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PLOT INCONSISTENCIES PROJECT v.7.1
* THE "NEW SERIES NEW" EDITION *
PART 2 OF 2
AS SEEN IN:
"BETTER THAN LIFE" FANZINE
THE RED DWARF WRITERS' BIBLE
THE CREDITS OF "SMEG OUTS"
A loving look at everything that's not quite right with Red Dwarf.
Edited by Damone (damone@idt.net).
Technical Editing by Annette (mcintosh@netlink.com.au).
NOTICE: This document, its format, and all material contained herein are protected by public copyright, except where it conflicts with the copyright of Grant Naylor. This document *may* be distributed freely in its entirety and posted at electronic sites where no fee is charged for its viewing. It *may not* be sold or published for profit in any form.
2.5 SERIES 5
Holoship (5-1)
- Commander Binks from the holoship says Lister's chronological age is
mid-20s. In Future Echoes (1-2) he is said to be 25. Given that likely at
least three years have passed since then, he would not be in his mid-20s.
- - Time passage and actual versus apparent age is mighty screwed up where Lister is concerned.
- When interviewing new crewmembers after Rimmer is thought to be gone,
why didn't they bring back Kochanski?
- Rimmer might still have Kochanski's disk hidden.
- Commander Binks refers to Cat as Felis sapiens, yet in The Last Day
(3-6), Hudzen refers to Cat as Felix sapiens.
- Hudzen was insane.
- It is not necessarily a contradiction. Both were dealing with a species that had developed entirely on the Red Dwarf, which had been out of touch with humanity for over three million years. Both could have used the analytical devices available to them to determine that Cat was an intelligent species derived from the feline family, and given him two slightly different scientific nomenclatures. Between the two of them, however, it is more likely that Binks is correct with his name.
- Rimmer operated on the holoship freely without one of the other crewmembers
needing to be deleted. Why couldn't he just join their crew with no ill
effects?
- The holoship might have had the temporary ability to hold more than its requisite holograms (as the Red Dwarf does), or Rimmer may have been operating under the power of his light bee.
- If the ship has zero mass, what is projecting it and the hologrammatic
crew? What is running their programs? Shouldn't there at least be a
light bee and a computer somewhere?
- Something contained within the tachyon technology must have found a way to circumvent such (former) projection problems.
- The tachyon theory doesn't explain what's generating the holograms, because a tachyon can *only* travel at speeds faster than the speed of light. If the ship drops below light-speed, and it's made of tachyons, it would cease to exist. It would be an ex-holoship. However, since all the holoship needs is a power source to generate itself, it could potentially use the Galactic Magnetic Field, and/or the Galactic Gravitational Field (both of which generate electrons) to power itself almost infinitely.
The Inquisitor (5-2)
- Thomas Allman has no idea about his demise and its justification.
Therefore, the Inquisitor apparently did not give him trial-by-himself,
which is supposedly standard practice.
- Being human, Allman's trial probably occured over three million years ago. Perhaps the Inquisitor has changed his method in that time to include trial by yourself as a more just a refined version of his mission.
- When Kryten went back in time to save himself and Lister, he should have
known to say "Enigma" and not "Enig" since he was just talking
to Lister
about it.
- If Kryten said "Enigma," Lister and Kryten would never have figured it out for themselves at the start of the time loop.
- Lister collects the hand of the alternate timeline Lister, for
the purpose of getting through security locks. Later the Inquisitor is
erased from history and all his bloodshed is undone. Ignore the fact
that they wouldn't remember the event as it wouldn't have happened and
that they would still be heading out on Starbug, how could Lister give
Kryten "15" as they would never have met the other Lister and he
wouldn't have been blown up anyway?
- Sometimes timeline readjustments take a little time to sort themselves out (eg. White Hole, 4-4). Give this episode another 30 seconds and the original opening scenario would probably be restored.
- Lister shouldn't be able to collect his alternative's hand, as the
Inquisitor habitually vaporizes his humanoid targets, leaving no bits behind.
- It was actually the alternative Kryten who was blown up by the Inquisitor (perhaps "vaporize" doesn't work on mechanoids). The alternative Lister was apparently killed by the force of the alternative Kryten exploding, in the process having his left hand severed from the arm.
- Kryten's number on the Red Dwarf is "Additional 001." Why isn't
Cat "Add.
001" and Kryten "Add. 002"?
- As a computer, Holly might have started the count at "Additional 000."
- How does Holly scan Lister's palm-print when he's wearing gloves?
- Holly is able to scan through clothing. This would make sense (especially on a mining ship) so that crewmembers would not have to keep removing their gloves to open doors all the time. Also, the scanner would have the ability to permeate mechanoid "skin" in order to read the CPUs.
- Kryten uses the Inquisitor's gauntlet to age his and Lister's manacles by
half a million years, causing the metal to "decay" away to nothing.
Red
Dwarf is over three million years old, so why has it not "decayed"
in the
same fashion?
- Red Dwarf may be made of a special metal, or could have undergone a special treatment to prevent its metal "decaying."
- Red Dwarf may have specific self-maintenance capabilities for counteracting such ageing.
- When trying to convince Rimmer he knew him, Lister said that four people
had died while Rimmer was on the Samaritans Line in the afternoon. In The
Last Day (3-6) it is said he killed off five people in the morning.
- Lister is close enough in his facts for this to be simply an inaccurate memory on his part.
- Rimmer has said he got off with Fiona Barrington in his dad's greenhouse
at 15, but in Better Than Life (2-2), he said he divorced his parents at 14.
- Rimmer could have been lying about the whole incident, or this might have occurred during one of his visits to the dog.
- In this episode, Kryten cannot attack the Inquisitor (another droid)
because of his anti-kill programming. Yet in The Last Day (3-6), Kryten
was learning to use the bazookoid in order to attack Hudzen 10, also another
droid.
- Perhaps Kryten was hoping to only disable Hudzen 10 in direct self-defence, which may be an applicable way to circumvent the anti-kill programming.
- Perhaps the Inquisitor had used his sizable powers to make sure that he would be taken for human in every droid's anti-kill programming.
- The breakdown of Kryten's core programming, which gave way in Camille (4-1), was in such an advanced state by the time of The Last Day (3-6) that he was able to act that way in selfish self-preservation, overriding his anti-kill programming.
- If Ace Rimmer (Dimension Jump, 4-5) is what Rimmer *could* have become,
then Rimmer didn't live to his full potential, so why didn't the
Inquisitor delete him?
- The Inquisitor seemed to be more concerned with what people *thought* they could achieve. As Rimmer was convinced that Ace's good life was due to "breaks" that Rimmer didn't get, Rimmer was still living up to his own low standards.
- Why would Rimmer be judged with the others? Wouldn't the Inquisitor
have questioned him when he was alive?
- The Inquisitor is concerned with *existence*, not life. Rimmer is dead, but he *had* existed. All the Inquisitor needed was a point in an individual's existence (be it living or hologrammatic) at which enough time had passed for the individual to have indicated his/her life's worthiness (or potential worthiness). For this purpose, Rimmer-hologram could serve just as well as Rimmer-human.
- If the Inquisitor can "read minds" to enable him to do judgment-by-self,
why can he not discover what Lister plans for him with the backfiring
time gauntlet?
- Perhaps the Inquisitor's telepathic powers only operate when he is "in character" for a judgment, which he was not at the time of Lister's trick.
- How can Rimmer and Cat still exist, with their same circumstances and
histories, when an alternative Lister and Kryten have been produced who
should have lived worthier existences than the old versions, and,
presumably, these worthier, different actions should have altered or even
deleted Rimmer's and Cat's circumstances, or even existences? If the
Inquisitor's powers extend such that those he isn't replacing (Rimmer
and Cat) are not changed because of those he does replace (Lister
and Kryten), then why shouldn't he be able to determine which lives will
be "worthy," and cause those to exist from the outset? Then, why
would unworthy existences, such as those of criminals, be allowed to
occur?
- The premise of the Inquisitor is that everyone is judged by their *own* standards. Thus worthiness is not judged by external deeds or happenings, but how an individual measures up within himself. There is no indication that the Inquisitor can either permanently alter historical events or choose what personality replaces that which he has deleted. "All will be judged," so presumably the Inquisitor keeps on judging and replacing until he gets one who believes his life was lived to its best potential. The *circumstances* need never change, thus the alternative Lister *behaved* in exactly the same way as the original Lister, and had exactly the same history (thus Cat's and Rimmer's existences would be the same), only his motivations/behaviour may be *perceived* and judged by himself in a different way than what the original Lister's were. The Inquisitor thus cannot choose who would be "worthy," but eventually would come to judge the alternative Lister, who may or may not be replaced in his own turn, depending on how he judges his own existence. In this way too, some who would seem unworthy by external standards (eg. criminals) may be able to justify their own existences by applying their own (warped) standards.
- Kryten talks about Virgil's Aeneid as the tale of Agamemnon's pursuit
of Helen of Troy. Shouldn't he mean Homer's Iliad (tale of the Trojan
War), as Virgil's Aeneid deals with Aeneas's life after Troy?
- As a service mechanoid, Kryten's epic-poetry chip may not be up to standard.
- At the beginning of the episode, Rimmer is wearing his green uniform.
After Lister and Kryten are removed from the timestream and are confronted
in the Red Dwarf hallway by Rimmer and the Cat from the alternative reality,
Rimmer is now wearing his red uniform.
- There are many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the features of this alternative reality -- majorly of course, the alternative Lister and Kryten look different to their originals. Minor changes such as apparel or coiffure are probably specific to each reality (and help us keep track of which reality the crewmembers are from); both Rimmer *and* the Cat are wearing different clothes in the different realities (original = Rimmer, green uniform and Cat, leopard-spot outfit; alternative = Rimmer, red uniform and Cat, red plaid outfit). This then means that at the end of the episode when Rimmer and Cat rematerialise, they should probably be wearing respectively their original green and leopard-spot clothes; instead they are still in the alternative-reality outfits. This is presumably for the same reason that Lister still has the alternative Lister's hand -- the timelines have not sorted themselves out properly yet. Give the episode another 30 seconds and then, along with the vanishing of the severed hand, Rimmer and the Cat will be restored to the apparel they were wearing before the Inquisitor arrived on the scene.
- A complicated defense system of tear gas, alarms, and probably more
are in effect to stop Rimmer and Kryten, yet this defence system effects
none of the other intruders on the Red Dwarf, nor apparently the entire
Cat race.
- The defense system is only in effect on the Red Dwarf *after* Lister and Kryten have been erased from time, so the timeline has changed slightly. In this timeline, the Red Dwarf has this complicated defense system, but will not when the timeline reverts to normal at the end of the episode.
Terrorform (5-3)
- Kryten's readout says he is a Series 4000 mechanoid. In Dimension Jump
(4-5), he is also identified as a Series 4000, but in The Last Day (3-6),
he is called a Series III.
- The new readout may be indicative of Kryten's "upgrading" by Lister and/or the self-repair unit (see Dimension Jump, 4-5).
- Once again, the "Series III" and "Series 4000" might be referring to different characteristics of the same model.
- While the Psy-Moon may be based on Rimmer's mind, it does not change
the fact that he should not physically be able to touch anything and
should not be in any real danger.
- The inhabitants may be mentally-controlled GELFs, which would explain how they could mutate into forms that could touch him. It could quite literally all be in his mind and he could do mental damage to himself, which is the most serious thing that Rimmer has to worry about.
- Why can Holly track Rimmer now, but not in other episodes?
- Perhaps the fact that the Psy-moon becomes the personification of its visitor's mind amplified Rimmer's presence, and thereby made it easier for Holly to track Rimmer.
- Kryten is firing the bazookoid at Rimmer's Self-Loathing, presumably
trying to kill it, yet in The Inquisitor (5-2), Kryten cannot tackle the
Inquisitor himself because he is programmed not to kill.
- Maybe Kryten's "anti-kill" programming only applies to equal (eg. the Inquisitor, another droid) or "superior" beings (eg. humans). Self-Loathing, as only a personified psyche component, may be fair game.
- Maybe Lister's latest repair job on Kryten in this episode has caused a malfunction in Kryten's "anti-kill" programming.
- In Kryten's list of reasons for Rimmer to loathe himself, he says that
Rimmer was despised by his parents for failing to achieve their
standards. However, in Better Than Life (2-2), it is clear that Rimmer's
mother believes (via Rimmer's lies) that he is a "Rear-Admiral Lt. General."
- The Rimmer familial relationship is dodgy at best. From most of the evidence seen in other episodes (Dimension Jump, 4-5; etc), the evidence would lend us to believe that Rimmer's parents knew what a cock-up he was and despised him. The letter to "Rear-Admiral" Rimmer could be seen as a sarcastic jab by his mother.
Quarantine (5-4)
- Rimmer says the Red Dwarf can only sustain one hologram, yet on several occasions (eg. Holoship, 5-1 and Me^2, 1-6) it has had two while supposedly cutting off unnecessary power.
- While Rimmer was affected by the Holovirus, where was Holly? Couldn't
she have turned him off or otherwise prevented him from taking over?
- Holly: "Well, it's a laugh, innit?" The crew were in no actual danger until Rimmer turned off the oxygen, so no need for action. Rimmer *was* following the rules, after all.
- Rimmer was operating on his light bee, independent of Holly, so she might not have been able to do much even if she wanted to.
- Holly might not be able to disable a hologram without an order from a superior officer. Rimmer was ranking "officer" on Red Dwarf.
- Why did the crew need to send Rimmer back to Red Dwarf? If Dr. Lanstrom had her own light bee, it was unnecessary. Even if she didn't, we saw in Me^2 (1-6) that the Red Dwarf can support two holograms if necessary.
- How can the hex vision of a hologram hurt anyone? If it is a mental
power, how can a hologram use it if he/she has no physical brain? How
can the hex vision shorten the lifespan of a hologram?
- The "brain" of the person still exists on his/her holodisk. The hex vision caused by the holovirus is a feature of the virus's adaptation to this particular type of "brain"-state. In a hologram, the hex vision could draw on the power source of the hologram and manifest as energy bursts, shortening the life span of the hologram by overloading or draining its power generator.
- The Cat insults Kryten by calling him "Frankenstein." Frankenstein,
according to Cat religion, is the most holy entity next to Cloister.
This is like a human insulting someone by calling them Virgin Mary.
- The Cat never seemed particularly religious to begin with, and with all the human influence around him, he has obviously picked up the reference to Mary Shelley's work. Remember how short his memory is with religious topics in the previous episodes.
- Kryten had been on his own for thousands/millions of years with only
(in his mind) the three girls for company on the Nova 5. How could he
get so tetchy after only five days alone with Lister and the Cat?
- While the girls were the perfect company for Kryten (not causing any major philosophical problems in his life and just letting him clean up after them for millenia), our favorite crew are an entirely more trying experience, ie. being trapped interactively with someone is different to being alone and having no one to conflict with (also it's not possible to know that Kryten did not go totally crazy at some point on the Nova 5. After all, it was not quite a sane thing to deny the dead state of the crew). Lastly, Kryten's different personalities in each situation may react very differently to the given situation.
- The luck virus seemed to make everything the crew wanted come true. Why
didn't Lister shoot up on it, get Kochanski back and zoom back to Earth?
- Perhaps Lister was a little too concerned with saving his skin from Rimmer at the moment to consider more far-reaching plans.
- The virus only lets extremely improbable, fairly simple events happen, not extremely complicated, practically impossible ones. Kochanski is dead, and *major* events (probably more than the luck virus could facilitate) would need to happen to change that fact.
- In The Inquisitor (5-2), it is clear that Kryten is a registered member
of the crew. So even if the Cat isn't a registered member of the crew,
Rimmer should be forced to give the guys at least a double quarters.
- Kryten is an *additional*. This doesn't necessarily equate to his being part of the ship's official crew. Plus, mechanoids may not ever be counted as "crew," as Kryten can always just offline anyway: he doesn't need living space.
Demons And Angels (5-5)
- If Low Red Dwarf fades away, the Low Lister should fade away as well,
instead of staying on Starbug.
- Hang on for this one. The crew were scanned before leaving the Red Dwarf. It explodes soon after, destroying everything including Holly. The Highs and Lows are born from the scan. All Highs except Holly are killed. As only things with both High and Low parts can re-merge, the High and Low Red Dwarfs and Hollys merge back when Kryten reverses the process. Low Cat, Kryten, and Rimmer remain, but are left in the vacuum of space and die after their Red Dwarf re-merges. Low Lister is on the Starbug, so he survives.
- Kryten says he threw the triplicator in reverse, yet it is Lister who
actually did this.
- Kryten told Lister to do it. Maybe, now that his lying protocol is broken, Kryten is looking for some glory.
- Kryten says that the triplicator could produce four or even five strawberries a week. With one original strawberry, after two runs, the tally could only be *either* four triplicator-produced strawberries *or* five total, counting the original strawberry; not both numbers sequentially.
- While tasting the pot noodle, Lister talks about playing pool with
planets. The only time he's done that is in White Hole (4-4) and he
shouldn't remember it.
- In White Hole (4-4), Kryten says, "I've never seen one before, no one has, but I'm guessing it's a White Hole." Thus, Kryten himself has probably only read the theory behind White Holes. If nobody has ever seen one, Kryten could well be wrong, meaning that the events could be able to be recalled. Kryten, for all his knowledge, is not infallible.
- Why is only half the triplicator on each ship? Each ship is a
fully-functioning entity and should have a full version of the
triplicator on it.
- Perhaps, because the triplicator was the source of the abnormal, outgoing beam, it was unable to copy itself, but instead had its parts divided between its two creations so that there was still "triplicator representation" on both ships.
- How can a holowhip harm a human?
- Simple. While the holowhip has to be some form of projected light, there are many types of light that can cause physical damage. Lasers are just condensed beams of light. Modified light pulses can cause neurological seizures. It could also work along the lines of a controlled version of the hex vision from Quarantine (5-4): it just sends stored-up energy through the victim.
Back To Reality (5-6)
- As a hologram, Rimmer should *not* be affected by the squid's venom (or
the lithium carbonate), and so would not have hallucinated.
- If he can pick up smells, he might also be able to pick up and be affected by the hallucinogens.
- Kryten says, "The venom secreted from a piscine source, not unlike Earth
octopus or giant squid." "Piscine" means pertaining to fish,
and squid
and octopi are mollusks.
- Kryten is, ultimately, just a service mechanoid.
- Andy the Technician talks about the irony of Lister becoming God when he
was an atheist, but in The Last Day (3-6), Lister is said to be a
pantheist. Why can't Lister even get his own religion right?
- Theologians define atheism as disbelief in the existence of a personal transcendent deity. Since the god of pantheism is identical with the cosmos, and thus neither personal nor transcendent, many theologians consider pantheism a form of atheism. Thus Lister could well be a pantheist and be considered an atheist as well.
- When the crew are delusionally pretending to jump speed bumps in their
"car-chase," Rimmer's seat is moving under him, which it should not
do
because Rimmer, as a hologram, has no weight.
- This may be another case of a hologrammatic projection of what would be happening if Rimmer were real.
- In this alternate reality, "Red Dwarf" is a Total Immersion Video
Game
designed for four players, who take on the roles of Lister, Rimmer, Cat,
and Kryten. In fact, we see four new players entering as the boys leave.
Since the game would cover all the events of the Red Dwarf, there is a
problem. What was Jake Bullet (Kryten's player) doing until Kryten
showed up in the events in Kryten (2-1)?
- Perhaps he was off playing a solo adventure on the Nova 5.
- Kryten took two years from Lister leaving stasis to join the Red Dwarf,
so why, when Lister looks in at the new TIV players, are they at a point
in the game much further along than they should be seeing as how they've
only been playing the TIV a very short time?
- Game-time and real time may not necessarily be parallel. Also, it is possible that if the players play the game properly (as opposed to scoring just 4%), that (among other differences) Kryten's character joins the action on Red Dwarf much earlier on in the piece.
- Kryten's gun is a single-shot speargun, but Jake is packing a
futuristic sidearm. When he kills the cop, we hear the sound of four
gunshots before he falls. Jake/Kryten then says that he could have stunned
the cop instead of killing him. So, how do you stun someone with a bullet?
- The gun could well be an energy weapon that has the potential to stun or kill. When the gun fires, you hear a "gunshot," but see no bullets or blood. Later, when Kryten puts the gun to his head and fires, the click could be the trigger trying to activate a drained energy cell. When Kryten reloads the gun, he refers to the "bullet," which can refer to a solid projectile, or the discrete charge of the energy weapon. If the former is the case, the gun may be able to handle solid projectiles as well as energy packs.
- A normal hallucination does not explain the group effects that the
crew went through at all. Even if they all are affected by hallucinations,
how is it that they all have the *same* hallucination at the *same* time?
For example, when the nurse asks them who Duane is, they all look at the
Cat. Why do *all* of them hallucinate the *same* person asking the *same*
question?
- The venom might have some sort of telepathic element that links the minds of all those affected by the same attack.
- The hallucinations are a horribly inefficient way to make people
committ suicide. While the crew eventually grows depressed in their
roles in the fantasy society, there are good points in it for some people.
Rimmer enjoys Cat being reduced to Duane's no-style state; Kryten is
thrilled at being a detective. This seems to be an awfully flawed way to
make people kill themselves.
- The aim is to induce despair by whatever means, while keeping up the illusion of reality. Rimmer's despair is induced by the fact of his being such a failure when his brother is such a success. His enjoyment of Cat's misery is of no consequence in his own despair state, but adds greatly to the despair state of the Cat. This could be the purpose of a group (rather than individual) hallucination mechanism, whereby the interactions of all players can compound the despair of each to exacerbate the suicidal intent. Another premise might be "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." Kryten's despair state is cruelly induced by first giving him a position of principle and success and then making him abuse it in the way most heinous and contradictory to all he values (and the same reasoning can be true for Lister's despair induction).
2.6 SERIES 6
Psirens (6-1)
- Lister had sex with himself in Parallel Universe (2-6) more recently
than three million years ago.
- Perhaps he meant only in this dimension.
- Maybe he considered that liaison more masturbation than sex.
- Where was Kryten's self-repair unit when he needed it in Backwards (3-1)?
- Perhaps this explains how Lister was able to repair him at all.
- Lister is told he dated Kochanski for three weeks. Yet in Confidence And Paranoia (1-5), it is clear that they never even went out.
- Why was Rimmer's light bee frozen? All they had to do was turn it off, and freezing it would just make his period of immobility seem longer.
- If the Starbug survived a collision with a flaming asteroid, why was it wrecked in previous, lesser impacts?
- How can Cat smell things outside of Starbug, a sealed spacecraft?
- The Cat's "sense of smell" here is not physically a true olfactory sense, but rather an intuition (as stated by Kryten) manifested and described in physical terms. The Cat psychically *senses* things (eg. danger, approaching craft) but recognises this sense in terms of "smell."
- When the psiren pretended to be Kryten, and it read Lister's mind
and was trying to fool him, why would it deliberately call Lister "Dave,"
a name that would tip Lister off to the fact that it *wasn't* the real Kryten?
- The psiren's abilities are not perfect (as the guitar incident shows). Perhaps, Lister subconsciously *wants* Kryten to call him "Dave" instead of "Mr. Lister" because it would make Kryten more of an equal. The psiren picked up on this, and thereby called him "Dave" as part of a wish fulfillment or a misreading of their relationship.
- When the two Listers play guitar, the psiren plays like Lister
believes he can play. The psiren isn't trying to convince Lister, it's
trying to convince the rest of the crew. Wouldn't it have read their
minds instead?
- The psirens aren't infallible, and this one probably thought that a scan of Lister's mind would be sufficient for the subterfuge.
- It is obvious here that even before being put in deep sleep, Lister
was under the illusion that he was a "diva" on the guitar, could play
like the ghost of Hendrix, and make the guitar sing. Yet in Marooned
(3-2), he says (while trying to convince Rimmer that he can't live
without his guitar), "I know I'm not exactly a wizard on it."
- In Marooned (3-2), Lister was at an emotional low point: stuck with Rimmer, eating pot noodles, etc. Now he is back to his normal (read: delusional) state.
- If Holly can be on Starbug (eg. Backwards; 3-1), or appear on Kryten's
chest monitor (eg. Marooned; 3-2), then why can't she appear from the
Red Dwarf on Starbug now?
- Perhaps whoever stole Red Dwarf shut Holly down or disabled all communications to and from Starbug. Alternatively, Holly may have to be "loaded" into Starbug or Kryten in order to appear on them.
- The Starbug is shown to have two deep sleep chambers (for Lister and
Cat), yet the *entirety* of the Red Dwarf, with a much larger crew, only
had two stasis booths on the ship. Why would the shuttlecraft have as
many suspended animation facilities as the whole of the mother ship?
- It is unlikely that the Starbug came equipped with the deep sleep chambers and they were jury rigged by Kryten for the circumstances.
- If they were standard equipment, it can be rationalized as emergency gear if the shuttle were separated from the ship for long periods of time before rescue.
Legion (6-2)
- Legion removes Lister's appendix, which is about to burst from
appendicitis. It was apparent in Thanks For The Memory (2-3) that Lister
had already had his appendix out.
- In DNA (4-2) when Lister's body was reconstituted, his appendix may have been restored.
- In Backwards (3-1), Lister's appendix may have grown back in reverse-time.
- In Timeslides (3-5), Lister's past was changed several times. It is conceivable that one of these changes resulted in his appendix not being taken out previous to this event.
- Rimmer says that in all his previous lives, he has been a soldier. That
must be excepting the time he was Alexander the Great's Chief Eunuch
(Marooned, 3-2).
- Well, he was still *in* an army (sort of).
- Rimmer says that they have met exactly 31 individuals (Legion being 32)
in their travels. The number of "individuals" is much higher.
- It's a tricky definition, and depending on the way you define "individuals," it can be a true statement.
- Legion's total appearance changed to match that of Kryten when Kryten
was the only one left conscious, yet previously only Legion's face had
changed to reflect his diminishing status when all the others were being
knocked out in turn.
- Perhaps when left with only one "creator," Legion has no gestalt conflict and so can more truly and easily depict his single-being status.
- When Kryten is knocking everybody out, Legion, who has proven himself
capable of violence to stop the crew from leaving, just stands there and
watches. Even if he didn't want to harm them, he could have at least
restrained Kryten from performing his actions.
- The crew's collective desire to leave had reached the point where they were all willing to be knocked unconscious. The aggregate sum of this desire would affect Legion and make him less determined to act to stop them.
- Lister says that the missile chasing them is some sort of heat-seeker, and then Kryten offers to act as a decoy. This wouldn't work, as it's already been established in Polymorph (3-3) that Kryten does not give off any heat.
- * When talking about the people they've met in their journeys, they talk
about the person who tried to wipe them out from history altogether (the
Inquisitor). Since the Inquisitor himself got wiped out from history,
they should not remember that encounter at all.
- * Given the friendly sort that the crew usually runs into, it is possible they are referring to someone other than the Inquisitor.
Gunmen Of The Apocalypse (6-3)
- The escape pod escaped last Thursday. Does that take into account the three weeks that the crew spent knocked out courtesy of the simulants?
- Cat says that there is no place for the bullets to go (in Kryten's
gun), but the muzzle doesn't seem to be blocked, the "revolver cartridge"
seems clear, and the separation between the "revolver cartridge" and
the
butt of the pistol is noticeable. Kryten also spins the cartridge at one
time, so the revolver looks to be in working order. Yet the Cat expects
Lister to be able to notice the gun's supposed inadequacies just by
glancing at it. What is wrong with the gun?
- This may have something to do with the allegorical nature of the game in relation to the fight between Kryten and the virus. While there may be nothing physically wrong with the guns, there may be something wrong with them nevertheless because of the nature of the simulation and the fact that Kryten is losing.
Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4)
- Lister should say "Butts bony our move let's" not "Bony butts our move let's" to mimic the Space Corps External Enforcement Vehicle correctly.
- Where did Kryten learn to speak GELF?
- Perhaps he downloaded this information from a database on one of the derelict spaceships the crew have visited.
- Another door opens before "Ace" touches it.
- Rack it up to those light-sensitive, hologram-friendly doors.
- Duane said that the gun Rimmer ejected was the last one on the ship,
but Kryten has one later.
- Duane actually says, "We just flushed away our only gun," so probably in this case the "our" he is talking about comprises of only himself and Rimmer.
- Why were Kryten and "Ace" worried about the effect of the grenade
on
"Ace," since the hard-light body was pronounced practically indestructible?
- Kryten and "Ace" were probably worried due to the element of doubt (about the hard-light body's strength) introduced by Legion's qualifying word "practically."
- When the Emohawk turned Cat into Duane, how did Cat's physical
features alter if the Emohawk can only change emotions?
- Perhaps this type of emotion-stealing GELF is a species which needs to extract the genetic complement of an emotion in order to obtain that emotion. In this way, it may be possible for Cat's physical appearance to alter to reflect his changed DNA status, especially if the Emohawk has to facilitate this process quickly in order for the relevant DNA to be free for it to take. The DNA apparently must be taken from the Emohawk and injected back into its rightful owner in order for the original character to be restored. This process was not necessary with the other GELF in Polymorph (3-3), indicating that the two emotion-stealers are of different types.
Rimmerworld (6-5)
- When Kryten says to Rimmer, "Your activities over the past couple of years," presumably he means years broken up by the 200-year deep sleep hiatus of Psirens (6-1).
- Rimmer talks about letting Lister play the guitar, but the guitar was
destroyed in Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4).
- While one guitar might have been destroyed, Lister was given another guitar in his room during Legion (6-2), so one may be in a box of Lister's "valuables," unbeknownst at this time to the rest of the crew.
- Lister has been seen with at least three guitars, not including the one in Legion (6-2). The first is the Les Paul copy that was destroyed in Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4). The second is the acoustic guitar seen throughout the first series. The third is an electric model seen at the beginning of Thanks For The Memory (2-3).
- Rimmer is hyperventilating and "breathing." He's a hologram.
- It may be a manifestation of the hologrammatic illness.
- Since the crew obviously had some of Rimmer's DNA, why didn't they
try cloning him back in DNA (4-2)?
- They might have been unaware of the DNA's existence.
- They probably did not trust the DNA machine given all they saw.
- Kryten asks Rimmer if he has any next of kin. Considering Kryten knows very well that Rimmer's family (and perhaps the whole human race) is dead, this is an incredibly stupid question.
Out Of Time (6-6)
- If by destroying the time drive Rimmer saves the crew, they would have
been saved anyway when the ship was destroyed, thus blowing up the time
drive.
- Getting killed by themselves may have produced some huge paradoxes.
- They had no assurances that the future crew was actually going to go through with it and finish them off.
- Why did Future Rimmer gain weight when it could be expected that he
wouldn't have wanted to?
- Unlike on Rimmerworld (6-5), where Rimmer's appearance did not (and had no need to) change, Future Rimmer may be changing himself in order to match better with his "friends" who are growing old and/or altering their appearances to be inconspicuous with their historical acquaintances. The others may even have insisted upon such a change (though the design may be a bit overdone).
- What may have been a voluntary on and off process for a hologram could have been damaged by the holovirus (Quarantine, 5-4). The virus could have destroyed Rimmer's capability to control his aging, causing the aging function to kick in at a random time. Thus he could have gone 557 years without aging, as happened, or just as likely he might have added holo-years at any time. Sometime during the fifteen years after Rimmerworld, the aging function *has* kicked in.
- Kryten asked Lister if he remembered his parents, and Lister said no.
- Given the context and wording of the actual conversation, Lister would probably initially think that Kryten meant his biological parents, and so his answer is the truth.
- Rimmer offers to write Kryten/Cat into his will, but since Rimmer is
already dead, the point seems quite moot.
- Rimmer as a human is dead, but holograms can also "die" as shown in Rimmerworld (6-5). Thus Rimmer may have a "will" for the case of his hologrammatic death.
- Rimmer may be just making a point of showing the lengths he would go to (especially given his known stinginess) to be allowed the pleasure of telling Lister the bad news.
- Considering the number of times Lister has been in the medical bay, it is *highly* unlikely that they wouldn't have noticed he was a mechanoid before this.
- According to this episode, Lister becomes reduced to a brain in a jar
by the time he's aged in his forties. This contradicts the 171 year old
Echo Lister seen in Future Echoes (1-2).
- This whole episode may have occurred in an unreality pocket that makes the whole future null and void.
- Lister may have somehow been able to get his body back in some way after the events in this episode.
2.63 SMEG UPS TAPE
- Kryten is called a Series 3000 mechanoid, when in Dimension Jump (4-5), he is identified as a Series 4000, and in The Last Day (3-6) he is called a Series III...and all of it is moot because he was completely rebuilt by Lister at the beginning of Series 3 anyway.
- The alternative ending to Out Of Time (6-6) could not have happened because no one would have remembered that Rimmer had been brave or that the Starbug had been attacked at all.
2.67 SMEG OUTS TAPE
2.69 The Universal Explanation, Take 2
As with the original case, a lot of changes happened between Series 6 and Series 7 of the show. The show was out of production for a long time while other projects, production changes and timing problems were dealt with. This is also the first series where the writing team of Grant Naylor did not script all the episodes. In fact, the Grant half did not work on the show at all. Once again, the full story on this is available in the Red Dwarf FAQ.
In the opening segment to Series 7 in Tikka To Ride (7-1), Lister explains their escape from the predicament at the end of Out Of Time (6-6). To avoid destroying any more electrical devices, the summation of that explanation is that by the Future Crew killing the Current Crew, they created a temporal paradox that left the Current Crew alive and in space/time just before their encounter with their future selves, who were wiped out by the paradox. However, they were in a very unstable region of space/time due to the paradox. This instability can explain away nearly all the inconsistencies between anything that came before Series 7 and that which came after it. Once again, a convenient crutch, but we'll give it a go without it anyway.
2.7 SERIES 7 * POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT *
Tikka To Ride (7-1)
- * When the time drive was used previously (Out Of Time, 6-6), it could
only transport the crew in time, not space.
- * The convergence of the timelines from Out Of Time (6-6) has had other physical effects on spacetime (the Starbug hold getting larger, etc). The time drive itself has obviously been physically altered (handheld as opposed to car engine-sized). It now resembles the teleporter unit, which *could* move through space. If the two units somehow merged when the realities merged, they would then have a unit that could move through space *and* time.
- * If the time drive *can* travel through space and time, why wouldn't
Lister just go back to Earth of his own time and stay there, like he
always wanted to do?
- * The first time they used it to go back in time to Earth, they missed their destination by several hundred years and nearly destroyed their time line. Given the personal involvement Lister had in fixing his damage (and the sound beating he got at the end of the episode), even he would realize that the time drive should only be used in extreme circumstances (See Ouroboros, 7-3).
- * Once the crew causes the original paradox, they should not exist.
- * As previous episodes show, temporal paradoxes take time to work out completely.
- * The paradox of Kennedy shooting himself works itself out almost
instantly. Why did the RD crew have so long to work with?
- * The Kennedy paradox is more "local," dealing with one person within a decade. The RD crew were from millions of years in the future, which might give them more time to operate since those million years of time need to be resolved before they are effected by the paradox.
Stoke Me A Clipper (7-2)
- * Lister's cover story that one of the knights escaped from the AR suite to kill Rimmer might have gotten by the Cat, but there is absolutely no way that Kryten should believe such an obviously illogical story.
- * If Ace is a hologram, where's his "H"? Also, where does Rimmer's
"H"
go? No matter what a guy Ace is, the law is that all holograms have an
"H," and that presumably is programmed into their generation.
- * Both of them are hardlight holograms, technology developed long after their time. Perhaps the rules had hanged by then (since holograms could really be like normal people then), and Rimmer just kept it around because he didn't know any better, or his inferiority complex compelled him to do so.
Ouroboros (7-3)
- * The date given for dropping off baby Lister contradicts the other dates given for his existence.
- * The Being Your Own Dad Paradox: The crew is no stranger to paradoxes, but this one just takes the cake. A contradictory wind-up like that one should just cause Lister to not exist, or be horribly inbred at the very least.
- * Lister recalls his breakup with Kochanski, even though it is obvious from previous episodes that he has never went out with her.
- * If the crew had decided not to risk fiddling with causality by
using the time drive, wouldn't Lister be risking a lot if he used the
time drive to place his baby self under the pool table in the Aigburth
Arms?
- * Not really. Since he exists, he must have safely made it through the neverending cycle in the first place, so he was guarunteed to survive the attempt to drop himself off.
- * After Lister drops himself off at the beginning of the episode, the
caption says "18 Months Later," but this contradicts Thanks For The
Memory
(2-3), in which Lister says he was abandoned at 6 weeks old.
- * No contradiction here given the nature of his conception. The fertilized egg is placed in the uterine stimulator, and no one knows how longits growth process would take, so it is possible for baby Lister to be six weeks old eighteen months after the insemination.
Blue (7-5)
- * Rimmer is wearing his blue hardlight suit back on RD before they met
Legion.
- * The blue uniform may have been a standard one before the hardlight upgrade, and Rimmer softlight would wear it on RD before RD was lost. Rimmer happened to be wearing a red uniform when Legion was encountered. Legion may have arbitrarily chosen the blue uniform (the information for uniform simulation would be in the light bee) as the outfit to now be associated with Rimmer's hardlight form.
Epideme (7-7)
- * Cat says that he didn't get any education, that he taught himself. This contradicts his mention in The End (1-1) of attending "Kitty School."
- * There is no way that a virus, intelligent or otherwise, could provide the chemical energy and nutrients necessary to keep a body together and moving for extended periods of time.
3.0 WHAT ARE THE PRODUCTION ERRORS?
This is a newer section to deal with the obvious divisions between mess-ups on the show. What is a Production Error (PE)? I'm glad you asked. A Production Error is something that was done wrong with a technical aspect of the show. This can include continuity errors during filming, special effects devices visible in the shots, cast members doing unscripted actions, or complete incompetence during the research stage of the show that makes glaring and unforgivable (as well as unexplainable) errors in the show. If they screwed up so bad we couldn't explain it away, it ends up here. Given the choice between some sort of cheesy explanation ("Well, the Captain's office was completely redesigned during this time period, and then redesigned again, and again...") or listing it as a PE, it will be listed as a PE. The PIs are for legitimate plot screw-ups that we can explain away. The cable line dragging Rimmer out of the Starbug in Backwards (3-1) is an example of a PE.
If there are obvious PEs that can be explained away in the context of the show, they are listed in both sections, but their explanations are not included here. PEs have no explanation except the universally accepted, "Someone goofed up, and the editors didn't earn their pay that day." Also, if the PI that was made was so basic and stupid that any explanation wouldn't be any fun even as an exercise in semantics, it ends up here.
The PEs are listed by series, by episode, as in the previous section.
3.1 SERIES 1
The End (1-1)
- Two posters on the wall between the door and the window in Rimmer and Lister's quarters disappear and return.
- When Rimmer is taking the exam, the arrangement of the pens on his desk suddenly changes.
- A wall appears where the main entrance to the Captain's Office used to be.
- When Lister is about to wave his hand through Rimmer, half of Lister's hand disappears into thin air while it is still above Rimmer's shoulder.
- The incredible, inappropriate Chicken Soup Dispenser: Noting the way the "shelf" comes down, it seems to go right through the nozzle Rimmer was unclogging, and the placement of the nozzle would make it incredibly difficult to fill that cup with chicken soup in the very short time that the shelf bearing it was at rest at the bottom of its range of movement. As a further extension of this, if the cup is filled with soup before the shelf is lowered, what was Rimmer playing with, because that couldn't have been the dispensing nozzle?
- When Lister tells the door to lock, and it finally does, something can be seen moving briefly at the left edge of the window (as if a stagehand moved into its shot when pushing the door closed).
Future Echoes (1-2)
- The sign above the stasis booth seems to have changed color as opposed to The End (1-1).
- For the future echo in the Drive Room, Rimmer first says, "You're space crazy," then the second time clearly says, "*You* are space crazy."
- Lister and Rimmer both use a door in the Captain's Office that wasn't there before this episode.
- When the skutters are hitting their heads on the wall, one skutter (the far one) constantly misses, and the person controlling it cannot get it straightened up correctly during the shot (even though he tries).
- As Holly gives Rimmer a clean uniform after Rimmer's jog, Holly's image can be seen to jump, due to his transposition between the two shots not being perfect.
- The gashes on the non-working goldfish are not visible when it is seen swimming around in the tank seconds later.
- Sound travels much, much slower than light. Why is the sound in synch with the future echo speakers, when some sounds are supposed to be coming from in excess of 140 years in the future?
- There are serious discrepancies during the scene where Lister shaves. The number of shaving strokes and the shaving sequences are different for Lister and his echo reflection.
- During the scene where present Lister cuts his chin, there is an editing error. Right before he cuts his chin, he is holding his razor one way. Right afterwards, with no break, he is holding it in a completely different fashion.
- * In the scene in the sleeping quarters just before Lister goes off to "whack Death on the head," the shots showing Lister talking while standing next to the fishtank clearly also show that there is in the fishtank a reflection of someone turning paper pages (and it isn't Rimmer, the only other person in the room) -- three times in this scene this happens.
Balance Of Power (1-3)
- A food dispenser appears in front of a wall where the main entrance to the Captain's Office used to be.
- The butts that Lister tips out of his beer can have obviously come from his palm.
- Lister walks through Rimmer on his way to his chef's exam. Rimmer fades out (as a hologram, that's an acceptable occurrence), but Lister, who shouldn't fade out, also becomes temporarily transparent.
- When Rimmer first encounters the Cat pushing the trolley of shiny things, Rimmer's arm smacks into the trolley as he walks past it.
- * While the Cat is wheeling the trolley of cigarettes down the corridor, Rimmer passes him and his hand hits the trolley, moving his arm.
Waiting For God (1-4)
- When Lister is reading the "Run, Dick, Run" part of the Cat book, he is actually sniffing a red end-page at the start of the book instead of the white paper pages.
- When Cat gives Lister the Holy Book, he reads it the wrong way (ie. from the spine out on the left hand page) despite reading the other book in the normal way.
- When Talkie Toaster says, "I toast, therefore I am," seen in his chrome casing is what can only be the reflection of a stagehand.
- The Cat Priest moves his foot after he dies.
Confidence And Paranoia (1-5)
- An unpainted medical unit (with the letters "EDICAL" clearly visible) appears in the Captain's Office. In the scenes before and after this one, the correctly-attired unit appears with "MEDICAL" written on it.
- Lister mouths one of Confidence's lines as he says it. ("I don't know, is it some place near Uruguay?")
- Just after the Cat says, "S-E-X, I think I found it," Lister, who is supposed to be unconscious, breaks briefly into a wide grin.
- When Confidence blows up, there is a helmet on the ledge at the right of the screen which was not there before.
- In the medical bay, when Lister says, "Take me to me bed," the blanket is on his lap. In the next shot, it is wrapped around his shoulders.
Me² (1-6)
- The "Welcome To The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Death" door opens before Lister touches the panel.
- When Lister is looking through Rimmer's diary, he keeps flipping to the front of the book while reading entries from July and November.
- In the Red Dwarf cinema, the two Rimmers keep changing seats so they can be in front. The Original Rimmer goes to the back to make rude shadows on the screen. Then Lister calls both of them to the middle so he can choose which one to turn off. It is then obvious that it is the New Rimmer who comes from the back and the Original Rimmer who comes from the front.
- When Lister's laundry basket rolls away from the bunk, the opening is towards the viewer's right, but when Lister picks it up to put his socks back in, the opening is towards the left.
- In the videotape of Rimmer's death, we see in the Drive Room Rimmer, Captain Hollister, and two other unidentified crewmembers, all of whom are then subjected to the Cadmium II accident. However, in The End (1-1), Holly positively identifies Petersen's remains on a console in the Drive Room, and also (by implication) the dust pile that is Christine Kochanski, in Kochanski's chair. As seen in the video, neither of these two is present in the Drive Room or Captain's Office at the time of the accident.
- Lister mouths Cat's line, "(If I believed that for one minute) I'd go crazy!" as Cat says it.
3.2 SERIES 2
Kryten (2-1)
- The spray can that Lister was using to repair his attire disappears when he throws up his hands after he is done.
- The heights of the crew of the Nova 5 are listed as: Anne (164 cm), Jane (161 cm), and Tracey (158 cm). Yet when they are in shot together, Tracey is noticeably taller than the others.
- As the Boyz make their way into Nova 5 to meet its "crew," Rimmer's head brushes against several hanging plants.
Better Than Life (2-2)
- The Outland Revenue envelope and Rimmer's mother's letter are already opened when Lister takes the letters out (and at least one other letter in the pile is also unsealed).
- When Holly is talking about postal chess with Gordon, his black turtleneck can clearly be seen.
- In the Observation Dome, there is a square outlined around the areas Rimmer and Lister stand in showing the boundaries of the bluescreen (also in Thanks For The Memory, 2-3).
Thanks For The Memory (2-3)
- Lister and the Cat both injure their left feet when they drop the gravestone, but the Cat has a cast on his right foot.
- The pom-pom and the top of Holly's cap are both in *front* of the edge of his monitor.
- Background stars can be seen superimposed on Lister's head/face when he and Rimmer are in the Observation Dome.
- During the black box recording, when Rimmer is telling Lister how many times he's had sex, Lister visibly has his hat on. When this originally happened, he had no hat.
- When Lister and Rimmer are discussing Lise Yates, Rimmer's attire goes from scruffy (shirt and tie undone) to all correct (everything buttoned and tied).
- When Lister and the Cat are looking at the giant "footprint," they should be wearing their casts. If you look carefully, you can see that both of them aren't.
Stasis Leak (2-4)
- Lister, Rimmer, and the Cat are in a shower cubicle when they are discovered by one of the men in the bathroom. In the mirror, we see the man's back and the cubicle, but we do not see Lister or the Cat's head, as we should from that angle.
- When Rimmer is talking to "Captain Paxo," the blue bucket noticeably moves.
- The scene where Lister and Rimmer are at the dispensing machine after Rimmer's PD incident in the Captain's Office is seen from two perspectives: the present day, and three million years ago. It is the same scene from two different perspectives, and while the main components are the same, the background is horribly out of synch.
- The contents and decorations of the sleeping quarters (eg. styles of furnishings, poster arrangements, the number plates, the inflatable banana, the stuffed donkey) are identical for both the present-day quarters and those of three million years in the past (three weeks before the accident). The three-million-year-old sleeping quarters *should* be arranged in similar or identical fashion to that in The End (1-1).
- The scene where Rimmer's hologram head comes through the table is seen from two different times (three million years ago, and present day), yet it is the same scene. In the three million years ago version, the first thing the visible head says to Rimmer is: "There, that wasn't too bad, was it?" Yet this is cut from the present day version so that the first thing said here is: "Look, we found a stasis leak on Floor 16."
- When hologram Rimmer climbs through the table, he should be visible crouched *under* the table. Instead, he disappears.
- In the credits, Petersen's name is spelled with an "E," whereas in both The End (1-1) and Balance Of Power (1-3), the name is given as "Peterson."
- The Kochanski at the end is not the same girl as seen earlier in the Honeymoon Suite.
- In the scene where the Cat and Lister are looking at the wedding photo, there are various editing mistakes as they look at the photo. Each time the shot changes, both are holding the photo in completely different ways.
- When the Rimmer from the "double-double" future comes through the sink, Lister's bunk can be seen in the mirror. However, the Lister in the mirror is in a different position and has a blanket over him.
Queeg (2-5)
- When Queeg first appears, Rimmer asks what Article 5 is. When Queeg is answering, he is facing slightly side on, yet after no time-break in the next shot, he is looking directly ahead.
- At the conclusion of the chess match, the chess board shown on the computer screen does not show the end of the game. The chess board does accurately show the first three moves.
Parallel Universe (2-6)
- All of Arlene's newsclippings are about "Arnold," and she also has all his certificates.
- The wire/string can be seen that pulls the baby skutters along behind the parent skutter.
- Just as the door opens revealing the two female counterparts, Lister backs up slowly for a few steps. Lister then visibly brushes Rimmer's sleeve.
3.3 SERIES 3
Backwards (3-1)
- When Rimmer is accidentally ejected from the Starbug during Kryten's driver's test, the wire that lifts Rimmer is clearly visible.
- The crew's attire is in mirror-image at several stages during the episode (eg. Rimmer's hat, Cat's "brooch," Lister's bandannas).
- In situations involving the Red Dwarf crew on backwards Earth, the backwards force works only partially or not at all (see relevant PI section). Nevertheless, every backwards thing that happens on backwards Earth (whether distorted or not by the crew's involvement) would be physically possible were the sequence to be played forwards. The exception is the waitress who comes to "dirty" Kryten and Rimmer's table. She tips a box of rubbish out onto the table. In forwards, this means that the rubbish would be leaping up off the table, which is impossible (if the waitress had instead scraped the rubbish onto the table with her cloth, this would have worked).
- Lister mouths the Cat's line, "Your gajimbas will suddenly rise back into your body, and the next thing you know you're singing soprano in the school choir!"
- Since everything in this world is the same as ours, but the people just *do* things backwards, the writing should be *forwards*, but the people would just *read* it backwards.
- Lister and the Cat take a poster off the tree and they show the poster to the man who gives them a lift to town. The poster they show the man is not the same one they take down off the tree.
Marooned (3-2)
- When looking at "Lolita," Rimmer says to keep page 61. Lister then tears out the *left* page, which would be page 60.
- When Lister cuts the guitar-shaped piece of wood from Rimmer's camphorwood trunk, the edges of the "guitar" and the cut section of the trunk are the same uniform black color as that of the trunk. However, when Lister snaps the guitar over his knee, we see that the wood inside is a much lighter color. The edges of the guitar and the cut-out section of the trunk should be the same color as the snapped section, so it is obvious that the guitar wasn't cut out just then, and may even be from a different type of wood.
Polymorph (3-3)
- This is in the scene where Lister gets attacked by his shorts. There is a shot of Kryten throwing the offending red undergarment onto his bunk. It cuts back to Lister who asks where they went. Kryten says on the bunk, and there is a cut to the bunk, with no red shorts. It cuts back to Lister who asks if he's sure. It cuts back to Kryten at the bunk who looks under the blanket and says, "No," but you can see the red shorts (or another red object not present in the previous shot of the bunk) on top of the blanket.
- The capsule shown at the end of the episode before the second "Lister" polymorph sneaks up on the group has the "Contents: 2" sign on it. This is, presumably, the same and only container that they encountered at the beginning of the episode. A complete shot is made of the capsule at the beginning of the episode, and no sign is apparent.
- While the polymorph is going through a metal pipe and tap, the plumbing bulges to accommodate the creature's size. *However*, there's no way a metal pipe/tap would *spring back* after the creature has passed (which is what we see happening) -- it would stay in the warped state.
- If the polymorph shot at the end is supposed to be the second polymorph just changed from the Lister-form to the eight-foot tall, armour-plated, killing machine form, then the background should not be different behind each form.
Bodyswap (3-4)
- When Cat drops the tape of Lister's mind into the cup, Lister (who is in a "trance" and has no mind) can be seen starting to grin (before Kryten moves across and blocks the view).
Timeslides (3-5)
- In the episode, Fred Holden's nickname is "Thickie." In the end credits, it is spelled as "Thicky."
- The banana and crisp sandwich that Rimmer bites at the end is supposed to be the same sandwich Lister initially took out of the briefcase. However, the colour and intactness of Rimmer's sandwich indicate it is a different sandwich from the one originally seen.
- The crew cannot move outside the confines of a timeslide photograph. Yet in the photographs of the pub and of Rimmer's dormitory, they move into areas not seen in the initial projected images.
- The assassination attempt is by Staff Colonel von Stauffenberg, and twice is identified as being at Nuremberg. The von Stauffenberg assassination attempt actually happened at Rastenburg in 1944, whereas the Nuremberg Rallies had ceased after 1938. By the labeling of von Stauffenberg as "Staff Colonel," the assassination attempt *must* be the 1944 Rastenburg, as von Stauffenberg was only given this post in this same year.
- In the pub photo, Dobbin, drummer for "Smeg And The Heads," is initially nowhere close to being in synch with the soundtrack being played.
- * The eagle on Hitler's briefcase is that of the Federal Republic of Germany.
3.4 SERIES 4
Camille (4-1)
- ASCII to hex for "love" would be 4C, 4F, 56, 45. The code Kryten says translates as "theta, graphics-character, backspace, graphics-character."
- * Kryten refers to "ASCII" code as "A-S-C-2" code when the "II" does not stand for the Roman numeral 2.
DNA (4-2)
- Lister says he is "an enlightened 23rd Century guy," yet going by the 2077 of Stasis Leak (2-4), he'd be "an enlightened 21st Century guy."
Justice (4-3)
- When Lister's head is swollen, his hair is on top of his "Space Mumps." So when his head "burst," why was his hair on top of his natural head, which would have been *under* his Space Mumps?
Meltdown (4-6)
- * In the credits, Pythagoras is spelled incorrectly as "Pythagorus."
3.5 SERIES 5
The Inquisitor (5-2)
- When Future Kryten cuts off the Inquisitor's gauntlet, he kicks it down the corridor towards Lister and Kryten. It only goes about one-third of the distance before stopping, yet after no time-break, Lister in the next shot makes no advance down the corridor, but just picks the gauntlet up from at his feet.
- * During the opening scene when Lister and Kryten are discussing the Trojans, a camera shadow can clearly be seen on Kryten's head.
- * When Starbug is turned through 180 degrees, there are two big jolts. Lister "jolts" back too early for the second one.
Terrorform (5-3)
- In all practical sense, Lister and Cat's typing is too perfect and does not match what is being typed. Not even close.
- Rimmer and Kryten crash Starbug 1 badly on the moon. Lister and Cat then leave Red Dwarf in Starbug 2, yet it is Starbug 1 again which is later struggling in the swamp.
- At the beginning of the episode, the actor's wrist can be seen between Kryten's hand and forearm (which should be a solid piece).
Quarantine (5-4)
- When proving the potency of the luck virus with the deck of cards, Lister shuffles the top few cards, then draws four cards from the bottom.
- In one scene, Kryten holds the hypodermic gun in his right hand and gives Lister a shot in the neck of the luck virus. It then cuts to Lister before he tries to break the door code. Kryten now does not have the hypodermic gun in *either* hand. Lister does have something in his hand which he quickly puts down; this may or may not be the gun. Kryten's and Lister's positions mean there was definitely no time for Kryten to have given the gun to Lister between the scene change as Kryten is simply too far away. Either way, Kryten should still be holding the gun.
- When Lister is pushing the buttons to release the crew from quarantine, the buttons cannot seem to decide whether to go dark, or light up (or alternate between both states), when pushed.
- There are several discrepancies between the reflections in Rimmer's viewscreen and the actual posture of the guys in the cell, most noticeably the positioning of Kryten's hands and when Lister puts his hands on his face.
Demons And Angels (5-5)
- The Low Cat's teeth tilt and then straighten again in the scene where he is first seen by Lister.
- When the remote-controlled Lister swings the axe at Cat, he hits the doorway when he misses, clearly bending the axe-head. He struggles to remove the axe from the wall, and when he does so, the axe is repaired.
Back To Reality (5-6)
- In the opening panning shot over the SSS Esperanto, it is obvious that the film is running backwards as the bubbles are heading down to the sea floor rather than correctly floating to the sea surface.
3.6 SERIES 6
Psirens (6-1)
- When Starbug is hit by the flaming meteorite and crashes on the asteroid, the falling ship can clearly be seen to have "Starbug" written on it in mirror-writing; ie. the film has been reversed.
- The spike that skewers Pete Tranter's sister is visible for several seconds of her and Lister's embrace before she reacts to it.
Legion (6-2)
- Lister mouths the Cat's line as he says it. ("The whole panel's deader than A-line flares with pockets in the knees.")
- In the scene where Legion stabs his left hand, causing everyone to grab and shake their left hands, Lister grabs and shakes his right hand.
- When Rimmer extracts his own light bee, where does it go? All trace of Rimmer just disappears.
- After Legion gets hit, for a brief second his real face can be seen as he adjusts his mask.
- When Kryten starts drinking the telekinetic wine, the glass contains more liquid than it did in the shot a few seconds earlier. After Kryten stops drinking, the glass contains the same amount of wine that it did in the earlier shot.
- Despite the fact that a large volume of wine hits Lister in the face when he tries to drink it, the liquid level in the glass is the same when it starts "spurting" as when it stops. Also, Lister's glass has less liquid in it before Kryten starts drinking than it does when Lister starts drinking from the glass.
Gunmen Of The Apocalypse (6-3)
- The bullets that hit the ground are perfectly formed and not violently mutilated as they should have been by the impact with the other bullets.
- The other two bullets (four were fired) are not heard to fall or are heard of ever again.
- Lister again mouths the Cat's lines as he says them. ("...lying cartoons." "Why not?")
- When the Apocalypse Boys tell Kryten to get out of town and they shoot the bottle out of his hand, the remains of the bottle neck can be seen to drop from Kryten's hand onto the ground. However, in the very next shot, Kryten is still dancing, but there is no bottle neck on the ground. Instead, he is still clutching it in his hand from where the rest of the bottle was shot away.
Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4)
- The crew still moves after getting hit by the gas.
Rimmerworld (6-5)
- When "Rimmer" kisses his concubine, the shot shows that the concubine is kissing a woman.
- Lister again mouths the Cat's lines as he says them. ("All in all a hundred per cent successful trip." "Form an orderly queue behind the gunsight.")
3.63 SMEG UPS TAPE
- In the smeg up for Meltdown (4-6) that was tossed because of the noise in the air, the print would have been useless anyway because glimpses of the backstage crewmembers are seen in the background.
- In the Ten Most Asked Questions List, for Question Nine, Kryten says that in Thanks For The Memory (2-3), "Lister tells Rimmer he's had his appendix out." Technically this isn't correct, as it is *Rimmer* who mentions the appendix operation while talking about why his "fake" memories (the ones of Lister's that Lister gave to Rimmer) don't tally with his real memories.
- The Top Ten List has more than ten items.
- In the Top Ten List, one of the questions that Kryten asks is why Lister's hair and nails grew in Psirens (6-1) when he was in stasis. He wasn't in stasis, he was in deep sleep.
- Kryten says that the radiation leak was six weeks *before* Gazpacho Soup Day. In Me^2 (1-6), it is six weeks *after* Gazpacho Soup Day, which makes a hell of a lot more sense.
- * In the smeg up when Duane keeps flubbing his line from Emohawk: Polymorph II (6-4), in the final take when Ace flubs his line, a list of all the items Duane is supposed to remember is clearly seen taped to the back of his lunchbox.
3.67 SMEG OUTS TAPE
- The smeg out from Queeg (2-5) where Rimmer flubs his line ("I'm lucky I can keep my legs on with you in charge") contains a prior smeg out which would have made the footage useless anyway. In the line immediately before, Holly says, "All right, keep your hair on," without moving his lips.
- In Question 10, the conversation total statement is wrongly attributed to Future Echoes (1-2) when in fact it comes from Balance Of Power (1-3). (This is actually our fault because we didn't pick up this error in time for the PIP edition that went to Grant Naylor for the Smeg Outs.)
- In Question 8, Kryten says that in DNA (4-2) ,it's mentioned that Rimmer failed his astronavigation exam 13 times. This statement was actually made in the episode Justice (4-3), not DNA.
- In Question 6, Kryten says that people who speak Esperanto are referred to as Esperantinos throughout the first series. The Esperantino/Esperantist question is only raised in the episode "Kryten," which is the first of Series 2.
- In Question 4, Kryten says that Lister said to Rimmer: "You're beginning to sound like my Mum." Lister actually said this to Kryten (Kryten, 2-1). If we want to be really picky, Kryten also said that Lister asserts he was abandoned at birth. Lister actually says that he was six weeks old when abandoned (The Last Day, 3-6).
- In Question 3, Lister says that he did tear out page 61 of Lolita (not page 60) because he was holding the book upside-down. A quick look at Marooned (3-2) shows that he was indeed holding the book right side up, and therefore must have torn out page 60.
- In Question 1, Kryten says that his "all human cells contain DNA" statement comes from "episode four, series two." This would be Stasis Leak, and Kryten wasn't even in this. The episode was DNA (4-2) -- Kryten has misread the episode notation for the question as (episode-series) instead of, correctly, as (series-episode).
3.7 SERIES 7 * POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT *
Tikka To Ride (7-1)
- * Lister screws in Kryten's new head in the same direction that he *un*screwed the old one.
Stoke Me A Clipper (7-2)
- * The alligator that was falling with Ace reaches the ground several minutes after Ace does.
Duct Soup (7-4)
- * At the beginning of the episode Kochanski is banging on the pipes. There is a shot of her banging with the spanner in her right hand, then the shot changes and it is her left hand. There is no time for her to have swapped hands between shots.
Beyond A Joke (7-6)
- * Kryten says his number is "2x4c" when in The Last Day (3-3) he says it is "2x4b".
4.0 ADDITIONS, CORRECTIONS, OR CONTRIBUTIONS TO PIP
I doubt this list can ever be comprehensive. If you have an inconsistency, resolution, or other input about the PIP, please address your e-mail to: damone@idt.net
When you write your e-mail, please contain "PIP" as the subject line, or reply to this if this is the USENET posting (forwarding only the relevant sections). E-mail is preferred. Include as much information as possible about the episode in which the inconsistency occurs, as well as other episodes you may refer to in your message (ie. use episode numbers, *please*).
Do not be offended if I do not write back to you, as my mail volume is pretty high. If I use anything, you will be included in the Acknowledgments section. I have gotten better at getting back to everyone, though, and most likely will reply to all e-mails now. If you are going to be derogatory and hostile, do not expect a reply, but be assured you will make my mail filter in record time.
All book/series references are gone. They are too much completely different entities to be included together. While Grant Naylor may have forgotten which plot they were working with at the time, this project will not, and will stay only with series/series contradictions. If any foolish person wishes to do book/series, I've got some stuff you could probably use. For those looking for book/book inconsistencies, please see the Book Plot Inconsistencies Project (BPIP), by Annette.
5.0 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Honorable mention as "Annoying Aussie Of The Year" goes to:
*** Matt Dawson ***
...who pretty much sent me volumes and volumes of plot errors from all of the episodes whether I wanted them or not, in a coordinated attempt with another Aussie (who shall remain nameless) to drive me completely insane.
The "Iron-Man Awards For HTML Conversion" go to:
*** Benjamin John Evans ***
*** Michael Nagy ***
*** Friday ***
*** Rocky ***
... who convert all the new versions into HTML format at their wonderful little web pages and save me more nightmares and heartaches.
BUT...
Without the help of these wonderful people, this never would have been:
(Those bound in stars were people who worked on the beta version of this
project, viewing entire series to help get the PIP started.)
Melissa Algeo Helen Bates Scott Bellairs Beorahood BertGordon Andrew Blume Edward Buckley Andrew Carpenter The Cat Sean Cearley Miffy Coghill David Coombes Oliver A. Corrigan Charles Daniels Brenda Daverin Todd Dennis Dion John Doyle Elliedra ELRIC2001 ElSol10598 Ben Erickson Gareth Evans Vicky Evans Leila Fetter Fraser Friday Jackie Fuchs David L. Gilbert Theodore Graham Mark Green Richard Greene Eric Haas Robert Harden John Hayes Brendan Healy Sheamus Healy-Harden HEIERJ01 Holly 5120 *Nick Honeywell* Steve Howell J_Bullet Graeme Jefferis Coran Jones Paul Jones JJ Flash Jonathan Kallay Kevin Martin King Jon Knutson Kurt Konecny Selena Koop Christopher M. Kribs Chris Kuan Michael Micallef Tina Leeuwrik Legion Magnus Lindstrom *Lizbeth* Bette Llewellyn Vicky Loebel Lyd the Jokie Jen Lyons Lisa Manekofsky Ned Martell Tony Martin Tom Marwede Dave McRae Yossef Mendelssohn Michael Micallef Sami Mikhail Mark Moir Glen Montgomery Mr. Flibble Gordon Mulcaster *Craig O'Neil* Chris Nielsen Boris Pelakh James Peterson Will A. Phillips Todd Pinarchick Frank Rawinski Marietta Rawinski Raz Jill Rhodes Jim Richards Eric Rochkind Gordon Rogers Alan Salt Ilka Schmantek Jeremy Schroeder Rosemarie Scott *Sea* Barny Shergold Nick Sim Daniel Snyder Khara Stibbons Cheryl Strand Charles Sundt Eddie Talbut *Maggie Thomas* John Tudek TJ Vanderstoop Daniel Vasconcelos Jamie Watson Lee Weinert Dean White Wolf NP Mariko Yamashita Craig Young Zanndraa
... and to all I may have missed. Please e-mail me so I may rectify the error.
... and of course, to Grant Naylor, who really made it all possible (and
who now have a copy of this thing apparently). Not only that, they put
Annette and myself in the credits of the "Smeg Outs" video. To wit:
SPECIAL THANKS TO
DAMONE & EL SKUTTO
FOR PLOT INCONSISTENCIES
INFORMATION
6.0 CONCLUSION
That's it. Go home.
There are groups of small, yellow fish eating my feet,
Damone.
damone@idt.net