When the Red Dwarf crew pass a small moon which is home to a research station they pay it a visit hoping to be able to use their facilities to repair Starbug's broken left thruster. The facility a centre where research into curing the most evil people was undertaken by Professor Telford. His patients are Hitler, Stalin, Vlad the Impaler and Messalina
it is explained that they aren't the 'originals' but clones who have their memories. The crew initially feel a little uncomfortable but these 'evil' people do genuinely appear to have been cured
Lister even ends up jamming with Hitler! Shortly after Starbug is fixed the crew learn that a micro-planet is going to destroy the facility shortly; they must decide whether the Evils should be saved or left to die. Before they can do anything they collapse, somebody has drugged, or otherwise incapacitated them. They wake in nightmarish situations
clearly somebody is evil; but which one?
Series Twelve gets off to a good start here; the plot is classic 'Red Dwarf' and it features some impressively clever moments. The opening scene, featuring the crew trying to play poker, was amusing and things only got better when they get to the facility. The cured 'Evils' are funny particularly the rather camp Adolph 'call me Dolphy' Hitler. I especially liked the fact that we are given a scientific explanation even if it is obviously science-fiction a later twist means even that doesn't matter. The situations each of the crew members face after being incapacitated nicely fits in with what we already know about them what happened to Rimmer was probably the cleverest as it makes sense that somebody who is technically dead would fear being buried or cremated alive. While the final twist about who was evil wasn't a total surprise there were details that were far from obvious. The special effects may not be the greatest but that isn't really a problem as it just means new episodes don't look that different from the old BBC era episodes. Overall this was an impressive episode with plenty of laughs and a good plot.
Series Twelve gets off to a good start here; the plot is classic 'Red Dwarf' and it features some impressively clever moments. The opening scene, featuring the crew trying to play poker, was amusing and things only got better when they get to the facility. The cured 'Evils' are funny particularly the rather camp Adolph 'call me Dolphy' Hitler. I especially liked the fact that we are given a scientific explanation even if it is obviously science-fiction a later twist means even that doesn't matter. The situations each of the crew members face after being incapacitated nicely fits in with what we already know about them what happened to Rimmer was probably the cleverest as it makes sense that somebody who is technically dead would fear being buried or cremated alive. While the final twist about who was evil wasn't a total surprise there were details that were far from obvious. The special effects may not be the greatest but that isn't really a problem as it just means new episodes don't look that different from the old BBC era episodes. Overall this was an impressive episode with plenty of laughs and a good plot.
