Timeslides continues the series 3 tradition of making no sense whatsoever, but at least this time it's true to the characters and genuinely funny. It feels like Red Dwarf again.
PLOT
Kryten discovers that his photograph developing fluid has mutated, turning the altered negatives into portals through which the crew can enter moments in time. Lister and Rimmer decide to take the oppurtunity to change their personal histories.
ANALYSIS
In many ways, Timeslides feels like a spiritual remake of last year's Stasis Leak. Lister is unhappy about his life, then finds a magic door that takes him to the past, then he and Rimmer both try to fix things for the better. Add a dash of Better than Life (the 'He's got cash!' sequence) and you have Timeslides. Oh, and the mutation that causes inexplicable phenomena is also taken straight out of Confidence and Paranoia. It may seem unoriginal to some, probably to Grant Naylor themselves, which might be why it was aired at the back end of the series. I can imagine them cobbling it together to give themselves some breathing room during a very complicated year of reinvention and experiments.
But for me, the familiarity and especially the focus on the crew's life is very welcome. Lister in particular exhibiting self-awareness and spite about the banality of his existence is a breath of fresh air. This was around the time Grant Naylor were writing the novels, where the characterisation of Lister is much more intelligent and grounded in realism, and I wouldn't be surprised if the two versions of him got a little blurred. The show never goes as far as the heartbreak of Garbage World, but it's at least neat to see him depicted with more depth than usual. It's unfortunate that he disappears about halfway through and the focus switches suddenly over to Rimmer. Now, I love Rimmer, but Rimmer episodes are a dime a dozen and Timeslides doesn't really tell us anything new about him. That, coupled with a lot of dull "lol what if Lister was rich" jokes meant my interest in the episode dimmed there in the second half.
And while I appreciate that this is a silly comedy at heart and I shouldn't nitpick its internal logic too much, this script's time travel logic disintegrates if you think about that happens for more than half a second, which isn't my personal preference when it comes to... well, any story really.
CHARACTERS
This may sound strange, but having the young Lister be portrayed by Emile Charles (Craig's brother), who is obviously not an experienced actor, adds a strange kind of continuity to Craig's own stilted performance in series 1. I can totally buy that this awkward young man becomes the Lister of the early episodes. It's also just really nice to see a little bit of Lister's past... especially the Om song, which is iconic.
Robert Llewelyn seems to have been watching Looney Tunes lately, judging from his intensely cartoony gawping at the photographs, complete with rubbing his eyeballs.
One thing I really liked was getting more of Holly. With most of the crew gone, Rimmer only has Holly to interact with and her dialogue started to approach Norman's material! We hardly ever get to see Hattie's version throw her weight around, so these scenes of Holly taking the piss out of Rimmer were a real gift. I want more!
It was very nice to see Robert Addie (of Sir Guy of Gisborne fame) as Lister's seething butler Gilbert. He's awesome (minus the horrific ponytail).
NOTES
- I love the random Tron-style imagery on the screen behind Lister's head in the first scene. Just looks like they told the set designers to add anything spacey.
- I know the idea is to convey Lister's boredom to the audience, but why are the games on Red Dwarf so shit? Can't they go play Better than Life without Rimmer or something?
- Kryten just casually bouncing to rock music = brilliant. Why didn't this stick as a character trait?
- "That's Adolf Hitler! He was the leader of one of the runners-up in World War II!" Never change, Rimmer.
- I only just noticed that Holly is pixelated again for some reason.
- Lister's sham glam fashion would've been a big hit in 1970s Doctor Who.
- The goofy future slang. "It's totally shady!" "You're such a crypto-fascist." It sounds like modern Twitter-speak.
- Director Ed Bye's wife Ruby Wax plays the amazingly funny "Blaize Falconburger".
- "It's my duty as a complete and utter bastard!" is one of my favourite Rimmer quotes ever.
- Rimmer saluting his own 12-year old self is very cute.
- Kryten's photographs appear to depict his birthday aboard the Nova 5.
- The Cat continues to have a love for golf (established in Better than Life).
- Rimmer disdains Holden for not being good at geography. According to the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, geography was Rimmer's favourite subject at school.
- One of Rimmer's photographs displays the wedding of his brother Frank (also played by Chris Barrie). Rimmer previously mentioned Frank in Better than Life and Polymorph.
- Rimmer's childhood nickname "Bonehead" is scribbled on his child self's nameplate. It was previously mentioned in Kryten and Polymorph.
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