Creaky Plots

[John Hoare]

Whenever I watch The Last Day, the following lines of dialogue always stand out to me:

RIMMER: Kryten, it’s ten to seven.
KRYTEN: One night. It’s not enough. I want more.
LISTER: Can’t we override your auto-destruct system?
KRYTEN: That’s not the problem.
CAT: What *is* the problem?
KRYTEN: I thought you understood! It’s a SERVICE contract! My termination was triggered by the impending arrival of my replacement!
LISTER: What replacement?!
KRYTEN: The new model – the latest upgrade. If I don’t terminate myself, he’s under orders to do it for me.

Does this feel creaky to anyone else? I suppose in some ways it’s a nice twist in the plot – but it’s a plot twist based on a misunderstanding, and not a misunderstanding that is set up in any way, so I’m not quite sure it works. It feels awfully like a slightly dodgy way of twisting the plot so you can have the final showdown with Hudzen…

Any more suggestions? You can always pick apart Dwarf eps once you start analysing them – hell, you can do that with most TV shows – but is there any other Dwarf ep where you can hear the gears grinding?

[Dave]

The thing that always got me in The Last Day, is when hungover Kryten’s head rolls on the remote, turning it on, allows a bit of (admittedly funny) exposition, before rolling on the remote again and turning it off.

[Andrew]

> It feels awfully like a slightly dodgy way of twisting the plot so you can have the final showdown with Hudzen?

I’ve always felt EXACTLY the same way about this ep – the question was even asked during Doug’s DVD interview, I was so certain it was a last-minute “Let’s do this” plot. But he’s adamant that no, it’s not another Queeg situation – the third act was always planned to go this way.

[Pete Part Three]

While I’d quite happily nominate anything from Series VIII, the way in which we have long-lingering shots of the crew licking envelopes to contrive the whole Psychotropic drugs crapatcular in the Back in the Red trilogy is especially horrendous.

[Dave]

It’s quite odd how in Backwards Holly is as cut off from the Dwarf as Rimmer & Kryten are. Did the lights go out on the short crimson one?

[Seb Patrick]

Watching Stasis Leak last night… why are they so concerned with persuading people to go into stasis? Why don’t they just tell Kochanski/Rimmer/Petersen/whoever to stay on Ganymede on planet leave? Or better yet, warn the captain about the accident and try to prevent it happening?

The planet leave thing could have been avoided if the ship was, say, more then three weeks away from stopping somewhere. But it’s quite clearly in orbit at the time they jump back to. So why can’t they come up with a better plan than either putting someone in stasis, or staying around for three weeks only to be killed?

[Dave]

“One of the knights has escaped from the AR machine!”

How exactly?

[peas_and_corn]

A wizard did it.

[Ian Symes]

The thing in Pete Part Two about Lister and Rimmer being the only people who can operate the Time Wand. What, out of everyone on the whole ship? In the same episode where Lister is established to be so stupid that he can’t even do a dot-to-dot puzzle?

[Phil]

The End, where Lister “conveniently” gets sent to stasis before everyone on the ship is killed.

Every time I watch that I grab my head and scream, “Yow! I’ve just been a-walloped by the Plot Hammer!”

[Pete Part Three]

LISTER: Aw, c’mon, he can’t be in that much danger. I mean, he’s a hologram.
KRYTEN: Not here. Here he will have a physical form until he leaves and any danger he may be in will be very real indeed.

Ya..wha?

[Mr Flibble]

You mean the ship hasn’t corroded and fallen apart in three million years?

[Phil]

Kind of interesting the way all of the episodes end with the credits rolling, so you can see who worked on the show and in what capacity.

Sort of pulls me out of the reality when that happens.

[Danny Stephenson]

Bringing people back from the dead?

Whatever.

Talk about MAKING STUFF UP!

[Author]

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