The CAT continues and LISTER puts down his plate. The Guide puts a tank
full of fish in front of the CAT.
GUIDE: As ordered, sir. Small fish. Are you sure you wouldn't like your
fish cooked.
CAT: No, sir! I like my food to move! (Produces a fishing rod, dangles
the hook in the tank and starts singing.) I'm going to eat you little
fishy...
14 Int. BTL restaraunt entry.
RIMMER walks in dressed rather nattily like someone from some years ago
who has just been out for a drive in an expensive car, goggles included.
GUIDE: (Saluting) Mister Rimmer, sir. They're on table K on the second
terrace.
RIMMER: Excellent. (He moves off to join them.)
15 Int. BTL restaraunt table.
CAT: I'm going to eat you little fishy. I'm going to eat you little
fishy cos I like little fish. (Laughs and shakes salt into the tank.)
LISTER looks on with an incredulous expression.
RIMMER: Ah, I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I was driving along
and suddenly there was McGruder. Well one thing led to another and...
Good God! This is a great game! Twice in one lifetime, I'm turning
into Hugh Heffner! (He starts to eat some bread.)
LISTER: Rimmer, you can touch things!
RIMMER: I know. Why do you think I was so late? (Makes gesture with
fist and elbow -- you know the one I mean.)
LISTER: Have you checked into your room yet?
RIMMER: What room?
LISTER: I mean, mine is absolutely brilliant. I've got this vibrating,
leopard skin waterbed in the shape of a guitar.
CAT: Yeah? Well you should take a look at my wardrobe. It's so big it
crosses an international time zone. When it's three o' clock where my
shirts are it's seven in the morning for my socks. (Nods in a smug
manner and goes back to fishing.)
A voice off stage is then heard calling. RIMMER looks round, thinking
someone is showing off.
CAPTAIN: (From offscreen) Admiral!
LISTER: But what about my electonic lavvy? I mean this thing comes when
you call it, take your trousers down, does everything for you. It's
just so stylish.
CAPTAIN: Admiral!
RIMMER: Who is that? Just because some hoity-toity, gonad brain gimp
knows an Admiral, does he have to broadcast it?
CAPTAIN: Admiral Rimmer, sir!
RIMMER: (Makes yawning noise.) Awwwww, yawn-o-rama city. We know an
Admiral. Come on.
The owner of the voice now appears and does a RIMMER-style salute. He is
in a Captain's uniform and remains at salute through the following
speech.
CAPTAIN: Admiral Rimmer, sir. Field Marshall Clifton sends his
compliments and wonders if you would care to join him for port and
cigars.
RIMMER: Errr, I think there must be some mistake. I'm not an Admiral.
Suddenly RIMMER is an Admiral. He is now wearing a uniform with more
decorations than the Cistine Chapel.
RIMMER: I love this game! Gentlemen, do excuse me.
RIMMER gets up and goes to join the Field Marshall and friends. The
Guide reappears with a champagne bucket which he sets down on the table.
GUIDE: Dom Perignon '54, sir. (He brings out a beer glass and puts it
down.) In a pint mug, as requested.
LISTER: Thank you, my man.
LISTER drinks the bubbly in one go, spilling a good deal of it and puts
the empty glass on his head. The CAT looks on.
LISTER: That's a good year.
16 Int. BTL dining room.
We switch scenes to the Field Marshal's party. RIMMER is sat at the head
of the table smoking a cigar. Everyone is laughing good naturedly.
RIMMER: So, I said to Hollister ... well, I can't actually remember
exactly what I said to him. But it was one of the most enormously
cruel and frighteningly witty put downs ever.
The military men look at each other for a moment. But this is "Better
Than Life," so they all burst into laughter. A young cadet comes up to
RIMMER.
CADET: Sir, I know it's a most awful bore but, err, would you mind just
signing this.
He produces a book and pen.
RIMMER: What's that, you little pipsqueak?
We now see that the book has a colour photo of RIMMER on the front in
full uniform.
RIMMER: (Reading the cover) "My Incredible Career, by Admiral A. J.
Rimmer."
CADET: I've read it eighteen times, sir.
RIMMER signs the book and hands it back to the cadet.
RIMMER: There you go, laddo.
CADET: Oh thank you, sir. Gosh, I'll be the envy of the academy.
RIMMER stops as behind the Field Marshall and another officer he sees his
father.
RIMMER: Father.
RIMMER'S DAD: Son.
RIMMER: What are you doing here?
RIMMER'S DAD: I'm sorry to barge in on you and your, err, officer
chummies, but--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to tell you--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to say--
RIMMER: Yes?
RIMMER'S DAD: I just wanted to say-- (pause) You're a total smeghead!
RIMMER: (Looking shocked) What? This isn't my fantasy!
CAT: (Coming into view) No, it's mine. (The CAT steals RIMMER's cigar
and exits.)
17 Ext. BTL golf course.
LISTER and the CAT are playing golf. LISTER is dressed normally but the
CAT has a full golfing costume on. LISTER is not playing with much style
and gives the ball a whack.
LISTER: Yess, Hooooo.
CAT: Hey move over man. I want to plant my egg. (Puts the ball down.)
LISTER: It's called a ball.
CAT: Are you trying to tell me how to play this game? You think cats
never played golf? Ok!
The CAT takes a big swing, spins round three times and throws the golf
club far into the distance. LISTER dives for cover. The CAT hops on one
leg watching the flight of the club.
18 Ext. BTL golf course hill.
We next see the pair pushing their golf bags up a hill and making car
noises.
LISTER: I'm really thirsty you know.
CAT: Yeah?
LISTER: Yeah.
The Guide comes into shot carrying a large drink with a firework in it.
GUIDE: Perhaps a banana bomb, sir.
LISTER: Thank you, my man.
The Guide lights the rocket and it shoots up out of the glass. They
laugh and carry on walking. They pass a large bed on which Marilyn
MONROE is lying.
MONROE: Hi sugar! How about a bit of ooby dooby doo?
CAT: How's about a bit of ooby dooby don't.
They carry on and Marilyn throws a pillow at him.
CAT: What a pest!
19 Ext. BTL golf course green.
A golf ball comes rolling onto it and rolls near to the hole. A golf
club then comes flying onto the green as well, landing nearby. LISTER
and the CAT walk into view and so does HOLLY's monitor from the other
side.
HOLLY: Alright! What's happening, dudes?
CAT: We're having a really nice time. I'm dating Marilyn Monroe and also
I have another girlfriend who's a mermaid. She's half woman, half
fish. (He starts licking and kissing a photograph then turns round.)
It's Miranda, my girlfriend.
As she comes out of the water we see the top half of her is a fish, the
bottom half is a woman.
HOLLY: Somehow I'd imagined she'd be a woman on top and a fish on the
bottom.
CAT: No! That's a stupid way round. (He sticks out his tongue briefly
and grins and waves.)
20 Ext. BTL country road.
A heavily loaded, small, car drives into view down a country lane. We
hear kids screaming and see RIMMER at the wheel. The car stops, it seems
to be in trouble. RIMMER and a woman get out. They start arguing. We
see there are several kids running around and the woman is pregnant
again.
LISTER: Rimmer! What happened to you.
RIMMER: Lister. Ah this a great game lister. I couldn't be happier.
CAT: Who are all those guys?
RIMMER: It's McGruder. She got pregnant so this morning she made me
marry her and this afternoon we had seven kids. Bliss.
LISTER: Where's your E type?
RIMMER: It was too impractical. With all the kids and everything.
LISTER: Rimmer you fantasised that you had seven kids and a mortgage?
RIMMER: (Grabbing hold of LISTER) Help!
MCGRUDER: Arnold! Where are the nappy sacks?
RIMMER is now wearing very old clothes and drinking from a bottle wrapped
in a paper bag.
RIMMER: My brain's rebelled. It just won't accept nice things happening
to me. It just keeps fantasising horribleness.
RIMMER slides down the wall. Suddenly an official looking man appears.
TAXMAN: Mister Rimmer?
RIMMER: (Weakly) Yes.
TAXMAN: Mister Arnold Judas Rimmer?
RIMMER: Yes.
TAXMAN: (Smiles) Outland Revenue, sir!
RIMMER: Oh my God!
TAXMAN: This is a demand for immediate payment.
RIMMER: Eighteen thousand?
TAXMAN: If you are unable to pay, sir, I am instructed by the Revenue to
break both your legs and pull off your thumbs-- (twitches) --sir.
RIMMER: What am I going to do? I'm broke.
LISTER: I'll pay. I'll pay. I'll pay. (Looks through pockets but can't
find any cash.) Where's all my money gone?
RIMMER: Oh no! I just fantasised it all away. This is getting worse.
Help me.
CAT: Ah! Don't move! A huge, black, furry spider with big teeth just
crawled up your trouser leg.
RIMMER: I know. I just put it there. It's the thing I'm afraid of most
in the whole world -- a tarantula crawling up my trousers.
LISTER: Rimmer, this is getting out of hand.
RIMMER: Do you think I don't know that. Ah! he's past my knee. He's
into my boxers.
LISTER: Close your eyes and wish it away.
RIMMER: I can't!
LISTER: Concentrate man.
RIMMER: I can't!
21 Ext. BTL beach.
A sudden change of scene via some form of reality shift. We pull back
from a close up of RIMMER to find the crew buried in sand up to their
necks. Even HOLLY is involved in monitor form.
CAT: What's he done now?
RIMMER: I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.
LISTER: What's going on?
RIMMER: Our faces have been smeared with jam and we're about to be eaten
alive by killer ants.
CAT: Why?
RIMMER: Why not?
HOLLY: Oh dear. You can't take him anywhere can you? (His monitor image
is also covered in jam.)
LISTER: You've ruined this, Rimmer.
RIMMER: We're going to die. We're going to die and it's all my fault.
ALL: Aaaaaarrghhh!!!!!
22 Int. Red Dwarf Mail room.
Suddenly we are back on Red Dwarf. Everyone removes the TIV helmets.
LISTER: You're a total dinglebat, aren't you?
RIMMER: I'm sorry.
CAT: Yeah! We were having a great time until you came along with your
diseased brain.
LISTER: You're a bozo!
LISTER picks up another piece of mail and they all walk out.
RIMMER: I can't help it, nice things just don't happen to me.
CAT: Hey, what's that?
LISTER: It's a letter and it's for Rimmer. (LISTER opens it and reads)
"Dear Sir, Due to a computer error you were wrongly informed that you
had failed the astronavigation exam. In fact you passed with honours
and you are hereby promoted to navigation officer first class. We
enclose your pips and insignia." Smegging hell!
LISTER and the CAT look disgusted and walk off.
LISTER: Who said you was a loser, eh? Who said nice things never happen
to you?
RIMMER does a big salute. The door to the cupboard then opens and the
taxman comes out carrying a big hammer.
TAXMAN: I did!
LISTER: Oh no, we're still in the game!
TAXMAN: You certainly are. Now, what about my eighteen grand? Come on,
it's bone crunching time, me old china. Now, where's those little
thumbies?
He puts RIMMER's hand down on the table and gives it a big thump with the
hammer. The film freezes. Final caption in big letters:
G A M E
O V E R
Credits:
Rimmer Chris Barrie
Lister Craig Charles
Cat Danny John-Jules
Holly Norman Lovett
With:
Rimmer's Dad John Abineri
Marilyn Monroe Debbie Ash
Rathbone Jeremy Austin
The Captain Nigel Carrivick
The Guide Tony Hawks
McGruder Judy Hawkins
The Newsreader Tina Jenkins
The Taxman Ron Pember
Gordon Gordon Salkilld
Written By Rob Grant
Doug Naylor
Music Howard Goodall
Graphic Designer Mark Allen
Unit Manager Kelvin Jones
Associate Producer Ann Zahl
OB Lighting David Parker
Gordon White
OB Cameraman Rocket
Technical Coordinator Andrew Cowley
Camera Supervisor Melvyn Cross
Vision Mixer Jill Dornan
Prop Buyer Mike Fallon
Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg
Videotape Editor Ed Wooden
Production Team Helen Campbell
Kate Preston
Assistant Floor Manager Dona DiStefano
Production Assistant Anna Staniland
Production Manager Mike Agnew
Costume Designer Jackie Pinks
Make-Up Designer Bethan Jones
Sound Supervisor Tony Worthington
Lighting Director John Pomfrey
Designer Paul Montague
Executive Producer Paul Jackson
Produced and Directed By Ed Bye
Notes and Trivia:
The ending seems rather reminiscent of that of a Young ones episode where Neil
gets beaten up 'Oh no, this is the dream!'.
Maybe Lister and Cat were too hard on Rimmer. He did get them out of Better
Than Life and if you've read the books you know what that means. But then
again he didn't did he ? When did they get out ?
Kryten, rescued last episode, has disappeared.
The Taruantula guest starred in a similar (though much funnier) gag in series
V.
Golf and fishing were to resurface in a later series where Lister and Cat play
Junior Angler and Indoor golf!
This episode, along with 'Kryten' and 'Thanks For The Memory' is on BBC Video
BBCV 4749.
Season 2 Episode 1 Kryten
RED DWARF Series II Episode 1, "Kryten"
1 Ext. View of space.
HOLLY: (In space) Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red
Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold
Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved
from the ship's cat. Message ends.
(Reappearing) Additional: As the days go by, we face the increasing
inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and
meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?
2 Ext. Nova-5.
The wreckage of the Nova-5, a small ship crashed on a barren moon.
3 Int. Nova-5.
KRYTEN, an android, watches a video monitor on which two silver androids,
KELLY and BROOK speak.
KELLY: Sit down, Brook. There's something I must tell you.
BROOK: What is it, Kelly?
KELLY: I wasn't with Simone that evening, Brook. I spent the night with
Gary.
BROOK: Your ex-husband Gary, my business rival? What are you telling me,
Kelly?
KELLY: I'm saying... Brook, Jr.
BROOK: What about Brook, Jr.?
KELLY: He isn't your android.
The closing credits for the soap opera "Androids" roll by on the screen.
All the characters played by "Android####" with #### being a serial
number.
MONITOR: (Song over credits) "Androids... everybody needs good
androids... androids... have feelings too..."
4 Ext. Red Dwarf. Establishing shot.
5 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is polishing up his space-bike. RIMMER paces the room and watches
a recording of a woman reciting an Esperanto Instructional tape on the
monitor.
WOMAN: "Mi esporas ke kiam vi venos la vetero estos milda."
RIMMER: Wait a minute, I know this one, don't tell me, don't tell me,
don't tell me!
LISTER: I hope when you come the weather will be clement.
WOMAN: "I hope when you come the weather will be clement."
RIMMER: Lister, don't tell me. I could've got that.
WOMAN: "Bonvolu direkti min al kvinsela hotela?"
RIMMER: Ah... I remember this from last time...
LISTER: Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?
RIMMER: Wrong, actually. Totally, utterly, and completely wrong.
WOMAN: "Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?"
RIMMER: Lister, will you please shut up?
LISTER: I'm only helping ya!
RIMMER: Well I don't need any help.
WOMAN: "La mango estis bonega! Dlej korajin gratulonjn' al la kuristo."
RIMMER: (Snaps his fingers) I would like to purchase that orange
inflatable beach ball and that small bucket and spade.
WOMAN: "The meal was splendid! My heartiest congratulations to the
chef."
RIMMER: What? Pause!
LISTER: Rimmer, you've been doing Esperanto for eight years. How come
you're so utterly useless?
RIMMER: Oh, speaks! And how many books have you read in your entire
life? The same number as champion the wonder horse: zero!
LISTER: I've read books.
RIMMER: Uh, Lister, we're not talking about books where the main
character is a dog called "Ben."
LISTER: I went to Art College!
RIMMER: You?
LISTER: Yeah!
RIMMER: How did you get into Art College?
LISTER: The normal way you get into Art College. The same old, usual,
normal, boring you get in. Failed me exams and applied. The snatched
me up.
RIMMER: Ah, but you didn't get a degree, did you?
LISTER: No, I dropped out. I wasn't in long.
RIMMER: How long?
LISTER: 97 minutes. I thought it was going to be a good skive and all
that, you know? But I took one look at the time table and just checked
out, man. I mean, it was ridiculous. They had, they had lectures at,
like, first thing, in the afternoon. We're talking half-past twelve
everyday. Who's together by then? You can still taste the toothpaste.
RIMMER: Well, unlike you, Lister, I have ambitions. I'm not prepared to
sit around all day polishing my space-bike so I can go joyriding
through some asteroid belt. 'Cause I'm not a gimp! And one of my
ambitions is to learn another language so kindly let me get on with it.
(To the monitor) Play.
WOMAN: "La menuo aspektas bowege -- mi provos la kokidajon."
RIMMER: Ah, now this is one I do know.
HOLLY: (Appearing on the screen) The menu looks interesting -- I think
I'll try the chicken.
RIMMER: Holly, as the Esperantinos would say, "Bonvolu alsendi la
pordiston? Lausajne estas rano en mia bideo!" (Thumbs his chin at
HOLLY) And I think we all know what that means.
HOLLY: Yeah, it means, "Could you send for the hall porter? There
appears to be a frog in my bidet."
RIMMER: Is it? Well what's that one about, "Your father was a baboon's
rump and your mother spent most of her life up against walls with
sailors?"
HOLLY: I'm not telling you.
RIMMER: It's because you're bored, isn't it? That's why you're both
annoying me.
HOLLY: I'm not bored. I've had a really busy morning. I've devised a
system to totally revolutionize music.
LISTER: Get out of town!
HOLLY: Yeah, I've decimalized it. Instead of the octave, it's the
decatave. And I've invented two new notes: H and J.
LISTER: Hang on a minute, you can't just invent new notes.
HOLLY: Well I have. Now it goes: (Singing) Do Re Mi Fa So La Wo Bo Ti
Do. Do Ti Bo Wo La So Fa Mi Re Do.
RIMMER: What are you drivelling about?
HOLLY: Holrock. It'll be a whole new sound. All the instruments will be
extra big to incorporate my two new notes. Triangles will have four
sides. Piano keyboards the length of zebra crossings. Course, women
will have to be banned from playing the cello.
LISTER: Holly, shut up.
HOLLY: Oh, I forgot, I haven't told you the news.
RIMMER: What news?
HOLLY: A signal. We're getting a signal. It's probably nothing but I
just thought I'd mention it.
RIMMER: (Snaps his fingers) Aliens!
LISTER: Oh god, aliens? Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar
is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys -- it's aliens. A picture
falls off the wall -- it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog
roll in a day -- you thought that was aliens as well.
RIMMER: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
LISTER: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?
RIMMER: Just 'cause they're aliens doesn't mean to say the don't have to
visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and
alienesque like it comes out of the top of their heads or something.
LISTER: Well I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
6 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
The CAT backs around a corner watching the floor and holding a bat.
CAT: Here, mousie, mousie! I've got some cheese! I only want to be your
friend! (Starts banging around the floor with the bat.)
LISTER and RIMMER stroll up the corridor.
LISTER: Yo, Cat! (The CAT spins around and hides the bat behind his
back.) We're getting a signal. Come on.
RIMMER: (Excitedly) Aliens!
7 Int. Drive room.
Like series 1 but with a better budget. Lots of flashy props and
multiple monitors.
HOLLY: It's a distress call from a ship called the Nova-5. They've
crash-landed. I'm trying to establish contact.
LISTER: Another ship! Brilliant! (Sips from a glass of milk.)
RIMMER: So it's not aliens, then?
HOLLY: No, they're from Earth. I hope they'd got some spare odds and
sods on board. We're a bit short on a few supplies.
LISTER: Like what? (Sips his milk again.)
HOLLY: Cow's milk. Ran out of that yonks ago. Fresh and dehydrated.
LISTER: What kind of milk are we using now? (Sips his milk.)
HOLLY: Emergency back-up supply. We're on the dog's milk.
LISTER: (Staring at the cup) Dog's milk?!
HOLLY: Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of
vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other type
of milk, dog's milk.
LISTER: Why?
HOLLY: No bugger'll drink it. Plus the advantage of dog's milk is when
it goes off it takes exactly the same as when it's fresh.
LISTER: Why didn't you tell me, Holly?!
HOLLY: What, and spoil your tea?
LISTER whimpers and slams his cup down
HOLLY: Hang about, we've got contact.
RIMMER: Punch it up.
KRYTEN: (On the monitor) Thank goodness! My name is Kryten. I'm the
service mechanoid aboard the Nova-5. We've had a terrible accident.
The male officers died on impact. The female officers are injured but
stable. Please help us.
CAT: Is that female as in "soft and squidgy?"
RIMMER: How many?
KRYTEN: Three. Miss Jane, Miss Tracy, and Miss Anne. I am transmitting
medical details.
Pictures of the female officers appear on the screen along with their
name, height, weight, and other statistics, all within the "attractive"
range.
RIMMER: Tell them we're coming aboard. By god, we'll rescue these fair
blooms or my name's not, "Captain A.J. Rimmer, Space Adventurer."
KRYTEN: Thank you, Captain. (Ends transmission.)
LISTER: "Space Adventurer?"
RIMMER: What was I supposed to say? "Fear not, I'm the bloke you used to
clean the gunk out the chicken soup machine! Actually, we know sod all
about space travel but if you've got a blocked nozzle, we're your
lads!?" That'll fill them with confidence, won't it?
LISTER: How far are we away, Hol?
HOLLY: 'bout 24 hours.
CAT: (Jumping up) What?! Only 24 hours?! I better start getting ready.
(Singing) Twenty-four hours... Ahhh!!! First in the shower room! Heh
heh heh! (Dances out then jumps back in.) Hey, I'm so excited all six
of my nipples are tingling! (Dances out.)
LISTER: What's the matter with him? We're on a mission of mercy. We're
taking them urgently needed medical supplies. We're not on the pull!
8 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is getting dressed. He finds a sock on his bed, smells it, and
discards it. He digs a red sock out the hamper, smells it, then sprays
it with disinfectant, also spraying some under each arm. Then he takes
the sock to the table and whacks it a few times with a hammer and puts it
on. He grabs some black jeans and struggles into them then notices a big
iron-shaped hole in the right buttock. He digs a spray can out of his
locker and sprays black paint over the hole. Looks at himself in the
mirror.
LISTER: God! (Dances around.)
RIMMER walks in wearing a Captain's white dress uniform with medals gold
fringing and epaulet, and a cap under his arm.
RIMMER: (Looking at LISTER) No, we're not "on the pull," are we, Lister?
Look at you. You're absolutely pathetic. You're really trying, aren't
you? You're wearing all your least smeggy things.
LISTER: I don't know what you're talking about.
RIMMER: That t-shirt with only two curry stains on the front of it. You
only wear that on special occasions. You're toffed up to the nines,
laddy!
LISTER: And what about you? You look like Clive of India! Or the one
whose mum does use new biological biz!
RIMMER: Oh! It's started. I knew it would.
LISTER: What has?
RIMMER: The put-downs. It's always the same when we meet girls. Put me
down and make yourself look good.
LISTER: Like when?
RIMMER: Remember those two little brunettes from supplies? And I told
them I worked in stores and they were really interested and asked me
exactly what I did there.
LISTER: And I said you were a shelf.
RIMMER: Exactly! And I suggested a little trip to Titan Zoo and you
said, "Eww! He's taking ya home ta meet his mum already!"
LISTER: So? They laughed!
RIMMER: Yes, at me! At my expense! Just don't put me down when we meet
them.
LISTER: Okay, whatcha want me to say? How do you want me to act?
RIMMER: I don't know. Just act with respect. For a start, don't call me
"Rimmer."
LISTER: Why not?
RIMMER: Because you always put the emphasis on "Rim" in "Rimmer." Makes
me sound like a lavatory disinfectant.
LISTER: Well what do you want me to call you? "Rim-MER?"
RIMMER: I don't know. Um, "Arnie," "Arn," uh, something with a little
more... I don't know. How about "Big Man?"
LISTER: (Sneering) "Big Man?"
RIMMER: Or what about the nickname I had a school?
LISTER: What? "Bonehead?"
RIMMER: How did you know my nickname was "Bonehead?"
LISTER: I was only guessing.
RIMMER: I didn't mean that. I meant the other one.
LISTER: What other one?
RIMMER: "Ace!"
LISTER: Get out of town! Your nickname was never "Ace!" Maybe "Ace-
hole."
RIMMER: It _was_ my nickname at school, actually. It's just, no one ever
called me it despite the many times I let them beat me up.
LISTER: What are you trying to say to me, Rimmer?
RIMMER: I'm trying to say build me up, don't put me down.
LISTER: Like?
RIMMER: Like, if the opportunity occurs and it crops up naturally in
conversation, you could perhaps mention that I'm very brave.
LISTER: Do what?
RIMMER: Don't go ape. Just sort of mention, perhaps, that I died and I
was pretty, incredibly brave about it. Well, I mean, you know, you
could mention hints that I've had tons of girlfriends.
LISTER stares at RIMMER in disbelief.
RIMMER: All right, forget it, it was just an idea. Oh, you're not
wearing those boots, are you?
LISTER: What's wrong with them?
RIMMER: Oh, they just don't go, not with that lot. Uh, you should wear
your Day-Glo orange moon boots.
LISTER: You said they were disgusting.
RIMMER: (Inhales.) Ew, no, very chic.
LISTER: You said they smelled like an orangutan's posing pouch and set
off one of those dangerous chemical alarms. You made me put them in
the air-lock.
RIMMER: No, no. That was a mistake. They really look terrific on you.
I'd wear them.
LISTER: Honest?
RIMMER: Definitely.
9 Int. Nova-5.
KRYTEN bustles about.
KRYTEN: Come along, everybody! They're here! They're in orbit! Miss
Jane!
He walks up to Miss Jane, a bare skeleton in a red wig and clothes,
sitting at a table.
KRYTEN: What a mess you look! (Brushes the wig and applies lipstick to
the skull.) Smart but casual.
KRYTEN turns to another skeleton at the table.
KRYTEN: Miss Anne! Why, you haven't touched your soup! No wonder you're
beginning to look so pasty.
The skeleton falls forward into the bowl of soup. KRYTEN sits it back
up.
KRYTEN: Oh, do eat nicely, Miss Anne! What on Earth will the visitors
think if they see you eating like that? Hmm?
KRYTEN turns to a third skeleton at the table.
KRYTEN: Ah, Miss Tracy. (Prepares to brush its wig, then stops.) No, you
look absolutely perfect.
10 Int. Starbug cockpit.
LISTER sits at the controls with his feet propped up on the panels,
reading a children's book with cardboard pages. Fumes rise off his Day-
Glo orange moon boots. RIMMER stands behind him with a sick look on his
face.
LISTER: What's that smell?
RIMMER: (Strained) I can't smell anything.
LISTER: Are you okay? Your eyes are watering.
RIMMER: It's the excitement. Look, we can't wait for the cat. Let's
just go.
LISTER: Oh, come on, he's been preparing for a day and a night. Don't
you want to see the result?
11 Int. Red Dwarf hangar.
The CAT jumps in wearing a shiny gold spacesuit with humongous lapels and
a carrying an extra-tall gold helmet under his arm.
CAT: Aaaaaoooowww! Wait for me!
12 Int. Starbug cockpit.
CAT enters.
CAT: Aaaaoow! Hi, monkeys! Meet a plastic surgeon's nightmare!
RIMMER: A spacesuit with cufflinks.
LISTER: Where'd ya get the helmet?
CAT: I made it myself. I didn't want to muss up my hair. Hey, listen,
we just gotta make sure we don't pass any mirrors, 'cause if we do, I'm
there for the day. (Makes a face.) Ewww! What's that smell?
HOLLY appears on the monitor, wearing a toupee.
HOLLY: All right, everybody ready? Let's go, then.
LISTER: What are you doing, Hol?
HOLLY: What? What's wrong?
LISTER: The rug, man. Why are you wearing a toupee?
HOLLY: What toupee?
LISTER: The one on your head.
HOLLY: Who's head's that, then?
LISTER: Your head. It makes you look like a game show host.
RIMMER: What's wrong with everyone? Three million years without a woman
and you all act as if you're fourteen years old.
HOLLY: Oh, yeah? What about you and the socks?
LISTER: What socks?
RIMMER: Come on, we can't hang about.
HOLLY: He ordered two pairs of socks.
LISTER: What for?
HOLLY: One pair to put on his feet and the other pair to roll up and put
down his trousers.
RIMMER quickly takes off his cap and lays it in his lap.
13 Int. Nova-5 entryway.
KRYTEN welcomes the boys aboard.
KRYTEN: Come in, come in. How lovely to meet you!
RIMMER: Er, carmita. And what a delightful craft you have. Reminds me
of my first command.
KRYTEN: This way, please.
They all head down the hall. The CAT stops at a full-length mirror on
the wall and looks at himself.
CAT: Hey, you're a work of art, baby!
LISTER: (Gesturing to him) Psst!
CAT: (Trying to leave the mirror but can't) Uh, you're going to have to
help me, man.
LISTER: (Pulling the CAT down the hall) Come on.
CAT: (Still reaching for the mirror) Thank you!
14 Int. Nova-5 corridor.
KRYTEN: I'm so excited. We all are! The girls could scarcely stop
themselves from jumping up and down.
RIMMER: (With a painfully nasal laugh) Ah ha ha. Carmita, carmita!
KRYTEN: Ah! Vi parolas Espekanton, Kapitano Rimmer?
RIMMER: Uh, come again?
KRYTEN: You speak Esperanto, Captain Rimmer?
RIMMER: Oh, si, si, si, jawohl, oiu!
15 Int. Nova-5 large room.
KRYTEN enters the room ahead of the rest.
KRYTEN: (Speaking to the skeletal crew) Well, here they are.
RIMMER: (Enters and bows) Carmita... (Sees the skeletons and stays in his
bow, jaw agape.)
LISTER and the CAT enter and stare at the skeletons.
LISTER: Well... it's a bit difficult to know what to say. Isn't it, Ace?
KRYTEN: Well, isn't anybody going to say, "Hello?"
LISTER: (To RIMMER) I think the blonde one's giving you the eye.
KRYTEN: Well, I'll leave you to get acquainted. I'll just go and fix
some tea. (Exits.)
CAT: (To the skeleton of Tracy) Hi, baby!
RIMMER: I don't believe this.
LISTER: Be strong, Big Man!
RIMMER: Our first contact with intelligent life in three million and two
years and it's the android version of Norman Bates.
CAT: Come on, guys. So they're a little on the skinny side.
LISTER: Listen, girls. I don't know whether this is the time or place to
say this but my mate, Ace, here is incredibly, 'credibly brave!
RIMMER: Smeg off, dog food face!
LISTER: And he's got just tons and tons of girlfriends!
RIMMER: I'm warning you, Lister!
KRYTEN returns with tea and cups on a serving platter.
KRYTEN: (Noticing the silence) Well, is anything the matter?
RIMMER: Anything the matter? They're dead.
KRYTEN: Who's dead?
RIMMER: (Pointing to the skeletons) _They_ are dead. They're all dead.
KRYTEN: My god! Well, I was only away two minutes!
RIMMER: They've been dead for centuries!
KRYTEN: No!
RIMMER: Yes!
KRYTEN: Are you a doctor?
RIMMER: You've only got to look at them. They've got less meat on them
than a Chicken McNugget!
[The "Mc" is edited out of all American broadcasts.]
KRYTEN: Well, what am I going to do? I'm, I'm, I'm programmed to serve
them.
LISTER: I think the first thing we should do is bury them.
KRYTEN: You're that sure they're dead?
RIMMER: (Exasperated) Yes!!
KRYTEN: (Indicating the skeleton of Anne) What about this one?
RIMMER: There's a simple test. (To the skeletons) All right, girls,
hands up, those of you who are alive.
KRYTEN gestures desperately to the skeletons.
KRYTEN: (Lost) Well, what am I going to do??
16 Int. Starbug rear.
KRYTEN, LISTER, RIMMER, and the CAT in the piloting cabin.
KRYTEN: But I can't leave them! Mister David, please! Take me back!
LISTER: Aw, Kryten, you've got to start a new life now.
KRYTEN: I haven't got the software to cope with this. I was created to
serve. I serve, therefore I am. That is my purpose -- to serve and
have no regard for myself.
LISTER: You're beginning to sound like my mum.
KRYTEN: It's all I know.
LISTER: You've got to change, haven't ya? You gotta work out what you
want. Stop being everyone's smeggin' doormat.
KRYTEN: That's easy for you to say, Mister David. You're a human.
RIMMER: Only just.
17 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
KRYTEN is moping about.
RIMMER: (Walking up to KRYTEN) Ah, Kryten. Nothing to do, eh? Follow
me.
18 Int. Montage sequence.
KRYTEN peels potatoes, irons, looks at a long list, scrubbs the decks,
looks at the list, polishes the scutters, looks at the list, cleans
Holly's screen.
19 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
LISTER rides his bike down the corridor to the door to his quarters, gets
off and enters. The entire room has been cleaned and redecorated with
lace curtains, pastel wallpaper, and so on. Looks like something you
might find Barbie living in.
LISTER: What the smeggin' hell is going on?
KRYTEN: Good afternoon, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: (Holding up a pair of boxer shorts) What are these?
KRYTEN: Your boxer shorts, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: No way are these my boxer shorts. These bend! What have you
done to the place?
KRYTEN: I've done a spot of tidying up.
LISTER: But where is everything? Where's me coffee cup with the mould in
it?
KRYTEN: I threw it away, sir.
LISTER: But I was breeding that mould. His name was "Albert." I was
trying to get him two foot high.
KRYTEN: Why, sir?
LISTER: Because it drives Rimmer nuts and driving Rimmer nuts is what
keeps me going.
KRYTEN: I'm sorry, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: Look at ya. What are you doing? Why are you doing all this?
KRYTEN: Well, serving makes me happy, sir.
LISTER: But what about you? Don't you ever want to do anything just for
yourself?
KRYTEN: Myself? (Chuckles.) Well, that's a bit of a barmy notion, if you
don't mind my saying so, sir.
LISTER: Come on, there must be something you look forward to.
KRYTEN: "Androids." (Sings and makes mechanical gestures.) "Androids...
everybody needs good androids..."
LISTER: That stupid soap opera? Why?
KRYTEN: Well, because, for half an hour a week, I can forget I'm me.
LISTER: "Androids?" What else?
KRYTEN: Oh, ah, being asleep.
LISTER: "Androids" and being asleep? (Patting him on the back) Sounds
like a crazy, fun-packed life you lead there, Kryten, me old son.
KRYTEN: (Snickers with embarrassment.) I have strange thoughts when I'm
asleep.
LISTER: Yeah, they're called dreams.
KRYTEN: My favorite one is that I'm, I'm in a garden. I've never even
seen a garden except in books. (With a faraway look) And I've planted
everything and made it grow. It's my garden. And there's no one there
except me, just me and all the things I've made live. (Giggles
embarrassedly.) Silly.
LISTER: No, it isn't! Find a planet with an atmosphere and do it.
KRYTEN: I can't. I'm programmed to serve.
LISTER: There's no one _to_ serve, Kryten. That's the point.
KRYTEN: What about Mister Arnold? (Holds up the four foot list of
chores.) I've got to complete Mister Arnold's tasks.
LISTER: (Looking at the list) You what?! Rimmer gave you all this?
KRYTEN: Well, Mister Arnold is my master now.
LISTER: "Mister Arnold" isn't his name. His name's "Rimmer." Or
"Smeghead." Or "Dinosaur Breath" or "Molecule Mind." And on a really
special occasion when you want to be really mega-polite to him, Kryten,
we're talking MEGA-polite, in those exceptional circumstances, you can
call him "Arse-hole."
20 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is lying in his bunk. The CAT is serving himself some pasta and
sauce from the table. KRYTEN is painting a picture of RIMMER, who is
posing by the window. We can only see the top half of the painting which
shows Rimmer from the chest up in Captain's dress uniform in front of a
bookshelf and red curtains.
CAT: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
RIMMER: I think it will be best on _that_ wall, sort of dominating the
room.
KRYTEN: Yes, Mister Arnold, sir.
LISTER: (Mimicking) "Yes, Mister Arnold, sir." You're a total Gwendolyn,
do you know that, Kryten?
KRYTEN: Oh, yes, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: (Mimicking) "Yes, Mister David, sir."
RIMMER: Leave it alone, Lister. It enjoys doing the task I give. It
makes it happy.
LISTER: Drop dead, Rimmer.
RIMMER: Already have done.
LISTER: Encore!
CAT: You'd never get a cat to be a servant. You ever see a cat return a
stick? (To an imaginary stick-thrower) Hey, man! You threw the stick,
you go get it, yourself! I'm busy! If you wanted the stick so bad,
why'd you throw it away in the first place?
LISTER: Kryten, you never got a thing from those movies I showed you, did
ya?
RIMMER: What movies?
KRYTEN: Mister David was kind enough to take me to see "The Wild Ones,"
"Easy Rider," and "Rebel Without a Cause."
LISTER: I thought it might do him some good. Fat chance! In the middle
of Marlon Brando's rebel speech, _he_ gets out a brush-a-matic and
starts doing me lapels!
RIMMER: Well, now, maybe you'll learn, Lister. There's a natural order
to things in life. Some give orders, others obey. That's the way it's
always been, that's the way it's always going to be. Isn't that true,
Kryten?
KRYTEN: Oh, yes, Mister Arnold, sir.
LISTER: "Yes, Mister Arnold..." What's the point?
KRYTEN: Ah. I've finished, Mister Arnold, sir.
RIMMER: (Walking over to see the painting) Excellent, Kryten!
The painting from the chest down turns out to show Rimmer sitting on a
toilet with his pants down and holding a bog roll.
KRYTEN: I think it's rather good. Don't you, Mister Arnold, sir?
RIMMER: (Through clenched teeth) What are you doing?
KRYTEN: I, um, I think I'm, uh, rebelling.
RIMMER: Rebelling?!
KRYTEN: Yes, I, uh, I, I, I, I _think_ that's what I'm doing.
RIMMER: _You_ are rebelling?
KRYTEN: Mmmm... yes.
RIMMER: What are you rebelling against?
KRYTEN: (Tossing his paint palette on the floor and speaking like Marlon
Brando) Whaddya got? (Struts across the room.) Dinosaur Breath!
(Picks up the pot of pasta sauce.) Molecule Mind! (Splashes the sauce
over Rimmer's bunk.) Smeg-for-brains! (To LISTER) I need your bike.
LISTER: You got it!
KRYTEN: (High-fives the CAT then turns around and shoots Rimmer the
bird.) Swivel on it, punk! (Struts out the door.)
KRYTEN, decked out in metal-studded, leather jacket, cap, and gloves,
climbs onto Lister's space-bike, sticks out his jaw defiantly, and revs
the motor.
The End
Cast:
Arnold J. Rimmer Chris Barrie
Dave Lister Craig Charles
Cat Danny John-Jules
Holly Norman Lovett
Kryten Robert Llewellyn
Written by Bob Grant
Doug Naylor
Music Howard Goodall
Developed for Television by Paul Jackson Productions
Graphic Designer Mark Allen
Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg
Prop Buyer Mike Fallon
Production Team Helen Campbell
Kate Preston
Assistant Floor Manager Dona Distefano
Production Assistant Ann Zahl
Unit Manager Kelvin Jones
Production Manager Mike Agnew
Costume Designer Jacki Pinks
Make-up Designer Bethan Jones
Vision Mixer Jill Dornan
Camera Supervisor Melvyn Cross
Vision Supervisor Len Greenhalgh
Technical Co-ordinator Andrew Cowley
Videotape Editor Ed Wooden
Lighting Director John Pomphrey
Sound Supervisor Tony Worthington
Designer Paul Montague
Executive Producer Paul Jackson
Producer & Director Ed Bye
A Paul Jackson Production for BBC North West
Guest Cast:
Krtyen David Ross
The Esperanto Woman Johanna Hargreaves
Android Actor Tony Slattery
1 Ext. View of space.
HOLLY: (In space) Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red
Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold
Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved
from the ship's cat. Message ends.
(Reappearing) Additional: As the days go by, we face the increasing
inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and
meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?
2 Ext. Nova-5.
The wreckage of the Nova-5, a small ship crashed on a barren moon.
3 Int. Nova-5.
KRYTEN, an android, watches a video monitor on which two silver androids,
KELLY and BROOK speak.
KELLY: Sit down, Brook. There's something I must tell you.
BROOK: What is it, Kelly?
KELLY: I wasn't with Simone that evening, Brook. I spent the night with
Gary.
BROOK: Your ex-husband Gary, my business rival? What are you telling me,
Kelly?
KELLY: I'm saying... Brook, Jr.
BROOK: What about Brook, Jr.?
KELLY: He isn't your android.
The closing credits for the soap opera "Androids" roll by on the screen.
All the characters played by "Android####" with #### being a serial
number.
MONITOR: (Song over credits) "Androids... everybody needs good
androids... androids... have feelings too..."
4 Ext. Red Dwarf. Establishing shot.
5 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is polishing up his space-bike. RIMMER paces the room and watches
a recording of a woman reciting an Esperanto Instructional tape on the
monitor.
WOMAN: "Mi esporas ke kiam vi venos la vetero estos milda."
RIMMER: Wait a minute, I know this one, don't tell me, don't tell me,
don't tell me!
LISTER: I hope when you come the weather will be clement.
WOMAN: "I hope when you come the weather will be clement."
RIMMER: Lister, don't tell me. I could've got that.
WOMAN: "Bonvolu direkti min al kvinsela hotela?"
RIMMER: Ah... I remember this from last time...
LISTER: Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?
RIMMER: Wrong, actually. Totally, utterly, and completely wrong.
WOMAN: "Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?"
RIMMER: Lister, will you please shut up?
LISTER: I'm only helping ya!
RIMMER: Well I don't need any help.
WOMAN: "La mango estis bonega! Dlej korajin gratulonjn' al la kuristo."
RIMMER: (Snaps his fingers) I would like to purchase that orange
inflatable beach ball and that small bucket and spade.
WOMAN: "The meal was splendid! My heartiest congratulations to the
chef."
RIMMER: What? Pause!
LISTER: Rimmer, you've been doing Esperanto for eight years. How come
you're so utterly useless?
RIMMER: Oh, speaks! And how many books have you read in your entire
life? The same number as champion the wonder horse: zero!
LISTER: I've read books.
RIMMER: Uh, Lister, we're not talking about books where the main
character is a dog called "Ben."
LISTER: I went to Art College!
RIMMER: You?
LISTER: Yeah!
RIMMER: How did you get into Art College?
LISTER: The normal way you get into Art College. The same old, usual,
normal, boring you get in. Failed me exams and applied. The snatched
me up.
RIMMER: Ah, but you didn't get a degree, did you?
LISTER: No, I dropped out. I wasn't in long.
RIMMER: How long?
LISTER: 97 minutes. I thought it was going to be a good skive and all
that, you know? But I took one look at the time table and just checked
out, man. I mean, it was ridiculous. They had, they had lectures at,
like, first thing, in the afternoon. We're talking half-past twelve
everyday. Who's together by then? You can still taste the toothpaste.
RIMMER: Well, unlike you, Lister, I have ambitions. I'm not prepared to
sit around all day polishing my space-bike so I can go joyriding
through some asteroid belt. 'Cause I'm not a gimp! And one of my
ambitions is to learn another language so kindly let me get on with it.
(To the monitor) Play.
WOMAN: "La menuo aspektas bowege -- mi provos la kokidajon."
RIMMER: Ah, now this is one I do know.
HOLLY: (Appearing on the screen) The menu looks interesting -- I think
I'll try the chicken.
RIMMER: Holly, as the Esperantinos would say, "Bonvolu alsendi la
pordiston? Lausajne estas rano en mia bideo!" (Thumbs his chin at
HOLLY) And I think we all know what that means.
HOLLY: Yeah, it means, "Could you send for the hall porter? There
appears to be a frog in my bidet."
RIMMER: Is it? Well what's that one about, "Your father was a baboon's
rump and your mother spent most of her life up against walls with
sailors?"
HOLLY: I'm not telling you.
RIMMER: It's because you're bored, isn't it? That's why you're both
annoying me.
HOLLY: I'm not bored. I've had a really busy morning. I've devised a
system to totally revolutionize music.
LISTER: Get out of town!
HOLLY: Yeah, I've decimalized it. Instead of the octave, it's the
decatave. And I've invented two new notes: H and J.
LISTER: Hang on a minute, you can't just invent new notes.
HOLLY: Well I have. Now it goes: (Singing) Do Re Mi Fa So La Wo Bo Ti
Do. Do Ti Bo Wo La So Fa Mi Re Do.
RIMMER: What are you drivelling about?
HOLLY: Holrock. It'll be a whole new sound. All the instruments will be
extra big to incorporate my two new notes. Triangles will have four
sides. Piano keyboards the length of zebra crossings. Course, women
will have to be banned from playing the cello.
LISTER: Holly, shut up.
HOLLY: Oh, I forgot, I haven't told you the news.
RIMMER: What news?
HOLLY: A signal. We're getting a signal. It's probably nothing but I
just thought I'd mention it.
RIMMER: (Snaps his fingers) Aliens!
LISTER: Oh god, aliens? Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar
is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys -- it's aliens. A picture
falls off the wall -- it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog
roll in a day -- you thought that was aliens as well.
RIMMER: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
LISTER: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?
RIMMER: Just 'cause they're aliens doesn't mean to say the don't have to
visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and
alienesque like it comes out of the top of their heads or something.
LISTER: Well I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
6 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
The CAT backs around a corner watching the floor and holding a bat.
CAT: Here, mousie, mousie! I've got some cheese! I only want to be your
friend! (Starts banging around the floor with the bat.)
LISTER and RIMMER stroll up the corridor.
LISTER: Yo, Cat! (The CAT spins around and hides the bat behind his
back.) We're getting a signal. Come on.
RIMMER: (Excitedly) Aliens!
7 Int. Drive room.
Like series 1 but with a better budget. Lots of flashy props and
multiple monitors.
HOLLY: It's a distress call from a ship called the Nova-5. They've
crash-landed. I'm trying to establish contact.
LISTER: Another ship! Brilliant! (Sips from a glass of milk.)
RIMMER: So it's not aliens, then?
HOLLY: No, they're from Earth. I hope they'd got some spare odds and
sods on board. We're a bit short on a few supplies.
LISTER: Like what? (Sips his milk again.)
HOLLY: Cow's milk. Ran out of that yonks ago. Fresh and dehydrated.
LISTER: What kind of milk are we using now? (Sips his milk.)
HOLLY: Emergency back-up supply. We're on the dog's milk.
LISTER: (Staring at the cup) Dog's milk?!
HOLLY: Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of
vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other type
of milk, dog's milk.
LISTER: Why?
HOLLY: No bugger'll drink it. Plus the advantage of dog's milk is when
it goes off it takes exactly the same as when it's fresh.
LISTER: Why didn't you tell me, Holly?!
HOLLY: What, and spoil your tea?
LISTER whimpers and slams his cup down
HOLLY: Hang about, we've got contact.
RIMMER: Punch it up.
KRYTEN: (On the monitor) Thank goodness! My name is Kryten. I'm the
service mechanoid aboard the Nova-5. We've had a terrible accident.
The male officers died on impact. The female officers are injured but
stable. Please help us.
CAT: Is that female as in "soft and squidgy?"
RIMMER: How many?
KRYTEN: Three. Miss Jane, Miss Tracy, and Miss Anne. I am transmitting
medical details.
Pictures of the female officers appear on the screen along with their
name, height, weight, and other statistics, all within the "attractive"
range.
RIMMER: Tell them we're coming aboard. By god, we'll rescue these fair
blooms or my name's not, "Captain A.J. Rimmer, Space Adventurer."
KRYTEN: Thank you, Captain. (Ends transmission.)
LISTER: "Space Adventurer?"
RIMMER: What was I supposed to say? "Fear not, I'm the bloke you used to
clean the gunk out the chicken soup machine! Actually, we know sod all
about space travel but if you've got a blocked nozzle, we're your
lads!?" That'll fill them with confidence, won't it?
LISTER: How far are we away, Hol?
HOLLY: 'bout 24 hours.
CAT: (Jumping up) What?! Only 24 hours?! I better start getting ready.
(Singing) Twenty-four hours... Ahhh!!! First in the shower room! Heh
heh heh! (Dances out then jumps back in.) Hey, I'm so excited all six
of my nipples are tingling! (Dances out.)
LISTER: What's the matter with him? We're on a mission of mercy. We're
taking them urgently needed medical supplies. We're not on the pull!
8 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is getting dressed. He finds a sock on his bed, smells it, and
discards it. He digs a red sock out the hamper, smells it, then sprays
it with disinfectant, also spraying some under each arm. Then he takes
the sock to the table and whacks it a few times with a hammer and puts it
on. He grabs some black jeans and struggles into them then notices a big
iron-shaped hole in the right buttock. He digs a spray can out of his
locker and sprays black paint over the hole. Looks at himself in the
mirror.
LISTER: God! (Dances around.)
RIMMER walks in wearing a Captain's white dress uniform with medals gold
fringing and epaulet, and a cap under his arm.
RIMMER: (Looking at LISTER) No, we're not "on the pull," are we, Lister?
Look at you. You're absolutely pathetic. You're really trying, aren't
you? You're wearing all your least smeggy things.
LISTER: I don't know what you're talking about.
RIMMER: That t-shirt with only two curry stains on the front of it. You
only wear that on special occasions. You're toffed up to the nines,
laddy!
LISTER: And what about you? You look like Clive of India! Or the one
whose mum does use new biological biz!
RIMMER: Oh! It's started. I knew it would.
LISTER: What has?
RIMMER: The put-downs. It's always the same when we meet girls. Put me
down and make yourself look good.
LISTER: Like when?
RIMMER: Remember those two little brunettes from supplies? And I told
them I worked in stores and they were really interested and asked me
exactly what I did there.
LISTER: And I said you were a shelf.
RIMMER: Exactly! And I suggested a little trip to Titan Zoo and you
said, "Eww! He's taking ya home ta meet his mum already!"
LISTER: So? They laughed!
RIMMER: Yes, at me! At my expense! Just don't put me down when we meet
them.
LISTER: Okay, whatcha want me to say? How do you want me to act?
RIMMER: I don't know. Just act with respect. For a start, don't call me
"Rimmer."
LISTER: Why not?
RIMMER: Because you always put the emphasis on "Rim" in "Rimmer." Makes
me sound like a lavatory disinfectant.
LISTER: Well what do you want me to call you? "Rim-MER?"
RIMMER: I don't know. Um, "Arnie," "Arn," uh, something with a little
more... I don't know. How about "Big Man?"
LISTER: (Sneering) "Big Man?"
RIMMER: Or what about the nickname I had a school?
LISTER: What? "Bonehead?"
RIMMER: How did you know my nickname was "Bonehead?"
LISTER: I was only guessing.
RIMMER: I didn't mean that. I meant the other one.
LISTER: What other one?
RIMMER: "Ace!"
LISTER: Get out of town! Your nickname was never "Ace!" Maybe "Ace-
hole."
RIMMER: It _was_ my nickname at school, actually. It's just, no one ever
called me it despite the many times I let them beat me up.
LISTER: What are you trying to say to me, Rimmer?
RIMMER: I'm trying to say build me up, don't put me down.
LISTER: Like?
RIMMER: Like, if the opportunity occurs and it crops up naturally in
conversation, you could perhaps mention that I'm very brave.
LISTER: Do what?
RIMMER: Don't go ape. Just sort of mention, perhaps, that I died and I
was pretty, incredibly brave about it. Well, I mean, you know, you
could mention hints that I've had tons of girlfriends.
LISTER stares at RIMMER in disbelief.
RIMMER: All right, forget it, it was just an idea. Oh, you're not
wearing those boots, are you?
LISTER: What's wrong with them?
RIMMER: Oh, they just don't go, not with that lot. Uh, you should wear
your Day-Glo orange moon boots.
LISTER: You said they were disgusting.
RIMMER: (Inhales.) Ew, no, very chic.
LISTER: You said they smelled like an orangutan's posing pouch and set
off one of those dangerous chemical alarms. You made me put them in
the air-lock.
RIMMER: No, no. That was a mistake. They really look terrific on you.
I'd wear them.
LISTER: Honest?
RIMMER: Definitely.
9 Int. Nova-5.
KRYTEN bustles about.
KRYTEN: Come along, everybody! They're here! They're in orbit! Miss
Jane!
He walks up to Miss Jane, a bare skeleton in a red wig and clothes,
sitting at a table.
KRYTEN: What a mess you look! (Brushes the wig and applies lipstick to
the skull.) Smart but casual.
KRYTEN turns to another skeleton at the table.
KRYTEN: Miss Anne! Why, you haven't touched your soup! No wonder you're
beginning to look so pasty.
The skeleton falls forward into the bowl of soup. KRYTEN sits it back
up.
KRYTEN: Oh, do eat nicely, Miss Anne! What on Earth will the visitors
think if they see you eating like that? Hmm?
KRYTEN turns to a third skeleton at the table.
KRYTEN: Ah, Miss Tracy. (Prepares to brush its wig, then stops.) No, you
look absolutely perfect.
10 Int. Starbug cockpit.
LISTER sits at the controls with his feet propped up on the panels,
reading a children's book with cardboard pages. Fumes rise off his Day-
Glo orange moon boots. RIMMER stands behind him with a sick look on his
face.
LISTER: What's that smell?
RIMMER: (Strained) I can't smell anything.
LISTER: Are you okay? Your eyes are watering.
RIMMER: It's the excitement. Look, we can't wait for the cat. Let's
just go.
LISTER: Oh, come on, he's been preparing for a day and a night. Don't
you want to see the result?
11 Int. Red Dwarf hangar.
The CAT jumps in wearing a shiny gold spacesuit with humongous lapels and
a carrying an extra-tall gold helmet under his arm.
CAT: Aaaaaoooowww! Wait for me!
12 Int. Starbug cockpit.
CAT enters.
CAT: Aaaaoow! Hi, monkeys! Meet a plastic surgeon's nightmare!
RIMMER: A spacesuit with cufflinks.
LISTER: Where'd ya get the helmet?
CAT: I made it myself. I didn't want to muss up my hair. Hey, listen,
we just gotta make sure we don't pass any mirrors, 'cause if we do, I'm
there for the day. (Makes a face.) Ewww! What's that smell?
HOLLY appears on the monitor, wearing a toupee.
HOLLY: All right, everybody ready? Let's go, then.
LISTER: What are you doing, Hol?
HOLLY: What? What's wrong?
LISTER: The rug, man. Why are you wearing a toupee?
HOLLY: What toupee?
LISTER: The one on your head.
HOLLY: Who's head's that, then?
LISTER: Your head. It makes you look like a game show host.
RIMMER: What's wrong with everyone? Three million years without a woman
and you all act as if you're fourteen years old.
HOLLY: Oh, yeah? What about you and the socks?
LISTER: What socks?
RIMMER: Come on, we can't hang about.
HOLLY: He ordered two pairs of socks.
LISTER: What for?
HOLLY: One pair to put on his feet and the other pair to roll up and put
down his trousers.
RIMMER quickly takes off his cap and lays it in his lap.
13 Int. Nova-5 entryway.
KRYTEN welcomes the boys aboard.
KRYTEN: Come in, come in. How lovely to meet you!
RIMMER: Er, carmita. And what a delightful craft you have. Reminds me
of my first command.
KRYTEN: This way, please.
They all head down the hall. The CAT stops at a full-length mirror on
the wall and looks at himself.
CAT: Hey, you're a work of art, baby!
LISTER: (Gesturing to him) Psst!
CAT: (Trying to leave the mirror but can't) Uh, you're going to have to
help me, man.
LISTER: (Pulling the CAT down the hall) Come on.
CAT: (Still reaching for the mirror) Thank you!
14 Int. Nova-5 corridor.
KRYTEN: I'm so excited. We all are! The girls could scarcely stop
themselves from jumping up and down.
RIMMER: (With a painfully nasal laugh) Ah ha ha. Carmita, carmita!
KRYTEN: Ah! Vi parolas Espekanton, Kapitano Rimmer?
RIMMER: Uh, come again?
KRYTEN: You speak Esperanto, Captain Rimmer?
RIMMER: Oh, si, si, si, jawohl, oiu!
15 Int. Nova-5 large room.
KRYTEN enters the room ahead of the rest.
KRYTEN: (Speaking to the skeletal crew) Well, here they are.
RIMMER: (Enters and bows) Carmita... (Sees the skeletons and stays in his
bow, jaw agape.)
LISTER and the CAT enter and stare at the skeletons.
LISTER: Well... it's a bit difficult to know what to say. Isn't it, Ace?
KRYTEN: Well, isn't anybody going to say, "Hello?"
LISTER: (To RIMMER) I think the blonde one's giving you the eye.
KRYTEN: Well, I'll leave you to get acquainted. I'll just go and fix
some tea. (Exits.)
CAT: (To the skeleton of Tracy) Hi, baby!
RIMMER: I don't believe this.
LISTER: Be strong, Big Man!
RIMMER: Our first contact with intelligent life in three million and two
years and it's the android version of Norman Bates.
CAT: Come on, guys. So they're a little on the skinny side.
LISTER: Listen, girls. I don't know whether this is the time or place to
say this but my mate, Ace, here is incredibly, 'credibly brave!
RIMMER: Smeg off, dog food face!
LISTER: And he's got just tons and tons of girlfriends!
RIMMER: I'm warning you, Lister!
KRYTEN returns with tea and cups on a serving platter.
KRYTEN: (Noticing the silence) Well, is anything the matter?
RIMMER: Anything the matter? They're dead.
KRYTEN: Who's dead?
RIMMER: (Pointing to the skeletons) _They_ are dead. They're all dead.
KRYTEN: My god! Well, I was only away two minutes!
RIMMER: They've been dead for centuries!
KRYTEN: No!
RIMMER: Yes!
KRYTEN: Are you a doctor?
RIMMER: You've only got to look at them. They've got less meat on them
than a Chicken McNugget!
[The "Mc" is edited out of all American broadcasts.]
KRYTEN: Well, what am I going to do? I'm, I'm, I'm programmed to serve
them.
LISTER: I think the first thing we should do is bury them.
KRYTEN: You're that sure they're dead?
RIMMER: (Exasperated) Yes!!
KRYTEN: (Indicating the skeleton of Anne) What about this one?
RIMMER: There's a simple test. (To the skeletons) All right, girls,
hands up, those of you who are alive.
KRYTEN gestures desperately to the skeletons.
KRYTEN: (Lost) Well, what am I going to do??
16 Int. Starbug rear.
KRYTEN, LISTER, RIMMER, and the CAT in the piloting cabin.
KRYTEN: But I can't leave them! Mister David, please! Take me back!
LISTER: Aw, Kryten, you've got to start a new life now.
KRYTEN: I haven't got the software to cope with this. I was created to
serve. I serve, therefore I am. That is my purpose -- to serve and
have no regard for myself.
LISTER: You're beginning to sound like my mum.
KRYTEN: It's all I know.
LISTER: You've got to change, haven't ya? You gotta work out what you
want. Stop being everyone's smeggin' doormat.
KRYTEN: That's easy for you to say, Mister David. You're a human.
RIMMER: Only just.
17 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
KRYTEN is moping about.
RIMMER: (Walking up to KRYTEN) Ah, Kryten. Nothing to do, eh? Follow
me.
18 Int. Montage sequence.
KRYTEN peels potatoes, irons, looks at a long list, scrubbs the decks,
looks at the list, polishes the scutters, looks at the list, cleans
Holly's screen.
19 Int. Red Dwarf corridor.
LISTER rides his bike down the corridor to the door to his quarters, gets
off and enters. The entire room has been cleaned and redecorated with
lace curtains, pastel wallpaper, and so on. Looks like something you
might find Barbie living in.
LISTER: What the smeggin' hell is going on?
KRYTEN: Good afternoon, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: (Holding up a pair of boxer shorts) What are these?
KRYTEN: Your boxer shorts, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: No way are these my boxer shorts. These bend! What have you
done to the place?
KRYTEN: I've done a spot of tidying up.
LISTER: But where is everything? Where's me coffee cup with the mould in
it?
KRYTEN: I threw it away, sir.
LISTER: But I was breeding that mould. His name was "Albert." I was
trying to get him two foot high.
KRYTEN: Why, sir?
LISTER: Because it drives Rimmer nuts and driving Rimmer nuts is what
keeps me going.
KRYTEN: I'm sorry, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: Look at ya. What are you doing? Why are you doing all this?
KRYTEN: Well, serving makes me happy, sir.
LISTER: But what about you? Don't you ever want to do anything just for
yourself?
KRYTEN: Myself? (Chuckles.) Well, that's a bit of a barmy notion, if you
don't mind my saying so, sir.
LISTER: Come on, there must be something you look forward to.
KRYTEN: "Androids." (Sings and makes mechanical gestures.) "Androids...
everybody needs good androids..."
LISTER: That stupid soap opera? Why?
KRYTEN: Well, because, for half an hour a week, I can forget I'm me.
LISTER: "Androids?" What else?
KRYTEN: Oh, ah, being asleep.
LISTER: "Androids" and being asleep? (Patting him on the back) Sounds
like a crazy, fun-packed life you lead there, Kryten, me old son.
KRYTEN: (Snickers with embarrassment.) I have strange thoughts when I'm
asleep.
LISTER: Yeah, they're called dreams.
KRYTEN: My favorite one is that I'm, I'm in a garden. I've never even
seen a garden except in books. (With a faraway look) And I've planted
everything and made it grow. It's my garden. And there's no one there
except me, just me and all the things I've made live. (Giggles
embarrassedly.) Silly.
LISTER: No, it isn't! Find a planet with an atmosphere and do it.
KRYTEN: I can't. I'm programmed to serve.
LISTER: There's no one _to_ serve, Kryten. That's the point.
KRYTEN: What about Mister Arnold? (Holds up the four foot list of
chores.) I've got to complete Mister Arnold's tasks.
LISTER: (Looking at the list) You what?! Rimmer gave you all this?
KRYTEN: Well, Mister Arnold is my master now.
LISTER: "Mister Arnold" isn't his name. His name's "Rimmer." Or
"Smeghead." Or "Dinosaur Breath" or "Molecule Mind." And on a really
special occasion when you want to be really mega-polite to him, Kryten,
we're talking MEGA-polite, in those exceptional circumstances, you can
call him "Arse-hole."
20 Int. Sleeping quarters.
LISTER is lying in his bunk. The CAT is serving himself some pasta and
sauce from the table. KRYTEN is painting a picture of RIMMER, who is
posing by the window. We can only see the top half of the painting which
shows Rimmer from the chest up in Captain's dress uniform in front of a
bookshelf and red curtains.
CAT: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
RIMMER: I think it will be best on _that_ wall, sort of dominating the
room.
KRYTEN: Yes, Mister Arnold, sir.
LISTER: (Mimicking) "Yes, Mister Arnold, sir." You're a total Gwendolyn,
do you know that, Kryten?
KRYTEN: Oh, yes, Mister David, sir.
LISTER: (Mimicking) "Yes, Mister David, sir."
RIMMER: Leave it alone, Lister. It enjoys doing the task I give. It
makes it happy.
LISTER: Drop dead, Rimmer.
RIMMER: Already have done.
LISTER: Encore!
CAT: You'd never get a cat to be a servant. You ever see a cat return a
stick? (To an imaginary stick-thrower) Hey, man! You threw the stick,
you go get it, yourself! I'm busy! If you wanted the stick so bad,
why'd you throw it away in the first place?
LISTER: Kryten, you never got a thing from those movies I showed you, did
ya?
RIMMER: What movies?
KRYTEN: Mister David was kind enough to take me to see "The Wild Ones,"
"Easy Rider," and "Rebel Without a Cause."
LISTER: I thought it might do him some good. Fat chance! In the middle
of Marlon Brando's rebel speech, _he_ gets out a brush-a-matic and
starts doing me lapels!
RIMMER: Well, now, maybe you'll learn, Lister. There's a natural order
to things in life. Some give orders, others obey. That's the way it's
always been, that's the way it's always going to be. Isn't that true,
Kryten?
KRYTEN: Oh, yes, Mister Arnold, sir.
LISTER: "Yes, Mister Arnold..." What's the point?
KRYTEN: Ah. I've finished, Mister Arnold, sir.
RIMMER: (Walking over to see the painting) Excellent, Kryten!
The painting from the chest down turns out to show Rimmer sitting on a
toilet with his pants down and holding a bog roll.
KRYTEN: I think it's rather good. Don't you, Mister Arnold, sir?
RIMMER: (Through clenched teeth) What are you doing?
KRYTEN: I, um, I think I'm, uh, rebelling.
RIMMER: Rebelling?!
KRYTEN: Yes, I, uh, I, I, I, I _think_ that's what I'm doing.
RIMMER: _You_ are rebelling?
KRYTEN: Mmmm... yes.
RIMMER: What are you rebelling against?
KRYTEN: (Tossing his paint palette on the floor and speaking like Marlon
Brando) Whaddya got? (Struts across the room.) Dinosaur Breath!
(Picks up the pot of pasta sauce.) Molecule Mind! (Splashes the sauce
over Rimmer's bunk.) Smeg-for-brains! (To LISTER) I need your bike.
LISTER: You got it!
KRYTEN: (High-fives the CAT then turns around and shoots Rimmer the
bird.) Swivel on it, punk! (Struts out the door.)
KRYTEN, decked out in metal-studded, leather jacket, cap, and gloves,
climbs onto Lister's space-bike, sticks out his jaw defiantly, and revs
the motor.
The End
Cast:
Arnold J. Rimmer Chris Barrie
Dave Lister Craig Charles
Cat Danny John-Jules
Holly Norman Lovett
Kryten Robert Llewellyn
Written by Bob Grant
Doug Naylor
Music Howard Goodall
Developed for Television by Paul Jackson Productions
Graphic Designer Mark Allen
Visual Effects Designer Peter Wragg
Prop Buyer Mike Fallon
Production Team Helen Campbell
Kate Preston
Assistant Floor Manager Dona Distefano
Production Assistant Ann Zahl
Unit Manager Kelvin Jones
Production Manager Mike Agnew
Costume Designer Jacki Pinks
Make-up Designer Bethan Jones
Vision Mixer Jill Dornan
Camera Supervisor Melvyn Cross
Vision Supervisor Len Greenhalgh
Technical Co-ordinator Andrew Cowley
Videotape Editor Ed Wooden
Lighting Director John Pomphrey
Sound Supervisor Tony Worthington
Designer Paul Montague
Executive Producer Paul Jackson
Producer & Director Ed Bye
A Paul Jackson Production for BBC North West
Guest Cast:
Krtyen David Ross
The Esperanto Woman Johanna Hargreaves
Android Actor Tony Slattery
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