Red Dwarf/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

Arnold Judas Rimmer.
- Given how Benedict Arnold isn't that well known in the UK, that first one might just be Accidental Fridge Brilliance rather than deliberate.
  - You mean the selfless loyalist who did his best to serve King and Country against the dastardly insurrectionists and insurgents?
At first glance, the TV Show version of Better Than Life seems like a Lighter and Softer ripoff of the real game from the novels. But the novels mention that there was a "point 01" version that mimics the version seen in the TV series perfectly—and its blatant "things you want immediately appear" meant that there was never any chance of forgetting it was a game as well as lowering the odds of causing addiction. Such a version of the game would not be illegal, unlike the deadly Lotus Eater Machine version, and thusly it'd still be purchasable and fine to ship along in the mail—exactly how the characters get it in the TV sow.
- And they never play it again, as the novel states this version becomes boring and unplayable within a few days. Although, they could just be avoiding it due to what happened with Rimmer.
In the second episode, Rimmer tells Lister "You can't whack Death on the head". The finale of series eight has Rimmer kick Death in the knackers.
The similarity between the titles of Back to Reality and Back to Earth foreshadow The Reveal.
Why would the cat look practically like a human despite the near-infinite possibilities? The Cat race was wandering an environment designed for humans. Thus it would more likely adapt to like a human.
In Red Dwarf, Back in the Red, the crew discuss the Theory of Relativity. I thought it was a bit odd that none of them knew what it meant despite their numbers including a former public schoolboy, a ship's AI and an astronavigation officer. But then I realised: in the Dwarf universe, faster than light travel is possible without using hyperspace or any other specific way of getting around the theory. So of course they wouldn't have been taught the Theory of Relativity, because in a universe where that's possible, it would almost certainly be discredited. And the ship which leads to this discussion (which is three million light years from Earth c. AD 3,000,000) is named after Einstein. -- Halfmillennium
- One of the most famous inconsistencies in Red Dwarf is that Lister had his appendix taken out the episdode "Legion", even though it had been implied he already had it out in "Thanks For The Memory". However, his appendix was probably reconstructed along with him after the intervening episode, "DNA"!
  - One of the novels clearly states that Lister was born with two appendices.
I long thought that Back to Earth was a pointless addition to the series, but then it dawned on me. The boys are asking for more life. They're asking for more episodes! - T-Jack
The virtual reality TIV game 'Better Than Life' (as seen in the novel, and series 2 episode, sharing the same name as the game itself) is a virtual simulation that can tap into your subconscious, and make all your dreams desires come true with your sensations alluding you to think that you're physically there. The issue is, is that life is perfect for you within this simulation, so you'll never want to leave. Why would you return to real life where you couldn't get whatever you wanted just by sheer thought, after you've experienced it in the simulation game? You'd stay in that game forever. The kick of the game is, that while you're experiencing your fondest dreams and desires with whoever (and whatever) you chose, the game is actually slowly eroding and killing your mind, as you remain trapped and unable to escape. Other people from outside cannot remove you from the game by removing your headgear, because you'll die from the shock. The only way you can escape, is to WISH yourself out. But why would you?
- Bit of an addition to this. In the TV episode, detailing the game, the only reason the crew DID wish themselves out was because of Rimmer's self loathing and self destructive mind, which ended up turning the game into a nightmare. Had Rimmer's dysfunctional and damaged mind not been there, if he had a good upbringing, if his peers respected him, if Holly never resurrected him, or if he never boarded Red Dwarf in the first place, Cat and Lister would have been destroyed by the game because they would never want to leave. Rimmer is more of a hero than they think, admittedly in a slightly twisted and accidental way.
  - Which is why everything went down the crapper when he left.
  - The novelization gives an explanation: the original BTL was like what it was in the TV show, in which your wishes were fulfilled post-haste. But the thing about it was that eventually, people got bored because they knew they were in a fantasy world and there was no effort involved. The Mark II in the novels was far more sinister, in that people didn't know they were in the game, and everything worked out in a way to obscure its involvement but caused people to waste away without realizing. So it's not really Fridge Horror in the TV show, because its lack of immersion would eventually have driven them out.
The Cat's dream sequence in Series II. Non Sequitur Scene? Well, if humans, who are supposed to mate for life, sometimes have weird erotic dreams about random people, then the Cat, whose species if definitely non-monogamous, would have crazy irrational dreams about "relationships"!
The events in Quarantine make a lot more sense if you listen closely over the series and realize that the boys really don't like each other that much:

Kryten: You'll like them. Well, some of them. Well one of them. Maybe.

- It's also a clever callback to Holly's line in the first episode:

Holly: Jean-Paul Sartre said, "Hell was being locked forever in a room with your friends".

Able's name in Beyond a Joke. Given the brotherhood theme of the episode, it's clearly supposed to be an allusion to the Biblical Abel, but the spelling seems off. But Able is the one who spells it A-B-L-E. It probably is Abel, but he's too zonked to spell his own name.

Fridge Horror

You know I just thought about it... as gross as Lister is for trying to pursue a relationship with what is essentially his own mother, Kochanski is equally interested in pursuing a relationship with what is her own dead son. Ewwwwww. -- Peteman
The nanobots rebuilt the Red Dwarf along with its entire crew. Except for Lister's universe's version of Kochanski.
- They didn't rebuild Lister, either. Who knows what other crew members are lost and gone forever?
  - Lister was in no state to need repairs. He wasn't on Red Dwarf when it was compacted by the nanobots. Red Dwarf was rebuilt from the actual Red Dwarf, though rebuilt according to the blueprints.
- Lister was also eating the white, powdery remains of the dead crew in The End. The only way the nanobots could have completey rebuilt them using the same pieces is if the nanobots searched through the sewage. That's right, half of the Red Dwarf crew had partially been ejected from the bowels of Dave Lister.
- Or they just rebuilt them from different chemicals.
- Also the Kochanski of that reality was married to future Lister, turns out she never returned to the ship so the nano-bots had nothing to work with.
Rimmer was a self-serving smeghead in series one, with no regard for the lives of mechanical beings, but over time (mainly due to his experience in Rimmerworld) he'd become much more altruistic and heroic, managing to become an Ace in the end. But from series eight, the Rimmer we knew is the one from series one again. Of course, this does serve to keep him Rimmer-like.
Red Dwarf has an episode in series 3 (Timeslides) where the developing fluid for photo producing, mutates. Long story short, the plot involves the crew being able to take any photo, or even picture to some degree, protect it onto a big screen, and are able to walk through it, and enter the scene of the photo, whatever it is. Of course they aren't able to move out of the frame of the photo, so what they see is what they get. But if someone was there taking a photo of it, they could pass into it. The Fridge Horror comes from a certain photo in the episode, Rimmer enters the frame of his old dorm back in bording school, when everyone is asleep. Rimmer wakes his child self up, with plans to improve his own future. It has an air of comedy until you realize one thing, someone was in the boys' dormitory at night, taking pictures of young boys sleeping.
- Also, why is the photo in Rimmer's photo collection? It wasn't him that took it, because he was asleep in the photo.
  - In the same episode, when Rimmer returns from this he is no longer a hologram but the rest of the crew are missing. This is resolved pretty quickly by him getting killed in an explosion, but it still makes you wonder what happened to Lister, Kryten and The Cat whilst he was away.
    - In Legion, the titular character gives all the Dwarfers what they want...and then imprisons them. Compare this to child molesters, rapists or serial killers, and you get the idea.
      - Red Dwarf practically lives on Fridge Horror, due to purposely avoiding continuity. It has a lot of moments which cannot be explained, for instance the episode Ouroboros where Lister places his baby self under a pool table for his foster parents to find, which is hinted to happen indefinitely. There are also things like the episode Out Of Time where they come across their future selves and Lister is a brain in a jar. The fact Kryten has no idea the Nova 5 crew have died until the Dwarfers come and rescue him, so it may have happened many years before. Even the first episode makes you think about everybody on the ship dying, something which is not helped when you realise the flour-like powder Lister finds is actually their decomposed bodies after a million years. There's also the development of a whole cat race during this time that could easily be somewhere on the ship (given the sheer amount of floors it has). The fact they only meet two of them is due to low budget than anything else (in addition to The Cat there is the cat priest in Waiting For God). The list goes on.
- Not sure about the rest, but the Cat was the last of his species left on Red Dwarf. The others had left on holy pilgrimages to try and find Fiji to set up a fast food store (with obligatory paper hats, though the Church of Lister schismed over whether they should be blue or red hats... They were supposed to be green).
- And half of them were wiped out when they crashed into an asteroid. All thanks to Lister's laundry list.
SF Debris raises an interesting point in his review of "Parallel Universe", that if the female version of Lister is supposed to be exactly the same as Male Lister, this implies that his reaction to the news if he accidentally got someone pregnant would be to claim it was their fault for not taking precautions.
Can't remember how it went in the show, but in the first novel, during the future slides section, Lister's older self tells him he has two sons and six grandchildren. At the end of Doug Naylor's solo novel, Last Human, Lister and Kochanski get to making the kids, but the only other human there is Rimmer's son. There were no other women. So either Jim and Bexley slept with their half-siblings, which seems very unlikely, or their mother. Either way, yikes.

Fridge Logic

How does the Cat 'smell' oncoming threats when there is no air for the smell to move through, and a plexiglass windscreen between them?
- The Cat's main sense is his smell, so it becomes synonamous with "sense", possibly. It could be said it subsitutes for his "sixth sense," or a hunch.
Given how the Nanobots resurrected the Red Dwarf crew in Series VIII, presumably from what ever was left of their remains, doesn't that mean the regular universe's Kochanski should have been resurrected too?
- Not necessarily. Since Kochanski was already there, and if the nanobots didn't know that she was an alternate version, and given that they were smart enough to not build another Lister, they may have (and probably did) figured that there was no need to build another one.

Fridge Heartwarming Moment

In Only the Good, when the dwarfers have to get to the medical ward to escape, Cat goes up to the biggest, toughest guy in the cafeteria, calls him his Bitch, and then tightens up his face, Because he was expected to be punched there. Cat, the ultrashallow fashion fanatic, was willing to have the thing he loved the most broken to help his friend.^[1]
- Take it a step further: Rimmer actually comes back. He left behind a universe where he was captain, his dream come true, but he still comes back with the antidote to help the others. It shows just how close they've become over the course of just one season.

Fridge Fetish Fuel

In Only The Good, the mirror universe version of Talia Garrett is a nun and spiritual advisor. Considering that this is a universe where Rimmer is The Captain, Captain Hollister is a lowly dogsbody and The Cat is The Smart Guy, just think what she's like in the regular universe.

↑ And Rimmer.

[1] And Rimmer.

[1]