Red Dwarf has been ambushed by five black holes, and Holly, in her near infinite wisdom, has decided the crew would have a better chance of surviving if they take Starbug and Blue Midget while she tries to manouvre Red Dwarf around the black holes. So it is that we join Lister and Rimmer aboard Starbug, while Kryten and Cat take Blue Midget.
And you know how these things go, while avoiding a massive black hole, Starbug manages to hit a tiny meteor and Lister and Rimmer end up crash landed on blizzard world. As they wait, possibly in vain, for Kryten and Cat to find them in visibility of less than ten feet, Lister is reduced to eating gum ointment and forced to burn his guitar for warmth…
Awooga, awooga. Abandon ship…
It’s a very intimate episode, we learn things about Rimmer we would probably rather forget, and what happened with Michelle Fisher on the ninth hole of the Bootle Municipal golf course; we also learn that Rimmer, at some point, underwent past life regression therapy and now firmly believes that he was once Alexander the Great’s chief eunuch. Which is sort of interesting, that he believes this while elsewhere in the show’s run he mocks other religious or spiritual beliefs. Maybe it’s some sort of spiritual journey that Rimmer is on during the course of the show, or maybe it simply suited him to believe the Alexander the Great thing.
Above all this, however, and we learn what makes real wealth: Decency. Self-sacrifice. And it is the sacrifices that Lister and Rimmer both (apparently) have to make which are the theme of the story; although Lister sacrifices nothing but what decency he actually did possess, and Rimmer’s sacrifice is just out of duty, to repay what he perceives to be a much greater sacrifice already made by Lister. Whatever ‘decency’ this might have afforded Rimmer is wiped out by his cry for vengeance at the end of the episode…
Elsewhere, there is gratuitous book burning – mostly books about Patton and Ceasar and various other gits, or books about food, but that’s just so we can laugh at things other than Lister getting so hungry he tucks into a tin of dog food (well, it was either that or a Pot Noodle).
Re-mastered
The ice-scapes are new and improved, and some dodgy jokes about Cliff Richard and a planet toupee are removed, otherwise, it’s very much business as usual.
Watch this episode to learn new things about Lister and Rimmer. And dog food.