Review: Red Dwarf: Terrorform and Quarantine

Series Five, Episode Three - Terrorform

 "It has an eye the size of a meatball"

We look at Rimmer. Again. But at least this time it's blended in with a more fantasy setting; something that is welcome after so much abstract.
          Kryten wakes up, heavily damaged and on an asteroid. He sends off his hand, a small robot, to get help from Red Dwarf. At first it scares Lister and The Cat, but they soon find Kryten and fix him. Kryten explains that he and Rimmer were out moon-hopping when Rimmer went to claim a moon, when the planet started to erupt around him. Kryten tried to go and get help, remembering Rimmer's look of fear.
           They track his light-bee and find that the moon in question is a Psi-moon, which terraforms to personify the mind. This planet has personified itself into Rimmer's self-loathing, and so is trying to kill him. Eventually they save him from the Self-loathing beast, but his lack of self-esteem means that the ship is sinking into the bog. The crew raise Rimmer's self-esteem to a point at which they can escape.
          An interesting and funny episode, with a good concept, it tries to advance Rimmer's background but fails, mainly because we've had all the background possible.


Series Five, Episode Four - Quarantine

"The king of the Potato People won't let me."

Saying that this episode is a classic is somewhat of an understatement. It is the funniest and more innovative episode of this entire series; combining the sci-fi aspects of the series with some good olod British absurdity, as well as the innocent cross-dressing. Oh, and this is a Rimmer episode. Again.
          The crew find a spaceship said to contain the hologram of the legendary biologist Hildegarde Wernstrom. Rimmer is decidedly annoyed that the crew follow the orders of Kryten over his, and so doesn't come along to the ship. Kryten leaves Rimmer with a copy of the Space Corps directives, which Kryten regularly quotes. When they go onto the ship, they find that Lanstrom has gone mad with a form of hologrammatic virus. Once she accidentally kills herself, they explore her work, which is composed of positive virusses that take the form of luck, sexual attraction and other concepts.
          When they return to the ship, Rimmer exploits the Directives and puts them in quarantine, giving them only the bare minimum. After a day they ask Rimmer for a recount, but they find that he has contracted the hologrammatic flu and gone mad. Using Lister's luck virus, they escape the quarantine and construct a device which cures Rimmer.

Thanks.