Emohawk is a sad, tired regurgitation of the show's greatest hits.
PLOT
Starbug crashes on a moon controlled by a tribe of GELFs. In order to gain parts necessary to repair it, Lister has to marry the chieftain's daughter. Horrified by her gorilla-esque appearance, Lister flees, resulting in the chieftain sending a polymorph to attack the crew. The polymorph manages to suck the emotions from Rimmer and the Cat, transforming them into Ace and Duane Dibbley respectively.
ANALYSIS
To give it the smallest modicum of credit, Emohawk is never actively awful to watch (although the whole GELF tribe is really, really stupid). It's just so thoroughly depressing that a show which has displayed zany creativity and flair all throughout its run would resort to throwing fanwank at its audience. Series 5 was lazy at times, but never quite like this. So let's dissect this.
The entire first is flagrant plagiarism of the first act from Legion (only two episodes ago!). The Cat smells something. The rest of the crew don't see it on radar. Kryten accuses Cat of making a mis-smelling. Cat says his nose hairs are vibrating faster than something something. Rimmer and Kryten go through the Space Corps Directives routine. Suddenly Starbug is attacked by some kind of space probe thing. That's it, we're deader than old fashion! Rimmer suggests running. Kryten says the probe can outrun Starbug. Lister says some overly long analogy about a slow thing could outrun Starbug. I mean, it's like AI wrote it. And the really sad thing is that it's the best part of Emohawk.
The crew lands on the GELF moon to do "communicating with savages" and "guy doesn't want to get married to an ugly woman" jokes that feel like they're from the 1950s. Then we do a remix of Polymorph. And guys, I didn't even like the original Polymorph very much. So this watered down version does nothing for me. The plot hole of how the Polymorph could physically alter the crew is carried over. Only this time, it turns them into fan favourites Duane Dibbley and Ace Rimmer instead of one-off comedy routines.
Now, admittedly, turning the Cat into Duane Dibbley isn't a bad idea (In my review of Polymorph, I even commented that the Cat's original affliction was basically a Duane precursor). The Cat is robbed of his coolness yet again and doubly horrified because he's become his least favourite version of himself. It's a laugh. Only the joke gets ruined because the Cat bizarrely embraces being Duane for a while and somehow collects a thermos, anorak and other paraphernalia that they could possibly not have onboard. So that's a waste.
But turning Rimmer into Ace? How is that even funny? Ace is more capable than Rimmer. It just means the crew has an easier time working with him. In Polymorph, Rimmer was just as annoying and useless as before, except in a different way.
And yeah, that's pretty much the whole episode. Reheated gags with no substance. I can't help wondering if stuff like this played a role in Grant Naylor splitting up. Surely they needed a break at least to develop new ideas. But yeah, if I was Rob Grant and the best I could come up with was this, I'd wonder if the show had run its course too.
CHARACTERS
There's one little moment of actual nuance in the episode, and that's Ace's attempt to kill himself and the Cat/Duane purely so that Lister could be safe. It doesn't feel like something the real Ace would have done. A bitterless (but still somewhat amoral) Rimmer valueing Lister above the rest of the crew introduces some unexpected new pathos into their dynamic. And it's been far too long since we've had any of that. Whether accidental or not, I'll take it.
I wonder what Kryten would have been turned into. Jake Bullet? His human self? Honestly, I'd much rather have either of those than Ace or Dibbley.
Rimmer's attempt to have the crew participate in a meaningless drill was a nice bit of old-school Rimmering that I appreciated. He's always at his best when he's trying to single-handedly bring Kafka's vision to life.
The same goes for the Cat trying to track down the polymorph by smelling it. When was the last time we saw this kind of cat-like behaviour? Series 2?
NOTES
- The destruction of the asteroid was pretty neat, I couldn't help enjoying that purely for the cheap space battle thrills.
- How did the GELFs evolve into stereotypical abominable snowmen tribes?
- Apparently, the area of space that Starbug is currently travelling through is considered a 'frontier' by the Space Corps, implying that it's the furthest that humanity ever made it. If humanity made it this far millions of years ago, then it's interesting that they never considered catching or isolating Red Dwarf, even as a historical artefact. Communications must surely have been made with Holly. Humanity seemingly made its way into deep space much, much further ahead of Lister.
- Different variants of the GELFs were featured in Camille and Psirens.
- The polymorph previously appeared in Polymorph.
- Rimmer's 'Ace' personality is a nod to Dimension Jump, while the Cat's 'Duane' personality is from Back to Reality.
FUNNIEST MOMENT
"LEG IT!" - Lister fleeing his bride.
SMEG OFF!
Basically the whole GELF tribe subplot. It just made my eyes roll.
CONCLUSION
It's flat. It's very flat.
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