Everybody's dead, Dave!

I was at home with a cold the other day when I decided to escape Brexit by wandering over to Netflix where I watched the first episode of Red Dwarf again – “The End” - which I haven't seen for 20 odd years... 

Watching it from such a distance since its original broadcast (1998?) one has to take one’s hat off once again at just how brave this is as a piece of writing.  Starting with a sequence where Lister and Rimmer are arguing about doing their job the episode introduces us to a whole array of characters…   

... Captain Hollister, Kristine Kochanski, Todhunter, Petersen, Chen, Selby and George McIntyre and then promptly kills all of them simultaneously 15 minutes in.  They're all dead.

Now it’s necessary for us to know that all the crew are dead … but is it really necessary for us to see it?  A lot of this could be done in reported speech or gradually using flashbacks but instead… we’re introduced to a whole cast only for them to be expunged.  To be fair some re-appear later in flashbacks, as holograms or in time travel story lines (and in series VIII) … but it still seems brave. 

Of course it’s a bit like Alien in that respect – introduce “main” characters only to kill them - and that may be a reference here but … I don’t think this had been done before in a sitcom.  It’s one thing having a premise where the crew of a giant ship are all dead but it’s another thing to actually show them all, introduce us to them all and then kill them all (admittedly off screen).   I’ve said that before, haven’t I?  One other thing that did dawn on me watching this episode again - unlike Alien all the disasters that befall the crew of Red Dwarf are man made.  All of them.  Everybody's dead, Dave.

In many ways the early episodes of Red Dwarf remind me of the early episodes of Only Fools and Horses - 3 inadequate souls thrown together by the death/disappearance of the person/people who previously gave their lives safety and structure (Del’s parents / Captain Hollister and the officers).

Following the disaster (and 3 million years) Holly decides that the best person for Dave to spend the rest of his life alone with is not the late George McIntyre (the original ship’s hologram) but Arnold Rimmer (the original ship’s other vending machine repair man)…   Although one wonders if Rimmer didn’t just think up an incredibly devious self-serving argument as to why he’s more important to the ship’s mission than George and then somehow take advantage of Holly’s senility.  He's dead, Dave. Everybody is dead.

Wikipedia informs us that “Grant and Naylor were so embarrassed by the first series that they had requested that the BBC not repeat the episodes as they felt that it would harm the following series” but that of the first series this was the most popular episode.  Perhaps if they’d written it some years later they wouldn’t have taken this approach.  Series 3 doesn’t even bother to explain what happened following the end of series 2 except in fast scrolling text – perhaps because the writers realised with experience that what matters is the situation … not explaining why the situation is.  Not that it matters because here it works… Everyone. Everybody's dead, Dave!

There were lots of things I didn’t remember.  I didn’t remember the scutters being so prominent but this appears to be because they have been retroactively CGIed into some scenes.  I didn’t remember George McIntyre’s wake – such a clever way of introducing the audience to the concept of a hologram before Rimmer’s death and resurrection.  And I’d forgotten how good Rimmer and Lister were as mirrors of each other.  He's dead, Dave.

Lister’s ambitions to go and live on an island submerged by global warming and raise animals with officer Kristine Kochanski are as unrealistic as Rimmer’s ambitions to raise himself up from vending machine repair man to captain via sheer hard work.  Both are escaping into fantasy and both sets of fantasies are unachievable in different ways…  The cat meanwhile has no ambitions beyond the bottom levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (with the possible exception of mate acquisition which is unattainable) and represents contentment.  I did remember the crew being reduced to piles of white powder and I did remember Holly providing the memorable exposition…

He's dead, Dave. Everybody is dead. Everybody is dead, Dave.