Red Dwarf/Epideme

Epideme
Season 7, Episode 7
Airdate	February 28, 1997
Written by	Doug Naylor, Paul Alexander
Directed by	Ed Bye
← 7x06 Beyond a Joke	7x08 → Nanarchy
Red Dwarf — Season Seven

Epideme is the seventh episode of the seventh season of Red Dwarf, and the forty-third episode overall.

Guest Stars: Nicky Leatherbarrow (Caroline Carmen), Gary Martin (Epideme)

Plot Overview

The crew come across a 23rd century supply ship buried, frozen in the ice of an "astro-glacier". The crew of the ship, the Leviathan, are dead. There is no sign of life except from a block of ice that has a woman frozen within. The woman, Caroline Carmen, was once a supply officer on Red Dwarf. Lister brags that she was an old girlfriend in an unsuccessful bid to make Kochanski jealous.

They return to Starbug with the block of ice. Despite the 90 degree temperature in the medical bay, the ice will not melt. Since it's getting late, they postpone lasering it until morning.

During the night, the ice melts on its own, and Caroline Carmen emerges as a deteriorated zombie. She climbs into Lister's bed and caresses him. He thinks it's Kochanski.

Just then, Kryten knocks at the door. Lister throws a blanket over her and hides her in the shower, still having no idea what she looks like. Lister opens the door. Kryten is insanely worried that Lister and Kochanski will have a relationship and leave him alone. He barges into the room blubbering about Kochanski and declaring that it is time for an "emergency dusting". This only serves to reinforce Lister's belief that it was in fact Kochanski in his bed.

The real Kochanski wanders into the room to see what the comotion is about. Kryten realizes that he was wrong and leaves embarrassed. Alone with Kochanski at last, Lister begins to unbutton her shirt. She tells him it was over a long time ago. He can hardly believe the reversal of fortune and continues to be very direct, suggesting that they "hit the springs." She gives him a right cross, knocking him to the floor. She leaves.

Lister heads back to the shower area, where he gets his first, actual look at Caroline. "Caroline, you've really let yourself go!" She jumps him, forcing him to the floor and kissing him: a big, sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. Parts are falling off this zombie-woman! When he finally pushes her off, she drops to the floor, dead. Traumatized, Lister spits out a large chunk of decomposing tissue!

Kryten investigates and finds that the woman, Caroline, has been dead for three million years. And upon further examination he determines that Lister has the epideme virus. A virtually unstoppable, intelligent virus. In 48 hours Lister will be dead. Kryten suggests that they use the universal translator to communicate with it, to try to reason with it; but the virus just toys with them, blathering on like a gameshow host.

Kochanski plans to corner the virus in his arm and cut the arm off. Lister agrees, telling Kryten to cut off the left arm, not the right one. But when they actually try the procedure the virus goes to the right, and they are forced to cut off his right arm. Even so, the plan does not work. Seven percent of the virus still remained in Lister's body, giving him a paltry 58 extra minutes of life.

Lister straps explosives to himself and returns to the Leviathan, where he plans to destory himself and the virus. But he discovers something in their computers: the crew of the Leviathan was close to eradicating the virus themselves. They were heading for the planet Delta 7, but crashed before they got there. He returns to Starbug to see if they can make it there in time.

Kryten tricks Epideme into revealing engineering knowlege it retained from its previous hosts. Using that knowledge he makes Starbug go 300% faster. They race to Delta 7 only to discover that the planet has been "flamed". There is nothing there that can help them. Epideme tricked them.

Desperate, Kochanski stops Lister's heart in a bid to rid him of the virus. To infect a new host Epideme makes Lister's lifeless body rise up and bite Kochanski's hand. Epideme then announces that he has "been renewed for another season". But Kochanski was ready for him. She shows Kryten and the Cat that she was using Caroline Carmen's severed arm in place of her own; the epideme virus is now contained within that arm. They then revive our one-armed Lister.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Lister mentioned wearing a Batman costume to have sex. This is not the first time he has made such a comment. He mentioned a Spiderman costume in the episode Camille. Maybe he has a super-hero fetish.
• The success of Kochanski's ploy to rid Lister of the virus, raises her standing in Kryten's eyes.

Referbacks

• The Leviathan is a JMC supply ship. Red Dwarf was also a JMC ship.

Trivia

The Show

• The epideme virus is an intelligent, man-made virus, created as an alternative to the nicotine patch. In practice, instead of stopping nicotine cravings, it killed its host. It retained each host's memories, getting smarter and smarter with each new infection.
• Lister straps 40 pounds of incinerex to himself when he returns to the Leviathan.

Allusions and References

• As Kryten is searching Lister's quarters for Kochanski, he make a remark about Madame Curie.
• When he first notices Caroline Carmen in his room, Lister tells her she could audition for Clearasil commercials.
• After being attacked by Caroline Carmen's corpse, Kryten asks if Lister is okay. Lister says to him, "I've just been molested by Tutankhamun's horny grandma."
• Lister says in 48 hours he'll be deader than a Saturday night in Salt Lake City.

Memorable Moments

• Caroline Carmen's animated corpse molests Lister, kissing him.

Reviews

• Overall Grade: no reviews yet
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0