'The Promised Land' by Doug Naylor

Far out in space, the descendants of Lister’s cat, Frankenstein, search for Fuschal, the ‘Promised Land’. Aboard the Cat Fleet’s command vessel, the Feral Cat’s leader, Rodon, seizes power and decrees that all heresy be banned. King Rodon orders three acolytes of Cloister the Stupid - Brother Soul, Sister Luna and Sister Peanut - to their deaths, but the trio manage to escape by distracting their guards with a laser pointer. Stealing a ship, the trio flee for their lives, setting course for the ship of their people’s birth: Red Dwarf…

Meanwhile, aboard Red Dwarf, Kryten and Cat are concerned that Lister is over-drinking, over-eating and collecting junk; but Kryten’s solution of using a salvaged meditech to change Cat’s sex, allowing Lister the chance to procreate, falls flat. Later, in the Medibay, Rimmer tries covering up an SOS signal in favour of a quite life, but has a spot of bother when trying to wipe Kryten’s memory. Lister and Cat are thrilled to find Holly’s back-up disk, but when the gang install the old file, they rest the ship’s computer to factory settings; the original version of Holly doesn’t recognise the quartet as valid or useful crewmembers, and consequently decides to decommission Red Dwarf. Forced to leave in a Starbug with Lister, Cat and Kryten, Rimmer proposes looking for the ship that sent the SOS…

Three months later, the inept gang are still searching. They come across a deep space recon ship, the Iron Star, and decide to check it out. Inside they find a lab with an advanced hologram projection suite, which upgrades Rimmer’s light-bee, temporarily transforming him into a new ‘diamond form’ that grants him super-speed, phasing and matter-transforming abilities. Unfortunately, a power surge fries Rimmer’s battery, and he has to keep himself plugged into the mains with the aid of multiple extension leads. Searching the ship, the gang encounter Brother Soul, Sister Luna and Sister Peanut hiding in a closet; the Cat acolytes instantly recognise Lister as their god Cloister the Stupid, and they present him with their most precious possession, the Anubis Stone. Rodon and a squad of Feral Cats teleport onto the Iron Star and take the Stone at gunpoint; leaving the gang behind, the Cat King returns to his flagship and orders a Meow Missile attack on the Iron Star. As the ship falls apart around them, the gang take the Cat acolytes aboard Starbug, and they escape just before the vessel explodes. When a fire breaks out in Starbug’s rear section, Lister panics and jettisons the back of the ship – the bit with the engines in it. Now out of control, Starbug promptly crash-lands on a nearby desert moon. Marooned on an empty world without motive power, Lister finally decides to come clean to the acolytes about his real identity; cowardly as ever though, he persuades Kryten to do it, but the droid is unable to criticise his master, so Lister asks Cat instead – but he just ends up joining the acolytes’ cult too. Rimmer gleefully steps up to talk to the cats, but is interrupted as a huge section of Iron Star debris narrowly misses Starbug. Deciding to check the wreckage in the hope of finding a handy teleport, Kryten consults Starbug’s owner’s manual and learns that it has hybrid power and a hovercraft mode. To save energy Rimmer begrudgingly goes on low-power-mode, and is then given an existential crisis by Cat’s taunting. Coming under fire from a Cat ship, Lister steers the hovering Starbug into a sandstorm; this enables the posse to escape the attack, but leaves the craft buried under tons of sand. With nothing else to do, Lister gives Rimmer a pep-talk, boosting his confidence, but damaging Kryten in the process. Using Kryten’s finger-drill and aerial, Rimmer manages to contact Holly and trick the computer into updating himself with his predecessor’s last back-up; now restored to his normal intelligence, Holly helps his mates by launching a missile attack on the moon, on the premise that blowing it up will free Starbug. Holly’s mad plan works, and the lads return to Red Dwarf, only to discover their ship has been taken over by Rodon and his guards. Lister is forced to reveal the truth to his acolytes, who are demoralised at wasting their lives by following their ‘Holy Poppadom’. Furious that the Anubis Stone appears to be worthless beetle dung, Rodon throws it at is captives and then reveals that he is Cat’s brother. But Cat nobly elects to stay with his true home – then regrets his decision when the king announces that Red Dwarf will be destroyed by a huge bomb. Leaving the lads and the acolytes to their imminent destruction, Rodon teleports back to the fleet to watch the fireworks. As Holly counts down to destruction, Rimmer and Kryten both run out of power. Lister works out that the Anubis Stone contains a powerful energy source, and he uses it to jump-start Rimmer’s diamond form; in the last few seconds remaining, the powerful hologram phases the bomb outside the ship, allowing it to detonate harmlessly in space. After the gang grab a new Starbug and pursue Rodon, Rimmer fires a laser beam at the Cat fleet, directed right onto the King’s chest; this causes the king’s own people to claw him to death, and sends the out of control ship flying smack into an asteroid. Back on Red Dwarf, Rimmer begrudgingly gives up the Anubis Stone to save Kryten’s life, using it to recharge the deactivated droid’s battery.

Later on, the gang take Brother Soul, Sister Luna and Sister Peanut back to the Cat Fleet, where they receive a warm welcome. Lister is amused to learn that Rimmer’s acts of bravery and self-sacrifice have led the Cats to rethink their religion: they now worship Rimmer as their god!


Chris Barrie (Arnold J. Rimmer), Craig Charles (Dave Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Norman Lovett (Holly), Ray Fearon (Rodon), Tom Bennett (Brother Sol), Al Roberts (Court Ludo), Mandeep Dhillon (Sister Luna), Lucy Pearman (Sister Peanut), Hayley-Mare Axe (Protector)

Directed by Doug Naylor

Produced by Richard Naylor
Executive producers Christine Langhan and Doug Naylor

TX: (Dave)
9th April 2020 @ 9:00 pm

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

*This special episode is two hours long (including adverts)

*I was lucky to attend the second block of recording for this episode at Pinewood Studios; it was great to see the cast bringing our favourite smeg-heads to life!