Red Dwarf/Gunmen of the Apocalypse

Gunmen of the Apocalypse
Season 6, Episode 3
Airdate	October 21, 1993
Written by	Rob Grant, Doug Naylor
Directed by	Andy DeEmmony
← 6x02 Legion	6x04 → Emohawk - Polymorph II
Red Dwarf — Season Six

Gunmen of the Apocalypse is the third episode of the sixth season of Red Dwarf, and the thirty-third episode overall.

Guest Stars: Jennifer Calvert (Loretta), Denis Lill (Simulant Captain/Death), Imogen Bain (Lola), Steve Devereaux (Jimmy), Robert Inch (War), Jeremy Peters (Pestilence), Dinny Powell (Famine), Stephen Marcus (Bear Strangler McGee), Liz Hickling (Simulant lieutenant)

Plot Overview

In black-and-white: a beautiful blonde is standing beside the road. A 1938 Bentley stops. A detective gets out and approaches her. It is Lister. After a short converstation about how many people she has killed, Lister begins kissing her.

Meanwhile outside the game, Kryten cannot get his attention. Lister is playing a game in the AR Suite (Artificial Reality Suite). We can see him standing alone, wearing an AR helmet and gloves, grinding his hips and kissing the air, tongue and all. He is unaware that Kryten has been trying to contact him. Kryten decides to take a different approach and enter the game as a player (Sammy the Squib).

In the game Kryten does not see Lister, but he does see the Bentley from earlier, except now it is bouncing up and down. He walks to the car and knocks on a rear window. Lister and the woman, Loretta, are inside. Kryten informs him that they have entered an area populated by rougue simulants. They need to rig for silent running, and that means the game has to be shut off. Reluctantly Lister quits the game. He claps his hands and the game ends -- you get out of an AR game by pressing a button in the palm of your AR gloves.

Starbug is finally in slient running mode with only the Cat's sixth sense of "smell" to warn them of danger. Rimmer starts with recriminations as to why it took so long to get silent running, "Everybody knows you only use the AR machine to have sex." Lister tries to deny it, but Rimmer brings up how he wore out the groinal attachment.

The Cat "smells" something: a Battle Class cruiser is on an intercept course. Rimmer wants to surrender, but simulants despise humans. If they find humans aboard they are finished, so Lister devises a ruse (see below) to fool the simulants. Unfortunately the simulants see through the ruse, teleport aboard, and render everyone unconscious.

When they wake up Starbug has been completely upgraded, in order to make good sport for the simulants. They even have laser cannons. They are given a two-minute head start, before the hunt begins. Cat recognizes that this is just a game of cat and mouse: "the mouse never wins, not unless you believe those lying cartons". So they immediately disable the battle cruiser in a surprise offensive.

Defeated, the simulants transmit the Armageddon virus to Starbug, where it infects its systems, locking them on a collision course with a large moon. They have only 38 minutes to change course.

Kryten volunteers to contract the virus so he can analyze it, and work on an antidote. The only way the others can help is to "watch his dreams."

In Kryten's dreams, he is the Sherrif of the Wild West town of Existence. He is doing quite poorly. The townsfolk mock him and taunt him. And if that wasn't bad enough, a band of outlaws, the Apocalyspe Brothers (Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine), give him one hour to get out of town.

The Cat suggests they should try to get inside his dreams and help. So they hook Kryten to the AR machine, and each of them becomes a charatcer (see trivia notes below) and enters his dreams.

Now inside his dreams, they go to the saloon and order drinks. Kryten comes in and sells his guns and his mule to buy a bottle of liquor. He doesn't recognize them. A patron, Johnny, uses a whip to snatch the bottle from Kryten, and taunts him with it.

Lister and the others stand up to Johnny, using their special skills to defeat him: Lister pins him to the wall with knives; the Cat shoots bullets out of the air when his friends join the fight; and Rimmer bravely fights Johnny's friends when they start fist fighting.

Kryten makes a run for it, trying to leave town. If he leaves Existence, it will be disasterous: the virus will have won. The Cat stops him just in time at the edge of town using his special skills (see below). They bring him back and try to sober him up by making him eat dry, ground coffee.

He begins to remember just as the Apocalypse Brothers return. Lister, Rimmer, and the Cat stand with Kryten against the outlaws. But seeing that Kryten has brought help, Death disables their special skills, making them helpless. They can't even exit the game -- clapping doesn't work. They have to pull off the AR helmets to get out.

But their efforts have bought Kryten enough time to create an antidote. He faces off with the Apocalypse Brothers and releases the cure, neutralizing them instantly. When Kryten wakes up, he cures Starbug's computers, and tries to veer away from the moon, but Starbug is too close. It crashes into a pool of molten lava, disappearing from view for a brief moment, before flying into the sunset.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• The rogue simulants upgrade Starbug so that the humans will make better sport. All systems are upgraded. They even have laser cannons now.

• About 23 minutes before they are due to hit the moon, Rimmer elects himself as the most deserving person to use the one-man escape pod. It doesn't matter though, the escape pod "escaped" last Thursday, when Lister used the mechanism as a bottle opener.

Trivia

The Show

• The game Lister plays (with Loretta in the back of the car) is "Gumshoe" by Interstella Action Games.
• The simulants keep them unconscious for three weeks, while they upgrade Starbug.
• When they enter Kryten's dreams using the AR Suite, they choose their characters from a game called "Streets of Laredo" by Interstella Action Games.
  • Cat becomes The Riviera Kid, ace gunslinger.
    • Preferred Weapon: Colt-45
    • Stamina 40, Charm 250, Intelligence 10
  • Rimmer becomes Dangerous Dan McGrew, barefist fighter.
    • Stamina 100, Charm 50, Intelligence 50
  • Lister becomes Brett Riverboat, expert knife thrower.
    • Stamina 100, Charm 100, Intelligence 100
• In his dreams Kryten's mule's name was Dignity.
• The music for the closing credits is a Western-themed rendition of the Red Dwarf theme song.

Behind the Scenes

In the Red Dwarf special The Red Dwarf A-Z Patrick Stewart tells about how he happened upon this episode. Not being familiar with the nature of Red Dwarf, the similarities between this episode and (presumably) the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode A Fistful of Datas nearly had him on the telephone to a lawyer. That was until it made him laugh.

Allusions and References

• When the simulants are defeated, they use the Armageddon virus.
• The four gunmen are clear analogues to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Memorable Moments

• Lister devises a ruse to fool the simulants into thinking they are non-human. When he begins broadcasting to the simulants all we see is his mouth, upside down and with an eyeball on his chin.

I am Tarka Dal an ambassador of the great Vindaloovian Empire.

When confronted with evidence of human life aboard Starbug, he responds:

Humans! The Vindaloovian people despise all humans. They are the vermin of the universe. Is that not right Bhindi Bhaji?

The view pans and we see that the Cat is also using the same "disguise".

• Sherrif Kryten is trying to leave the Western town of Existence. Leaving town will destroy him, so the Riviera Kid does a little dance, draws his guns, and confidently fires a single shot. The shot ricochets off a tin bath, across the street to a bell, where it ricochets again. The bullet ricochets again and again until it finally cuts one of the ropes holding up the town's sign. The sign swings downward knocking out Kryten.
• Later when they are trying to sober up Kryten (with ground coffee), he begins to remember who they are: for Lister he gets an image of curry; for Rimmer he only gets a name: "Smeeee Heeee." Rimmer asks Kryten hopefully, "Smeg Head?" And Kryten responds, "That's it!" Rimmer is thrilled, "He remembers me!"

Quotes

• In Kryten's dreams, the Cat, when confronted with a situation where he is needed, will stike a pose, and say with a faux Spanish/Mexican accent, "This looks like a job for ... the Riviera Kid."

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