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Arnold Rimmer
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Arnold Judas Rimmer B.S.C., S.S.C. is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks. Throughout the first seven series, his character wore an "H" symbol on his forehead, which stands for "Hologram", as in the Series I episode "The End" the character was killed in a lethal radiation leak. In series VIII, he was brought back to life, along with the other members of the original Red Dwarf crew.
The creators of the series acknowledge that Rimmer's surname comes from a snobby prefect with whom they attended school.
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Encyclopedia
Arnold Judas Rimmer B.S.C., S.S.C. is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks. Throughout the first seven series, his character wore an "H" symbol on his forehead, which stands for "Hologram", as in the Series I episode "The End" the character was killed in a lethal radiation leak. In series VIII, he was brought back to life, along with the other members of the original Red Dwarf crew.
The creators of the series acknowledge that Rimmer's surname comes from a snobby prefect with whom they attended school. They claim, however, that only the boy's name was used, and not his personality.
Background
Early life
Within the fictional universe of Red Dwarf, Rimmer was born on Io, somewhere during the 21st through 23rd centuries, where he suffered an unhappy childhood. He grew up in the shadow of his three older and more successful brothers, John, Howard and Frank, who tormented and bullied him throughout his youth and whose successes in both school and career greatly overshadowed him. His father had been rejected from the Space Corps in his youth for being an inch below regulation height, and was thus fixated on all his sons succeeding where he had failed; to which end, he refused to allow his sons to eat unless they could answer complicated astronavigation questions and to ensure that they would not be held back by insufficient height, were stretched on a rack to make them taller. His mother was a cold woman, who had no time for fools, but was having an affair with Rimmer's uncle Frank and Porky Roebuck's father. The Series III DVD booklet goes on to conjecture that Arnold's three brothers were actually Frank's children.
Arnold was also bullied by other children at school — his best "friend", Porky Roebuck, once spearheaded a plan to eat him during a Space Scouts survival course. Rimmer later recounts an occasion on which Roebuck threw his favourite shoes into the school septic tank whilst he was wearing them. At the age of 14, Rimmer divorced his parents. Sometime during his life, Rimmer also earned two swimming certificates: one Bronze Swimming Certificate, and one Silver Swimming Certificate — BSc and SSc respectively — which he includes in official correspondence. Considering his inability to swim, how he gained them is unknown.
Life On Board Red Dwarf
Rimmer joined the Space Corps at a low-entry level as a third technician, and devoted his life to his career, engaging with few activities outside of work. He is also rather unsuccessful with women, managing to have a sexual relationship with only one woman, Yvonne McGruder, the ship's female boxing champion. The entire encounter lasted little more than twelve minutes, including the time it took to eat a pizza. Rimmer claims that he lost his virginity in the back of his brother's Bentley with a girl named Sandra, though this was said in order to hide the fact that he actually lost it to Yvonne McGruder from Lister. The show's creators have also stated he was lying.
Despite serving in the Space Corps for fourteen years, he never managed to become an officer, only to further himself from third technician to second technician. He has attempted to pass the astronavigation exam 13 times as it is required to become an officer but has failed every time, generally because he spends his time creating a revision timetable rather than revising then panicking that he didn't revise. However, he believes the reason he has been kept down is due to an incident where he was invited to the captain's table and humiliated himself when served gazpacho soup, which he demanded be taken away and brought back hot.
During his service on Red Dwarf, he is assigned to both work with and share quarters with Third Technician Dave Lister, his only inferior in rank on the ship. The two are notably different in personality — unlike the uptight and pompous Rimmer, Lister is unmotivated, slovenly, relaxed and well-liked.
Death and afterlife
Rimmer died in the radiation leak which wiped out the entire crew of Red Dwarf, with the exception of Lister, who was in stasis at the time, and Lister's pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who was safe in the ship's hold. Three million years later, when Lister was brought out of stasis, Rimmer was chosen by Holly to be reactivated as a hologram in order to keep Lister company and prevent him from being driven insane with loneliness. He was chosen simply because only one hologram could be active at any given time and Rimmer was the person Lister spoke to most. It is from this point that Rimmer's "life" is covered in Red Dwarf.
As a "soft-light" hologram, Rimmer retains his memories and physical appearance, but is composed of light and has no tangible form (other than a small "light bee" projection unit when away from Red Dwarf). He remains very unhappy with his lot after his death, frequently bemoaning his fate. Despite his dissatisfaction with his existence, he bitterly resists any move to turn him off. He remains as obnoxious and difficult to like for his crewmates as he was before his death, and gradually develops a pompous tendency to quote Space Corps regulations at any possible opportunity — even if he does quote the wrong one.
In series VI, he encounters a being known as Legion, who upgrades Rimmer's projection unit from "soft light" to "hard light", giving him a physical form and the ability to interact directly with the world, in addition to making him virtually indestructible. To conserve power (more of which is required for Rimmer's hard-light hologram) he normally uses soft light, only switching to hard light when necessary. In Series VII, Rimmer is approached by a dying alternate version of himself, Ace Rimmer, who asks Rimmer to become a defender of the multiverse upon Ace's death. Although initially hesitant, Rimmer finds himself rising to the challenge and leaves to start his new life.
Returned to life
When Red Dwarf is restored by nanobots in series VIII, the entire crew is restored to life as well, including Rimmer (Although this is a version of Rimmer who lacks any of the growth that the 'other' Rimmer has gone through since the series began, reverting him back to his original persona). Due to a series of events, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, the Cat & Kristine Kochanski are sentenced to two years in the ship's brig for misuse of confidential information.
At the end of Series VIII, in the final episode, Only the Good..., when a chameleonic microbe destroys Red Dwarf and everyone else evacuates to a mirror universe, Rimmer is trapped on the disintegrating ship. at the end of the episode he encounters the Grim Reaper, announcing that he is dead(again), and then tells him that they'll travel to the River Styx, until Rimmer interrupts him and says, "Not today, matey!" knees him in the groin, says "Remember, only the good die young!" and flees with the Grim Reaper saying the final lines on Red Dwarf, "That's never happened before...". Rimmer's fate is left ambiguous however with new specials airing in 2009 it is likely Rimmer survived (although publicity shots from the episodes show Rimmer with an 'H' on his forehead snd wearing his blue 'hard-light' uniform, suggesting he may once again be a hologram).
Personality
Rimmer's primary character traits include anal-retentiveness, over-adherence to protocol, cowardice, misogyny, and a severely inflated ego matched only by his deep-seated sense of self-loathing. As the highest ranking survivor (despite his holographic status) Rimmer frequently deludes himself into believing that he is in charge and that he has somehow been moulding "his" crew into an effective spacegoing unit.
Rimmer was finally able to live his dream of commanding an army in the Series IV episode "Meltdown", leading an army of "good" wax-droids against a much larger force of "evil" wax-droids. Although Rimmer ultimately succeeds in destroying the opposing army, his forces are completely wiped out. In addition to his fondness for militarism and Hammond organ music, Rimmer also enjoys Morris dancing and is an authority on 20th century telegraph poles, especially those observed while train spotting.
Many episodes of Red Dwarf focus on the conflict between Rimmer's ego and his neuroses. In "Me²", Rimmer manages to trick Lister into generating a holograph duplicate in order to provide him with a companion; however, as a consequence of Rimmer's self-loathing, the two Rimmers are incapable of getting along, and their interaction becomes so bitter and hate-filled that the duplicate must be turned off. In "Terrorform", a "psi-moon" sculpted to reflect Rimmer's psychological make-up becomes a desolate, swampy hell-hole dominated by Rimmer's Self-Loathing, personified as a sadistic beast, with a metaphysical graveyard marking the "demise" of his various virtuous qualities.
Rimmer's personality flaws are in fact almost completely a result of his hang-ups. An alternative version of Rimmer, Ace Rimmer, who was kept back a year in school, learnt humility and inner strength and grew up to become a charming and well-liked Space Corps test pilot, interstellar hero, and sexual seducer.
On top of this, Rimmer is not incapable of nobility, honour and love. When Red Dwarf encounters a Holoship, with an all-hologram crew composed of the "best and brightest", Rimmer desperately wants to join. A female officer aboard the ship, Nirvanah Crane, falls in love with him and sacrifices her place on the ship for Rimmer, only for Rimmer to do the same in return. This act of nobility surprises even Rimmer himself. Furthermore in the episode Out of Time, Rimmer is revolted by his corrupted future self to the point he'd rather do battle with him than surrender. Then, when the others are killed, he frantically risks his life to bring them back.
The Rimmer Experience
The song lyrics are as follows:
If you're in trouble, he will save the day
He's brave and he's fearless, come what may
Without him, the mission would go astray
He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
Without him, life would be much grimmer
He's handsome, trim, and no one's slimmer
He will never need a Zimmer
He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
More reliable than a garden Strimmer
He's never been mistaken for Yul Brynner
He's not bald and his head doesn't glimmer
Master of the wit and the repartee
His command of space directives is uncanny
How come he's such a genius? Don't ask me
Ask Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
He's also a fantastic swimmer
And if you play your cards right
Then he just might come round for dinner
[Xtended version only:]
He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
No rhymes left now apart from quimmer
We hope they fade us out before we get to schwimmer
Fade out you stupid plimmer
Appearance
Rimmer's status as a hologram in most episodes of Red Dwarf is shown by the "H" on the centre of his forehead, leading to nicknames from The Cat, such as "alphabet head" and "goalpost head". Rimmer keeps his unmanageable hair relatively short, feeling that it makes him feel like a man. When Lister and The Cat respond to a drill too slowly, Rimmer argues for increased discipline and sensible haircuts, believing that "every major battle in history has been won by the side with the shortest haircuts".
Rimmer's Space Corps uniform changes several times during the course of the show. In the first two series it is a grey-and-beige shirt-and-tie ensemble; in seasons 3 and 4 this becomes a green suit with a shiny high-collared jacket, which is changed to red in season 5; in seasons 6 and 7, Rimmer's jacket becomes quilted and is red when he is in soft-light form and blue for hard-light; the alive Rimmer in season 8 wears an all-beige uniform similar in design to the original. The hologram "H" on his forehead also changes from series to series: it starts as a dull grey colour and a blocky shape, then in season 3 it becomes bright blue and reflective, then in season 5 its shape is changed to a thinner and more stylised font. His "H" also briefly changes to a reflective red colour set inside a circle when he temporarily joins the holoship SS Enlightenment.
Casting
Among the actors who auditioned for Rimmer were Norman Lovett (who went on to play Holly instead), David Baddiel, Hugh Laurie, and Alfred Molina. Initially Molina was cast as Rimmer, however, the role was recast and filled by Chris Barrie, a professional voice-actor and impressionist. Barrie, who had originally auditioned for Lister, was familiar with Rob Grant and Doug Naylor having worked together on Son of Cliché and Spitting Image, and with the producers on Happy Families and various Jasper Carrott productions. He has appeared in all but four episodes of the show, which he missed in series VII due to scheduling conflicts.
Rimmer was played by Chris Eigeman in the first American pilot and then by Anthony Fuscle in the second pilot. The character's distinctive "H" was replaced with a marble-shaped object in the first pilot, but the "H" returned in the second one. Chris Barrie was given an offer to reprise his role, but turned it down for fear of being tied into a restrictive, long-term contract, which is common in American television production.
The female Rimmer in the Series II episode "Parallel Universe" was played by Suzanne Bertish, an actress primarily known for her classical stage work. She had been asked by director Ed Bye to play the part. "Young Rimmer", who had minor speaking roles in three episodes in Series III and IV, was played by child actor Simon Gaffney.
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