Red Dwarf/White Hole

White Hole
Season 4, Episode 4
Airdate	March 7, 1991
Written by	Rob Grant, Doug Naylor
Directed by	Ed Bye
← 4x03 Justice	4x05 → Dimension Jump
Red Dwarf — Season Four

White Hole is the fourth episode of the fourth season of Red Dwarf, and the twenty-second episode overall.

Guest Stars: David Ross (Talkie Toaster)

Plot Overview

Kryten has reactivated Talkie Toaster, which was found in the waste disposal, smashed to pieces. Before the "accident", the toaster would ask incessantly, if Lister wanted toast or any other heated bread product. It never let up, and Lister was going nuts. So he saw to it that the toaster had an "accident".

Kryten wants the toaster so he can experiment with "intelligence compression" to see if he can raise its IQ. If they're successful, they might be able to restore Holly's IQ to 6000, and find a way back to Earth.

After Holly's IQ is boosted, she realizes that, because of the boost, her operational lifespan has been exponentially reduced. She has only minutes to live, so she shuts herself down, leaving Red Dwarf in inky black, silence. Kryten, Lister, and the Cat are trapped with 53 inoperative doors between them and the science lab.

In order make their way to the lab, they use Kryten as a battering ram. When they reach the lab, they try several times to reboot Holly, but as soon as her face appears, she shuts herself off again. They are going to have to survive without Holly or any kind of electricity at all.

Weeks later, Kryten and Rimmer encounter a stange time phenomenon on their way back from the cargo decks. It is a white hole. They briefly reboot Holly and ask her to formulate a plan. Her plan is essentially to play billiards with planets using a nuclear warhead to start things off. Lister thinks he can do better than Holly, and convinces the others to let him take the shot.

Lister prepares for the big shot by drinking several cans of wicked-strength lager, and ends up "nicely drunk". He takes the shot, and is amazingly successful -- the white hole is plugged.

After the white hole is plugged, the timeline they are on dissolves around them. They will have no memory of what happened in that timeline, so Kryten takes advantage of the situation to tell Rimmer what he really thinks of him.

Trivia

The Show

• After taking a momentary dip to 68, Holly's boosted IQ goes up to 12368.

Allusions and References

• As Kryten is trying to persuade Rimmer to deactivate himself for the sake of Lister and the Cat, he alludes to the noble sacrifice of Captain Oates.
• When Rimmer and Kryten first encounter the time phenomenon, Rimmer likens Kryten's voice to Paul Robeson.
• Lister refers to himself as Dave Cinzano Bianco Lister.

Memorable Moments

• After Holly gets her intelligence boost and becomes super-intelligent, she begs someone/anyone to ask her a question worthy of her new intellect. So Talkie Toaster asks if she would like some toast.
• Rimmer and Kryten make it back to the Science Lab, after encountering the time phenomena. Causality seems to have broken down, and they have a somewhat disjoint conversion with Lister and the Cat about what to do next. The Cat and Kryten have the following exchange several times.
  Cat: So, what is it?
  Kryten: ... It's a white hole ...

Quotes

• Talkie Toaster will often say, "Howdy Doodly Doo!", instead of hello.
• But more frequently, Talkie Toaster will ask, "Would you like some toast?"

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