Red Dwarf/Marooned

Marooned
Season 3, Episode 2
Airdate	November 21, 1989
Written by	Rob Grant, Doug Naylor
Directed by	Ed Bye
← 3x01 Backwards	3x03 → Polymorph
Red Dwarf — Season Three

Marooned is the second episode of the third season of Red Dwarf, and the fourteenth episode overall.

Guest Stars:

Plot Overview

Everyone must abandon ship while Holly navigates Red Dwarf around five black holes. They each take their most prized possessions, because Red Dwarf might not survive. The Cat takes his clothes and mirrors. Lister takes his guitar, and Rimmer takes a priceless, Jarvanese camphorwood chest filled with books, money (24,000), and replicas of 19th century French toy soldiers. Lister and Rimmer go in Starbug. The Cat and Kryten go in the Blue Midget.

A fireball strikes Starbug causing Lister and Rimmer to crash land in an icy wasteland. Rimmer, being a hologram, is impervious to the cold, but Lister must maintain a fire, or he will freeze to death. There is also a limited food supply, even with rationing.

Days go by. When everything else has been burned, Lister begins buring books to keep warm. When the books run out, Lister wants to burn Rimmer's camphorwood chest, but Rimmer will hear of no such thing. It is the only thing his father ever gave him. So they burn his money instead.

The money doesn't last long, and soon Lister is urging Rimmer to get hs priorities straight -- to let him burn the chest. Lister's life is at stake after all. Instead, Rimmer suggests that Lister burn his guitar. But Lister has had it since he was 16. It is an authentic Les Paul copy.

Lister eventually relents. He only asks that he be allowed to play one last song. When Lister begins to sing, Rimmer gives him a moment alone and takes a walk outside. With Rimmer gone, Lister quickly cuts a guitar-shaped section out of the back of Rimmer's camphorwood trunk and shoves it against the wall. Then he hides his guitar in a locker.

Upon his return, Rimmer is overwhelmed to see what appears to be a guitar in the fire. He knows that the guitar meant as much to Lister as his trunk means to him. So he shouts, "Burn the soldiers!"

As the toy soldiers burn, Rimmer hums Last Post for them. At about that moment, Cat and Kryten find them. Red Dwarf and Holly are okay. It turns out that the black holes were just grit on the scanner.

Arc Advancement

Characters

We learn alot about Rimmer in this episode:

• Rimmer is obsessed with war.
• He belives that in a past life that he was Alexander the Great's Chief Eunuch.
• When he tells how he lost his virginity (veracity questionable), he describes the car in more detail than the occasion itself.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Rimmer reasons that if May Day can be a distress call, then why not Shrove Tuesday, or some other holiday.

Memorable Moments

Lister is standing with his back to the cockpit, giving Rimmer some advice, when suddenly, Rimmer sees a fireball heading straight for the ship. He panics, and all he can do is look surprised and point. The fireball hits the ship seconds later, before Rimmer can bring himself to say or do anything!

After they are rescued, Rimmer is still overwhelmed that Lister burned his guitar, so he tells the others:

Something happened here Kryten. Something that made him and me closer. I saw a side of Dave Lister that I never, ever knew existed. He's not an irresponsible, selfish drifter always out for number one. He's a man. A Man of honor.

After hearing this, Lister is a bit ashamed of himself, but nonetheless he walks right in front of Rimmer and pulls his guitar from the locker where he hid it earlier. Rimmer knows he has been fooled, and orders Kryten to "Open the trunk", whereupon he sees a guitar-shaped hole in the back of his priceless, camphorwood chest.

Quotes

• Lister: Are you saying I've got a big bum?
  Rimmer: Big? It's like two badly parked Volkswagens.
• After being forced by hunger to eat canned dog food ...
  Lister: Now I can see why dogs lick their testicles.

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