'Rimmerworld' Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

1 Model.

Starbug flies past.


2 Int. Starbug Medical Lab.

KRYTEN is pressing buttons on a control panel, while RIMMER lies on a bench.

KRYTEN:
(Moving to the end of the bench) Well, that's finished the tests sir. We just have to wait while the Navicomp processes the results. Unfortunately I have had to allow for the fact that you cheated at your eye tests.

RIMMER:
(Sitting up) What do you mean, cheated?

KRYTEN:
There's no point in lying sir. You crept in here last night, knowing you were going to have a medical, and you copied the eye charts onto your shoes.

RIMMER:
I admit I might have taken a peek, but I'm a competitive man

KRYTEN:
, always have been. That's what makes me what I am.

KRYTEN:
We're all perfectly well aware of what you are sir. Oh, the results. (Moves over to the panel, and returns with a small piece of card)

RIMMER:
(Standing) Ah, everything tickedyboo?

KRYTEN:
Would you like to take a seat for a moment sir?

RIMMER:
(Sitting on the bench) Problem?

KRYTEN:
You don't have any next of kin, do you sir?

RIMMER:
No, they all died of heart attacks. And not just heart attacks - aneurysms, strokes, brain clots, you name it.

KRYTEN:
Are you of the school that, when faced with bad news, prefers to hear that news naked and unvarnished, or are you of the ilk that prefers to live in happy and blissful ignorance of the nightmare you're facing.

RIMMER:
Ignorance, every time.

KRYTEN:
(Very cheerily) Congratulations sir! You've come storming through your medical with flying colours. See you next time.

RIMMER:
Everything's OK then?

KRYTEN:
Absolutely peachy.

RIMMER:
I want to know, Kryten, if there's something wrong.

KRYTEN:
If there were something wrong, sir, I would tell you.

RIMMER:
Even if I'd asked you not to?

KRYTEN:
Well no. In that case I would lie and tell you everything was absolutely peachy.

RIMMER:
Kryten, I want to know, that's why I asked for a medical. Is there bad news?

KRYTEN:
‘Lie mode’ cancel. Yes sir, I'm afraid there is.

RIMMER:
(Half sitting up, clutching chest) I knew it. It's the headaches isn't it. And the heart palpitations and the blackouts and the chest pains and the voices. It's something to do with that isn't it?

KRYTEN:
Sir, when you died you were recreated as a hologram and your exact personality was refined to an algorithm and duplicated electronically. If that algorithm contained a flaw, that flaw would be duplicated also.

RIMMER:
Flaw?

KRYTEN:
It's not common, but it's possible for a hologram to die.

RIMMER:
Kryten, kindly get to the point before I jam your nose between your cheeks and make it the filling of a buttock sandwich.

KRYTEN:
As a result of both genetics and environment you are particularly prone to stress-related nervous disorders, and your activities over the past couple of years have pushed your brain to, well frankly beyond breaking point. (RIMMER starts breathing heavily, and moves over to what looks like a deep sleep booth) Your T count, which is the hologrammatic equivalent of blood pressure, is higher than a hippie on the third day of an open air festival, and if you wish to avoid a gigantic electronic aneurysm, it is imperative that you start on a program of relaxation.

RIMMER:
I see, and you thought that the best way for me to start this program of relaxation was to tell me my brains are about to explode. You've got the bedside manner of an abattoir giblet gutter.

KRYTEN:
Here's what I suggest. Try and avoid all stressful situations. Spend more time in your hard light form and take a little exercise. And here (moving over to a cupboard), try these Chinese worry balls whenever you feel anxious or tense. (RIMMER looks at the balls suspiciously)

LISTER:
(Entering) Hey, maybe some good news. Come and check it out. (Leaves)

RIMMER:
Er, Kryten, I don't want the others to know about this. I want you to behave as if everything's absolutely normal.

KRYTEN:
As you wish sir.


3 Model.

Starbug approaching Simulant ship.


4 Int. Starbug Cockpit

LISTER:
There she blows.

CAT:
Logging onto the ident computer.

RIMMER:
(Entering, standing by LISTER's chair) What's this?

LISTER:
We've come across the simulant ship we totalled a couple of weeks back. We're gonna try and board it for supplies.

KRYTEN:
Is that wise sir? The scan says the superstructure is highly unstable and could go at any time.

RIMMER:
What if some of the simulants have survived?

CAT:
There's an old Cat saying: "If you're gonna eat tuna, expect bones".

RIMMER:
(Back in his own seat) There's an old human saying: "If you're gonna talk garbage, expect pain".

LISTER:
Look, we'll take our chances man, OK?

RIMMER:
No K. They're cybernetically deranged mechanical killing machines. Not content with blasting their ship out of the sky, you now want to go back and steal what remains of their belongings? That's the metaphorical equivalent of flopping your wedding tackle into a lion's mouth and flicking his love spuds with a wet towel. Total insanity.

LISTER:
Look, ever since that refrigeration unit packed in we've had to live off a few pathetic handfuls of moss and fungi scraped off passing asteroids. I can't stand it any more.

KRYTEN:
Well sir, are you really saying you'd rather have a psychopathic mechanical killer rip off your skull and play your frontal nodes like a xylophone than have another bowl of my nourishing space nettle soup?

CAT:
Buddy, I'd hand him the sticks and hold up the sheet music.

RIMMER:
Lister, they are simulants. Why on Io should they have food supplies?

LISTER:
Because the ident computer says they do. Look, stocked to the gills.

KRYTEN:
(To RIMMER) It's true sir. Rogue simulants always carry large stocks of food supplies in order to prolong the torment of their torture victims. In some cases, they've kept subjects alive for over forty years in a state of perpetual agony.

RIMMER:
If we wanted to live in a state of perpetual agony, we'd let

LISTER:
play his guitar. We don't. I say drive on.

LISTER:
Kryten, what's for dinner?

KRYTEN:
Tonight sir, asteroidal lichen stew followed by dandelion sorbet.

LISTER:
We're going in.


5 Model.

Starbug docking with Simulant ship.


6 Int. Mid section.

KRYTEN:
(To LISTER) Sir, can't you see your behaviour is totally irrational?

RIMMER:
In which case we can remove him from duty as per Space Corps Directive 196156.

KRYTEN:
196156? Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bicycle in the women's gym will be discharged without trial? Hmm, I'm sorry sir, that doesn't quite get to the nub of the matter for me. (To LISTER) Sir, we have enough thistles and weeds and cultured fungus for you to scrum yourself stupid until the day you die. This foolhardy trip beggars logic.

RIMMER:
Lister, we'd be fools not to listen to him. When is he ever wrong? All right, he may have a head shaped like an inexplicably popular fishing float but he does operate from a position of total logic and we'd be fools to ignore his sage council.

KRYTEN:
At least let me and Mister Rimmer go in your place. We are after all merely electronic life forms and therefore expendable.

RIMMER:
And what the smeg would you know, bog-bot from hell?

LISTER:
There's something else. I didn't want to say in front of the Cat. (Quick shot of CAT) The reserve fuel tank got punctured when we crashed into that ocean moon. If we don't re-supply, we're out of power, two, three days.

KRYTEN:
(Checking a panel) But what about the readouts?

LISTER:
I rigged the readouts. I didn't want to cause any alarm.

RIMMER:
You rigged the readouts! You didn't want to cause any a.. (hyperventilates, and recovers as he grinds the worry balls) I can't breathe, I'm hyperventilating.

KRYTEN:
Please sir, don't panic.

RIMMER:
It's not panic, it's a full-blown hysterical fit!

KRYTEN:
Grind those balls sir! Grind them!

RIMMER:
(Grinding) So let me get this straight. If we board that ship and get captured, we're finished. However if we board that ship and don't get captured, but the superstructure disintegrates around us, we're finished. On the other hand, if we board that ship and don't get captured and the superstructure doesn't disintegrate around us, but we can't find any fuel, we are in fact finished.

LISTER:
That's about the shape of it, yeah.

KRYTEN:
After you with the balls sir.

LISTER:
Look, we're out of options. We've got less choice than a Welsh fish and chip shop. We've got to board that ship, even if it is on the brink of disintegration. Let's just pray the crew are rotting in Silicon Hell with all the photocopiers.

RIMMER:
Look, you three go. I'm not leaving Starbug.

LISTER:
Fine, that's fair enough. Unless of course something weird and hideously ironic happens, like while we were away you get boarded by a rampaging torture party of crazed simulants in the rapid grip of bloodlust fever.

RIMMER:
I'll go and pack. (Moves to the staircase)

LISTER:
Bring your extra brown rubber safety pants. (RIMMER climbs the staircase) And your hard light remote belt, we need all the hands we can muster.


7 Model.

Simulant ship


8 Int. Corridor of Simulant ship.

KRYTEN:
Lifesigns.

CAT:
If one of those suckers bumps into me, he'll be lunching on laser, (Arms bazookoid) Last time we met I was wearing the same outfit, and no-one's gonna survive to tell that story.

LISTER:
Listen guys, I suppose now's as good as time as any to tell you.

RIMMER:
Tell us what?

LISTER:
We can't actually use the bazookoids. They're for psychological reasons only. Look, the scan said that the superstructure is so unstable that even a load noise could start a shipquake. That's why I skipped chillies for breakfast. (Reacting to the others' stares) Why are you all looking at me like that?

CAT:
Like what?

LISTER:
Like I'm a nostril hair in a Spanish omelette.

RIMMER:
Why didn't you tell us?

LISTER:
Didn't wanna cause any panic.

RIMMER:
You didn't want to cause any p.. (Hyperventilates, then slowly recovers as he grinds the balls) Let me get this clear in my head. If we meet one of these totally deranged killing machines, we have to engage them in combat silently? What do we do, whisper "charge", tippytoe up to them all screaming "shhh" and chloroform them with Lister's armpits? Priceless.


9 Int. Another corridor.

LISTER, KRYTEN, CAT and RIMMER creep along.

LISTER:
(Spotting) A teleporter.

KRYTEN:
(Checking the controls) Hmmm, fully functional.

CAT:
Let's grab what we can and load up.

RIMMER:
Quietly.

LISTER and CAT load the teleporter, and a variety of crates materialising in Starbug's mid-section. They drop a crate. Worried faces as the noise echoes throughout the ship.

KRYTEN:
It's not gonna hold much longer sir, we'd better make this the last batch.

LISTER:
One more trip Kryten, let me get one more crate of that red hot West Indian red pepper sauce.

In the background, the FEMALE SIMULANT lurches through a doorway, causing more rumbling from the ship's hull. She doesn't appear to be in very good shape.

KRYTEN:
Shhhhh.

SIMULANT:
(Pointing her weapon at the crew) Well, if it isn't my old friends, the human vermin, the scab of slime, the pus-sucking, puke-laden walking cesspits of unspeakableness.

CAT:
She remembers us

SIMULANT:
Annihilated my ship, slaughtered by fellow simulants, and you practically destroyed me. Yes, I remember you.

CAT:
(Pointing at the SIMULANT) There's one thing you should know. Last time we met I was wearing a cute little black number with peach trim and gold spangles, and although it looks like I'm wearing the same outfit today, it is in fact an entirely different cute little black number with completely different gold spangles.

KRYTEN:
That was an important speech sir, and it needed to be made, but might I suggest that from this moment the rest of the discourse is conducted by those with brains larger than a grape.

CAT:
(To LISTER) Take it away, bud.

LISTER:
OK, let's knock on the door and ask for Ronnie Real. This is a classic stalemate situation. You can't use your weapons and neither can we. Let's chalk this one down to experience and we'll be on our merry way, yeah? Actually, as far as psychotic deranged ruthless killer simulants go, you're a bit of a babe. What are you doing tonight?

SIMULANT:
Dying (Shoots ceiling. More rumbling from the ship). Care to join me?

Behind the SIMULANT, RIMMER can be seen. He has spotted an escape pod, and is trying to sneak into it. LISTER's words are aimed at RIMMER, not the SIMULANT, who does not realise this. His words become more desperate as the conversation continues.

LISTER:
Hey come on, let's just talk, OK? We didn't start any of this, and I think that maybe NOW is a good time to sit down and parlez. (He is starting to get annoyed) Let's not hang around, just get on with it.

SIMULANT:
There is nothing to discuss. In sixty seconds you'll be dead.

LISTER:
You can't be serious.

SIMULANT:
I'm totally serious.

LISTER:
I don't believe you're being serious.

SIMULANT:
I do not understand why you're having such problems grasping this concept. I'm a totally ruthless amoral killing machine so why, in the name of all that's putrid, don't you believe I'm serious.

LISTER:
I'm going to say this one more time. You've still got a chance to change your mind. Think about it, everything we've been through, does none of that mean anything to you?

RIMMER:
launches the escape pod. The corridor collapses onto the SIMULANT.

LISTER:
Cheers

RIMMER:
! He's started a shipquake!

KRYTEN:
The superstructures disintegrating!

CAT:
The teleporter! (They all step onto the teleporter platform)

KRYTEN:
I must warn you sir, the teleporter's not calibrated for human tissue. There's a twenty percent chance you'll be turned inside out when you materialise.

CAT:
Let me check my lining. Innards and lavender, I can carry that off.

They dematerialise.


10 Int. Mid section.

As LISTER, KRYTEN and CAT materialise, we see the PAST CREW seated around a table.

CAT:
What's this?

KRYTEN:
Don't you remember sir? This is a week last Thursday. In the panic I must have made a programming error.

PAST KRYTEN:
(Standing) For goodness sake Kryten! Don't you know how rude it is to burst in on an earlier version of yourself without warning? You've made our day totally surreal now. I'm very cross!

KRYTEN:
Pardon my paradox. It's just that the simulant ship you're about to encounter.

PAST KRYTEN:
(Interrupting) We don't know what we're about to encounter. Don't compound your temporal faux pas by telling us our future.

PAST RIMMER:
Where's the rangy, handsome one?

LISTER:
What, you? You scarpered in that escape pod, you slimy, triple-faced, backstabbing Judas.

PAST RIMMER:
Ah, I'm safe then? Thank God for that.

PAST KRYTEN:
(To PAST RIMMER) Don't talk to them! (To KRYTEN) You see what you've done now! Just get back to your own damn time line!

KRYTEN:
Here we go then.

PAST LISTER:
Well, be you later. LISTER, KRYTEN and CAT dematerialise.


11 Int. Starbug mid section.

LISTER:
Let's get out of the landing bay. It's gonna blow!


12 Model.

Starbug takes off from the Simulant ship, which then explodes.


13 Int. Cockpit.

CAT:
All in all, a hundred percent successful trip.

KRYTEN:
Sir, we lost Mister Rimmer!

CAT:
All in all, a hundred percent successful trip.

LISTER:
Can't believe he did that, not even RIMMER.

KRYTEN:
Sir, I didn't get the opportunity to tell you before, but earlier today I discovered that Mister Rimmer is suffering from a stress-related nervous disorder.

LISTER:
Next time I see him he'll be suffering from a fist-related teeth disorder.


14 Model.

Escape pod disappearing into the distance.


15 Int. Cockpit.

CAT:
Incoming message.

RIMMER:
appears on a monitor, looking rather pleased with himself.

RIMMER:
My escape plan worked then?

CAT:
What escape plan?

RIMMER:
The valiant plan whereby I set off the disintegration of the ship's hull by bravely leaping into the escape pod thereby creating a diversion, so you could (pauses) Actually, how did you escape?

KRYTEN:
Well, the teleporter.

RIMMER:
That wasn't the only way, but as good as any I suppose. Still, I'm sure no-one's forgetting the sheer manliness and stiff-upper-lippedness of the diversionary part of the plan and to hasten with all speed the recovery of the modest hero of the hour.

LISTER:
Actually, Flash, that might be a bit of a problem.

RIMMER:
What do you mean?

LISTER:
You're accelerating away from us - way above our top speed.

KRYTEN:
I've logged into your ident computer sir. Rogue simulants looted the pod from a colonisation seeding ship constructed in the twenty-fifth Century. There are no controls as such, it is programmed to take you to the nearest planet with an S-Three atmosphere.

RIMMER:
How long is it going to take to get me back?

KRYTEN:
(Checking a scanner) Ah well, let's see shall we, checking the local area. Er, no, nothing there. Going to mid-range. Er, still nothing. Going to long range ... long, long range ... long, long, long range. Ah, here we have it, just computing.

RIMMER:
Well? How long?

KRYTEN:
Have you still got those Chinese worry balls sir?

RIMMER:
Yes.

KRYTEN:
Well start grinding them like you've never ground before.

RIMMER:
How long?

LISTER:
Let me tell him Kryten.

RIMMER:
How long?

LISTER:
(Smiling) A year and a half.

RIMMER:
That's ridiculous! You've got to find a way of getting me back.

KRYTEN:
Well we could try to bring you down with a round from a laser cannon, sir.

CAT:
Form an orderly queue behind the gun-sight.

RIMMER:
Another way!

KRYTEN:
Sir, there are no other options.

CAT:
(Spotting something on a scanner) Wait! Something's happening! Course change!

LISTER:
(Checking his own screens) Check. Your guidance system's found a nearer S-Three planet. It's taking you through that wormhole at 4953712.

KRYTEN:
Ah, that's a lot better. You should make planetfall in four days.

RIMMER:
Isn't there some kind of a time dilation problem when you go through a wormhole?

KRYTEN:
Well, yes there is. Since you're travelling through a compressed space, time will move more swiftly for the object passing though the wormhole. One minute on this side of the wormhole will represent many years on the other.

RIMMER:
So, is that good?

KRYTEN:
Balls on standby sir.

RIMMER:
More than a year and a half?

KRYTEN:
Er, yes sir, a little more.

RIMMER:
How much more?

KRYTEN:
Well, let's not beat around a bush, a lot more.

RIMMER:
Kryten, that's still beating around the bush. Just tell me.

KRYTEN:
Well, remember that medieval war sir, that lasted quite a long time.

RIMMER:
The Thirty Years War?

KRYTEN:
No, not that war sir, the other one.

RIMMER:
The Hundred Years War?

KRYTEN:
Now take that figure, and multiply it by six, and then you'll come up with your golden number sir.

RIMMER:
Six hundred years!

CAT:
(Disbelief) Pinch me!

LISTER:
We're losing contact, any minute.

RIMMER:
Six hundred years with just myself as company, I'll go raving mad!

CAT:
There's and old Cat saying, but you don't want to hear it right now.

LISTER:
On the upside, according to your inventory the pod's stocked with solar accelerators. That should keep your hard-light drive going as long as you need.

KRYTEN:
And as the pod was looted from a seeding ship, there may even be emergency terraforming equipment on board, possibly even with a genetic capability.

RIMMER:
But I'll never survive, I'm not the Robinson Crusoe type. I'm lousy at woodwork, I'm no good in the wild. Do you know, when I was at school it took me five terms to make a tent peg? How long's it going to take me to build a two-storey home with running water and a balcony stroke sun patio? Six hundred years! I won't even have finished planing the wood!

LISTER:
Losing contact, any second. See you in eight lifetimes.

KRYTEN:
One last word sir, remember your condition. Whatever happens, try and avoid stressful situations. Whatever befalls you, try and greet it with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.

RIMMER:
You are a total, total, complete and utter, total, total, complete and utter total... (fades out)


16 Model.

Pod entering wormhole.


17 Int. Cockpit

KRYTEN:
Well, he's gone.

LISTER:
So, what do we do now?

CAT:
Nothing we can do, I know for a fact there's no champagne. (smiles)

KRYTEN:
On our side of this time dilation phenomena it will appear as if Mister Rimmer has gone for just a few hours, but from Mister Rimmers's point of view, he will have to wait six entire centuries for us to reach him.

LISTER:
To hell with the champagne, we can celebrate with urine resyc.


18 Model.

Pod in atmosphere. This is followed by a montage of images with a voice-over by Rimmer.

RIMMER(V.O.):
This is the personal log of Space Corps hard-light hologram Arnold J. Rimmer. Day 1: After landing, I ventured forth to explore the place I would be calling home for the next two thirds of a millennium. A desert planet, the only life forms the most basic single-celled protozoa, and me. Relationships would be difficult, but not impossible. I repaired to the pod, to appraise the supply situation. The pod had indeed been looted from a seeding ship. Among the supplies I found two strange devices, labelled "Eco-Accelerator Rockets". I held out little hope that they might improve my lot, but launched them anyway. For six days and nights the entire planet was wracked with storms, the like of which I had never witnessed before or since. Then, just as suddenly, they stopped. In just six days I had created my own world, lush and verdant. I had created ‘Rimmerworld’. I was Adam, in my own Eden, and only one thing was missing, my own Jane. As I studied the pod's textbooks, my excitement grew. It seemed entirely possible for me to create a fully-grown female clone, using my own DNA as a template. This of course created the most enormous moral dilemma. Technically, she would be my sister, and therefore unable to take me as her lover. After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided, "What the hell", I just wouldn't tell her. After months of careful nurture, the cocoon cracked. Something had gone hideously wrong - the clone was just an identical copy of me. I went back to the manuals, and tried again...


19 Model.

Starbug entering wormhole.


20 Int. Starbug cockpit.

LISTER:
There she blows, an S-Three planet.

CAT:
Navicomp locked. Entering atmosphere.


21 Model.

Starbug in atmosphere.


22 Int. Cockpit.

LISTER:
Got something. Try quadrant four-niner-seven-two. According to the scan, there's life-signs.

KRYTEN:
Confirmed. Thousands of them. Either Mister Rimmer had the incredible good fortune to land on a populated planet, or...

CAT:
Or what?

KRYTEN:
It's too hideous to contemplate.

CAT:
Preparing to land.


23 Ext. Woodland on ‘Rimmerworld’.

LISTER, CAT and KRYTEN walk through the woodland.

CAT:
Wait, nasal alert!

LISTER:
What, are you getting something?

CAT:
I sure am. My nasal hairs are quivering like an opera singer's bosom on the high notes.

RIMMER GUARD 1:
Halt, abomination!

LISTER:
Rimmer?

RIMMER GUARD 2:
Silence, travesty.

LISTER:
Rimmer??

RIMMER GUARD 3:
Never have I seen such a hideously formed and un-naturally freakish deviant.

LISTER:
Rimmer???

RIMMER GUARD 4:
Silence mutant! How dare you stand there and address a norm using that face. It's a revolting insult against nature.

LISTER:
This might sound like a bit of a corny line, but (pauses) can't even bring myself to say it.

RIMMER GUARD:
Say what?

LISTER:
Take us to your CHIEF.

KRYTEN:
Oh sir, how could you!

RIMMER GUARD 4:
Let the great one judge them. (The GUARDS escort the crew away)


24 Int. Throne room.

The RIMMER EMPEROR is seated upon a throne, with concubines at his feet. The back of the throne consists of a large 'H' sculpted out of a circular piece of stone. LISTER, CAT and KRYTEN are guarded by RIMMER GUARDS.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
Who disturbs our royal snooze?

LISTER:
Rimmer? It's us.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
Dear lord, what created such foulness. Is it the product of a marriage twixt woman and gerbil?

LISTER:
Do you remember? Six hundred years ago? We used to be your ship mates, we've come to save you.

RIMMER GUARD:
We found them in the woods, your flared- nostrilness, and have brought them here to be tried as travesties.

CAT:
(Whispering to LISTER) That ain't goalpost-head, he doesn't smell right.

KRYTEN:
(Also in a whisper to LISTER) Agreed, he scans as organic, not hologram. the 'H' is an affectation. Possibly it has become a symbol of power.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
These deformed monsters are no sight for my concubines. My treasures of pulchritude, run along. (He gestures to one) Avert your eyes from her great beauty. (Uncovers her face, which turns out to also be that of RIMMEER, and kisses her. She covers herself, and he clears his throat. We see a GUARD uncovering his face) Let the trial begin, before my Jacuzzi water grows tepid.

RIMMER GUARD:
These three abominations stand charged on eight counts of gross deviancy. Not content with not looking like the true image, they flaunt freakish behaviour such as charm, bravery, compassion and (pauses) honour.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
Are there no sighs of normalcy in these wretches? No cowardice or pomposity, no snideyness or smarm, not even basic honest-to-goodness double-dealing two-facedness?

RIMMER GUARD:
Sire, these creatures did not even attempt to sell each other out for their own freedom - they lack even the most basic natural drives.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
How do you plead?

KRYTEN:
Er sir, we wish to speak to the hologram known as Rimmer.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
(Arrogantly) I am he!

KRYTEN:
Not so, we are seeking the creator of your race, the father of your people, the first true Rimmer, the template for your species.

RIMMER EMPEROR:
Enough of this heresy. At the stroke of dawn take them out and kill them. And when you've killed them, burn the bodies, then bring me the cold ashes on a silver plate, with a glass of chilled Sancerre.

CAT:
(To LISTER) This guy's an animal. Doesn't he know it's red wine with cold ashes? (The GUARD escorts them away, pushing

CAT:
in the process).


25 Int. Dungeon.

LISTER, CAT and KRYTEN see a figure huddled in the corner under a blanket. He is grinding extremely small worry balls with his fingers.

LISTER:
Rimmer?

CAT:
Smell checks out. That truly is old toilet-brush hair himself.

RIMMER:
Of course, I remember. (Pointing at each of them in turn) Custer! Derek Custer! Kit! Titan!

CAT:
What's happened to him bud?

KRYTEN:
How long have you been in here sir, in this godforsaken pit from hell. (RIMMER points at the wall, where he's been marking the days) Speed count mode. (Scans the wall) Five hundred and fifty seven years?

LISTER:
What! You've been stuck in this cell all this time?

CAT:
What happened?

RIMMER:
Can you imagine a society composed entirely of me?

CAT:
I'm trying not to. The last time I did that it took a week to dry the mattress.

RIMMER:
Thousands upon thousands of back-stabbing treacherous hypocritical cowardly slime-mongering Judases. They overthrew me. When they found out they couldn't damage my hard light drive, they locked me in here so I could never threaten their insane lust for power.

CAT:
Look bud, I can understand them locking you up, but what have they got against me, Derek and Titan?

RIMMER:
Anyone who deviates from the template is reviled. The smallest physical flaw and they're banished from society, and anyone who displays behaviour deemed out of character or un-Rimmerlike is punished by death.

LISTER:
Is that why no-one on the planet is brave, sexy, noble or charming?

RIMMER:
All crimes here.

CAT:
Man. I must be Public Enemy numbers one, two and three.

KRYTEN:
But sir, don't they realise the only way any society can evolve is through mutations in the gene pool. When there is no richness or variety, congenital disorders and inherited lunacy are commonplace. Who can forget the famously insane European monarchies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

RIMMER:
Oh what have I created?

KRYTEN:
Your very own personal hell.

CAT:
Well, fun though its been hearing about your last five hundred years of total misery, shouldn't we be making skedaddle plans? I for one could not bear the prospect of being burned alive. Flames and peach! Ooh, I'd rather die.

LISTER:
Have you tried escaping Rimmer?

RIMMER:
The whole planet is populated with back-stabbing slimeballs. The minute I got out, I'd be sold back immediately.

LISTER:
(Moving to the cell window) There's got to be a way out. There hasn't been a prison built that could hold Derek Custer. Why don't we scrape away this mortar here, slide one of these bricks out, then using a rope weaved from strands of this hessian, rip up a kind of a pulley system so that when a guard comes in, using it as a trip wire, gets laid out, and we put Rimmer in the guard's uniform, he leads us out, we steal some swords, and fight our way back to the 'Bug.

KRYTEN:
Or we could use the teleporter.

LISTER:
Or, at a pinch, we could use the teleporter.

They dematerialise.


26 Int. Starbug mid section.

As they materialise, we see the FUTURE CREW, bar the FUTURE LISTER, sitting at a table.

KRYTEN:
Oh, I've done it again. Two anomalies in one day, I must have accidentally tapped into the previous calibration.

RIMMER:
Sorry about that, it's just that we're escaping from ‘Rimmerworld’.

LISTER:
Don't tell them that, they don't want to know the future. Poor old Rimmer doesn't want to know he's going to get persecuted for six centuries by a load of his own clones.

CAT:
Careful bud, for a minute there I thought you were going to let slip that he spends the next five hundred and fifty seven years locked in a dungeon.

FUTURE RIMMER:
‘Rimmerworld?

LISTER:
I'm saying nothing man, don't want to spoil the surprise.

FUTURE RIMMER:
‘Rimmerworld’ was weeks ago. We're far more concerned at the moment about the quite hideous thing that's happened to Lister.

CAT:
He's right bud, where are you?

LISTER:
Yeah, where am I? I wanna know!

They dematerialise.


Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister),Danny John-Jules (Cat), Robert Llewellyn (Kryten), Liz Hickling (Rogue Simulant)

Produced by Justin Judd

Directed by Andy de Emmony

TX:
BBC2 - 4th November 1993

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