"...I've buggered this up a bit, haven't I?"
The trial of the Boyz from the Dwarf reaches its final conclusion.
This episode contains examples of:
- Art Shift: When the crew are transported inside the screensaver, they become Stop Motion versions of themselves.
- Badass Boast: When asked for proof that he can fly a Blue Midget, Cat not only says it, but proceeds to prove his statement.Cat: Fly? I can make this thing dance
! - Black Comedy Rape: Rimmer getting passionately grabbed by a dozen or more prisoners is treated as a blackly hilarious karmic punishment.
- Brick Joke: Way back in the opening of part 1, an angry Rimmer referenced Lister pouring a whole tube of something over him. The final scene of this episode shows us that it was the tube of Sexual Magnetism Virus.
- Comically Missing the Point: Lister doesn't know Gideon's Bible the right way.Lister: He follows me everywhere, that bloke. I was staying in a hotel once - he left his bible there as well. Two years later, another hotel, dozy git left it behind again.
- Curse Cut Short: Lister realizes they're not escaping, but are actually in a virtual reality program that Rimmer is editing to cover up his own guilt — most noticeably when obvious jump cuts start happening, whereupon Lister says he's going to cut off Rimmer's (jump cut) with a blunt knife!
- Dream Emergency Exit: Kryten reasons that there must be an emergency escape switch, used to help users escape if the program freezes, and hidden behind a cryptic clue.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Amazingly, the Cat is instrumental in getting them all back to reality. He finds a button in the final virtual Starbug labelled "E11t" and points out that 11 becomes "xi" in Roman numerals - so this must be the Exit button. Then, in the screensaver, Cat reasons that a bottle of "Power" brand ketchup in the igloo must be the disguised door - because it's "Power Sauce (Source)". Both times, he's right, which Lister irkedly lampshades.
- Failed a Spot Check: In simulation Cat manage to convince the Bridge Bunny to let them out of ship by STAGING A DANCE NUMBER WITH A BLUE MIDGET AS A PARTNER, nobody really agnowledge the unpropablity of such a feat.
- Fisher Kingdom: The screensaver takes place in a claymated environment, so the crew change to claymated forms when they enter.
- Foregone Conclusion: By the episode's climax, the boys have been proven innocent of their original charges... but wound up sentenced to the brig for two years anyway because of their (mis)use of confidential files.
- Gone Horribly Right: It turns out that Holly ordered the nanobots to recreate the rest of the crew as part of an effort to try and keep Lister sane. As the gang incredulously points out, this got them all put on trial and is likely to end them up in prison.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Judging Rimmer to be responsible for this whole affair, as he was the one abusing both the confidential files and the Postive Viruses for personal gain, Lister decides to invoke this by drizzling him with Sexual Magnetism Virus whilst he's amongst the inmates.
- Medium-Shift Gag: When finally clued into their virtual reality prison, the Boyz attempting to escape from the virtual Starbug leads to them being rendered in a claymation style, which Kryten explains is because they've somehow wound up "in the screen saver".
- My Brain Is Big: The New Holly running Red Dwarf has an enlarged, egg-shaped head to emphasize his greater intelligence compared to senile Original Holly.
- Never My Fault: Rimmer, Rimmer, Rimmer.Kochanski: This is all your fault.Rimmer: My fault?Kochanski: You framed us over the confidential file scam.Lister: Stole the sexual magnetism virus.Kryten: You lied to us.Kochanski: And generally, have been a self-serving, backstabbing, worthless little rat-bag.Rimmer: And that's bad?
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The fact that Cat is the one who found the clue on how to exit AR proves without a shadow of a doubt that they're not in reality.
- Power Perversion Potential: Captain Hollister tries to acquire the sexual magnetism virus for his own, er, "ends", but Rimmer hides it.Hollister: God dammit, Rimmer! I wanted that - I mean, the lab boys wanted that. For testing.
- Prison Rape: The cast is sent to prison, largely because of the backstabbing of Rimmer. In the first non-flashback set in the prison, Lister dumps a vial of the "sexual magnetism virus" on Rimmer, and the episode ends as all the inmates start groping him.
- Recursive Reality: Initially, Lister, Kochanski, Cat and Kryten believe themselves to be in reality, but are actually in a virtual reality program. Then they escape to reality and flee the Red Dwarf — only to be told that they're actually in another virtual reality program. Then finally we graduate to reality itself, where Hollister reveals that both the Starbug crew and Rimmer have been in virtual reality since they licked their respective envelopes, where the glue was laced with the psychotropic drugs used to induce the hallucination.
- This Is Reality: The Bridge Bunny in the virtual world is young and hot. The real life version is... not.Cat: Man, reality sucks!
- Toon Transformation: The crew briefly become stop-motion characters (see Art Shift above).
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: Rimmer takes his treachery up a notch by trying to hack into the recording of Lister & co's virtual reality "trial" to remove all reference to his own misdeeds and ensure they incriminate themselves.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In the screensaver, a giant claymation shark swallows Lister whole when he pokes his head into its icehole. Then it spits him out and sticks its tongue out in disgust before sinking back underwater.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Despite everything he's done to be a nuisance to them, Rimmer is welcomed back as part of the full-fledged team.
