Red Dwarf/Duct Soup

Duct Soup
Season 7, Episode 4
Airdate	February 7, 1997
Written by	Doug Naylor
Directed by	Ed Bye
← 7x03 Ouroboros	7x05 → Blue
Red Dwarf — Season Seven

Duct Soup is the fourth episode of the seventh season of Red Dwarf, and the fortieth episode overall.

Guest Stars:

Plot Overview

The ship is very hot (92 degrees). Lister can't sleep, so he is taking a shower.

Meanwhile down in Kochanski's quarters (next to the sewage processing unit) the pipes have been screeching, howling, and making other hideous noises, driving her mad. She lies in bed tensely. Each time the pipes make a noise she beats them savagely with a spanner, and raves on about "nureeks", "herungers", and "roatuts" -- her own personal, made-up words for the various noises that the pipes make.

She goes to Starbug's mid-section, where Kryten tells her she is not the first person those pipes have driven to the brink of madness. She opens the refrigerator and finds Lister's shoes inside. This is a boy's fridge -- women would never do that! She sits down and sinks into despair. She has only two sets of clothes and there is no place she can ever hope to go shopping. She begins to cry.

Kryten checks his memory for how to comfort a crying woman. He seems dubious about the method that his memory banks have come up with, but he tries it anyway. He performs the Heimlich manoeuvre on Miss Kochanski. Breaking free from his grip, she tells him he must have a corrupt database file or something.

She plops back down and despairs some more. Her life: were did it all go wrong? How did she end up stuck on a ship, where the fourth most popular pastime is watching her knickers spin dry. Kryten assures her that no one has ever done that.

At that very moment, Lister and the Cat are down in the laundry room watching for her undergarments in the washer. Kryten arrives to process a load and discovers that Miss Kochanski's red uniform has been shrunken to ridiculous proportions. He is sure that he used the right settings. Lister and the Cat sneak out before Kryten can ask them any questions.

Lister finds Kochanski and offers to trade quarters with her. He also has a gift for her: a red dress. She is very grateful, but there's more. He has prepared a makeshift bath in his quarters using a "retro-housing".

Kryten enters and learns that Miss Kochanski will be removing her clothes to take a bath; leading him to envision a furture where Mr. Lister and Miss Kochanski are married, and have sent him packing so they can socialize with the GELF's. Kryten snaps out of his vision, and says to no one in particular, "I've just seen the future". He leaves the room in a huff.

A moment later, Lister also leaves the room so Kochanski can take her bath. Just then the ship is rocked by an explosion, and the lights go out temporarily. Everyone gathers in Lister's quaters, and then the lights go out a second time, leaving the ship with no power.

Kryten tells them that the doors are locked to enhance hull integrity. To get out they will have to crawl through two miles of ductwork -- six hours of crawling. Everyone clambers up through the vent hatch in the shower.

They travel only a bit before they discover Lister is claustrophobic. Kryten and the Cat go off to try to find a grating that leads to a store room where they might be able to get something for Lister's claustrophobia. Kochanski tells Lister a story to keep his mind off the cramped quarters. Later, the Cat and Kochanski trade places so that she can use her small hands to reach through a gate that they are having trouble with. The Cat promises to look after Lister.

Even though he knows he shoould avoid making Lister nervous, the Cat tactlessly blurts out remarks such as "Boy is it cramped!" and "talk about cooped up!" Lister tells the Cat how he became claustrophobic.

Cat hears a noise: the sound of rushing water. It's the recyc system! Every four hours the vents get flushed! They take refuge in a side passage in the nick of time. They wait there until the torrent has passed. Lister is not having a good day.

The Cat hears another noise: the sound of rushing wind. The vents always get dried after a recyc! Lister and the Cat try to hang on, but are blown a good distance through the ducts, only halting when they get stuck at a bend.

Everyone manages to reunite. Kryten gives Lister an injection for his claustrophobia. Then things start to get hot. They must be nearing a star. They won't have enough time to make it through the ductwork. They're all going to die!

Kryten admits that he staged the whole thing. He didn't know it would turn out to be so dangerous. He just didn't want Miss Kochanski taking a bath. She and Lister might have gotten married, and abandoned him, leaving him alone again.

Lister comes up with a plan to surf their way through on the next wave of recyc water. The plan does work, but they end up pressed against a grating for some time until the water stops. They drop down out of the ducts, and find that they are not where they should be. Kryten was reading the map upside down.

Luckily when he staged this whole affair, he excluded the doors from the shutdown commands. Lister and the Cat rush out of the room to restart the generator and get the ship back on course.

Kryten, practically in tears, makes a valiant effort to apologize to Miss Kochanski. She picks up a spanner and orders Kryten to say her pipe words: "nureek", "roatut", and "herunger"; beating his head with the spanner as he says each one.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Lister became claustrophobic after being sealed naked in a wooden crate by an angry husband, who caught him making love to his wife. He threatened to dump Lister in the canal, but relented. Lister opened the crate to find that he was on stage in the middle of a play.

Referbacks

• Kryten's paranoid vision of the future includes Lister and Kochanski sending him away so they can socialize with two GELFs -- a reference to the episodes Emohawk - Polymorph II and Ouroboros.
• Kryten suggests that maybe they should even take that magnetic fishing game, a likely reference to the game Junior Angler from the season three episode Timeslides.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Kryten sarcastically refers to Kochanski as Princess Leia, and tells her, "Luke Skywalker went that way, ma'am."
• Lister became claustrophobic after being sealed naked in a wooden crate by an angry husband. Lister opened the crate to find that he was in the middle of the Bootle Players amateur production of "The Importance of Being Earnest."
• Kochanski had virtual teachers when she was in cyberschool:
  • English: Miss Brody.
  • Maths: Mr. Chips.
  • History: Disreali and Ghengiz Khan.
  • Literature: Shakespeare and Dickens.

Memorable Moments

• When Lister has his claustrophobic episode in the ducts, Kochanski tells him that her Dave and her and just friends, because her Dave is gay! She keeps him going for quite a while, before he finally realizes that she is just trying to take his mind off of the cramped quarters.

Quotes

Kryten: What would you say to a glass of drining chocolate?

Kochanski: I'd say, "glass of drining cholocate, get me out of here."

Lister: I'm too mature for this. I'm just gonna sit here and read my comic.

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