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Red Dwarf - Trojan
It's back!
And it's real, proper, old-fashioned Red Dwarf like Auntie used to make. None of your "Hey, lets do a three-part metafictional Blade Runner pastiche for no reason except that we couldn't do it with the Beeb!" here. Instead we get that reliable concept: take a standard sitcom plot, give it an sf twist, add the characters and it's guaranteed to be funnier than that plot's been for years.
(Past occasions when this has worked: "Queeg"; "Thanks For The Memories"; "Marooned" etc. It doesn't always work, Season VIII was born of the misconceived notion that if what made the early seasons a success was that it was basically like Porridge, the return to greatness would be to make it even more like Porridge.)
But before we even get to the sitcom plot, I've already remembered why I love Red Dwarf. The opening scenes seem designed to say "Remember when Red Dwarf was great? Didn't it look a lot like this?" Cat and Lister talking nonsense ("Of course they can't, they're mooses!"), Rimmer fretting over the astronavigation exams, Kryten fussing about and delivering exposition. Even the original theme music as an intro sting!
Anyway, they find this supercool Space Corps ship (the titular Trojan), and get a distress signal from one of Rimmer's brothers. At this point, I've already started to suspect what the sitcom plot is, of course, but I get distracted by the red herring when Rimmer decides he needs to pass his exam and become an officer before they meet. This, of course, completely fails, and so we do indeed head into sitcom plot territory, warp factor 3.
The sitcom plot is that old reliable The Fawlty Towers Plot (Mock Millionaire variety). You know, the one where Benny the Ball tells his Ma that he's Mayor of New York. In this case, Rimmer poses as captain of the Trojan with the other Dwarfers as his crew. Which is an excuse for them to wear very blatant Next Gen Movie Era Star Trek uniforms.
The rest of the plot is the desperate and increasingly ridiculous attempts to maintain the lie, with an added twist when Howard suffers the same resentment-fueled BSOD as Rimmer did earlier in the episode[1], and another one when Howard's simulant companion turns out to be a villain. Because duh, she's a simulant (see niggle below). And then the silly subplot of Lister being on hold suddenly becomes relevent in one of the funniest scenes I've seen for a while, as Lister gets an epic, and completely absurd, Patrick Stewart Speech.
And of course, the episode ends with Rimmer learning absolutely nothing, because that's not how the character works.
Only niggle: every simulant we've seen before now has been a psychotic killing machine who hates humans, so I'm not sure why this particular one feels the need to liberate her fellow simulants from human control.
(Okay, another niggle: the reference to Rimmer's bitterness as "self-created malware" suggested a double meaning to the title, but if so it was done without an awareness of what "Trojan" actually means. Or was the real Trojan the simulant, getting onto the ship under false pretences?)
Anyway, looking forward to next week's, which may well explain What Happened To Holly.
[1]This makes more sense in retrospect than it does at the time. It seems strange that just learning Rimmer's an elite captain is enough to trigger this, given that Rimmer's was spawned by constant and endless fretting over the success of his brothers over a period of years. But when we learn that actually he's also a lying Third Technician, it makes sense; presumably he's had the same feelings about Frank and Johnny all these years, and now he learns Arnold made it as well...
And it's real, proper, old-fashioned Red Dwarf like Auntie used to make. None of your "Hey, lets do a three-part metafictional Blade Runner pastiche for no reason except that we couldn't do it with the Beeb!" here. Instead we get that reliable concept: take a standard sitcom plot, give it an sf twist, add the characters and it's guaranteed to be funnier than that plot's been for years.
(Past occasions when this has worked: "Queeg"; "Thanks For The Memories"; "Marooned" etc. It doesn't always work, Season VIII was born of the misconceived notion that if what made the early seasons a success was that it was basically like Porridge, the return to greatness would be to make it even more like Porridge.)
But before we even get to the sitcom plot, I've already remembered why I love Red Dwarf. The opening scenes seem designed to say "Remember when Red Dwarf was great? Didn't it look a lot like this?" Cat and Lister talking nonsense ("Of course they can't, they're mooses!"), Rimmer fretting over the astronavigation exams, Kryten fussing about and delivering exposition. Even the original theme music as an intro sting!
Anyway, they find this supercool Space Corps ship (the titular Trojan), and get a distress signal from one of Rimmer's brothers. At this point, I've already started to suspect what the sitcom plot is, of course, but I get distracted by the red herring when Rimmer decides he needs to pass his exam and become an officer before they meet. This, of course, completely fails, and so we do indeed head into sitcom plot territory, warp factor 3.
The sitcom plot is that old reliable The Fawlty Towers Plot (Mock Millionaire variety). You know, the one where Benny the Ball tells his Ma that he's Mayor of New York. In this case, Rimmer poses as captain of the Trojan with the other Dwarfers as his crew. Which is an excuse for them to wear very blatant Next Gen Movie Era Star Trek uniforms.
The rest of the plot is the desperate and increasingly ridiculous attempts to maintain the lie, with an added twist when Howard suffers the same resentment-fueled BSOD as Rimmer did earlier in the episode[1], and another one when Howard's simulant companion turns out to be a villain. Because duh, she's a simulant (see niggle below). And then the silly subplot of Lister being on hold suddenly becomes relevent in one of the funniest scenes I've seen for a while, as Lister gets an epic, and completely absurd, Patrick Stewart Speech.
And of course, the episode ends with Rimmer learning absolutely nothing, because that's not how the character works.
Only niggle: every simulant we've seen before now has been a psychotic killing machine who hates humans, so I'm not sure why this particular one feels the need to liberate her fellow simulants from human control.
(Okay, another niggle: the reference to Rimmer's bitterness as "self-created malware" suggested a double meaning to the title, but if so it was done without an awareness of what "Trojan" actually means. Or was the real Trojan the simulant, getting onto the ship under false pretences?)
Anyway, looking forward to next week's, which may well explain What Happened To Holly.
[1]This makes more sense in retrospect than it does at the time. It seems strange that just learning Rimmer's an elite captain is enough to trigger this, given that Rimmer's was spawned by constant and endless fretting over the success of his brothers over a period of years. But when we learn that actually he's also a lying Third Technician, it makes sense; presumably he's had the same feelings about Frank and Johnny all these years, and now he learns Arnold made it as well...