There's a really good story somewhere in Nanarchy, but it is crippled by a lack of good comedy and the need to resolve the Starbug arc.
PLOT
Unable to cope with the lack of an arm, Lister undertakes a quest to locate Kryten's nanobots, which could conceivably build him a new one. This leads the crew to discover the truth behind the missing Red Dwarf...
ANALYSIS
Having Lister cope with becoming disabled is unironically the best development in series 7, because it makes Nanarchy the first episode of that year where the entire crew engage on a single issue in a way that reveals something about who they are. Kochanski offers Lister the best realistic aid possible. Kryten focuses purely on comforting him whilst also indulging in his own desire to serve Lister. The Cat finds the whole thing hilarious (although he does pragmatically point out that Lister's lot in life hasn't really changed). There's a cohesive focus to the script that's been terribly lacking in the Doug Naylor solo era so far.
Now if we could have had some more great jokes in there and not lose the thread halfway through in favor of wrapping things up, we might have really had something. Not that Nanarchy is bad by any means, but it just ends up narratively short-changed by the need to reintroduce Red Dwarf. Who cares about Lister's arm when we've got Norman Lovett back, you know? Also, the fact is that Lister gets fixed anyway, so what poignancy is there? I wonder why they couldn't have just left him with a robot arm? They'd even set it up in Future Echoes, though I suppose it's possible Doug had forgotten that. Maybe something about changing the time drive future changed the events that take place here? Or maybe I should forget Future Echoes too. Wasn't that great anyway...
So, let's talk Holly.
Even though the character had been abandoned in the show's middle years, it seems that Doug Naylor still had a lot of love for Norman Lovett and was willing to give Holly another shot with him in the part (the fact that Hattie Hayridge has never been given the chance to come back speaks volumes). The results, however, are mixed in my opinion. And keep in mind that I adore Norman's Holly. As far as I'm concerned, he was the undisputed king of the show in the 1980s, and could do no wrong.
I suppose it's naive to expect him to just pick up where he left off. The show bears practically no resemblance to what it used to be, half of the writing team is gone and Norman himself is a whole ten years older. But yeah, it's really not the same. If you listen to the episode's audio commentary, Norman himself is very dissatisfied and felt he'd lost the magic. I wouldn't go that far (he's still a wonderful comedian), but it does feel like an ill-advised attempt to recapture past glory.
Why? Well, I'll tell you. The genius behind Norman's Holly in series 1-2 is that he's the crew's dad and babysitter. The crew themselves are composed of two idiot janitors and a cat. Holly keeps an eye on everything and makes sure they don't stick a fork in the electric socket. All the while trying to win their approval too.
Those days are irretrievably gone, however. By series 7, the crew are in full command of themselves and go gallivanting around the universe on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Holly isn't just struggling to keep up with them, his senility (which for some reason has become entrenched in how he's written) means that he's actually quite a bit dumber than they are. Also, Norman isn't as good at playing the ditzy prat version of Holly as Hattie was. Also also, Doug Naylor is still struggling as a comedy writer in his own right, and can't quite nail the old flow he had.
The end result is us having to listen to Norman talk about nanobots and remolecularisation, which just feels... so weird. His charisma keeps him afloat, just about. But it's a strange period for Red Dwarf, and it's about to get way, way stranger in series 8.
CHARACTERS
Amusingly, it took Craig Charles and Chloe Annette an entire series to develop the chemistry that Charles and Clare Grogan had in a nano-second. I again want to emphasize that I do really like Annette and she's settled in, but it's been a very bumpy ride. The scenes of her juggling standing up to Kryten on Lister's behalf whilst also being there for him emotionally were very sweet. I especially liked their little chat in the buggy, where Lister tried to find out if the arm changed the way she saw him.
It's nice to have the Cat be an unrepentant jerk again. The Cat's had a very strange evolution as the show has progressed. I absolutely hated him in series 1, loved him in series 2 and have felt very ambivalent since then. For the most part, he's been treated as a board for the other crewmembers to bounce jokes off of, but they have very rarely given him his due. And even Danny himself has been somewhat inconsistent, occasionally just playing a variation of his own personality. But I can't blame him at all. Some reading this may find it shocking, but I don't think the Cat achieves his full potential until the Dave era. I think the way he is presented in this episode is the seed of that. His obliviously biting remarks in the 'your smegging move' are some of his best in the entire show so far. Just the way he keeps piling it on with that shit-eating grin, you can't help but love him.
NOTES
- Annette's one-handed quotation marks are a stroke of genius.
- Cool to know the crew are fans of the 1960s series the Fugitive.
- Now I know what a 'one-armed bandit' is.
- 'Motherboarder' is an underrated insult against Kryten.
- How can Holly fit on a watch? I know he appeared on a watch in Stasis Leak (and on various portable monitors throughout series 2), but I always assumed it was just a communication device. Surely his real self is a big mess of cables and circuit boards?
- Nanarchy is a direct sequel to Epideme.
- It's established that Red Dwarf was stolen while the crew were exploring the ocean moon in Back to Reality. Starbug returns to that solar system in this episode, with the crew re-entering suspended animation, presumably for another 200 years at least. Taking into account the events of Psirens and Rimmerworld, it's now been chronologically 1000 years since Red Dwarf was stolen.
- Lister jokes about his hatred of Pot Noodles again, a plot point from Marooned and Demons and Angels.
- Rimmer is mentioned.
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