Wait a minute….this isn’t my fantasy!

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Right, apologies if someone has already satisfactorily answered this elsewhere….

So, it was an “Elation” Squid in BtE, right? So, just as the despair squid plunged each crew member into their own personal hell, so this squid should have brought about hallucinations of their ideal state of being.

I can understand Lister – he was given a reason to live in discovering that he could get back to Earth, where he could live happily with Kochanski if he so wished.

Rimmer’s ultimate pleasure seems to be in discovering that he doesn’t exist. Fair enough.

But what about the Cat and Kryten? The cat in particular bothers me – quite the opposite to Rimmer’s reaction, he is completely distraught at the thought that he doesn’t exist.

So where was their fantasy / elation?

Topic

[Ian Symes]

I’m going to be covering this in article within the next couple of days, so I don’t want to spoil it now. But I’ve got theories on all of them…

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Ooof, don’t want to step on your toes and / or piss on your chips. Do lock the thread if you’d prefer speculation to wait for the time being.

[Ian Symes]

Nah, it’s alright – my chips and toes will be fine. Speculate away!

[ChrisM]

As for the Cat, I don’t think he stays miserable for long does he? He seemed pretty happy in a lot of the scenes. Or maybe his elation was seeing Kryten twatted in the face numerous times with the rake (until the same thing happened to him.) ;)

Shallow character, easily pleased. (Yet ironically the one with the key to what was actually happening!)

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Right, well.

Only thing I can think of is that Cat’s path to pure elation revolves around him abandoning material obsessions / realising that he’s not the centre of the universe. It’s a bitter pill to swallow but might result in him fulfilling his potential.

Kryten’s? Hmm. Maybe his ultimate fantasy is to see Lister happy / have his guilt about the Kochanski secret resolved. In this way, the kids on the bus could be products of his psyche – living out his fantasy of telling Lister the truth.

[Phil]

>living out his fantasy of telling Lister the truth.

While I’m sure you’re reaching too far for something that probably isn’t there (eye em ache oh), this is a BEAUTIFUL interpretation.

[Nakrophile]

Lister – gets his last chance to be with Kochanski, before he is told TEH TROOH.
Rimmer – gets to pass off all his inadequacies by the fact someone made him up.
Cat – gets to be the smart one for a change and kind of solve the riddle/make up for guilt over bring the squid on board to begin with.
Kryten – hmm.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

> this is a BEAUTIFUL interpretation.

Well, thank you. One does one’s best.

[Nakrophile]

> living out his fantasy of telling Lister the truth.

I agree!

[philmyer92]

perhaps for Cat it’s that he finds out millions of people watch him and buy dvds/posters of him

as for Kryten i agree about it being Lister being happy

[Dessie]

Kryten’s has to be the fact he got to tell Lister. It must of been horrible for him seeing Lister upset about her dying and not telling him the truth.

Cats was probably the fact he was the one who worked it out (even if he didn’t know he was doing it)

[Seb Patrick]

With Rimmer, isn’t it that he outsmarted and defeated a clearly more intelligent hologram that was trying to destroy him?

[p2p_productions]

It took the crew a while to accept the despair ink ‘reality’ before Holly intervened, so maybe time is a factor.

I think if each character’s ‘perfect’ fantasy had materialised too soon, their immune respsonse would’ve kicked in earlier, therefore rendering the ink useless.

Remember, this is the squid’s DEFENCE mechanism. The thing only needs a certain ammount of time to escape from a perceived threat.

…Still not sure how Rimmer got infected, though. Sure, Kryten has organic components, but holograms too?

[Mnoooah]

Same way he got infected last time. Wibbly wobby hologrammy stuff.

Cat really is strange, though, his character is so shallow it’s difficult to tell what his wash fulfillment is short of an infinate wardrobe.

[Phil]

>Still not sure how Rimmer got infected, though. Sure, Kryten has organic components, but holograms too?

“Your pleasure and pain and hallucinogenic squid ink responses remain the same.”–Legion

[Phil]

>his character is so shallow it?s difficult to tell what his wash fulfillment is short of an infinate wardrobe.

True, but I think we did get a basic idea of it in Better Than Life. (A huge wardrobe, lots of fish to eat, a beautiful woman he can ignore, a reverse mermaid…whatever else I’m forgetting…)

EDIT: of course, we can extrapolate from Back to Reality that his ultimate joy would come from being the exact opposite of Dwayne Dibbley.

Which, hey, he already IS! So Cat’s always living his fantasy in that regard, with no real room for improvement.

[Mnoooah]

Shame, you’d think such advanced scientists would do something about that.

[Mnoooah]

amazon women, shooting dogs. That’s what I’m getting at, we have a couple of things here, none of which look anything like else we’ve been told about cat, execpt perhaps some elation at solving a problem, but none of them seems big enough to be his fantasy.

… unless it was the squid getting giant (mmmm fishy) ;)

[p2p_productions]

>Same way he got infected last time. Wibbly wobby hologrammy stuff.

…Perhaps some of the light bee’s internal mechanisms are chemically driven, or something, and therefore susceptible.

[Mnoooah]

Ah, good point, but that that brings us back around to the materialism, he has nothing else to want but stuff.

[Anonymous]

I’d be quite interested to know how an animal picked up on an ocean planet (i.e. a marine animal) managed to live in a fresh water supply for years and what it fed upon.

[Mnoooah]

Would you really? ;P

[hummingbird]

Continuity: who gives a smeg.

[Mnoooah]

I’ve always admired their complete lack of commitment to logic.

[Ian Symes]

I?d be quite interested to know how an animal picked up on an ocean planet (i.e. a marine animal) managed to live in a fresh water supply for years and what it fed upon.

Well, it was a genetically engineered life form, so it was clearly bred to live in any type of water, and to be able to go for hundreds of years without food. Obviously.

[Another Phil]

Speaking of continuity holes: it seems BtE renders Prelude to Nanarchy definitively non-canonical. According to Prelude (IIRC), the crew never got back to Red Dwarf after visiting the Esperanto. So Cat would never have got the chance to get the Joy Squid back on board.

[Phil]

>Speaking of continuity holes: it seems BtE renders Prelude to Nanarchy definitively non-canonical.

As long as Red Christmas still fits snugly into series IV, I’m happy.

[Richey]

> Speaking of continuity holes: it seems BtE renders Prelude to Nanarchy definitively non-canonical. According to Prelude (IIRC), the crew never got back to Red Dwarf after visiting the Esperanto. So Cat would never have got the chance to get the Joy Squid back on board.

Fuck that! The biggest question is just when exactly during the events of ‘Back To Reality’ did The Cat get the chance to find the joy squid and stash it on Starbug. Answer: He didn’t, hence continuity error.

[Jonathan Capps]

> Fuck that! The biggest question is just when exactly during the events of ?Back To Reality? did The Cat get the chance to find the joy squid and stash it on Starbug. Answer: He didn?t, hence continuity error.

Apart from all the time they spent sniffing around the obviously leaking Esperanto.

[Phil]

I think it swam into his anus when he squatted to take a catpoop.

[Carlito]

IIRC, he says he picked it up on an ocean planet; not neccessarily the same one though. Maybe another ocean planet they encountered during the (at least) 209 years since they were at the SSS Esperanto??? Just a guess…

[p2p_productions]

>Apart from all the time they spent sniffing around the obviously leaking Esperanto.

Great! And with Starbug having gone through that dimensional-cargo bay-expanding thing, plenty of places to hide her.

[Pete Part Three]

And can someone explain WHY he picked it up? His explanation of “I’m going to eat you little fishie” isn’t going to cut it on, um, account of it not being a fish.

[NoFro]

You CAN eat squid but I admit that the reason it was there was a bit weak, as was Cat’s rendition of the classic tune.

EDIT: All these technicalities I don’t care too much about though, ’cause it’s a fecking TV show.

[p2p_productions]

>His explanation of ?I?m going to eat you little fishie? isn?t going to cut it on, um, account of it not being a fish.

It’s a long-shot, but maybe Cat meant to say, “I’m gonna eat you, little sushi.” ;-)

[Phil]

>I?m gonna eat you, little sushi

Cuz I like to eat soosh.

[hummingbird]

You really think the Cat would know the difference between a fish and a cephalopod? Or even care?

[Mnoooah]

No, he wouldn’t. Even though the timing is dodgy, bringing it aboard *is* his kind of stupid.

[Turk Thrust]

I think this ep serves to remind everyone just how beautifully plotted Back to Reality is. In that episode all of the characters believably are taken from shock to despair gradually as the events unfold. In Back to Earth, maybe because the whole production had to be done so quickly, the same can`t be said.

I agree that for Kryten and Rimmer the reasons already given are probably correct but I`m not sure how believing they are going to die brings them joy. Then all 3 other characters are exposed to physical pain at Lister`s hands in the typewriter scene…

[Richey]

> Then all 3 other characters are exposed to physical pain at Lister`s hands in the typewriter scene?

I guess Doug felt it was finally time to answer that age old question of whether or not the Dwarfers are masochists. I mean, come on – Lister wears leather!! That’s the clue!

[NoFro]

I like some people’s ideas for Kryten, Rimmer and the Cat. Rimmer did seem extremely happy that he didn’t actually exist and I do think that this is what he got from the squid.

Whilst some great ideas are thrown about that would make sense for the others, it’s not entirely clear what Doug intended Kryten and Cat’s joy to be a product of.

I like the idea of Kryten getting over his guilt and Cat being watched by millions, but feel they weren’t obvious enough to be intended, and whilst a lot of stuff in the episode was simply hinted at, I just feel that Doug didn’t really think this through. At the end of Back to Reality, Kryten recaps what drove each of them to despair. It’d be nice if a similar thing had happened at the end of BTE. It may have made Doug make the effects more obvious throughout the episode as well.

Most of the whys, hows and whats that people ask about the episode could’ve been explained really easily in a few short scenes or bits of dialogue. Whilst it doesn’t really spoil my enjoyment of the episode, it would’ve been nice if these explanations were included as it seems to be ruining a few peoples viewing experience.

[Mnoooah]

> I`m not sure how believing they are going to die brings them joy

Dying, okay no. Getting back to their old death-defying antics after 9 years of ‘getting old and fat?’ perhaps.

[Carlito]

Cat’s joy is right there in the script… all his life he’d wanted to go on a metaphysical odyssey, and never thought he’d get the chance!

[ChrisM]

> Fuck that! The biggest question is just when exactly during the events of ?Back To Reality? did The Cat get the chance to find the joy squid and stash it on Starbug. Answer: He didn?t, hence continuity error.

Apart from all the time they spent sniffing around the obviously leaking Esperanto.

… and walking back and forth through the ocean from Starbug. You only glimpse them briefly… which means Cat could have grabbed the squid off-screen as it were. He probably took it into stasis with him during the centuries long nap between series 5 and 6. So she didn’t need food for hundreds of years. From series 5-8 she would have only aged a couple of years discounting stasis. Come to think of it, Cat might have left her in stasis the whole time only taking her out in series 8 during the Canary or Pete shenanigans.

[Carlito]

Well Cat would have to have had her in his pocket when they jumped out of the Starbug in BITR1 before it blew up, hey? That’s foresight for ya, and a lot of effort when he coulda just eaten her there and then? I mean, what was he saving her for? And where was she when he was in prison?

My best guess is that the ocean planet Cat refers to is NOT the same ocean planet that they met the despair squid on… it happened at some point during the 9 year gap.

[ChrisM]

I’ll admit it’s a stretch. Actually I figured she was left on board during the crash, and he went back for her later. (That’s why I mentioned the Canary and Pete shenanigans. You’d have thought the resurrected crew would have searched the wreckage mind you. Maybe that was the point in which she escaped?)

Again, major stretch as it seems unlikely she’d survive, especially as each section was torn off bit by bit, but anyway. Some other stuff like the positive viruses survived intact.

My best guess is that the ocean planet Cat refers to is NOT the same ocean planet that they met the despair squid on?

I thought that might be the case too, but it seems unlikely. In Back To Reality, it’s mentioned at the start, that all the sea life on the planet is the result of accelerated evolution experiments (or words to that effect.) Hence, it’s not a gelf in the strict sense.*

They seeded a moon with the basic primeval biological material required for life (granted with their own genetic engineering in the mix to accelerate the evolution) and let it all evolve. Since the two squids are the same species, they must have come from the same place. At least, that’s the impression I got, but I could be wrong.

*By that I mean, it probably wasn’t designed specifically as a particular species in the way the other gelfs we’ve seen were. They didn’t engineer the squids in a lab then drop them off on separate worlds. The genetic material it evolved from would still have still been genetically engineered though.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Wasn’t there an ocean planet in Cassandra?

> Cat?s joy is right there in the script? all his life he?d wanted to go on a metaphysical odyssey, and never thought he?d get the chance!

Didn’t like that line much. Not enough logic behind it to be funny. Lister should have said it in a sarcastic tone.

[Nakrophile]

Well wasn’t it made clear that the joy squid was from the same ocean as the despair squid? I thought words were said to that effect…

I know it’s not impossible, but how likely it it that they took Starbug down to the bottom of another ocean on another planet that also had a ship/station on its bed, and the staff there had also been conducting genetic alterations with the local marine life?

Same place, I say.

Also, I doubt it was the ocean in Cassandra, as the ship Cassandra herself was on was down there for a completely different reason than the one in BtR.

[Dave]

HOLLY: I took care of that! Limpet mines. There’s enough fried Calamari out there to feed the whole of Italy.

CUT TO DWARFERS IN DIVING GEAR

CAT: I’m gonna eat you little fishy! Oh wait this one’s alive. Guys I said this one’s alive. Oh I guess they didn’t hear me…

[Ben Paddon]

I guess Doug felt it was finally time to answer that age old question of whether or not the Dwarfers are masochists. I mean, come on – Lister wears leather!! That?s the clue!

It’s a blatant clue, innit? Blatant!

[Author]

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