I need to find something to do with my life News Posted by John Hoare on 16th May 2005, 21:15 I’ve just watched White Hole on UKG2. Rob Grant is very wrong indeed when he calls Series IV “pedestrian”. But enough of that. CAT: Look, just conserve your energy. Stan and Ollie will soon be back with supplies. Meanwhile, let’s just stay warm and get some sleep. LISTER: Yeah, man, you’re right. You’re right. [He gets up and starts heading toward the bunks.] CAT: Hey, hey, where you going, bud? LISTER: To get some sleep. CAT: It’s Tuesday, right? LISTER: Yeah, so? CAT: My turn on the electric blanket. [Pointing at the exercycle] PEDAL. [Crawling into the bunk] Wake me in eight hours. Erm, the following thoughts occur: Are you really telling me there would only be one electric blanket on the entire ship, so they would have to taken turns? Why the hell would Lister go back and pedal? Surely he’d just tell Cat to piss off? But then, it’s amazing what you can get away with when you’re being funny, isn’t it? (NB: I know this specific exchange isn’t important to the episode. It’s just interesting how much stuff doesn’t actually make any sense at all when you start examining it…)
He also climbs into the bunk holding the plug, meaning that the blanket isn’t actually plugged in. Just another minor quibble.
There’s probably more than one blanket – what Cat meant was that it’s his turn to sleep on it, and therefore Lister’s turn to pedal. Secondly, the reason Lister went back is because, as we’re frequently told, he’s a man of his word. They clearly had some kind of existing deal in place where they take turns generating power for the blanket while the other uses it. Now, the Cat pedalling so Lister can sleep on the blanket – that’s something I don’t see happening. If anything, the nature of the implied deal is flawed, rather than Lister’s adherance to it.
People, myself included, are constantly slagging VII and VIII off for not making any sense. But hardly any episode of any series makes an iota of sense. As you can say, they get away with when it’s funneh.
> There’s probably more than one blanket – what Cat meant was that it’s his turn to sleep on it, and therefore Lister’s turn to pedal. > > Secondly, the reason Lister went back is because, as we’re frequently told, he’s a man of his word. They clearly had some kind of existing deal in place where they take turns generating power for the blanket while the other uses it. I don’t buy this. “It’s Tuesday, right?” indicates a long-standing arrangement as to who has the electric blanket. And Rimmer and Lister have only been away for five days. (“Five days to get to and from the cargo deck.”) And if it’s a long-standing arrangement, they would have just used the plug before. All of which indicates: one electric blanket. And no previous pedaling.
I think, from what he says, Cat has shown that it’s unlikely to be a long-standing agreement. Unless you think that they only use the blanket one day a week each, there have been at least 4 previous nights during which one of them would’ve used the blanket. Given that there are 7 days in each week, and two people who want to use the blanket, they’ve clearly agreed to alternate days sleeping on the one blanket they can power. Assuming a fair deal, Cat could not have the blanket every Tuesday if they only have one, and thus his statement makes little sense if considered as part of a long-standing arrangement, because he’d only get the blanket on half of all Tuesdays. The agreement must be short-term, and implies a timetable exists which states who gets the blanket on what days. If anything, this situation indicates that they’re used to having more than one blanket. This all becomes even more likely when you consider that if it’s Tuesday night and Rimmer says they’ve been gone for five days, Friday night would’ve likely have been the first time they were without power, and it would’ve been a typically self-interested Cat attitude to suggest that they share the use of one blanket and that he take the first turn on it. Lister gets Saturday and Monday night, Cat gets Sunday, which leads us to Tuesday. Cat’s turn on the electric blanket. Like I said, the only problem here is that it means Cat must’ve been generating power for Lister, which is something I don’t see happening, but there’s any number of ways Cat could’ve (and would’ve) got around that.
And after all that, they could have just shared a few blankets and kept each other warm. Obviously they know nothing about survival.
Woah, a lot of discussion over something so minor! It’s true that if you look at just about every episode there’s something that doesn’t make sense at all. Such as, in Dimension Jump, why is the Cat even in the other dimension as a priest when the Cat race needs millions of years to evolve? And in The End, why didn’t Holly simply stop the ship a certain distance from Earth and wait rather than continuously flying away from our solar system for 3 million years? Also, why does anyone give a fuck about anything, it’s a comedy show.
