Airdate: 6 September 1988
"Yes, Mr. David, Sir."
Red Dwarf receives a distress call from a crashed spaceship, the Nova 5. As usual, Rimmer claims this to be aliens. But according to the onboard service mechanoid that sent the distress call, Kryten, the ship contains lifeforms of a much less hostile nature — women. The Red Dwarf crew boldly spruce themselves up to respond to the call. However, on arrival, the gang are shocked to find Kryten has been looking after, clothing, and feeding three skeletons ever since the crash, and that they have been that way for centuries. Kryten however, takes some convincing. How will he cope now? What will he do? After all, he is programmed to serve the human race (as he explains, "I serve, therefore I am"). In the end, Lister takes pity on him and brings Kryten back to Red Dwarf.
"Kryten" contains examples of:
- Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Kryten is first encountered obediently serving the three female crew members of the Nova 5, completely oblivious to the fact that they were killed when the Nova crash-landed.note
- Addictive Foreign Soap Opera: Kryten is addicted to the soap opera Androids, which is a clear parody of what was then cult Australian import soap Neighbours.
- Body Paint: When Lister sees the giant hole in the seat of his trousers, he doesn't bother searching for another pair, he instead spray paints his underwear and butt to blend in with the hole.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Cat tells Lister to drag him away if he sees himself in a mirror, otherwise he'll be there all day. Sure enough, on the Nova 5, he finds a mirror...
- Domestic Appliance Disaster: Lister tries to press his least slovenly clothes into a fit state to impress the female crew the Dwarfers are about to rescue — or so he thinks. Discovering he has burnt an iron-shaped hole in his garment, Lister shrugs, puts it on anyway, and spray-paints the skin underneath with an almost- matching color of spray-paint, so as to conceal the hole.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- First appearance of Kryten, played by David Ross rather than Robert Llewellyn, as an eccentric English Butler. Unlike other examples of the trope however, the make-up change is given the in-universe explanation that Kryten ends up crashing the space bike and the Dwarfers couldn't work out how to put him back together again properly. note
- Kryten is shown obeying Rimmer over Lister due to the former being the higher-ranking of the two, meaning that Lister can't just tell Kryten to ignore Rimmer's orders and has to teach him to rebel. While this remains the case for Series III, starting in Series IV it's established that Kryten is programmed to obey humans over other synthetics regardless of rank.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The information screens for the Nova 5's crewmates reveal that all three of the women have Punny Names.
- Hypocrite: Rimmer makes several snide put-downs about the obvious lengths Lister has gone to spruce himself up when the possibility that they might be meeting women has suddenly arisen. When Lister points out that Rimmer, who is wearing a ludicrously pretentious officer's uniform complete with medals, hasn't exactly dressed down for the occasion either, Rimmer's response is to start whining about how Lister always starts putting him down whenever it looks like they might be meeting women.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lister is insulted by the Cat's antics upon hearing they'll be saving three gorgeous ladies from the Nova 5 within 24 hours. The next scene is Lister sprucing himself as best he can with what he has available.
- How Did You Know? I Didn't: When Rimmer wants Lister to call him by something else, this trope occurs.Rimmer: What about the nickname I had at school?Lister: What, "Bonehead?"Rimmer: How did you know my nickname was "Bonehead"?Lister: I was only guessing.
- I Ate WHAT?!: It turns out that Red Dwarf ran out of cow's milk ages ago and since then, Lister's been drinking the emergency backup supply - dog's milk.Holly: Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other type of milk, dog's milk.Lister: Why?Holly: No bugger'll drink it. Plus, of course, the advantage of dog's milk is that when it goes off, it tastes exactly the same as when it's fresh.Lister: Why didn't you tell me, Holly?Holly: What, and spoil your tea?
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Rimmer refers to Kryten as "it". Looks like painting a portrait of Rimmer on the toilet, pouring soup on his bed, calling him "smeg for brains" and flipping him off taught him a lesson.
- Joke and Receive: Rimmer asks Lister to not call him Rimmer because he dislikes the way Lister says it. When Lister asks how Rimmer wants to be referred to, Rimmer thinks of his school nickname. Lister jokingly suggests "Bonehead" which makes Rimmer ask Lister how he knew.
- Late to the Realization: It was only when Rimmer pointed it out did Kryten realize his shipmates were long dead.Kryten: My god. I was only away two minutes!
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Rimmer's increasingly poor attempts to speak Esperanto, especially as the Con Lang was designed to be simple to learn. Further highlighted by Lister being shown to have become semi-fluent, due to the sheer amount of times that Rimmer has watched the tapes having long since burned the answers into his memory. Rimmer attempts to speak Esperanto to Kryten and acts aloof. He does not understand when Kryten replies, in Esperanto, "You speak Esperanto, Captain Rimmer?"
- Punny Name: The Nova 5's crewmates are Tracey Johns (a reversal of John Tracy from Thunderbirds), Jane Air (Jane Eyre), and Anne Gill (angel).
- She's a Man in Japan: The mould Lister was breeding, Albert, was given a female name ("Amáta") in the Czech dub. This was because "Plíseň" (the Czech word for "mould") is a feminine noun.
- Shout-Out:
- Two of the Nova 5's crewmates are called Tracey Johns (after John Tracy from Thunderbirds) and Jane Air (a play on Jane Eyre).
- Androids has a theme song that sounds suspiciously like Neighbours. The android actors even have Australian accents, and one of the show's producers is named Kylie Gwenlan, as a nod to Kylie Minogue.
- Rimmer refers to Kryten as "the android equivalent of Norman Bates".
- Take That!: Lister uses the word "Gwenlan" as a term of abuse. This is a reference to Gareth Gwenlan, a producer who turned the show down.
