Airdate: 20 September 1988
It is Saturday night and Rimmer's death-day, and a party is arranged for him on a planetoid they encountered with a breathable atmosphere. Back on Red Dwarf, Rimmer drunkenly confides to Lister about his one single solitary sexual encounter with Yvonne McGruder, the ship's female boxing champion, and tells Lister that, although it is entirely his own fault for deciding to put his career over his personal life: "I would trade it all in. All of it — my pips, my long-service medals, my swimming certificates, my telescope, my shoe-trees. I would trade everything in to be loved, and to have been loved."
The following morning, Lister and Cat both wake up with a broken leg each. Lister's jigsaw puzzle has been magically solved, the star charts Holly has been mapping have been messed with, the clocks all show the day as Thursday rather than Sunday, four pages have been torn out of Lister's diary, and the ship's black box is missing. Rimmer suspects aliens, which is regarded with skepticism by Lister and Cat. They trace the black box's signal to a barren airless moon, where they first find what appears to be a giant footprint and then come across a gravestone reading "To the memory of the memory of Lise Yates" - Lister reveals that Lise Yates was one of his ex-girlfriends back on Earth. The black box is buried in the shallow grave marked by the headstone — the rest of the episode consists of them watching the videos of what happened over the missing days.
"Thanks For The Memory" contains examples of:
- …But He Sounds Handsome: "Nice-looking bloke," Holly comments as an image of himself appears when the crew boot up the recovered black box recorder. Then, Holly pauses the recording when his message warns them to never play it. "You heard what he said. Knows what he's talking about, that dude."
- Confidence Building Scheme: Lister, after hearing Rimmer drunkenly confess to feeling totally unloved and alone, decides to give him a new lease on "life" by secretly implanting him with the memories of a girlfriend - specifically Lister's old flame, Lisa Yates. Rimmer experiences newfound joi de vivre as a result, gains a little genuine self-esteem, and even seems a bit more self-aware about the relationship than Lister was. However, Rimmer soon finds Lister's old collection of love letters and the scheme is revealed; feeling even worse now, Rimmer asks for the incident to be erased from the memory of everyone onboard... only for a trail of clues to lead them to remember everything.
- Drunken Song: After getting absolutely hammered at Rimmer's Death Day party the lads are heard singing "Show Me The Way To Go Home" as they attempt to fly Blue Midget back to the Dwarf.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: For Rimmer to go outside he needs to be projected in a 'hologram cage' but he doesn't need to do this later on.
- Fake Shemp: Production manager Mike Agnew played Lister in the location footage, as Craig Charles had to attend the birth of his son. Thankfully, he's wearing a spacesuit, though the plaster cast couldn't fit Agnew's foot as he had bigger feet than Craig's — a close look at the episode would reveal that there are several frames in the episode where neither the Cat nor Lister (stood in by Agnew) had casts.
- Heel Realization: Rimmer's bewilderment about why "he" dumped Lise Yates makes Lister realize what an idiot he was for having done so.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: A very, very, very sloshed Rimmer admits this to Lister, that what he'd want most in all the world is to love and be loved in return.
- Insane Troll Logic: Rimmer's deduction that the mysterious injuries are an alien greeting goes like this. Getting your leg hurts like hell, it happens below the knee, it happens to two people... and the finished jigsaw puzzle (which depicts the ship) must mean "you." Hello to you! Cat remarks, "I wouldn't like to be around when one of these suckers was making a speech!"
- Lethal Chef: While Lister's fried egg chutney sandwich is quite deadly in its own right (Rimmer describes it as "like a cross between food and bowel surgery"), the fact that the recipe was obtained from a biological warfare book (he uses it as a Hideous Hangover Cure) lampshades this aspect and Rimmer finds the deadliness of it to be its crowning aspectnote , putting this recipe in the delicious but deadly territory.Lister: The trouble is you've got to eat it before the bread dissolves.
- Masochist's Meal: Lister's hangover meal: a triple-fried egg sandwich with chili sauce and chutneynote , which has to be eaten before the bread dissolves and came from a book on bacteriological warfare.
- Memory Gambit: Lister gives Rimmer a memory of an ex-girlfriend as a gift after Rimmer reveals he only had sex once. It doesn't take long for it to unravel.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Trying to give Rimmer a happy memory results in Rimmer being more miserable than ever before.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Lister looks in on what Rimmer is dreaming. Rimmer is doing a tap dance in a top hat and tails, but no trousers.
- Pass the Popcorn: The crew are watching a surveillance recording of the four days erased from their memories. When Rimmer learns what Lister did during those four days, he is aghast - Cat, not so much:Rimmer: How could you do this to me?! It's the most heartbreakingly tragic thing it's ever been my misfortune to witness!
Cat: Popcorn? - Plot Hole:
- Lister's attempt to make a "gift" of the memories of one of his love affairs to Rimmer introduces several of these into Rimmer's life, starting with suddenly moving to Liverpool halfway through an astronavigation course at Saturn Tech, with no memory of why.Rimmer: That's why I was an orphan, even though my parents were alive. That's why I had my appendix out twice.
- Ironically, this in turn creates a plot hole in a later episode, Legion, where Lister has his appendix removed again, by the titular character. The writers Hand Waved this by explaining that Lister, being a freak of nature, was born with two appendixes. Fridge Brilliance suggests that the appendix could have been restored when Lister was transformed from human to chicken to hamster and back again in the episode D.N.A.
- Lister's attempt to make a "gift" of the memories of one of his love affairs to Rimmer introduces several of these into Rimmer's life, starting with suddenly moving to Liverpool halfway through an astronavigation course at Saturn Tech, with no memory of why.
- Spotting the Thread: The broken legs and the completed jigsaw lead the Dwarfers to the realisation something is missing.
- Take That!: According to Holly, there's a perfectly logical explanation for everything - with the possible exception of Little Jimmy Osmond.
- Tastes Better Than It Looks: Rimmer's ultimate summation of the fried egg-chili sauce-chutney sandwich; despite it being a "cross between food and bowel surgery", it's actually surprisingly yummy and he honestly enjoys it, even saying that the sandwich symbolises how, despite his many individual annoying elements, Lister is still a really likable guy.
- Hardcore fans who've replicated the sandwich in reality have reported that it genuinely does taste much nicer than it sounds.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: A sober variety, of Rimmer waking up and doing his morning exercise while humming Peter's theme from Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. First flashback is him getting smashed, nothing too big, it was the anniversary of his death, after all. The second flashback is him eating that sandwich Lister recommended. Yeah, fair enough, it wasn't that bad. The third, however, is him telling his one time having had sex to Lister of all people. Oh, noooooo. Note that Rimmer being fully sober is the first sign of things being different.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Holly leaves a warning on the black box to not look at it under any circumstances, because they'll only regret it. (They do it anyway.)
