Series VI - Out of Time - All scenes

("RED DWARF" THEME)

Gentlemen,
thank you for attending the meeting.

Now, let me begin by saying that it
can't have escaped anyone's attention

that things have been getting
rather strained round here of late.

It's no secret that morale is on the floor.

We've lost all trace of Red Dwarf,
tempers are strained and supplies are low.

So, I've decided, if it's alright with you,
to appoint myself morale officer...

..and set myself the task of raising the spirits
and improving the atmosphere all round.

Now, to kick off, I thought it would
be productive if we all met once a week

to have a coffee or a beer,
whatever's your poison,

and get any problems
we may have off our chests.

- Any objections?
- No, it sounds like a very good idea, sir. Excellent.

Well, as it's week one, why don't I start?

You know what it is about Lister
that really makes me want to puke?

That really makes me want to stab him
in both eyes with an ice pick?

Everything, that's what.

Especially his godawful,
chirpy, gerbil-faced optimism.

And as for the Cat, what an unbelievable git.

And Kryten, if he doesn't change pronto,

I swear, I'll attach jump leads to his nipple nuts
and fry him like Cajun catfish.

Well, I think that's cleared the air.

I don't know about you but I certainly feel better,
and thank you for your contributions, gentlemen.

See you at next week's morale meeting.
Marvellous.

- Good meeting.
- What's eating him?

Well, I'm no psychologist, sir, but maybe
the bleak, lonely, pointless emptiness

of our hopeless, futile predicament is beginning to getting to him.

You can always tell when he's tense. The way he
scrunches up cups and throws them in the bin.

And we're not talking styrofoam, here.
We're talking enamel.

- I told you, didn't I? That he attacked me with that fridge?
- What happened?

He just wrenched it off the
wall and tried to insert it in me.

What did you do to upset him?

Absolutely nothing. I was just
sitting there, minding my own business,

plucking out my lengthier nostril
hairs with a pair of cooking tongs.

- Extraordinary. It's so unprovoked.
- The guy's so touchy.

If I tried to force feed you a refrigerator every time you
did something gross, you'd have to go on a fridge-free diet.

You know what the problem is? Every day's the
same old slog through deep space. No Variety.

- Take Christmas. What did we do Christmas Day?
- If you remember, sir, Christmas Day we were attacked

by that pan-dimensional liquid beast
from the Mogidon Cluster.

Maybe that wasn't such a great example.

I'm trying to say our lives are dull, repetitive.

We never take time out to smell the roses.
We never celebrate anything.

- We got nothing to celebrate with, bud.
- Oh, not true, sir.

There's a whole case of that wine I brewed
out of urine recyc just lying there, practically untouched.

Look, call me pretentious, but, for me, a truly great wine should not leave you

with a foam moustache
that you can only remove with turps.

- (SIREN)
- Autopilot alert.

- Storm front ahead. Switching to manual.
- It's a big one. Too late to go round! It's right on us.

Stellar fog, tightly-packed particles
from an exploded supernova.

Our scanners won't be able to
penetrate more than a few metres.

Slowing to minimum.

Gentleman, absolute concentration
till we're through the squall.

- There could be anything lurking out there.
- Don't worry, bud. If there's anything out there, we'll spot it.

(BOOM)

- Anybody hurt?
- Well, my pride sure needs mouth-to-mouth.

Mr Lister! Sir!

- He's out cold!
- All stop. Let's get him up to the obs room.

- (RIMMER) How is he?
- Not good, sir. Perhaps you better look away.

- I know you can't stand the sight of blood.
- Don't worry, Kryten. It's OK when it's Lister's.

- Impossible!
- (CAT) What?

Look! Mr Lister is a droid!

- He's a what?!
- There's no doubt about it.

He's entirely mechanical.
A 3000 Series. Made in Taiwan.

Look, he has a 24-hour emergency call-out number.

I'm sorry, I'm not buying this.
I mean, who'd create him and why?

What's his mission?
To rid the universe of chicken vindaloo?

This doesn't tie up. If he wasn't
human, I'd've known by his scent.

The X-rays confirm it.

This is so strange.
Mr Lister's always been an icon of mine.

Now I find he's an earlier model
and technically, I outrank him!

An earlier model? Then how come he looks
so much more sophisticated than you?

Sir, just because I have a head shaped
like a freak formation of mashed potato

does not mean I am unsophisticated.

Alright then, why does he look
more realistically human?

Humans have always found
exact duplicates rather disturbing, sir.

The 3000 Series was notoriously unpopular.

Most of them were recalled. A few slipped the net
and went undercover to make new lives in society.

- Do you think he knows?
- Unlikely.

He probably reprogrammed his
own memory to escape detection.

This is going to crack him up, devastate him.
Who's going to tell him?

I'll write you into my will if you let it be me.

I suggest you leave this to me, sirs.
I'll have a talk with him, droid to droid.

OK. we'll get going, try and get out of this
damn fog before it drains our solar batteries.

(GROANS)

- What happened? What hit us?
- Something in the stellar fog, sir.

It didn't show up on the scans.
Sir, do you remember who your parents were?

No, you know I don't. I was
found under a pool table in a box.

Hmm. Did anyone ever tell you
what was written on that box?

Were the words "kit" or "paint
before assembing" ever mentioned?

It's just while you were under, we discovered
something rather disturbing about you.

It's that tattoo on my inner thigh, isn't it?

Look, I don't really love Petersen. He just got
me so drunk, I didn't know what I was doing.

It's not the tattoo, sir.
There's no way of breaking this gently.

I'm afraid, sir, you are not human.
You're a droid.

- I'm a what?
- You're a mechanical, 3000 Series.

- Technically subordinate to me.
- What does this all mean?

In broad terms, I get the front seat in the cockpit
and you're in charge of the laundry!

And I want to see creases!

Kryten, have a heart, man. I'm in major
stress-related shock here. Gobsmack overload.

You're a droid. You don't have real emotions.
It's just synthi-shock.

Now stop thinking like a
human, and go about your duties.

- Kryten, why are you being so heartless?
- I looked up to you.

You encouraged me to break my
programming and ape human behaviour.

Now I find you're no better than I!
But worst of all, the most bitter pill to swallow...

for four long years, I had to hand-scrub
the gussets of your longjohns!

Now, unless you want to wallow
in the eternal fires of Silicon Hell,

I suggest you bring a tray of
refreshments up to the cockpit, pronto!

What was the jolt?

It's a mystery, bud. Nothing on
the scanners. Nothing on visual.

It was like we through some kind of energy pocket. Still, looks like we're out of it now.

Better run a cross-check, see if this
phenomena is mentioned in any of our databases.

Tea up! Sorry I was so long, I
didn't know where anything was.

Let me see that tray, please.

- Why?
- That's, "Why, Mr Kryten, sir?"

You call those triangular sandwiches?
Did you use a set square? I think not!

And the chocolate finger display is laughable.

Don't just pile them higgledy-piggledy onto the plate.

Make them into an attractive interlaced,
log cabin structure or something.

This just will not do. Now, kindly return to the galley and start again.

OK... sir. This doesn't feel right.
Not right at all.

What a charlatan. All these years...

- Any ideas what hit us yet?
- Wait. Wait, here's something.

Reports of artificial stellar fogs
which contain reality minefields.

- Reality what?
- Bubbles or pockets of unreality,

which when encountered create false realities
designed to disorient and drive off potential looters.

- From what?
- It's a defence device fitted to Space Corps test ships,

which are fitted with prototype drives so awesome
in power that they have to be safeguarded at all costs.

So we just crashed through an unreality pocket?

Which created a false reality,
making us believe Mr Lister was... Oh, my.

- You mean he's not a...?
- No.

- Tea up, sirs.
- Sir, I, er...

What do you think of the picket fence?

- I'm not happy with it, meself. I'll go away and do it again.
- Sir, may I see your arm?

Smeg! It looks normal, human!

Someone else tell him.

I've got gussets to scrub.

I wondered if you felt
like a nice cold beer, sir?

Oh, sir, how many times can I apologise?

I have offered to mince myself.
What more can I do?

Don't worry, I'll think of something,
probably involving a bowl of water, a poker,

a recharge socket
and 4,000 volts of direct current.

This fog's getting worse. I say reverse out now before it's too late.

Well, I hate to agree with old Laundry-Chute Nostrils,
but he has got a point.

The scanners are out,
and my smell range is practically zero.

Starbug is small. We can probably pick our way through
without hitting any more unreality bubbles.

Someone's gone to plenty big trouble
to keep spacecraft out of here.

- It's gotta be worth finding out why.
- But how can we guarantee we're-?

- (CAT) We hit one!
- (LISTER) We hit one.

- That's what I said.
- Where's the Cat?

- (CAT) I'm here.
- It's taken the Cat, he's gone!

I'm not gone! I'm here!

- They must've just erased him from existence.
- Then how come we still remember him?

- Remember, who?
- I don't remember.

Hey, buds, don't do this to me!
You can't forget me! I'm unforgettable

I don't get this! We're passing through an
unreality pocket, and everything's normal!

What do you mean "everything's
normal"? I've been invisibled!

It doesn't make any sense. All systems
check. The three of us are here as normal.

The four of us! There's four of us! Look! I'm here.
Can't you see me? Can't you feel me?

We're getting some buffeting!

About to pass back into normal space.

What are you doing?!

- Can you see me?
- Of course I can see you.

You all forgot who I was. Don't you remember?
It's too weird in here. Let's quit while we can.

All we gotta do is keep our heads.

Boy! This is worse than triple-strength catnip!

The pockets are getting denser
and closer together. We're never going to...

make it.

I can't take
much more of this.

Just ignore it. All these unreality pockets are designed
to make you feel absurd and disoriented.

He's right. Let's just keep going
and we'll get out the other side.

All ahead stop. We have got to talk.
Kryten, how far would you say it is to the epicentre?

Current speeds, about another three days, sir.

- OK, you win. Let's get outta here.
- Perhaps there is one possibility.

That's it. I've installed a temporary
stasis seal on both deep sleep units.

So, in theory at least, time will be frozen, and neither reality
nor unreality will be able to penetrate.

See you in three days.

- Where are we, did we make it?
- We successfully penetrated the minefield, sir.

- We're through to the epicentre.
- But what was it protecting?

A derelict. According to the computer,
it's from the 28th century

and it's capable of time travel?!

- Crew?
- All dead. This was the maiden voyage.

They contracted an influenza virus
on an excursion to the 20th century.

Before they died, they programmed
the autopilot through deep space.

and generated the minefield to prevent the
machine from falling into the wrong hands.

Does this mean what I think it means?
We board her, strip out the drive and...

Bingo! We've got ourselves a time machine!

Let's see if the sucker works.

Sirs, choose a year.

Since we can't guarantee this time
drive is going to function properly,

I suggest we select a neutral time period for our first jaunt.

He's got a point. Let's go for somewhere
nice and safe and dull. How about 1422?

- How about 1421?
- What's the difference?

No difference. I just wanted it make
it look like I was paying attention.

Load 1421, Kryten.

1421 loaded, sir. August the 17th.
Engaging the time drive.

- Hey, we did it!
- Indeed we did.

All ship chronometers indicate this is August
16th in the year 1421 - just one day out.

- Give us visual, let's see what it's like out there.
- OK, punching it up.

I don't get it. We're still where we were.

Of course. We're still in deep space, sir, only
now we're in deep space in the 15th century!

Isn't it wonderful?

So we're still three million years away from Earth?

Well, yes.

- Taking her back to the present.
- Keyed in. Engaged.

So, forgive me if I'm being thicker

than the offspring
of a village idiot and a TV weathergirl,

but what exactly
was the point of that little exercise?

Fun though it was drinking in the heady
medieval atmosphere of pre-Renaissance deep space,

the drive is next to useless, yes?

For the moment, yes, but should we ever
acquire a faster-than-light drive,

we will have the combination
to travel anywhere and anywhen.

- Picking up a craft.
- He's right. Some kind of craft, small. Here it comes.

It's a Jupiter Mining Corporation call sign.

Some kind of transport vehicle. Colour: green,
Life-forms: four... Craft name: "Starbug"?

Call me crazy,
but that all sounds weirdly familiar.

It's us, man. Us from the future.
Hey, incoming SOS message!

- Don't punch it up! Close comms!
- Why?

If that vessel is this vessel, sir. Almost
certainly it contains our future selves.

The implications of making
contact could be devastating.

The human brain is not designed
to cope with knowing its own future.

Yeah, but Kryten, obviously we're in some kind of
major trouble, otherwise we wouldn't've shown up.

No, Kryten's got a point. It's
too dangerous to make contact.

What if we discover
that one of us is dead?

- Who could handle that?
- We all could if it was you.

They're trying us again. Come on, they're in
trouble, we can't just hang them out to dry!

Well, in that case, sir. Suggest that I am left alone to make contact.

I can give them whatever assistance they require
then erase my memory of the entire event.

Opening comms. Present Starbug calling
future Starbug. We are ready to communicate.

Well, how did it go? Everything OK?

Mr Lister, sir...

I love you!

You know that, don't you? I'd hate you
to... go anywhere not knowing that, sir.

So what's the SP, Kryts?
Can you tell us anything?

A little, sir. They are indeed our
future selves from 15 years hence.

(SOBS) What a senseless waste!

Listen, if something happens to me, I want to know!

All I'm allowed to divulge is that their time drive has developed a fault, and they can only travel forwards.