Epideme sees Red Dwarf briefly re-branded as the Gary Martin Show.
PLOT
Lister is infected with a self-aware virus that will kill him in 48 hours unless he can reason with it.
ANALYSIS
I don't think much of the script. The jokes are pretty weak, the idea is reheated from better episodes like Quarantine and Justice, even the special effects are so-so. But everything and I do mean everything is elevated by Gary Martin's guest performance as Epideme. If he's not the show's best villain, then he's at the least in the top 3. That overconfident, hammy TV presenter shtick is just pure genius to me. Epideme is totally amoral, neither good or evil, and has a legitimate excuse for why he's murdering Lister. That's already interesting enough, but then the pure excitement and fun he has being himself is what lifts him up to lovable status. Every line is delivered with the perfect pitch and timing.
Kryten's idea to have Lister reason with Epideme is a stroke of genius. Most Red Dwarf villains are just monsters. Having an actual ethical debate over the issue, and then a battle of wits towards the end, feels like the show breaking new ground. The confrontation between Lister and Epideme is so well played that I honestly wouldn't have minded it if Lister had actually died here. When he's on the frozen Leviathan about to sacrifice himself, there's a lot of weight and pathos there. Lister has come so far from the lazy slob he was in series 1. We know he no longer needs Rimmer. So with Rimmer having gone off to be Ace, why not have Lister rise to the occasion and go out in a blaze of glory, in a moment of pure heroism?
Obviously the answer is because the show must go on, but if it didn't have to, this would've been a very good place to stop. Maybe the last episode could have been the rest of the crew finding Holly and Red Dwarf, and the show going full circle to a four-member crew. Kryten and Kochanski being the bickering duo that continue Rimmer and Lister's legacy. Something like that.
But all that aside, it really goes to show you how much a single actor can elevate a project. Without Martin's insane charisma, this would be a very weak story. Kryten's still nagging at Kochanski (thought we were past this by now), the bedroom farce with them, Lister and the corpse of Caroline Carmen is very boring and Lister's impending doom is played almost entirely for cheap laughs, undercutting the drama. With the exception of that one terrific scene in the Leviathan, it never feels like he is actually in danger of dying or facing the end. It's more like a big nuisance they have to overcome.
CHARACTERS
Gary Martin (best known as Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors) was recruited for the show by Danny John-Jules. I could kiss Danny! I wouldn't kiss Gary, because he also apparently advised Danny on how to play the Cat in series 1... I'm still traumatised by series 1 Cat.
But as Epideme, Gary manages to be funny, spooky, charming, sadistic, compelling, flippant and everything else needed to be a truly memorable villain.
I'm surprised that Kryten is still nagging Kochanski. I would have thought we'd be past this by now. There's nothing new to this joke and it's becoming rather mean-spirited. In fact, the whole opening scene where they gang together to trash-talk Kochanski for having nerdy interests seemed tonally off. They're tearing into her harder than they did with Rimmer! At least with him, it was usually Rimmer himself who was the butt of the joke (being a neurotic anal retentive) rather than the fact that he had esoteric interests.
NOTES
- The Cat says there was nobody around when he was growing up, so he had to teach himself (which is why he knows very little). I guess Doug forgot about 'kitty school' and that one old priest from Waiting for God?
- I love Lister's new leather trenchcoat, and the reappearance of his furry hat was a delight.
- Leaving aside how stupid it is for Kryten to barge into Lister's quarters in the dead of night to search for Kochanski... why would he even think she's there? It's obviously not something he's done before, but Kochanski wasn't even there!
- I want one of those Red Dwarf towels Lister had.
- Kochanski references the Dave from her own dimension, whom we saw in Ouroboros.
EPIDEME: "Dave... let's run down the rules. If you win: you get to live. If I win: you get to die, and I take all your knowledge. Then I kill you.
LISTER: "What? You absorb knowledge from every person you kill?"
EPIDEME: "So, as you can appreciate, killing you ain't exactly a career highlight."
SMEG OFF
Did we really need to see Lister snog a corpse?
CONCLUSION
Can we have Epideme back in a better episode, pretty please.
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