Red Dwarf/Blue

Blue
Season 7, Episode 5
Airdate	February 14, 1997
Written by	Doug Naylor, Kim Fuller
Directed by	Ed Bye
← 7x04 Duct Soup	7x06 → Beyond a Joke
Red Dwarf — Season Seven

Blue is the fifth episode of the seventh season of Red Dwarf, and the forty-first episode overall.

Guest Stars: Chris Barrie (Arnold J. Rimmer)

Plot Overview

Lister flies through a comet instead of going around it, damaging Starbug and ruining Kochanski's chances of getting back to her universe. After the incident, Lister leaves the cockpit to go below and clean up. He asks the Cat to come with him, and accidentally calls him Rimmer. Lister can hardly believe it. He didn't even like the smegger, but there it is.

Down in the cargo hold, Lister is going through Rimmer's personal items and starts thinking fondly of Rimmer. He tells Cat a story of how they played golf on Tragar-16, a small asteroid. Rimmer went first and his ball flew all the way around the asteroid. Lister found the ball, but didn't tell Rimmer, leaving him unable to win their bet. He also recalls the "Locker Room" game, where they would open up lockers at random to see what personal effects were within.

Lister is in the cockpit alone. Rimmer returns, looking like he did when he left: like Ace Rimmer. Lister is glad to see him. They talk. They laugh. Rimmer asks about Kochanski, and Lister tells him that she can't hold a candle to him. Overcome with emotion, they embrace in a warm hug. And then, they lock eyes and melt into a kiss!

Lister wakes up falling out of his bunk and screaming with disgust. It was just a dream, but eeeew! Lister seeks Kryten's help. Kryten examines him and then leaves to get the proper hypno-therapy disc. Kochanski comes in, and he admits to her that even though they didn't get along, he still misses Rimmer. The two of them talk a bit more, and Lister seems to feel better after that.

Later the Cat, Lister, and Kochanski are seated at a table in Starbug's mid-section for Games Night. Kryten will be along shortly. Kochanski wants to pick the game tonight. She suggests "Magic Flute". The other's aren't familiar with that game, so she desribes it:

We each hum a section of an aria and the others have to guess which character we're singing.

After a bit of discussion she comes to the conclusion that Magic Flute is not their kind of game. She asks them what kind of games they do play? Match the Body Part to the Crewmember? Armpit Name That Tune? Guess Who's Booty is Sticking Through the Curtain?

Kryten enters and announces that Games Night is cancelled. He has something in the AR Suite that might amuse. Everyone sits in their chairs and dons the equipment. Suddenly they are boarding an amusement park ride: The Rimmer Experience.

At the end of the ride Lister is cured of ever wanting to see or hear from Rimmer ever again!

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Lister is trying to be more presentable, now that Kochanski is aboard.
• Kryten and Miss Kochanski disagree on where the salad cream should be stored: in the cupboard or in the fridge. Kryten is quite passionate about his belief that it belongs in the fridge. Many of Kochanski's other habits irritate him as well, such as her drying tights on the radiator.
• Eventually Kryten confronts her about the salad cream. Kochanski lashes back and ultimately discovers that Kryten irons her bras by placing them over his head.

Referbacks

• Kochanski is still trying to get back to her parallel universe.

Trivia

The Show

• Lister goes through Rimmer's things because the ship is overweight. He is supposed to throw it away.
• The 9-hole golf course Kryten set up on Tragar-16 was a 15 mile, par 3 course. Lister and Rimmer apparently had a bet for "50 big ones" riding on the outcome of the game.

Allusions and References

• Kryten erased his female lingerie database, thinking that he wouldn't need it again unless Lister became a cross dresser like Hermann Görring.
• After Lister has a dream in which he kisses Rimmer, he thinks he's losing his mind. He'd rather go bobbing for apples in the communal latrine at the Reading Festival than kiss Rimmer.
• When examining Lister, Kryten puts the wrong disc into himself. Instead of theraputic hypnosis, Kryten begins to rant one of Hitler's Nuremberg speeches.
• When Kochanski suggests a game at Games Night, she names Magic Flute as her game: a likely reference to Mozart's Magic Flute.
• Armpit Name That Tune: obviously an uncultured variant of Name That Tune.
• Yul Brynner is mentioned in the lyrics of the Rimmer Experience.
• After Lister finishes the Rimmer Experience ride, he is cured of his desire to ever see Rimmer ever again. To that Kryten says, "Sigmund Freud: eat your heart out!"

Memorable Moments

• The Locker Room Game.

This game consisted of opening the lockers of the deceased crew (deceased 3 million years ago) at random to see what goodies might be inside. Rimmer felt that he hadn't been getting the choicest lockers, and insisted on choosing for himself. He chose locker D68, but changed his mind and let Lister have it, thinking that he had somehow out-smarted him. Lister then reached into the locker and retrieved a gold necklace, a bundle of cash, and a nude wrestling video (Baked Bean Bombshells, Volume 12).

Irritated, Rimmer then chose locker D58 for himself; and since at that time, he was a soft-light hologram and unable to touch things, Lister opened the locker for him. Lister steped aside to let Rimmer see his locker. Rimmer was engulfed in flames -- the locker was booby-trapped! After the flames died down, Lister read a note left in the locker, "People who break into lockers deserve everything they get..."

• The Rimmer Experience is an epic/classic Red Dwarf segment.

Quotes

• Just about any verse of the Rimmer Song is quotable.

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