Ouroboros (Red Dwarf episode)
Encyclopedia
"Ouroboros" is the third episode of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 sitcom Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...

Series VII and the 39th in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television channel BBC2 on 31 January 1997. Written by Doug Naylor
Doug Naylor
Douglas R. Naylor is a British comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.Naylor was born in Manchester, England and studied at the University of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s, Naylor wrote two regular comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 entitled Cliché and Son of Cliché...

 and directed by Ed Bye
Ed Bye
Edward Richard Morrison Bye is a British film and TV producer and director. He is best known for his work with Grant Naylor, Harry Enfield and Jasper Carrott, and has worked with many of British TV's best known comedians and comedy actors...

, it was the first episode not to feature Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Judas Rimmer 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...

, and also the first to feature Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Z. Kochanski is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. Kochanski was the first console officer in the navigation chamber on board the spaceship Red Dwarf...

 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

Back in the present, on Starbug, Kryten
Kryten
Kryten is a fictional character in the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. Kryten's registration code on Red Dwarf is "Kryten additional 001". The name Kryten is a reference to the head butler in the J.M...

 (Robert Llewellyn
Robert Llewellyn
Robert Llewellyn is an English actor, presenter, and writer. He is best known as the mechanoid Kryten in the hit sitcom Red Dwarf, and for his role as presenter of Scrapheap Challenge.-Early career:...

) shows Lister
Dave Lister
David "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...

 (Craig Charles
Craig Charles
Craig Joseph Charles is an English actor, stand-up comedian, author, poet, radio and television presenter, best known for playing Dave Lister in the British cult-favourite science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf...

) 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
Cat (Red Dwarf)
The Cat is a character in the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. He is played by Danny John-Jules.-Character development:According to Danny John-Jules, the character of Cat is based on a combination of Little Richard's look, James Brown's moves and Richard Pryor's facial...

 (Danny John-Jules
Danny John-Jules
Daniel "Danny" John-Jules is a British actor, singer and dancer. John-Jules attended Rutherford Comprehensive School, Penfold Street, Marylebone, from 1972 to 1977. He is best known for portraying Cat in the television programme Red Dwarf.-Dance and song:John-Jules is a baritone...

) 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
Chloë Annett
Chloë Victoria Annett is an English actress, best known for her role in series 7 and 8 of the British sitcom Red Dwarf.-Early life and family:...

) 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 GELF
GELF
G.E.L.F. or simply GELF is an acronym for Genetically Engineered LifeForm. It was used in two science fiction television programs, originally appearing in the BBC's cult sitcom Red Dwarf, and later on in the U.S...

s from "Emohawk: Polymorph II
Emohawk: Polymorph II
"Emohawk: Polymorph II" is the fourth episode of the British science fiction sitcom TV show Red Dwarf VI and the 34th in the series run. It was first broadcast on BBC2 on 28 October 1993. Written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor and directed by Andy de Emmony, the episode features the crew again being...

", 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
Parallel Universe (Red Dwarf episode)
"Parallel Universe" is the sixth and last episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf series two, and the twelfth in the series run. It premiered on the British television channel BBC2 on 11 October 1988...

").

Guest stars included Gary Bleasdale
Gary Bleasdale
Gary Bleasdale is an actor and playwright, born on Merseyside England in 1962. Gary has appeared in many television programmes since 1978 when his first role was playing the lead in an episode of the final series of Z Cars. He played Kevin Dean in The Black Stuff , and in Boys From the Black Stuff,...

 as Frank, Juliet Griffiths as Barmaid, Adrienne Posta
Adrienne Posta
Adrienne Posta is an English film and television actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s. She adopted the surname Posta in 1966. She recorded a number of singles. She is now semi-retired and works as a teacher in the Midlands and at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts...

as Flight Announcer and Alexander John-Jules (Danny John-Jules' nephew) as "Baby Lister".

External links

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