If ever the popularity of an episode eluded me completely and totally, it's with Back to Reality.
PLOT
After trashing Starbug, the crew wake up to discover their lives for the past four years have been a video game, and now it's time for them to learn who they really are.
ANALYSIS
If you've spent any length of time in the Red Dwarf fandom, you know that they love Back to Reality. It's routinely described as the best episode of the show, some even claim it to be one of the best sitcom episodes ever made.
Really, this one? This... mildly amusing little meta gag stretched out to 25 minutes? Okay, I know I'm being a little obtuse here. Back to Reality does highlight and subvert what each crewmember considers to be their defining trait. But so do other episodes, and in more detail. For example, Dimension Jump for Rimmer, The Inquisitor for Lister, DNA for Kryten and... fine, the Cat hasn't had much attention, I'll give you that one. But then maybe we could've had a Duane Dibbley episode instead, where he's the only one playing the game and the rest of the crew are different individuals welcoming him to reality.
And then there's the whole "what if the show never actually happened" angle, which just seems to me like a trope writers go for when they've run out of ideas. Maybe it was more original back in 1993, but now it doesn't impress me. The fact that it drives the crew to nearly kill themselves is played entirely for laughs too, so it's not as if it's a powerful moment onscreen. It might have been too dark if it were, but it comes off like they're kids whining about having to go to school. "Kill me now!"
That's not to say I think Back to Reality isn't funny. It's actually got quite a few really great gags. The driving sequence is amazing, Timothy Spall is killing it in the role of a bored employee having to shepherd the crew to 'reality' and I love Rimmer's fantasies about who Billy Doyle might be in just how autistically complex they get. I also very much enjoyed the techno-noir depiction of a dystopian world... on the traditional BBC budget of five pennies, of course. The idea of Starbug going underwater into the depths of the ocean is cool, and makes for a nice change from space and desolate moons. My point is that it's just another episode of Red Dwarf for me. Not a top 10, not a top 20. It's a funny idea and they milk it for all its worth. That's it. I don't see where the masterpiece comes in.
CHARACTERS
The main entertainment value of the episode comes from seeing everyone react to their new identities, both their own and each other's. All of them are fantastic. The Cat's stunned repeats of "... Duane Dibbley?!" have justifiably become iconic. Rimmer and Lister's disgusted realisation that they're brothers is brilliant. I would not be opposed to a Jake Bullet spinoff with Robert Llewelyn. Kryten's own personal Ace Rimmer, in a way.
But my personal favourite - and the one that hits the hardest - is Lister as a fascist genocidal colonel. One of the things that makes Lister such a delightful protagonist is how unashamedly unambitious and lazy and slovenly he is. He is real and flawed and often prone to making stupid mistakes or just being selfish and greedy. The most normal man you can imagine. Showing him as the most evil scum in the universe is, to me at least, a powerful reminder of the inherent goodness in normal people. Lister, for all his foibles, does rise to the occasion when he absolutely has to.
I already mentioned Timothy Spall, so a second shout-out goes to Lenny van Dohlen (fresh off of Twin Peaks), whose psychotic stare and mania is beautiful to behold. Lenny pretty much single-handedly conveys the horrific (and yet also morbidly funny) nature of the dystopia, and he nails every single line. My favourite moment being when he tries to gun down the kid for stealing "the apples of the people". That has to be a Rob Grant bit (Grant being generally known for the darker Red Dwarf elements)
NOTES
- It is never explained why the group shares the same delusion, or why Rimmer is affected at all.
- I quite like the redesign of Kryten and Lister. The metal plate head helps to sell the idea of Kryten as a mechanical being, and Craig Charles looks very dashing with his wig and trenchcoat.
- Why does the receptionist refer to the crew as the "Dibbley party"? Wouldn't Colonel Doyle be the more notable figure?
- Lister being an employee of "the CGI" has aged like fine wine.
- Most of the things that the crew hate about this reality happens to them, but it's never really explained how Kryten killed the man. Was he just forced to? Why did he think that he did it if that's the case?
- It's the final appearance of Hattie Hayridge as Holly. Despite being around longer than Norman's original run, I don't think she ever got a fair shake of the role, because they toned down the character's involvement the minute that Hattie got involved. On the other hand, it's true that the crew have a much stronger chemistry with Norman (which probably explains why he was invited back multiple times but Hattie was not). I am glad, at least, that Hattie gets to save the day in her final story.
- This also marks the end of the current show format, which has been practically unchanged since series 3. And I must say, it's about time. Although the cinematic element has been ramped up along with the sci-fi, it came at the cost of believing the crew actually lived on that ship. It feels as if Grant and Naylor became desperate to find stories and so they just started chucking the crew into various insane situations. At least with series 6, they fully embrace this and redevelop Red Dwarf again, this time into a full Star Trek parody.
- Kochanski and Captain Hollister are mentioned.
- The joke about Lister jump-starting the second Big Bang and becoming God is lifted from the second Red Dwarf novel, where Holly (after getting a 12 000 IQ) proclaims it as fact.
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