Red Dwarf Series X Episode 2 – Fathers and Suns
Last week a whole load of Red Dwarf fans breathed a
collective sigh of relief, as the opening episode Trojan was pretty damn good. It had its weaknesses (one in
particular absolutely terrible) and it would be pushing it to say that as a
whole it matched the shows’ heyday, but overall it was a return to form, and
there were a couple of sequences that would rank up with the series’ best.
It’s not quite as good this week, but it’s still damn
entertaining.
There seemed a bit of a shuffling of Lister to the back of
the picture during Trojan, but
there’s no doubt he’s the main focus of the episode here, the main plotline
revisiting Series VII’s Ouroborus and
the reveal that Lister is his own father, as we learn that Lister sends himself
a father’s day card every year – well, actually, he gets horrifically drunk the
year before and writes it then so he’ll forget what it says and when Kryten
delivers it, it’s a surprise. The opening scene with Lister and Rimmer sat
around the table talking is just like classic Dwarf, especially Lister’s
insistence that the whiny noise Rimmer can hear everywhere is his own voice.
Rimmer pointing out Lister’s failures at being a father to himself is also
exactly what we’d expect, and sets up Lister’s focus for the episode.
The whole Lister as his own father plotline plays very well
throughout the episode, being the strongest of the three plotlines. I’ve never
really taken to the idea of Lister being his own father – yes, it’s a paradox,
and we’re not supposed to think about it more than that, but if he truly was
his own father in a never-ending circle, surely he’d be his own clone rather
than offspring/parent, as when his sperm meets Kochanski’s egg, it isn’t going
to create an exact copy, yet that’s what we see. Unless a new universe is
created each time this happens, and if we saw another of these universes it
would be another Dave Lister who didn’t have the same exact DNA as ours. I was
pleasantly surprised then to find that I could put this to one side and find
the episodes’ best strength in watching Lister leave messages for himself the
following morning, viewing them as if it was his father giving him
instructions. There’s a great father/son bonding feel to it, with Father Lister
telling Son Lister to get his act together, and the pay off joke with the fake
guitar is great stuff.
I wasn’t incredibly taken with the computer doctor, but it served
its purpose in the end, so I guess I'll let it slide.
The other main plotline was the acquisition of a new
computer for Red Dwarf, Pree. We still haven’t had a mention of Holly, although
Doug Naylor probably wants to just skip over this following Norman Lovett’s
well publicised feelings of anger with the team. Pree is a computer with
predictive capabilities, and so is able to study the crew and previous security
footage to determine how to interact with them. Initially, this is done by
carrying out the crew’s conversations for them, but soon leads to the deletion
of all the episodes of a TV drama that she decides Rimmer wouldn’t have liked, and
then by fixing the ship as Rimmer would have done. Unfortunately, this means
fixing it very badly. Further problems occur when Lister is forced to abandon
ship, having resigned his position with Red Dwarf the previous evening when
drunk, and being denied Jupiter Mining Corporation oxygen. He manages to escape
the ship in a spacesuit just in time, but Pree then decides that the ship is
without any living enlisted crew, and that the ship must be flown into the
nearest sun to be destroyed. Lister manages to return to the ship, and
convinces Pree in the nick of time that his own son (i.e., him) has been
registered with the computer doctor, and as they’re the same person then she
should predict that his actions would be to deactivate the computer. Pree
agrees, and saves him the bother by deactivating herself. I’ve seen one review
that points out you could argue that she should have seen this chain of events
from the start, and switched herself off then, but that wouldn’t make for quite
as good a story I suppose.
The third and much smaller plotline involves a game of
Chinese Whispers, but I have to say I found this one of the worst plotlines in
Red Dwarf history. There are awful stereotypical accents and jokes, and it’s
just genuinely unfunny. There must have been something better than this to fill
the five minutes or so it takes up. It’s as bad as 99% of Holly’s material from
Series VIII. Charades using just your nose would have as entertaining.
All the cast, particularly Craig Charles, are again on top
form. Pree was excellently played by Rebecca Blackstone, very unnerving in
particular when you caught the odd evil smile as she began to torture the crew.
It’s easy to make comparisons with Queeg, but where Queeg felt like an overly
uptight teacher, Pree feels more like a sadistic maniac. That’ll teach them to
loot derelict vessels again.
I’m still impressed by the series so far. I preferred Trojan, although the real reason for the
lower mark this week is down to the Chinese Whispers debacle. There weren’t as
many out and out belly laughs, but I’m confident that every episode is going to
deliver something memorable to add to the Red Dwarf pantheon. If only they can
avoid adding to the Pig Racing and Chinese Whispers that currently make up this
years’ Hall of Shame.
6/10
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