And now, almost as an apology for the show's reboot, Marooned throws us right back into the beautiful dichotomy between Rimmer and Lister.
PLOT
The crew temporarily abandon Red Dwarf onboard Starbug and Blue Midget. Starbug - carrying Rimmer and Lister - crashes onto a desolate ice moon where the two are forced to hold out until they can be rescued.
THOUGHTS
Very similarly to Balance of Power, Marooned is a comfort food type of episode that is content to rely almost entirely on dialogue and the actors' ability to hold your attention. In this case, I'd also add that it's heavy on atmosphere. The distant whistling of the wind, the fire, the shadows and the intimate conversation all add up to a cozy camping vibe. Especially when they talk about picking what crap food they have left to eat. I think almost everyone can relate to having to pick your poison during camping.
It was the first episode filmed for Series III, which might have something to do with the tone and style being more like the previous episodes (rather than the splash into cold water that Backwards was). It could have just been more comfortable to start filming with a low-key episode, or maybe Grant Naylor realised it would be better to give the audience a bit of a shock, so they switched the ordering around. Who knows?
However, unlike Balance and those previous episodes, there isn't really any conflict unless we count Lister's attempt to save his guitar from being burned. It's more like a two-person comedy stand-up, or a bunkroom scene extended to 25 minutes if you'd like. There's an appealing minimalism to that. Sometimes, all you want is to spend time with these characters and this is definitely the story for that.
CHARACTERS
Cat, Kryten and Holly are barely in this, so there's not much to say about them. The Cat's fashion sense has had a rare misstep. His hair looks awful.
This was Robert Llewelyn's first performance as Kryten and you can tell, because he sounds like Elvis for some reason.
Holly comes off like Hattie's trying to be Norman, going for a more deadpan style before developing her own ditzy shtick.
As I said, there's not much conflict going on between Rimmer and Lister, so their dialogue doesn't become as revealing of their personalities as it does when they're clashing or when they're struggling through some dilemma (even though Lister thinks he may die, it isn't the same sort of titanic confrontation with the idea as in Future Echoes). The only truly interesting moment is when Rimmer thinks Lister has selflessly sacrificed his guitar so he could keep his belongings, and is so touched that he tries to burn them as well. Lister being the one to prevent Rimmer from growing as a person is a deliciously ironic twist. After all, he may be a decent person but he's not a saint by any imagination. And all it takes is one selfish act at just the wrong time to lead to disastrous consequences.
NOTES
- The CSO inside Starbug at the beginning is truly horrendous. There's a blue line around Barrie and Charles, but the screens are blank grey so I can't even tell if they forgot to key it in or if they just decided the interior of the hangar should just be nothingness.
- It's never explained why the crew take separate ships, although I assume maybe they wanted to get out with as much as possible in case Red Dwarf went down. They never leave in separate ships again.
- The JMC patch is replaced, hilariously enough, by the show's own logo.
- I like how Lister's background is lit blue while Rimmer is bathed in green. That's a nice touch.
- It's a shame we don't get to hear more of Barrie's Laurence Olivier-as-Richard-III impression beyond one word, because that one word was hysterical.
- Couldn't Lister fry the dog food first? I'm sure it'd taste marginally better if he did.
- It's a little strange for them to retcon Rimmer's loss of virginity, given that an entire episode was built on that joke already.
- Craig Charles has repeatedly voiced his opinion that Marooned should be adapted for the theatre. Do it already!
- Rimmer mentions his childhood friend Porky Roebuck, whom he first talked about in Queeg.
- Lister refers to his art college stint again.
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