Red Dwarf: Bodysnatcher

Once again it’s been far too long since we dipped our toes in the goldfish shoals of Red Dwarf, so to avoid any glaring continuity errors, today I’m taking a look at Bodysnatcher, the ‘lost episode’ from Red Dwarf season 1.

For the tenth anniversary of Red Dwarf the Bodysnatcher script was finished, recorded as an audio storyboard by Chris Barrie, and made the headline act when Red Dwarf Re-mastered was released on DVD as ‘The Bodysnatcher Collection’.

The title of the story comes from Rimmer’s slightly unhinged attempt to create (with the help of the skutters and their sonic screwdrivers – is that the only mention of such a tool in Red Dwarf?) a solid body for himself from Lister’s eyebrows. Lister, having also lost his beloved dreads to this project, gets a little annoyed and switches Rimmer’s hologram off, planning to replace him with someone less psychotic.

Unfortunately Rimmer is one step ahead and has already hidden all the holodisks, leaving Lister with a choice of either Rimmer… or Lister, to keep him company.

Obviously he chooses Lister, which leads to the sort of arguing we see with the two Rimmers in Me², the episode which ultimately replaced Bodysnatcher in the broadcast line-up. As well as this idea getting recycled, some of the Cat’s scenes get used in other episodes (because he still hasn’t actually done much to affect the plot in most episodes), and Rimmer's attemptds to become corporeal will crop up repeatedly in later episodes (notably season 3’s Bodyswap).

As one of the things we like to do here is look at how religion is reflected in Red Dwarf, of interest in this script is this brief insight into Rimmer’s philosophy on life:

If you don’t have rules, what are you left with?

In Bodysnatcher we see Rimmer take legalism to a literal extreme: insisting on a role call to establish the extent of casualties in the explosion which has quite plainly killed everyone but Lister. Rimmer’s blinkered respect for the rules leaves no room for adaptation when circumstances have clearly changed way beyond the need for the original rules; he fails to see what is really needed here is not rigid adherence to irrelevant rules, but compassion for the remaining crew member as he grieves everyone he ever knew. Surely it’s ok to change - or even discard - the rules when the world in which they are being applied has changed in a way the rulemakers could never have foreseen?

Not everyone sees it this way, but I certainly believe Jesus showed that love and compassion are better than blind legalism; they don’t go out of date as readily either.

Later, Rimmer is hypothesising about why he and Lister are the last vestige of the human race:

It can’t be luck, because then nothing has any meaning. There has to be some kind of purpose.

Obviously, Rimmer has taken this ‘purpose’ to be the creation of the next stage in human evolution – Homo Rimmer – and starts fantasising about Rimmer City on Rimmer World…

While this idea will become a frightening reality in a later season, Rimmer’s purpose - for now at least - is revealed to be something much less grandiose when we see how, even in his hologramatic form, Rimmer is able to save Lister from burning Red Dwarf down.

Holly, in his (not quite) infinite wisdom, brought Rimmer back purely because he was the best crew mate to keep Lister sane and alive - the was Rimmer's purpose, as much as he would have liked something more impressive and, well, self-serving.

Holly was also right in that what Lister needed (Rimmer) was not what Lister himself would have wanted – a girlfriend, or a drinking buddy.

Funny how we sometimes need to burn our metaphorical spaceship before we’ll accept that maybe the all-knowing Holly who looks out for us actually does know best…

A version of this review first appeared at stevetrower.com, where you can find more sci-fi reviews and - soon - updates on The Gospel According to Red Dwarf. And if Red Dwarf is your comedic cup of tea, you might enjoy my comic sci-fi series which starts with The Chip Whisperer.