Red Dwarf: S01E05: Confidence and Paranoia

Holly introduces the show, “We have been travelling through the galaxy now for three million years and there are many things we’ve discovered. The highest form of intelligence in the universe is man, and the lowest is a man who works for the Post Office.”

In the first scene we see Lister watching a crappy sad romantic film in the Drive Room. He cries into his milk shake as Holly appears and asks if he is bored. Lister tells him that he isn’t.   He would much prefer watching the end of the film than to have a conversation with Holly.

Holly is insistent however, and tells Lister that he has now finished reading every piece of published material on the ship.  He is bored and would like Lister to erase his memory of all Agatha Christie novels so that he can read them again. Lister agrees, “Ok, I’ve done it.” Informs Lister.

“Done what?” asks Holly.
“I’ve erased all of Agatha Christy” explains Lister.
“Who’s she then?”
“Hol, you asked me to erase all the Agatha Christi novels from yer memory!” says Lister impatiently.
“Why should I do that, I’ve never heard of her?”
“You’ve never heard of her because I’ve just erased her from yer smeggin memory!”
“What did you do that for?” Inquires Holly slightly annoyed.
“You asked me to!”
“When?”
“Just now!”
“I don’t remember this!”

Lister gives up and returns to his quarters where he is just about to see the end of the crappy romantic drivelly film, when Rimmer walks in and turns off the monitor.

He tells Lister that he hasn’t yet decontaminated the officer’s deck.  This upsets Lister since he was there only a few hours ago looking at Kochanski’s dream recorder (she dreamt about him three times).

Late at night Lister wakes up, he has a fever and feels awful!  He wonders off to find some medication but collapses in the corridor.  Cat wonders by and spies Lister lying in a heap on the floor. He kneels down, “Hey, monkey, you’re ill. Hey if you weren’t my friend I’d steal your shoes. Time for a snack.” He leaves without giving Lister a second glance. Holly notices what has happened and asks Rimmer to go to Lister’s aid.

The Cat is busy eating when Rimmer runs in and asks the feline crewmember to help him. Rimmer is a Hologram of course so he wouldn’t be able to lift of move or administer medication to him. The Cat remains seated. Well… he’s hungry after all.

Rimmer uses the Skutters to get Lister to the Medical Centre.  The skutters try to take his temperature, but poke him in the eye instead. Rimmer tells Lister that it was his own fault for going into a contaminated area. All he wanted to do after all, was look at Kochanski’s dream records to find out if she fancied him. “Stranger things have happened!” retorts Lister.

“Only two spring to mind,” answers Rimmer, “the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546, and that incident in twelfth century Burgundy when it rained herring!”

Lister mentions that everyone has two personalities that are trying to gain dominance. Confidence and Paranoia. His confidence would help him pluck up the courage to go up to Kochanski to ask her out on a date, but his Paranoia would talk him out of it.

Later, Lister is dreaming in his bunk. Suddenly Rimmer notices that herring are falling from the ceiling! Rimmer leaves the room to find a geezer dressed in 16th century clobber and ringing a bell who promptly, spontaneously combusts.

Next day, Rimmer explains that his dreams were hallucinations and that they were ‘solid’ He explained the fish and the bloke who blew up and added that there were now two blokes in the Drive room who answer to the names of Lister’s Confidence and Lister’s Paranoia!

In the Drive room we see Confidence and Paranoia. The confidence geezer is brash and up front and free with his complements about Lister, “I just love that accent, it makes me go all wibbly wobbly” he once said. The other geezer is dressed in a back suit and is much less pleasant, “Isn’t that a urine stain on your trousers?” He said.

Lister goes off with the Confidence bloke leaving the Paranoia geezer with Rimmer. Lister sits in his room playing his guitar VERY badly to the warm applause and adulation of Confidence. Meanwhile, the ship goes into a dust storm and Holly locks all the air locks.

In the Drive Room, Rimmer has employed one of the Skutters to stab Paranoia. Rimmer is being driven half crazy by his inane negative chatter. The Skutter of course misses. They are both joined by Lister and Confidence. Lister has had an idea that Kochanski can be brought to life as a hologram if most of the auxiliary non-essential power is turned off. Holly has confirmed that he could therefore support two Holograms. With Confidence prompting him, Lister reasons where Rimmer would have hidden the hologram disks. They confidently guess that Rimmer has hidden the disks in the solar panel adjacent to their sleeping quarters on the bulkhead of the ship.

As Rimmer follows then, he notices that the Medical Unit has been destroyed. He confronts Confidence and Lister with this as they prepare to leave the ship to retrieve the holodisks. Rimmer believes that Lister will not get better until Confidence and Paranoia are gone, and that it was in their interest to destroy the medical unit. Lister doesn’t believe Rimmer and he and Confidence go out into space.

Confidence cha-cha’s his way along the ramp outside the ship. Lister follows but he’s concerned that Paranoia will appear and ruin things – adds that Paranoia must have smashed the medical unit.

“No he didn’t,” replied Confidence, “I did….. so we could be together Davey, you don’t wanna get cured, I did it for you!”

“So where did he (Paranoia) go?” asks a worried Lister.

“I killed him.” Said Confidence, “….Hey, he didn’t suffer, I just fed him into the waste grinder and flushed his bits into space.”

Lister is upset and disappointed and tells Confidence that he’s going inside. “It gets a little claustrophobic in these suites!” He lied.

“Take your helmet off! …. Hey, oxygen’s for losers ….. Look I’ll prove it to you, I’ll take off my helmet.” He takes of his helmet and explodes! Wadda looser!

Later. Lister is in his quarters with Cat and Rimmer. Cat is cleaning his clothes WITH HIS TONGUE!   Rimmer is going through an ‘I told you so’ conversation.  Lister is getting ready for his meeting with the Holographic Kochanski!

In the Drive Room, Lister puts in the holorecording of Kochanski against the advice of a fairly confident Rimmer. He tells Holly to run the recording and finds another Rimmer!

Rimmer’s says hello to his other self. “Do you really think I’d put Kochanski’s disk in Kochanski’s holder?”

And there this terrific episode ended. We saw a good example of some hoopy science fiction, the idea that a flu bug could mutate into three-dimensional beings or objects. The highlight, for me at least, was watching Cat clean his clothes by ‘licking’ them.

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