Red Dwarf easter egg in Star Trek Deep Space Nine

There’s also a subtle Dwarf reference in the TNG episode ‘Clues’ – if you look closely, you can see the entire script for ‘Thanks For The Memory’ nicked by a fan who got his unsolicited spec script produced because no-one had spotted what he’d done.

I don’t think Data would exist if it wasn’t for Kryten.

I was about to say something pithy about the Piece Of The Action/A Fistful Of Datas/Gunmen Of The Apocalypse love triangle but the subject always breaks me. Rob & Doug write a Dwarf episode specifically as a tribute to a classic TOS episode but end up making an insanely close copy of a TNG episode that they can’t possibly have seen in time to have been influenced by (even if they’d seen it in the US or via the then-quite-active bootleg circuit, Gunmen started shooting location work only a few short months later). It’s like a real life XI episode.

What strikes me is that if Michael Okuda was a big enough fan to put a Dwarf reference on the DS9 set, then he would have known what a ripoff Clues was, and to a lesser extent ‘The Game’ as well. It’s a web of intrigue.

The list is full of references to other shows, books and films.

Banzai Institute – Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension
Cavor’s Gravity Devices – The First Men in the Moon
Del Floria’s Tailor Shop – The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Diet Smith Corporation – Dick Tracy
Diva Droid International – Red Dwarf
Forbin Project – The Forbin Project
Milliways – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Spaceley Sprockets – The Jetsons
Tom Servo’s Used Robots – Mystery Science Theater 3000
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems – Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension

It’s not a unique example in TNG either – that delightfully filthy one in season 7 where Crusher has a big wank in the woods over a ghost (official synopsis) is so comprehensively plagiarised from the Anne Rice novel ‘The Witching Hour’ that until fairly recently it was assumed the writer was Rice under a pseudonym, and not just another unsolicited opportunist. My wife is/was a big Anne Rice fan and when that episode was last on the BBC in 2008 (ah, nice memories of watching those late night repeats together despite the DVDs being in the same room) she actually asked me if Rice wrote it without knowing anything about the rumour (and this was before it was formally disproven).

I can’t talk anyway – for my English SATs aged 11, I rewrote Flat Stanley beat for beat and passed with flying colours. Maybe I should have sent it to Paramount as well.

I’ve just gone and watched Clues, can’t decide if it would have been better or worse without having known this first.

Amazing plot though, don’t know who comes up with these ideas.