S12E01 Cured
Intro sequence reads "Red Dwarf III" (with the classic logo) before the "III" morphs to "XII". SOME KIND OF SIGN???
Fun little opening scene where Cat learns how to play poker, and then the gang pick up a signal and head off. There's a dramatic takeoff sequence for Starbug, which serves to emphasise how shit and broken down it is. Got a good laugh, especially with the payoff where they can't turn left.
Nice bit of worldbuilding about "United America", and how America was able to establish a one world government. The posse head into a research centre where the objective was to eradicate "evil". Some of the patients are alive in cryostasis, apparently "cured" of evil - even Hitler. "Hitler. The more you hear about that guy..."
There's an explanation of why people from all across Earth's history are in cryostasis here. The explanation is obviously bollocks, but it works really well in universe, and leads to the uncomfortably funny joke about "beware dodgy-looking children's entertainers". Actually really liked this explanation.
One of the researchers is up and about and invites the crew for lunch with some of the cured evildoers. How many times have the crew met Hitler (or some equivalent) now? Timeslides, Meltdown, Out of Time...
The cureds explain that Earth sent an attack force to wipe out the station in the past, as a cure for evil would mean no war, and therefore no arms industry, a boom for 2nd and 3rd world economies, and "no one to exploit". They were able to survive, but are now marooned here.
Later, Hitler tries to bond with Lister, over the fact they both went to art school and both love guitar.
"I can't jam with you, okay?"
"...it's because I'm Hitler, isn't it?"
Funny scene, and also pretty interesting conceptually. Hitler insists he's cured and is no longer the person he once was, but... you wouldn't want to jam with Hitler, would you?
Lister relents and the two have fun, but Rimmer warns him off. "Playing soft rock with the man who caused World War 2?" Anyway, the base is in danger (in a one in a trillion chance, it's going to blow up in a freak accident on the exact day we found it) and it's time to get out of here. Rimmer and Cat suggest ditching the cureds and letting them die, but Lister and Kryten insist that they have a moral duty to save them.
The crew are knocked out and subjected to various tortures - being buried alive, castrated, drowned, and decapitated. Yeah, this happens very suddenly. Lister manages some badass escape from the castration machine and rescues his friends. They link up with the cureds, who insist that they're innocent of the whole kidnap/torture fiasco. The real culprit is the professor, who turns the cureds off (they're all droids), and holds the crew at gunpoint.
Turns out the droids were actually trying to treat the irredeemably evil professor, and were built for that purpose. Good joke about how "Hitler" didn't look anything like Hitler. Anyway, Cat - who was diagnosed with psychopathy by the psi-scanner - shoots the professor in the face. End.
Really enjoyed it up until the part where everyone got tortured, and the ending. The torture thing and the ending weren't abysmal or anything - the torture scenes were actually effectively creepy - but it was a pointless twist that distracted from the potentially much more interesting plot that was being set up, which posed the question of what "evil" is and whether or not someone can be suddenly cured of it (I think Star Trek: Voyager did an episode with a similar premise). And, more importantly, whether or not Lister was right to play guitar with Hitler. The "they're just droids in fancy dress" twist undermined most of what was interesting and fun about the episode beforehand. And also doesn't really make sense - if the professor just dressed the droids up like historic figures, then who was in the cryo-booths?
Anyway, it's a fun episode. Pretty comfortably sits alongside the best moments of Series XI. Only other thing I have to say is that Chris Barrie is really half-arsing it a lot in this episode, especially in the buried alive scene, but I can't complain too much since I find him underacting really funny for some reason. "Being buried alive is my worst fear. What could be worse than this? Nothing could be worse than this." Essentially all read out as one monotone sentence.
