I’ve been taking advantage of the sunshine and the reduced work schedule to lounge around in the garden reading, and since I’ve gotten back into Red Dwarf in a big way, I’m rereading Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers.
One thing that struck me is the part of the book that’s taken from Future Echoes. You know the part where Lister thinks he’s going to die while fixing the navicomp? Rimmer’s been gloating and celebrating for several pages, sending condolence memos and quoting Lister’s “death isn’t the handicap it used to be” line back at him, all very much the same as in the series, then there’s one bit that I love, that didn’t happen in the show.
Lister jumped down to to floor. “This is it, then.” Rimmer looked at him. “Don’t go.” “What d’you mean ‘Don’t go’? You said yourself I can’t avoid it. Let’s get it over with. What was I wearing?”
Rimmer, for all his pretence of being happy that Lister is going to die and his insistence that there is nothing that can be done to change future events, when it comes to time for it to happen, tries to stop it. Series Rimmer is lurking around with his fingers in his ears and a big stupid grin on his face, waiting for Lister to go boom. Book Rimmer stays behind in their quarters, and wishes that Lister had done the same.
If we define God as the giver of life, then technically Lister is God to everyone, not just the Cat. He created the Cat race, he taught Kryten to break his programming therefore gain free will therefore life, and his existence is the reason Rimmer was revived and continues to be revived. Dave Lister created and sustains the life around him merely by existing and, personally, I think there couldn’t be a better man for the job.
The other night I watched Out of Time, the Red Dwarf season 6 finale, having not actually watched it in waaaaay too long. And oh man I forgot how important an episode for Rimmer it is. “I say fight!” is huge for him! Probably the biggest jump forward in his characterisation pre-the Dave era! And then it’s… sort of forgotten about, but eh.
“Better dead than smeg!” is such a good line. It’s funny, because obviously the word Smeg is always smegging funny. But then you think about what he’s actually saying there, what he’s saying about his future self (who isn’t a million miles away from his past self)… “I’d rather die than be that person, an unequivocal bad guy who enables fascists.”
(And of course in the episode prior to this one Rimmer was trapped for six hundred years with nothing but even worse versions of himself around, probably leaving him a lot of time to muse on his bad qualities. He’s not about to let another incredibly evil version of himself run rampant! Makes sense, right?)
I always so dearly love what can only be called I’ll Never Turn To The Dark Side moments and this is such a good one. I wish it’d gotten more attention and callbacks within the show itself. (I suppose it was technically also setting up for Ace in the next season, if they’d had that planned at that point, I have no idea, but…) It’s just, Rimmer is such a fascinating character because there is honour underneath the smug git surface, it shows up so rarely but he (and Lister too) definitely know it’s there, just so hard to reach. Which is just another of the many, many tragedies of the characters of this dumb space sitcom.
JUST in time to celebrate the one-month anniversary of The Promised Land, I think.
Title: The Dance Fandom: Red Dwarf Characters: All the main smegheads but mostly Lister and Rimmer Summary: A coda to The Promised Land, in which conversations are had.
(Shippy, but honestly not much more than the show is at this point)
