'Lemons' by Doug Naylor

Lister is busy cooking some meat he found in a deep-freeze locker near Kryten’s quarters when Cat arrives to ask him to take part in a round of crazy golf in the Medilab; when Lister refuses, Cat promptly steals his meal. A while later, Rimmer is disturbed to find Lister actually reading: a copy of ‘The Most Influential Humans’, part of his robotics course. After Rimmer’s rant about Shakespeare, Kryten appears with the news that a crate has been delivered to the ship, which contains a Swedish flat-pack assembly kit for a Rejuvenation Shower. Unfortunately, the gang’s ability to build D.I.Y. kits is sorely lacking, and when they attempt to place Lister’s sock into the half-smegged construction they have put together, the uncontrolled beams from the device shoot out and send them all back in time to Earth, in Albion (Britain) in 23 A.D. Thanks to Lister’s stupidity the battery for the remote control has been lost, and so Rimmer proposes making a battery from potatoes; when Kryten points out that these vegetables won’t reach Britain for centuries, Rimmer suggests lemons, the closest of which lie in India. After a four-thousand mile trek across half the globe, Rimmer, Kryten, Cat and a heavily-bearded Lister finally arrive at their destination, and soon find a market seller with the fruits they desperately need. Lister quickly finds copper in the form of coins, but it takes Rimmer three weeks to track down some galvanised nails, the last items needed for the battery. While planning their next move in the marketplace, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and Cat find themselves face- to-face with an unexpected celebrity: Jesus! Rimmer immediately goes into fanboy-mode (his middle name is Judas, so-named by his mother after the man the ‘Church of Judas’ believe to be Jesus’ twin, who supposedly swapped places at the Crucifixion so that the Messiah could escape to France with Mary Magdalene), and is overjoyed when Jesus invites them all to share a meal with him. However, their repast is rudely interrupted by the arrival of some Roman soldiers, who chase Jesus and the guys through the marketplace. Ducking into a storehouse, Lister and Cat hold the door against the soldiers while Kryten and Rimmer quickly construct the battery in front of an amazed Jesus; the battery is completed just in time, and as the soldiers break in, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, Cat and Jesus are transported back to Red Dwarf. While the guys get cleaned up, Jesus marvels at the wonders aboard the mining ship, particularly the concept of ‘bags’. When Jesus complains of a ‘demon’ hurting his back, Kryten diagnoses a kidney stone and proposes operating on him; Lister voices his concern about the Medi-Bot, but Kryten assures him that he will perform the surgery – the mechanoid has actually been operating on Lister for years, and has safely stored the organs he has removed in a deep-freeze locker near his quarters. This comes as news to Lister – and also to Cat, who rushes off to be violently sick. After anaesthetising Jesus, Lister, Rimmer and Cat assist Kryten as he performs the unpleasant operation; the procedure is a success, and all goes well with the patient’s recovery – until Jesus reads Lister’s history book and learns all about the religious wars that took place in his name. Using the Rejuvenation Shower, Jesus returns to Albion and sets about trashing his reputation, hoping that by ending Christianity before it began he will save countless lives in the future. Learning of this mad plan from a note Jesus left behind, Kryten alerts the others; using a spare remote control for the Shower, the gang give chase and catch up with Jesus in the marketplace, where he is busy breaking the Ten Commandments and questioning the word of God. A fight with Lister almost breaks out – until it turns out that this isn’t the Jesus Christ, just one of seventy men with the same name! Leaving Jesus to start up his own bag-selling business, the Red Dwarf guys take a well-earner breather – and when they see two men who may actually be the real Jesus and Judas enter a nearby restaurant, Lister, Kryten and Cat force Rimmer to mind his own business this time…


Chris Barrie (Arnold J. Rimmer), Craig Charles (Dave Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Indira Joshi (Erin), James Baxter (Jesus), Nicholas Richards (Man Who May Be Jesus & Judas), Hormuzo Todiwala (Waiter)

Directed by Doug Naylor

Produced by Richard Naylor
Executive producers Charles Armitage and Doug Naylor

TX: (Dave)
18th October 2012 @ 9:00 pm

Notes:
*Featuring Dave Lister, Arnold Rimmer, Cat and Kryten

*This episode runs longer than in previous seasons, at forty minutes