Context for those unfamiliar with Red Dwarf (Spoilers for S01E01 of the show)
Dave Lister, played by Craig Charles, is the last man alive. He’s living in the mining ship “Red Dwarf” with a hologram of his dead roommate, Rimmer, played by Chris Barrie; a member of a species of evolved cats, “The Cat”, played by Danny John-Jules; a computer on the ship, Holly, played by Hattie Hayridge as of series three; and also as of series three, a robot, Kryten, played by Robert Llewellyn. Rimmer died due to a radiation leak that killed everyone on “Red Dwarf”, except for Lister and non-humans.
“The Last Day” is the first episode to really focus on Llewellyn’s Kryten. Whether or not one counts “Kryten” as a Kryten-focused episode is a matter of debate. Regardless, Llewellyn pulls in a much better performance here than previously, giving reason to his “robotic” and narrow minded behavior. He does a good job of keeping the character’s inhuman qualities, while giving him some emotions and feelings. This episode also shows everyone as not only a team, but tolerant of that dynamic. Kryten doesn’t ever seem to understand the bond living beings can have for each other. That being said, he genuinely seems to like the others to a degree. Apparently androids are not supposed to enjoy their work, but Kryten often seems to. According to this episode, Kryten doesn’t, but wants to get in “Silicon Heaven” when he dies.
My personal theory was someone at some point reprogrammed Kryten to actually like chores, though it was imperfect, with the dislike of it sometimes coming out. Regardless, him genuinely liking that, and how that might contrast with what the others want and feel about it, is more interesting as it’s generally different than a real person. Even if a person likes chores, imagine doing them often everyday and with little else to do? It’s also arguable that him taking the load off things by doing chores and being another character to interact with has leveled tensions, so he brings in a contrasting personality.
Lister does get some development, as well. Namely, a big part of the “Kryten” episode is that Lister doesn’t seem to like that he’s treated as just a servant. That comes up again here, with him not wanting Kryten to always make him breakfast. However, for the most part he is content with treating him like that, though you can tell Lister often views Kryten as a real friend. For better or for worse, this inconsistency and use of Kryten makes Lister less likable. No one here is supposed to be, so that’s fair enough. It’s a shame that this dulls the clashing personalities of Lister and Rimmer, as Rimmer has been fine using Kryten as just a servant. At least have someone point out how Lister has changed. On another note, we learn more of Lister’s past, being abandoned by his parents as a baby. Ideally, this could’ve come up in an episode more about this. “Marooned” would’ve been a great place for this development.
The Cat is weirdly unselfish. An arguable reason why is he enjoys feeling the team support and the attention that yields him. Lister in particular likes Cat. He’s even excited to give something to Kryten. A possible explanation is he knows he would probably be able to get it back from Kryten later. Rimmer is weirdly absent from this episode. He does take a little opportunity to try and assert dominance over a character, but Chris Barrie overall isn’t in his normal scene stealing mode.
The episode takes a while to get going, with the setup being a bit dry. It even takes some time to introduce Rimmer and longer for the Cat. The party with everyone discussing their feelings and trying to give Kryten a good time works as character development, showing their comradery, and also as comedy. A favorite is Kryten getting drunk and falling off his chair. Surprised that didn’t rile up the studio audience, like how the smeg ups can. That scene had me dying. The positive momentum continues with Gordon Kennedy as Hudzen, who is intimidating while also getting laughs.
I’m glad this was the last episode of the series. We’re maximizing the time with Kryten, thus increasing the impact of his leaving. The fact that at this point he was only in one series makes it believable he was only a one off and could’ve actually left here.
SPOILERS
This episode is more true to one of the original ideas of the show than most, that the world of the show is incredibly cruel. Holly, as an example, seems to be aware there is more to life than what they do, but is confined to how they are, not even having a body. Kryten and the other service droid suffer trying to fulfill orders, apparently in a misguided attempt to get into Silicone Heaven, which may not even be real. For everyone else, they have more of a natural drive to live which is often challenged in violent ways.
Defeating the purpose of a service droid, Hudzen almost killed everyone. Sure, he was insane, but you would think the developers would want to avoid that. Apparently Lister is a target due to being “barely human”. What does that even mean? If Lister is the only human still alive, why would the machines be sold to humans specifically? Just sell the product to who or whatever. It’d be like if products were made today specifically for dinosaurs. Before things get violent, Rimmer gets out of the way. I had wondered why, though this actually makes sense considering he still has human emotions and thus would have that trigger instinct to avoid getting hurt.
In the next episode, Kryten is being taught how to lie. If that had been before this episode, the lie here would work much better. Kryten at one point makes a joke that involves saying something not true. While the whole bit is quite good, it should’ve been saved for later.
SERIES OVERVIEW
Series three tightens the dynamic of the characters and changes the formula a bit. It focuses more on crazy and foreign entities come to trip everyone up, with Lister, Rimmer, The Cat, and Kryten tackling four corners of a comedy troupe. The tradeoff of this is that Holly and to a lesser extent The Cat are underutilized. Still, both are not only still funny, but get some very good material.
Character drama was pretty central to the first two series, but now it’s more muted and the focus is on action. The one episode that is very character focused, mostly featuring Lister and Rimmer talking, needs an incident to cause that situation. In the early series, they did that just because. Both tones work well. What probably would’ve been for the best story wise is if you’d get a mix of both. Maybe one episode is pure action, then the next pure drama, sometimes with the comedy at the front, sometimes a bit more subdued.
In terms of those characters, they feel quite different when being little more than a certain “funny role”. They feel less like real people and are thus less relatable, though it’s hard to deny the humor that comes from that. This also goes against Rimmer’s consistent desire to be taken seriously. Here he lays on just being a funny and stern guy. In fact, all the characters change up their personalities for the sake of what the story needs of them. Two notable examples are how Kryten goes through a whole arc in his series two appearance, seeming ready and able to be his own individual that can do things like insult someone, but he was then basically reset to how he was and is now essentially going on the same journey, but much slower. When he said in “The Last Day” that he is finally having fun, my mind just went to him riding a motorcycle around the universe last series. Servicing the arc are the generally funny scenes of him being subservient to others. He is underplayed usually, which is for the best as Llewellyn’s acting leaves something to be desired.
The other example is how The Cat sometimes doesn’t seem to care about anyone and other times does. The reason might be that Cat has value in being part of the “Red Dwarf Posse” and likes that feeling. He also seems to respect his crewmates more. A broader case is how mainly in this episode, the Dwarfers are being needlessly confrontational. While that goes with their general energy and spirit, it goes against their selfish desires. They sometimes get into danger when it’s not necessary and sometimes even to help another. While the first two series work better as narratives, especially one that develops from one episode to the next, series three beats them out solely by being funnier and doing nothing else superiorly. Even the weaker installments have some good stuff, so there aren’t even bad episodes. Still, the dull periods are definitely there.
Rank from weakest to best: “The Last Day”, “Backwards”, “Marooned”, “Bodyswap”, “Timeslides”, “Polymorph”.
The Filme Diary 