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Psirens
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"Psirens" is the first episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series VI and the 31st in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel on 7 October 1993. Written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor and directed by Andy de Emmony. The episode - which involves Psirens who try and lure the crew to them to feast on their brains - had its script published before the episode was broadcast.
lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m94369",this)' onMouseout='hide("m94369")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Dave_Lister">Lister awakens with amnesia and Kryten explains that he's been in Deep Sleep aboard Starbug for the past 200 years.
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Encyclopedia
"Psirens" is the first episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series VI and the 31st in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel on 7 October 1993. Written by Rob Grant & Doug Naylor and directed by Andy de Emmony. The episode - which involves Psirens who try and lure the crew to them to feast on their brains - had its script published before the episode was broadcast.
Plot
Lister awakens with amnesia and Kryten explains that he's been in Deep Sleep aboard Starbug for the past 200 years. When Rimmer and Cat both recover from their hibernation, Kryten updates them on the situation: Red Dwarf itself had been stolen by an unknown party and the original crew had been chasing the ship's vapour trail ever since. (unaware that Kryten's nanobots took the Red Dwarf and dumped whatever they didn't need, including Holly on a planetoid, according to Nanarchy). Red Dwarf has currently been forced to circumnavigate an asteroid belt, giving the Starbug the opportunity to reach the ship by shortcutting through the belt. However, the belt turns out to be a spaceship graveyard inhabited by Psirens, shape-changing GELFs who lure unwary travellers to them and suck out their brains.
Cat is almost lured by two attractive women and Lister sees Kristine Kochanski, who tells him that she has two children, Jim and Bexley, that are his. A flaming meteor then appears hurling towards the ship, but Kryten deduces it to be an illusion as Starbug's sensors do not detect it. Unfortunately, Rimmer is left in charge and assumes another flaming meteor to be fake; the illusion this time, is the lack of response from the ship's sensors.
Starbug is struck and crashes onto an asteroid. Lister exits the ship to blast the front landing gear out. Outside he encounters a lustful figure from his adolescence (the sister of one Pete Tranter). Although he is fully aware that she is actually a Psiren, the illusion is too strong for Lister to overcome his desires, and he snogs with her. He is ironically saved by another Psiren disguised as Kryten, whom murders the first one in order to steal its victim. The second Psiren gives itself away by calling Lister 'Dave' (something the real Kryten would never do) and is killed by a panicking Lister. Lister manages to get back on board Starbug safely, only for a second Lister to arrive claiming he is the real article. To determine which is the false Lister, the crew ask them to play guitar; the first 'Lister' plays so well that the rest of the crew blast it away without waiting to hear how the other performs, their reasoning being that the real Lister is a terrible guitar player. Lister gets suitably upset by their accusations that he is a poor guitar player (not helping his cause by providing a practical demonstration), and while they argue the Psiren escapes to the decks below.
A trail of yellow Psiren blood leads to the engine room. Lister and Cat stay behind to deal with a meteor shower, while Rimmer declines the offer to help, leaving Kryten to follow the Psiren blood trail alone. When Kryten finds the Psiren it changes into Professor Mamet, his creator. With no choice but to obey her commands, he climbs into the waste compactor and starts it up. Lister, Cat and Rimmer quickly appear to find Kryten's psi-scan and bazookoid, abandoned on the floor. Rimmer suddenly fades out as his hologramatic light bee battery runs flat. Now just the two of them, Lister and Cat walk up to the Psiren disguised as a vending machine. As the Psiren decides which to eat first, Kryten, now cube shaped from his experience in the waste compactor, waddles over to the edge of the walkway from the deck above and crashes down on top of it. The threat ended, the crew continue onward, following the Red Dwarf into a vast nebula.
Production
This episode features the first appearance of Kochanski since series 2's "Stasis Leak", albeit as a Psiren illusion used to fool Lister. Clare Grogan returned to play Kochanski. Samantha Robson plays a Psiren that lures him with an illusion of one of his teenage fantasies - Pete Tranter's sister. Jenny Agutter plays another Psiren, this time an illusion of Kryten's creator Professor Mamet. Anita Dobson also appears as Captain Tau, part of the Psiren illusion to fool Lister. Zoe Hilson and Elizabeth Anson both appear as Temptresses in a Psiren illusion to tempt the Cat.
"Red Dwarf - Primordial Soup: The Least Worst Scripts" contained, among others, the script for the "Psirens" episode. Edited by Grant Naylor and published by Penguin books, it was released just a few months before the episode was broadcast.
Cultural references
The scene where Lister has to convince his crewmates that he is the true Lister and the other Lister is in fact a psiren seems somewhat inspired by a similar scene in in the Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy", where there are two James T. Kirks and the real one has to convince Spock that
the other is a fake.
Among the derelicts in the asteroid field are models of the Narcissus escape shuttle from Alien (1979), the Eagle from Space: 1999 (1975) and a Klingon Vor'cha attack cruiser from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Reception
The episode was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 7 October 1993 in the 9:00pm time slot. The ratings had yet again increased on the previous series, although the series' new direction received a mixed response from critics, Sci-Fi.com stating that it was "no less funny", while others felt that the character-driven comedy replaced by exploration of SF concepts and situation-based humour did not work as well.
The concept of sirens creating illusions to lure unwary travelers to their deaths first appears in Homer's Odyssey, and this concept is much-repeated in Western film and literature.
External links
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