Bodyswap has an awesome premise and some killer jokes. It's a shame that it comes at the cost of total character assassination of Rimmer.
PLOT
After learning that personality disks can be implanted into the human brain, Rimmer convinces Lister to temporarily allow him use of his body. Now able to indulge in his base desires again, Rimmer chooses to steal the body and flee Red Dwarf.
ANALYSIS
Switching between bodies is a well-worn, beloved trope in sci-fi and fantasy, usually resulting in cute shenanigans with actors doing impressions of each other. It's great. And although they make the choice of dubbing the voices here (presumably because Charles' vocal impression of Barrie wasn't quite as good as Barrie's take on Charles, Barrie being a professional impressionist and all), the physical performances are still pretty flawless.
But obviously a Red Dwarf episode needs something extra, so we get this storyline about Rimmer taking off with Lister's body. Which in of itself I don't mind either (obviously Rimmer would want to be a living person again), but it's the way they push his character into such a shameless and maniacal extreme that sours the episode for me. The endless glutton jokes, aiming a gun at Lister's head, using chloroform. It's completely insane even by Rimmer's neurotic standards. With this characterisation, it becomes completely implausible that they wouldn't deactivate his hologram. I know it's a goofy comedy, but you need some consistency with the way these characters work or else where is the comedy supposed to come from? I find these things funny because they happen to particular people, not in of itself. Those people have to be the people that they are for the jokes to land. And this just isn't Rimmer for me. The nuances are all missing.
If they'd done the same storyline, but with Rimmer obsessing over his actual interests (being able to indulge in cartography and his war games again, getting drunk on the officers' stock of champagnes, maybe taking revenge on the skutters) and deciding to abscond in Lister's body with the excuse that he'll make better use of it, it would have made much more sense. And the climax could have been more about Rimmer's desperation to escape and live a normal life again rather than an overcooked megalomaniac breakdown. Maybe it's not as comedic, but then Red Dwarf has mixed complex character development with great jokes before, so I don't see why this has to be so dumbed down.
CHARACTERS
Despite my complaints about Rimmer, I do think Craig Charles is an absolute blast in the role, and totally convincing as a shameless warmongering pig. He's not playing what I think of as Rimmer, but he's a great villain for the episode. Particular highlights being conducting an imaginary choir with his pistol and "you're gonna go absolutely spare!"
Meanwhile, Chris Barrie brings an endearing boyish quality to Lister. He's a lot tinier than Craig Charles, so seeing him in that big leather jacket and cap brought to mind a kid wearing dad's clothes. I found that really cute.
Kryten doesn't particularly shine in this episode, as an order from Rimmer is all it takes to get him to chloroform Lister. I do wonder how he was able to break his programming originally (back in series 2), but is so compelled to go along with human instructions now. Also, he is apparently bereft of ethical subroutines. At least he gets one great line: "Then why did you make him chloroform him? And why did he struggle so?"
NOTES
- First time we've seen the skutters in absolute ages. I missed those little critters.
- As the episode opens, we see Rimmer and Kryten are engaged in repairing the ship from a series of extreme malfunctions. My question is - how does Rimmer know how to do any of that? He used to work on vending machines. I can buy that Rimmer maybe learned how to pilot Starbug out of necessity, but now his skillset includes knowing all the ins and outs of the ship? (Maybe Holly programmed it into him)
- Lister's brain is wiped so Rimmer's disc could be programmed in there. And his own personality is placed on another disc (bizarrely, the chosen prop is a cassette). So, Lister is dead now, right? They made a big fuss over how Rimmer was just a copy of himself...
- Cat's fish skeleton earrings are amazing.
- Why do the characters' voices change anyway?
- It's nice to have a classic Rimmer/Lister bunkroom scene. This season definitely feels transitional, there's still certain elements of the original setup here, but they're being phased out.
- Rimmer comparing Lister's physique to Alfred Hitchcock's was a very funny moment.
- I still can't stand the austerity of the current sets. It just doesn't feel comfortable.
- Barrie and Charles are a lot quieter than they used to be. I feel like they end up becoming louder again as the show goes on, but right now, their voices are so casual. It feels almost as if the actors are having conversations, not the characters.
- I only just now noticed that Rimmer's plastic green hat has a similar design to Lister's hat from series 1-2 (the one with the buttoned-up earflaps).
- I love Rimmer's suspenders. That's a great look for him. I should get suspenders.
- The show tries very hard to pretend that Craig Charles is overweight. I don't buy it. They should do this story now instead.
- Why do the Cat and Kryten laugh maniacally at Rimmer's stupid armless joke? I mean, the Cat maybe, but Kryten?
- Lister mistakenly refers to Blue Midget as "White Midget". In the book Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the White Midget is the transport vehicle that originally brought Lister onboard Red Dwarf.
- Rimmer and Kryten fail to locate Captain Hollister's personality disc. Which is a shame, because we missed out on Craig's Mac MacDonald impression.
- Kryten claims that the Nova 5 crew attempted a personality swap.
- The entire opening sequence with the bomb about to go off is a very funny skit. Especially Cat's deadpan "That was a very dumb thing you just did there".
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