Twentica is a wonderful bit of nonsense, a fun romp.
PLOT
The crew travel back in time to Prohibition-era America to stop a group of Simulants from enslaving humanity in the past. To do this, they must contact an underground resistance movement of scientists.
ANALYSIS
Only the British, man. Only the British could take Star Trek: First Contact, the Prohibition era, scientists, brothels and then hit the puree switch. Nothing about it makes any sense (how is history not changed? Why are scientists acting like whores?), but it brings to mind Harrison Ford's famous quote about Star Wars: "It ain't that kinda movie, kid".
Twentica defies nitpicking, because it's not really aiming for character interplay or even a sturdy sci-fi premise. The script takes note of its own unoriginality by making a recurring gag out of "hackneyed old cliches" being all over the place. So I'm pretty sure Doug Naylor knew he wasn't making the next Future Echoes here. It's a goofy little caper, a stylish series opener without any substance. And it owns it. No time is wasted on explaining how the crew could have bought their clothes, or why no one notices the crash, or why they don't just use the Casket of Chronos to go back to their own time period. At one point, Rimmer even questions this and Cat promptly shuts him down, saying they only need the time machine to prop up their pool table. I think that's all the answer we need. Would I want every Red Dwarf story to be this pointedly devoid of pathos and just aiming for laughs? No, of course not. But Twentica is a nice chill time, the crew all feel like themselves and it delivers what's on the tin. So how could I be mad at it?
We're introduced to the Expanoids, a big improvement over the last episode's Simulants in both design and performance. They're still much sillier than the classics, but I felt their comedic timing and the jokes were a lot better. I also liked the line about humans specifically designing them to go back in time and prevent technological development. Was it humanity's last ditch attempt to undo the Simulant uprising? Nice bit of worldbuilding there, even if it's there only to set up the "we're the good guys here" line.
New Starbug! I love the return to series 5's theme of "we're just floating out in space in a transport vehicle for no reason so the episode can begin". Classic. The redesign of the cockpit looks very nice, and I got warm fuzzies seeing them all in their seats. It just feels right. The only thing I'm not too eager on is the fancy blue lighting they've got all over the place now (neon lights on Starbug, on Red Dwarf. Also the town itself is tinted blue). It looks striking onscreen, but would the crew really have all this cold blue lighting all over the place? Can't be good for the eyes.
CHARACTERS
I ended up loving Kevin Eldon's 4 of 27 a lot more than I thought I would. Mainly because of how understated he is. Even though he gets some fairly campy lines, Eldon has the wit not to ham it up and instead tries to make the killer droid seem like a real person. It makes his little quarrel with 3 of 63 absolutely hilarious.
A warm shout-out to Rebecca Blackstone, who played the amazing Pree in Fathers and Suns (possibly my favourite Red Dwarf villain ever) and returns here for a cute cameo as 'Big Bang Beryl'. And this time, she brought her famous 36D chest with her.
But the big guest star of the episode is undoubtedly Lucie Pohl's Harmony de Gauthier, the New York-accented madame of the science club. Pohl commits impeccably to the 1920s 'lady of the night' shtick, making her real background all the more amusing (her elongated seductive technobabble being a particular highlight). She gives a great performance and injects a lot of energy into those scenes to the point of overshadowing the main cast.
And as much as I love them, they all seem to be steadily morphing into cartoon kiddified versions of what they uesd to be. Especially Rimmer. Maybe it's the improvements in makeup making them look less ratty, maybe it's over-familiarity with their routines, maybe they're just less subtle in their old age, but it is increasingly difficult to separate the actors from the characters. Am I watching Lister and Rimmer, or am I watching Craig Charles and Chris Barrie enjoy themselves?
NOTES
- The Cat's hatred of Rimmer is one of my favourite recurring gags. It doesn't matter how often they use it, I always crack a smile.
- Why does Lister have a mini airlock on his console? Is it to get rid of trash? I thought Starbug had a compactor for that.
- Rimmer seemed to think the crew weren't going to rescue him, in spite of the fact that they were just about to rescue his future self when he was kidnapped. Not very perceptive, is he?
- The Expanoids are the first Simulant group to be called '-noids' since the Agonoids from Rob Grant's Backwards novel. Interesting.
- How did Rimmer reboot after the EMP strike? Did Lister fix him off-screen? He's quite the mechanic, is Lister.
- The cast randomly flicking switches throughout the Starbug scene (when it's already crashed on Earth) is just adorable.
- At one point, a scene starts with the camera aimed directly at the studio ceiling, and then descending down to the street. Is the town supposed to be underground or did they forget to replace the ceiling with some kind of keyed-in digital sky?
- Harmony managed to steal one of the Cat's "deader than" lines.
- How do the chemicals not spill when they turn the tables around??
- Why do the cops not start shooting at them when Bob knocked out the Expanoids? I guess they could've been scared of Bob, but they all had guns and our heroes didn't.
- This is the 7th appearance of the Simulants.
- Kryten comments about how frequently they encounter people trying to go back in time to alter the past. But aside from themselves, only two people have done it in the show: the Inquisitor and Jesus. And Jesus was hardly a threat.
Why would Lister waste time roleplaying hostage negotiation with Rimmer in the midst of an actual hostage situation?
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