Are you really going to review all those sci-fi movies?

Well that's the plan, yes. I have some stuff to do in the next few days and then I'm going to start on the Star Trek ones. We'll see how I do (or how old I live to be!) ....

Hey Troll,

Speaking of Sci-Fi, have you seen this?

http://captainsofcomedy.files.wordpr...asier1_011.jpg

1.18 "And the whimper is..."

It's time for the nominations for the annual Seabee awards, radio's equivalent of the Oscars, at least in Seattle, and though Frasier pretends an aloof indifference he is desperate that their show be nominated. He is therefore delighted when BB brings him the news that he has in fact got the nomination. He is however less pleased when he sees that a rival for the nomination has taken out a full-page ad in one of the radio magazines, hoping to tip the balance. Responding to this, Frasier decides to go one better and send gifts to the committee responsible for the awards, but Martin draws the line here, telling him it's bribery.

It doesn't stop Frasier and Roz though, who really want the award. And it seems to be working, when they get to the ceremony. All the judges are coming up to them thanking them for the gift. Roz has not been so lucky. Hunky Brad McNamara, whom Roz was all excited over having her first date with, is unable to attend and so at the last minute the only date she could secure was Noel. Yeah, Noel. Frasier is approached by Fletcher Gray, and old broadcaster who has been nominated for the award eleven times, but never won. He introduces them to his mother, who has flown in for the event. As she has for the last eleven years. Frasier begins to feel a little uncomfortable. He even floats the idea of not accepting the award, as this is to be Gray's last year; he is retiring .

Roz is not amused, but they needn't have worried, as they don't win the award, and neither does Gray.

QUOTES
Niles: “And then she said she was seeing someone else. She couldn't keep living a lie. I was dumbfounded. I mean, what about everything we'd been through together? Didn't that mean anything?”
Frasier: “Niles, a patient has a right to change her therapist.”

BB: “I bet you two had wicked little hairpulling fights when you were tots!”
(The odd thing is, she says it sarcastically, given the childish sniping between the Crane brothers that we've all come to know, but both Niles and Frasier self-consciously run their fingers through their hair!)

Frasier (reading the ad): “Well this is nothing short of shameful self-promotion!”
Roz: “I know. What are we going to put in our ad?”

Frasier (when he learns the fabled Brad McNamara is not after all going to be escorting Roz): “I thought you were bringing Brad McNamara?”
Roz: “I was. He got called out on a story at the last minute. Some hospital went up in flames. Do you know anyone who has worse luck than I do?”

Frasier: “Niles, where's Maris?”
Niles: “Well, we were just leaving the house when she caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror...”
Frasier: “Niles, at the end of this story am I going to roll my eyes?”
Niles: “I did.”
Frasier: “Then just skip it.”

BB: “If I were twenty years younger they couldn't keep me away from you!”
Martin: “That's why I keep this cane!”

Roz (after Frasier has floated the idea of not accepting the award if they win it, and letting Fletcher Gray have it instead): “Listen Frasier! I have waited ten years to get this award, and if I have to crawl over Fletcher Gray's mother to do it, I will!”

Frasier: “If we win this thing they're gonna lynch us!”
Roz: “So what? At least everyone will see my dress!”

EGGHEAD
Anxious to prove he knows everything about wines and champagnes, and to demonstrate his breeding, Frasier holds the champagne bottle and tells Martin and Daphne that there is a “proper way to open a bottle of champagne, especially a fine French one, at $200 a bottle!” Apparently you're supposed not to pull the cork out but hold the cork and give the bottle three twists. Unfortunately, as he counts “one!” the cork flies out, ricocheting around the room as champagne corks do, and causing the expensive wine to spurt everywhere. Eddie is happy though, as he gets to lick some off the table!

THE DRY WIT OF ROZ
Having secured for her date to the awards the escort of one of the most desirable men in broadcasting, apparently, Brad McNamara, Roz is delighted when Daphne congratulates her at the door of Frasier's apartment:
“Thanks”, she says. “Brad McNamara!” Frasier intervenes, saying that he thinks Daphne is offering her congratulations because of their nomination, but Daphne says no, it's for bagging Brad! Shortly afterwards Daphne makes an empowering speech, but Roz rather spoils the moment when she reverts to type:
Daphne: “Well I must say it's great to see a woman succeeding in a male dominated business like broadcasting. Well done Roz. You're a credit to our gender.”
Roz: “Thanks. Oh that reminds me: do you have a push-up bra I could borrow?”

1.19 “Give him the chair”

Fed up with the eyesore of Martin's split-pea-green recliner ruining the effect of his sumptuous apartment, Frasier decides to get rid of it and buy his father a new chair. Martin of course does not play ball and so Frasier resignedly asks for his original chair, which he had requested be stored in his storage space (wherever that is), be returned. But there's a problem. Leo, the removal guy, is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and he has in fact taken it to the dumpster, where someone, as he so charmingly says, snagged it. Aghast, Martin glares at his son and Frasier must begin a chair hunt to track down the offensive item of furniture.

Luckily enough, Roz takes a call after Frasier's on-air appeal for anyone who might know its whereabouts, but unluckily for him its whereabouts happen to be in a school, who are at that moment rehearsing for the opening night of their amateur play. The schoolteacher will not allow him to take the chair as it is part of her props, but Frasier is able to strike a bargain with her when her star takes sick. As he played the part when he was younger, he will stand in and in return she will allow him to take the chair when the play is over.


QUOTES
Dr. Bruga: “You will give Roz my number?”
Frasier (archly): “Oh, I think Roz has your number!”

Frasier: “Niles. Whatever are you doing here?”
Niles: “I bought an emerald necklace for Maris and I needed somewhere to hide it.”
Frasier: “Emeralds? May I see?”
Niles: “Not at the moment, no.”
Frasier: “Why?”
Daphne: “It's down me blouse.”
Frasier: “Well, I'm sure Maris will never think of looking for it there!”

Martin: “I just need a comfortable place to rest my fanny.”
Frasier (under his breath): “How about Florida?”

Niles (in the vibrating massage recliner): “I never knew a chair could be this satisfying. I never knew anything could! I want it!”
Frasier: “Right Niles: I'm sure it will fit in perfectly with all of Maris's eighteenth century antiques!”
Niles: “Well then, I'll just rent it an apartment and visit it on the side!”

Frasier (annoyed at Eddie's barking): “What's the matter with him?”
Daphne: “He sees your father's chair is gone and he's afraid he's gone too. I think he suspects foul play!”
Frasier (to Eddie): “Oh stop it! If I had stuck my father's feet in a bucket of cement and thrown him into the Puget Sound, you'd be the tiny little splash that followed him!”

Martin: “I'll tell you the chair I want. I want the chair I was sitting in when I watched Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon, and when the US hockey team beat the Russians in the '80 Olympics. I want the chair I was sitting in the night you called me to tell me I had a grandson. I want the chair I was in all those nights when your mother used to wake me up with a kiss all those nights I used to fall asleep in front of the television. You know, I still fall asleep in it. And every once in a while, when I wake up I still expect your mother to be there when I wake up, to lead me off to bed. “

Frasier (when Roz locates the chair): “Oh thank God! By tonight my father will be back in his beer-stained, flea-ridden, duct-taped armchair, adjusting his shorts with one hand and cheering on Jean-Claude Van Damme with the other. Yeah, it's quite the little piece of Heaven I've carved out for myself, isn't it?”

EGGHEAD
Frasier is less than impressed when, having unburdened himself to the schoolteacher in an effort to appeal to her heart and allow him to take the errant chair, he is accused of overacting and hamming it up, especially when the sentence is phrased in such a way as to make it seem like she was about to praise him and recommend her children follow his example. He's been taken down a peg. A whole peg!

FAMILY
MARTIN
Martin makes an impassioned speech about his chair, trying to explain to his son why he treasures it so. It's very effective, and apart from opening Frasier's eyes to a new side to his father, it also serves to remind the doctor that his father lives with him at his sufferance (and sometimes with a lot of emphasis on the “suffer”!) and that anything that makes him feel at home in Frasier's apartment should really be borne with good grace. It can't be easy, moving in with your son because you can't be trusted on your own, especially for an ex-cop.

THANKS FOR CALLING
Dr. Bruga, the frisky caller in the opening sequence, is played by Malcolm McDowell.

AND ISN'T THAT...?
The late Brittany Murphy is mentioned in the credits as “Olsen”. I can only assume she was one of the schoolchildren, as I can see no Olsen anywhere else and there is a blonde girl, who looks a little like her, but she has no speaking role.

1.20 “Fortysomething”

Frasier is beginning to forget little things, as we all do when we reach that certain age --- shut up! --- and starts to worry. Like most of us in this situation --- not me, I'm just boring and poor --- he tries to recapture his youth. Martin shows him how he did it: buying a motorbike and dying his hair. But for Frasier, when a young shop assistant takes an interest in him, it's all he needs to convince himself he still has it, that he is not after all middle-aged. Martin however talks sense into him, pointing out that the girl is young enough to be his daughter.

Frasier's resolve is tested further though when Cary appears at the station, delivering the trousers he has bought and then asks him out. He manages to turn her down but later while talking to Niles he's reminded that if he goes out with Cary for the right reasons it should not matter about the age gap. Having been set straight he decides to take the bull by the horns and heads down to the mall the next day to talk to the girl. She however has had an epiphany of her own, and has decided that she should not go out with Frasier.

THE DRY WIT OF ROZ
Gaslighting Frasier, Roz pretends it's her birthday.
Roz: “So, are you going to say it, or are you going to make me wait till the end of the day?”
Frasier: “Say what?”
Roz: “Happy Birthday.”
Frasier: “Oh it is not your birthday!” (Roz looks downcast) “Oh Roz! I'm sorry! Oh God! Let me take you out to lunch or something after work...”
Roz (grinning and jumping about): “You are so easy!”

After Bulldog has departed, in hot pursuit of Cary: “How pathetic!” Frasier agrees, then she says “I meant you!” He goes on to explain about the age gap and asks “If you see a beautiful young woman walking down the street with an old man, what do you think?” She grins and says “I think he must be rich.” Then adds, “Then I try to make eye contact!”

QUOTES
Daphne: “I'm meeting the girls for darts and a couple of pints. Best to do it in that order: ask Blind Willie the bartender!”

Daphne: “I learned long ago there are three questions you never answer honestly: do you like me hair, do I look good in this and was it good for you too? Coming, Doctor Crane?”
Niles: “I'm sorry, I was somewhere else. It was a warm and friendly place...”

Bulldog (to Cary): “You look familiar. Didn't I let you pour a flaming tequila shooter down my throat at Sloppy Nick's at last year's Indy 500?”
Cary: “Um, no...”
Bulldog: “So what are you doing next Memorial Day?”
Frasier: “Bulldog, as certain as I am that any young lady in the world would like to set your face on fire, I believe Cary is here to see me.”

Bulldog: “She wanted to go out with you! You didn't have to chase her, you didn't have to harass her. You didn't have to pay her!”
Frasier: “I'm sorry, I just don't think it would have been appropriate.”
Bulldog: “So you're not going to go out with her? Maybe I can catch her at the elevator. I bet she's never gone out with a professional hockey player before.”
Frasier: “Oh you never played professional hockey!”
Bulldog: “It's like we're from different planets!”

Frasier: “By the way, you were absolutely right.”
Niles: “Ooh! I love to hear you say that!”

Frasier: “You see, the other day I was asked out by this twenty-two year old girl I met in a mall...”
Niles: “That is alarming.”
Frasier: “Well, I turned her down...”
Niles: “No no. I meant that you were in a mall. Did anyone see you?”

EGGHEAD
Despite his usual self-congratulatory manner and his belief that he is better than most other people, Frasier does at least admit, when he goes to see Cary, that although she has ascribed to him virtues he has not got --- she believed he was aware of her daddy issues and was just allowing her to come to her own realisation of same --- he disabuses her of this notion by admitting, rather matter-of-factly, “Actually, I'm full of crap.” He is dismayed to realise that he, a trained and very good psychiatrist, was unable to pick up on Cary's issues and had to be told about them. But it's a point for him, as he didn't allow her just to think he was all-seeing and all-knowing, and it's a rare humbling of the man that he for once realises he doesn't have all the answers, and is just after all a mere mortal like the rest of us.

FAMILY
MARTIN
When he sees that his son is thinking about chasing a 22-year old, Martin remembers his own midlife crisis and counsels his son against such attempts to regain his fading youth. He doesn't want Frasier making the same mistakes he did, and as he says himself, “You think being middle-aged is bad? Think about me: I have a son who's middle-aged!”

We also find --- though we may have wished we hadn't --- that as well as being a “ordinary Joe” when it comes to coffee and beer, Frasier's father is a man who does not suffer fancy underpants. When Daphne goes to choose some for him at the mall, he gives her strict instructions: “I want 'em white, I want 'em plain and I want boxers”, he tells her, and is horrified when he sees her checking out some with a striped pattern, moving quickly to intercept her and steer her away from the offending articles.

THANKS FOR CALLING
Rachel, the caller in the opening scene, is played by country superstar Reba McEntire.

As you know I've now got the complete Babylon 5 collection and have watched The Gathering, Midnight on the Firing Line and Soul Hunter and enjoyed all three more this time around than I ever did before.

I've read your review on "Babylon 5 Genesis" and of the episodes that I've seen and the write-up on the former was pretty amazing, especially about the concept behind Babylon 5 and the gamble of the huge story arc, the whole thing kind of pre-dated as you mentioned series like 24. You're also right sci-fi went from being able to miss episodes when you wanted to, to not being able to miss them and still be able to follow the story.... quite amazing really.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-peLt4oqovt...1600/title.jpg

1.2 “Robin Hood and the sorcerer” (Part
Two)

Furious that Robin and his men have eluded their pursuers, Abbot Hugo grumps that “This Robin i’ the Hood says he’s Herne’s son, whatever that means!” The Sheriff shows him a silver arrow, said to belong to Herne himself; it’s obvious that Robert places more credence in the old tales than his brother does. He tells the Abbot that he took it from Robin’s father just before he killed him, and that the earl was the guardian of the arrow. He sneers at it as being “an English thing” --- magic, but with the power of symbolism which could help rally the people against their oppressors. Robin, meanwhile, tries to convince Marian to stay with him in Sherwood rather than go to the abbey and be a nun, but she believes it to be a foolish hope, a dream unattainable, and she must live in the real world. She kisses him, but asks him to deliver her to the abbey, which with a heavy heart he does.

He goes to see Herne, who gives him a cup to drink, which enables him to see more visions: he sees again the Baron de Belleme, sees an arrow being split in a target as before, but this time he also sees a wild Moor, a man with two swords, Marian in danger on some sort of wheel, the Normans riding, the Sheriff. He returns to Sherwood, where he learns that there is a contest being held, an archery contest, with the first prize being Herne’s silver arrow. He knows now, after what the forest god said to him, that it is his mission and his destiny to retrieve that which was stolen, the silver arrow, symbol and perhaps source of Herne’s power.

Robin and his men attend --- heavily disguised, of course --- as does the Baron de Belleme, who wants the arrow for his own nefarious purposes. The contest gets underway, with the field being narrowed down eventually to the best six, of whom three are Walter Flambard, the Sheriff’s man, Nasir, the Moor shooting for Belleme, and of course Robin, in his disguise as "old Hedger". Finally only these three are left --- the other three having been arrested by Gisburne. After all, such good archers must surely be part of Robin’s band, no? The three finalists all shoot at the same target, each hitting the bullseye but it is Robin’s arrow that strikes closest, actually splitting, as he had seen in his vision but not understood, the arrow loosed by Nasir. He wins the contest, but awakens the Sheriff’s suspicions.

Why, against all reason and logic, he thinks, did Robin not show? And who is this “Hedger”, this old man who shoots like a prodigy, but of whom nobody has previously heard? It doesn’t take too much for him to put two and two together, and as Robin’s men begin to melt away and the Baron silently fumes, cheated out of his prize, the Sheriff orders Gisburne to arrest the old man. But Robin is faster, training his arrow on the Sheriff and promising him death if anyone moves. His men springing into action in support of him, he moves away, the arrow in hand, and they make their escape. Maddened that he has been outsmarted, the Sheriff nevertheless is reluctant to follow him into Sherwood --- “Not even with a thousand men!” --- but the Baron tells him that if they give Marian to him, Robin will come to save her and he will defeat him. With no other choice, they agree and the pact is sealed.

Having heard the whole thing, Friar Tuck goes to warn Marian on the pretext of hearing her confession, instead spiriting her away to Sherwood. Robin tries to hand the arrow to Herne but he says he will need it for protection. Returning to the forest, he finds to his dismay that Marian has been taken by the Baron’s men, who chased after her and Tuck. Robin goes after her, as the Baron knew she would, alone, while inside the castle Marian is prepared for sacrifice. Outside, at a decent distance, the Sheriff and Gisburne wait with their men. The Baron faces Robin, using his dark arts to allow him to strike at the wolfshead from a distance, cutting him with a magical sword. But with Robin at his mercy, completely helpless, instead of finishing him the Baron turns and walks away as the Sheriff’s men move in outside.

For the Baron has something much more fiendish in mind for Robin of Loxley. He has ensorcelled him now, and sends him to Marian, to dispatch her with a dagger. In the sacrificial ritual, it is to be Robin who delivers the killing blow to the woman he loves. Horrified, terrified, Marian tries to remind him of who he really is, to break through the black spell the magician has placed upon him, but at the last moment Robin plunges the silver arrow into the Baron, killing him outright. Making his escape with Marian, he comes across Nasir, the Moor who shot for the Baron, and who possibly is under his spell too. After a brief fight Robin is defeated, but Nasir, seeing his valour, lets him live.

Now Gisburne’s men begin to move in, as Robin’s men arrive, but Gisburne, expecting Robin to have been alone (as he was; he came alone but his men followed, despite his orders to the contrary) has to retreat under a barrage of arrows from the outlaws. Regrouping, they return with crossbows before battle is joined in hand-to-hand combat. Robin and his men manage to escape, but a high price has been paid. As they pay respects to their fallen comrades, Nasir joins them, a grim smile on his face. Freed of the spell of the Baron, he has decided to become one of their number. Later, Marian and Robin are married in the presence of Herne the Hunter.


QUOTES
Robin: “Stay with me.”
Marian: “In Sherwood? And be your May queen? Ah, but when winter came, what would I be?”

Herne: “What binds the hunter to the hunted?” (Robin cannot answer). “I’ll ask you again. Go now.”

Hugo: “You’re sure this will attract him?” (Looking at the silver arrow)
Sheriff: “Oh yes. The symbol of England? He’s bound to come. And Flambard will outshoot him, in front of his native rabble. In a way, that’s more important.”
Hugo: “And you’ll keep the arrow?”
Sheriff: “Of course. I’m the real power.”
(This exchange shows an interesting side of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He knows of, has read of and learned about what he sees as the superstitions of the English, and though he does not himself believe them --- believe anything really --- he is happy to use such traditions to entice his enemy into his lair. He wants Robin to be shown up: he has his own best archer ready to shoot against him, and in that way he believes that the fame Robin Hood has begun to earn will wane, that his legend will die before it even begins. If after all he can’t beat the best archer in the Norman army, then what kind of a hero could he possibly be?

After all is said and done though, whether the arrow has power or not, whether he believes or not in Herne the Hunter, Robert de Rainault is determined to assert his rule here, to prove that, gods or no gods, heroes or rebels be damned, he is the one who holds the reins of power.)

Belleme: “I will defeat him. Fire must be fought with fire.”
Abbot Hugo: “But not with Hellfire!”
Sheriff: “You do see the problem, Baron? You can hardly expect the Church to ally itself with … the opposition, so to speak!”

Sheriff: “One more word, Brother Tuck, just one, and I will have the fat flayed from your body!”
(Pity the man who has to undertake that almost impossible task!) ;)

Robin: “This isn’t an ordinary fight. It’s not arrows or swords. This is a fight between the powers of light and darkness.”
(And Robin’s first real test, to see if he is indeed worthy of being named Herne’s son).

Robin: “If I should fail, one of you will take my place. And Herne shall choose him.”
(Robin has come a long way. From initially fighting against being chosen, he now sees that it’s not all about him --- not about him at all in fact. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Robin of Loxley or some other person: it’s the symbol that matters. Whomever Herne anoints will lead the band, lead the resistance, become the new Robin i’ the Hood. The man may fall, but the idea, the figurehead and the symbol will never die, as long as there are men ready to stand up for what they believe in.)

Robin (to his men, as they arrive): “I told you to stay in Sherwood!”
Little John: “You ungrateful bastard!”

Abbott Hugo: “I’ll have Gisburne excommunicated!”
Sheriff: “Have him hanged: it’s quicker!”

Robin: “Listen to me. Our friends who were killed, they’ll never starve, or be tortured, or chained in the dark. They’re here with us here in Sherwood, and they always will be. Because they’re free!”

Nothing’s forgotten

Having ground the Saxon English under their heel for decades now, the Normans will brook no opposition and put down any rebellion, as we saw in the first episode, brutally and as quickly as possible. But the people of England remember their heritage, remember that this was once their land, that they paid obeisance to no man, and bent the knee to no lord. And they are determined, though crushed beneath the wheel of Norman military conquest, to be free again. The Sheriff of course knows this; like any occupying force he knows that his rule is threatened from the shadows, and it only takes a figurehead, a hero, a saviour to spring from these people and they will follow him, lay down their lives for him is necessary.

Robert de Rainault is not prepared to relinquish his kingdom, even if his masters would allow it. He rules at the behest of King John, and the Sheriff knows that any failure, or even perceived failure on his part will be reported to the king and he, the Sheriff, will suffer for it. King John does not like the Sheriff, and the feeling is certainly mutual, but each trusts the other --- barely --- to do the job for which they have been selected. If de Rainault cannot keep order in Nottinghamshire, he will quickly be replaced by someone else whom the king believes can. It is therefore expedient that he crushes all attempts at rebellion or resistance to his rule, and he has no problem torching whole villages or slaughtering tens or even hundreds to make his point. Rule with an iron fist is his motto: keep your foot on the peasant’s neck. While down there, he can’t harm you or plot against you.

But now the thing the Sheriff has dreaded has come to pass: an unlikely champion, a miller’s son from some tiny village has arisen out of the ranks of the mucky English to challenge the Sheriff’s rule, to stand against him and raise his hand against not only he, but the king too, and it is imperative that de Rainault stamp out this flickering flame before it has time to catch, and spread. This is why he wishes not only to capture, but to humiliate Robin in the archery contest. He knows (or thinks he knows) that his own archer, Walter Flambard, can easily beat him and show the people that their folk hero is nothing more than a callow youth who has no chance whatever or succeeding in rebelling against King John. He wants to nip this in the bud, but he fails utterly, and from here on in, every victory, large or small, that Robin wins will embolden him and stir the pot of revolution and resistance.

Despite his best efforts, a hero has been born. A hero for England, the man for the hour, the deliverer and the people’s saviour, and there is nothing that Robert de Rainault nor his master can do about it.

Those clever little touches

Well, more effective than clever really. In the final scene, as Robin and his men mourn the passing of their fellows, each takes an arrow and lights it. As they shoot their arrows into the air and they land in the lake, we see a cameo each of the fallen comrade as they were. Then, from behind the group, another figure joins in, shooting his arrow from a distance. They turn, to behold the grim but smiling visage of Nasir, the Moor. The message could not be clearer: the band has received a new recruit.

Laughing in the face of Death

Possibly unable to believe that a fat fool like Friar Tuck could pose any danger, although he has just nutted one of their number, and that must have hurt, another Norman soldier is stupid or indeed conditioned enough to bow his head when the monk offers his blessing. Whereupon of course he is very clumsily knighted with Tuck’s staff. And may I add, ooeer! :laughing:

Welcome to the Real World

One of the many things which distinguishes Robin of Sherwood from other, lesser depictions of the outlaw, both on the big and small screen, and makes this one of the most faithful and even believable renditions, is the sense of realism about it. It’s never tongue-in-cheek and it’s never high fantasy, and it doesn’t simplify or even glorify the exploits of Robin and his men. In this section I’ll be looking at what happens when the prop swords are sheathed, and the outlaws have to face the consequences of the lives they have chosen.

Although it can be seen as a great victory --- Robin has rescued Marian from the clutches of the Baron de Belleme, evaded Gisburne and the Sheriff and made it back to Sherwood ---- there is no triumphant feast, no boasts of glorious deeds, no laughter or congratulation back at their base.They are thinking of the men they lost: friends, colleagues, fellow rebels. The point is that up until now, none of them have had to really face the death of friends --- other than Will, who fought in the wars, but that was different --- and it seems to have hit them hard. Even big tough Little John looks like he’s crying! There’s a sense of things lost, lives wasted, and at the back of it they must all feel, though no-one will say: for what? Robin went off to rescue a girl he hardly knows, whom none of them know, and they were very nearly all killed because of his obsession.

Hard stares too, at Marian. Many of the men blame her for the death of their fellows, and there is a veiled sense of general hostility towards her. But it’s not only that: Scarlet can see in his friend the look of the zealot, the fiery aspiration to right wrongs, to lead men into battle and to conquer the Normans, to take back their country. But he knows too that such fervour can be dangerous, even lethal. A man with a cause is a man you may want to think about being around, because chances are he will sacrifice you, and everyone else, for that cause. The zealot is the man least afraid to die, but in defying death he often leads his followers to that dread door, and this is what worries Will. Not all of them are as dedicated to Robin’s cause as their leader is.

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This year has been a bit odd for me. Having taken three months off I was certainly well behind by the time I made my way back here, and then there was Metal Month II. The upshot of which is that I realise there are a lot of programs and shows I said I would cover, back at the beginning of this year or the end of last, and still have not got around to.

So over the next few weeks you'll see a number of intros at least as I try to get the likes of Star Trek: the Next Generation and Deep Space 9, Tripping the Rift, 24, The West Wing and The Booth at the End all at least opened up if not actually started. I'd like to think that by the time 2015 starts there will be nothing I promised that has not been posted. Yeah. I hope.

Anyway, as I say the next two or three weeks will see quite a few intros; whether I get around to beginning them or not is another thing.

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Season 2 "Like life, only better!"

2.5 "Queeg"

Holly, never the best at keeping order, is replaced by the Red Dwarf backup computer, Queeg 500, and things begin to look very different on board the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship! Things actually work! But order has its price, and none of the "little understandings" that the crew have with Holly are honoured by the new computer. Under Queeg's regime, Rimmer's body is taken control of by the backup computer, and he is forced to exercise, revise and other things he doesn't ever do. As Queeg says when Rimmer says that he can't take control of his body whenever he likes, "The Company is paying for your hologrammatic survival, and out here in space, I am the Company!"

Queeg tells the crew that Holly's IQ is not 6,000, but 6, and that he can't navigate them back to Earth: they have been going round in circles for fourteen months. Holly is relegated to nightwatchman duties, and Queeg's regime includes making the crew work for their food. Eventually Holly is prevailed upon to challenge Queeg for mastery of Red Dwarf, and he tells him to choose the game he wants to base the challenge on. The winner will get control of Red Dwarf, the loser will be erased. Queeg chooses chess, and the two do battle. Holly loses the game, and is sentenced to be erased.

Making his farewells, Holly reminds them that things were not so bad under his regime, and then he is erased. However, it turns out that Queeg is Holly: he set the whole thing up in order to show the crew how much worse things could be with another computer in charge. As he says: "Appreciate what you've got, 'cause basically, I'm fantastic!"

QUOTES
Damage report, Mister Holly!

LISTER: “Is there any damage?”
HOLLY: “I don't know. The damage-report machine's been damaged.”

RIMMER (to Holly): “You're about as much use as a condom machine in the Vatican.”

Keep your hair (or legs) on...
RIMMER (After his hologrammatic legs have been temporarily separated from his body) : “What does this mean?”
HOLLY: “It's probably not serious, don't panic”.
RIMMER: “Well, when it's not serious when your genitals can go wandering off on their own, I wonder what is?”

RIMMER: “You are a total, total... a word has yet to be invented to describe how totally whatever-it-is you are, but you are one. And a total, total one at that.”
HOLLY: “Alright, keep your hair on.”
RIMMER: “I'm lucky if I can keep my legs on with you in charge!”

HOLLY (Having been relieved of duty by Queeg): “This is mutiny, Mr. Queeg. I'll see you swing from the highest yard-arm in Titan Docking Port for this day's work.”

A load of old what?
HOLLY: “A load of Tottenham, that is. A steaming pile of Hotspur!”

Smart shoes
RIMMER: “Look, Lister, no point feeling sorry about Holly. It's a kindness. Like a blind old incontinent sheepdog, he's had his day. Take him out to the barn with a double-barreled shotgun and blow the mother away. And I'm only saying that because I'm so fond of him.”
LISTER: “Just think how Holly feels!?”
RIMMER: “Feels? He never feels anything, Lister. He's a computer”.
LISTER: “He still feels. In fact, sometimes I think it's cruel giving machines a personality. My mate Petersen once brought a pair of shoes with artificial intelligence. Smart Shoes, they were called. It was a neat idea. No matter how blind drunk you were, they would always get you home. Then he got ratted one night in Oslo, and woke up the next morning in Burma! See, the shoes got bored just going from his local to the flat. They wanted to see the world, man, y'know? He had a helluva job getting rid of them. No matter who he sold them to, they'd show up again the next day! He tried to shut them out, but they just kicked the door down, y'know?”
RIMMER: “Is this true?”
LISTER: “Yeah! Last thing he heard, they'd sort of, erm, robbed a car and drove it into a canal. They couldn't steer, y'see.”
RIMMER: “Really?!”
LISTER: “Yeah. Petersen was really, really blown away by it. He went to see a priest. The priest told him, he said, it was alright, and all that, and the shoes were happy, and they'd gone to heaven. Y'see, it turns out shoes have soles…”

CAT: “I can't believe I'm doin' this! Look at me, I'm disgusting! I look like you in your best clothes!”

CAT: “Aw, look at my hands! I had lovely hands!”
LISTER: “Well, wear the smegging gloves!”
CAT: “Marigold with blue? Are you crazy?”

A pea on toast
LISTER: “He's taking the smeg!”
RIMMER: “Who is?”
LISTER: “Queeg. Look at what he's given me for dinner: a pea on toast. One pea. I tell you, I'm that far from cracking. (Goes to squish the pea; it snaps away.) I've lost me pea! Oh, that's it! I've cracked.”
RIMMER: “He's just doing this to destroy your morale.”
LISTER: “Is he? Well, I want me pea back. It's my pea. I earned that pea! Where is it? I don't care if it's on the floor, if it's covered in fluff, even under the bed with my toenail clippings, I don't care where it is -- it's my pea, I earned it, I'm going to eat it no matter what!”
RIMMER: “It flew off into your dirty-sock basket.”
LISTER: “I'll just have the toast.”

Just another day at the space scouts camp
RIMMER: “We were each given a Swiss army knife. You only ate what you killed yourself. I remember ten of the boys got together and decided to eat me. They tied me to a stake, lit a fire, and poured barbecue sauce all over me. I remember thinking as I went round and round, "Porky will save me, he's my best friend." It turned out Porky was the ringleader and had actually baggsied my right buttock. If it hadn't been for Yakka-Takka-Tulla, the Space Mistress, I honestly believe they would have eaten me.”

Designing the future
Although the story about the smart shoes is probably made up --- or at least, embellished by Lister --- it’s getting to the point now where things that have no business doing so have artificial intelligence chips. TVs. Mobile phones. How long before the idea of shoes that can use an inbuilt satnav to get you to your destination without you having to think about it are in the shops? Well, not during my lifetime probably, but then that’s just as well: I don’t want to wake up one morning in the Burmese jungle!

Things not to think about when you’re three million years into deep space
They’re mundane concerns, that are really relegated to very much a lower place when taken beside such immediate worries as what that strange orange swirly thing is, where your legs have run off to and how to get the vending machines to serve you vindaloo toast, but they do crop up from time to time, adding to the realism --- if such can be said of such a series --- of this show.

When Rimmer tells Queeg he can’t just take control of his body, the AI responds by reminding the hologram that it is the Jupiter Mining Corporation who pays for his resurrection as a hologram, and although the JMC, along with all of its staff and probably home planet, are far behind and long turned to dust now, Queeg declares that “out here in space, I AM the Company!” Red Dwarf is presumably self-sufficient, probably sucking in debris from space to turn into fuel, and Holly would appear to have all of that under control, but it is a ship owned by a private company, and someone has to have paid for all the food, drink, even the oxygen they breathe. Luckily, nobody will be turning up any time soon with a bill! Although we’ve seen in “Better Than Life” that the Outland Revenue take such things as the extinction of humanity in their stride, and a piffling little detail like a debt being three million years overdue will not stay their hand!

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1.2 “New alliances”

Sam proves he is at least the fittest of the cops as they pursue Kim Trent, wanted armed robber, and he tackles him to the ground. They’re sure that Trent is planning another robbery with his cronies, and want the details. But when Hunt plants money on the robber to try to make him talk, Sam takes exception. This is not how he was trained to do police work. He has yet to fully accept that he is (apparently) in a totally different era, and that things are done differently here. He proves this further when, visiting Trent in his cell, he reminds him that he’s entitled to a lawyer, whereupon soon after their suspect is walking out of the police station. Hunt is not pleased.

He is however pleased --- in his way --- when he growls at Sam that there’s a jewellery heist going on in the High Street. They speed to the location and engage the robbers, but in the course of this action a young woman in a car is shot. Sam knows her from the station and is distraught, now seeing himself directly responsible for having allowed Trent to walk. He tells Hunt it isn’t his fault, but even as he says it he knows it isn’t true: he just doesn’t want to face the uncomfortable, damning fact that he was trying to play 21st century cop in 20th century Manchester and had he played things Gene’s way, Trent would have been locked up and unable to pull the job, and June would not now be lying in a hospital bed.

Refusing to go back into work, wallowing in despair, Sam goes eventually to see June at the hospital. There he runs into Hunt and the two kick the crap out of each other, working out their shared aggression until they’re knackered and return to the station. A break in the case occurs when they realise that a local streetsweeper saw one of the felons --- Trent --- but was too scared to say anything. At the identity parade though Leonard the streetsweeper bottles it, coming face to face with Trent. Sam prevails upon him by bringing him to see June in hospital, and promising that he’ll be protected if he identifies the robber.

Before he can testify though, they have to keep him safe, so Annie stays in the flat with him while Ray and Chris grumpily complete the stakeout in a car outside. Not for long though. By the time Annie raises the alarm Chris and Ray are long gone, headed to the pub. Exasperated and worried, Sam marshalls the troops and they all head for Leonard’s flat. Both Annie and the witness are by that time long gone. When Sam finds them they are pursued by the three bank robbers, and radio reception is not good, so they can’t call for backup. Cornered in the warehouse they are lucky that Hunt arrives just in time to save the day. Leonard identifies Trent back at the station and he’s charged.

Sam goes to see June, who is still in a coma but is now off the critical list, but just as he tells her this welcome news all the lights go out and suddenly he finds himself shut in, the doors locking in the darkness and a voice announces that “his life support just shut off!” At the last moment the doors open, and he is back in “the real world”. But it’s been a shock, whether it was a hallucination or not.

QUOTES
Sam: “Kim Trent, I am arresting you on suspicion of armed robbery. You do not have to say anything --- no, that’s not it, is it? You have the right to remain silent … um …”
Hunt: “Ye’re nicked!”

Trent: “Doin’ the front crawl ain’t a crime, Mister Hunt.”
Hunt: “You were born: that’s the crime”.

Sam (to Hunt, disgusted): “Nothing fixes things quite like a punch, does it?”

Sam: “This place is like Guantanamo Bay!”
Hunt: “Give over, it’s nothing like Spain!”

Annie: “You’ve got to believe in the people around you.”
(Almost encapsulating the principal dilemma Sam struggles with, in one sentence: does he let himself believe that somehow he has gone back in time, and ended up in 1973, and then just act accordingly? Or does he refuse to accept such a thing has happened, could happen? And if the former, then what price his sanity if he is in fact lying comatose in a hospital bed, as doctors and loved ones try to break through his carefully constructed fantasy world? Will he remain here forever, if he cannot deny the existence of “here”, if he accepts “here” as a fact, inexplicable but ultimately unalterable? Will he be stuck behind his very own looking-glass?

But then, if this is somehow real, and he refuses to accept it, will he drive himself completely mad trying to figrue out what’s going on? Which way should he jump, or, indeed, should he jump at all? Maybe just sitting back, accepting it for now, and trying to work it out or hoping a solution or explanation will present itself is the safest, even the sanest way to approach this thing?)

Sam: “What if we offer him (Leonard) immunity?”
Hunt: “From what? Measles? Mumps? What?”
Sam: “Witness protection.”
Hunt: “Right now the only thing he needs protection from is me!”


MUSIC
“Live and let die” (Paul McCartney and Wings)

Used to great effect. In the opening scene, as Sam stares at himself in his shaving mirror, trying to decide whether or not this is real, the first verse plays in the distance, then as the guitar punches in for the chorus a door slams open and four coppers in their swimming trunks --- Hunt, Sam, Chris and Ray --- explode from the baths, in hot pursuit of a felon. Class!

“Saga of the ageing orphan” (Thin Lizzy)

Plays in the background as Annie tries to convince Sam to go back to work

“Drum song” (Willie Lindo and the Charmers Band)

Plays in the background at Nelson’s pub.

“Lazy” (Deep Purple)

Plays as Gene and Sam fight beside June’s hospital bed, and as they return to the station, and instigate the search for the robbers’ car.

“One of these days” (Pink Floyd)

Plays as the guys mobilise to try to help Annie and Leonard

“Dream land” by The Upsetters

Again, background music at Nelson’s.

PCRs
When asked to account for his whereabouts on a certain date, Trent grins that he was at a cookery class, “having it off” with Fanny Craddock. A well known cookery expert, sort of like Delia Smith in our time.

Nelson responds to Gene Hunt as “Kemo sabe”. Perhaps doubly ironic as this was the name Tonto, his Indian sidekick, used for The Lone Ranger

“White dogshit”, says Sam, as they grab Trent and force him to the ground. “That takes me back.” Wonder why it changed to brown? Maybe people started being more careful about what they fed their dogs...

Those clever little touches
As the boys run after the criminal (in thier swimming trunks!) they barrel down a set of steps up which an old lady is coming with her shopping trolley. Barging past, they all but knock her over. The only one to stop and help her is Sam, and for his pains he gets the sharp end of her tongue and hit over the head with her handbag! Moral: don’t bother, just keep running. It ain’t worth it.

When they do catch the criminal, Chris jumps back in alarm and disgust, as the guy has a varucca!

Showing the gulf between paramedics over thirty years, Sam is angry when, having given a load of critical information about June to the ambulance man, he is told “I’m not a doctor, chief: I’m the ambulance driver!” Back then, it wasn’t considered necessary for the man who drove the ambulance to have any medical training, unlike now; he may as well have been driving a bread van for all the good he is to June at this point, and he is surprised that it turns out that the person all this medical information is being fired at by the detective in front of him is in fact him. What’s he telling him for? He can’t do anything; doesn’t proabby even know what “BP” means, other than petrol!

When Sam hears what he thinks is a doctor talking about him (see “Tinfoil hat time?” below) the voice mentions that he was given a saline yesterday. Interestingly, this is the very advice Sam gave the clueless ambulance driver about June. Of course, it’s probably standard medical procedure, but still, it’s a quirky little connection…

When they ask the streetcleaner to identify Trent, Sam assures him that the criminal will be behind a two-way mirror. Little does he know that that’s not how they did it back in ‘73, and poor Leonard ends up face-to-face with the man he’s supposed to be fingering!

Welcome to the "Real World"
Is it coincidence that when arrested, Trent spits “Enjoy it while you can boys, cos this is fantasy time”? And that he looks directly at Sam when he says it?

Hunt asks Sam in exasperation “How do you do things where you come from?” He qualifies this by referring to Hyde, the area Sam is supposed to have been transferred from, but for a moment there, is he hinting that he actually believes Sam’s story of being from the future? Does he know more than he’s saying?

Tinfoil hat time?
When Sam returns to the station after seeing June into the ambulance, he begins to hear odd sounds: hospital tannoy announcements. The beep-beep of medical monitors, And a voice, talking seemingly about him. Like a doctor talking about a patient… but as quickly as it began it is over, as Sam hears a play on the radio, and must now wonder if after all he only imagined hearing what he did.

Later, in his flat, he notices that the girl from the BBC test card has left the screen of his television and is terrified and incredulous to see her standing behind him. She too intimates he is in hospital, but poses the question as to whether it would be best to end it all now while he still can? But before he can digest this he wakes up. Or does he? Looking at the TV screen again, he sees the girl and her clown are back where they have always been, where we as kids always saw then, on the test card that came up before and after the day’s programmes.

Almost at the end of the episode, when Sam is in with June at the hospital, the doors slam shut and the lights go out (symbolism of his death?) and worried voices shout that his catheter, unattended for too long, has leaked and seeped into the electrics, shorting out his life support system. If real, it’s a very close call but seems to have been averted, as the lights come back on and the door opens. But has he survived, or is this the point at which he may have died?

Laughing in the face of Death
Sam grunts “Three IC1 males”. The radio operator looks confused. “You what?” she says. “Is that some sort of code?” Sam, shrugging, clarifies. “Three white blokes.”

When Sam suggests that it might be better if he were “sent back” (which Hunt obtusely takes to mean back to Hyde) Gene agrees, and Sam is amazed. “You can just do that?” he marvels. “Send me back?” Picking up the phone, Hunt nods. “Yeah. Hello?” he says into the receiver. “Is that the Wizard of Oz?” Covering the receiver he confides to Sam, “The Wizard will sort it out. It’s cos of the wonderful things he does!”

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Episode Two, In Which Arthur Listens to Vogon Poetry, Gets Ejected into Space and Meets a Man he Rather Hoped had perished when the Earth was Destroyed, but Who he now Discovers is not from his Home Planet at all; He is not even Called Phil.

Having failed to convince the Vogon captain not to, Ford and Arthur are thrown off the ship but luckily are rescued by another passing ship, which just happens to have Ford's old buddy and part-time Galactic President, Zaphod Beeblebrox, on board. Oddly, the other member of the crew is someone Arthur knows, or knew, a girl called Trillian, although he knew her as Tricia McMillan at the time. The ship's company is completed by Marvin, the Paranoid Android, who moans about everything and is permanently depressed.

Seems Zaphod has stolen the Heart of Gold, a starship with the prototype Infinite Improbability Drive installed. This revolutionary new way of travelling means that as the ship builds up to infinite improbability, everything becomes possible. The natural laws of physics no longer apply, and anything can happen. The practical upshot of this is that the ship passes through every point in the universe simultaneously allowing one to travel anywhere, instantly. Ford is impressed, not so much with Zaphod as with the ship: he knows Zaphod from way back, but Arthur is less so. He remembers Zaphod as “Phil”, who once spoiled his chances of hitting it off with the very Tricia McMillan who is now with him, calling herself Trillian. At a party on Earth, Zaphod whisked her away from Arthur and, obviously, off the planet.

QUOTES
The Book: “Far out, in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has – or had --- a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of them seemed to involve the movements of small green pieces of paper. Which was odd, as on the whole, it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean and most of them were miserable. Even the ones with digital watches. Many were of the increasing opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and no-one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one day nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmondsworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time, it was right, it would work, and nobody would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost forever.”

Arthur, having been asked by the Vogon captain to tell him how good his awful poetry is, comes up with this (helped along in part by Ford, who probably can't believe what they're doing): “I liked it. Some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective. Interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the, um, surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the, um, humanity --- Vogonity, sorry! --- of the poet's compassionate soul which strives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other. And one is left with a profound and vivid insight into ... into .. into whatever the poem was about!”

Ford: “Do you enjoy your job?”
Vogon guard: “Well, the hours are good.”
Ford: “They'd have to be.”
Vogon guard: “Mind you, now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy!”

Arthur: “You know, it's at times like this, when I'm stuck in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother used to tell me when I was young.”
Ford: “Why? What did she tell you?”
Arthur: “I don't know! I didn't listen!”

Arthur: “My left arm's disappearing! How am I going to operate my digital watch now?”

The Book explains the theory behind the Infinite Improbabilty Drive: “The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds, without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. The principle of generating small amounts of finite probabilty by hooking the logic circuits of a Bableweeny 57 Sub Meson Brain to an Atomic Vector Plotter suspended in a producer of Brownian motion --- say a nice hot cup of tea --- had long been understood, and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties, by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments move simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the principles of indeterminancy.

Many respectable physicists said they weren't going to stand for that sort of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they never got invited to those sort of parties. Another thing they couldn't stand was the perpetual failure they kept coming up against while trying to generate the infinite improbabilty field needed to flip a spaceship through the distances between the stars. And in the end, they grumpily announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.

And then one evening, a student who had been left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning this way: if such a machine was a virtual impossibility then it must logically be a finite improbabilty. If so, then all I have to do to make one is work out exactly how improbable it is, feed those calculations into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea and turn it on. The moment he did this, he was rather startled to discover that he had created the long sought-after Infinite Improbabilty Drive out of thin air.

It startled him even more when, just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness, he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists, who had finally realised that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartarse.”

The Book: “The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as “a mechanical appartus designed to do the work of a man”. The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as “Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!” The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “A mindless bunch of jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes”, with a footnote from the editors for anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of The Encyclopaedia Galactica which fell through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “A mindless bunch of jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came.”

Arthur: “I wonder what will happen if I press this button?”
Ford: “Don't.”
Arthur: “Oh.”
Ford: “What happened?”
Arthur: “A sign lit up saying please do not press this button again!”

Marvin: “Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they tell me to take you up to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? Cos I don't.”

Marvin: “Did I say something wrong? Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I said it oh God I'm so depressed!”

Newscaster: “We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms out there, and to everyone else, the secret is to bang the rocks together guys!”

Trillian: “Can we leave your ego out of this? This is important!”
Zaphod: “Hey, if there's anything more important than my ego on this ship I want it caught and shot now!”


Ford Prefect's Logic
Trying to save their lives, Ford attempts to show the Vogon guard throwing them off the ship that his job is mindless and humdrum, and that he should rebel, stand up to the captain. Faced with such a choice though, the guard decides he'd rather be bored, unappreciated, unfulfilled and alive and goes ahead and throws them off the ship anyway. Worth a try though: Ford appeals to his soul by humming Beethoven's 5th Symphony, but the guard is not impressed. Trouble is, there's no real soul there to appeal to in the first place. Ford probably knew this and was just trying to buy time, but the effort was doomed to failure. Vogon ship guards are not known for their wit, initiative, nor their appreciation of the finer things in life. They quite like the shouting, though.

“So that's it, we're going to die!”
Arthur says this so many times during the series --- and they never do --- that it seems a good idea to give it its own section.

The first time he says this is when they are sitting in the airlock of the Vogon ship, waiting to be ejected into space. Fatalistic? Perhaps, but what would you think? As it happens, as we've seen above, neither of them die, due to an extremely improbable set of circumstances, helped along by the Infinite Improbability Drive in the Heart of Gold.

Designing the future
Well, we all expect it will happen, and probably sooner than expected --- we do have phones that can talk to us now and arrange our schedules, digital helpers and so on --- but back in the 1970s Adams was already foreseeing the possibility of computers and robots being given personalities. The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation began testing a system called GPP, or Genuine People Personalities. It resulted in doors that are happy when you use them, and computers who are eager to serve and cheer you up, but the prototype sort of failed with Marvin, giving him a very morose, downbeat, depressed personality. And like everyone of that nature, he is ready to share his doom and gloom with everyone. Life? Don't talk to him about life!

Those clever little touches
Trillian justifies her decision to leave Earth with Zaphod: “Well, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics, it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday!” Zing!