Review: Red Dwarf: Only The Good...

Series Eight, Episode Eight - Only The Good...

And so, we finally reach the last episode of Red Dwarf. Eight series. 52 episodes. It would be another decade before any more Dwarf was produced, and when it did, it completely abandoned this storyline. For what was supposed to be the last episode ever, it should have made more effort. True to form, it's an examination of Rimmer, but it's just a little lacklustre.
         We start out with a message broadcast to Dwarf by an escape pod, its ship eaten by a chameleonic microbe. The pod enters the ship, and the microbe escapes. We see Rimmer serving the Captain, who is cooped up in bed with yellow fever. He wants the Captain to get rid of his criminal record, so he can properly advance up the ranks. The Captain puts him down, and asks him to look elsewhere in life. Meanwhile, his beautiful blonde girlfriend comes in and Rimmer is dismissed.
             Swearing he'll be the Captain, Rimmer has an argument with the food machine after stealing a chocolate bar. The machine swears that one day, he will destroy Rimmer. Rimmer says that on that day, he'll be the captain. Elsewhere, The Cat moans about how his job as the ship's disk-jockey is hurting his back, and his mind. Meanwhile, there's a tasteless section where Kryten tries to help Kris get over PMT. She gets very, very mad at Lister. Kris and Kryten start to conspire...
         Back in Lister's quarters, and Lister and Rimmer are playing draughts when Holly shows up and tells them that there wil be a cell inspection in ten minutes. They're then told the same by a guard. Moving on, the two compare scars, and they get a fax from Kryten, who has left them a note, telling them that they've placed some stolen alcohol in Lister's shower. Lister is worried about the inspector while Rimmer is scared of Hooch, who the alcohol belonged to. They're forced to drink the entire thing. After falling about, they manage to finish it and are very, very pissed. When the inspector comes in, they're unable to properly respond to anything.
        We cut to lunch, where Baxter is on the warpath. He comes over and tells Kris and Kryten about how he's going to kill the others in hospital. Those two sneak in, while to help get into the medibay, Cat tries to get himself hospitalised. This is quite a funny scene, as his blatant disrespect for one of the beefy prisoners actually earns him that prisoner's respect. So hes forced to sneak in as a nurse.
        As they escape, they find that the ship is being slowly eaten by the virus. Hollister addresses all of the prisoners, and tells them that most of them will be staying there to die so as to conserve the escape pods. Kryten examines the compound in the virus, and Kris decides that to eradicate it they need an antidote from a a parallel universe. They create aa portal (using some random tech) and Rimmer goes through first, leaving him trapped there. It turns out, however, that in this universe, Rimmer is the captain. In a scene mirroring the one that began the episode, he mercilessly belittles this universe's version of Hollister. The girlfriend comes in, and Rimmer tries to snog her, when she reveals that she is in fact his sister. Feeling awkward, he then acts like a big brother - she then reveals she is a sister in the religious sense. Going to the ship's science advisor (in this universe, The Cat) he gets the antidote and gets back through.
        When he gets back, all of the remaining crew have gone back into the mirror universe, as the ship slowly decomposes. He has another argument with the dispenser, who, seeing as he is the highest ranking member of the crew left, starts firing chocolate bars at him. As he fights to keep conscious, he meets the Grim Reaper, who he knees in the groin and runs off. 
       What we have here is a charicature, a basic shrinking down of all the major motivations of the entire series. Lister; basically good in going back to tell the crew about the virus. Rimmer; aspirational but unlucky. The Cat; he believed that he was the centre of the universe, and his presence makes the brute bow down to him. Kris; well, there was never really a lot of development for Kris. Kryten; always wants to help but has little understanding of deep human concepts. I like this episode, very much, even though the one that proceeds it is the worst Dwarf has to offer.  

Thanks.