Psirens
Lister wakes up from stasis to learn that Red Dwarf has been stolen by persons or life forms unknown. By following the Dwarf's vapor trail in Starbug, Kryten is confident that they can recover their lost ship.
The Dwarf's trail leads the crew through an asteroid belt full of derelict spaceships. The word "Psirens" is scrawled on the floor of one of the crafts in blood and intestines. By playing back the black box recording of that ship, our boys learn that creatures named Psirens, capable of telepathically changing the perception of one's surroundings, lure ships down onto the astroid and suck out the crew's brains. The boys must stay strong--one of the methods the Psirens use is seduction.
After a few failed attempts to get the Dwarfers onto the asteroid, Rimmer leads the crew into a giant flaming meteorite, and Starbug crashes. On the asteroid's surface, in blasting the ship free with a bazookoid, Lister is nearly seduced and eaten--but is saved when the Psirens fight among themselves for his brain.
Back on the 'Bug, Kryten receives a message from Lister that he is ready to board. But as Lister joins the rest of the crew, a second distraught Lister appears, begging for entrance! In the interest of safety, Kryten allows the second Lister in--but now there is definately a Psiren on board!
After performing various tests, the crew discover and blast the Psiren--but it escapes and hides. Kryten and Rimmer go after it; Rimmer runs away, leaving Kryten to face the Psiren alone. But the Psiren takes on the appearance of Kryten's creator--and Kryten is programmed to obey her every command, and never to harm her. After ordering Kryten into the waste compactor, the Psiren nearly eats Lister and Cat, but is foiled by a very cubist Kryten...and the crew continues its search for Red Dwarf.
Episode Quote: "That was merely the level of sophistication required to lure the Cat--and it worked. Had we not stopped him, he would now be on one of those asteroids, crawling around without a brain, trying to write 'Oh boy, was I suckered!' with his own intestinal tract."
Legion
Starbug is down on supplies--food, water, even movies that Lister doesn't despise. So when the ship is enveloped in a strange swirly thing that carries them to a derelict space station devoid of life (according to the preliminary psi scan) they are happy to go shopping. Although they can't get any details, Kryten learns that this station had something to do with classified artificial research--and some of the most brilliant minds of the 23rd century.
As they board, the psi scan picks up a new life form reading--a humanoid wearing a mask who calls himself "Legion". Legion greets all of the Dwarfers by name. He then changes Rimmer's light bee from soft light to hard light--now Rimmer can touch things, and is nearly indestructible! After painlessly curing Lister of an undetected case of peritonitis, Legion invites the Dwarfers to partake in a Mimosian feast that Kryten can share. He leads them to a room filled with artwork and sculptures that Legion created himself many years ago--along with the hard-light drive and many other inventions.
Legion is too good to be true--and the Dwarfers agree that they must ask him to join their crew. The best way to go about that, they decide, is to trick him into believing they are not the uncouth morons they really are. So they put on ridiculous airs and make fools of themselves in the process. Finally Rimmer lays it on the line--and Legion refuses to join them. However, Legion informs them that they will be his honored guests--for all eternity.
Legion seems intent on keeping the Dwarfers happy--each of them has a "cell" tailored to his exact tastes. Lister has a guitar and sugar-puff sandwiches; Rimmer has starched pajamas and nocturnal boxing gloves; Kryten has dirty walls and a mop and bucket. The food is amazing, and there is a cyberpark in which the crew can interact with any persons they choose. They'd be crazy to leave--even so, the Dwarfers do not enjoy captivity, and scheme to free themselves. Their plan fails, but they accidentally knock off Legion's mask. His face is a composite of all of theirs melded together! Legion explains that he is a gestalt entity, a being spawned from their combined minds and personalities. He was invented by those scientists from the 23rd century--and while they lived, his mind was astonishing, and he was able to create all the artwork and inventions within the station. But now, without the Dwarfers inhabiting the station, he is quite literally nothing--and will not allow them to leave. But by knocking each of the crew members out in turn, Kryten reduces Legion down to one person--him. And since Kryten himself cannot endanger the crew, neither can Legion. So Legion helps carry the crew back to Starbug, and to freedom.
Episode Quote: "When I get around to writing my 'Good Psycho Guide' this place is going to get raves. Accommodations: excellent. Food: first class. Resident Nutter: courteous and considerate. Psycho rating's gotta be four and a half chainsaws."
Gunmen of the Apocalypse
Starbug finds its way into Simulant space. Simulants are highly intelligent human-made killing machines that hate anything that looks remotely human. Starbug manages to get captured by a Simulant ship. The crew is knocked out and, when they awake weeks later, find that Starbug has been upgraded in order to play an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse with the Simulants. A fluke shot from Starbug destroys the Simulant vessel, but not before the Simulants infect Starbug's computers with an "Apocalypse" virus that freezes the controls.
The crew finds itself plummeting into a planet, when Kryten comes up with an idea--he is willing to contract the virus himself and try to work out an antidote called a "dove program" before the virus wipes out his core program. Before he goes unconscious, Kryten tells the crew to "watch his dreams."
Kryten dreams that he is a drunken sheriff in an old Western town. When he is confronted with the four Apocalypse boys (Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine), he is told he has one hour to clear out of town before he is killed. Kryten of course gives in--he's so weak and drunk he can't do anything anymore. Back on Starbug the crew is worried--but Lister realizes that they can join Kryten in his dream by hooking him up to the Artificial Reality machines. Lister, Cat, and Rimmer choose characters from an Old West Adventure, each with a special skill or ability, and ride into town to stop the Apocalypse boys.
They find Kryten preparing to leave town, giving up all of his possessions for a bottle of whiskey. They take Kryten, sober him up, and try to help him remember who he is and what he is doing there. Just as Kryten begins to remember, the Apocalypse boys show up to run Kryten out of town. To buy Kryten time to complete the dove program, Rimmer challenges one of the Apocalypse boys to a one-on-one fistfight (his character's special skill is bare-fist fighting). When the crew discovers that their special skills were erased, they find themselves on the losing end of the battle. They manage to extract themselves from the AR machine, leaving everything up to Kryten--but the extra time the altercation bought allowed him to create the dove program, and the ship is saved...
Quote: "Wait, somethings coming back now. You sir. Whenever I look at you I get an image of curry and early morning breath that could cut through bank vaults. You sir. There's something familiar about you too. I get a name. Shmeeeee. Shmeee-heeeeeeeed!"
Emohawk
When Starbug's crew find themselves under arrest by an insane Space Corps enforcement probe for looting Space Corp derelict vessels, their only hope is to escape into GELF (Genetically Engineered Life Form) space, even though GELFs hate humans and turn them into furniture. They crash on one planet and discover that everything that was damaged in the robot's attack--except for the oxygen generation unit. They can take off, but Lister and Cat could not breathe. So the crew decides to brave a local GELF village and hope they will trade for an O/G unit, and not kill them.
The local GELFs do in fact have an O/G unit to trade--but the chief will only give them the unit in return for Lister marrying his daughter. And has his daughter looks like a hairy baboon-nosed water buffalo, Lister protests. But the deal goes through and Kryten is given the unit, until Lister, terrified at the prospect of a wedding night with his GELF bride, buggers off back to Starbug. Furious, the GELFs release an Emohawk (a half-domesticated Polymorph) to chase after the crew and drain their emotions. Although they think they escaped, the Dwarf crew find themselves aboard Starbug with the Polymorph. Capturing Cat alone, the Emohawk sucks out his grace and turns him into...Duane Dibbley! (Although how the Emohawk changed his hairstyle and teeth is beyond me. Mayhap it carries around dentures, a salad bowl, and scissors?)
Rimmer runs in, and, discovering Duane and learning of the Emohawk's presence, gets on the microphone to warn Lister and Kryten. The microphone turns back into the Emohawk and sucks out Rimmer's bitterness. Emerging from Starbug's cockpit is...Ace Rimmer! To save Dave and Kryten, he locks them in the Engine Room and decides to open the airlock, effectively sucking everything out of the room and killing them--including Cat. But, he tells Dave, he'll break Cat's neck first. Before he can do this, Dave and Kryten blast out of the engine room, and join Duane and Ace on a hunt for the Emohawk. They take along some liquid delinium so they can freeze the Emohawk, extract the stolen emotions, and give them back to Cat and Rimmer. The crew finds and freezes the Emohawk, and everything is great...until Duane accidentally turns the delinium tank on THEM!
Episode Quote: "Just let me check. Thermos, sandwiches, corn plasters, telephone money, dandruff brush, animal footprint chart, and one triple-thick condom...You never know."
Rimmerworld
The Dwarfers come upon the derelict of the Simulant ship they destroyed back in Gunmen of the Apocolypse. Because they are low on supplies, and certain they destroyed all of the Simulants, the crew risks boarding the unstable ship and stealing some of their stores using the still-working teleporter aboard the Simulant ship. Of course, right before they are finished, they are interrupted by one of the Simulants. She has decided to take them with her into oblivion. However Rimmer, coward he is, manages to get into an escape pod, thus distracting the Simulant and allowing his companions to escape before the ship explodes. When they try to pick him up, they find that his pod is going too fast for them to catch up. In fact he has stowed away on board a seeding ship, meant to take settlers to the nearest habitable planet. He will not make planetfall for a year and a half. Cat and Lister are, of course, thrilled. Thrilled, that is, until Rimmer's ship heads for a wormhole. Now he will reach a planet within a few days, and, shortly after, will be found by Starbug. However, due to the time dilation within the wormhole, Rimmer will spend 600 years on that planet waiting to be picked up, while it will seem less than a week for the crew.
The planet Rimmer lands on is a sandy desert nearly devoid of life. So he launches eco-accelerator rockets, and, in a week, creates a lush green world he names "Rimmerworld". Lonely, he learns from the ship's books that it is possible for him to clone a female companion for himself from his own DNA. But when the cocoon the clone has been developing in opens, it is another male version of himself. Undaunted, Rimmer tries again...
By the time Starbug reaches the planet, there are thousands of life readings on Rimmer's world! Upon landing, they are arrested by a group of Rimmers! They are taken to the leader, who, rather than being hologrammic Rimmer they expected, is flesh and blood. They are sentenced to die for neither looking like nor acting like a Rimmer.
In the prison cell they are taken to, the crew discovers...Rimmer! He tells them that he has been in prison for five-hundred and fifty-seven years in his own personal hell--a world made up entirely of him. Rimmer explains that those who do not look like Rimmer, or who exhibit "unRimmerlike" qualities--bravery, kindness, selflessness--are sentenced to death. Using the Simulant teleporter (I don't know how it works if the ship was destroyed), the crew leaves the hellhole of Rimmerworld behind.
Episode Quote: "It seemed entirely possible for me to create a fully grown female clone, using my own DNA as a template. This of course created the most enormous moral dilemma. Technically, she would be my sister, and therefore unable to take me as her lover. After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided, 'What the hell', I just wouldn't tell her."
Out of Time
The crew happens upon a field of "unreality" pockets, which create bubbles of fake reality that can endanger or disorient those trying to pass through it. It is a defense device used by Space Corps test ships. So the crew decide to navigate it (putting Lister, Cat, and Rimmer in stasis so they don't have to endure the unreality), because something interesting is bound to be on the other side. A few days later, the boys find a Space Corps ship fitted with a drive that can accomplish time travel--a Time Drive. So the crew strips it out, install it in Starbug, and discover their problem--the drive goes back in time, but it does not transverse space. All they need now is a faster-than-light drive, and they can go back to Earth, to any time they choose...
Just then, they receive a distress signal from...Starbug! It is themselves, 15 years in the future. Their Time Drive malfunctioned and they need information from current Starbug to fix it. Kryten agrees to help. After sealing the current crew upstairs to prevent them from knowing their future (Kryten can wipe his memory, so he can deal with knowing his own future for the time being), the future Starbug crew are allowed on board. Our Lister rigs the mediscan up to the surveillance cameras so they can see what is going on downstairs. Of course the shock is enormous--Yes, all four of them are there, but one of them is nothing more than a talking brain in a jar. The future Dwarfers are fat and balding, even hologrammic Rimmer (I don't know how that works) But it's when they start talking the anger mounts. Apparently the future Dwarfers, equipped with a faster-than-light drive, have become epicurists, traveling through time and sampling the pleasures of the various eras. However, since the finest things are usually in the possession of the most selfish and evil people, the Dwarfers have taken to hobnobbing with folks such as Hitler, Louis XVI, and the Goerings. And they enjoy it! Enraged by the hedonistic self-serving pigs they have become, Rimmer, Lister, and Cat blast their way downstairs and order their future selves off the ship. They leave, but, determined to get the information they need from the current Dwarfers' Time Drive, the future crew threaten their past selves with annihilation. The future Dwarfers don't care if they die, as long as they don't have to spend their remaining days on Starbug. And rather than let their future selves continue their lives of selfishness, Rimmer calls for the crew to fight. Future Starbug fires, and one by one the crew dies and the ship disintegrate. In a burst of bravery, Rimmer takes a bazookoid down to the engine room, and fires at the Time Drive...just as his future self fires the last shot to disintegrate Starbug.
To be continued...
Episode Quote: "Better dead than smeg."