Red Dwarf: Confidence, Paranoia, and Me Squared

Well, we've certainly come the long way round, but today we finish our review of Red Dwarf season 1 with a two-for-one; partly because the final two episodes cover similar subjects, and partly because neither of them are among my favourites.

Confidence and Paranoia

We start with episode 5, Confidence and Paranoia, which opens with Lister snooping around, wallowing in his unrequited love for Kochanski again; wondering how often she dreamt about him, and what Rimmer has done with her hologram disc.

However, due to a tragic misunderstanding, Lister soon discovers that he has been snooping around in a part of the ship which has not been decontaminated, and from which he contracts the central premise of the episode: a mutated pneumonia that gives him very real hallucinations.

This results in the manifestation of two aspects of Lister’s sub-conscious, bringing the inner struggle between his confidence and his paranoia to life.

Unfortunately this premise doesn’t entirely work; although the exploding Mayor of Warsaw is a nicely surreal touch, and the trashing of the medicomp by Confidence hints at a Jekyll and Hyde type of multiple personality gone very bad, by the end of the episode the whole concept seems a bit tired to me.

Despite that, it’s not without amusing moments, most memorable being Rimmer’s conversations with the weasely Paranoia, a character so annoyingly whiney that he makes Rimmer look fun to be with.

The constant struggle between aspects of Lister’s personality, who appear like an update of the angel and devil on the shoulders of Tom and Jerry in old cartoons, is an interesting idea though. It is worth noting that Confidence refers to Lister as 'the King', and exaggerates his abilities in order to tempt him into self-destructive acts. Ultimately this brash and selfish personality kills off the quieter, less persuasive Paranoia (you might almost call him a 'still, small voice'), leaving Lister dangerously unbalanced.

Me²

In Episode 6, Me², rather than Lister having to deal with all too real aspects of his personality, Rimmer is now living with a duplicate of himself who is even more officious and annoying than the one we have come to know and, er… the one we know.

This does pose the interesting question of whether the original Rimmer has been changed so much by being around Lister and the Cat that he no longer recognises the person he was when the hologram was made, and by extension, how much are we changed by the people we spend our time with - and how much does our attitude and behaviour change them? (I imagine many of us would be quite irritated by ourselves if we were ever to meet!)

This episode gives us a lot more Red Dwarf laughs (mocking the drab greyness of its own sets) and adds much to the wider Dwarf story.

Here, for instance, is where Gazpacho Soup Day is explained, a turning point in Rimmer’s career that he managed to epically screw up; and when the two Rimmers are still in the honeymoon phase, Rimmer 1 is heard to say of his counterpart: ‘What a guy!’ in a way which sounds oddly familiar all these years later…

Watch these episodes for some interesting ideas, if not great execution; a deeper insight into Rimmer’s character, and a couple of takes on fighting with yourself.

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.