Stasis Leak, with its full-on science fiction themes and high laugh quota, is one of the better episodes of series 2. Holly detects a stasis leak somewhere in the murky lower levels of Red Dwarf, which the crew decide to use to travel back to before the accident in order to marry Kochanski or not die.
I’m the nearest thing you can get to infullible.
For some reason the hologram Rimmer has completely forgotten the events of Me², and wants to bring himself back to the future, while Lister only wants to find the explanation for the wedding photo he found while snooping around Kochanski’s quarters. The Cat, it seems, just came along for the ride, allowing for some great lines to come from his utter bemusement:
He’s you and you’re him, and you’re him and he’s him – am I still me?
Cat is really starting to come into his own as a comedic foil to the sci-fi elements here, demonstrating the ‘What is it?’ line he used to good effect in White Hole, and starts a long tradition of amusing Rimmer insults with ‘Alphabet Head’.
Anyway, the story: original Rimmer puts seeing his own gurning face popping up through a table down to Titan Mushrooms Lister slipped into his breakfast, and the whole plan goes a little bit pear-shaped. We do, however, discover that the crew find another way to travel back in time in five years time (which, in fact, they do, at the end of series six), and that is how Lister and Kochanski finally get together.
Aside from the whole destiny conversation that often springs up from time travel stories, there isn’t much of philosophical or theological note going on here. So instead, enjoy the random ZX81 reference and see if you can spot something that later appeared in Back to the Future Part II.
Re-mastered
There are a few changes scattered through the remix of this episode; most notably a CGI lift shot and new effects for the stasis leak of the title.
A reference to Felicity Kendal in Holly’s intro is inexplicably replaced with Marilyn Monroe, much to the chagrin of the ‘What’s new’ text track writers, who embark on a ‘Good Life’ retrospective in between changes.
There’s a caption removed, another spelling error in the new credits, a line cut to make older Lister seem a little less immature, and the argument between the three sets of crew is reinstated at the end to drive Rimmer extra nuts.
Watch this episode for science fiction and comedy coming together in style.