Meltdown
Red Dwarf - Series Four - Episode Six
The vast majority of Red Dwarf episodes go for a classic British comedy full of smegma and curry. Thats not to say this is a bad thing - it is actually quite good. However, there are times with the writers sneak something more into the script - some deeper moral or bit of philosophy that makes you sit back and think for a bit. Such is the case with Meltdown.
A (very) brief summary:
- Rimmer bores everyone with a story of Risk (showing how obsessed he is with the idea of commanding an army)
- Kryten discovers a matter transporter.
- Everyone beams down to a planet populated by wax droids engaged in combat - the good (philosophers, pacifists, and religious officals) against the bad (Hitler, Caligula, Rasputin, etc...) which the bad guys have (obviously) been winning.
- Rimmer falls in with the good bunch and tries making them into an army.
- Big conflict - all of the good guys get shot (as a decoy) except for Queen Victoria who gets into the villain headquarters and lets loose with a machine gun. Kryten turns up the heat and melts the rest.
- All the wax droids are dead (after millions of years of breaking the limitations of their programs)
- The crew returns back to Red Dwarf
In case you missed it there: All the wax droids are dead. It is at this point that the writers sneak in their moral part. Well, sneak isn't quite the right word - they come right out and shout it through the voice of Lister.
- Lister
- How many survived?
- Rimmer
- Well, we haven't had time to make a full official estimate, but at a rough guess - and obviously, this is subject to alteration pending information updates - round about... none of them.
- Lister
- So you wiped out the entire population of this planet?
- Rimmer
- You make it sound so negative, Lister. Don't you see? The deranged menace that once threatened this world is vanquished!
- Lister
- No it isn't, pal - you're still 'ere.
- Rimmer
- I've brought about PEACE! Peace, freedom and democracy!
- Lister
- Yeah, Rimmer. Right. Absolutely. Now all the corpses that litter that battlefield can just lie there, safe in the knowledge that they snuffed it under a flag of peace, and can now happily decompose in a land of freedom. Ya smeghead.
- Rimmer
- There really is no pleasing some people, is there?
- Lister
- Well, thank you...
- Kryten
- At least we got the matter paddle back.
- Lister
- Well, there's nothin' to stay here for. Let's get back.
- Rimmer
- Oh, shouldn't we go out on to the battlefield and bask in the glory
of victory?
At this point Lister gets
Holly to give him his "light-bee" (
hologram
projector) and swallows it saying "It's OK - he'll come out in a couple of days. After he's been through what he's put us through."
It is a mark of a good comedic series that doesn't have to resort to "this is a special episode" type advertisements that appear in all too many series today in an attempt to garner a wider audience. From the tradition of M*A*S*H mixing the serious messages and the laughs this episode excels in both comedic value and shines with its deeper messages.