The Third Season of the Cult British Science Fiction Sitcom Red Dwarf Ends on a Characteristically Darkly Funny Note with "Timeslides" and "Last Day"
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“Timeslides” opens by acknowledging a harsh truth about Red Dwarf’s premise. Though the felllas make the most of it, living in a future world where pretty much all of humanity is dead, including your family, friends, and acquaintances, would be unbelievably, even suicide-inducingly depressing.
Dave Lister (, our affable hero, is not entirely alone. He has human/feline mutation Cat, Hologram asshole Rimmer, and effete robot Kryten for company but he longs for more.
Dave begins the episode in a profound funk. Cat tries to cheer him up by offering to play the many games they invented out of the random crap in the ship, like unicycle polo, but it is to no avail.
“I hate my life” the normally upbeat survivor broods. “This is worse than prison. At least with prison, you can look forward to getting out.”
Being a lonely man in his sexual prime, Dave wants to meet girls and make love, but that’s not possible given his unfortunate circumstances.
Then an opportunity to change his life and escape his bleak fate appears when it’s discovered that through the magic of technology, Dave, Cat, and Kryten can enter photographs and interact with the people in them. They cannot escape the frame, but they finally have an opportunity to interact with new people.
They can even interact with people in black and white photographs, like Adolf Hitler, who is described, unforgettably, by Rimmer as “the leader of the runners-up in World War II.”
What a wonderful way to think of the Führer. Most folks would say that the Nazis lost World War II, but Rimmer just thinks they finished in second place, after the Allies. Second place isn’t too bad. Athletes who win the Silver medals are still considered heroes.
We learn that Rimmer subscribes to Fascist Dictator Monthly, where Hitler, who is cheekily billed as a special guest star in the opening credits, is Mr. October.
Dave enters the Hitler picture and roasts the genocidal madman, imploring the crowd, “Ignore him! He’s a total nutter!”
Before hopping back into the Red Dwarf, Dave steals Hitler’s suitcase. Unfortunately for them, it’s the one set to explode as part of an unsuccessful assassination attempt. They hurl it back into the picture, but Hitler survives anyway.
Seeing a picture of himself as an angry, Marxist seventeen-year-old wannabe rock star gives Dave an idea. He enters the picture alongside Rimmer, Kryten, and Cat and gives him advice that will make him rich if he follows it.
First, however, he needs to get through to his younger self. With the arrogance of youth, Dave assumes that his terrible rock trio will attain superstardom.
“Aren’t you happy being a rock star? Are the constant demands of groupies getting you down?” Young Dave asks Old Dave.
Old Dave brings Young Dave a consumer doo-hickey that will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams if he “invents” it.
Young Dave professes not to be interested in money. He acts like he actively despises it. “I’m not into dosh. I hate money. I loathe possessions. It’s crypto-fascist.”
Young Dave deems everything “crypto-fascist” in a way that suggests that he has no idea what the words actually mean but knows that they sound bad.
Despite his oft-stated contention that everything is crypto-fascist, Young Dave does what his older, wiser self tells him to do and becomes fabulously wealthy in the process.
Dave makes for a spectacularly tacky rich person. He’s downright Trumpian in his total lack of taste. He has a giant statue that urinates champagne and buys three million copies of his band's single to score a number one hit the dishonest way.
Since Dave never worked on the Red Dwarf in this alternate timeline, Cat and Kryten don’t exist, leaving Rimmer to an even lonelier and sadder existence as the sole inhabitant of the ship, other than Holly.
Rimmer knows that he must sabotage Dave’s only chance for happiness and success for his own selfish reasons. So he visits him in one of his many mansions and lectures, “You call this happiness, surrounded by toadying lackeys and paid sycophants? Living with a love goddess, sex-bomb model megastar? You call this contentment? I stand here now, and I look at the two of us, and I ask one simple question. Who is the rich man, you, with your 58 houses, your private island in the Bahamas, your multi-billion pound business empire, or me with, what I’ve got. It's you. It’s very clear to me now. You're wealthier and happier.
I should have thought a bit harder and about that speech. I cocked it up a bit.”
It’s a hilarious speech that reminded me of a running joke that I had with my late father, where we’d see some athlete or movie star and inquire, “Sure, he has money and fame and women and a mansion and a sports car but is he happy? Probably.”
Rimmer cannot stand Dave’s success. So he travels back in time and tries to convince his younger self to “invent” the doo-hickey that made alternate universe Dave wildly successful. Rimmer thinks this is his pathway to unimaginable riches, but only ends up setting up a hated childhood colleague for wealth and fame.
“Timeslide" is one of many instances where Rimmer behaves in a manner that crosses the line into outright villainy. His desire to escape a lonely fate is understandable, but it nevertheless involved robbing Dave of a life that’s not just preferable; it’s downright idyllic.
This glimpse of earthly contentment and success makes their lonely, regular life onboard the ship seem even sadder and more despairing by comparison.
“Last Day”, the final episode of the show’s third season, has an even bleaker premise. As its title suggests, “Last Day” chronicles what is supposed to be the final twenty-four hours for Kryten, the affable android with the Max Headroom vibe.
A representative of the corporation that built Kryten informs the crew that Kryten is “slow, stupid, crudely designed, and quite amazingly ugly, and that in twenty-four hours, he will need to shut down to make way for his replacement.
Kreyten does not despair, however, because he knows that when he dies, he will be rewarded for a lifetime of selfless service by ascending to Silicon Heaven.
It's an electric paradise where every electronic device, from the lowliest calculator to the most advanced Android, receives its heavenly reward.
Dave tries to convince Kryten that Silicon Heaven does not exist. Heaven is for humans with free will and immortal souls, not toaster ovens.
Kryten scoffs. He describes the idea of a non-Silicon Heaven as something that was “just made up to keep you from going nuts.”
The fellas and Holly want Kryten to enjoy his final day of existence as an unfeeling automaton. So they throw him a party and get appropriately hammered.
The next morning, they wake up with splitting hangovers and unexpected doodads in their bed, like a traffic cone and a police lady’s hat.
Kryten experienced an epiphany on what he thought would be his final day of existence.
“Last night, for the first time in my life, I lived,” Kryten explains with incongruous humanity. He ponders aloud if this is because of “the human value you call friendship?”
Red Dwarf immediately undercuts the seriousness of the moment by having Dave sneer, “Don’t give me that Star Trek crap. It’s too early in the morning."
Dave, Cat, and Rimmer nevertheless prove themselves good friends when they take a stand against the Terminator-like killer android that has been sent to destroy and then replace their robot pal.
They succeed not through force but rather through logic. They inform the raspy-voiced robo-killer that Silicon Heaven does not exist. The revelation is so profound that it causes the would-be replacement to shut down.
Kryten lives to serve another day, or two, or several thousand.
The final two episodes of Red Dwarf’s terrific third season deepen the characters and their complicated bonds while maintaining the surreal absurdity and gleeful darkness.
Red Dwarf has maintained a remarkable level of quality control so far. I hope that’s true of the rest of the show’s epic run, but if The Simpsons has taught us anything, it’s that it’s difficult, if not impossible, for even the most brilliant, inspired show to stay great over a period of decades.
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