Future Echoes: Scene Summary
1. Holly's Distress Call.
HOLLY: I am Holly, the ship's computer, with an IQ of 6000. The same IQ as 6000 PE teachers.
2. Red Dwarf Corridor. Lister has a conversation with a broken vending machine, before meeting up with Rimmer, who is exercising.
RIMMER: Morning, Lister! How's life in hippie heaven, you pregnant baboon bellied space cookie? What's the plan for the day then? Slobbing in the morning, followed by slobbing in the afternoon, then a bit of a snooze before the main evening's slob? God, you're a disgrace to the species.
3. Teaching Room. Rimmer takes stock of his morning and orders a new haircut. He is given a bouffant.
RIMMER: Clock stop! (Checking his watch) 6:47, not a bad little time for the mile. Pity I was only doing the 300 metres.
4. Sleeping Quarters. Lister is showing Cat his photos, when Rimmer comes in with his new haircut.
LISTER: Rimmer, what have you done to your hair?
RIMMER: Holly did it.
LISTER: Why?
RIMMER: Because I ordered him to.
LISTER: It looks ridiculous.
RIMMER: It may look ridiculous to you, Lister, but I like it like this. It makes me feel like a man.
LISTER: Yeah, and you'll probably get one, looking like that.
RIMMER: There's nothing wrong with short hair, Lister. It gives a man a sense of dignity, a sense of discipline.
LISTER: Rimmer, have you seen it?
RIMMER: I don't need to see it. I didn't get this haircut to look good. This is a haircut designed for action, not poncing around in. It may be a bit severe, a bit too green beret, but you are how you look, and I look [finally seeing himself in the mirror] like a complete and total tit! Holly! Holly!
HOLLY: (A still picture of HOLLY comes up on the monitor) This is a recording. I'm afraid Holly is busy at the moment. If you'd like to leave a message after the bleep, he'll get back to you. Bleep.
5. Drive Room. Lister tells Rimmer of his plans to go into stasis for the rest of the journey home.
RIMMER: Oh, yes, I expect they cured death the instant we left Earth. I expect doctors' surgeries are packed with the dead. "Hello, Mrs Johnson, take one of these three times a day, you'll soon be living again. Carol, next corpse please."
6. Model shot of Red Dwarf in space.
7. Sleeping Quarters. Lister freshens himself up by applying deodorant and shaving foam, though not necesserily in the correct place.
8. Model Shot. Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier and jolts quickly forward.
9. Sleeping Quarters. Holly confirms that Red Dwarf has broken the light barrier, and Lister sees reflections of things that have not yet happened in the mirror.
HOLLY: Look, we're travelling faster than the speed of light. That means, by the time we see something, we've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still brown trousers time.
10. Stasis Corridor. Lister informs The Cat that he can only take two suits into stasis, on pain of death.
CAT: Two suits? Then I'm staying!
LISTER: You can't stay. By the time I come out, you'll be dead.
CAT: Two suits *is* dead!
11. Drive Room. Lister has a plerpexing conversation with Rimmer, made all the more perplexing by Rimmer's instant re-apperance and repetition of exactly what he just said. No wonder Rob and Doug got headaches when they wrote this.
LISTER: Rimmer, you've just come in and said exactly these things.
RIMMER: What things?
LISTER: You said that!
RIMMER: I said *what*?
LISTER: And that! You said that!
RIMMER: You are space crazy!
LISTER: And then you said, "Well it probably is deja vu."
RIMMER: Well, it probably is deja vu. It sounds like it.
LISTER: Well, go on then. Shake your head and walk out.
12. Corridor. As Rimmer and Lister, leave the Drive Room, the Cat runs past in the opposite direction, having lost his tooth.
13. Sleeping Quarters. Rimmer and Lister walk in on Cat trying to catch a goldfish. Holly (with the help of the Toaster) explains that these phenomena are 'future echoes', that is glimpses of the future, a side effect of light speed.
RIMMER: What are 'future echoes'?
HOLLY: How simple do you want this?
RIMMER: So Lister can understand it.
HOLLY: Oh dear.
14. Corridor. Lister tries to persuade the skutters not to kill themselves. All of a sudden he hears a massive explosion.
15. Various Corridors. We see a succession of quick shots of Lister running around manically, trying to find the source of the explosion.
16. Drive Room. Rimmer has seen Lister die in a future echo. Rimmer is pessimistic about Lister's future, but he decides that if he can stop the Cat from breaking his tooth, something can be done about him dying.
RIMMER: Lister, it *has* happened. You can't change it, any more than you can change what you had for breakfast yesterday.
LISTER: Hey, it hasn't happened, has it? It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't actually "happened" happened yet, actually.
RIMMER: Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that. Your bucket's been kicked, baby.
17. Sleeping Quarters. Lister bursts into the room, wrestling the robot fish from the Cat. Unfortunately, Lister knocks him on to a table, breaking his tooth. Lister is then summoned to meet his fate in the Drive Room.
LISTER: I'm going out like I came in -- screaming and kicking.
RIMMER: You can't whack death on the head!
LISTER: If he comes near me I'm gonna rip his nipples off!
18. Corridor. Lister walks to meet his maker.
19. Drive Room. Lister needs to fix the Navicomp. This consists of flicking six switches. With each switch, the background hum gets louder an more high-pitched. Lister knows that each switch might be his last. He flicks the last switch. Nothing happens. Then Lister is dragged to the floor. It's The Cat.
CAT: Aaargh! Dog attack!
20. Model Shot. Red Dwarf, starting to slow down.
21. Sleeping Quarters. A jubulant Lister and a disappointed Rimmer come in to see a 178-year-old version of Lister on the bunk. He explains that it was Lister's son Bexley who died, not Lister. He then tells them to run to the Medical Unit.
OLD LISTER: I've got to tell you about Bexley.
RIMMER: Who's Bexley?
LISTER: I was always going to call my second son Bexley, after Jim Bexley Speed.
RIMMER: Your second son? What were you going to call your first son?
LISTER: Jim. After Jim Bexley Speed.
22. Medical Unit. Lister duly arrives, complete with camera, to see a not-too-much-older version of himself holding two babies.
FUTURE LISTER: I can't see you, but I know you can see me. I'd like you to meet your two sons. This is Jim, and this is Bexley. Oh, stop crying and say "cheese," boys!