Ouroboros (Red Dwarf)

"Ouroboros"
Red Dwarf episode
Episode no.	Series 7 Episode 3
Directed by	Ed Bye
Written by	Doug Naylor
Original air date	January 31, 1997
Guest stars
Gary Bleasdale Juliet Griffiths Adrienne Posta Alexander John-Jules
Series 7 episodes
17 January – 7 March 1997 "Tikka to Ride" "Stoke Me a Clipper" "Ouroboros" "Duct Soup" "Blue" "Beyond a Joke" "Epideme" "Nanarchy"
List of all Red Dwarf episodes

"Ouroboros" is the third episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf Series VII and the 39th in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 31 January 1997.^[1] Written by Doug Naylor and directed by Ed Bye, it was the first episode not to feature Arnold Rimmer, and also the first to feature Kristine Kochanski as a regular character, having only appeared previously as a minor recurring character.

Plot

This episode opens with a flashback to the Aigburth Arms pub, in Liverpool, 2155, where we see a baby being discovered under the pool table. On the cardboard box in which he is found is written "Ourob oros": the two who find him deplore the fact that his unknown parents couldn't even decide what name to give him, marking on the box "our Rob or Ross". The barmaid declares

“

I wonder what will become of him? Something terrible, no doubt!

”

Back in the present, on Starbug, Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) shows Lister (Craig Charles) that he has found some new clothes, including a rather feminine looking dressing gown, which he says he can alter so that Lister can wear it. Cat (Danny John-Jules) comes in and tells them there is something strange on the scan, but he's reluctant to commit himself as to whether it's a "wibbly thing" or a "swirly thing". In the drive room, Lister, Kryten and the Cat see that what is before them is a sort of temporal disturbance. There is no way to outrun it, and so they head straight into it.

As they pass through it, they discover a temporal rift in normal space, through which they encounter an alternative Red Dwarf crew, with some small differences: in this reality, it is Lister who is the hologram, having failed to survive the accident that wiped out the crew. He explains to our Lister that in their reality, Kochanski (Chloë Annett) found out that he had smuggled Frankenstein on board ship and took the cat away from him. As a result, Lister was not put into stasis, as he was not caught breaking quarantine regulations. In fact, it was Kochanski who ended up in stasis, and to Lister's delight, she is alive, and with the alternative crew. Rimmer is not, of course, Lister having been brought back as a hologram to keep Kochanski sane. Kryten is there, and the Cat is there as well.

On meeting, Kochanski asks Lister if he wouldn't mind doing something for her, as she wants one day to have children. Chrissie is not thinking about sex, but instead wants Lister to deposit a sperm sample into the invitro tube she hands him, which already has her sample in it. Just then the temporal rift is broken as the GELFs from "Emohawk: Polymorph II", pursuing Lister across space and wishing him to reunite with his bride, fire at the ship. The missile hits, and everything goes black.

Waking on Starbug, Kochanski smothers Lister with kisses, thinking he is her Lister, and old Dave is not too eager to point out her error, though Kryten does try, to no avail. Kochanski helps them to lose the pursuing GELF ship, leading it down onto an asteroid, where it crashes. Lister tells her that they can't re-establish the link with her ship's reality, so she's stuck with them for the moment. Kochanski is less than happy about this, and bends all her efforts towards finding the spatial co-ordinates that will allow them to relink. Kryten meanwhile worries that Kochanski is going to end up staying, and will eventually take Lister away from him. He becomes quite hysterical as he yells that he might be alone again like he was on the Nova 5, but Lister says that he killed the crew (as was read in the book Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers that he put water on the computers of the Nova 5, causing it to crash). Then Kryten tells them how the S.S. Augustus crew left him alone, before Kryten went on the Nova 5. But Lister tells him that they died of old age.

As they try to re-establish the link, Kochanski tells Kryten that she knows he doesn't like her, and Kryten tells her that she isn't good enough for Lister. In the middle of the argument however the link is found again, and it looks like Kochanski will be able to leave. Kryten is delighted, and so is Kochanski. Lister has a last few minutes with Chrissie before she leaves, and gives her the tube with his sample in it. He asks her to tell their child about him, so that it doesn't grow up thinking its parents deserted it, as his own did.

As Kochanski prepares to leave, she says that it may be possible to communicate transdimensionally, via the cellular phone she carries. As they load aboard some supplies from Kochanski's ship, Lister sees with dawning comprehension that the name on the box is Ouroboros: Ouroboros batteries. Kryten tells him that Ouroboros is the ancient symbol for the never-ending circle of life, the snake eating its own tail. Lister puts the pieces together, and realises that this is what was written on the box he was found in, not "Our Rob or Ross", but "Ouroboros". The sample in the tube is him: he is, in effect, his own father, and Chrissie is both his ex-girlfriend and his mother.

So as a result, at some point in time, he rationalises, he must go back in time and put himself under the pool table at the Aigburth Arms back in 2155, thus completing the circle of life, and ensuring that the human race can, in effect, never truly die out. As long as the cycle of life and rebirth continues, this circle will not be broken.

Unfortunately, as he runs to Kochanski to get the tube, the GELFs attack again, and the spatial warp widens, separating Chrissie from her former shipmates. She decides to jump the gap, but falls short, and plunges into non-space. She then uses the transdimensional communication properties of the telephone she has to contact Lister and tell him that she will stay with him after all, if he can save her. Using a crossbow and some rope taken from her own ship's supplies, Lister does exactly that, and Kochanski has become part of the Red Dwarf crew, to Lister's delight and Kryten's annoyance.

Production

The episode overran by several minutes, and had to be cut down. Rather than lose vital scenes it was decided that the opening title could be omitted to save precious time. The scenes would be reinstated for the X-tended edition. This is the second Red Dwarf episode to forfeit the opening titles for the purposes of time and episode pacing (the first being the Series II episode "Parallel Universe").^[2]

Guest stars included Gary Bleasdale as Frank, Juliet Griffiths as Barmaid, Adrienne Posta as Flight Announcer and Alexander John-Jules (Danny John-Jules' nephew) as "Baby Lister".

See also

• "—All You Zombies—"
• Ouroboros

References

1. ^ "BBC - Programme Catalogue - RED DWARF VII - OUROBOROS". BBC. http://catalogue.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/NMYJ413K. Retrieved 2007-12-12. 
2. ^ "Red Dwarf Series VII Production". Red Dwarf.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2007-10-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20071022124317/http://reddwarf.co.uk/deck05/series_7/production.html. Retrieved 2007-12-17. 

External links

• "Ouroboros" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Ouroboros" at TV.com
• Episode Guide - Series 7 at RedDwarf.co.uk