It took a while to find the time and the right situation to begin writing this, but here we go.
Preamble
So, Red Dwarf is a comedy show about garbage (adjective) people in space1 and it's my... second favourite thing. It takes place on the Red Dwarf, a Jupiter Mining Corp mining ship lost in deep space. One of my favourite things about it is the time it spends on deuteragonist and occasional antagonist Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), specifically the lengths and depths it goes to show how incredibly broken of a human being he is, and generating a significant amount of sympathy towards him, even though he's a deeply horrible human being. You can see him in the image above, with a silver H on his forehead sneering at the optimism of his bunkmate. I want to explore Arnold Rimmer's tragic humanity and share it with you all.
Now, the purpose of this little project of mine isn't to recap the entire show episode-by-episode, I'm sure there's a podcast or something out there doing just that and you could just watch the show instead of reading whatever I'd write recapping it but this first entry is going to have to recap the first episode because it's important to set up the character of Rimmer and his relationship with protagonist Dave Lister (Craig Charles), not to mention the premise of the entire show going forward. I'll also do a quick run over episodes 2 through 5 of the first series, which aren't exactly dense with the kind of scenes I'm wanting to cover, but have little morsels of Rimmisery sprinkled throughout which build a foundational understanding of our messed up guy. Most entries after this I'll probably be focusing on one particular episode at a time, or that's the plan at least. So, aplogies if this one runs on a bit, they'll be more concise after this I hope. Bear with me and let's get the hard one out of the way.
Now, with the disclaimers out of the way let's begin.
Episode 1: The End
Hate to stop before we've already started, but let's take 5 minutes and watch the scene that the show opens with. I think it's a great introduction to our main characters and the dynamic between them which is important to understand when examining how Rimmer is the worst guy.
From this scene we learn a few things, but the most important ones are: Rimmer is Lister's superior in rank; Lister is the only person that Rimmer is superior to; Rimmer has an upjumped sense of duty and importance even while dealing with the most unimportant tasks; and Rimmer has ambitions of promotion but is incapable of living up to them, while standing on these ambitions to avoid accusations of inferiority.
"It's true you know though Rimmer, you rank below all four of those service robots, even the one that's gone absolutely mad!"
"Well Lister not for long matey! Up, up, up, that's where I'm going!
The scene ends with the pair being approached by Todhunter, an officer who, when we see him occasionally throughout the series, always seems to be a pretty nice and generally amicable guy. When Rimmer uses Todhunter's presence to hopefully inflict some kind of punishment on Lister for calling him a smeg-head2 but even cheerful, friendly Todhunter chuckles and difuses the situation by reaffirming to Rimmer that he is a smeg-head. This is important, because it immediately establishes that it's not just Lister who Rimmer doesn't get on with, even the nicest guy you can imagine thinks Rimmer is a bit of a tool.
Ambitions and Nothing
In the next scene the two are in their room and Rimmer commands the broadcast that Lister is watching - the funeral ceremony for recently deceased officer George Macintyre - to turn off. Rimmer is writing notes from a book onto his arm, he has an exam tomorrow which he intends to pass. Lister points out that he's obviously cheating which Rimmer denies, saying it's just an aide to memory to help him marshal the facts already in his command! When Lister continues to rib him for it, Rimmer defends himself thusly:
"Lister, do you think it's easy for someone like me to become an officer? Someone who wasn't Academy educated? Someone who didn't have the right nobby background? Someone who didn't have the right parents?"
"You didn't have the right parents? Whose parents did you have?"
"My parents. The *wrong parents."
Rimmer blames his inability to live up to his ambitions - at least in part - on his background and his parents. When Lister asks him why he bothers trying to pass the exam if he can't do it without cheating, Rimmer responds by accusing Lister of having no drive or ambition, being a 'nothing'. To Rimmer, the difference between him and somebody who is 'nothing', is ambition whether they're achieved or not, and unfair play is wholely justified because of the handicap of his upbringing because it is in aide of achieving his ambitions. When Lister defends himself, telling Rimmer of his own ambitions to save up enough money to buy a farm in Fiji, Rimmer immediately attempts to step on and belittle it. If the only things separating himself from someone who is 'nothing' are a rank and an ambition, and that other person actually has an ambition they're striving for then Rimmer is closer to nothing than he thought and trying to crush that ambition not only makes himself feel good, but preserves the gap between himself and nothing.
Death, part 1
Flight Coordinator George Macintyre is the show's first casualty. He died before it started actually. When Todhunter approached Lister and Rimmer earlier, it was to discuss Rimmer's complaints about Lister left in Macintyre's artefacts, and the funeral Lister was watching was for Macintyre. In the fiction of Red Dwarf though, death isn't always the end, and the crew are holding their "Welcome Back George Macintyre" reception. The ship's Captain explains that though he has died, George is back as hologram, and as a hologram he is in every respect like George, with the same personality and the same knowledge and experience, though he cannot touch anything. One can imagine why this technology would come in handy out in deep space, where if a person vital to the crew dies their expertise can still be relied upon. Maintaining a hologram isn't cheap however, the ship's computer Holly (Norman Lovett) is only capable of maintaining one hologram as it is a significant power draw.

There he is! The 'H' on his forehead as you might be able to guess stands for 'hologram' (not Horus or Hidiot though possibly Heavy-metal). You've seen it earlier in this post haven't you? If you're not familiar with the series and have forgotten, scroll up. Yeah, Rimmer's not surviving this episode.
George Macintyre, even though he's just died is quite chipper. He smiles, cracks jokes and makes light of death. It's Macintyre who mentions Holly only being able to sustain one hologram, by saying:
As you know, Holly's only capable of sustaining one hologram. So, my advice to anyone more vital to the mission than me is: if you die, I'll kill you.
Everybody at the reception is delighted and it's obvious that Macintyre was a beloved member of the crew. Everybody except for Rimmer, who doesn't seem to care and is in plain sight reviewing the cheat-sheet he's written all over his arm. Catering Officer Olaf Petersen (as in "No it's not, Petersen told me!") gets a good look at it and brings it up to Lister and his other loutish friends who jeer at Rimmer. Rimmer's attempted cheating is no secret.
Failing by the narrowest of narrow margins
Back in their bunk, Lister is asleep while Rimmer is in his underwear and we see that he has covered his arms and legs with notes, and is adding up what percentage of the exam's marks each limb would cover. When he's satisfied that he's covered everything they would ask, he begins trying to review.
"'CUTIE': Current under tension is ... what's this? Current under tension is equal? Current under tension is expandable? Current under tension is expensive? What does this mean? What does any of this mean? I've covered my body in complete and utter and total absolute nonsense gibberish!"
As he begins to melt down, Lister wakes with a cough and Rimmer quickly straightens himself and begins spouting off technobabble to save face in front of Lister, who doesn't quite believe it. After assuring Lister that he's in 'complete and total control', Rimmer heads off to take the exam.
The exam is being monitored by Todhunter and there are a bunch of other people taking it. When they're instructed to start, one participant in front of Rimmer looks downright excited by it. Rimmer on the other hand picks up the single sheet of paper and squints at it, scanning over it. It's clear he doesn't understand it. He looks around the room bewildered and cranes his neck a bit to try and peek at what the excited fella is doing, who turns around and gives him an energetic thumb's up - it's clearly easy for him. Confused and probably feeling like he's missing something, Rimmer checks the other side of the page. He presses a corner of the sheet between his fingers and blows at it, trying to pry apart what could be two pages stuck together, but isn't. Failing to find a missing piece that will help him understand the exam, he rolls up his sleeve revealing that the notes he couldn't understand earlier are also smudged now and he silently winces. He looks at his hand and, seeing it covered in ink winces again. Then a fae calm washes over his face as he looks down at the exam sheet and slaps his ink-soaked hand onto the page, signs it, stands up, salutes Todhunter, and faints. Todhunter looks slightly bewildered, but just carries on with what he was doing. He's no doubt seen this shit before.
The inciting incident
Meanwhile, Lister has been called into the Captain's office. He flirts with one of the female crew on the command deck, Kristine Kochanski, with whom he seems somewhat familiar. She seems to blow him off and maybe even mock him under the guise of flirting which Lister doesn't seem to get before Captain Hollister steps out and calls him in. You see, after Rimmer went to the exam, Lister got out of bed and opened up one of the air vents to feed the pregnant cat he'd been hiding in there, Frankenstein. Captain Hollister is now questioning him about his cat, which Lister denies exists but is immediately shut down when Hollister produces some polaroid photos which Lister sent to be processed in the ship's lab. An unquarantined animal in the air ducts is a serious danger to the ship, it could be carrying diseases and could cause damage to the ship's systems, so the Captain wants the cat surrendered and plans to have it disected and tests run on it. Lister, who doesn't want to surrender Frankenstein for her to be killed, because he planned to bring her to Fiji with him, refuses and Hollister offers him an ultimatum: surrender the cat or go into stasis for the duration of the Red Dwarf's mission, surrendering 18 month's pay. Lister chooses stasis.
As Lister is escorted to the stasis booth by Todhunter, who regrets having to do this, they're passed by a group of medics pushing a gurney with Rimmer on it, who is awake but delerious. Lister asks if he's alright, to which he replies, "I can't really remember, I think I did quite well." This shines a light toward a potentially different reason for Rimmer lying about why he failed his previous exams, being that he doesn't think he's lying and because of his episodes remembers them differently. I'm not 100% convinced by the idea, but I think it's completely plausible.
Lister waves through the stasis booth's window as he's frozen in time.
Everybody's dead, Dave
When Lister emerges from stasis, Holly's voice greets him instructing him to proceed to the drive room for debriefing. As he plods through the corridors he finds the place full of tiny piles of white powder which he immediately starts eating as he asks Holly where everybody is. "They're dead Dave." Lister struggles with the idea, and begins listing off each person he knows to ask if they're dead, which Holly gets frustrated with. Now in the drive room, Lister asks what happened.
"The drive plate was inefficiently repaired. It blew, and the entire crew was subjected to a lethal dose of cadmium 2 before I could seal the area."
"Oh, this is terrible. And why is it so dirty around here, Hol? What is this stuff?"
Lister pops another finger-full of white powder in his mouth.
"That is Catering Officer Olaf Petersen."
Lister spits it out of his mouth and shouts that he's 'been eating half the crew'. He looks to the center of the drive room where there are two piles of former-crew members and asks who one of them is, which Holly tells him is Captain Hollister. Lister guesses aloud that the other is Todhunter but Holly tells him that no, it's Second Technician Arnold Rimmer.
"He was explaining to the Captain why he hadn't sealed the drive plate properly."
The entire crew of the Red Dwarf, bar Lister, died as a result of Rimmer's inability to do his job.
Holly explains that Lister has been in stasis for three million years, and he couldn't let Lister out of stasis until the background radiation reached a safe level. Lister asks about Kristine Kochanski, who Holly confirms is of course also dead, and we learn that she was part of Lister's plan to buy a farm of Fiji. Though he never told her, she was supposed to come with him and be his beautiful idyllic wife who he would support and do everything for. I'm not here to write about Lister's delusions though.
As the reality of his situation sinks in, Lister lights a cigarette and confirms with Holly that everybody's dead and he's on his own.
"Well, technically speaking yeah."
"What do you mean, technically speakin'?"
Enter Arnold Rimmer, with a silver 'H' on his forehead.
Death, part 2
I'll go over this scene, but you should probably watch it yourself as well.
Almost immediately Rimmer begins to blame Lister for his death, saying that if Lister had surrendered his cat had helped him mend the drive plate this wouldn't have happened, even going as far as to call him a murderer as he laments the things which he'll never get to do (Cradle a laughing child, brushg a rose against his cheek, and interfere with a woman sexually. 2 parts wanker, 1 part creep.), that even though he still has the same drives and emotions he can't touch anything. As he kneels over his powdery remains, Rimmer asks,
Is this me here? Me?
And his existential crisis begins.
"Come on, Rimmer, look on the bright side."
"'The bright side'? What bright side? I'm dead, I'm composed entirely of light, and I'm alone in space with a man who'd lose a battle of wits with a stuffed iguana. Where's the bright side?"
"... What's an iguana? And look, you're not dead, are ya? I mean, you're dead, but you're not dead dead, because you're still here, aren't you?"
"Lister, I'm not really here! I'm not really me! Don't you see? I'm a computer simulation of me! That's me there, that pile of albino mouse droppings."
Rimmer struggles with Lister's optimism, unable to see past the technically correct idea that he's only a simulation of himself and that the real Arnold Rimmer died three million years ago. Rimmer's attitude to his own death is in real contrast to how George Macintyre seemed to feel about it.
Still, Lister manages to make an argument that seems to almost convince Rimmer to pull himself together, but when he tells Lister that he will have to be his 'hands', Lister blows him off with a joke about 'the things you like to touch' and this, more than Lister's attempts at optimism is I think what brings Rimmer around as he loses that train of thought and in retaliation for the remark attempts to put Lister on report for smoking in the drive room. Realising that he can't write it down, accepts that he'll just have to remember the infraction. Lister reaffirms to Rimmer that he's still a smeg-head and walks through Rimmer's incorporeal form off into the corridors and Rimmer is left alone in the drive room, where he tries to sadly lean on a table, only to fall through it.
Fushal, the promised land
And for our Rimmer content that's pretty much the end for this episode. After that, we meet the fourth main member of our cast (the third being Holly), The Cat (Danny John Jules), who is the last* of a race practically identical to humans who evolved from Frankenstein and her kittens over three million years living in the irradiated Red Dwarf. He's entirely self-absorbed and vain, only caring more about his clothing than himself. At the end of the episode, The Cat explains to Lister the mythology of "Frankenstein the Holy Mother, who was saved by Cloister the Stupid who was frozen in time and who gaveth of his life that we might live" and that one day Cloister would return to lead the cats to the promised land of Fushal, before dismissing it and that "Nobody believes that stuff". Cloister is obviously Lister and Fushal is Fiji. The episode ends with Lister asserting that he's still got a cat, and he's going to Fiji while Rimmer looks on with disgust at his renewed optimism.
The Beginning
That's it for the first entry of this thing. After this I'll do a (hopefully) brief run over of the next 4 episodes of Series 1's little Rimmer moments then I'll close out Series 1 on the first episode where we get into the real nitty-gritty of the hell that is Rimmer's mind, Me². Hope this was worth reading, stick around for the next ones!
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Not to be confused with Planetes which is about garbage (noun) people in space, which is my favourite thing.
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Smeg and by extension smeghead being the show's catch-all made up swear word. I'll say now I'm not going to be throwing it into my writing, I have real swear words if I want to use them and when I've been in groups of Red Dwarf fans I found its use kind of tired and performative. Power to you if you want to use it yourself but I'll be abstaining.
