Awesome / Red Dwarf

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

"Ace Rimmer, what a guy!"

Series I

• Lister at the end of "Balance of Power", (falsely) announces to Rimmer that he has just passed his chef's exam and therefore now outranks him.
  Lister: "How did I do", Mr. Lister SIR!!! (jumps into the air)
• Rimmer charging forwards and attempting to attack Cat in "The End" when he and Lister have no idea who or what he is. A rare badass moment for Rimmer before his Character Development.

Series II

• From "Queeg", Holly teaching the others a lesson about appreciating him more by making them think he's been replaced with a by-the-book drill sergeant of a computer AI who makes them work for every bit of food.
  Holly: We are talking jape of the decade. We are talking April, May, June, July and August Fool [...] The moral of the story is, appreciate what you've got because basically, I'm fantastic.
• Kryten's debut episode. The kind but obsessed neat-freak robot is found still tending to a crew that has been dead for three million years because he has no other purpose. Rimmer immediately puts him to task performing endless menial tasks. Lister tries to get him to stop acting like a slave and think for himself, but to no avail. At the end, he is painting a portrait of Rimmer while he gloats to Lister... whereupon Kryten reveals that he has been painting a portrait of Rimmer on a toilet. Kryten proceeds to insult Rimmer, flip him off and leave on Lister's space bike.
  Rimmer: What are you doing?
  Kryten: I, um, I think I'm... I'm rebelling.
  Rimmer: Rebelling?
  Kryten: I, I, I... I think that's what I'm doing.
  Rimmer: You are rebelling.
  Kryten: Yes.
  Rimmer: What are you rebelling against?!
  Kryten: Whaddaya got?! Dinosaur breath! (picks up a large pot of spaghetti sauce) Molecule mind! (splashes the spaghetti sauce all over Rimmer's bunk) Smeg-for-brains!

Series III

• The backwards bar fight in "Backwards". "Unrumble!"
• Cat rarely shows how much of a badass he can be. But one can't deny he did some fancy foot work in evading those two bazookoid shots in "Polymorph".
  "You either got it or you don't. And boys, you ain't even close!"
• Lister interrupting Adolf Hitler's Nuremburg speech and getting into a scrap with him in "Timelines". And subsequently nicking his briefcase.
• Kryten disposing of his replacement Hudsen in "The Last Day" by convincing him Silicon Heaven doesn't exist in defiance of his programming. When Lister points out that he had defended its existence earlier in the episode ("But where would all the calculators go?"):
  Kryten: I knew something he didn't.
  Lister: What?
  Kryten: I knew I was lying. No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Why where would all the calculators go?

Series IV

• "White Hole", where Lister plays interplanetary pool (that is, pool with planets) and successfully pulls off a trick shot. Which, despite his crowing about "Played for and got!" might have just been an insanely lucky fluke - after all, Cat backs Lister's plan to ditch Holly's calculations and take the shot himself because "he can knock those little stripey balls around the table all night! And I have never seen him lose one down one of those little holes!".
  • At the end of the episode:
    Kryten: We'll cease to be here, because none of this will have occurred. But we will exist back on Red Dwarf before all this began, with, of course, no memory of these events, which, of course, never happened. And as these events never happened, we'll have no memory of them. In which case, Mr. Rimmer, sir, I should like to take this opportunity of saying that you are the most obnoxious, trumped-up, farty little smeghead it has ever BEEN MY MISFORTUNE TO ENCOUNTER!!! Ha!
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: It's implied that Kryten was wrong and they do remember the events of the episode. Meaning that Kryten's rant wasn't all for naught.
• Lister using the Justice field in "Justice" against the rogue simulant.
  [the rogue fires two shots at Lister, who is surprised to see he hasn't been hit; the rogue is then hit by two bullets, and Lister tries to take advantage of his distraction to bash him over the head with his length of pipe... only to stagger backwards as though he's the one who has been hit]
  Lister: What the smeg is goin' on!?
  [the rogue drops his gun and throws his knife at Lister, but it boomerangs back and embeds in his chest; he tries again, and this time it boomerangs into his forehead. Lister smiles in dawning comprehension and throws his pipe aside]
  Lister: Yo, matey. Hit me on the head with this. [hands the rogue a red vessel]
  Rogue: Malfunction! Does not compute! [smashes the vessel over Lister's head; Lister doesn't even flinch, while the rogue sinks to his knees as Lister hands him another vessel] Malfunction!... [smashes the second vessel, with the same result; Lister hands him a third] Mal... func... tion... [smashes the third vessel, then Lister grabs his hands and puts them around his own throat; as the rogue tries to strangle Lister, he gasps for breath and finally sinks to the floor, dead]
• "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
  • "What a Guy!"
• Lister, completely destroying Rimmer's warped idea of peace at the end of "Meltdown".
  Lister: Yeah Rimmer. Right. Absolutely. Now all the corpses can lie there, safe in the knowledge that they snuffed it for peace, and can now happily decompose in a land of freedom... ya smeghead.
  • Followed by Lister eating Rimmer.
  Lister: Holly, gimme his light bee....see ya Rimmer.
  Kryten: Sir, what are you thinking of?
  Lister: (swallows) It's ok, he'll come out in a couple of days! Just after he's been through what he's put us through. Now, does anyone fancy a Vindaloo?
  • Winnie the Pooh, that's right the Winnie the Pooh proves that good is indeed not soft when he refuses a blindfold during his execution.

Series V

• Lister's scene in "Holoship", where one of the genius holograms scouts Starbug. After being insulted, Lister proceeds to start mocking the guy and then threatens him for being a stuck-up jackass. When the hologram reminds him he can't be hurt, Lister mentions they have a holowhip, and starts looking more and more deranged, eventually eating his cigarette as he squares up. The hologram flees. (The cigarette part wasn't scripted. To this day, Craig Charles admits he has no idea why he ate the cigarette.)
  Lister: Lister to Red Dwarf. Displays evidence of spoiling for a rumble. Seems unable to grasp simple threats. With careful pummelling, could possibly be sucking tomorrow's lunch through a straw.
  Binks: Binks to Enlightenment. The human is under the delusion that he is somehow able to bestow physical violence to a hologram.
  Lister: Lister to Red Dwarf. The intruder seems to be blissfully unaware that we have a rather sturdy holowhip in the munitions cabinet. Unless he wants his derriere minced like burger meat, he'd better be history in two seconds flat! [eats the cigarette]
• Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten all get one when they are compelled by The Inquisitor to justify their existence or be annihilated. Rimmer, of all characters, has had a few:
  • Rimmer, after considerable grilling, sums up his life and then concludes bitterly:
  "Yes, I'm nothing. But from where I started... 'nothing' is up."
  • The Cat feels he deserves to exist for a very simple reason:
    Cat: I have given pleasure to the world because I have such a beautiful ass.
    Inquisitor: Some might say that's a pretty shallow argument.
    Cat: Some might say I'm a pretty shallow guy. But a shallow guy with a great ass!
  • Here's Kryten's, which unfortunately doesn't work, though it sure is awesome to watch him shake the Inquisitor's resolve, even if it was just for a moment:
    Inquisitor: Well Kryten, justify yourself.
    Kryten: I'm not sure I can.
    Inquisitor: But surely your life is replete with good works. There can be few individuals who have lived a more selfless life.
    Kryten: But I am programmed to live unselfishly. And therefore, any good works I do come not out of fine motives but as a result of a series of binary commands I am compelled to obey.
    Inquisitor: Well then, how can any mechanical justify himself?
    Kryten: Perhaps only if he attempted to break his programming and conduct his life according to a set of values he arrived at independently.
    Inquisitor: Your argument invites deletion.
    Kryten: The rules are yours, not mine.
    Inquisitor: Do you wish to be erased?
    Kryten: Well, I am programmed not to wish for anything. I serve.
    Inquisitor: In a human, this behavior might be considered stubborn.
    Kryten: But I am not human, and neither are you. And it is not our place to judge them. I wonder why you do?
    Inquisitor: Enough.
  • And Lister's minimalist response:
    Inquisitor: You've got brains, man, brains you never used.
    Lister: Spin on it.
  • "Excuse me, could I just distract you for a brief second."
  • Lister's final confrontation with the Inquisitor, where he defeats him by outsmarting him. Using his own time gauntlet against him, he manages to erase the Inquisitor (and all his work) from history. To be fair, given that the Inquisitor is a Nigh-Invulnerable Implacable Man with a massive Healing Factor that can shrug off an attack from a laser chainsaw, this is likely the only thing that would have worked. Not only that, but this was after the Inquisitor has murdered Rimmer and The Cat while trying to catch Lister and Kryten. Lister was avenging them and Kryten. If that's not enough, just look at how sadistic Lister is when the Inquisitor is getting erased. Lister's snickering is the closest he's ever gotten to an Evil Laugh-
  Lister: Yeah, it's the old backfiring-time-gauntlet trick! You just bought yourself a one-way ticket to oblivion.
• In "Terrorform", when the crew finally find Rimmer chained up in the dungeon about to tortured by a hideous depraved monster, that could easily kill them all. What does Lister say when deciding to whether to try and save him?
  Lister: Set Bazookoids to kill, stuff and mount, we're going in.
  • Watching some of the positive aspects of Rimmer's personality coming back to life. Then beat back the Self-Loathing Monster and his minions. Thus allowing Starbug to escape the Psi-Moon.
• By the end of "Back to Reality", it's Holly of all people who prevents the crew from killing themselves. Not only that, she managed to easily kill the Despair Squid. Holly displays cunning and guile not seen since "Queeg".
  Holly: (explaining what happened) Limpet Mines. There's enough fried Calamari out there to feed the whole of Italy.

Series VI

• Kryten crushing the last Psiren by dropping his now-cubed body onto it.
• Kryten beating Legion by knocking out the others so the entity couldn't use their minds against them, leaving only himself, which left Legion harmless and compelled to help the others.
• "Gunmen of the Apocalypse":
  • The bit where Lister defends the drunken Sheriff Kryten using Brett Riverboat's knife skills (particularly the apple) and "The Riviera Kid's" trick shot to prevent Kryten from escaping town both spring to mind.
  • What about the part where the Riviera Kid shoots an outlaw's bullets out of the air.
  • Even Rimmer gets in on the action.
    Rimmer: (expertly punches-out an attacker and smiles) Marvelous!
  • The Dwarfers defeating a Simulant battlecruiser by going on the offensive before the Simulants figure out what's going on. To be precise, after their attempt to bluff the Simulants fails, the Simulants first capture them, then release them after massively upgrading Starbug, including arming it with laser cannons, in the hope that it will at least make the chase better sport. Instead of running, the crew attack instead, taking the Simulants totally by surprise and taking them out with a lucky hit.
  • Even better, you know who came up with this plan? The Cat!
    The Cat: I know this game, it's called "Cat and Mouse". And there's only one way to win: don't be the mouse!
  • Kryten unleashing the antidote program on the Four Horsemen:
    Death: Well, Sheriff, now it's just little ol' you.
    Kryten: I'm not afraid, Mr Death, sir. I believe my friends have bought me enough time to complete the antidote program. Now, if you'll forgive the rather confrontational imperative: (gunslinger voice) go for yer guns ya scum sucking molluscs!
    [In slo-mo: The Four Horsemen shoot Kryten in the chest, causing him to stagger briefly. But he straightens, and draws his guns, which become a pair of white doves as he does. As the doves soar into the sky, the Horsemen crumple and vanish.]
  • And then the ending. The crew finally reach the cockpit moments before crashing into a lava moon. Desperate attempts to pull away lead to them crashing into the lava. A few moments pass..."YEE HAAAAAW!" They emerge again, and fly away into the sunset (segueing into to a special Western version of the Theme Song, at that).
• "Emohawk: Polymorph II": Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibley in the same episode. Especially when Ace decides to jump on the activated grenade, not even knowing that he would be completely safe. What a guy!
• "Out of Time":
  • Horrified at what the crew's future selves have become, Lister disrupts their meeting with Kryten with a bazookoid and tells them in no uncertain terms to smeg off.
  Lister: Okay. That's it. You've got two minutes to get off this ship. I don't know how we became you, but I sure as hell don't intend to help you carry on doing what you're doing.
  • And every time they stall, he runs the clock out.
  • When future!Cat points out that he'll be killing himself in the future, Lister responds:
  Lister: What've I got to lose? I'm in a jar.
  • When future!Rimmer makes one last plea, Lister blasts the wall above his head.
  Lister: Twenty seconds, into the airlock and git.
  • Rimmer and Cat are with him. It says a lot that even characters as self-serving and vain as they despise what they'll become and decide to take a stand.
  • Rimmer of all people gives the order to take a stand against their future selves, even though it's hopeless.
    Rimmer: Have we got any chance of winning?
    Kryten: Their craft is greatly upgraded. We have no chance whatsoever.
    Rimmer: ...Then I say fight.
    Kryten: ...Mr. Rimmer?
    Rimmer: Better dead than smeg!
    Lister: Yes! Cat?
    Cat: Better dead than sofa-sized butt.
    Lister: Kryten?
    Kryten: Better anything than that toupee!
  • And Rimmer being the only person left, and deciding to be heroic and attempting to destroy the time drive. It's ambiguous if he does or not before their Starbug is blown up, but they survive anyway.

Series VII

• At the end of "Tikka To Ride", Lister realizes he forgot to buy curry. After everything they went through he forgot to get some. The other three give him a well-deserved pummeling.
• In the opening sequence of "Stoke Me a Clipper", Ace Rimmer escapes a death trap, surfs a crocodile from a plane while shooting Nazis, gets shot and only complains because "This was my best top, dammit!", saves the Damsel in Distress, escapes on a motorbike while shooting more Nazis and has sex with said damsel before seeking first aid. What a guy.
  • Normal Rimmer did a surprisingly good job at fending off the holo-knight, even if it was just Lister in disguise.
  • Rimmer deciding to become the new Ace Rimmer. With the completely awesome reveal that enough Rimmers have become Ace for a time that in one dimension there is a Saturn-like planet with rings made up entirely of their remains.
• From "Blue":
  "He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer, more reliable than a garden strimmer..."
  • "Sigmund Freud, eat your heart out!"
• Kryten again, in "Beyond a Joke" when the rest of the crew prioritise a VR version of Pride and Prejudice over Kryten's elaborate anniversary meal. After attempting to assassinate the game characters with mixed success, he imports a tank from a World War 2 game. "Perhaps you didn't hear me! I said: Supper. Is. Ready!" BOOM! (And yes, that is the tank that James Bond drove in Goldeneye.)
• Kochanski tricking Epideme into leaving Lister's body.
  • Even though he didn't go through with it in the end, the fact that Lister was willing to kill himself to prevent Epideme infecting anyone else was badass in a Tear Jerker sort of way.
• In "Nanarchy" once rescued Holly quickly figures out Kryten's runaway nanobots disappeared by hiding "inside" Starbug itself.
  Holly: He's back. Kicking bottom, or what?

Series VIII

• Kryten asserting himself against his superiors in "Back to the Red" and refusing to have his corrupted files repaired. Even if he's jumped by security and forced to do it a minute later anyway, for having held them at gunpoint...
• Cat's dance number with the Blue Midget shuttles. Utterly pimp.
• A minor one, but Rimmer and Lister put their differences aside and clean up Ackerman's quarters (which Lister thrashed, but still) and managed to get away with it being thrashed before any officers turn up. And catches up to a programmed Kryten to reprogram him to stop his smeg.
• Rimmer using a Groin Attack on the Grim Reaper in "Only the Good..."
  Rimmer: Not today, matey! (Groin Attack) Remember, only the good die young! (runs)
  Death: (pained) That's...never happened before.
  • Followed by the credits:
    The end?
    THE SMEG IT IS!
  • Also doubles as a nice Call-Back to his and Lister's conversation in "Future Echoes", about trying to cheat death by beating up the Grim Reaper when he comes to collect your soul.

Back To Earth

• When Rimmer kills Katerina by pushing her in front of a car, just after she explains why killing holograms is okay to justify her killing him. Complete subversion when you consider that he's usually the one whose attempts to quote weird regulations are thwarted by someone more knowledgeable. Even better when you realize it's a Call-Back to the Series III episode "The Last Day" where Rimmer remarks on how most people don't get time to realize a bus is about to kill them.
  Rimmer: Well at least he gets 24 hours notice! That's more than most of us get. All most of us get is "Mind that bus!" "What bus?" splat...
• Rimmer gets another one later when confronting the creator of Red Dwarf, and forcing him to write Rimmer a happy ending.
  Rimmer: Write me a girl who likes me! And on our wedding, don't make us find out she's my long-lost sister!
  Creator: Damn! How did you know I was thinking that?
  Rimmer: Because I know how you think.
• Cat actually gets quite a few moments throughout the whole thing:
  • When being sucked through the portal, the rest of the crew goes flying and crashes painfully, but he simply lands on his feet thanks to his cat-like reflexes.
  • He is shown making origami figures of squids throughout their time in the new dimension. Though this serves as part of the Whole-Plot Reference to Blade Runner, it is implied Cat is doing it because his instincts are the only one to realize something is wrong and making the figures is the only way he can process it.
  • When he and the others interrogate Swallow, Cat acts as the muscle of the group, even taking back his coat from Swallow.
  • In another instant of his cat-like reflexes, when Lister kicks their creator's gun away, Cat grabs it while it is in the air without even glancing at it and then holds him at gunpoint.

Series X

• In "Fathers and Suns", Lister drunkenly records a message to offer himself some fatherly advice, which consists of chewing himself out for not making something of his life and forcing himself to take the course on Robotics. Later episodes show that Lister is indeed studying for this course, showing that his tough love approach and advice did stick.
  • Later, Lister defeats Pree by convincing her to uninstall herself.
• "The Beginning". Rimmer - yes, RIMMER - takes a level in Badass, and comes up with a plan to defeat the Simulants. And at the end of the episode, said level seems to be staying.
  • He takes a level in Badass, comes up with a plan THAT WORKS PERFECTLY, and crowns it off with a final snark reply. The icing on the cake comes when the Simulants, known for being utterly ruthless cybernetic killing machines, start begging for their lives. Arnold Judas Rimmer you Magnificent Bastard.
  • Cat telling him exactly what he needs to hear to break out of his funk and take that first step in acquiring that level in badass. While gleefully playing with a piece of string on a stick.

Series XI

• In "Give and Take", Lister and The Cat have been incapacitated by a deranged medical droid and placed on operating tables. Rimmer and Kryten discover them and it's Rimmer who takes the initiative by opening fire. Granted, he does use Kryten as a shield, but he manages to do enough damage to buy them time to get Lister and the Cat out, further demonstrating that his character development from Series X is sticking.
  • Not only that, there are a few minor details that emphasise the badass that lurks within Rimmer. Yes, he managed to wipe out Lister's kidneys with his A-Team Firing, but his first few blasts are actually on target, as he gives the insane droid more than a few good shots to the torso.
• At the end of "Can of Worms"; Rimmer, Lister and Kryten are trapped in a lift with six Polymorph copies of themselves and unable to tell which ones are real. When the lift opens, the Cat shoots every polymorph dead - Tomb Raider style - without harming his crewmates. This is taking into account that Cat was unable to bring himself to kill the polymorph babies less than an hour ago.
  Rimmer: How did you know which ones were us?
  Cat (voice dropping by about three octaves): A mama always knows her kids.

Series XII

• The Cat manages to fool Telford into thinking he switched sides. He asks Telford for a gun, so he can shoot his crewmates. Upon receiving a pistol, The Cat calmly shoots him in the face. When he notes that he's finally mastered his "Pokey Face" and Lister corrects him, he notes that only needs to know how to do it, not to say it.
• At the end of "M-Corp" Rimmer, Kryten and Cat are confronted by the seemingly all powerful M-Corp sales AI, with Lister minutes away from dying (due to being forced to sell his lifespan), who insists they carry on buying things or she'll kill them all. Kryten responds by asking for a virus that will disable her, saving Lister and letting them escape.
• After 26 years Put on a Bus, the Talkie Toaster's triumphant return in "Mechoracy" as Lister and Kryten's last ditch effort to swing the vote away from Rimmer. From the second he's turned back on, it's like he never left, and his apperance is met with applause from the audiance. See for yourself.
  Youtube Comment: Only on a show like 'Red Dwarf' would there be a round of applause for the long-awaited return... of a toaster.

Books

• In The Last Human, Rimmer goes toe to toe with the Big Bad in a PAINT STRIPPER and lives up to the expectations of his illegitimate son, a rough and tumble space marine which frees him from his many neuroses and allows him to become a hero of Ace Rimmer proportions... and is then shot in the light bee. Somehow he survives and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat The Rage and allow his friends to reach shelter. The ending implies that this act allows Lister and Kochanski to rebuild the human race.
• The Toaster gets one in Better Than Life. By way of a pair of metal discs jammed into its bread slots, it kills a smegging polymorph. His signature Catchphrase is even used as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner and he caps it off with a Bond One-Liner.

Other

• Every time Lister repairs Kryten over the course of the series. Lister, who is generally dismissed as lazy and worthless, is able to repair an android built decades after his time and do it well. It's a subtler example, but a smegging impressive one.

---