Episode 1; Back In the Red (#1)


Summary


    The series opens aboard the ship in the present (which is 3 million years in the future *wink*). Rimmer and Lister lay on bunks in a cell, and Rimmer refuses to speak to Lister. Well, you know that Lister won't just sit back and allow Rimmer to ignore him, so he goes out of his way to annoy him. Finally Rimmer cracks and gives only a vague reason for being so angry with Lister, who is apologizing. "You are not sorry! You poured an entire tube of it over my head!"
    Three Days Earlier...Just as it was at the end of Series VII, Starbug has just entered Red Dwarf, which is enormous (yes, much more so than before), only now the posse discovers that the nanobots' molecular restructuring is reconfiguring itself and Red Dwarf is shrinking around them. Cat alerts the others to the "brown alert" situation as they detect a heart beat ahead. Seconds later they meet two rodents and give new meaning to the term "rat-assed". As Red Dwarf reverts to normal size, Starbug gets too large to be racing through corridors and breaks into three pieces, the last being the cockpit/head which explodes as the group runs to safety. Lister, and the rest, are shocked to suddenly be put under arrest by Dave's old chums, Selby & Chen. Lister charged with stealing and destroying Starbug, operating without a pilot's license, and bringing two stow-aways aboard, as well as Navigation Officer Kochanski.
    Lister ends up in his old quarters under house arrest. He learns from Holly that after his trial he will be sent to Floor 13, the Brig, which he had never known existed, where he will board with 400+ prisoners who were being shipped to a new jail. Lister wonders briefly about the inmates, but then says,"No wait, don't tell me. I already know. They're a bunch of deranged, hairy, no-lobers, with breath like old nappies, and arms like toilet walls, aren't they?" Holly smiled at him,"The nice ones are, yeah." Then Lister discovers that along with the rest of the crew, the original Rimmer (pre-Holographic state, undead...etc) has been resurrected.
    Captain Hollister is accosted by a female crew member who asks if the rumor that they are suddenly 3 million years into deep space with a different shaped Red Dwarf is true. Captain tells her that until they reboot Holly, they can't be sure, but yeah. The new Red Dwarf is what theirs should have been, before JMC made its huge cut-backs (they've got an antimatter drive, bio-organic network of computers ship-wide, and a Kareoke bar on C Deck). On a table in the ship's hospital, lays the Cat. After a brief examination, the Doctor tells the Captain that this one isn't human. How can she tell? Well, for one, his organs are color-coordinated. Also, the walls of his stomach are decorated and his pulse & heartbeat are "cooler" sounding. "Can you send this down to me on tape?" Hollister asks.
    Rimmer and Lister have a nifty little discussion about maturity and their old relationship while awaiting Dave's arraignment. Lister offers to help Rimmer get promoted in the field with the confidential files he located, if Rimmer helps them escape. Power? Eminance? No fuss? Of course he agrees. And during this event, where is Kryten? Meeting with the psychiatrist, who after careful examination, recommends that he be restored to "orginal factory settings".
    Rimmer, just as Lister promised, finds the disc with the information in the wreckage of Starbug. But a surprising discovery, Rimmer also finds the Positive Virii from Quarantine, Luck & Sexual Magnetism. As he takes a small test of the sexual magnetism virus and women all greet him lustily, Rimmer ends the episode,"The World Loves A Bastard."

Review


    Okay, I admit it. I like the episode =) Especially that last bit. So, even after seeing the rest of the series, I think this one ranks up at the top. Especially the way the rest of the three part episode links together so wonderfully! Don't forget about the comment Rimmer makes at the very start! As for the storyline, its nice to see the Dwarf back, but having the whole crew put me off at first, fortunately, that seems to have worked. By the way, when Lister says, "Knowledge is Power" by neither he nor Rimmer can remember who said it...just to help them out, it was (I believe) Langston Hughes.
This episode gets Four out of Five Stars.
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