Back to Earth: Episode Two

If They Dont Finish Out The Series Im Going TO GO INSANE! All That Emotion... All That Potential... That Was BEAST... PLEASE DO NOT END IT! I'VE BEEN WATCHING THIS SHOW SINCE I WAS BORN! GOOD JOB AND THANK YOU!

Complete and utter SMEG!

The word "Smeg" was mentioned several times, - so, technically - no, but verbally, yes.

I loved the second episoed the best. I loved the bit where rimmer pushes Katerina in front of the car. It was just really really funny.

Able wrote:

I wasn't keen on that. I thought it was out of character for him. I know there is a suggestion of off-screen violence like the time he picked up the washing machine (or something) and tried to insert it in Lister but he never acts that way when we see him. He is nasty in other ways but he is not homicidal. (And yes, she's a hologram... already dead... yada yada, but that's splitting hairs...)

I wish they'd gone with the original idea of getting her arrested. Now THAT I can imagine Rimmer doing, and I think it would be very funny He's a humiliator not a killer, and he would get a greater sense of having outwit a senior officer, which I think was his particular reward. (See the final episode to see what I mean by that.)

That being said, that would take time to set up, and I can understand why they went for the quick gag. I suppose the character discrepancy could be explained by the reveal in the third episode. After all Lister does something uncharacteristic too because... oh watch it you'll see.

M'Aiden Ty-One wrote:

Out of character as in too amoral, even for Rimmer, or out of character as in too proactive and well-executed?

Morally, I thought it was justified - she was trying to kill him after all. In fact, there was a perverse morality to the way he practically got her permission to do it. Selling out his own mates at the start of Rimmerworld was worse, surely?

I thought the fact that Lister genuinely didn't seem to give a crap about Rimmer getting turned off was more out of character.

jmc2000 wrote:

Not so much amoral (as Rimmer can be pretty amoral) just the form of amorality.

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There is that. Justified or not it seemed out of character to me to take that particular method though. I suppose it could be argued she could whip out the remote control at any point and erase him so he needed to act quickly.

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Ah, but that was very much in character. He is a coward who looks after number one. He wasn't actively going out of his way to kill them (although activating the escape pod set off the destruction of the ship) just save himself. It was morally despicable, but not intentionally homicidal.

Several things:

Rimmer happily orders the deaths of the waxdroids, who are just as 'alive' as Katerina. Rimmer's not someone who values humanity...

...particularly when it's kill-or-be-killed. If she'd had a hologram-killing gun to his head (which she does, metaphorically), he'd have been positively justified.

He pushed a hardlight hologram in front of a vehicle. With his experience, he couldn't be sure it would kill her. (Though originally we were meant to have seen a shattered light-bee, which makes it more definite. As-short, she could be a mile down the road, imbedded in he bumper of a Land Rover.)

Given the circumstances, what alternative did he have?

But the main thing is: the efficiency of what he does - the speed, the practicality, the sheer competence - is the equivalent of Lister being able to read Chinese in the next scene. It's a little more 'capable' than the guys usually are. Defeating his nemesis is Rimmer's path to bliss - it leads him towards the joy promised by the ink.

Waxworld was another example I thought of, but I think that's been discussed quite deeply on this forum (with no consensus) so it might have derailed the discussion into the rights and wrongs of what Rimmer did.

Another good example is the fact that, whenever Kryten offers to sacrifice himself, Rimmer is usually eager to take him up on the offer - often heartlessly and sardonically so - and it's Lister who vetoes it.

I hope in the new series, we get at least one episode which fleshes Rimmer out (a la Me^2, Thanks for the Memory, Holoship, Stoke Me a Clipper, etc. - the new Rimmer hasn't had one of those).

Andrew wrote:

I can see him ordering from afar (especially as in his mind they're just robots*.) but not letting loose with the machine guns himself if that makes sense. Which is in effect what he does to Katarina. (Not literally obviously.) To be fair that might be more due to his cowardice (people who shoot tend to be shot at) than a dislike of violence itself...

All good points though. Especially the part about his path to bliss. That's the part I was referring to about the reveal in series 3. And Lister acting out of character too, i.e. spoiler (considering this is episode 2: [ Lister going Roy Batty on the Creator. "But, I don't kill people." etc. He did because it was written...or rather he thinks that is the case. An indirect push towards taking control of his world and his own ultimate bliss, if that make sense. ]

*Which isn't to say he's any different. As I said, he can be very amoral. I just didn't see him directly homicidal.