Trollheart

Season 1: "Three million years from Earth..."

Episode 4: "Waiting for God"

Holly's joke: The most interesting event that happened recently was that Lister pretended he passed the chef's exam, although really he failed. That gives you some idea of how truly exciting some days can be around here.

Rimmer orders Holly to give him access to the crew's confidential reports, and is happy when he hears Captain Hollister's remarks about Lister, less than complimentary. However, he is less than pleased to hear his own report, which is little better. Holly tells Rimmer that he has detected a UO (Unidentified Object), but Rimmer stalks off in a huff. Meanwhile, Lister is reading a book the Cat has given him; Cats read differently than humans, by sniffing scents impregnated into the paper on their books. As he is reading, Talkie the Toaster bemoans the fact that no-one wants to eat toast.

Rimmer comes in, and is more than annoyed that Lister is using his clothes. Even though he's dead, he doesn't like Lister taking his things. The two discuss the possibility that they are alone in the cosmos. The Cat returns with the Holy Book, which tells the Cat people's history, and Lister sees that there are pictures in this one, which depict him as Cloister, the Cats' god. All the facts fit, and in truth this is the case --- Lister is their god, but the Cat scoffs at the idea. Lister asks Holly to translate the Holy Book for him, and Holly says he'll give it a go.

Rimmer runs in, excited and tells Lister that the UO is in fact a pod. Lister goes into the quarantine, and when Rimmer tells him he's to stay there for a month, he walks right out again. When Rimmer goes off to get the scutters, Lister discovers that the pod is in fact one of Red Dwarf's old garbage pods! He asks Holly why he didn't tell Rimmer, and Holly replies that "Well, it's a laugh, innit?" Later, Lister and Rimmer discuss their beliefs, and Lister puts forward the theory that humans may be regarded as a galactic disease, with the result that aliens stay away from Earth. Rimmer, however, dreams of aliens giving him a new body...

The next morning, Holly has deciphered the Holy Book, and reveals that indeed Lister and Cloister are the one person. He tells Lister of a great war that broke out on Red Dwarf between the Cats, as they took Lister's plan to open a hotdog stand on Fiji as their holy doctrine. The Cats fought over the colour the hats were supposed to be that they would wear in the diner, and after the war the two factions piled into space arks, one of them smashing into an asteroid, having used Lister's old laundry list as their starchart! Rimmer has no sympathy or time for Lister, who is somewhat shaken by the amount of destruction and carnage his plan has caused.

Finding no joy with Rimmer, Lister heads off in search of the Cat, and comes across him in the cargo bay, in company with an old priest, who regrets wasting his life living the way Cloister preached, and now no longer believes that his god exists. Lister appears to him, dressed as Cloister, and tells the old man that he has in fact performed well, and will be received into Fiji as a loyal worshipper.

Back at the quarantine room, Rimmer waits with bated breath to see the emergence of the Quagaars (a name for the aliens he has made up!), and is a little miffed when Lister draws from the garbage pod.... a rancid chicken carcass!

Notes:
This is where you really start to appreciate that Red Dwarf is more than just a comedy series, indeed, more than just a sci-fi series. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, the creators and writers of the series, have set up a whole mythology and religion for the race known as Felis sapiens or Cats. But they've put it together in a way that is weirdly logical, if you look at it, and if you don't have all the facts. In fairness, we can't really scoff can we, when some of us revere the memory of, as Douglas Adams once put it, "a guy who was nailed to a tree for saying for great it would be to be nice to each other for a change", and others who believe their god wants them to kill in his name? In fact, in my view, all religion sucks, as Lister points out in this episode when he says of the Cats: "They're just using religion as an excuse to be crappy to each other!" to which Talkie the Toaster replies, "So what else is new?"

But the Cat mythos is all built around a real event, if somewhat distorted through the lens of three millennia of their history. Lister --- whose name has become corrupted to Cloister (perhaps because he was cloistered away in stasis, perhaps not) --- did indeed save his cat Frankenstein's life. She was pregnant, and due to his sacrifice was able to give birth and basically begin a bloodline that would one day lead to the emergence of a sapient species, of whom we believe the creature currently known as Cat is the last survivor. Yea, as it is written in the Holy Book: Cloister, the Holy One, who gave of his life that we might be saved. In a twisted, very funny way, it all fits.

But because Lister was and is such a slob, Frankenstein (or her later sentient descendants) taught their offspring to emulate his ways: be lazy, eat food that's bad for you, never wash, and so on --- none of which of course Dave had ever envisioned happening or he might have explained to them that his life choices weren't for everyone. The Cats then inevitably as they became more humanoid had a war, splitting into two factions and after the war leaving Red Dwarf in search of "Fyushal" (Fiji), their Promised Land. Sadly, one faction used Lister's old laundry list, believing it to be a star chart, and flew straight into an asteroid!

When Lister and the Cat meet the old Cat priest belowdecks he has been left behind, in a typical cat move, because he is old and infirm, and the other cats did not want to have to look after him: cats are of course notoriously selfish. Quite how he's survived down there is not clear --- though it appears the Cat (our Cat) has been bringing him food, and anyway how did he survive on his own for as long as he did before Lister was revived, having no access to Red Dwarf's computers and thus no way of getting food? That's never explained, but cats are hunters and we assume he was able to catch enough food to remain healthy. Of course, there's then the question too of how he manages to keep looking so cool and unruffled if he's foraging for food, but I guess that's one of the never-to-be-solved mysteries of the universe!

There is a change in the script here, and it's pretty obvious, but maybe it can be explained, like much of the Cats' teachings, by the details changing with the passage of time and the story being handed down from generation to generation. Lister's original plan, which he confided to Rimmer in the first episode, is to have a farm on Fiji, however here the Cats have decided it was to open a hotdog stand. It's a small point, but without the change the war would not have made sense, as the main point of contention was over the colour of the hats to be worn. Wouldn't really have worked with a farm, and can you really see Cats labouring on the land?

Best lines/quotes/scenes

Rimmer asks Holly for his confidential report:

RIMMER: "Holly, give me access to the crew's confidential reports."
HOLLY: "Those are for the Captain's eyes only, Arnold."
RIMMER: "Fine. Well, we'll give him ten seconds to come back from the dead, and if he hasn't managed it, we'll presume I'm in charge." (Waits) "No, he hasn't managed it."
HOLLY: (With resignation) "Whose do you want?"
RIMMER: "Give me ... give me Lister's. Just the remarks."
HOLLY: "David Lister, Technician, 3rd class. Captain's remarks: Has requested sick leave due to diarrhea on no less than 500 occasions. Left his previous job as a supermarket trolley attendant after ten years because he didn't want to get tied down to a career. Promotion prospects: zero."
RIMMER: "I always liked Captain Hollister. Such a great reader of men, was Captain Hollister. A marvellous, marvellous man and a tragic loss to us all. All right, Holly, give me ... give me mine."
HOLLY: "Arnold Rimmer, Technician, 2nd Class. Captain's remarks: There's a saying amongst the officers: If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing, give it to Rimmer. He aches for responsibility but constantly fails the engineering exam."
RIMMER: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Holly, Holly. I want my report. Rimmer. Two M's, E, R."
HOLLY: "Astoundingly zealous. Possibly mad. Probably has more teeth than brain cells. Promotion prospects: comical."
RIMMER: "No no no no no, Holly. I want Rimmer. That's two R's, one at the front, one at the back."
HOLLY: "Arnold, this is your report."
RIMMER: "I always hated that pus-head Hollister. He always resented my popularity. That's why he never put forward my proposal to reduce the minimum haircut length by an eighth of an inch. Small-minded, petty-thinking modo."
HOLLY: "Arnold, I'm picking up an unidentified object."
RIMMER: "Constantly fails the exam? I'd hardly call eleven times constantly. I mean, if you eat roast beef eleven times in your life, one would hardly say that person constantly eats roast beef. No, it would be a rare, nay, freak occurrence. Possibly mad? What is he dribbling about?"



Rimmer is angry that Lister has borrowed one of his shirts:

RIMMER: "What's that down the front?"
LISTER: (Checking the various stains) "That's definitely biscuit, um, that's custard, that's definitely ink, and just general sort of dirty marks."
RIMMER: "You can't just go through my possessions!"
LISTER: "Come on, you don't need them any more."
RIMMER: "Because I'm dead?"
LISTER: "Yeah. You're a hologram, and holograms don't need clothes."
RIMMER: "They're my things, Lister! Would you steal verruca cream from a man with no feet? I mean, how would you like it if I stole your T-shirt? Your favourite one, with the custard stains down the front?"
LISTER: "I wouldn't care".
RIMMER: "You've got no right to go through my wardrobe."
LISTER: "OK, OK. (Grins) "You keep your underpants on coathangers, don't ya?"
RIMMER: "That's private!"
LISTER: "OK, Rimmer, OK. Take the shirt back."
RIMMER: "I don't want it. It's ruined. You've (shudders) sweated in it!"
LISTER: "Well, if you don't want the shirt, what do you want, Rimmer?"
RIMMER: "Just keep out of my things, all right?"

Lister waxes philosophical about the possibility of life in the universe:

LISTER: "Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know. There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say, "Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing." There's just you, me, the Cat, and a lot of floating smegging rocks. That's it. Finito."

Tha Cat shows Rimmer his "shiny thing"...

CAT: "Hey! You can't have my shiny thing! I found it, it's my shiny thing."
RIMMER: "What are you dribbling about?"
CAT: (Pulls out a silver yo-yo) "This is my shiny thing, and if you try and take it off me, I may have to eat you."
RIMMER: "It's a yo-yo, you modo."
CAT: "It does two amazing things. One, you have the shiny thing at the top, and the string down below, or, and this is the clever part, you have the string at the top, and the shiny thing down here where the string used to be."
RIMMER: "Yeah ... woweeee! You haven't the slightest clue what it's for, do you?"
CAT: "Why sure I do, grease stain. You hold the shiny thing in one hand, and you go ... aaaooowww! The string's moving! Hey! Stop that thing! Catch that string! Aaaooowww!"

Lister reads the Cats' Holy Book and finds out he is their god...

LISTER: "This is me!"

The picture depicts a noble-looking individual, vaguely resembling
Lister, wearing biblical-style robes and carrying a black cat (an
ordinary cat, not a humanoid cat) on his shoulder. Above his head is a
doughnut-shaped halo.

CAT: "No, that's not you, that's Cloister. He was the father of the Cat people. He lived years ago, at the Beginning."
LISTER: (Turns the page) "Who's that?"

The next picture shows the same guy (without the cat) sitting lotus-style
inside what seems to be a giant ice cube.

CAT: "That's him frozen in time."
LISTER: "No, that's me! I was sent into stasis. That's what "frozen in time" is."
CAT: "He did that to save Frankenstein."
LISTER: "Look, Frankenstein was my pet cat! (Points back and forth between himself and the picture) "Look: Lister, Cloister. Cloister, Lister! See?"
CAT: "Listen, you stupid monkey, Cloister's another name for ... for God!"
LISTER: "That's what I'm saying! I am your God!"

CAT looks LISTER up and down. He's not impressed. (Well, who would be?)

CAT: "OK." (Points to his bowl of crispies) "Turn this into a woman."
LISTER: "I'm serious."
CAT: "So am I!"
LISTER: "Look, Frankenstein was my pet cat, right? And she was pregnant. Now, I got put into suspended animation. I was supposed to be there for 18 months, but I didn't get out for three million years."
CAT: "You oversleep? So do I."
LISTER: "No! What I'm saying is that over those three million years, your entire race of people evolved from my pet cat."
CAT: "Ah, I gotta go now, man. But let's do lunch sometime. I'll put it in my diary: 12:30, lunch with God. And, ah, formal dress, you know what I'm saying?"
LISTER: "It is true, you know."
CAT: "Yeah? Then I gotta ask you the ultimate question. If you're God, why that face?"

Lister works out what the "UO" --- the pod --- really is:

LISTER: "Give me an R, give me an E, give me a D ... give me a Red Dwarf Garbage Pod! Holly? Did Rimmer never work in waste disposal?"
HOLLY: "No, Dave."
LISTER: "It's one of our Red Dwarf garbage pods with, like, the writing burnt off in places. Why didn't you tell him?"
HOLLY: "Well, it's a laugh, innit?"

Rimmer, blissfully unaware of what it is, ruminates on what might be inside the pod, and on the nature of, again, intelligent life in the cosmos:

RIMMER: "You can scoff, Lister. That's nothing new. They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Edison. They laughed at Columbo."
LISTER: "Who's Columbo?"
RIMMER: "The man with the dirty mac who discovered America."
LISTER: "What makes you think these aliens exist?"
RIMMER: "They must do, Lister! There's so many things that are strange and odd. So many things we don't have any explanation for."
LISTER: "Like, um, why do intelligent people buy cinema hot dogs? Do you mean that sort of weird and mysterious thing?"
RIMMER: "No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids. How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?"
LISTER: "They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips."
RIMMER: "All right, then, the Bermuda Triangle. Go on, explain that one. You know all the answers."
LISTER: "No, I agree there. That is a genuine mystery. How did a song like that ever become a hit? It defies all reason."
RIMMER: "I just don't know why I bother. I'd get more sense out of a squashed hedgehog. Lister, don't you ever stop and wonder: why are we here? What's the grand purpose?"
LISTER: "Why does it have to be such a big deal? Why can't it be like, like, human beings are a planetary disease? Like the Earth's got German measles or facial herpes, right? And that's why all of the other planets give us such a wide berth. It's like, "Oh, don't go near Earth! It's got human beings on it, they're contagious!"
RIMMER: "So you're saying, Lister, you're an intergalactic, pus-filled cold sore! At last, Lister, we agree on something."
LISTER: "What do you believe in, then? Do you believe in God?"
RIMMER: "God? Certainly not! What a preposterous thought! I believe in aliens, Lister."
LISTER: "Oh, right, fine. Something sensible at last."
RIMMER: "Aliens, Lister, with technology so far in advance of our own we can't even begin to imagine."
LISTER: "Well, that's not difficult. Mankind hasn't even got the technology to create a toupee that doesn't get big laughs."
RIMMER: "Aliens, Lister, who can give me a real body."
LISTER: "Ooohhh, I can't wait to see your face in the morning, I really can't."
RIMMER: "And nor I yours, Lister. When that pod opens and from it emerges a beautiful alien woman with long green hair and six breasts."
LISTER: "Six breasts?! Imagine making love to a woman with six breasts!"
RIMMER: "Imagine making love to a woman!"

Having asked Holly to translate the Cats' Holy Book for him, Lister learns the full truth of what their beliefs are, or were:

LISTER: "Who's Cloister? Is it me?"
HOLLY: "Yes, Dave. The Cats have made you their God."
LISTER: "Hey! Working class kid makes good!"
HOLLY: "Your plan to buy a farm on Fiji and open up a hot dog and doughnut diner has become their image of heaven." (Trollheart's note: this is perhaps a hollow attempt by the writers to claim that Lister's plan all along was to run a farm AND open up a diner. Well if it was he certainly didn't mention it to Rimmer...)
LISTER: "What?"
HOLLY: "And Cloister spake, `Lo, I shall lead you to Fyushal, and there we shall open a temple of food, wherein shall be sausages and doughnuts and all manner of bountiful things.Yea, even individual sachets of mustard. And those who serve shall have hats of great majesty, yea, though they be made of coloured cardboard and have humorous arrows through the top.'"
LISTER: "Does it say what happened to the rest of the Cats?"
HOLLY: "Holy wars. There were thousands of years of fighting, Dave, between the two factions."
LISTER: "What two factions?"
HOLLY: "Well, the ones who believed the hats should be red, and the ones who believed the hats should be blue."
LISTER: "Do you mean they had a war over whether the doughnut diner hats were red or blue?"
HOLLY: "Yeah. Most of them were killed fighting about that. It's daft really, innit?"
LISTER: "You're not kidding. They were supposed to be green! Go on, Hol."
HOLLY: "Well, finally they called a truce, and built two arks and left Red Dwarf in search of Fyushal."
LISTER: "But there's no such place as Fyushal. It's Fiji. I mean, how are they supposed to find it?"
HOLLY: "And Cloister gave to Frankenstein the sacred writing, saying, `Those who have wisdom will know its meaning.' And it was written thus: `Seven socks, one shirt--'"
LISTER: "That's my laundry list! I lined the cat's basket with me laundry list!"
HOLLY: The Blue Hats thought it was a star chart leading to the promised land."
LISTER: "Well it wasn't, it was my dirty washing.What happened next, Hol?"
HOLLY: "And the ark that left first followed the sacred signs, and lo, they flew straight into an asteroid. And the righteous in the second ark flew ever onward, knowing they were indeed righteous."

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Just after "24" aired and began "ground-breakingly" bumping off major characters a small UK series was getting its premiere and taking serious flak from the security services for its "laughable" and "unrealistic" portrayal of MI5. This was the new series from Kudos supremo Jane Featherstone, although credit for its creation is given to David Wolstencroft, its main writer, and it dealt with the hazards faced by a team of MI5 (British Secret Service) agents as they raced to foil plans, stop bombs going off and thwart (or in some cases, engineer) regime changes, all before breakfast.

While the world portrayed in "Spooks" may be far removed from the reality of working for the most secret organisation in the UK --- or may not; they're just that secret you would not know, and if you did, they'd probably have to kill you! --- the dangers they face, the situations they find themselves in and the dramas they go through each week are all too believable. Certainly, there are too many young, sexy, hip people in the organisation, but then, who wants to see a bunch of old spies run around? You have to have a certain suspension of disbelief to enjoy the show, as indeed was necessary with anything from "24" to the new (or old) "Hawaii Five-0", but that's TV drama for you. It rarely accurately reflects reality: when it does, it's called a documentary.

But one of the things that stood Spooks apart from the vast slew of other drama programmes on TV at the time was their willingness to kill of major characters. With an almost gleeful sense of abandon, nobody was safe. 24 may have sprung the odd surprise during its run by allowing some major leads to die, but I don't believe any show before or since has knocked off its main characters so regularly, so much so that it almost became expected. Every few seasons there would be almost an entirely new cast, and while you would think that would grate on viewers, getting used to a whole new bunch of faces, somehow it worked, and we took to the new guys easily, almost but not quite forgetting the older hands.

Even the top man wasn't safe, so much so that when at the end of season seven Harry Pearce, the boss, is kidnapped and a video shown in season eight of his death, you're just not sure. Most series would lead you to think, "Oh, he's the star! They couldn't kill him off! He'll be all right." But with Spooks, you just never knew, and that added an extra element of tension and unease into the programme. When you know the star can't possibly be shot, stabbed, run over, pushed off a bridge or anything else that might lead to his or her death, you get a little inured to the sequences where it looks like he or she has been killed. You know they're going to survive. But not with Spooks.

Anyone was fair game, and you didn't even have to be a big star either. When one of the "back room boys", whom we'd all come to like, meets his end in one of the earlier seasons it's so much a shock it's almost a hammerblow. Even with Spooks' reputation at this point, you think no, there's no way they'd let him die! The guys will come to rescue him. But they don't, and Spooks scores another hit on the disbelief scale. We come to see that anyone --- anyone --- can be bumped off if the story calls for it, and as a result we really worry when one of the guys or girls is in a tight spot and look like they might not make it out, which in most cases they do but there's always the possibility that this time they won't. To add suspense, some of the seasons ended on cliffhangers that hinged on the question of whether someone lives or dies, and you had to wait till next year to find out.

Although the stories seem fanciful, they had an unsettling way of coming true. Without implying that terrorists were watching the show for ideas, there were a lot of parallels in how the stories went and how history turned out soon afterwards. Coincidence of course, but chilling nonetheless. And without the great staple of the spy thriller, the Russians, to take the role of the bad guy in their stories, Spooks found a whole rock-underside full of demagogues, despots, terrorists, oligarchs and corrupt officials, arms dealers, state heads and more to take the part. There are, sadly, no shortage of evil people in the world.


And so to the cast. As I mentioned, this is fluid to say the least, so each season (or episode) I'll mention any changes. When the series begins we have, working from left to right:

Zoe Reynolds, played by Keeley Hawes. Keeley would of course later find fame in "Ashes to ashes", another Kudos production and spinoff from "Life on Mars", both of which we will be featuring here later in the year. Maybe. Zoe is the youngest recruit to MI5, and desperate to prove herself both as an agent and as something other than the "token girl".

Tom Quinn, played by Matthew McFayden. Tom is the senior agent, the man in charge of the day-to-day operations and the man who takes command "in the field". He comes across as a little cold, as perhaps life in MI5 has made him, having seen so much death and horror.

Tessa Philips, played by Jenny Agutter (yes, the show attracted some major stars, both of TV and film). She is the senior case officer for Section K, the division the Spooks work for.

Sir Harry Pearce, played by Peter Firth. Head of counterterrorism and the overall boss here. Pearce is the only one who would last through all ten seasons (sorry if I gave anything away there!)

Danny Hunter, played by David Oyelowo. Another junior officer, who joins about the same time as Zoe Reynolds. The two find themselves supporting one another emotionally as Tom has little time or patience to ease anyone into a life as a spy.

Helen Flynn, played by Lisa Faulkner. Helen is a junior administation officer, but her role will only last up to the second episode, resulting in a shock scene that flooded the BBC switchboard with complaints when it was first aired, and was the first time Spooks sent a broadside across television viewers' bows, showing they were not going to be just another show.

There are other characters, some who go in and out of the series in various roles, some who become integral to it as support characters, but we will introduce and talk about them as they arrive. For now, the is the main cast that took to the air with the first ever episode of a show that was to pretty much take British (and later American) TV by storm.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Trollheart's Note: Gaaahh! This max character limit is really starting to get on my tits! Now I have to split this post up into two, and it was only slightly outside the limit. But I can't shorten it anymore to make it fit while still retaining all the bits I want to post, so here we go again...
1.06 "Skin"

An old friend of Sam's contacts him to ask for help. Her brother has been accused of murdering his girlfriend, but she doesn't believe he's capable of such a thing. Arriving at Rebecca Warren's house (Sam knows her as Becky) they investigate and are told there is a security tape which shows Zack arriving home just after 22:00, the murder having been committed a half-hour later. Becky tells them that although the tape clearly shows Zack arriving home at 22:30, he was with her till way after midnight. The brothers believe there might be a Doppelganger --- an identical double ---- involved, which would explain the disparity and Zack's apparent ability to be two places at once.

With Sam pretending his brother is a detective, they ask to see Zack's house, and Becky admits she has the security tape --- which was made with the CCTV in a store adjacent to her brother's house --- that she took it from the lawyer's office. They all watch it and Sam and Dean notice Zack's eyes light with an eerie luminescence. There is also the matter of the next-door neighbour's dog, who, up until the murder, had been a pleasant and friendly animal but who now barks and growls at anyone who comes near. Dean realises that although the tape shows "Zack" entering the house it does not show him leaving. Meanwhile, the Doppelganger has struck again, this time attacking a woman who has been left at home while her husband goes to a meeting. Called back at the last moment by a cancelled flight, he is distraught to see his wife tied up and beaten, aghast as she shrinks from him as he frees her, pleading with him not to hurt her any more, and finally confronted by an exact double of himself, who knocks him out with a bat.

When the boys find out about this second incident, they realise they're not dealing with a Doppelganger after all, and change their hypothesis. Perhaps it's a shapeshifter, a creature able to assume any form it wants? But where is it going when it has killed? On both occasions the trail ended when the brothers tried to follow it, and Sam thinks maybe the sewers would be a viable way for the thing to get around, and an easy way to disappear once it's perpetrated its evil crimes. They go down into the sewers and find discarded skin, leading them to the conclusion that the shapeshifter may shed its skin as it changes.

They come across the thing in the sewers, and armed with the only thing that will kill a shapeshifter, a silver bullet, they go after it. It escapes though, and on the surface takes Dean's shape, trying to trick Sam into helping it. Sam is wise to it though and holds his gun trained on it, but there's a tiny smidgeon of doubt in his mind that this isn't really his brother, and he's unable to shoot the shapeshifter, allowing it to get the drop on him. The shapeshifter takes him to its lair and goes off to see if he, in Dean's form, can score with Becky. Meanwhile Sam hears Dean (the real Dean) groan and knows they've been imprisoned together. Great: two heads are better than one, and they're soon free.

In Becky's house, the shapeshifter tries to ingratiate himself with Becky, but she is suspicious. After all, prior to this she hadn't even known Dean, and it was his impersonation of a police officer that angered her so much she pulled them off the case, afraid it would damage her brother's upcoming trial. When the shapeshifter is unsuccessful at flirting with her however he goes for the direct approach, knocking her out and then tying her to a chair so he can cut her. However Sam and Dean know that the shapeshifter is likely to go for Rebecca, and phone in an anonymous tip to the police. A SWAT team is soon at the house, and the shapeshifter barely manages to escape.

However when Sam later thinks he's speaking to Rebecca, it is in fact the shapeshifter again (confusing, no?) and "she" knocks Sam out, and changes back into Dean's form, intending to kill Sam and have it blamed on his older brother. But the real Dean, who has re-entered the sewers and found the real Rebecca in the shapeshifter's lair, turns up just in time and shoots the creature in the heart with a silver bullet.

After explaining things to Rebecca as best they can, the boys leave. The murder Beck's brother was being tried for will be blamed now, unfortunately, on Dean, who the police now believe dead, as once the shapeshifter died it remained in Dean's form. Zack will be released, and Dean ruminates on how it sucks that he won't be able to be present at the burial of the shapeshifter. After all, how many people get to attend their own funeral?

MUSIC
Iron Butterfly: "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"

Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Poison whiskey"

Filter: "Hey man, nice shot"

Free: "All right now"


QUESTIONS?
None really: self-contained episode, although now that Becky knows what Sam and Dean do for a living, is that likely to make her a target of their enemies?

The "WTF??!" moment
Probably right at the beginning really, when we see the killer turn to face the SWAT team and it's ... Dean! Of course, later we learn the truth, that it's the shapeshifter in Dean's form, but it's quite a shock initially.

PCRs
Just the one: Dean mentions "the Vulcan mind meld?" A reference to the ability of the Vulcan race in Star Trek to communicate telepathically and read minds.

1.07 "Hook man"

It's that old urban legend come to life: you know the one, where the boy and the girl are out dating and stop in a forest or somewhere. They hear a noise, the guy gets out, the girl hears banging on the roof of the car, turns out the guy is hanging and his feet are drumming on the roof? But this is Supernatural, and around here, urban legends always have their basis in horrific reality. So it proves with this one: a shadowy figure with a hook for an arm watches the lovers and although we don't see him attack the guy, it's pretty obvious that it's him who has strung up and killed the kid. The girl runs off.

Dean and Sam, reading about the case, think it could be an invisible creature, as the woman in the article, whose name is Lori Sorensen, says she saw nothing and no-one outside. They decide to investigate, and arrive at the campus Lori and her late boyfriend went to. When they talk to Lori and get the full story, they decide that it could be the Hook Man legend. Checking through records of arrest in the area over the last hundred or so years, they come across one of a preacher who was so incensed by the local prostitutes that he killed thirteen of them, and hung some of them upside-down from trees as a warning. His arm was also lost in an accident, and replaced by a hook. As a final confirmation, the incident took place at the same road as this murder occurred. Sounds like they have their man. Trouble is, this happened in 1862.

They go to check it out, but are arrested by the local sheriff for carrying firearms. Meanwhile Lori wakes from her slumber party to find her roommate dead, and scrawled in blood on the wall the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" --- this refers to when she came home and found her roommate asleep (as she thought) and went straight to bed --- along with four crosses. As Dean and Sam are released on the understanding that Sam was being hazed as a pledge, they see the police responding to a 911 and hear it's Lori again. Making their way into her house they wait till the cops are gone and find the writing on the wall, literally. They now know this is "classic Hook Man legend", but are surprised that the creature left its haunt, as it's supposed to stay where it died and just catch people along that path.

They try to find out where the preacher, Jacob Karn, was buried, but there is no grave so the chances of finding it and destroying the body are zero. There is also a strong smell of ozone in the air. Checking further into the history of crimes in the town they find there were two more clergymen arrested for the murder of prostitutes or other "undesirables", but who both claimed some "invisible force" was responsible. Murder weapon in both cases was a sharp object. So now they're beginning to suspect the reverend, Lori's father, might be inadvertently summoning the Hook Man, the spirit picking up on his repressed emotions and troubled view of society. As a man of God, Reverend Sorensen would deplore the state of the world, and be anxious to protect his daughter. This could be all the Hook Man needs to manifest.

Having no other choice but to try to find the unmarked grave, they split up and Sam goes to talk to Lori, while Dean heads to the cemetery noted in the report and is lucky enough to find one with the cross symbol that was scratched on the wall engraved into it. He begins to dig. Once he finds the corpse he sets it alight and stands back, watching it burn. Meanwhile, Lori's father takes exception to the time she is spending with Sam, and she gets annoyed at the preacher. Suddenly, the Hook Man appears and attacks her father. Lori screams and Sam pursues the creature into the house. He shoots it and it turns to dust.

The preacher is wounded but still alive. When Sam meets back up with Dean he asks him in annoyance why he didn't burn Jason Karn's corpse, but Dean says he did, and with salt too: the nightmare should be over. Then Sam wonders about the metal hook: perhaps that is the source of the Hook Man's power. They check and find that when Karn was executed his effects were all sent to St. Barnarbas' Church --- which coincidentally is the same church Lori's father preaches at, and where they both live. Reading the parish records they find the hook was melted down, but they don't know into what, so to be on the safe side they break in and destroy everything silver.

They find Lori crying in the chapel (anyone mentions that Elvis song gets a slap!) and she admits she believes herself responsible for the two deaths and one injury, that she was angry but she thinks her anger was misplaced. She believes she is the one who should be punished, and indeed at that the Hook Man comes for her. As they battle him and frantically try to work out what silver item has been missed in their purge of the church inventory, they notice a silver necklace around Lori's neck. She says it's a church heirloom, her father gave it to her. Snapping it off, Dean legs it down to the basement where he melts it, and just at the last moment the Hook Man dissolves.

MUSIC
Split Habit: "Merry go round"

Quiet Riot: "Bang your head (Metal health)"

Low Five: "Noise"

APM: "At rest"

APM: "Royal Bethlehem"

Paul Richards: "U do 2 me"

Boston: "Peace of mind"


QUESTIONS?
None really: self-contained again, as many of the first season episodes are.

PCRs
Dean compliments Sam: "Nice job, Dr. Venkman!" He's referring to Venkman, one of the characters in the movie "Ghostbusters".

Dean tells Sam: "Dude, I am Matlock." Matlock was one of those eighties terrible private-eye TV shows, this one about an attorney who solved crimes. Yeah. Matlock is seen to be beloved of the seniors in "The Simpsons"; when they are asked by the mayor what they enjoy, one of the main concensuses seems to be "Matlock!" so much so that the new expressway is named in his honour.

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1.08 "Bugs"

Urgh! If you have an aversion to cockroaches and other crawlie things (and who doesn't?) approach this episode with caution. Having struggled through it the once I've never gone back to watch it before now. Blechh! God I hate insects! But anyway, to the story: Sam is reading about a guy in Oklahoma who apparently died of CJD, also known as Mad Cow Disease. However, when Dean asks how that is anything to do with them Sam points out that people who die from CJD usually deteriorate over months, years, and usually with some outward signs --- loss of motor control, dementia etc. --- but this guy died in an hour. It's strange enough to merit their investigation, the boys decide, and so head for Oklahoma.

After quizzing the dead man's co-worker the two decide to investigate the sinkhole that he was found in --- the men were part of a construction team building houses in the area when the victim had his "attack". Descending into the hole, Sam finds some dead beetles and is formulating a theory about the insects having eaten out the dead man's brain, but Dean scoffs at such notions, saying that would take a lot more than ten beetles. They attend a local barbeque posing as potential buyers at a showhouse, and find that the son of the owner has a great interest in insects. There are jars of them in the house, and he has pet spiders. He seems a little weird, though Sam takes to him.

That night one of the residents is killed in the shower, apparently by an attack of spiders. When the boys quiz Matt, the kid, who would be the prime suspect as far as they are concerned, he surprises them by revealing his knowledge about the other insect-related deaths in the town. He says that as he is interested in and studies insects, he has noticed a massive coming-together of many different species to his hometown, but he has no idea what it means. While searching for clues, the boys turn up what appears to be an unmarked grave, which, when they take the bones to an anthropology professor in the local college, turn out to be Native American, about 170 years old.

"Oh no! I hear you say! Not the old "Indian burial ground" --- sorry, Native American burial ground story!" --- wait, just wait. It gets better.

Dean and Sam speak to a Native American who tells them that there was indeed once a reservation of his people in this land, but that over six brutal days the US Cavalry, impatient with their slow progress in relocating the tribe, raped and murdered them all. On the final day, the sixth, the dying chief of the tribe cursed the land and declared no white man should live on it, and that nature itself should rise up should they try, and defend the land. And on the sixth day, he tells them, none would survive. The brothers now have a working hypothesis: and tonight is the sixth day since the first death.

Sam and Dean race back to town, trying via phone to get the families out of the neighbourhood, but Matt's father won't listen. When they arrive they continue to argue until suddenly a massive cloud of insects blots out the sun and suddenly everyone is convinced. Running inside the house with the family, the brothers try to stop up all the gaps but there is no way to prevent at least some of the insects from gaining entrance to the house, and it is soon swarming, crawling and flying with bugs. As they try to protect themselves though, the sun rises and the sixth day ends, and with that the insects fly or crawl or slither away.

Convinced now that the house is built on cursed ground, Matt's father packs up and they leave, but Sam is glad to see that at least the two are now getting on better. Matt has lost his interest in insects, unsurprisingly, having come this close to being killed by a massive swarm of them.

MUSIC
Scorpions: "No one like you"

Extreme Music: "Poke in tha butt"


(Note: seems Def Leppard's "Rock of ages" is used here again, but as we've already featured that there's no point in repeating ourselves. There are also a few other songs used but I was unable to find videos for them, so have not included them.)


QUESTIONS?
No, not really.

PCRs
Dean mentions: "Mad cow. Wasn’t that on Oprah?" Referencing Oprah Winfrey's famous talk show

Again, Dean responds to Sam's contention that some people form bonds with animals by replying "Yeah, that whole Timmy-Lassie thing." Reference to the "Lassie" movies of the 50s and 60s; Lassie being the famous border collie dog that starred.

And Dean taunts Sam with "Yeah, you were kind of like the blonde chick in The Munsters." Which obviously references the hit show "The Munsters", similar to "The Addams Family".

BROTHERS
Here I'd like to start a new post-section. As I mentioned in the introduction to this show, although it concerns itself with monsters, ghosts and helping people, and later widens to a major plotline, Supernatural is at its centre a story about two brothers. As the episodes and seasons evolve, we see deeper into the heart of each and come to appreciate more the relationship between the two, the problems they face and how they overcome their fractured past. Not every episode tackles these, but in those that do I'll be talking about them.

This is probably the first real episode in which we get an insight into the relationship. Sam, who refused to follow their father into a life of demon-hunting like his brother, has always felt both that he is seen as the black sheep of the family, and that he in some way let his father down. All he wanted was a normal life --- to go to college, get a law degree, marry Jessica --- but eventually all of that was blown apart by their troubled past coming back to haunt them, and he is now irrevocably set on the path of revenge, like his older brother.

However, he is there because he has been more or less forced there by circumstances, unlike Dean, who chose this path. He therefore feels a little inferior to his bigger brother, feels he is perhaps not the man Dean is, and possibly feels too a little ashamed that he deserted he and his father. We see all this come to a head in his contact with Matt, when he advises the kid, who is not getting along with his father, that he only has to wait two more years and then he can escape to college. Dean, of course, sees it another way and is angry with Sam's view. He thinks the boy should try to reconcile with his father, perhaps give him the respect he is not getting.

Dean and Sam argue about how Matt should be advised, but it's crystal clear that they're in fact arguing about their own father and how they both individually and differently approached the man. Sam later confides to Dean that he misses his father too, and although he wants to find him he is worried that John will not want to see him, feeling betrayed by his son. Dean reveals that their father used to swing by the campus to check up on Sam, and assures him that he loves him and will definitely be happy to see him.

Dean also takes capricious delight in embarrassing Sam whenever he can. In the previous episode, he tricked his younger brother into helping one of the frat guys paint his body, and here he pretends he and Sam are lovers when this is the mistaken impression the house owner gets from them. Of course there's nothing malicious in this; Dean is just a fun guy, but he probably feels his brother is too rigid and proper, and needs to be taken down a peg or two from time to time. Sam of course feels the reverse about Dean: he takes too many chances, seems to have a somewhat negotiable moral compass --- at the beginning of this episode Sam is chiding him for making money as a poker shark --- and probably flirts too much for his younger brother's liking, showing no real intention of ever settling down.

Two brothers who are the same on the surface but beneath are as different as can be, but who stick together and have each other's backs, as they will need to once this series gets going properly and they realise the full enormity of the task they have taken on, and the truth about the forces they face makes itself known.

1.09 "Home"

After having a premonition of danger, in fact dreaming a dream which shows the opening scene of the episode, where a little girl is menaced in her bedroom by a man made of fire, Sam tells Dean they must return home. He has been drawing a picture of a tree, unable to say where the inspiration came from, until he realises it's a tree that stands or stood outside their old house in Lawrence. He tells Dean that he can't say how, or understand why, but he knows that the house is now reoccupied and that the new tenants are in danger. When Dean presses him, he admits he sometimes has dreamed of things that then come true. Jessica's death was one such dream.

This is the first Dean has heard of this. He knows Sam has had some pretty bad nightmares, but for them to come true? And now his brother blames himself for his fiancee's death, saying he saw it beforehand in a dream but did nothing about it because he didn't believe it. If he'd had a bit more faith in his "visions", perhaps she would still be alive? Dean does not want to return to the site of his own personal nightmare --- Sam was too little to be able to adequately remember what happened that night twenty-two years ago, but it's etched in fire and blood on Dean's memory, and he has no wish to reawaken those feelings. However, Sam is insistent and so they go back home.

When they speak to the lady living there, Jenny, everything seems more or less normal, though she complains of things like scratching noises and the lights flickering, but it's when her daughter, Sari, tells the boys that a "man made of fire" is in her closet that Dean begins to believe that perhaps Sam is on to something. In desperation, when alone, Dean phones their father's voicemail and leaves a shaken message: he is really worried and for once does not know what to do. The usual bravado and chirpy humour that is his trademark has totally vanished, and for once, perhaps twice in his life, he is really scared.

Trying to follow their standard modus operandi the boys check into the history of their old house --- they lived there but don't know much about it really, and haven't been back for more than two decades --- and talk to their father's neighbours and friends (incognito of course). This leads them to a psychic called, er, Missouri Moseley, whose name John Winchester has mentioned in their journal. Amazing the two boys, she recognises them and seems to know what they're thinking. She says she has an idea what started the fire but is unable or unwilling to elaborate. It seems to upset her greatly though, and she calls it evil.

As they talk to Missouri, things are happening back at the old Winchester house. A plumber has lost his hand in an "accident" when the garbage disposal he was fixing suddenly snapped on, and now the baby has been led into the fridge and trapped there, Jenny only barely realising where he was and saving him in time. Dean, Sam and Missouri go to the house and tell Jenny they can help. They go into Sari's room, where the psychic says the "dark energy" is concentrated. She reveals that the room Jenny's daughter is sleeping in was once Sam's nursery, the epicentre of all that happened twenty-two years ago.

Missouri tells the boys that though the thing in Sari's closet is certainly evil, it's not what killed their mother. Dark things, she says, get attracted to anywhere that true evil has been, and this appears to be one or more poltergeists, whose only aim is to kill the new occupants of the house. Without of course telling Jenny and her family about this, the trio convince her to leave the house for a few hours while they try to purify it with magic herbs and things like crossroad dirt. During the exorcism, the spirits try to kill Sam but Dean saves him and the house is cleansed. Jenny returns and Missouri tells them all is well, and leaves.

The end, right?

Er, no. Because unconvinced that everything is sorted, Dean and Sam remain in their car outside the house that night, and sure enough things start to happen. They see Sari screaming at the window and dash into the house, to see the figure of fire standing in front of her. Sam rescues Sari and Dean gets Jenny, and with Ritchie in tow they exit the house. But Sam has been trapped, held by another spirit and Dean goes back in to save him. As he approaches the figure of fire though Sam tells him to put down the gun, because he can recognise the person behind all the flames.

It's their mother.

She threatens the force holding Sam and it disappears, and she vanishes in flames into the ceiling.

The next morning Missouri apologises for misleading the boys, thinking all the spirits were gone when one remained behind. She remarks that even though she couldn't sense evil was still in the house, Sam could, but he does not know why. She bids them farewell and returns to her house where she talks to ...

... John Winchester! The boys' father says he wants desperately to talk to his sons, but he can't. Not until he knows "the truth".

MUSIC
This is the first (only?) episode not to feature any songs in it at all.

The "WTF?!!" moment
Two, really, both centred around the boys' parents. The first shock is when the fiery figure --- which we have all mistakenly taken for an evil entity --- turns out to be Mary Winchester, and the second, perhaps almost bigger revelation is that their father was there all along, in Missouri's house. The boys were only moments away from being reunited with their father, but he avoided them, for reasons which will become clear later.

QUESTIONS?
The big one: why does John Winchester not take the opportunity to talk to his sons, at least confirm to them that he's alive, and what is this "truth" he must find out before he can make contact?

Is Mary Winchester now dead? Was her spirit trapped in their house, awaiting the return of the boys and did she know she would need to save them? Has her soul now been saved, and if she "survived", even in spirit form, two decades, what can we really assume happened to Jessica, and where is she?

What connection has Missouri Moseley to what happened? Does she know, and is holding back the information at John's behest?

Did Sam really have a vision? Is he psychic or is there more to it, and if so, why could he not sense his father so close by?

The boys' mother tells them she is sorry. What is she sorry for? Is it just for their having to flee their home, for leaving them or is it something deeper that they don't know about? Can it be that in some way Mary Winchester knows more about the incident 22 years ago than she ever said? Certainly, in the opening episode, she almost seemed to recognise the shadowy figure holding Sam...

PCRs
Just the one. After being told by Sam about his visions, Dean is somewhat fazed. He tells him "I mean, first you tell me that you’ve got the Shining?" Referring to the Stephen King novel and movie starring Jack Nicholson, about a boy who can predict the future through visions. Or something. Never saw it myself; scary movies are not my thing.

BROTHERS
It's interesting to note that this is the first time we really see Dean vulnerable. He's shaking and in tears when he tries to contact their father; for once he's completely out of his depth and the situation is beyond his control. He's too close to this; it's too hard to look at it dispassionately. Although he was only young when his mother died, he remembers part of that night --- mostly just fire and running --- and is reluctant to return to where it all happened.

Sam reveals to Dean that he has these dreams of people in danger, which then seem to come true. It's news to his brother, and he needs time to assimilate that information. He tries to console Sam that there was nothing he could do about Jessica, but part of him must wonder why Sam didn't at least try? However he does support his brother, not having the faintest clue what carrying such a burden must be like.

Although their mother acknowledges them both, it must hurt Dean that she seems to concentate more on his younger brother. Of course, it is Sam who is trapped, but Mary seems more interested in him and only says Dean's name and smiles at him. Seeing their mother again has a profound emotional effect on Dean, and again we see the tough-guy wisecracker facade fall and shatter like cheap glass.

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Unknown Soldier

Just watched the first part of "Voice in the Wilderness" so quite near the end of the first season.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

I'm sure nobody (who cares) will be surprised to see this section migrating to The Couch Potato from my original journal, The Playlist of Life. As I now have a journal dedicated to TV (and some films: be patient, they're coming. What? So is Christmas? Right then, just for that you can wait!) it seems the natural progression to move "Series Link" here, so in future this is where you'll find it.

Before I go into the new shows I'm watching or have watched, a quick recap (for those who remember/care) on the ones I mentioned at the end of the last --- which was also the first, under the new title --- installment of this feature.

"Unforgettable" --- Sorry it may have been, but a major systems malfunction on my Sky Box meant I lost the whole series, so whether it was any good or not I don't know. The premise was interesting: Carrie Wells is a detective with the unusual --- though hardly supernatural --- ability to remember everything she sees and hears, this talent supposedly coming in handy in her role as a detective. I guess. Looks to be coming back for a second season, though that is of course no indication it was any good. If I catch it again I'll give it another shot.

"The Newsroom" --- Now this I loved, but then I expected to, when Mama Sorkin's little boy is involved! A sort of an upgraded "Studio 60 on the sunset strip" with elements of "The West Wing" in it, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am glad to see it's returning too, in June. Even if the obligatory English female character did get up my nose.

"Lost Girl" --- Heard good things about it, but it also became a victim of the Great Crash of '12, so I lost it all. Currently on season 2 on SyFy, but it's reported to be so weird that I have no intention of jumping in a season late, so will have to wait till it either airs again from the start or I get round to downloading it. I reckon I would like it though, so it's a pity it went bye-bye...

"Being human" --- Although this is currently in something like season four or five, I finally managed to get a look at season one and I really liked what I saw. Like "Lost Girl", now waiting for someone to show season two or I may download it, but with so much to watch I'm in no hurry to do so just at the moment.

"A touch of cloth" --- Lost to the crash. I would have liked to have seen it, hopefully will some day. It sounded good: a kind of satire on all those cop shows you either watch and love or laugh at.

"Sinbad" --- Was really looking forward to this but, yes you guessed it, thank you Sky it got erased and I never got to see it. It's on the list for future viewing. Probably be in season two by the time I get around to it...

"Teen Wolf" --- Damn damn damn! Had both seasons one AND two, and all lost in the great crash! Gaah! Okay, calm, calm... hope to catch this again some day from the start.

"Good cop" --- Watched three out of four episodes of this. Thought it was okay but by the third I was so bored and unimpressed with it that I really couldn't see it ending any other way than the way I saw it ending and so didn't bother finishing it. Got erased on purpose, and looking back on it now, the first three episodes weren't all that great. In the end, not a very original show when it had promised much.

And that's the roundup. So, what have I been watching recently? What's caught my eye and impressed me enough to hit the green button and series link it? And what's made me yawn and just hit delete? Here are some of the ones I've been looking at.



Another in the long line of "interesting jobs that might make an interesting programme" shows that have come out of the likes of History, NatGeo and Discovery in the last few years. Some have been good (Pawn Stars, American Restoration, Storage Wars etc) and some not so good (Hard Core Pawn) but most of these shows I do like. This one concerns two "demo" guys (annoys me because everyone knows demo is short for demonstration, but they use it for demolition) who bid to, well, demolish houses and other buildings, and are allowed to keep anything they find. The balance they have to strike between bidding low enough to get the job and still either making a profit or breaking even, and the score they hope to make in the retrieval of items from the property is quite interesting, and there's a sort of sense of suspense as they knock down walls, open doors and investigate attics and cellars to see if there are treasures therein. Definitely worth a look, and passes a half hour pleasantly.

Verdict:



I was looking forward to this and I haven't been disappointed. The story of the building of the US railroad with all the pitfalls, fights, obstacles and deaths thrown in, along with a heady mix of political corruption, greed and betrayal, with a healthy slice of revenge on the side. Star Anson Mount is chilling as the main character, reminding me of John wotsit from the game "Red Dead Redemption" (why isn't that available for the PC? ) and Star Trek's Colm Meaney a revelation as the scheming, conniving and unscrupulous man in charge of building the railroad. There's a subplot interwoven with the railroad story as Bohannon, the main character, is an ex-Rebel seeking to bring to swift and brutal justice the men who killed his wife in the Civil War.

Renewed for a second season, which I'm currently watching (the first only having been an odd 10 episodes long) I see it's now got a third, which is great news. One of my favourite shows at the moment, both authentic and gritty, with quite the blurring of the lines between "good" and "bad" guys.

Verdict:



Another "fly-on-the-wall" documentary-style show in the vein of the likes of "A life of grime" or "Ax men", "Grave Trade" is an odd one. Just recently begun, it goes behind the scenes at one of Britain's oldest undertakers, showing us everything from the preparation of coffins to the embalming of bodies. In fairness, anything showing a dead body is blurred out --- remember, these are real people even if they're no longer with us --- and there is a very deep sense of respect running through the show. There's no way it aims to poke fun at or make light of the traumatic ordeal of a funeral, or the absolute mind-numbing pain of losing a loved one. But even so...

I wonder about it. I watched a few episodes and it's certainly interesting, but as a matter of course every episode has featured a real funeral, and I kind of feel like I'm intruding on people's private grief. I know they have obviously given their permission for the footage to be used, but nevertheless, it just seems, I don't know, unpleasant or tasteless somehow. It's got a lot going for it, but to make the subject of funerals, coffins and corpses palatable is a tall order, and I'm not sure they're going to manage it. To be honest, I can't see this lasting past one season, though of course I could be wrong: the public's desire for taboo subjects in television is well documented, and it may end up being a winner.

But I think I may find it hard to continue. I'm probably going to watch the two or three episodes I have recorded on my box, and make a decision after that. It's not that I'm squeamish (though I am) --- that really has nothing to do with this, as like I say they're very careful to not show anything you wouldn't really want to see, like embalming or an actual shot of someone in their coffin. It's more a case of personal taste. I can't really watch something if I'm not comfortable with the subject matter, and this is a programme that is, I have to admit, making me feel more uncomfortable each episode I view.

Verdict: Undecided



THIS I love! Kurt Sutter, creator of "Sons of Anarchy", is granted unprecedented access to the men and the stories behind some of the world's biggest and baddest gangs. Interviewing past members, he makes it clear from the start that he is not judging, nor condoning what he is told: he's simply giving the ex-members the chance to tell their stories. And what stories! The first two episodes focussed on the Boston Irish Mob and Nuestra Familia, the Mexican mafia. Some of the stories are just incredible, like the guy who was so devoted to the mob that he agreed to help murder his own mother!

Kurt Sutter has gained a great amount of respect it would seem among gang members for the sympathetic and yet authentic way he has presented the biker gangs in "Sons of Anarchy", and there really could only be one person who would manage a project like this. It doesn't look to be too long, six episodes I think, but they seem to pack a hell of a lot of history into each episode. Miss at your peril!

Verdict:

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Started off promisingly, in a dystopian future (don't you just love those?) but quickly (and more cost-efficiently) relocated to the present day, where a cop from the future tries to track down several criminals who have escaped justice in her time. The whole "fish-out-of-water" thing works for about half an episode, then suddenly everyone acclimatises to their situation and we end up with what is basically a cop show with some futuristic or sci-fi elements.

Add to that the ridiculous way the criminals are first shown to be noble freedom fighters battling a repressive government run by mega-corporations, then quite pointlessly become bloodthirsty desperadoes, forcing you to change your originally somewhat sympathetic view of them. Cardboard characters acting out a one-dimensional cop series that tries to take itself seriously as a sci-fi programme but fails miserably. I soon gave up. I see it's being renewed for another season. Just shows you.

Verdict:



I've always liked Damian Lewis since I saw him in the quirky, one-season "Life", and here he shows just how versatile an actor he can be. You surely know the show: it's won Emmys and been voted one of the best shows of the year, and quite rightly in my opinion. Although not an original idea --- it's a rewrite of an Israeli series called "Prisoner of war", which I'm really annoyed I just missed the first showing of --- but it's a great subject. In case you've been living on Mars for the last year or so, it concerns a US soldier who is found alive when he was presumed dead. He returns to the US as a hero but nobody knows he has been turned, and is working for his erstwhile captors to bring down the US Government. No-one, that is, except one CIA operative, and she has a history of mental illness, so who's going to listen to her?

Heading into its third season, this is a show you should really make time to see. If you thought "24" was unrealistic (it was), this is on the far end of the scale. A human story as much as a terrorist one, it's a programme that successfully blurs the lines between what is a freedom fighter and what is a terrorist, even what is a patriot, and asks some unsettling questions. It's also a deep journey into one man's mind, to see what makes him turn against his country, and if he is in fact justified in doing so.

Verdict: (When it returns later in the year for a third season)



I like a good political satire, and over twenty years ago, no-one did it better than "Yes Prime Minister" and its prequel "Yes Minister". Now that show has been revitalised for the twenty-first century, but rather than being a simple "re-imagining" of the original, it's got the writers who created the first series working on it, so in every sense possible it's the new, improved "Yes Prime Minister."

So they say. But I don't know. When something is as loved and deeply ingrained in the TV audience's consciousness as this series, how can you really remake it? It would be like trying to resurrect "Last of the summer wine" or "Fawlty Towers" with a whole new cast. Doesn't sound likely. And yet to a degree this is working, mostly due to two things: firstly, writers Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn have duplicated the situation of the coalition government currently in power in Britain, and have relocated their new Jim Hacker, the PM, to Chequers, country retreat of the PM, with his duplicitous Permanent Private Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby to keep an eye on him.

The second thing is that the spirit of the original show has been kept very much alive, with Sir Humphrey running vocabularistic rings around poor old Hacker, and confusing him so much that the PM often doesn't know what he's doing. They've also kept in the long, rambling, often almost incomprehensible speeches Sir Humphrey will sometimes give in answer to a simple question, and they're minor masterpieces in themselves. However, moving with the times they've included a female character, and really I don't see her working as other than, well, a token female.

Time will tell if the new show will end up being as popular as the old one, but let's be honest about this: the new guys have got some pretty big shoes to fill!

Verdict:



This is a very clever show about what we would call here in Ireland a "chancer", a con-man who blags his way into a law firm without ever even having attended law school, never mind graduate! He has however an analytical mind and a seemingly photographic memory, and he soon begins to not only learn from his new boss but teach him a thing or two about morals and ethics himself.

Sounds a little hackneyed yes, and to be fair it is, but the style and wit of the show save it from descending into being just "another show about lawyers", and god knows we've plenty of them! The leads are charismatic, the stories interesting and the subplots engaging. "Suits" also throws you the odd curveball, so that when you think a story will end happily it doesn't, which makes it in my book a little more realistic than a lot of the shows out there, legal or otherwise.

Finished the first season and I see the second is about to start, so looking forward to that.

Verdict:



Surprisingly, for something a) created by Steven Spielberg and b) touted by all my favourite sci-fi mags as being the next big thing, this bored the hell out of me. The idea in itself is not too bad: Earth is overcrowded, to the point that people are restricted as to how many children they can have and they live in cubicle-like apartments. The discovery of time travel allows those who want to start a new life to travel back to the Triassic or Cetaceus or something period --- the time the dinosaurs were stomping around, anyway --- and re-colonise the planet in that time, to try to build a new world which will avoid the mistakes of the current one. Only one catch: the time machine only works in reverse so the trip is strictly one-way. If you change your mind later, tough: you can never go home.

Well, two catches really. The other is that it's crap. I was bored by the fourth episode and just deleted the rest of the ones on my box. I found I couldn't care less about the characters, which is never a good thing and always a good indication as to my own level of interest and investment in the series. It seemed to be moving too slow, and you know, the idea wasn't bad if a bit "Jurassic Park"; maybe if I'd given it a chance it might have developed.

But I'm a busy man and have much to watch. If something doesn't hook me from the third or fourth episode I have to assume that it's not going to, and that's when I press the delete button. As I did here.

Verdict:

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Trollheart

Another show lacking in the originality stakes but still coming up trumps is this one, where a con-man is given the chance to cut short his sentence by working with an FBI agent to catch a fellow conman. Sure, we've all seen "48 hours" and we all know the maxim "set a thief to catch a thief", but again "White collar" is one of those new breed of hip, sexy, intelligent, snappy shows that while it dazzles you with its glitz and glamour has yet something underneath the gloss.

The old idea of the young gun teaming up with the grizzled veteran is certainly not a new one, but the twist that some of the crimes they investigate are similar to ones the conman has perpetrated, and that he knows most of the people in the shady world of the hustle is pretty cool. In fact, pretty cool really describes this show. It's hard not to like Matthew Bomer in the lead role and like "Suits" you kind of root for him even if he is technically the bad guy. Decent subplot in it too.

Going into season four I believe, so obviously very successful; over this side of the water we're just about to hit season two. So lots to look forward to!

Verdict:



There just aren't too many new ideas out there, are there? Again from the mind of Spielberg, this show takes place against the backdrop not only of an alien invasion, but of the defeat of humanity and their attempts to mount a belated resistance and "take their planet back".

Yeah. It's just that, rather like his other series, I didn't feel this at all. In fact, compared to the lack of interest in and empathy with the characters in "Terra Nova", this makes me feel like they were all good friends of mine. These guys are wooden, almost hilarious caricatures that could have popped up in any post-apocalyptic or alien invasion movie. Granted, I didn't give it much of a chance (again I think I survived four episodes before giving up) but again, I believe a show should hook you from the start. Look at the shows I'm featuring here --- Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Supernatural, Spooks --- these all pulled me in from episode one and did not let go until there was no more to consume. In the case of Supernatural I'm still catching up, though happy to do so.

Rather surprisingly to me, this has been awarded a third season recently. Maybe it's the name of the Big S that's doing it, because unless I really missed something in later episodes, it's not the characters. Or the story. Or the setting. Or the aliens. No, not even the aliens can save this, for me.

Verdict:



You know a show is not going to appeal to you when you hate every character and wish they'd die. I had hoped this might be a bit of a laugh, a bit satirical but it tries too hard. I think it wants to be "Hustle" but fails miserably. The premise is that the main cast are all lawyers who go in to downsize, reorganise and try to save companies, or at least, the big fat salaries of their big fat bosses. But instead of pointing out how immoral such firms are, the series seems to glory in the fact that the company can charge its poor (not really) clients anything they want, from first-class airfares and five-star hotel rooms to tabs at strip joints, and no-one will say boo to them.

One of the characters thinks he's God's gift to women, one is a bit of a nerd and one is just so cocksure and arrogant that you want to punch him in the face. And that's Don Cheadle! Man I just got so sick and tired of him doing a "Hustle" to the camera, where everything freezes and he explains, "breaking the third wall" as it were, what they're up to. In the end, I don't care. All you're doing is saving bloated megacorporations millions of dollars while their underpaid workers get laid off so the boss can have his six homes and his fat pension. I KNOW it's just a show, but this really goes on, and I don't think making it funny works, especially when the series does nothing to challenge the perception that everything is for sale, and nobody's feelings get in the way of the deal.

Verdict:


If you want your crime drama actually dripping with corruption, this is your show! I've seen the first season, missed the second (twice! D'oh!) and seen the third, which was subtitled "The Golden Mile". All I can say is it's gritty in a way crime shows usually are not, with really shady and yet sympathetic characters on both sides of the law, though in TGM there is very little to feel sympathy with, at least as far as the cops are concerned.

Even more shocking is the fact that this is all based on true life events (ask Rjinn, she lives there!) so when you see someone come running up to a van and shoot another guy in front of his kids, or when there's a drive-by in the middle of the day, bullets glass and blood everywhere, this ain't fiction. It really happened that way, and although names may have been changed in some cases, in most they're not, as the voiceover tells you what happened to them (serving life, killed in a disco, run over, on the run etc) so you really feel a chilling connection to well pretty much most of the characters. Think "The Wire" is tough and realistic? Try this!

Verdict: (And try, finally, to get season two!)



Four lads head off to Spain to meet their old buddy, who has made it and has invited them over for a holiday at his expense. There is, however, no such thing as a free lunch and the boys quickly realise that not all is as it seems, as they become embroiled in some very unsavoury dealings that leave them quite literally running for their lives! Boasting some major stars in the likes of John Simm (Life on Mars/Doctor Who), Philip Glenister (Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes), Max Beesley (Survivors) and Marc Warren (Hustle) this is a clever, well-written tale with a twist that turns the old idea of the booze cruise on its head.

Currently running into season three, it's been very well received and though the original premise looks like it may be in danger of being stretched to breaking point, it will be interesting to see how season three develops, and if they decide to leave it there. I mean, how much more trouble can four gullible guys from England get into abroad?

Verdict:

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Trollheart

Ireland has always been on the fringes when it comes to TV drama. Sure, we do rural stuff fine, and our soaps are as good (or bad) as the ones 'cross the water, and we can make reality shows just as terrible as those on "the Mainland", but we lag seriously behind when you start talking about true, gritty, cutting-edge drama. We just don't do it well. We've had the odd success, but they've almost exclusively been insular accolades, and due to the nature of RTE (Radio Telifis Eireann, pronounced rah-dee-oh tel-ee-feesh air-un, the Irish national TV channel) it's almost universally unavailable outside of Ireland, so the chances of anyone seeing anything good we do are minimal to say the least.

Love/Hate has managed to break that chain, mostly I guess due to the proliferation of DVD. Now, people can buy the series and watch it even if they're not in Ireland and don't get RTE as part of their package. In fact, Love/Hate is so good that I would not be too surprised if one of the UK channels like Dave or Channel Four bid to show it. Written by Irish playwright Stuart Carolan, it's based on the lives of a team of ne'er-do-wells, criminals who run with an Irish gang and who are all, in one way or another, on the opposite side of the law. Its gritty and realistic portrayal of Irish gangland culture has won it many adherents, and the initial first season has now turned into three.

The series follows a basic plotline, filling in around the edges various activities and crimes engaged in by the gang, as they take on rival gangs, local law enforcement and even each other. You could compare it to "Sons of anarchy" more than "The Sopranos", though it's nowhere near as glossy or well-written as either of those, I have to admit. Also, in both those shows there's a sense of family, of belonging, of "us against them". In Love/Hate it's not so much love or mutual respect that keeps the gang together but what Ambassador G'Kar (see my Babylon 5 write-ups) called "enlightened self-interest". Each knows too much about the others to be allowed to fall out with the gang, and any attempt at disloyalty or "grassing" is met with brutal retribution. Everyone knows their place, and is wise enough not to step out of line.

But underneath it all there's a sense that most of these guys are not engaging in crime because they enjoy it. For some, it's their only means of support. For others, it's all they've ever known. There are the psychos and "headbangers" in the gang, and outside it, who get a thrill out of shooting guns and scaring people, but in general it's almost seen more as a job they go into than something they take pleasure in, or look forward to. Supplementing your income, as they say.

Like all good crime-based drama though, the emphasis is on the relationships between the gang members. A show wouldn't be much good if you didn't feel for the characters, understand them to a degree and perhaps even sympathise with them on occasion. Love/Hate does this very well, while at the same time never condoning what the guys get up to. In the end, it's just the way things are. It may not be right, but what else can they do?

CAST
In season one and two the gang is run by John Boy Power, played by Aiden Gillen, but the main protagonist is Darren, played by Robert Sheehan, whom you may know from "Misfits", but I don't.

Darren Treacy, played by Robert Sheehan: At the beginning of the series, Darren returns to Dublin from Spain, where he has been hiding out since running from arms charges some years ago. It's dangerous for him to return but he has come back to see his brother, Robbie, who is being released from prison that day. Robbie though is shot, and part of the "arc" of the first series sees Darren trying to find out who killed his brother and to bring them to the gang's own vicious and permanent brand of justice.

Nidge, played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor. Nidge is second-in-command to John Boy, and a tough little nut. He lives with his wife and son and does everything he can to protect them. He is often the butt of his boss's jokes, but bides his time, knowing his chance will eventually come.

John Boy Power, played by Aiden Gillen. The cold psycho of the gang, its brains and its leader. No-one dares go up against John Boy. He's a criminal boss, feared and respected, though there are rumours that he's a little soft in the head, as he seems to think he can see ghosts...

Tommy, played by Killian Scott. One of John Boy's footsoldiers, desperately hoping to get up the ladder of power. Tommy is supposed to collect Darren's brother from jail when he's let out in the pilot episode, but is sleeping with Mary, who is both Darren and Robbie's sister, and doesn't make the rendezvous. He also has a somewhat unhealthy attraction to a local junkie, Debbie.

Hughie Power, played by Brian Gleeson (son of Irish actor Brendan). Hughie is John Boy's brother and a total whack job. If John Boy is the cold psycho, Hughie is the psycho psycho. He's the kind of guy who will shoot you in the face "just for a laugh". Even the gang members think he's off his head. One dangerous man.

Trish, played by Aoibhinn McGinty. Nidge's wife. She's a hard-as-nails, heart-of-gold Dublin slapper who is fiercely loyal to Nidge but in her heart just wants a normal, quiet life for her and her son. She doesn't say no to all the expensive gifts her husband gets her though. She is however tired of the constant knocks on the door at all hours, Nidge being taken away by the Gardai to "assist in their enquiries".

Rosie, played by Ruth Negga. Darren's love interest though she's with someone else. They knew each other before Darren went away to Spain, now they're unsure if they should try to rekindle the relationship. And then there's Stumpy!

Stumpy, played by Peter Campion. A real hard case, he's with Ruth now and knocks her about. Darren is just looking for a chance to kill him, but John Boy needs him and forbids it.

These then are the main characters in the series, at least for season one. Some will die, move on, not be needed for seasons two and three, but the main core cast will remain. Love/Hate has many twists and surprises, not a little humour and as a Dublin guy makes me wonder just how safe those streets I avoid at night really are?

An interesting thing about the series is that the first season ran to a mere four episodes, whereas seasons two and three were expanded to six episodes each. That I think demonstrates how popular it became. To be fair, six episodes per season didn't seem like nearly enough, though Carolan covered all the plot points and basically tied up all the loose ends in each --- apart from those which weren't supposed to be resolved, carrying through into future seasons. I don't know if there's a fourth season planned: it would seem unlikely, given the circumstances of the finale, but you never know and if the right amount of money is offered then hopefully we may see more of this surprisingly excellent Irish drama series.

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Trollheart

Disclaimer: I wrote these character profiles of the Red Dwarf crew over ten years ago, for my Red Dwarf website which is now defunct thanks to the hoster going belly-up, and I thought it might be nice to resurrect them here. But be warned! These profiles give away a LOT of information about the show, so if you haven't seen the programme or are currently watching it for the first time, you might want to skip these sections till you finish watching, as there will definitely be spoilers here you'll want to avoid.

These profiles only cover up to season seven (though I may update them later) and do not take into account the events in "Back to Earth" or the current new season (season ten) that showed recently on TV.

Arnold Rimmer
An officer and a gentleman, respected and admired by all his fellows, a lover of women, hero, space adventurer and model for future generations... these are just a few of the many things that Arnold Rimmer is not. With his three high-flying brothers, John, Frank and Howard top-notch members of the Space Corps, Arnold is looked down upon by his mother and his father.

Early on in life, the father of the Rimmer family had bought a rack, and every morning he would measure his sons to see if they had grown overnight. If they hadn't, then they would go on the rack! This was due to their father's irrational fear that his four sons would miss out on joining the Space Corps by failing to reach the regulation minimum height, as he himself had done. Rimmer's father also tested his sons on astro-navigation and engineering theory before they were allowed to be fed: no correct answers, no food. Arnold nearly died of malnutrition!

When he is old enough, Rimmer applies to the Space Corps academy but fails every test. Scorned by his parents, ashamed that he will be unable to live up to their expectations and also jealous of the success his brothers are enjoying, Arnold joins the crew of the Jupiter Mining Corporation vessel, Red Dwarf, in the hope that he can sit the exams independently, but even in this he proves useless, and is doomed to remain at the rank at which he joined the ship: Second Technician, which essentially means that he and his ilk check vending machines around the huge vessel and ensure they don't run out of chocolate bars or chicken soup!

In this he is joined by Dave Lister, who is part of his Z Shift, the very worst of the dregs of the technicians. Lister and Rimmer take to each other like a dog to a cat, hating each other on sight, and indeed Red Dwarf is not their first meeting place: Lister had in point of fact ferried Rimmer (using the name of one of his superiors as cover) to a brothel on Mimas, an incident which had haphazardly led to Lister's joining the Red Dwarf crew.

To others, especially Lister, Rimmer is a small-minded, petty man who delights in enforcing and observing pernickity regulations and awards the slightest breach of such by putting his subordinate (usually Lister) on report. The tale is related of how Rimmer accused and put Lister on report for mutiny! He tells Lister that he stepped on his foot, thereby impairing his ability to perform his duties, thereby clearly putting the ship at risk and thereby clearly mutiny!

This small episode gives a good idea of what the man known as Arnold J. Rimmer is like. Rimmer spends so much time in the run-up to his exams devising a revision chart, complete with symbols for rest periods, cram periods and so forth, that by the time he is finished making the chart it is time to take the exam. He thereafter decides to cheat, by copying out as much of the textbooks onto his arms and legs as he can, intending to glean the answers from his tattooed body and thus pass. His plan is foiled however when the ink runs, and he can't make out any of the writing. Once again, he fails. This is, however, to be his last attempt at this exam, or any exam, as shortly afterwards the entire crew of Red Dwarf is subjected to a lethal dose of radiation, which leaves the mighty ship lumbering on through space, a massive graveyard with Holly, the ship's AI computer, ensuring that the leviathan remains on course.

Lister has, a short time previous, been put into stasis, and therefore he manages to survive the holocaust that wipes out the rest of the crew. Reviving him some three million years later, Holly decides that the last human being alive needs some companionship to save him from going insane due to loneliness, and settles on Rimmer as his partner. He reinitialises Rimmer's personality from the computer disk every member of Red Dwarf was required to download onto before departure, and brings Arnie back as a hologram.

Being a hologram means that though Rimmer can talk and see and hear, and has the same memories, ambitions, drives and desires as the man he once was, he cannot touch anything, nor can anyone touch him: he is entirely composed of light, a computer simulation maintained by Holly, and dependent on the power source of the huge ship. This does not, however, stop him from haranguing Lister as soon as he meets him again, blaming him for not being there to help him seal the drive plate that allowed the lethal radiation to escape and poison the ship.

Rimmer has never been able to accept failure, or the responsibility for failure or indeed anything. He blames his parents for his upbringing, his lack of contacts for the pathetic way his career went, and Lister for just about everything else. He says that if people had not kept dragging him back he could have achieved the rank of an officer that he so desperately desired. He never once stops to consider that the reason he has not achieved any of his goals, least of all promotion, might just be down to the fact that he is arrogant, overbearing, incredibly hard to get on with and not in the least reasonable or likeable. In short, he is a total and utter smeghead.

But Rimmer does not believe this, and continues, even after his death, to blame Lister for everything he can, and find fault with him at every opportunity. When they encounter the Cat, he wants to throw it off the ship, but having no physical presence must bow to the wishes of his erstwhile subordinate. Even though he is dead, Rimmer still retains his right of rank over Lister, despite the fact that Lister points out to him that both of them were ranked lower than the man who changed the bog-rolls in the ladies' toilets! Rimmer is unanimously despised and scorned by everyone aboard the ship: Holly can't stand him, the Cat thinks he's a waste of space, and when Kryten joins the crew later on, he fights against his programming until he can call Rimmer a smeghead! Even the scutters hate Rimmer!

When Lister, who has been trying to get Rimmer to allow him to switch his former superior off for a short time so that he can reinitialise the hologram personality disk of Christine Kochanski, and go on a date with her, finally declares that he is going to sit the exam for chef, Rimmer worries, as this would mean that Lister would technically outrank him, a situation which could not be allowed to develop! Having failed to talk Lister out of the exam, Rimmer poses as Kochanski and tries to trick Lister into giving it up, but Dave sees through the disguise and goes ahead with the exam, which in the end he fails.

Rimmer is constantly on the lookout for aliens with a technology in advance of Earth's, aliens who can replace his hologrammatic form with a real, solid human body, so when Holly picks up a pod on the scope he is disappointed to find that it is nothing more than a garbage pod. His disappointment comes hot on the heels of anger at Lister, who has discovered, somewhat to his dismay, that he is the being the Cat race revere as Cloister, their god, and is indirectly responsible for the war that wiped out thousands of their kind. Sneering at Lister, he declares "I could have been God, given the lucky showbiz break you got!"

When Lister finally succeeds in getting his hands on the disk he believes to be that of Kochanski, Rimmer warns him that the disk will only bring him misery. How right he is! Rimmer has swapped the disks, and what energises in front of Lister is not his long-lost love, but a second Rimmer! Delighted to have another him to talk to, Rimmer the Original decides to move in next door with his double, and packs up his things. Lister, glad to help his former bunkmate move out, comes across a video, which Rimmer tells him is a tape of his own death. Watching the video surreptitously, Lister hears Rimmer's final words as "Gazpacho soup!", and wonders why Rimmer would end his life with such a phrase on his lips. He asks Rimmer, but of course the hologram will not tell him.

However, it soon turns out that life with Rimmer is not working out for Rimmer. The two holograms are not getting on as well as they would have thought they would. Because Rimmer in any incarnation (with the exception of Ace Rimmer) is a pain in the neck, the two snipe at and fight with each other, and it is not long before they are at each other's throats. As their quarrel turns to petty bickering and spills over to encompass Lister and the Cat, one of them has to go. But before he erases the orginal Rimmer, Lister must know about Gazpacho soup. Seeing as he is to "die" anyway, Rimmer tells him. Gazpacho Soup Day: it was the greatest day of his life, he tells Lister.

After only being with the company fourteen years (!) he was invited to dinner at the captain's table. Unfortunately for him, they had gazpacho soup for starters, which Rimmer didn't realise was supposed to be served cold. He made the chef take it away and bring it back hot, and believes that this rather small faux pas in front of the men he had hoped one day to join was instrumental --- nay, directly responsible for his never being promoted.

He soon has other things to occupy his mind however, when the crew pick up a distress call from a ship called the Nova 5. The service mechanoid, Kryten, tells them that there are only three survivors, all female, and the boys rush to the scene, Rimmer kitting himself out in his best officer's uniform, complete with rows and rows of medals, and an extra pair of socks shoved down the front of his trousers! He asks Lister not to put him down in front of the girls they are about to meet, saying that Lister should mention the fact that Arnie died and was pretty brave about it. He wants his shipmate to refer to him as something other than Rimmer: Ace, perhaps, or Big Man.

However, romantic liaisons are not to be, as the three women in question are in fact dead, and have been for centuries. Left alone for so long, Kryten has turned somewhat peculiar, and at first refuses to believe that his young female charges have passed on. Eventually though he is convinced, and the crew take him back to Red Dwarf, where Rimmer wastes no time in taking advantage of the fact that they now have a live-in servant: and what's more, he doesn't backtalk or outright refuse to do things as Lister does. Kryten is happiest when serving, and Rimmer is happiest when being served, so the two should get on famously. But Lister is not standing for this, and urges Kryten to break his programming, which after some effort he does, flipping the bird to Rimmer and heading off on Lister's spacebike.

Some time later a post pod catches up with Red Dwarf, and Rimmer learns in a letter from his mother that his father is dead. Seeing how totally blown away by this news the hologram is, Lister tries to comfort him, but it emerges that Rimmer hated his father, for the reasons outlined at the beginning of this piece. To help him forget about the bad news he has just received, the Cat and Lister offer to take him with them into a TIV: Total Immersion Video game, called Better Than Life. Here, one can live out all one's fantasies, and be whatever they want to be. Rimmer enjoys it for a while, being made an admiral, getting a solid body and making love again to Yvonne McGruder, his one and only romantic tryst, but soon his brain rebels at nice things happening to him, and he ends up ruining it for everyone.

On his Deathday however (the anniversary of the day he, and all of Red Dwarf's crew except Lister met their deaths), he puts himself in a tight corner by getting drunk and telling Lister how many times he has ever made love. Lister, unable to listen to Arnie's whimpering any longer, goes down to the hologram simulation suite and downloads eight months of his own memory into that of Rimmer, giving him a love affair that Lister experienced. Dave's memories of this period are now Rimmer's, and he indeed believes that he, not Lister, loved the beautiful Lisa Yates. The ruse eventually comes to light though, and Rimmer is even more upset.

When they find a stasis leak on one of the decks, Rimmer encounters his own self, three million years in the past, after Lister reads from Rimmer's diary, telling him that what the then Rimmer thought was a hallucination may in fact have been the now Rimmer coming back in time to warn his past self that he would be dead in three million years (which comes as no surprise to Arnie-three-million-years-ago!). Lister goes back himself with the Cat to try to rescue Kochanski, but Rimmer has as much success convincing himself that he must go into stasis to avoid the accident as Lister has with Chrissie. It's interesting to note that even after the "double Rimmer" episode earlier, Arnie has not learned his lesson, and still thinks that a second him on the ship would be a good idea.

When Holly is replaced by Queeg, the Red Dwarf backup computer, things begin to go very badly for Rimmer! Advised by the computer that the company is paying to keep him online, Queeg takes control of Rimmer's hologrammatic body, and forces him to exercise, go for runs, and revise! It's only when Holly regains control of the ship that Rimmer is let off the hook.

Some time later the fruitbat computer mistakenly brings Red Dwarf into an alternate dimension, where female opposites of Rimmer and Lister exist. Faced with his own sexual attitudes and manners in Arlene Rimmer, the hologram refuses to accept that this is in fact the way he behaves towards women! Arlene tries everything to get him into bed, including attempting to hypnotise him, a trick Rimmer had used once before himself, to convince a girl to go out with him. However, it is in fact Lister who ends up in bed with his female double, and the Rimmers both look down their noses at them for it, and enjoy every minute of Lister's discomfort, especially when, after they return to their own dimension, Lister's pregnancy test proves positive!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018