1.
Kryten (28' 19")
06/09/1988
David Ross
(Kryten) Tony Slattery (Android actor) Johanna Hargreaves (Esperanto Teacher)
The second
season begins with the gang coming across a crashed space shuttle where the service mechanoid, Kryten, is still attending
to the officers, even though they have long since passed away. The crew take Kryten back aboard Red Dwarf where Rimmer puts
him to work cleaning, cooking, ironing etc. Lister tries to convince him that
he doesn't have to do any of his service duties anymore and can do his own thing. He fails until Kryten is painting a portrait
of Rimmer and his rebellious side opens up, painting Rimmer sitting on the toilet, and then insulting him before jumping on
a space bike wearing a leather jacket, a-la Marlon Brando.
At the beginning,
Kryten is watching his favourite television show "Androids". The theme song for the program is a spoof of the long-running
Australian soap opera "Neighbours", a big hit in Britain.
The producer and director of "Androids", Kylie Gwenlyn, is named after the former head of the BBC, Gareth Gwenlan. Red Dwarf's second series introduces the small ship-to-surface vessel Blue Midget. The creation of the
transport vehicle was to enable the Dwarfers to leave the ship and explore space, leading them to meet Kryten and party away
Rimmer's death on a moon. The larger Starbug will be created for Series III and beyond, it becoming a major part of the 6th
and 7th seasons.
2.
Better Than Life (29' 33")
13/09/1988
John Abineri
(Rimmer's Dad) Judy Hawkins (Yvonne McGruder) Ron Pember (The Tax Man) Tony Hawks (Game Guide) Nigel Carrivick (Captain) Jeremy
Austin (Rathbone) Debbie Ash (Marilyn Monroe) Tina Jenkins (Newsreader) Gordon Salkilld (Gordon)
A mail pod
arrives in space and Rimmer recieves the belated news that his father has passed away and is devastated, even though he hated
him. To alleviate his sadness of the news (and the fact that he has a $8,500 tax bill), the crew try out a new Virtual Reality
game where all your desires and fantasies can come true, but even Rimmer's mind has its own way of stabbing him in the back.
During filming,
Craig Charles kept stalling the motorcycle he and Cat ride away from Rimmer on, so Craig is not the person riding the bike
as it moves away from the camera. Throughout the filming of this episode, the crew had a recurring problem, as Debbie Ash
(who played Marilyn Monroe) proved utterly incapable of delivering her line, "Boop-oop-be-doop".
3.
Thanks For The Memory (28' 27")
20/09/1988
Sabra Williams
(Lisa Yates)
After partying
away to the anniversary of Rimmer's death, Lister and Cat wake up with broken legs, Lister's jigsaw has been completed, four
pages have been torn from his diary, the clock is four days ahead and the black box is missing. The crew go after the black box and discover it in a shallow grave with a gravestone that reads 'To the
memory, of the memory of Lisa Yates'. Lister comments that he once dated a girl named Lisa Yates. They view the black box recording and watch as Lister, after hearing Rimmer cry and wail because he has
never been loved, implants a memory of his into Rimmer's; the eight months that he dated Lisa Yates. Rimmer wakes with this new memory and believes it to be his. He ponders why he and Lisa broke up and Lister
realises that he was stupid to ever let her go. Rimmer finds out that Lister
also dated Lisa and Lister is forced to tell him what he did. Rimmer asks that the last four days be erased from everyones
memory and that they bury the black box. Lister and Cat recieve the broken legs when they drop the headstone on themselves.
When they get back to the ship, Lister tears the pages from his diary and puts the last piece of the jigsaw into place.
Fans have drawn
parallels between this episode and an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Clues”. Both involved
crewmembers finding parts of their memories missing and set about trying to find out what happened, only to learn they were
better off not knowing During the filming of this episode, Craig Charles had to leave to attend the birth of his son, Jack.
Production Manager Mike Agnew wears Lister's spacesuit in the black-box scene. You can see a continuity error in those scenes
if you look closely: Lister is not wearing his cast, as the one made did not fit Agnew.
According to the cast commentary on the DVD, this was meant to be the first episode of series 2. If this is true, this
episode is meant to be the first apprence of the Blue midget and Rimmer's running 'Aliens' gag.
4.
Stasis Leak (29' 55")
27/09/1988
Mark Williams
(Petersen) Morwenna Banks (Lift Hostess) Glynis Barber (Woman Returning from Leave) Sophie Doherty (Kochanski's Roommate)
Richard Hainsworth (Medical Orderly) Tony Hawks (Suitcase)
While going
through Kochanski's personal things, Lister finds a photograph of him and her getting married. Remembering something from
the past, he reads Rimmer's diary and finds a piece where Rimmer thought he saw his own head pop up through the table and
say that he came from the future to save his life which Rimmer believed to be an hallucination. Following directions from the diary, the gang head down to floor 16 and find a stasis leak which transports
them back to the past, a little while before the crew all died. Because they
can't bring anybody back to their time, Lister and Rimmer fight over who they should convince to go into the other stasis
booth (Lister himself being sent into the other). Lister wants to save Kochanski and Rimmer obviously wants himself. While Rimmer goes back to convince himself, Lister and Cat find Kochanski at a hotel,
but she is already married. Kochanski invites them in and Lister discovers.....Himself from 5 years in the future who has
found another way to go back in time. After the meeting they all return to the
past Rimmer and Lister's quarters where the past Rimmer promptly tells them all to go away.
In the original
version of this episode, during Holly's opening spiel he says "we saw a moon shaped exactly like Felicity Kendall's bottom".
In the Remastered version it is changed to "Marilyn Monroe's bottom". Before the final scene was filmed, Clare Grogan was
accidentally told she had finished her scenes and left the studio, so the Kochanski who walks in with the future Lister is
actually Dona DiStefano, an Assistant Floor Manager and Clare's lines were excised from the final shooting. The scenes in the Ganymede Holiday Inn were filmed at the real-life Midland Holiday Inn, with actual hotel
guests shown in the foyer, and the confrontation scene being filmed in the real Room 008.
5.
Queeg (29' 43")
04/10/1988
Charles Augins
(Queeg)
Holly shows
the first signs of his computer senility and endangers Lister's life which activates the back up computer. The team rally
around the new computer Queeg, but soon realise that he is a maniacal beast who demands order and proper ship regulations.
After forcing Lister and Cat to work for their food and taking control of Rimmer's body for exercises, the gang begin to appreciate
Holly a little more and set about devising a way to rid the ship of Queeg.
An early draft
of the script for 'Queeg' included the Wilma Flintstone exchange between Lister and Cat, which will be later seen in 'Backwards'.
Red Dwarf music composer Howard Goodall sings the theme from High Noon as Holly approaches his confrontation with Queeg. Craig Charles performed his own stunts in this episode where Lister is thrown from
his bunk and then when he flies over the console in the explosion.
6.
Parallel Universe (28' 27")
11/10/1988
Suzanne Bertish
(Arlene Rimmer) Angela Bruce (Deb Lister) Matthew Devitt (Dog) Hattie Hayridge (Hilly)
Holly claims
to have invented a matter transport device called the "Holly Hop Drive"
(A red box with a stop and start button on it) and the crew try and use it, but it doesn't bring them to earth, it brings
them to a parallel universe where women are the dominant sex.
While Rimmer
is trying to avoid his opposite's sexual demands, Lister seems to be getting on very well with his. The Cat's opposite (unfortunately
for him) is a dog, and even Holly has an opposite, Hilly. After partying all night long while Holly and Hilly fix the Hop
Drive they wake up to find Lister has accidentally slept with his opposite, who tells him that
in their universe, the men give birth to the babies. After returning to their
own world, Lister uses a pregnancy test, and much to Rimmer's delight, they learn that Lister is pregnant!
The title of
this episode doesn't appear at the start as in others. Instead, we open with a musical number with Cat singing 'Tongue Tied'.
The Remastered version has the title appear after the song finishes. The opening number 'Tongue Tied' is choreographed by
Charles Augins, who played Queeg in the previous episode. The "Tongue Tied" musical
number evolved from a brief gag, to a full-blown song and dance sequence, to Danny John-Jules releasing his own version of
the song in 1995. When Cat says "Lister - Female opposite; Rimmer - Female opposite;
where's mine?", it is one of only two times Cat ever says the name 'Lister' on the show. The next time he says it is in Series
V's 'The Inquisitor'. Whenever he refers to Lister he calls him "buddy", "dormouse cheeks" or just "Hey, you". This marks the final appearence of Norman Lovett, until season 7's "Nanarchy"; and also the first appearence
of Hattie Hayridge, who will replace Lovett as Holly in seasons 3-5. It also
marks the final appearence of the original Red Dwarf/JMC uniforms. For Season 3, new costumes were designed for Rimmer and
Lister. The Red Dwarf crew do wear similar (though not identical) uniforms to the original Season 1/2 uniforms in Season 8.