"Kryten" is the seventh episode from

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

Red Dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

'', the first from series two, and was first broadcast on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

on 6 September 1988. Written by

Rob Grant Robert Grant is an English comedy writer, television producer and co-creator of ''Red Dwarf''. Since ''Red Dwarf'', Grant has written two television series, ''The Strangerers'' and '' Dark Ages'', and four solo novels, his most recent being '' F ...

and

Doug Naylor Douglas Rodger Naylor (born 31 December 1955) is an English comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer. Life and career Naylor was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, and studied at Chetham's School of Music ...

, and directed by

Ed Bye Edward Richard Morrison Bye (born 12 June 1955) is a British film and TV producer and director. He directed the episodes of the Science fiction, science-fiction British sitcom, sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' from List of Red Dwarf episodes, Series I-IV and V ...

, this episode introduced the mechanoid character

Kryten Kryten is a fictional character in the British science fiction situation comedy ''Red Dwarf''. The name ''Kryten'' is a reference to the head butler in the J.M. Barrie play ''The Admirable Crichton''. Originally referred to as a Series III mecha ...

. The episode was re-mastered, along with the rest of the first three series, in 1998.

Plot

''Red Dwarf'' receives a distress call from a crashed spaceship, the ''Nova 5''. When

Arnold Rimmer Arnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character in the science fiction sitcom ''Red Dwarf'', played by Chris Barrie. Rimmer is characterised as a second-class technician (and de facto leader) of the mining ship Red Dwarf. Portrayed as snobbish, peda ...

(

Chris Barrie Chris Barrie (born Christopher Jonathan Brown, 28 March 1960) is a British actor, comedian, and impressionist. He worked as a vocal impressionist on the ITV sketch show ''Spitting Image'' (1984–1996) and as Lara Croft's butler Hillary in th ...

Dave Lister David "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy ''Red Dwarf'', portrayed by Craig Charles. Lister is characterised as a third-class technician (the lowest r ...

(

Craig Charles Craig Joseph Charles (born 11 July 1964) is an English actor, comedian, television and radio presenter. He is best known for his roles as Dave Lister in the science fiction sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' and Lloyd Mullaney in the soap opera ''Coronation ...

), and

Cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

(

Danny John-Jules Daniel John-Jules (born 16 September 1960) is a British actor, singer and dancer. He is best known for playing Milton Wordsworth in The Story Makers and ''Red Dwarf'', Barrington which are both children's series. Also he played in ''Maid Maria ...

) check the call, they learn that it was made from a service mechanoid called

( David Ross), who reports that all of the crew are dead except for three female crew members. Eager to rescue them but learning from

Holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

(

Norman Lovett Norman Lovett (born 31 October 1946) is a British stand-up comedian and actor best known for his portrayal of Holly (Red Dwarf), Holly, the ship's computer in ''Red Dwarf''. Career Lovett became a stand-up comedian in his thirties, initially ...

) it will take 24 hours for ''Red Dwarf'' to reach the crash site, the group boldly spruce themselves for their meeting. Upon boarding the ''Nova 5'', they quickly discover that the women are also dead and that Kryten has been oblivious to this for centuries. Upon being convinced by the others of this fact, Lister takes pity on Kryten when he questions how he will cope, and decides to bring him back to ''Red Dwarf''.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 52. Once on the ship, Rimmer makes use of him to serve primarily himself, much to Lister's disgust. As a result, Lister tries to make Kryten live for himself by having him watch films starring

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...

and

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause' ...

. Although his plan seems not to work, Rimmer is angered when his request for a portrait by Kryten leads him to painting the hologram in an admiral uniform while using a toilet. Kryten takes heart in Lister's tutoring and rebels by insulting Rimmer and ruining his bunk, before asking to borrow Lister's space bike and speeding off to enjoy himself.

Production

The writers realised that the huge ''Red Dwarf'' ship on its own did not generate enough story material and to accommodate this new direction for the series a small shuttle ship, ''Blue Midget'', was designed to ferry the crew to and from different locations. The new ship was based on an "every day car" that would go from A to B. Miniature crew models were made to fit inside the small ship and filming was added to footage of the ''Red Dwarf'' ship. This is the first appearance of Kryten, who wasn't originally intended to become a main character and is not seen again in Series 2. David Ross played Kryten in this episode, but because of scheduling clashes

Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' and formerly presented the engineering gameshow ''Scrapheap Challenge''. He ...

played the character when he became a regular from Series III onwards.Series II Episode Guide, Red Dwarf Smegazine, issue 5, July 1992, Fleetway Editions Ltd, The writers had resisted using robot characters as they had considered the practice a sci-fi cliché. Kryten's appearance was of a mechanical-looking butler with an angular head. The head mask had provided the most problems to the make up and effects team. Prosthetic foam originally used for the mask kept falling apart and eventually a latex piece was produced. Initially it had taken David Ross up to eight hours to get into the full Kryten make-up. To make matters worse, Ross suffered from claustrophobia.Interview: David Ross, Red Dwarf Smegazine, issue 1, March 1992, Fleetway Editions Ltd,

Johanna Hargreaves Johanna Hargreaves (born 18 June 1963) is a British television actress who has been active since 1980, best known for playing "Stella" in the 1983 teenage drama ''Johnny Jarvis'' and "Linda Jordan" in the 1992 police drama '' Between the Lines''. ...

appeared as the Esperanto teacher and

Tony Slattery Tony Declan James Slattery (born 9 November 1959) is an English actor and comedian. He appeared on British television regularly from the mid-1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' His ...

voiced an android actor in the ''Androids'' television show.

Cultural references

Howard Goodall Howard Lindsay Goodall (; born 26 May 1958) is an English composer of musicals, choral music and music for television. He also presents music-based programmes for television and radio, for which he has won many awards. In May 2008, he was na ...

wrote the ''Androids'' theme tune with the Australian soap opera ''

Neighbours ''Neighbours'' is an Australian television soap opera, which has aired since 18 March 1985. It was created by television executive Reg Watson. The Seven Network commissioned the show following the success of Watson's earlier soap '' Sons an ...

'' in mind. The song, containing similar lyrics and tune, was trimmed down due to time constraints. *Lister insists that Kryten should watch classic rebel films like ''

The Wild One ''The Wild One'' is a 1953 American crime film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. The picture is most noted for the character of Johnny Strabler, portrayed by Marlon Brando, whose persona became a cultural icon of the 1 ...

'', ''

Rebel Without a Cause ''Rebel Without a Cause'' is a 1955 American coming-of-age drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format and directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social co ...

'' and ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

'', hoping that the films, including the

rebel speech, would help the mechanoid break his servile programming. Kryten quotes Marlon Brando in the last line of the episode: Rimmer asks, "What are you rebelling against?" and Kryten replies in an affected voice, "What d'ya got?" *During the scene where the Red Dwarf crew meets the skeletons around the table, Rimmer originally says they have "less meat on them than a

Chicken McNugget Chicken McNuggets are a type of chicken nuggets sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. They consist of small pieces of reconstituted boneless chicken meat that have been battered and deep fried. Chicken McNuggets we ...

!". The line has been edited to "chicken nugget", without the reference to

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

Reception

Originally broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 6 September 1988 in the 9:00 pm evening slot, the episode gained average viewing ratings, and received a mixed response from viewers. One reviewer stated that "the episode would be a brilliant one if Kryten weren't a little too C3PO-ish." The episode also received a mixed response from fans, voting it 22nd in a 1992 ''Red Dwarf Magazine'' readers' poll with 1.4% of the votes. This ranked it the lowest of Series 2's episodes.Readers survey results, ''Red Dwarf Smegazine'', p. 27., issue 10, December 1992, Fleetway Editions Ltd,

Remastering

The remastering of Series I to III was carried out during the late 1990s. Changes throughout the series included replacement of the opening credits, giving the picture a colour grade and

filmising Film look (also known as filmizing or film-look) is a process in which video is altered in overall appearance to appear to have been shot on film stock. The process is usually electronic, although filmizing can sometimes occur as an unintentional ...

, computer generated

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

of ''Red Dwarf'' and many more visual and audio enhancements. Changes specific to "Kryten" include a new ending with Kryten flying Lister's space bike off into distant space away from ''Red Dwarf''.

Notes

*This is the first episode we see Rimmer touching things as a hologram, albeit only other holographic objects.

References

;Sources *

External links

* *
Episode Guide – Series II at RedDwarf.co.uk
{{Red Dwarf episodes Red Dwarf II episodes 1988 British television episodes Television episodes about androids