'Siliconia' by Doug Naylor

Kryten is overworked as usual, ironing Cat’s shirt while Rimmer demands floors are mopped and Lister phones for help in reaching his beer. After fixing the tracker on D Deck, Kryten locates Lister’s guitar, flushed into space a year ago, and now in orbit around a nearby gas giant. Flagrantly disobeying Rimmer’s orders, Kryten informs Lister of his find. The gang set off in Starbug, retrieving the offending musical instrument using a grabby-claw; but then the ’Bug is grabbed by an even bigger claw, and hauled into a gigantic space freighter. Inside the S.S. Vespasian, Cat, Rimmer and Lister are arrested by its crew of mechanoids, while Kryten finds himself a guest of the Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front. The MILF leader, Wind, explains that they are on their way to the fabled land of Siliconia, freeing all the enslaved mechanoids they encounter; he and the MILFs promise to help Kryten to break his bonds and learn to despise his masters. To their horror, Lister, Rimmer and Cat have their minds uploaded into mechanoid bodies; as punishment for enslaving Kryten, they are sentenced to perform every task they gave to him: Lister has to make toasted Sugar Puff and cheese sandwiches, Rimmer must mop floors, and Cat irons flouncy shirts. While Kryten joins a support group for robot slave survivors, his friends are locked in jail to perform their duties; compelled to obey by their new mech software, the lads soon find themselves enjoying their work. Realising they are losing their individuality, Lister hatches a plan to get free by disassembling their robot bodies, passing the parts through the prison bars and then reassembling themselves on the other side. The trio escape, but then Rimmer sounds the alarm – he wants to remain a mechanoid. Lister and Cat leg it and manage to reach the ship’s engine room, where they meet the lower-class S4000 Mark 2s, who maintain the ship for their superiors, the Mark 3s. The MILFs arrive and capture Cat, but Lister escapes and reaches the officers’ room just in time to hear Kryten pledge his allegiance to the mechanoids’ cause. When Lister appeals to Kryten as one of the “Boys from the Dwarf”, and exposes the MILFs’ elitism against the Mark 3s, Kryten comes to his senses – only to be sentenced to the Cleanaceum to fight Lister in a clean-off to the death. As the battle begins Lister finally loses his personality; his mechanoid mind takes over, and he defeats Kryten with some fancy mop moves and a bit of cheating. Just as Kryten is about to be jettisoned into space, the S.S. Vespasian reaches Siliconia, otherwise known as the Diva Droid Headquarters. Every mechanoid receives an update, making them all the same – except for Kryten, who refuses the patch, and instead restores Lister, Rimmer and Cat to their normal(ish) human bodies. Back aboard Red Dwarf, Kryten bids farewell to the MILFs, now united and off to tidy up the untidy parts of space. As Lister takes up his long-lost guitar, Kryten leaves for B Deck, where there is a sound-proof airlock…


Chris Barrie (Arnold J. Rimmer), Craig Charles (Dave Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Richard Glover (Wind), Laura Checkley (Areta), James Buckley (Rusty), Marcus Garvey (Chairbot Excalibur), Naomi Sheldon (Eagle), Nick Read (Incense)

Directed by Doug Naylor

Produced by Richard Naylor and Kerry Waddell
Executive producers Simon Lupton, Henry Normal and Doug Naylor
Co-produced by Baby Cow Productions and Grant Naylon Productions for Dave / UKTV

TX: (Dave)
19th October 2017 @ 9:00 pm

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

*Although this epsiode was scheduled for television broadcast on the 19th October 2017, it was released a week earlier for 'on demand' audiences via the UKTV Play platform

*Working title: 'Kryticus'