0.5 UPDATES AND NEW STUFF

Version 0.5:
Um, everything. It's the first version. Posted to group. (4/9/95 - 4/27/95)

Version 1.0:
Quite a lot, really. Explanations for most of the inconsistencies from version 0.5, plus a couple of new additions. All new additions are marked with a: (I may have missed a couple). Also, all book/series contradictions are gone. Not posted to group. (4/27/95 - 5/3/95)

Version 1.25:
Everything got sloshed around again. This is more of a clean-up run than anything else. Grammatical errors and other nit-picky stuff were taken care of, as well as a couple of new additions. Posted to group. (5/3/95 - 5/5/95)

Version 1.5:
More minor additions and corrections and the like. El Skutto yelled at me (I am a beast -- El Skutto). Things got fixed. Added a diagram. Posted to group. (5/5/95 - 5/12/95)

Version 2.0:
More tidy-time. El Skutto fixed all the grammar stuff and small technical-type errors. A couple of new inconsistencies and explanations have also been added. Posted to group. (5/12/95 - 5/21/95)

Version 2.5:
Whole lotta new inconsistencies and explanations have been added. The debut of the Universal Explanation. Posted to group. (5/21/95 - 5/31/95)

Version 3.0:
Big format changes. More inconsistencies. People seem to have a lot more to say now that exams are over. New info on accessibility through the World Wide Web and the e-mail distribution list. Posted to group. (5/31/95 - 6/14/95)

Version 3.5:
Where oh where to begin. The Plot Inconsistencies have been separated from the Production Errors into two different sections. The later sections were all pushed back. Millions of new PIs and Production Errors (PEs) added. Some rather harsh content editing by yours truly. Posted to group. (6/14/95 - 7/7/95)

Version 3.7:
This is a minor change at the moment. It is made to add a few new inconsistencies that have been submitted, but, more importantly, to update the availability of the PIP, listing the new places it can be found. Not posted to group. (7/7/95 - 7/25/95)

Version 4.0:
Bunch of new PIs and PEs added. Mild scandals from the n/g. Whole lot of important stuff done to justify the delay. Really. Posted to the group. (7/25/95 - 8/15/95)

Version 4.25:
New PIs and PEs added as they came in. Other minor corrections and the like. Not posted to group. (8/15/95 - 9/7/95)

Version 5.00:
Oh man...where to begin. I got tons and tons of PIs that just kept backing up after I rushed out the last version so Grant Naylor could use it for their new Smeg Outs video and their RD Writers' Bible. Then my life took a serious turn for the south. And the stuff kept backing up. And backing up. And my life got ugly. But I've dug myself out of the PIP backlog at least and at least this phoenix rises from the grave. Tons of new stuff. Posted to group. (9/7/95 - 11/7/95)

Version 5.25:
Minor section re-adjustments due to inclusion of the Smeg Outs video. The PIP was split into two parts due to size constraints. Lots of new stuff to chew on (including stuff from the Smeg Outs). Fun and games in time for the holidays. Posted to group. (11/7/95 - 12/6/95)

Version 5.50:
New additions to all our wonderful sections. Our valiant effort begins to get a new version out once a month (if needed). Posted to group. (12/6/95 - 1/10/96)

Version 5.55:
A couple of minor changes. Updated info on availability of the PIP, and other minor foibles. There are a couple of new additions. Look for them. Posted to group. (1/10/96 - 2/14/96)

Version 5.75:
New additions added. Some minor stuff here and there. Your basic monthly revision-type thing. (2/14/96 - 3/15/96)

1.0 WHAT IS THE PLOT INCONSISTENCIES PROJECT (PIP)?

2.0 WHAT ARE THE PLOT INCONSISTENCIES?

The main feature of PIs is that, with proper application of dubious logic, they can be explained away rather nicely within the confines of believability through suspension of disbelief. The inconsistency should actually require some sort of explanation, and events of obvious exaggeration and intended misdirection are not included.

Some Production Errors can also be PIs if there is an explanation for them that fits into the plot of the series. The door-opening panels that activate before they are touched are an example of this. They are listed in both sections. There is a full description of Production Errors (PEs) at the beginning of section 3.0.

The PIs will be listed by series, by episode. Each inconsistency will be listed, and if a resolution exists for it, it will be included below it.

2.1 SERIES 1

The End (1-1)

• It is said that there are 169 people on Red Dwarf, as opposed to the at least 1,167 in Justice (4-3).
  • These numbers might not take into account crewmembers who were off-ship for whatever reasons.
  • The 169 may only refer to the technicians.
  • The larger number may include all personnel on the ship (miners, etc), which would be counted when charging someone for their deaths, but the smaller number may just refer to officers or enlisted Space Corps personnel.
  • Because RD is such an enormous ship, individual sections of the vessel may be called 'ships.' Thus, when Todhunter said 'There are 169 people on board this ship,' he may have been referring only to the current section he was in.
• Why can't Rimmer write Lister down in his report book? Surely Holly can provide a hologrammatic one, as he provides many holo items for Rimmer in later episodes.
  • Rimmer, unaccustomed to being dead, may not have thought to ask for one.
• Rimmer mentions that there was a volcanic eruption and most of Fiji is three feet underwater. However, everything else contradicts this: Lister still has his Plan, and he also has a postcard and a picture of Fiji on the wall, both showing Fiji intact.
  • Fiji apparently is now mostly underwater and Lister knows it, in which case the Plan may be just a fantasy that Lister is keeping to preserve his sanity.
  • Lister: 'You can get a drainage grant these days.' And why should he keep a picture of Fiji in its 'current' submerged state when he can have one showing its former pristine beauty? Maybe it could look like that again after land reclamation work.
• Rimmer writes certain exam answers on his thighs. How is he going to read these during the exam without taking his boilersuit off?
• When Lister first comes out of stasis, the crewmembers' dust remains are seen in the Teaching Room, Drive Room and corridors. However the piles of dust have all mysteriously disappeared later by the time Lister has met the Cat. Holly may have cleaned them up, but why didn't he do this in the three million years that Lister was in stasis?
  • It is reasonable to assume that Holly could not dispose of the remains until he was given a directive by a human crewmember. Also, Holly may have left them as eventual proof of what happened, to show to Lister once it was safe. The maintenance of the piles is apparent over the three million years and Holly must have had a hand in it one way or the other.
• What happened to the hologram of McIntyre? The accident did not appear to affect mechanical components of the ship, so presumably this would include the current hologram. Also, why wouldn't Captain Hollister be generated upon Lister's awakening, as the ranking dead crewmember?
  • At the time of the accident, holograms were presumably only generated to coexist with a living crew. As there would be no living crew for three million years, until Holly could release Lister from stasis, there would be no justification for keeping McIntyre generated (and there may even be a rule which prevents hologram generation for its own sake, especially given the enormous power this function requires). After Lister's release from stasis, Holly generates Rimmer (as opposed to any other crewmember) as a means of preserving the health (see Balance Of Power, 1-3) of the sole living crewmember, something which under the circumstances could be expected to take priority over normal rules of hologram generation.
• Lister was smoking in his bunk (just before Rimmer's exam) while there was a no-smoking sign not far from him. Why didn't Rimmer crack up about Lister smoking seeing as how he did elsewhere in this same episode?
  • The stress of failing another exam might have distracted Rimmer from his normal appointed duty of being a nit-picky smeg head.
• Why did Rimmer leap at Cat? He is a hologram and wouldn't be able to harm Cat in any way. Plus, he is a self-confessed coward, so why be brave and 'defend' Lister like that?
  • This was relatively early in the post-accident relationship, and perhaps Rimmer was still trying to put up a front of bravery as well as testing his intangibility as a hologram.
• Why did Rimmer fade out as he passed through Cat? The other two times that he passes through solid objects in this one episode only the part of him within the solid object is visibly affected.
  • Perhaps Rimmer was low on power and this caused his whole projection to flicker instead of just the area that was passing through the solid object.
• Lister says that Rimmer is a lower rank than the skutters, yet in every other episode Rimmer is in command of them.
  • Lister actually says that Rimmer ranks below the service robots, so he may not be referring to the skutters, but to some other droid type. As such then, Rimmer may outrank the skutters (and indications are that he does). After Lister exits stasis, Rimmer would not want robots around that would outrank him, and there may even be a regulation which states that the highest ranking 'personnel' on a vessel cannot be robots.

Future Echoes (1-2)

• Lister has a picture of his father, but he said he was abandoned in a pub (The Last Day, 3-6) and never knew his biological parents.
  • Lister's familial life is quite strange. This could either be a picture of his foster father, or perhaps his real father left him a picture when he abandoned him.
• When Cat is wheeling his suits in front of Lister by the stasis booth, it says 'Level 159.' After witnessing Bexley's 'death' in the Drive Room, the sign is 'Level 147.' It is also 'Level 147' in Me^2 (1-6).
  • There is a continuity break between the Cat and Lister calling to him from the Drive Room, so it is conceivable that the Cat wasn't at the Drive Room yet, and the Drive Room and stasis booth are on different levels.
• Lister goes from the sleeping quarters (Level 348) to the Drive Room (Level 147) via Level 132. Why?
• Why would Lister put his stuff into long-term storage now, seeing as it had survived for three million years the way it was?
  • There is no proof that his stuff wasn't in long term-storage to begin with, and just removed by the skutters previous to his awakening.
• If the food dispenser's vocabulary unit isn't working, why can it hold a complex and intelligent conversation with Lister, actually above and beyond what its vocabulary unit should normally have to deal with?
• In the scene where Rimmer is talking to himself with Lister watching, Lister should be able to see himself as well in the future echo.
  • Lister stands by the doorway at a point where the Echo Lister would also be were he visible, and perhaps this 'overlapping' of a physical being with its Echo doppelganger cannot occur in the space-time continuum. Thus Lister can only see those parts of the future echo that would never be involved in such a situation.
• The malfunctioning food dispenser produces boots and a bucket. How does a food dispenser have access to these items?
  • Assuming that the dispensers either create the objects themselves or have the objects delivered to them, it is feasible that the malfunction caused a cross-up in the ordering/creation matrix of the machine and switched it with that of a maintenance dispenser or the like.
• There is a problem with the whole idea of 'future echoes.' Namely, why do they appear on the ship? If they are from the future, they should appear where the ship is going to be at that time in the future, not where the ship currently is in the past. This is because the ship is travelling in space. For example, at the speed of light, the ship would travel 90 million kilometers in five minutes, therefore an echo from five minutes in the future would also occur more than 90 million kilometers ahead of Red Dwarf (because at the time it was travelling faster than light).
  • Since no one has ever travelled faster than light, it is extremely likely that most common-sense applications of physics would go out the window since you are doing something that is impossible by the laws of physics.

Balance Of Power (1-3)

• To get the results of his chef's exam, Lister says his ID number is '16912146.' In Future Echoes (1-2) his number is 'RD52169.'
  • The number may be his candidate number for the chef's exam.
• Rimmer says Kochanski is a 'Navigation Officer' and that is written on her disk in Confidence And Paranoia (1-5). Yet her uniform reads 'Console Officer.'
  • Perhaps one is a subsidiary of the other.
• Why didn't Lister get Kochanski's holodisk from the skutters or Holly when Rimmer was fooling with it? Why didn't Lister order it back from Rimmer when he became his 'superior'?
  • The whole decision to bring Rimmer back as opposed to Kochanski or any of Lister's friends was made by Holly (to preserve Lister's sanity). Since it is unlikely that he has changed his mind, Holly no doubt has taken precautions to keep Lister from finding the disk. Since Holly runs the skutters, they can't help, and he can probably countermand any order from Lister that he believes is not in his best interests.
• Holly tells Lister that his conversation total with Rimmer was over 14 million words. In Me^2 (1-6) it is said that Lister was on the ship for two years, which would have averaged 13 Words Per Minute (WPM) between the two. According to Waiting For God (1-4), Lister had only been with the company for eight months previous to the accident, bumping this up to 40.5 WPM.
  • Holly is going computer senile, so his numbers aren't what they used to be.

Waiting For God (1-4)

• In the illustration concerning the war between the Red Hats and the Blue Hats, both sides are shown wearing Red Hats.
  • This could have been in-fighting within the Red faction. The vermilions versus the ambers. Kind of like Protestant groups.
  • Maybe they were just bad illustrators, as the shades are different, just not accurate.
  • The illustrator may have been a Red Hat supporter and could not bring himself to illustrate the other side.
• Why is the 'Cat Dictionary' labelled as such in English when the Cat language is all smells?
  • Lister labelled the book for his convenience.
  • It has been shown that the Cat's ancestors could at least translate English badly (the Laundry List). They may have put writing on their important works.
• The Cat and Lister had the 'Cloister-Lister' argument in The End (1-1). How could Lister forget the fact that a race of people worshipped him as a god?
  • The subject was touched upon in The End (1-1) but not discussed to that kind of resolution. Lister hasn't forgotten, but is trying to convince the Cat he is their God (he now has the evidence from the Holy Book).
• Why does Rimmer's bedding move when he lies on it? Since he has no weight, the bedding should not bend as if under weight. It is not hologrammatic because most holo items have an 'H' on them, and Lister interacts with the bedding later, and it behaves normally.
  • Perhaps when Rimmer is within the ship, Holly can project hologrammatic illusions onto normal objects so it seems that they react like they would if Rimmer were solid.
• When the Cat is playing with the yo-yo, Rimmer reaches towards him, and the Cat pulls his arm out of the way and claims Rimmer is trying to steal his yo-yo. Rimmer is a hologram, and the chances of a non-corporeal being nicking a physical object are unlikely, nor is it likely that Rimmer could use the yo-yo.
  • Both the Cat's actions can be written up to natural reactions. Although Rimmer is not a real threat to get the yo-yo, Cat is instinctively reacting to a perceived threat to his toy.
• While Rimmer is trying to decipher the writing on the pod, he mentions something about the quarantine period being almost finished, but Lister had already broken the quarantine.
  • This is just Rimmer being a stickler for the rules. Even though Rimmer is the only one adhering to the quarantine (and also the least important person in a quarantine situation given his dead status), Rimmer has the desperate need to follow the rules to the letter and somehow seeks the answers through strict rules adherence.
• A couple of things in this episode bring up a big question. We find that the Cat race knows Lister was a slob and that Frankenstein was black. This is then compounded on top of information from The End (1-1), where we see that they know Frankenstein's name, Lister's name (Cloister), the fact that Lister was in stasis, and the fact that Lister dreamed of going to Fiji (Fuchal). Now, considering that all these events happened before the Cat race evolved, and Frankenstein was just a normal cat, how in the name of Cloister did the Cat race know all this stuff?
  • Well, there are several ways. For one thing, there are just the ancestral familial memories that must have been passed down among Frankenstein's children about Frankenstein herself. Also, we know that the Cat race apparently had access to the records of the ship, and its videos. It is entirely possible that they knew about Frankenstein and pieced together the rest of the story through videotaped archives on the hearing that sent Lister into stasis in the first place, or that they didn't know about Frankenstein at all, and pieced everything together from the videos. Given the fact that they don't get Frankenstein's name wrong, it seems more likely that Frankenstein was passed down ancestrally. At any rate, they had about three million years to piece it together. Holly may actually have known about them and steered them in the right direction or told them outright, but then forgot all about them due to his senility. Finally, there also are several direct ties that the Cat race had with Lister that could have helped them figure things out, including things like the Laundry List.

Confidence And Paranoia (1-5)

• Confidence's head explodes in the vacuum of outer space when he removes his helmet. Is this physically likely?
  • It depends on Confidence's physical make-up, which is unknown (though implied human). Massive explosions result from great differences in pressure, so as Confidence was pressurized, he should explode.
• Rimmer says he was part of the Love Celibacy Society because he believed in its ideals, yet there is the obvious contradiction of his dalliance with McGruder.
  • Rimmer always tries to keep up proper appearances but he's really a snivelly smeg underneath it all.
• Why would Rimmer want to drug Paranoia? Wouldn't he love to hear all the embarrassing information about Lister to use against him at a later date?
  • Perhaps Rimmer in his own paranoia thought Paranoia would go on to talk about him as well.
• How could a hologram stored on a disk know what was said before it was booted up?
  • There may be a continuous feed going into the hologram simulation equipment so that when holograms are booted up they are up to date with relevant information.
• Scary Nit-picking From Hell coming up: Two unusual events are described by Rimmer as 'the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546' and 'that incident in 12th Century Burgundy when it rained herring.' One contributor did some research on the subject, and the earliest case of spontaneous combustion he could find was a poor woman in Paris in 1673 (much later than 1546), and there were no instances of a mayor of Warsaw ever spontaneously combusting. The earliest fish fall he could find was in 1666 (again, substantially later than the 12th Century) where small finger-length fish fell in Cranstead, near Kent, England. The earliest case of a herring fall he could find was in 1821 in Argyllshire, Scotland. This is all, sadly, quite serious.
  • Rimmer, being Rimmer, has got his facts wrong.

Me^2 (1-6)

• The placement of the dust piles in The End (1-1) conflicts with Rimmer's video recollections in this episode.
  • The skutters moved everything around during the millenia.
• Rimmer says that Lister hummed for the two years that they bunked together, yet in Waiting For God (1-4) Lister says he has only been with the company for eight months.
  • Maybe it only seemed like two years to Rimmer. Also, since he knew that Lister would never see it, he may have been exaggerating to increase his heroic suffering.
  • This is not necessarily contradictory. Certain discrepancies elsewhere seem to imply that not everyone on the RD was a member of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. Lister may have been on the ship for the first 16 months or so on a 'non-commissioned' basis, and only officially 'joined the company' within the last eight months before the accident.
• The Rimmers have not moved their certificates into their new room, yet these are probably what the egomaniacs should have moved, and the last things that they would forget.
  • Perhaps they left them to annoy Lister.
• The 'Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Death' door opens before Lister touches the panel.
  • The panel might be light-sensitive so that holograms could use it, so Lister would not have to touch the panel.
• Lister goes off about the clippings in the Rimmers' new quarters, but they were up in the old room anyway, so this is old news.
• The cinema seats were all of the fold-down variety. How did both Rimmers (who are holograms with no weight) sit normally in these seats?
  • Once again, while on the ship, Holly might create hologrammatic illusions to produce a view of what it would be like if the holograms had tangible bodies.
• The original Rimmer makes shadow puppets on the screen. How can a projected light image make a shadow on another projected light image?
  • In the case of a hologram the light projection is so sophisticated that it gives the impression of a real figure. The hologram light appears to have a 'solid' consistency that other, normal light cannot pass through (otherwise we would see through Rimmer). This property of hologram light apparently allows it the ability to cast shadows.
• Rimmer said he would have been an Admiral if it wasn't for GSD, but GSD was only six weeks before the disaster. How could Rimmer go from a Second Technician to an Admiral in six weeks?
  • Rimmer is as Rimmer does. It was a deeply traumatic event in his life, and, as Ace later indicates (Dimension Jump, 4-5), Rimmer thinks that a major setback is a complete setback, and that he could have done anything if he had only gotten a 'break.'
• Why is it that Holly can support two holograms now, but not at other times in later episodes where it would have been incredibly useful, such as in Quarantine (5-4) regarding Dr. Lanstrom?
  • This was a major effort, with Holly cutting down all unnecessary systems. By the later dates, the addled Holly probably couldn't keep up with it all.
  • Holly cannot sustain two totally separate holograms for any significant length of time (eg. the interviewees in Holoship -- 5-1 -- only made very brief appearances). Because the two Rimmers were practically the same person, with the same personality, it was not so much a drain on the artificial reasoning circuits of Holly because the two Rimmers, when put in similar situations, would make the same decisions. Two separate holograms (ie. Rimmer and Lanstrom), who would have contrasting personalities, would cause too much of a drain on Holly.

2.2 SERIES 2

Kryten (2-1)

• People who speak Esperanto are referred to as 'Esperantinos.' They are really Esperantists.
  • Rimmer is an idiot.
• It is said that this is the first contact with intelligent life in three million and two years. What about the Cat race?
  • Considering it is Rimmer saying it, it is not surprising given his extremely low opinion of the Cat race.
• Lister says 'You're beginning to sound like my mum.' However, Lister claims to have been abandoned at six weeks old and that he 'never had a mum' (The Last Day, 3-6).
  • Probably referring to his foster mother.
• How can Rimmer's eyes tear about Lister's boots if he is a hologram and cannot smell?
  • Rimmer's sensors can pick up smells and then translate them into the appropriate responses.
• After three million years, the skeletons should be dust, not still skeletons.
  • Kryten may have put the corpses into stasis and taken them out a while ago. Perhaps Kryten's meticulous care also preserved the skeletons.
• Kryten disobeys and insults Rimmer before his programming is broken by Lister in Camille (4-1).
  • This may have been a temporary lapse or partial break in his programming, that, while he probably felt very, very guilty about it afterwards, would soften up his defences for their formal breakdown in Camille (4-1).
  • Lister broke Kryten's programming in this episode, but then had to do it again after Kryten's subservience programming was restored by repair after Kryten's accident (Backwards, 3-1).

Better Than Life (2-2)

• How did the mail ship ever track and catch up to the Red Dwarf?
  • It is possible that it tracked the postal-pod homing beacon all the way, but it can't have expected so long a journey. The fuel consumption must be really low and it could work on maneuvering thrusters. It also had less distance to cover once the RD turned around.
• Lister says 'I remember when my dad died.' No he doesn't. He was abandoned as an infant.
  • He's probably referring to his foster father.
• Rimmer appears to be putting on a normal helmet like the others, yet he shouldn't be able to touch it and if it was put on his head, it would fall right through him.
  • It is probably a hologram projected by Holly. Holly does such things, for example, in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) and Parallel Universe (2-6).
• Cat says that he always licks someone when they give him food, yet he never did it before, and will never do it again.
  • Let's look at the previous times the Cat has been fed. In The End (1-1) Lister puts Krispies on the floor for Cat, and Cat is repulsed by it, so it is not likely he would lick Lister over it. In Waiting For God (1-4), Lister again gives Cat food but Cat is generally repulsed by Lister himself, so he's not likely to be doing any licking of Lister (for whatever reason). In Polymorph (3-3) the Cat is again repulsed during the dissection dinner. Again, not a likely lick situation. The only other time is in Legion (6-2) and by this time Cat may have broken himself of the habit due to Lister's chastisement now, or just the passage of time with people who do not do it.
• In this episode, Rimmer gets news that his father dies, but in Future Echoes (1-2) there is 'that unfortunate suicide business.'
  • It is never actually stated that Rimmer's father killed himself.
  • It may have been an attempted suicide.
• Why did Rimmer have the 'H' on his forehead when he was grabbed and hit by the hammer? If he was tangible, he would not have the 'H' on his forehead. If he was intangible and justifiably had the 'H' on his forehead, he should not have been able to have been grabbed and hit.
  • Rimmer's 'H' reappeared before he 'left' the game, presumably to signal a return to truth and bad times. The incident of the shipboard game was one last stab at Rimmer by his own subconscious. In order to make the incident most cruel, Rimmer's 'H' must be present to support the illusion that it is reality, and something good is happening to him. The realisation comes that he is still playing the game, where he is a tangible form (and can thus be hit), and after this the presence or absence of the 'H' is no longer relevant.
• By this episode, the ship has turned around. Yet, in Future Echoes (1-2), it is said that it will take 4000 years for the RD to turn around.
  • The ship had approximately two years to slow down, and then went into orbit around a celestial body (Kryten, 2-1). Using this method apparently allowed the ship to turn around faster than it would have in the other case.
• Rimmer doesn't seem to know who Marilyn Monroe is, yet there are pictures of her in his locker.
  • It's a shared locker, so the posters are more likely Lister's. Even if not, Rimmer being Rimmer would not necessarily get the name right (eg. 'Wilfred' Shakespeare in Waiting For God, 1-4).
• Rimmer's 'Admiral' outfit is the same as his 'Captain' outfit in Kryten (2-1). Why couldn't Holly give him a proper uniform?
  • Holly isn't responsible for Rimmer's uniform in the TIV Better Than Life, so the fact that Rimmer is wearing what appears to be a Captain's uniform is entirely the doing of his own psyche. The simplest explanation would be that the uniform is that of Captain, but a favorite style that Rimmer gets Holly to make for him (even though he has no rank claim to it). In BTL, his psyche can make things the way he wants it, therefore he can be wearing his same favorite uniform but have it designated Admiral to suit his fantasy (in a TIV the rules of reality don't necessarily apply).
• The Red Dwarf's address is given as 'Deep Space,' yet the pod had been following them since they left Earth. If that's so, then the message was originally mailed before the accident, so they weren't in 'Deep Space' yet.
  • This can be related to the one above about the pod tracking the RD for so long. The pod, in good postal service bureaucratic tradition, could keep updating the addresses 'to ensure proper delivery.' If it was built to track the RD for any length of time, it probably had this capability as well.

Thanks For The Memory (2-3)

• The Projection Cage is used for Rimmer, even though it is established in later episodes that he has the Light Bee, and therefore doesn't need the cage.
  • The LB might have arrived on the mail ship from Better Than Life (2-2), and was not found until they sorted through all the extraneous mail.
  • Perhaps this was before they had explored the entire ship and found the science section with the LB.
  • Maybe the LB sometimes does not work properly in non-S3 planetary environments. However, this might be contradicted by the crew deciding to send Kryten and Rimmer to see if the atmosphere is toxic in Meltdown (4-6).
• 'Mr. Fat Bastard 2044': Is 2044 just a number, or a reference to a year? The year would conflict with times established in Stasis Leak (2-4).
  • Maybe it is the number of times Hollister scooped the title.
  • He may also be the 2044th Mr. Fat Bastard.
  • It could be a made-up year when Hollister supposedly first won the title.
  • Captain Hollister may have spent a period of time in stasis, in which case he could have been a Fat Bastard in 2044 and still be commanding Red Dwarf in the 21st/23rd Century. The stasis booths were used during interstellar travel -- it is indicated that Todhunter experienced this (The End, 1-1), so quite possibly Hollister did too.
• Lise Yates says 'I love you, Rimmer' when she should have called him 'Arnold.'
  • Since it was Lister's script, it is what Lister would call him.
  • When you get right down to it, Rimmer has mostly been called Rimmer, even by family. The letter from his mother in Better Than Life (2-2) begins 'Dear Rimmer.' Only on specific occasions has he been referred to as Arnold.
• When Lister and Rimmer are discussing Lise Yates, Rimmer's attire goes from scruffy (shirt and tie undone) to all correct (everything buttoned and tied).
  • Holly probably snapped up Rimmer's appearance, in keeping with how fastidious Rimmer usually is.
• Lister protests at being told how many times Rimmer has had sex, yet the likely figure had been implied previously (Me^2, 1-6).
  • Lister probably dreaded hearing the awful, detailed 'truth' truth from Rimmer.
• Lister, while in the sleeping quarters (Level 348), says, 'I went down to the Hologram Simulation Suite.' To be correct he should say 'went up' as the Suite is on Level 592.
  • Lister is Lister. Knowing which way is 'up' is not a requirement.
  • However, Lister should be right, as every single ship in history has been numbered top-down instead of bottom-up. This does not seem to be the case, however, as the Xpress Lifts on the ship confirm a bottom-up numbering (Stasis Leak, 2-4).

Stasis Leak (2-4)

• Wednesday, 2nd March, 2077: This date conflicts with later 23rd Century references. It is also stated as three weeks before the crew dies, and thereby conflicts with Rimmer's diary entry from Me^2 (1-6).
• March 2, 2077 will be a Tuesday.
  • The calendar as we know it today may be rearranged in order to accommodate a space-faring society. This is supported by the use of the new month 'Geldof' by the newscaster in Better Than Life (2-2).
• Rimmer and Lister are in the Captain's Office three weeks before the events of The End (1-1). Yet then Lister doesn't know where the office is.
  • Perhaps he is pretending so he can flirt with Kochanski.
• Rimmer laments that 'Everyone always leaves me in the end: girls, parents...' Rimmer divorced his parents, so he left them. What girls is he talking about?
  • Rimmer probably thought that his parents deserted him first.
  • Well, he did have some women: McGruder (Confidence And Paranoia, 1-5) and Lorraine (Parallel Universe, 2-6) for example.
• The crew routinely wander between levels 100-something (The End, 1-1: Level 159) and 500-something (Queeg, 2-5: Level 592). Yet they have to travel down 2567 levels in the Xpress Lift to get to Level 16 in this episode. What in the hell were they doing on Level 2583?
• As a corollary to the above, if the RD was four miles deep, with 2583 levels at least, they would be 8.1 ft (2.48 m) each.
  • If the floors are staggered in front and back (see below), this would not be the case and also explain some short staircases seen in certain episodes.

  
  Diagram 1
  
  
  
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• The photo at the end of the episode is different from the photo in the beginning.
  • Perhaps it is some 'Back To The Future' retro-history change.
• The crew do not go to the parallel universe in three years' time, nor do they go back in time so that Lister can marry Kochanski five years from then.
  • The passage of 'real' time and 'awake' time is really subjective here, so it still may be accurate.
• Rimmer hides under a table, passing completely through it in the process. How is that possible with the solid Light Bee in conjunction with the fact that Holly couldn't be projecting him?
  • This lends credence to the theory of sometime-use of the really small LB.
  • Present-Holly might have warned past-Holly that a hologram was slipping through time. Past-Holly, not having a hologram to support yet (McIntyre wasn't dead), took over projection of Rimmer.
• The soap ages three million years going forward in time, but the crew does not age negative three million years going back, or three million years when they come back. If it doesn't work on organics, what about their clothes?
  • Nothing 'ages.' Apparently, something can enter a past environment (eg. the crew back to 2077), but something cannot enter a future environment that it did not originate in (eg. the soap). Trying to shift something against this time-grain causes its disintegration. Thus the crew and their accompanying inorganics are safe because they move to a past environment and then back to their own future one.
• If Rimmer mentioned the head popping out of a table in his diary, why did he not also mention the two other Listers or the other Rimmer?
  • He may simply have stopped writing about his 'hallucinations,' especially if he thought these details were just too crazy and he wanted to forget them.
  • Maybe he did write about the other Listers and Rimmer, but Lister never read that far.
• The Cat identifies his question, 'What are you talking about, dog-breath?' as 'a wise old Cat saying.' However, the Cat apparently had no knowledge of dogs before Future Echoes (1-2), so how would he know of this saying?
  • The Cats as a species obviously knew of dogs. It is perhaps improbable that the Cat did not encounter or remember dog references before Future Echoes, but not impossible, given his lonely life before meeting Lister and company. At any time after Future Echoes, the Cat could have come across a reference to this saying (which would then have some meaning for him), especially as his 'investigations' among Cat artifacts had been stimulated by Lister (eg. the request to find the Holy Book -- Waiting For God, 1-4).
• When Lister is looking for Kochanski at the Ganymede Holiday Inn, he and the desk clerk apparently consult the guest register to find her room. If Kochanski is now called Mrs. Lister, then Lister may not be able to find her in the register at all, or he may be alerted to the temporal incident (by finding his own name) or the marriage situation (by finding either name listed for the Honeymoon Suite).
  • Room 008 may not be identified in the register as the Honeymoon Suite. Also Kochanski being married is no guarantee that she has changed her name, and the name of Kochanski (as opposed to Lister) may even be registered in order that the Future Lister can have his joke at his younger self's expense (and necessarily the room must not be in Lister's name, in order for the temporal events to play as they do).

Queeg (2-5)

• Lister claims that the tape of 'Robert Hardy reads...' that he and Cat are listening to got twisted, but they are listening to a CD.
  • Maybe it is some futuristic tape/CD combo.
  • When Lister claims the tape is 'twisted,' he could be making an aesthetic judgement, not a physical one.
• Rimmer is thrown back by the force of the explosion. Why would this happen to an intangible hologram? Also, he falls onto, not through, the table.
  • The Light Bee might have gotten jolted by the explosion, though the effect should have been different. The LB may be able to sense the explosion and make an appropriate simulation. There is a pause before Rimmer gets thrown. The LB might also try and project an image consistent with physical reality, so Rimmer ends up slumped on top of the table instead of falling through it.
• Rimmer's legs walk off without him. How?
  • The LB could have malfunctioned. The positive Z coordinates might be alright, but the Xs and Ys of the negative Zs got messed.
  • If Holly was projecting Rimmer then he could go off in two directions at once.
• Rimmer turned into Cat, but Cat was not in the original crew, so he wouldn't be stored on disk.
  • Rimmer might have been able to do it from his memories of the Cat.
• Queeg says that they've been going in circles for 14 months, when there are other things outside of his word that indicate otherwise. How come no one picks up on this?
  • Since Queeg is Holly's joke, he doesn't have to tell the truth.
• When Lister, the Cat, Rimmer, and Holly arrive at the Hologram Simulation Suite, Holly (in his monitor) enters first. Holly's monitor clearly has a thick cable running from it. Why should Holly, who can project himself remotely quite easily (Stasis Leak, 2-4, for example), need a connector cable to his monitor?
  • Perhaps the added involvement of the whole Queeg ruse made Holly cut corners in other areas such as remote projection of himself as opposed to a hard connection, which would take less effort.

Parallel Universe (2-6)

• Why didn't Hilly and company hop at the same time Holly and company did?
  • Perhaps the universes are not mirror equivalents.
• How could Lister still be pregnant in his own universe when it is physically impossible there?
  • As the amazing pseudo-science of the movie 'Junior' showed, it is technically possible for a man to be pregnant. With Holly's help, I suppose it is feasible.
• Cat spells 'B-A-T-H' but never learned to spell.
  • He might have learned some of his favorite words in English so he knew where to find his grooming goods on the ship.
  • The Cat's forefathers must have known how to spell because in Waiting For God (1-4) it was said they had translated the Laundry List. Their comprehension, on the other hand...
• 'If we don't go now, we won't be able to get back at all.' How did they get Lister's kids back then?
  • Perhaps on the way back, Holly figured out the way back with the Holly-Hop.
• The pregnancy-test packet shows that a dark pink color signifies a negative result, while a positive result is indicated by either of two shades of very pale pink. Yet just a minute later, the crew state that blue is for not pregnant and red is for pregnant.
  • This is our favorite crew we are talking about. Just screwing up the colors only is a great achievement.
• After using the Holly-Hop drive, Holly says there's nothing out there but space, then he notices the other ship and there is a camera shot of the ship, in the foreground of which is obviously a planet or asteroid. Why didn't Holly report the planet/asteroid?
  • Holly was too busy searching for Earth to notice a small asteroid.
  • When he said there was 'nothing' out there, he wasn't including 'useless' space debris such as a small asteroid.
• There are baby skutters in this episode. There is absolutely no practical, definable need for baby skutters at all, or any reason for skutters to reproduce by making smaller version of themselves.
  
  • The convergence of eons of time for their remedial AI circuits to evolve and being under the direction of the increasingly dim-witted Holly could have resulted in the emergence of a skutter society where the skutters produced smaller versions of themselves for no good reason.

2.25 THE UNIVERSAL EXPLANATION

However, I find it to be a lame cop-out. It is presented here for completeness, and because some inconsistencies defy all explanations but this. Whenever there is a discrepancy between facts before and after Backwards (3-1), you can rest assured that there is at least one reason for it all.

2.3 SERIES 3

Backwards (3-1)

• How could Lister completely rebuild Kryten when he can't even do some basic tampering with him in The Last Day (3-6)?
  • Kryten's auto-repair unit as shown in Psirens (6-1) may have helped, but it does not explain the new appearance.
• When Kryten accidentally ejects Rimmer during his flight test, the ejector seat should have just flown through Rimmer, leaving him sitting above open space in SB.
  • If Rimmer was under LB power, it would have been physically thrown out with the ejector seat, and would have projected images to reflect this. If Rimmer was under Holly's power, she probably simulated what would have happened, just to annoy him.
• During Kryten's test in Starbug, it is said that when travelling at half the speed of light it takes four years and three months to stop. This seems excessive seeing as how Red Dwarf took under two years to decelerate from light-speed (Future Echoes, 1-2) to slow enough to enter orbit around a planet (Kryten, 2-1).
  • Maybe the stopping times/distances are different for SB and RD. The two ships are vastly different in everything -- size, sophistication, purpose, etc. Seeing as how the test is being taken in SB it is reasonable to assume that the capabilities being discussed are specific for SB, which may operate under an inferior, slower acceleration/deceleration system than RD. Even taking into account its greater speed, the RD may still be able to accelerate/decelerate in less time than SB due to RD's much more efficient and technologically-advanced machinery and capabilities.
• If Holly can be on all vehicles and machinery from RD any time she wants to, as seen in other episodes, why can't she tell the others where Kryten and Rimmer went?
  • Over long distances and time dilations, Holly has to splinter to do all her jobs, so one part is not necessarily up to date with the other parts.
  • Holly may have lost them after they went into the whirly thing and then computer senility prevented her from finding them again.
  • Holly's consciousness can only be in one place at one time due to her senility and she thought it better to stay with the rescuers in case Kryten and Rimmer got hopelessly lost and she couldn't find her way back.
• How does Rimmer change into the Reverse Brothers outfit?
  • The LB can make changes in Rimmer's appearance without Holly's assistance.
• Why would Rimmer, a hologram, be scared of a fist-fight?
  • He could fear damage to his LB.
  • This could just be Rimmer's natural cowardice taking effect.
• When Lister gets off SB and feels his physical injury before it happens, he should also be wet and drying off, as he later goes into the lake. He is dry when he comes out after the event, so, in keeping with the timeframe, he should be wet beforehand.
  • In keeping with backwards reality, Lister after stepping off SB would actually be 'dry and wetting on,' as the water from the air condensed onto his body. He would then progressively get wetter up to his entering of the lake. There is no indication of the time taken from finding SB 1's signal to Lister entering the lake, so this could be sufficient time for his backwards wetting to occur.
  • The backwards force may be trying to operate perfectly on the crew, but does not always succeed due to them being alien to the reality. There are many examples of the backwards force working inefficiently when events involve the RD crew. To name a few: Starbug's crash-landing, Lister and Cat's bicycle ride, the firing of Rimmer and Kryten from the pub, the order of events of the barroom tidy -- all of these make missense if played in forwards. The backwards force operates properly on the backwards Earth natives alone, but can encounter problems whenever trying to work on any events involving the RD crew in any way.
• The words are backwards in this universe, but not all of the individual letters and numbers, as would be logical.
• Lister says he is 25, yet in Future Echoes (1-2), one to three years earlier than this, he also says he is 25.
  • Lister's age is extremely subjective. He has physically existed for over three million years. His 'actual' age has been affected by such things as the stasis booth, reverse time, etc etc, so it is entirely possible that he still is 25 several years after first stating this.
  • When undertaking long trips unpreparedly, and with few frames of reference, keeping and comprehending an accurate representation of the passage of time is extremely difficult.

Marooned (3-2)

• Starbug 1 seems to have been recovered and repaired since Backwards (3-1).
  • The 1 could have been added by the crew to another ship. Maybe there is a Space Corps regulation that says there has to be a Starbug 1. Then Rimmer would have insisted upon it.
  • The 1 may be a model number, but it has been said before (Backwards, 3-1) that the controls on both ships are exactly the same.
• Rimmer, a hologram, is pressing the com button while doing the 'Mayday' message.
  • It may be a light-sensitive panel to accommodate holograms.
• How can Rimmer smell when he's a hologram?
  • The LB is able to analyse the air.
• Rimmer talks about his first sexual experience in a car, but in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) he drunkenly admits he has only had sex once, with the ship's female boxing champion, Yvonne McGruder.
  • The book versions do deal with this, but we can deduce some things without them. First, given Rimmer's character, he would never admit to something that embarrassing unless he was drunk. Either he was admitting the horrible truth under the effects of alcohol previously and is lying here to cover it up (since obviously neither Rimmer nor Lister seems to remember the incident), or he was lying while drunk to get sympathy and he is telling the truth here. Either way fits in with his character.
• When Lister puts the snapped 'guitar' into the barrel of burning books, the split end of the guitar's neck is visible. Yet in the next shot it is the other end of the guitar neck that is visible.
  • There is a continuity break between the two shots and a small passage of time is implied. Even though the guitar neck should be burning and Lister probably would not be fiddling with the wood, it is not possible to say for sure that he didn't in fact move it.
• Initially the shot of the fire in the barrel shows the 'guitar' neck protruding above the barrel rim, yet in all following shots the neck is below the rim.
  • The wood shifts further down in the barrel as it burns.
• When Rimmer looks at the guitar-shaped hole in his camphorwood trunk, a 'free area' is clearly apparent around the trunk. Yet a split second beforehand (when Kryten lifts the lid), the trunk is seen to be flush against the wall, where Lister put it to hide the hole he had made.
  • Kryten's action of lifting the lid does in fact create a small gap (probably no more than an inch) between the trunk and the wall. As the 'free area' is indicated only by the fact that light is shown to be falling on the hole-side of the trunk, a gap of this size could be enough to let light through between the trunk and the wall.
• Lister says that his guitar has only five strings and that three of them are G. The sizes of the actual strings on the guitar show that only a maximum of two of them could possibly be G.
  • Considering the quite bad musical knowledge/ability that Lister has, it is not surprising that he doesn't know which string is what.

Polymorph (3-3)

• The polymorph touches Rimmer even though he is a hologram.
  • The polymorph can transform into anything, and could have transformed into another hologram to touch him.
  • The polymorph could have latched on to Rimmer's LB, although if it did, and stopped it from moving, Rimmer wouldn't be projected correctly.
• Rimmer, Kryten and Cat decide that running away, rather than fighting the polymorph, is the best option. Why then in the next scene do they appear to be actively hunting the polymorph through the cargo decks?
  • Rimmer says '...let's load up Starbug and get out of here' and 'He'll (Lister) be safe here (the medical bay) until we're ready to go.' This indicates that the getaway is not intended to be immediate, and that supplies will be needed for the trip in Starbug. Thus it makes sense that they then have to go to the cargo decks to get these supplies. They are kitted up with bazookoids probably on the idea that should they meet the polymorph (likely it is hunting them), the best form of defence is attack. Also some time has definitely elapsed between the two scenes, as needed for the weapons and inventory organization, and of course for the Cat to change into a different outfit (as he is wont to do several times a day, for all occasions, probably including meeting polymorphs).
• To go through the pipe/tap, wouldn't the polymorph turn into a freer-fitting form (water for example), rather than obviously taking a form which has a hard squeeze through the plumbing?
• When the polymorph takes on the appearance of Rimmer's mother, she quite obviously holds her son's arm, even though it is out of shot.
  • In a moment, the polymorph will attack and drain Rimmer, necessitating being able to touch him (see the question on that above). The polymorph was probably already in this form when it grabbed Rimmer.

Bodyswap (3-4)

• Lister mentions using the White Midget shuttle, but it is obviously the Blue Midget that they use.
  • Lister made the mistake in his eagerness to get going, or he may have changed his mind.
• At the beginning of the episode, when Lister accidentally sets off the Autodestruct Sequence, Rimmer asks Holly for advice. She offers three realistic alternatives: 'Sit here and get blown up...stand here and get blown up...jump up and down, shout at me for not being able to think of anything, then get blown up.' Yet, once the countdown reaches zero, the ship fails to blow up because Holly got rid of the bomb ages ago. She seems perfectly aware of this fact, telling Rimmer that she didn't mention it because, 'You never asked!' If there was no bomb, and she knew it, how could anything ending with them getting blown up have been considered a realistic alternative?
  • Holly has galloping computer senility. She gets confused. She still has her pride though (eg. Backwards, 3-1), so rather than admit she's stupid, she hides behind the 'You never asked!' response to cover her failing faculties.
• Once Lister's mind is swapped into Rimmer's body, he asks Holly to change his clothing to look more like his traditional black leather garb. She complies, having done this for Rimmer on numerous occasions. Still, if he really wants to look more like himself, why doesn't he ask Holly to change his appearance to look like Lister? As a hologram, he should have that ability: Rimmer gets Holly to make him look like Kochanski in Balance of Power (1-3).
  • Lister, although he has seen Rimmer do things in the past, is new to the whole hologram thing and may not have thought of it.
  • The added stress of the bodyswap plus the hologram projection might preclude Holly from doing full-scale imaging changes.
  • In Balance Of Power (1-3), Rimmer could be Kochanski only by getting data from her disk (Rimmer-Kochanski: 'Okay Holly, swap disks'). If Rimmer has hidden Lister's disk and Holly has no access to it, then Holly would be unable to make Rimmer's body into Lister's.
• A person's voice is a product of the size and shape of their vocal cords, as well as some other factors. It is almost unique to each individual, and is used for identification purposes in this episode. If so, why does the voice travel with the mind whenever someone bodyswaps?
• The Bodyswap technology is based on hologram technology, yet the Cat is able to bodyswap. How is this possible, considering that he was never an official member of the RD crew, and thereby never had a personality disk of himself made?
  • It is based on hologram technology. The personalities are actually stored on the tapes seen throughout the episode.

Timeslides (3-5)

• Lister's locks, cut off by the swapping Rimmer in Bodyswap (3-4), have grown back.
  • Lister may have sewn his locks back on.
• The photos of Kryten's party are obviously aboard the Nova 5, before Lister completely rebuilt him, so it should be the OLD Kryten we see.
• In the picture of Frank's wedding, he is a lot less than the 6'5" that Rimmer said he was in Better Than Life (2-2). From White Hole (4-4) we know Kryten is about 6", which makes Lister about 5'6" - 5'9". Frank is not taller than Lister by enough to sustain the 6'5" claim.
  • Rimmer's envy and adulation of his brother caused him to exaggerate his height.
• In entering the photo, Lister becomes reversed.
  • Kryten put the slide in backwards.
• How could a young Lister not recognise Rimmer as a hologram, since the technology must have existed when he was that age?
  • Lister is Lister. The technology may have only existed for the Space Corps, but, in Better Than Life (2-2) a hologram is shown doing a news report.
• Lister, as Tension Sheet inventor/millionaire, does not remember Rimmer even though he met him in the pub when he was 17.
  • Given the state and attitude of the young Lister, this isn't surprising, though Rimmer did like 'Om,' so you'd think even Lister would remember him.
• How can hologram Rimmer, controlled by the ship's computer, travel back in time with no connection to Holly?
  • The LB is able to operate independently of Holly.
• When the crew enters a photograph and becomes part of its reality, they should be able to see the photographer who took the picture. Yet, except for the wedding, not only does the photographer not seem to be around, but any photographer at all seems unlikely.
  • Even though they become part of the photograph, the crew are still operating under slightly different rules than are the original photograph contents (eg. left/right movement outside of the photograph confines). Thus, while the photograph originals may be able to see a photographer, it does not necessarily follow that the crew can.
  • The existence of the photographs at all shows that each had a photographer. People just take photographs of strange things.
• After Lister goes back to become the Tension Sheet inventor, why do Holly and Rimmer even remember Lister and the Cat? Since history was changed, they should not remember either of them, as, in the changed reality, they never met them. Also, the mutated developing fluid would be gone as well, as the conditions that created it would never have happened.
  • People outside of the photographs may be in a 'neutral' reality where events can change around them, yet they remember what the previous, unaltered reality was like.
• The newsclip that Holly uses to send Rimmer back to Tension Sheet Lister's mansion only shows the front of the mansion, yet Rimmer shows up in the dining room, which is outside of the photograph.
  • The dining room is contained within the house, which is within the photograph. The photographs have been made three-dimensional (else the crew would not be able to enter them); presumably this effect allows entry to any house within a photograph. Also, the point at which a crew member appears in the photograph reality may not be strictly precise.
• Why don't the crew use the technology to get back to Earth? They could presumably get an orbital photograph of the planet, and thereby have free reign of the planet.
  • They probably ran out of the mutated developing fluid before they thought up this plan.
  • Once inside a photograph, the crew proportionally alter to match the environment. However, the photograph must be initially made big enough (eg. as a slide projection) for them to enter in the first place. Perhaps they could not find a way to clearly enlarge an orbital photograph of Earth such that SB could enter (once proportional adjustment was made, SB would be needed to travel from the entry point into the photograph, ie. somewhere in space, down to the Earth's surface). However, if they got the idea, and clarity was retained, they could go into a shuttle bay and project the image from the far wall, thus making it large enough for the SB to enter.
• When Kryten was developing his photographs he had pictures of his birthday and a car driving down the street. As it is known from Backwards (3-1) that Kryten has never been to Earth, why would he have photos of an Earth street with a painfully obvious 20th Century car in it?
  • It is not impossible that 20th Century Earth vehicles were used wherever his birthday party was. It may even have been a 20th Century theme park. Also, even though it was Kryten's film, it's not possible to know how long the film had been in the camera, how many places the camera had visited, or even who might have borrowed the camera and taken it anywhere.
  • Kryten might have taken some pictures during Backwards (3-1). The car in the photograph could travel forwards as the pictures were developed in a forwards reality.
• In Backwards (3-1), Kryten spends three weeks performing in a pub as part of The Sensational Reverse Brothers. Yet in this episode, when the crew enter the photograph of Smeg And The Heads playing in a pub, Kryten doesn't appear to know what a pub is, apparently calling on his databanks after Rimmer answers his question of 'What is this place?' Kryten should be able to recognise a pub layout for himself immediately.
• In 'Lifestyles Of The Disgustingly Rich And Famous,' Blaize Falconburger says, 'But like many people who appear to have everything, Dave's life has been tinged with tragedy. Well actually it hasn't, but we can only hope.' This Lister was still abandoned in a pub as a baby -- wouldn't this constitute a personal tragedy that might be worth a mention?
  • By 'inventing' the Tension Sheet at the age of 17, Lister has had seven or eight years in which to become Disgustingly Rich and Famous (as he seems to be in his mid-twenties at the time of the programme). We know from The Last Day (3-6) that his abandonment as an infant affected him deeply, so it's not unreasonable to think that in this time, with all his wealth and fame, he was able to track down his natural parents and effect a touching, joy-triumphs-over-initial-heartbreak reunion -- not the sort of scenario that bears mentioning if one is looking to cite instances of unhappiness.
• After the time line has been changed, shouldn't Holly go back to having a man's face, since they would have never visited the Red Dwarf's twin in the Parallel Universe (2-6) and Holly would've never met Hilly, the model for his head-sex change?
  • There's every evidence that Rimmer and Holly did take a trip to the parallel universe at some stage, as Holly's head does remain female. The changed pasts don't need to be greatly different from the originals -- the parallel universe trip has still occurred, but obviously just not in the same manner as previously.

The Last Day (3-6)

• How did Kryten's company find him when they could not have known he was on the Red Dwarf as opposed to the Nova 5?
  • The replacement ship tracked him down from the wreck (Kryten may have a built-in homing beacon for his replacement to follow).
• How could Kryten put 'all his original parts' back into the packaging when the introduction to Series 3 says that Lister completely rebuilt him?
  • The statement made by Jim Reaper is actually 'Your droid should use this period to tie up his affairs, dismantle his body and pack himself neatly away in his original supply case.' Thus it is the case which is the original, not the parts. Also, there would be no sense in returning 'original parts,' as these may have been replaced during routine maintenance anyway.
  • Kryten is not grossly different from Series 2 (Kryten, 2-1), so it is a fair assumption that even his rebuilt parts would fit in his original case.
• If Lister completely rebuilt Kryten at the beginning of the series, he at least should be able to do something simple like disable the shutdown switch.
  • The shutdown switch might have defence-mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
  • Lister probably rebuilt Kryten with help from the Owner's Manual and the self-repair unit (Psirens, 6-1). It is unlikely that either of these sources would supply information about how to disable a feature designed to allow the company to charge the owner for an upgrade at a later date.
• Kryten lies to Hudzen 10 before his truth routine is broken in Camille (4-1).
  • Mechanoids may be able to lie to other mechanoids.
• Lister said he'd been sick off the Eiffel Tower and the result landed in Montmartre, five miles away. The distance is no more than three miles.
  • Considering he had been drinking previous to this incident (thus precipitating it), it is no wonder he got the exact distance wrong, and should be applauded for his close approximation, given his state of mind.

2.4 SERIES 4

Camille (4-1)

• Lister should see Camille as Kochanski. While it may seem too obvious, Lister was fooled by it in Psirens (6-1).
  • He already knew her name was Camille, so even he wouldn't be fooled.
  • There is a difference between your true love and your ideal mate. The GELF might have taken the information for Lister's ideal mate out of his head, but Lister may not even be aware that he knows this.
  • The episode credits show that the GELF was supposed to be Kochanski. Most likely, the GELF scanned Lister's mind for what his idea of the perfect woman was, which was Kochanski. The GELF may not have known exactly what Kochanski looked like, but could roughly simulate someone with close to her personality type and appearance.
• Why does Lister have to break Kryten's programming again considering he already did it in Kryten (2-1)?
  • At the beginning of Series 3, it is stated that Lister's rebuilding of Kryten was 'unable to recapture his former personality.' Assuming that Kryten's self-repair unit (mentioned in Psirens, 6-1) helped out the clueless Lister, this would explain why and how Kryten's non- rebellious programming was restored.

DNA (4-2)

• How can Kryten have his replacement heads since he was completely rebuilt at the beginning of Series 3?
  • Lister, not 'a qualified service agent' screwed it up and had parts left over. It could explain the accent of head 3.
• Lister says he is 'an enlightened 23rd Century guy' yet going by the 2077 of Stasis Leak (2-4) he'd be 'an enlightened 21st Century guy.'
• Kryten says all human cells have DNA. Not true. Mature red blood cells in adult humans are hemoglobin-filled disk-shaped bags lacking their DNA organelles.
  • This may have changed. Since Lister is the only one left, one of the adventures might have caused a mutation to make this true, so when Kryten says that all humans have it, he is technically right.
  • Kryten is a service mechanoid. He makes mistakes.
• How does the DNA machine cope with all the inorganics it manages to transform (Kryten's body, clothes, etc)?
  • Perhaps the transmogrifier has an auxiliary reserve component to deal with the companion inorganic parts of the organic substances it transforms.
• Kryten says this is his first meal, yet he has eaten in The Last Day (3-6) and Backwards (3-1).
  • Well, his first meal as a human, maybe.
• Lister talks about after his break-up with Kochanski. In Confidence And Paranoia (1-5), it is shown that they never went out.
• Kryten says his right nipple-nut regulates temperature. In Polymorph (3-3) it is shown that mechanoids don't give off any heat.
  • It may be a cooling system, and that is why they do not give off any heat.
• Spare head 3 says that he is 30,000 years old. That would place his creation in about the year 2,972,000, long after the extinction of the human race. Kryten has also implied that he himself is only thousands (as opposed to millions) of years old, when in The Last Day (3-6) he commented on how long Hudzen 10 had been tracking him.
  • Head 3 has droid rot.
  • He may not be counting the time he was turned off.
  • The human race may still have been extant 30,000 years ago (although further evolution should probably have taken place). It is only assumed that the human race is extinct, even though the evidence for this is only indirect (three million years is long enough for several species to rise and fall, using the Earth's history for examples).
  • Kryten may be only about 30,000 years old (to match the age of spare head 3); however, it is possible that he is indeed about three million years old, and that the Nova 5 had a transport system to allow it to get three million years into deep space in a much shorter time.
• The spare heads should look like the old Kryten.
  • Lister may have fiddled with them, or the self-repair unit may have had a hand in this.
• Kryten as a human doesn't appear to know basic human anatomy or physiology (eg. eye functions, nipples; and especially he should know that humans would never charge themselves with electricity). As a mechanoid Kryten knows human anatomy to the extent where he discusses human cellular composition.
  • Perhaps the transformation process affected his brain to cope with his new genetic situation, or just the sheer novelty of the situation caused Kryten to go a little batty.
• If an individual's DNA is altered in any way, death will occur if the body's immune system attacks the new proteins created from the modified genetic code (along the same principles as a body rejecting transplanted organs). Maybe this wouldn't have affected Kryten, but it would certainly have affected Lister.
  • The fantastic future technology has overcome this problem by virtue of the fact that the machine is actually a transmogrifier which converts one form totally to another, including rewriting the body's immune system to match its new DNA (no mix of old and new means no autoimmune syndrome). On a purely modifying level, there would still be these problems, as the gruesome failures strewn about the vessel are probably testament to.

Justice (4-3)

• Lister says the Cat has never met a real woman. Yet in Stasis Leak (2-4) Cat meets Kochanski and her roommate.
  • Maybe he means a real Cat woman.
  • Depending on your definition of 'meet,' Cat never did meet them. He certainly never talked to them, and the Lord only knows what the promiscuous buggers consider 'meeting' to entail.
• Rimmer is charged with 1,167 counts of murder. This contradicts the figure of 169 crewmembers in The End (1-1). Also, why is he only sentenced for 1,166 counts?
  • Rimmer's mind could have inflated the figures, along with his culpability.
  • Perhaps the law at this time counts killing oneself through negligence as murder. However, Rimmer being dead may constitute punishment for his own death, therefore he only needs to be sentenced for the remaining 1,166 deaths he caused.
• When the Justice Computer says that Rimmer caused the deaths of the entire crew of Red Dwarf it is incorrect, as Lister wasn't killed, he was in stasis (and the Justice Computer should have picked this up from probing Rimmer's mind).
  • The Justice Computer may have been making a general speech, based on possibly picking up from Rimmer's guilt-feelings something like: 'I killed them all.'
• Kryten says that Rimmer failed his astronavigation exam 13 times. This contradicts everything ever said on the subject before this. In The End (1-1) Rimmer is taking an engineering exam. In Waiting For God (1-4) it is said he failed his engineering exam 11 times. In Future Echoes (1-2) it is said he took his astronavigation exam nine (ten) times.
  • Given Rimmer's bizarre test record (as well as activity during tests), it is not surprising that these numbers are messed up. There are probably contradictions in what actually counted as Rimmer attempting a test, or showing up, and all that.
• What is the purpose of sentencing a hologram to a prison term? He's dead already and would surely 'live' forever anyway, so why not just turn him off? Also, why not just alter the programming of his personality disk to prevent the crime from happening again?
• When talking about Rimmer's 'friends,' Lister said Rimmer had 'Only one, but she's got a puncture.' However, in Timeslides (3-5), we hear about Rachel and the puncture repair kit, and in Queeg (2-5), we hear about Inflatable Ingrid.
  • Perhaps Ingrid or Rachel got too badly 'damaged' to be repaired, leaving Rimmer with just one friend.
• Holly tells the crew to hang around for 24 hours to see who's in the pod, yet the pod has over 29 hours' defrosting to do.
  • Perhaps by the 24th hour, the identity of the person in the pod would be readily apparent even though it wasn't fully defrosted.
• The Cat says of the escort boots, 'I'm supposed to wear these? These look like Frankenstein's hand-me-downs.' Given that Frankenstein is one of the holiest figures in the Cat religion, and any belongings of hers would be sacred relics, this statement by the Cat seems horribly inappropriate.
  • As indicated elsewhere (The End, 1-1; Waiting For God, 1-4), the Cat does not seem to be particularly religious. At some point he has obviously picked up the reference to Mary Shelley's work (see also Quarantine, 5-4). His apparent inability to define Frankenstein as the creator and not the monster notwithstanding, it is most likely Shelley's Frankenstein he is referring to. As such, his distaste at the fashion blasphemy that the shoes represented would be greater than any distaste at any religious blasphemy he was committing.
  • He may only be referring to the age of the shoes, i.e. his statement could mean that the shoes are so old (and out of style) that the last time they were in fashion was when Frankenstein (the cat) was alive.
• What exactly is it that the Justice Field punishes: intention, ability, or action? Lister lights the sheets on fire and his jacket catches fire, but physically, his leather jacket shouldn't burn. He is punished for his intention (arson) by a reciprocal action (fire). When Lister attacks the simulant, he tries to murder him. However, instead of being killed himself, he just suffers the effect of his action, but not as it would affect the simulant (his attack would have little or no effect), but as the attack would affect him. When the simulant counterattacks, he is not murdered for his murderous action, but suffers the damage that his attacks would on Lister instead of himself (where the gunshots and knife wounds would have had little effect). Cat tries to knock out the simulant with a shovel, and he receives the effects as if it was the Cat that had been hit. Add to this that Lister goads the simulant on, in effect trying to kill the simulant, but he is not punished for these actions.
  • It seems that the Justice Field is very simplistic. It cannot take action based solely on intent at all, just physical actions. You can think about doing crimes all you want, and cause criminal things to happen, but as long as you don't physically do it yourself, no action can be taken by the Justice Field. When a physical act happens, the field acts to bring an equivalent consequence to the perpetrator as to what would have happened to his victim, even if it should be physically impossible (if this were not so, then those of superior strength/fitness/construction would be able to escape many of the effects of the Justice Field and so the field would not be a fair mechanism, nor would it be able to achieve its rehabilitation aims). Lister sets fire to something, so something of his gets set aflame. Lister tries to hit the simulant, and gets the effect of being hit. The simulant tries to shoot Lister, so the simulant suffers a gunshot as Lister would. However, Lister, figuring this out, can manipulate the field by intending to kill the simulant, and tricking the simulant into doing it himself; yet Lister suffers no ill effects because he didn't do any criminal physical actions himself. This does not mean that the Justice Field can be manipulated into murdering someone at another's behest. After all, an innocent individual making no murderous actions will be safe.

White Hole (4-4)

• The Talkie Toaster is completely different from his previous appearances in Future Echoes (1-2) and Waiting For God (1-4).
  • The Toaster has been completely rebuilt, which could alter his appearance and voice.
• The figure '345' is displayed on Holly's monitor when she is calculating her remaining run-time, yet when Talkie Toaster quotes this later he says '3.41 years.' Holly then reiterates this number as minutes.
  • Talkie Toaster first says the figure of 345 years ('...better than a kick in the bread tray'). Holly then says, 'Where's the decimal point?' Presumably Talkie Toaster then looks back at the monitor to see where the decimal point is, before quoting 3.41 years. Then, before he can query why the '5' has now become a '1,' Holly replies that it is not years but minutes.
• Two minutes of Holly's run-time are stated to have been used up, in less than one and a half minutes of real time.
  • Holly is very angry and being very sarcastic here, and is possibly exaggerating her crisis (she contradicts herself twice) to make her point to Rimmer (who is being incredibly stupid).
• Kryten agrees with Lister because Lister is a human and a human outranks a hologram. In that case, why doesn't Rimmer follow Lister? He's explained many times that he follows his superiors, no matter who they are.
  • This may only be the case for Kryten, where a living human would take precedence over a hologram human for a mechanoid. This may be core mechanoid programming as opposed to Space Corps policy, which may allow a dead crew member to outrank a living one.
• In the same vein as above, Kryten is siding with Lister here because: 'It's in my programming sir. A living human outranks a hologram.' Yet, in Bodyswap (3-4), Kryten chloroforms Lister against his will ('It's in my programming to obey all humans, no matter how insane'), and in Meltdown (4-6), Kryten stood by while the Elvis waxdroid tied up Lister and Cat, even though he knew that they wanted to stop Rimmer.
  • In this episode, Kryten is told to choose for himself who to vote for, and in this case, the living human's wishes outrank the hologram's (because neither gave Kryten a direct order) -- this may be Kryten's core mechanoid programming. However, once direct orders are given (as in the other two instances), another level of mechanoid programming must come into effect whereby the mechanoid now obeys according to an external ranking system governed by Space Corps policy; ie. Rimmer as Second Technician is superior to Lister as Third Technician.

Dimension Jump (4-5)

• Why is the Cat wearing the fish-shaped earring that he gave to Kryten as a present (The Last Day, 3-6) when he supposedly hates / can't stand it?
  • It is not the same earring. The earring here is much shorter and more planar than the one from The Last Day (3-6), and presumably does not offend the Cat's aesthetic sensibilities the way the one he gave to Kryten obviously did.
• How can Ace expect Rimmer to fix the engine when Rimmer can't touch anything? Ditto re-routing Kryten.
  • Perhaps hard-light bodies (seen in Legion, 6-2) are common in Ace's dimension, and so he assumed Rimmer would be able to perform the tasks. If hard-light bodies have long superseded soft-light, then Lister's comment of 'He can't touch anything' may have initially gone unnoticed by Ace as it wouldn't have meant anything to him.
• Kryten is identified as a Series 4000 mechanoid, when in The Last Day (3-6) he is called a Series III.
  • Perhaps his reconstruction by Lister caused him to make this mistake. It is possible as well that Kryten's self-repair unit which may have helped Lister was directed to upgrade the unit in case of massive damage.
  • The 'Series III' and 'Series 4000' could be referring to two different aspects of the same model, like body type or memory capacity, for example.
• Kryten is not supposed to be waterproof, but he has gotten wet in Meltdown (4-6) and Backwards (3-1).
  • This may be a result of his rebuilding by Lister.
• The Cat can read English in this episode, yet the Cat language was all in smells with no words.
  • It is conceivable that somewhere down the line the Cat learned to read English, if only to search the fashion magazines to find a way to do the impossible and make himself more attractive.
  • We can once again point to the fact that the Cat's ancestors at one time did know how to read English (Waiting For God, 1-4), so he may have learned it previously.
• Ace travels from his dimension to that of the RD. The dimensions are supposedly parallel. Yet for this to be true, Ace would be three million-plus years old and most likely dead like our Rimmer, since it is three million years since both Rimmers were born.
  • It has been shown that time dilations and abnormalities can occur when travelling between realities (eg. Backwards, 3-1; Rimmerworld, 6-5), so this is not unlikely.
  • Ace's craft was an experimental prototype, so abnormal effects like radical time shifts between dimensions are not unthinkable.
• If Ace cannot go back to his own dimension, how are Bongo and the others going to know whether he successfully dimension-jumped, or died in the trying?
  • Engineering may have instruments which can tell them whether the jump was successful or not; after that, Ace is on his own. If however every possibility is played out in the other dimensions, it's not impossible that Ace might one day jump to a dimension in which the technology has been developed which could get him home.
• In Ace's dimension, how can Kryten and Holly have human counterparts?
  • While Spanners is actually another Lister, if there is an infinite number of dimensions, then no matter how improbable, it is not impossible that this is a dimension in which some of Ace's friends look like, but are otherwise unconnected to, the other RD crewmembers.

Meltdown (4-6)

• In some of the outdoor scenes, you can see Rimmer's breath. Holograms don't breathe.
  • If the program is sophisticated enough to reproduce a human being, it is sophisticated enough to simulate breath condensation in the air.
• Where does the teleportation paddle go to after the episode and why don't they use it to get back to Earth?
  • There are several reasons: the RD can't be teleported, the paddle can't be used more than 500,000 lys from the RD, and they are more than 500,000 lys from Earth.
  • The teleportation paddle became the triplicator in Demons And Angels (5-5).
• How can Rimmer ride the motorbike around, when as a hologram he can't touch anything?
  • The motorbike is also a hologram, projected by Holly (see Better Than Life, 2-2).
  • The motorbike is real, but controlled by Holly (her consciousness is projected on the bike's headlight), not by Rimmer. Rimmer is projected as if he were riding the motorbike. When Rimmer wants the motorbike to actually move, he tells Holly: 'Let's go Holly,' and Holly replies: 'Okay Matey.' Then the motorbike moves off.

2.5 SERIES 5

Holoship (5-1)

• Commander Binks from the holoship says Lister's chronological age is mid-20s. In Future Echoes (1-2) he is said to be 25. Given that likely at least three years have passed since then, he would not be in his mid-20s.
  • Time passage and actual versus apparent age is mighty screwed up where Lister is concerned.
• When interviewing new crewmembers after Rimmer is thought to be gone, why didn't they bring back Kochanski?
  • Rimmer might still have Kochanski's disk hidden.
• Commander Binks refers to Cat as Felis sapiens, yet in The Last Day (3-6) Hudzen refers to Cat as Felix sapiens.
  • Hudzen was insane.
  • It is not necessarily a contradiction. Both were dealing with a species that had developed entirely on the RD, which had been out of touch with humanity for over three million years. Both could have used the analytical devices available to them to determine that Cat was an intelligent species derived from the feline family, and given him two slightly different scientific nomenclatures. Between the two of them, however, it is more likely that Binks is correct with his name.
• Rimmer operated on the holoship freely without one of the other crewmembers needing to be deleted. Why couldn't he just join their crew with no ill effects?
  • The holoship might have had the temporary ability to hold more than its requisite holograms (as the RD does), or Rimmer may have been operating under the power of his LB.
• If the ship has zero mass, what is projecting it and the hologrammatic crew? What is running their programs? Shouldn't there at least be a Light Bee and a computer somewhere?
  • Something contained within the tachyon technology must have found a way to circumvent such (former) projection problems.

The Inquisitor (5-2)

• Thomas Allman has no idea about his demise and its justification. Therefore, the Inquisitor apparently did not give him trial-by-himself, which is supposedly standard practice.
• When Kryten went back in time to save himself and Lister, he should have known to say 'Enigma' and not 'Enig' since he was just talking to Lister about it.
  • If Kryten said 'Enigma' Lister and Kryten would never have figured it out for themselves at the start of the time loop.
• Lister collects the hand of the alternate timeline Lister, for the purpose of getting through security locks. Later the Inquisitor is erased from history and all his bloodshed is undone. Ignore the fact that they wouldn't remember the event as it wouldn't have happened and that they would still be heading out on Starbug, how could Lister give Kryten '15' as they would never have met the other Lister and he wouldn't have been blown up anyway?
  • Sometimes timeline readjustments take a little time to sort themselves out (eg. White Hole, 4-4). Give this episode another 30 seconds and the original opening scenario would probably be restored.
• Lister shouldn't be able to collect his alternative's hand, as the Inquisitor habitually vaporizes his humanoid targets, leaving no bits behind.
  • It was actually the alternative Kryten who was blown up by the Inquisitor (perhaps 'vaporize' doesn't work on mechanoids). The alternative Lister was apparently killed by the force of the alternative Kryten exploding, in the process having his left hand severed from the arm.
• Kryten's number on the RD is 'Additional 001.' Why isn't Cat 'Add. 001' and Kryten 'Add. 002'?
  • As a computer, Holly might have started the count at 'Additional 000.'
• How does Holly scan Lister's palm-print when he's wearing gloves?
  • Holly is able to scan through clothing. This would make sense (especially on a mining ship) so that crewmembers would not have to keep removing their gloves to open doors all the time. Also, the scanner would have the ability to permeate mechanoid 'skin' in order to read the CPUs.
• Kryten uses the Inquisitor's gauntlet to age his and Lister's manacles by half a million years, causing the metal to 'decay' away to nothing. Red Dwarf is over three million years old, so why has it not 'decayed' in the same fashion?
  • Red Dwarf may be made of a special metal, or could have undergone a special treatment to prevent its metal 'decaying.'
  • Red Dwarf may have specific self-maintenance capabilities for counteracting such ageing.
• When trying to convince Rimmer he knew him, Lister said that four people had died while Rimmer was on the Samaritans Line in the afternoon. In The Last Day (3-6) it is said he killed off five people in the morning.
  • Lister is close enough in his facts for this to be simply an inaccurate memory on his part.
• Rimmer has said he got off with Fiona Barrington in his dad's greenhouse at 15, but in Better Than Life (2-2) he said he divorced his parents at 14.
  • Rimmer could have been lying about the whole incident, or this might have occurred during one of his visits to the dog.
• In this episode, Kryten cannot attack the Inquisitor (another droid) because of his anti-kill programming. Yet in The Last Day (3-6), Kryten was learning to use the bazookoid in order to attack Hudzen 10, also another droid.
  • Perhaps Kryten was hoping to only disable Hudzen 10 in direct self-defence, which may be an applicable way to circumvent the anti-kill programming.
  • Perhaps the Inquisitor had used his sizeable powers to make sure that he would be taken for human in every droid's anti-kill programming.
  • The breakdown of Kryten's core programming, which gave way in Camille (4-1), was in such an advanced state by the time of The Last Day (3-6) that he was able to act that way in selfish self-preservation, overriding his anti-kill programming.
• If Ace Rimmer (Dimension Jump, 4-5) is what Rimmer could have become, then Rimmer didn't live to his full potential, so why didn't the Inquisitor delete him?
  • The Inquisitor seemed to be more concerned with what people thought they could achieve. As Rimmer was convinced that Ace's good life was due to 'breaks' that Rimmer didn't get, Rimmer was still living up to his own low standards.
• Why would Rimmer be judged with the others? Wouldn't the Inquisitor have questioned him when he was alive?
  • The Inquisitor is concerned with existence, not life. Rimmer is dead, but he had existed. All the Inquisitor needed was a point in an individual's existence (be it living or hologrammatic) at which enough time had passed for the individual to have indicated his/her life's worthiness (or potential worthiness). For this purpose, Rimmer-hologram could serve just as well as Rimmer-human.
• If the Inquisitor can 'read minds' to enable him to do judgement-by-self, why can he not discover what Lister plans for him with the backfiring time gauntlet?
  • Perhaps the Inquisitor's telepathic powers only operate when he is 'in character' for a judgement, which he was not at the time of Lister's trick.
• How can Rimmer and Cat still exist, with their same circumstances and histories, when an alternative Lister and Kryten have been produced who should have lived worthier existences than the old versions, and, presumably, these worthier, different actions should have altered or even deleted Rimmer's and Cat's circumstances, or even existences? If the Inquisitor's powers extend such that those he isn't replacing (Rimmer and Cat) are not changed because of those he does replace (Lister and Kryten), then why shouldn't he be able to determine which lives will be 'worthy,' and cause those to exist from the outset? And then, why would unworthy existences, such as those of criminals, be allowed to occur?
  • The premise of the Inquisitor is that everyone is judged by their own standards. Thus worthiness is not judged by external deeds or happenings, but how an individual measures up within himself. There is no indication that the Inquisitor can either permanently alter historical events or choose what personality replaces that which he has deleted. "All will be judged," so presumably the Inquisitor keeps on judging and replacing until he gets one who believes his life was lived to its best potential. The circumstances need never change, thus the alternative Lister behaved in exactly the same way as the original Lister, and had exactly the same history (thus Cat's and Rimmer's existences would be the same), only his motivations/behaviour may be perceived and judged by himself in a different way than what the original Lister's were. The Inquisitor thus cannot choose who would be 'worthy,' but eventually would come to judge the alternative Lister, who may or may not be replaced in his own turn, depending on how he judges his own existence. In this way too, some who would seem unworthy by external standards (eg. criminals) may be able to justify their own existences by applying their own (warped) standards.
• Kryten talks about Virgil's Aeneid as the tale of Agamemnon's pursuit of Helen of Troy. Shouldn't he mean Homer's Iliad (tale of the Trojan War), as Virgil's Aeneid deals with Aeneas's life after Troy?
  • As a service mechanoid, Kryten's epic-poetry chip may not be up to standard.
• At the beginning of the episode, Rimmer is wearing his green uniform. After Lister and Kryten are removed from the timestream and are confronted in the RD hallway by Rimmer and the Cat from the alternative reality, Rimmer is now wearing his red uniform.
  • There are many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the features of this alternative reality -- majorly of course, the alternative Lister and Kryten look different to their originals. Minor changes such as apparel or coiffure are probably specific to each reality (and help us keep track of which reality the crewmembers are from); both Rimmer and the Cat are wearing different clothes in the different realities (original = Rimmer, green uniform and Cat, leopard-spot outfit -- alternative = Rimmer, red uniform and Cat, red plaid outfit). This then means that at the end of the episode when Rimmer and Cat rematerialise, they should probably be wearing respectively their original green and leopard-spot clothes; instead they are still in the alternative-reality outfits. This is presumably for the same reason that Lister still has the alternative Lister's hand -- the timelines have not sorted themselves out properly yet. Give the episode another 30 seconds and then, along with the vanishing of the severed hand, Rimmer and the Cat will be restored to the apparel they were wearing before the Inquisitor arrived on the scene.

Terrorform (5-3)

• Kryten's readout says he is a Series 4000 mechanoid. In Dimension Jump (4-5) he is also identified as a Series 4000, but in The Last Day (3-6) he is called a Series III.
  • The new readout may be indicative of Kryten's 'upgrading' by Lister and/or the self-repair unit (see Dimension Jump, 4-5).
  • Once again, the 'Series III' and 'Series 4000' might be referring to different characteristics of the same model.
• While the Psy-Moon may be based on Rimmer's mind, it does not change the fact that he should not physically be able to touch anything and should not be in any real danger.
  • The inhabitants may be mentally-controlled GELFs, which would explain how they could mutate into forms that could touch him. Or it could quite literally all be in his mind and he could do mental damage to himself, which is the most serious thing that Rimmer has to worry about.
• Why can Holly track Rimmer now, but not in other episodes?
  • Perhaps the fact that the Psy-moon becomes the personification of its visitor's mind amplified Rimmer's presence, and thereby made it easier for Holly to track Rimmer.
• Kryten is firing the bazookoid at Rimmer's Self-Loathing, presumably trying to kill it, yet in The Inquisitor (5-2) Kryten cannot tackle the Inquisitor himself because he is programmed not to kill.
  • Maybe Kryten's 'anti-kill' programming only applies to equal (eg. the Inquisitor, another droid) or 'superior' beings (eg. humans). Self-Loathing, as only a personified psyche component, may be fair game.
  • Maybe Lister's latest repair job on Kryten in this episode has caused a malfunction in Kryten's 'anti-kill' programming.

Quarantine (5-4)

• Rimmer says the RD can only sustain one hologram, yet on several occasions (eg. Holoship, 5-1 and Me^2, 1-6) it has had two while supposedly cutting off unnecessary power.
• While Rimmer was affected by the Holovirus, where was Holly? Couldn't she have turned him off or otherwise prevented him from taking over?
  • Holly: 'Well, it's a laugh, innit?' The crew were in no actual danger until Rimmer turned off the oxygen, so no need for action. Rimmer was following the rules, after all.
  • Rimmer was operating on his LB, independent of Holly, so she might not have been able to do much even if she wanted to.
  • Holly might not be able to disable a hologram without an order from a superior officer. Rimmer was ranking 'officer' on RD.
• Why did the crew need to send Rimmer back to RD? If Dr. Lanstrom had her own LB, it was unnecessary. Even if she didn't, we saw in Me^2 (1-6) that the RD can support two holograms if necessary.
• How can the hex vision of a hologram hurt anyone? If it is a mental power, how can a hologram use it if he/she has no physical brain? How can the hex vision shorten the lifespan of a hologram?
  • The 'brain' of the person still exists on his/her holodisk. The hex vision caused by the holovirus is a feature of the virus's adaptation to this particular type of 'brain'-state. In a hologram, the hex vision could draw on the power source of the hologram and manifest as energy bursts, shortening the life span of the hologram by overloading or draining its power generator.
• The Cat insults Kryten by calling him 'Frankenstein.' Frankenstein, according to Cat religion, is the most holy entity next to Cloister. This is like a human insulting someone by calling them Virgin Mary.
  • The Cat never seemed particularly religious to begin with, and with all the human influence around him, he has obviously picked up the reference to Mary Shelley's work. Remember how short his memory is with religious topics in the previous episodes.
• Kryten had been on his own for thousands/millions of years with only (in his mind) the three girls for company on the Nova 5. How could he get so tetchy after only five days alone with Lister and the Cat?
  • While the girls were the perfect company for Kryten (not causing any major philosophical problems in his life and just letting him clean up after them for millenia), our favorite crew are an entirely more trying experience -- being trapped interactively with someone is different to being alone and having no one to conflict with (also it's not possible to know that Kryten did not go totally crazy at some point on the Nova 5 -- after all, it was not quite a sane thing to deny the dead state of the crew). Lastly, Kryten's different personalities in each situation may react very differently to the given situation.
• The luck virus seemed to make everything the crew wanted come true. Why didn't Lister shoot up on it, get Kochanski back and zoom back to Earth?
  • Perhaps Lister was a little too concerned with saving his skin from Rimmer at the moment to consider more far-reaching plans.
  • The virus only lets extremely improbable, fairly simple events happen, not extremely complicated, practically impossible ones. Kochanski is dead, and major events (probably more than the luck virus could facilitate) would need to happen to change that fact.

Demons And Angels (5-5)

• If Low RD fades away, the Low Lister should fade away as well, instead of staying on Starbug.
  • Hang on for this one. The crew were scanned before leaving the RD. It explodes soon after, destroying everything including Holly. The Highs and Lows are born from the scan. All Highs except Holly are killed. As only things with both High and Low parts can re-merge, the High and Low RDs and Hollys merge back when Kryten reverses the process. Low Cat, Kryten, and Rimmer remain, but are left in the vacuum of space and die after their RD re-merges. Low Lister is on the SB so he survives.
• Kryten says he threw the triplicator in reverse, yet it is Lister who actually did this.
  • Kryten told Lister to do it. Maybe, now that his lying protocol is broken, Kryten is looking for some glory.
• Kryten says that the triplicator could produce four or even five strawberries a week. With one original strawberry, after two runs, the tally could only be either four triplicator-produced strawberries or five total, counting the original strawberry; not both numbers sequentially.
• While tasting the pot noodle, Lister talks about playing pool with planets. The only time he's done that is in White Hole (4-4) and he shouldn't remember it.
  • In White Hole (4-4), Kryten says 'I've never seen one before, no one has, but I'm guessing it's a White Hole.' Thus, Kryten himself has probably only read the theory behind White Holes. If nobody has ever seen one, Kryten could well be wrong, meaning that the events could be able to be recalled. Kryten, for all his knowledge, is not infallible.
• Why is only half the triplicator on each ship? Each ship is a fully-functioning entity and should have a full version of the triplicator on it.
  • Perhaps, because the triplicator was the source of the abnormal, outgoing beam, it was unable to copy itself, but instead had its parts divided between its two creations so that there was still 'triplicator representation' on both ships.
• How can a holowhip harm a human?
  • Simple. While the holowhip has to be some form of projected light, there are many types of light that can cause physical damage. Lasers are just condensed beams of light. Modified light pulses can cause neurological seizures. It could also work along the lines of a controlled version of the hex vision from Quarantine (5-4): it just sends stored-up energy through the victim.

Back To Reality (5-6)

• As a hologram, Rimmer should not be affected by the squid's venom (or the lithium carbonate), and so would not have hallucinated.
  • If he can pick up smells, he might also be able to pick up and be affected by the hallucinogens.
• Kryten says 'The venom secreted from a piscine source, not unlike Earth octopus or giant squid.' 'Piscine' means pertaining to fish, and squid and octopi are mollusks.
  • Kryten is, ultimately, just a service mechanoid.
• Andy the Technician talks about the irony of Lister becoming God when he was an atheist, but in The Last Day (3-6) Lister is said to be a pantheist. Why can't Lister even get his own religion right?
• When the crew are delusionally pretending to jump speed bumps in their 'car-chase,' Rimmer's seat is moving under him, which it should not do because Rimmer, as a hologram, has no weight.
  • This may be another case of a hologrammatic projection of what would be happening if Rimmer were real.
• In this alternate reality, 'Red Dwarf' is a Total Immersion Video Game designed for four players, who take on the roles of Lister, Rimmer, Cat, and Kryten. In fact, we see four new players entering as the boys leave. Since the game would cover all the events of the RD, there is a problem. What was Jake Bullet (Kryten's player) doing until Kryten showed up in the events in Kryten (2-1)?
  • Perhaps he was off playing a solo adventure on the Nova 5.
• Kryten took two years from Lister leaving stasis to join the Red Dwarf, so why, when Lister looks in at the new TIV players, are they at a point in the game much further along than they should be seeing as how they've only been playing the TIV a very short time?
  • Game-time and real time may not necessarily be parallel. Also, it is possible that if the players play the game properly (as opposed to scoring just 4%), that (among other differences) Kryten's character joins the action on Red Dwarf much earlier on in the piece.
• Kryten's gun is a single-shot speargun, but Jake is packing a futuristic sidearm. When he kills the cop, we hear the sound of four gunshots before he falls. Jake/Kryten then says that he could have stunned the cop instead of killing him. So, how do you stun someone with a bullet?
  • The gun could well be an energy weapon that has the potential to stun or kill. When the gun fires, you hear a 'gunshot,' but see no bullets or blood. Later, when Kryten puts the gun to his head and fires, the click could be the trigger trying to activate a drained energy cell. When Kryten reloads the gun, he refers to the 'bullet,' which can refer to a solid projectile, or the discrete charge of the energy weapon. If the former is the case, the gun may be able to handle solid projectiles as well as energy packs.
• A normal hallucination does not explain the group effects that the crew went through at all. Even if they all are affected by hallucinations, how is it that they all have the same hallucination at the same time? For example, when the nurse asks them who Duane is, they all look at the Cat. Why do all of them hallucinate the same person asking the same question?
  • The venom might have some sort of telepathic element that links the minds of all those affected by the same attack.
• The hallucinations are a horribly inefficient way to make people committ suicide. While the crew eventually grows depressed in their roles in the fantasy society, there are good points in it for some people. Rimmer enjoys Cat being reduced to Duane's no-style state; Kryten is thrilled at being a detective. This seems to be an awfully flawed way to make people kill themselves.
  • The aim is to induce despair by whatever means, while keeping up the illusion of reality. Rimmer's despair is induced by the fact of his being such a failure when his brother is such a success. His enjoyment of Cat's misery is of no consequence in his own despair state, but adds greatly to the despair state of the Cat -- this could be the purpose of a group (rather than individual) hallucination mechanism, whereby the interactions of all players can compound the despair of each to exacerbate the suicidal intent. Another premise might be 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall.' Kryten's despair state is cruelly induced by first giving him a position of principle and success and then making him abuse it in the way most heinous and contradictory to all he values (and the same reasoning can be true for Lister's despair induction).

2.6 SERIES 6

Psirens (6-1)

• Lister had sex with himself in Parallel Universe (2-6) more recently than three million years ago.
  • Perhaps he meant only in this dimension.
  • Maybe he considered that liaison more masturbation than sex.
• Where was Kryten's self-repair unit when he needed it in Backwards (3-1)?
• Perhaps this explains how Lister was able to repair him at all.