Future Lister's clearly lost none of his style.
After three million years of constant acceleration, the Red Dwarf has finally broken the light speed barrier. Until Holly can safely slow the ship down, the boys will have to put up with some of the peculiarities of traveling so fast — like witnessing bizarre visions of events that are going to happen before they actually happen.
"I can't see you, but I know you can see me. I'd like you to meet your two sons. This is Jim, and this is Bexley. Oh, stop troping and say "cheese," boys!"
- An Arm and a Leg: The Old Lister is missing his right arm. He has a robot prosthetic arm in its place (with a knuckle modified into a bottle opener, according to the book!)
- Beehive Hairdo: Rimmer rudely demands that Holly give him a haircut. In revenge, Holly inflicts a beehive on him instead.
- Brick Joke:
- Holly messing with Rimmer's hair.
- The Cat and dogs.
- Bring My Brown Pants: As Holly notes, when you're going at the speed of light, by the time you've seen something, you'll have already passed through it. "Even with an IQ of six-thousand it's still Brown Trousers Time".
- Bullying a Dragon: Rimmer insults Holly, who's in charge of his systems, twice.
- Chekhov's Gun: Lister's fondness for Jim Bexley Speed.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: Issues 4-8 of Red Dwarf Smegazine feature an adaptation of this plot.
- Credits Gag: The usual credits roll has the developing polaroid of Lister with his twins over the top.
- Do Not Go Gentle: Lister plans to go out whacking Death with a towel rail.Rimmer: You can't whack Death on the head!Lister: If he comes near me, I'm gonna rip his nipples off!
- Early-Installment Weirdness: A bit of dialogue from Rimmer early in the episode, if interpreted literally, indicates that his father committed suicide. In the following series, Rimmer finds out his father died of natural causes around the same time as the accident that killed most of the Red Dwarf crew.
- Fantastic Racism: Rimmer is insistent that the living hate the dead. We never see any proof to back up this claim. In the novelisation however, it is established that holograms would regularly participate in "Equal Rights for the Dead" marches. Rimmer as a boy would observe and mock them.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Is apparently possible just by accelerating for a really long time. But it has weird side-effects.
- Foreshadowing: Holly outright tells Rimmer that the ship's going to hit lightspeed soon at the beginning of the episode. Rimmer being Rimmer, he ignores Holly in favour of insulting him.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Rimmer fears being left active on Red Dwarf on his own, on the grounds he'll go peculiar. Never mind he's already pretty nuts to begin with.
- Hesitant Sacrifice: When Lister accepts that Rimmer's vision of his death is going to come true, Lister's still determined to fight it all the way to the end. He even rips a towel rack off the wall so he has something to whack the Grim Reaper with.Lister: I'm going out as I came in, screaming and kicking.
Rimmer: You can't just whack Death on the head!
Lister: If he comes near me, I'm gonna rip his nipples off! - Identical Grandson: Lister's son, Bexley, who looks so much like his dad that Rimmer is able to mistake a future echo of him dying for one of Lister dying.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Rimmer's protest about going peculiar on being left alone is punctuated by him delicately touching at his current beehive hairdo.
- It's All About Me: After witnessing (what he thinks is) future-Lister's death, Rimmer's reaction is to ask why Lister, who's just found out about what Rimmer saw, isn't thinking about him. "I'VE just had a rather nasty experience! I'VE just seen someone I know die in the most hideous, hideous way!"
- Jerkass: Rimmer, to no-one's surprise. He takes a malicious glee at the thought of Lister dying, horribly.
- Lazy Bum: And it's not Lister, but Rimmer. He measures his time jogging, and it turns out he's massively behind on a mere 300 meters, even without taking several minutes off just so he didn't look exhausted when he passed Rimmer.
- Lots of Luggage: The Cat is instructed to get together a few essentials before going into suspended animation. He arrives with a rack of suits and, when challenged by Lister, admits there are ten more racks he intends to take.
- Low Count Gag: The crew experiences a phenomenon that Holly names "future echoes", pieces of the future that they are catching up with as a result of light speed. It foretells the future accurately. Rimmer sees Lister getting killed and Lister has some regrets about dying young. He claims he has has never read... a book.Dave Lister: It's not fair. There's loads of things I've never done. Like... I've never had a prawn vindaloo. And I've never read... [pauses to think] a book.
- Say My Name: Lister is looking in a mirror when his reflection does something different, he calls "RIMMER! RIMMER!" in panic and Arnold comes along asking what's wrong but Lister, seeing things are normal, tells him to forget it.Rimmer: Fine! Well, if you have any more problems with nothing and things that don't matter, just scream out my name hysterically and I'll come pelting down the corridor. Allright?
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Rimmer sees a future echo of Lister dying at a computer console. To prove the future isn't set in stone, he tries to prevent another echo, Cat breaking a tooth. He deduces that Cat broke the tooth trying to eat Lister's robot goldfish, and rushes to the fish tank just as Cat is about to chow down — but Lister tackling Cat to stop him eating the goldfish turns out to be the thing that resulted in Cat's tooth being damaged.
- Stable Time Loop: Lister sees Rimmer and want to talk to him. Rimmer however seems to be talking out of place. After Rimmer leaves, Lister folows him, only for Rimmer to enter the room the same way he entered earlier. As Lister asks him, how he had done it, he realizes that he already had this conversation.Rimmer: I've decided, when you go into stasis, I want to stay behind. I want to be left on.
Lister: What, on your own for the rest of your life?
Rimmer: What things?
Lister: Eh?
Rimmer: I said what?
Lister: What's going on?
Rimmer: You're space crazy!
(later)
Rimmer: I've decided, when you go into stasis, I want to stay behind. I want to be left on.
Lister: Rimmer, you've just come in and said exactly these things.
Rimmer: What things?
Lister: You said that!
Rimmer: I said what?
Lister: And that! You said that!
Rimmer: You are space crazy! - Suicide as Comedy: Rimmer recounts his father's advice: "Shiny clean boots and a sensible haircut, and you can cope with anything". Then he adds this was just before "that awful suicide business".
- Take That!: Holly declares he has an IQ of six thousand - the equivalent of six thousand PE teachers.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Rimmer is gloating over having apparently seen Lister die in the future:Lister: Hey, it hasn't happened, has it? It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't actually "happened" happened yet, actually.
Rimmer: Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that. Your bucket's been kicked, baby. - Troll: Future Lister acts like he's going to tell Rimmer what happened to him... then chortles and disappears. Of course, given Rimmer's been a total dick all episode, he really has it coming.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Each character sees "future echoes" which are events happening in the future, which will happen to the characters at some point as the ship is going past light speed. As they go faster past it, the echoes are in the more distant future. At one point, Lister sees the Cat with a broken tooth. Lister runs off to find the Cat to prevent it, and just as the Cat is about to eat the robotic fish inside the tank (which would break his tooth), the two struggle, with Lister trying to stop the Cat eating the fish. In this struggle, the Cat knocks his tooth off a corner of the ledge where the tank is, thereby breaking his tooth anyway.
"I can't see you, but I know you can see me. I'd like you to meet your two sons. This is Jim, and this is Bexley. Oh, stop troping and say "cheese," boys!"
