THE RED DWARF PLOT INCONSISTENCIES PROJECT v.8.0

2.2 SERIES TWO

Kryten (2-1)




Better Than Life (2-2)

    How did the mail ship ever track and catch up to the Red Dwarf?
  • It is possible that it tracked the postal-pod homing beacon all the way, but it can't have expected so long a journey. The fuel consumption must be really low and it could work on maneuvering thrusters. It also had less distance to cover once the RD turned around.

    Lister says 'I remember when my dad died.' No he doesn't. He was abandoned as an infant.
  • In this instance, he's probably referring to his foster father.

    Rimmer appears to be putting on a normal helmet like the others, yet he shouldn't be able to touch it and if it was put on his head, it would fall right through him.
  • It is probably a hologram projected by Holly. Holly does such things, for example, in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) and Parallel Universe (2-6).

    Cat says that he always licks someone when they give him food, yet he never did it before, and will never do it again.
  • Let's look at the previous times the Cat has been fed. In The End (1-1) Lister puts Krispies on the floor for Cat, and Cat is repulsed by it, so it is not likely he would lick Lister over it. In Waiting For God (1-4), Lister again gives Cat food but Cat is generally repulsed by Lister himself, so he's not likely to be doing any licking of Lister (for whatever reason). In Polymorph (3-3) the Cat is again repulsed during the dissection dinner. Again, not a likely lick situation. The only other time is in Legion (6-2) and by this time Cat may have broken himself of the habit due to Lister's chastisement now, or just the passage of time with people who do not do it.

    In this episode, Rimmer gets news that his father dies, but in Future Echoes (1-2) there is 'that unfortunate suicide business'.
  • It is never actually stated that Rimmer's father killed himself.
  • It may have been an attempted suicide.

    Why did Rimmer have the 'H' on his forehead when he was grabbed and hit by the hammer? If he was tangible, he would not have the 'H' on his forehead. If he was intangible and justifiably had the 'H' on his forehead, he should not have been able to have been grabbed and hit.
  • Rimmer's 'H' reappeared before he 'left' the game, presumably to signal a return to truth and bad times. The incident of the shipboard game was one last stab at Rimmer by his own subconscious. In order to make the incident most cruel, Rimmer's 'H' must be present to support the illusion that it is reality, and something good is happening to him. The realisation comes that he is still playing the game, where he is a tangible form (and can thus be hit), and after this the presence or absence of the 'H' is no longer relevant.

    By this episode, the ship has turned around. Yet, in Future Echoes (1-2), it is said that it will take 4000 years for the RD to turn around.
  • The ship had approximately two years to slow down, and then went into orbit around a celestial body (Kryten, 2-1). Using this method apparently allowed the ship to turn around faster than it would have in the other case.

    Rimmer doesn't seem to know who Marilyn Monroe is, yet there are pictures of her in his locker.
  • It's a shared locker, so the posters are more likely Lister's. Even if not, Rimmer being Rimmer would not necessarily get the name right (eg. 'Wilfred' Shakespeare in Waiting For God, 1-4).

    Rimmer's 'Admiral' outfit is the same as his 'Captain' outfit in Kryten (2-1). Why couldn't Holly give him a proper uniform?
  • Holly isn't responsible for Rimmer's uniform in the TIV Better Than Life, so the fact that Rimmer is wearing what appears to be a Captain's uniform is entirely the doing of his own psyche. The simplest explanation would be that the uniform is that of Captain, but a favorite style that Rimmer gets Holly to make for him (even though he has no rank claim to it). In BTL, his psyche can make things the way he wants it, therefore he can be wearing his same favorite uniform but have it designated Admiral to suit his fantasy (in a TIV the rules of reality don't necessarily apply).

    The Red Dwarf's address is given as 'Deep Space,' yet the pod had been following them since they left Earth. If that's so, then the message was originally mailed before the accident, so they weren't in 'Deep Space' yet.
  • This can be related to the one above about the pod tracking the RD for so long. The pod, in good postal service bureaucratic tradition, could keep updating the addresses 'to ensure proper delivery.' If it was built to track the RD for any length of time, it probably had this capability as well.



Thanks For The Memory (2-3)

    The Projection Cage is used for Rimmer, even though it is established in later episodes that he has the Light Bee, and therefore doesn't need the cage.
  • The LB might have arrived on the mail ship from Better Than Life (2-2), and was not found until they sorted through all the extraneous mail.
  • Perhaps this was before they had explored the entire ship and found the science section with the LB.
  • Maybe the LB sometimes does not work properly in non-S3 planetary environments. However, this might be contradicted by the crew deciding to send Kryten and Rimmer to see if the atmosphere is toxic in Meltdown (4-6).

    'Mr. Fat Bastard 2044': Is 2044 just a number, or a reference to a year? The year would conflict with times established in Stasis Leak (2-4).
  • Maybe it is the number of times Hollister scooped the title.
  • He may also be the 2044th Mr. Fat Bastard.
  • It could be a made-up year when Hollister supposedly first won the title.
  • Captain Hollister may have spent a period of time in stasis, in which case he could have been a Fat Bastard in 2044 and still be commanding Red Dwarf in the 21st/23rd Century. The stasis booths were used during interstellar travel -- it is indicated that Todhunter experienced this (The End, 1-1), so quite possibly Hollister did too.
  • “Mr Fat Bastard 2044” may be a particularly notorious “Mr Fat Bastard” – perhaps the fattest of the fat? Maybe 2043 was extremely memorable, and Rimmer is implying that Captain Hollister is even fatter than THAT?
  • Rimmer may just be insulting the Captain for the sake of it without much care for what year it is. There may not actually be a Mr. Fat Bastard award. I mean think about it – how would you feel checking your post one day to receive a letter saying “Congratulations! You are a nominee in this years ‘Mr. Fat Bastard’ Contest!”. That’s not exactly going to stroke your ego, is it?

    Lise Yates says 'I love you, Rimmer' when she should have called him 'Arnold'.
  • Since it was Lister's script, it is what Lister would call him.
  • When you get right down to it, Rimmer has mostly been called Rimmer, even by family. The letter from his mother in Better Than Life (2-2) begins 'Dear Rimmer.' Only on specific occasions has he been referred to as Arnold.

    When Lister and Rimmer are discussing Lise Yates, Rimmer's attire goes from scruffy (shirt and tie undone) to all correct (everything buttoned and tied).
  • Holly probably snapped up Rimmer's appearance, in keeping with how fastidious Rimmer usually is.

    Lister protests at being told how many times Rimmer has had sex, yet the likely figure had been implied previously (Me2, 1-6).
  • Lister probably dreaded hearing the awful, detailed 'truth' truth from Rimmer.

    Lister, while in the sleeping quarters (Level 348), says, 'I went down to the Hologram Simulation Suite.' To be correct he should say 'went up' as the Suite is on Level 592.
  • Lister is Lister. Knowing which way is 'up' is not a requirement.
  • However, Lister should be right, as every single ship in history has been numbered top-down instead of bottom-up. This does not seem to be the case, however, as the Xpress Lifts on the ship confirm a bottom-up numbering (Stasis Leak, 2-4).



Stasis Leak (2-4)

    Wednesday, 2nd March, 2077: This date conflicts with later 23rd Century references. It is also stated as three weeks before the crew dies, and thereby conflicts with Rimmer's diary entry from Me2 (1-6). In addition, a calendar in the men's bathrooms reads as 2077.

    March 2, 2077 will be a Tuesday.
  • The calendar as we know it today may be rearranged in order to accommodate a space-faring society. This is supported by the use of the new month 'Geldof' by the newscaster in Better Than Life (2-2).

    Rimmer and Lister are in the Captain's Office three weeks before the events of The End (1-1). Yet then Lister doesn't know where the office is.
  • Perhaps he is pretending so he can flirt with Kochanski.

    Rimmer laments that 'Everyone always leaves me in the end: girls, parents...' Rimmer divorced his parents, so he left them. What girls is he talking about?
  • Rimmer probably thought that his parents deserted him first.
  • Well, he did have some women: McGruder (Confidence And Paranoia, 1-5) and Lorraine (Parallel Universe, 2-6) for example.

    The crew routinely wander between levels 100-something (The End, 1-1: Level 159) and 500-something (Queeg, 2-5: Level 592). Yet they have to travel down 2567 levels in the Xpress Lift to get to Level 16 in this episode. What in the hell were they doing on Level 2583?

    As a corollary to the above, if the RD was four miles deep, with 2583 levels at least, they would be 8.1 ft (2.48 m) each.
  • If the floors are staggered in front and back (see below), this would not be the case and also explain some short staircases seen in certain episodes.

    Diagram 1

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    The photo at the end of the episode is different from the photo in the beginning.
  • Perhaps it is some 'Back To The Future' retro-history change.

    The crew do not go to the parallel universe in three years' time, nor do they go back in time so that Lister can marry Kochanski five years from then.
  • The passage of 'real' time and 'awake' time is really subjective here, so it still may be accurate.

    Rimmer hides under a table, passing completely through it in the process. How is that possible with the solid Light Bee in conjunction with the fact that Holly couldn't be projecting him?
  • This lends credence to the theory of sometime-use of the really small LB.
  • Present-Holly might have warned past-Holly that a hologram was slipping through time. Past-Holly, not having a hologram to support yet (McIntyre wasn't dead), took over projection of Rimmer.
  • A simpler suggestion than the “really small light bee” would be that the Light Bee hover just under the table but projects Rimmer’s image through it. There’s no evidence to suggest that the Light Bee has to be central in order to render Rimmer correctly. It could just as well be in his foot, rendering Rimmer’s image from there.

    The soap ages three million years going forward in time, but the crew does not age negative three million years going back, or three million years when they come back. If it doesn't work on organics, what about their clothes?
  • Nothing 'ages.' Apparently, something can enter a past environment (eg. the crew back to 2077), but something cannot enter a future environment that it did not originate in (eg. the soap). Trying to shift something against this time-grain causes its disintegration. Thus the crew and their accompanying inorganics are safe because they move to a past environment and then back to their own future one.

    If Rimmer mentioned the head popping out of a table in his diary, why did he not also mention the two other Listers or the other Rimmer?
  • He may simply have stopped writing about his 'hallucinations,' especially if he thought these details were just too crazy and he wanted to forget them.
  • Maybe he did write about the other Listers and Rimmer, but Lister never read that far.

    The Cat identifies his question, 'What are you talking about, dog-breath?' as 'a wise old Cat saying.' However, the Cat apparently had no knowledge of dogs before Future Echoes (1-2), so how would he know of this saying?
  • The Cats as a species obviously knew of dogs. It is perhaps improbable that the Cat did not encounter or remember dog references before Future Echoes, but not impossible, given his lonely life before meeting Lister and company. At any time after Future Echoes, the Cat could have come across a reference to this saying (which would then have some meaning for him), especially as his 'investigations' among Cat artifacts had been stimulated by Lister (eg. the request to find the Holy Book -- Waiting For God, 1-4).

    When Lister is looking for Kochanski at the Ganymede Holiday Inn, he and the desk clerk apparently consult the guest register to find her room. If Kochanski is now called Mrs. Lister, then Lister may not be able to find her in the register at all, or he may be alerted to the temporal incident (by finding his own name) or the marriage situation (by finding either name listed for the Honeymoon Suite).
  • Room 008 may not be identified in the register as the Honeymoon Suite. Also Kochanski being married is no guarantee that she has changed her name, and the name of Kochanski (as opposed to Lister) may even be registered in order that the Future Lister can have his joke at his younger self's expense (and necessarily the room must not be in Lister's name, in order for the temporal events to play as they do).


  • In addition…
    The discrepancies between what is mentioned in this episode and what actually happens later on in the series could suggest that the Stasis Leak is not just a leak in time but in reality, which means that the trio may well have travelled into a parallel universe as well as back in time. This would explain why Kochanski and Lister never get married, why Lister never grew a beard or travelled back in time, or why Rimmer never mentioned the multiple Rimmers and Listers in his diary.


    Queeg (2-5)

      Lister claims that the tape of 'Robert Hardy reads...' that he and Cat are listening to got twisted, but they are listening to a CD.
    • Maybe it is some futuristic tape/CD combo.
    • When Lister claims the tape is 'twisted,' he could be making an aesthetic judgement, not a physical one.

      Rimmer is thrown back by the force of the explosion. Why would this happen to an intangible hologram? Also, he falls onto, not through, the table.
    • The Light Bee might have gotten jolted by the explosion, though the effect should have been different. The LB may be able to sense the explosion and make an appropriate simulation. There is a pause before Rimmer gets thrown. The LB might also try and project an image consistent with physical reality, so Rimmer ends up slumped on top of the table instead of falling through it.

      Rimmer's legs walk off without him. How?
    • The LB could have malfunctioned. The positive Z coordinates might be alright, but the Xs and Ys of the negative Zs got messed.
    • If Holly was projecting Rimmer then he could go off in two directions at once.

      Rimmer turned into Cat, but Cat was not in the original crew, so he wouldn't be stored on disk.
    • Rimmer might have been able to do it from his *own* memories of the Cat, which *would* be stored on the updatable disk.

      Queeg says that they've been going in circles for 14 months, when there are other things outside of his word that indicate otherwise. How come no one picks up on this?
    • Since Queeg is Holly's joke, he doesn't have to tell the truth. And remember the crew are pretty surprised at this point, and don't take onboard all of what Queeg tells them.

      When Lister, the Cat, Rimmer, and Holly arrive at the Hologram Simulation Suite, Holly (in his monitor) enters first. Holly's monitor clearly has a thick cable running from it. Why should Holly, who can project himself remotely quite easily (Stasis Leak, 2-4, for example), need a connector cable to his monitor?
    • Perhaps the added involvement of the whole Queeg ruse made Holly cut corners in other areas such as remote projection of himself as opposed to a hard connection, which would take less effort.



    Parallel Universe (2-6)

      Why didn't Hilly and company hop at the same time Holly and company did?
    • Perhaps the universes are not mirror equivalents.

      How could Lister still be pregnant in his own universe when it is physically impossible there?
    • As the amazing pseudo-science of the movie 'Junior' showed, it is technically possible for a man to be pregnant. With Holly's help, I suppose it is feasible.

      Cat spells 'B-A-T-H' but never learned to spell.
    • He might have learned some of his favorite words in English so he knew where to find his grooming goods on the ship.
    • The Cat's forefathers must have known how to spell because in Waiting For God (1-4) it was said they had translated the Laundry List. Their comprehension, on the other hand ...

      'If we don't go now, we won't be able to get back at all.' How did they get Lister's kids back then?
    • Perhaps on the way back, Holly figured out the way back with the Holly-Hop.
    • Perhaps Holly just was embarassed about the relationship and wanted to leave quickly.
    • There may only be temporary windows for Holly-Hopping between realities, and Holly may have been overdramatising the predicament (why he’d do this is a bit silly really, considering the lusty fling he had with Hilly, but it’s a possibility all the same).

      The pregnancy-test packet shows that a dark pink color signifies a negative result, while a positive result is indicated by either of two shades of very pale pink. Yet just a minute later, the crew state that blue is for not pregnant and red is for pregnant.
    • This is our favorite crew we are talking about. Just screwing up only the colors is a great achievement.

      After using the Holly-Hop drive, Holly says there's nothing out there but space, then he notices the other ship and there is a camera shot of the ship, in the foreground of which is obviously a planet or asteroid. Why didn't Holly report the planet/asteroid?
    • Holly was too busy searching for Earth to notice a small asteroid.
    • When he said there was 'nothing' out there, he wasn't including 'useless' space debris such as a small asteroid.

      There are baby skutters in this episode. There is absolutely no practical, definable need for baby skutters at all, or any reason for skutters to reproduce by making smaller version of themselves.
    • The convergence of eons of time for their remedial AI circuits to evolve and being under the direction of the increasingly dim-witted Holly could have resulted in the emergence of a skutter society where the skutters produced smaller versions of themselves for no good reason.

    2.25 THE UNIVERSAL EXPLANATION

    In between Series 2 and 3, many changes took place in the show. The actors who portrayed Holly and Kryten were replaced, and continuity between Series 1 and 2 and all things after it is very tenuous at best. It is all explained away in the opening montage of Backwards (3-1), where a description of why everything is the way it is now is scrolled quickly on screen. For a complete transcript of this, refer to the Red Dwarf FAQ. The important bit is at the end, where it says: '- the same generation - nearly.' This implies that the things that happen before Backwards (3-1) and after it can occur in slightly different universes. Apparently, Grant Naylor have used this excuse themselves.

    However, I find it to be a lame cop-out. It is presented here for completeness, and because some inconsistencies defy all explanations but this. Whenever there is a discrepancy between facts before and after Backwards (3-1), you can rest assured that there is at least one reason for it all.