Can of Worms – When the Dwarfers find a female felis sapien on board a ship, Cat’s dreams of finally finding a mate and cashing in his virgin card seem to have come true. Unfortunately, it’s a really pregnant polymorph looking for an ill-fated male host to carry its eggs.
Of all the four core characters, Cat takes the spotlight the least. So it’s good to see this season giving it a go. Leaving it the season finale may have been a risk but typically, Red Dwarf doesn’t end on a big dramatic climax, which is why this episode gets away with sticking to a comedy focus. That plays completely into the strengths of Danny John Jules letting him run riot with dumb laughs. From his nervous, “not a virgin” denial to his detailed description of polymorph impregnation under the assumption it’s normal stuff for sex (“It still counts!”) to his labour and delivery. The polymorphs themselves are also utilised in a surprisingly original comedy capacity considering it’s their 3rd outing. The birth scene is magnificent as the morphlings come out in their camouflaged state. It’s the first and probably last time you’ll see a space hopper pulled out of a man’s rectum. Doug Naylor is really having fun working them into the story as they all change into cute little animals as a defense against being destroyed. The episode even manages to produce one of its best ever takes human duplication in the final scenes that almost devolves into a weird folk dance. There’s also some great comedy riffing on James Cameron’s Aliens here from helmet cam issues, to bazukoids resembling Smart Guns and a great play on the staple motion trackers. It’s well placed given the later ideas of alien impregnation that relates back to the xenomorphs.
There are some continuity issues though. Even given that Cat is made out to be occasionally dim, should they really have to explain what a polymorph is to him when he’s encountered them twice before? Hell, the last one turned him into Dwane Dibbly: that’s not something he’d forget in a hurry! The personality surgery machine also feels very underutilized in the story, and Craig Charles doesn’t sell his transformed emotionless state at all. Fun fact: personality surgery featured back in the 1990 expanded novelisation Better Than Life (sequel to Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers). This was probably an idea Naylor’s had on the shelf for a while and decided to dust it off but he would have fared better saving it for another time. The episode is also a bit unfair to Cat in the end. This is his first feature episode of Season 1 for smeg sake yet he’s almost absent for the last 10 minutes.
As is that sad way with short British sit com seasons (give us a break, our networks are poor, okay!) Red Dwarf season 11 is drawing to a close after seemingly no time at all. Thankfully, the season goes out on a high. With a gun to my head I’d say the first episode, Twentica, was superior but I think this episode made me laugh the hardest. It also ticked all the right boxes of parodying popular science fiction, drawing well from its own back catalogue but still with elements of originality that I want a Red Dwarf episode to be these days. Fellow Dwarfers, do not despair as Season 12 has not only been confirmed but already filmed for release in 2017 (date tbc). For now, into stasis we go because let’s face it; it’s cold outside...