Queeg (Red Dwarf)

Plot

Holly (Norman Lovett) addresses the crew but forgets what he was going to say. Soon after the whole ship shakes under a tremendous impact. Holly now remembers that he had meant to warn the crew that the ship was about to be hit by a meteor. Rimmer's (Chris Barrie) legs start going walkabout on their own and Holly asks Lister (Craig Charles) to go down to the Hologram Simulation Suite to repair the damage. However, following Holly's advice, Lister connects the wrong cables and causes an explosion which makes him fly over the consoles.

Holly's increasing mistakes start to irritate the crew. After all he's supposed to have an IQ of 6,000. Then a mysterious face appears on the monitor screen where Holly's face is usually seen. Rimmer thinks it's aliens, but he introduces himself as Queeg 500, the Red Dwarf back-up computer. According to Queeg he is to replace Holly for gross negligence leading to the endangerment of personnel, and assumes control of the ship demoting Holly to night watchman.

The crew are initially pleased at the intelligence and efficiency of the new computer. However, the next morning Queeg forces Rimmer out of bed early to do exercises. While Lister originally enjoys watching Rimmer getting worked to exhaustion, he gets a nasty shock when he and the Cat are put to work scrubbing the ship, as Queeg refuses to give them any food otherwise. Finally understanding just how lenient Holly was towards them, the crew beg Holly to return and he challenges Queeg to a game of skill (Queeg chooses chess) to determine which of them will run Red Dwarf and which one will be erased. Queeg wins easily, and declares that Holly is to be wiped immediately from the ship's systems. Holly says his goodbyes to Lister, Rimmer and the Cat, and slowly disappears from the screen. However, Holly returns moments later and explains, to the crew's extreme surprise and exasperation, that he was Queeg all the time, and that it was all merely an elaborate prank, to demonstrate that they should appreciate what they have.

Production

The script was nearing completion when the writers were having problems thinking of a satisfactory ending. Eventually Rob Grant came up with the 2001: A Space Odyssey spoof of Holly singing as he gets erased.

Quickly earning himself a reputation for doing his own stunts, Craig Charles flew over a console table in the aftermath of a huge explosion. His reasoning behind doing the stunts was that as a Scouser he could be dropped on his head with no problems. To achieve the effect of flying up and over the exploding console, Charles bounced off a small trampoline — that was out of shot — and this was matched up to the earlier establishing shot.

Charles Augins was brought in to choreograph the Tongue Tied sequence for the next episode "Parallel Universe", but the writers were so impressed that they offered him the role of Queeg as well.

Reception

The episode was originally broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 4 October 1988 in the 9:00 pm evening slot. Norman Lovett, who played Holly, stated, in the Series II documentary "It's Cold Outside", that the episode was one of his favourites. It also came 9th place in a Red Dwarf Smegazine readers' poll with 4.4% of the overall votes.

Remastering

The remastering of Series I to III was carried out during the late 1990s. Changes throughout the series included replacement of the opening credits, giving the picture a colour grade and filmising, computer generated special effects of Red Dwarf and many more visual and audio enhancements. Changes made specific to "Queeg" include sound effects on the meteor impact have been enhanced. Video and sound effects have been added to the original live-action footage of Rimmer's hologramatic form malfunctioning.