Backwards
When Rimmer takes Kryten on his "road test" for Starbug (One of the Dwarf's ship-to-surface vessels), they (including Holly) are sucked into a time hole. They crash-land on Earth, but an Earth where everything is backwards! Road signs are spelled backwards, people walk and drive backwards, and even talk backwards. As they are stuck, Rimmer and Kryten search the want ads (sda tnaw) and find an opening for a novelty act...
Meanwhile, Lister and Cat are out searching for their missing shipmates. They find the time hole and safely land on the Backwards Earth--but Lister suddenly has cracked ribs and a black eye, and he can't figure it out! Lister and Cat are baffled by their surroundings, and figure they must have landed in Bulgaria. They come upon a poster featuring Rimmer and Kryten's faces, and the caption "Srehtorb Esrever Lanoitasnes Eht". So, after stealing a bike that will only pedal backwards, and then hitching a ride, the boys find themselves at the pub where Kryten and Rimmer are playing.
The act that Rimmer and Kryten put on seems unusual to Lister and Cat--they are speaking "Bulgarian" and all Kryten does is drink a glass of water and then eat a hard-boiled egg. The pub is a wreck, with debris strewn all over. Lister and the Cat figure out that this world is backwards, and, after undrinking a pint of bitter, they catch up with Rimmer and Kryten.
Kryten and Rimmer refuse to leave this backwards Earth. They are having a great time as "The Sensational Reverse Brothers," and argue that this world makes more sense. There is no death, no crime, no war--because everything goes in reverse! Then the pub's owner comes in and fires Kryten and Rimmer, for starting a barroom brawl--but they haven't done a thing!
Lister and Cat uneat a pie they find on a table, only to anger the pie's rightful owner--who hits Lister in the eye! Amazingly, Lister's black eye disappears and, as the brawl goes on, all of his other injuries, as well as the nearly destroyed pub, fix themselves! The boys board Starbug, and head back to the Dwarf...
Episode Quote: "Okay, okay! But look at the flip side of the coin. It's not all good. Take someone like, say... St. Francis of Assissi. In this universe, he's the petty-minded little sadist who goes around maiming small animals! Or Santa Claus -- what a bastard!"
Marooned
Holly informs the crew that there are not one, not two, but FIVE black holes in the immediate vicinity! The boys abandon ship--Lister and Rimmer in Starbug, Kryten and Cat in Blue Giant, so Holly can guide the ship around the interspatial calamities with no danger to the crew. They agree to rendezvous on a desert moon. However, Starbug is hit by a meteor in transit and crash-lands on an arctic moon. Rimmer and Lister are stranded, with no heat, very little food, and nothing to do. Lister finds himself reduced to eating dog food and a pot noodle, swapping "how I lost my virginity" stories with Rimmer,--and with no fire source but a few old books. When the last page of "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" is burned for fuel, the only flammable items left are Lister's precious guitar and Rimmer's heirloom camphor wood trunk, which contains authentic 19th century wooden soldiers and twenty-four thousand pounds worth of notes. Into the fire goes the money...then a decision must be made. Lister and Rimmer fight over which is too valuable to burn, the guitar or the trunk plus soldiers? While Rimmer is out of the room, Lister surreptitiously cuts out a guitar-shaped piece of wood from the back of the trunk, hides his guitar, and burns the wood...Rimmer is so touched by what he thinks is a supreme sacrifice for Lister (yes, he thinks Lister is burning a camphor-wood guitar), he insists Lister burn the soldiers! But before the trunk itself goes up in flames, Cat and Kryten make an appearance, and rescue Rimmer and Lister. Everybody is happy--that is, till Rimmer opens his trunk...<.p>
Episode Quote: "Because, believe it or not, Lister, he told me that, in a past incarnation, I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch."
Polymorph
Some kind of hazardous biological life form that feeds off emotions has escaped its deep space prison and unknowingly found its way into the Red Dwarf cargo hold. We see it change into many life forms, from a rabbit to a squash ball, and bounce its way around the ship.
Meanwhile, Lister is sitting down to a meal of "Shami Kebab Diablo" when one of the sausages attacks him! The sausage disappears; Lister puts on his shorts, and they start to shrink! The shorts turn into a snake, which Lister dumps into a wastebasket...then out of the wastebasket rises a huge beast, which extends a slimy appendage that attaches itself with a SPLAT! to Lister's forehead. Lister collapses and is brought to the medical unit by Kryten, who had been sitting in on Rimmer's home-movie-a-thon.
Kryten figures out that this creature is actually a human-made warrior, a polymorph, which is capable of changing its shape to fit any situation or terrain--and which, incidentally, is insane. It invokes an emotion in its prey, then drains the victim of that emotion for its meal. This is cooberated by Lister awakening with no sense of fear. Kryten gives Lister a sedative, and the rest of the crew head out with heat-seeking bazookoids and go after the polymorph.
On a false alarm, one of the bazookoids is fired. And although there is no polymorph in the vicinity, the orbs seem to be homing in on something--the Cat! Cat breaks away from the others, dodges the orbs, traps them, and then meets a beautiful woman who just happens to be in the cargo deck. She flatters him, offers him sex--and then extends a slimy appendage and attaches it with a SPLAT! to Cat's forehead. Kryten runs up, trailed by Rimmer--and realizes the Cat has be stripped of his vanity! Rimmer lays heavy blame on Kryten, telling him it was all his fault...and Kryten feels GUILTY! Rimmer begins to morph...a slimy appendage attaches itself to Kryten's forehead, and Kryten collapses. He has been stripped of his guilt.
Walking into the medical unit, the real Rimmer is greeted with the sight of his mother fondling the sleeping Lister. Mrs. Rimmer informs Arnie that she has just had sex with Lister--and it was incredible! Arnie is infuriated...then the appendage is extended yet again, and SPLAT! is attached to Rimmer's forehead; Rimmer's anger is sucked out.
Now our boys, stripped of their vital emotions, must figure out a way to get rid of the polymorph--but this is rather difficult, considering Lister is homicidal and reckless, Cat is a total mess, Rimmer is poncing around while smoking a pipe and wearing a shirt that says, "Give Quiche a Chance," and Kryten is trying to figure out a way to sacrifice the rest of the crew to save his own life. They decide to go after the polymorph, and trace it down to the cargo decks--where Lister, at the precise right moment, releases the heat-seeking energy orbs Cat trapped earlier, and destroys the polymorph. All the boys' emotions return to them, and they start to set themselves to rights.
However, the boys neglected one thing...the deep space prison the polymorph escaped from was labeled, "Contents 2"...
Episode Quote: "Well, I can't say I'm totally shocked. You'll bonk anything, won't you, Lister?"
Body Swap
When one of the skutters goes insane and rewires the entire ship, Lister ordering a krispy bar sets off the self-destruct. And it can only be shut off by a senior officer! The only way Kryten can think to deactivate it is to upload Lister's memory onto a hologrammic disk, download one of the now-deceased senior officers into Lister's body, and have that officer shut off the self-destruct sequence. Everyone agrees, and an officer (a woman) is downloaded into Lister's body. After the initial shock of finding herself in a man's body dissipates, the crew finds that her override doesn't work! But when the countdown is completed, nothing blows up. Then Holly informs the crew that she had disconnected and removed the self-destruct bomb a while ago. Lister is reinstated in his body, but this whole incident gives Rimmer an idea...
Under the guise of making Lister's body fit, Rimmer gets Lister to agree to lend him his body. In the meantime, Lister's mind is put in Rimmer's hologrammic body. Rimmer, of course, goes hog wild--after scrubbing Lister's grimy body to a pink pulp, he has Kryten bring in all kinds of delicious food for him to eat--after all, he has not had anything to eat in 3,000,002 years. Rimmer actually WALLOWS in the mashed potatoes. He smokes tons of cigars--and puts nearly two stone (about 28 pounds) on Lister's body! Lister insists on getting his body back, as Rimmer asked for it under false pretenses and disrespected him; Rimmer begrudgingly complies.
During the night, Kryten enters the sleeping quarters, chloroforms Lister, and brings him to Rimmer--Rimmer ordered Kryten to perform the body swap! (Kryten is compelled to obey the orders of all humans, no matter how insane.) Lister wakes up in Rimmer's hologrammic body, and finds a note--Rimmer has stolen his body and run off with it--and if Lister tries to follow him, he will destroy Lister's body! Lister decides to go after him anyway--and with Kryten's help, tracks Rimmer down and gets his body back...but that doesn't prevent Rimmer from ordering Kryten to chloroform the Cat...
Episode Quote: "I've got male sexual organs!"
Timeslides
Lister is bored. So bored that he is reduced to spending his time using a "Tension Sheet" to relax (A Tension Sheet is a sheet of bubble-wrap painted red and the words "Tension Sheet" printed on it). Rimmer mentions that he went to school with the guy who invented the Tension Sheet, and he is rather bitter about it--the guy, "Thickie" Holden, was a multi-millionaire by age twenty-six. So when Kryten discovers that using mutated photo developing fluid makes pictures come to life, Lister is anxious to have a good time--until he realizes that he can change the past by interacting with the photographs! He finds a picture of himself at age 17, takes a Tension Sheet with him, and explains the idea to his musically-inclined younger self. When Lister re-enters the lab, he disappears--and Holly informs Rimmer that Lister is now the inventor of the Tension Sheet, and is a multi-millionaire.
Right bastard that he is, Rimmer tries to thwart Lister's good fortune--first by entering a photograph of rich Lister in his extravagant mansion, and then by jumping into a picture of himself in school as a boy. Rimmer explains the Tension Sheet idea to his younger self and, unwittingly, to "Thickie" Holden, who sleeps in the bunk next to young Rimmer's. Rimmer re-enters the Dwarf, and Lister materializes. Then Holly tells Rimmer that "Thickie" Holden was again the inventor of the Tension Sheet--but Rimmer must have changed SOMETHING,because he is no longer a hologram! Rimmer is ecstatic, runs around the ship like a madman, and unwittingly knocks into a box labeled "explosives"...
Episode Quote: "Kryten, unpack Rachel and get out the puncture repair kit! I'm alive!"
The Last Day
A message arrives for Kryten from the company that produced him. He has reached the end of his pre-programmed life span, and he has twenty-four hours before he is shut down. Kryten doesn't seem to mind, though, because all mechanoids are programmed to believe in "Silicon Heaven," the android afterlife. According to the Mechanoid Bible, it is the reward for a mechanoid's loyal service to humans. Kryten postulates that Silicon Heaven must be true, otherwise obeying humans all the time would be silly.
Lister, knowing Silicon Heaven to be bunk, therefore decides to make this the best night of Kryten's life. Kryten's shipmates throw him a huge party, complete with a special brew Lister dreamed up for Kryten, a type of android alcohol. The boys give Kryten gifts--including a robotic Marilyn Monroe.
As the night ends, Kryten's android replacement arrives--the "Hudzen 10." He is programmed to destroy Kryten if Kryten doesn't do it himself. When the boys go to face Hudzen, they find that he is no ordinary mechanoid--he is big, strong, and nasty...and his sanity chip has been worn out! He sees all the Dwarfers as viable targets, even though he is programmed not to harm humans (Rimmer is dead, an ex-human; Cat is felis sapiens, and does not qualify; and Lister barely counts). As Hudzen is about to destroy them all, Kryten lets the truth out about Silicon Heaven--he tells Hudzen it doesn't exist! Hudzen can't handle the contradiction and overloads. Kryten is safe; after all, Kryten knew he was lying.
Episode Quote: "No such place as silicon heaven? Then where do all the calculators go?"