Kryten: Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.
In their pursuit of Red Dwarf and with supplies running low, the boys come across an old space station that registers no lifeforms until they board. Then they are greeted by an elegant masked man who calls himself Legion. Legion proves his worth when he does a painless appendectomy on Lister and then upgrades Rimmer's lightbee (making him a hard light hologram, which means he can touch things) without apparent effort, and treats them to a feast.
The Dwarfers decide that they've got to have him on their crew, but when they propose that he join them, Legion says it's quite the reverse — they are going to stay with him until they die. Though he provides them all with every luxury they could imagine — even down to a disgusting filthy bedroom with a mop and bucket for Kryten — the boys decide they have to go. Lister comes up with a plan to knock Legion out, only for things to go awry when Legion turns out to know about his plan (and that it was inspired by the film Revenge of the Surfboarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls) before he even steps foot into the room, leading to a scuffle between the two in which Legion's mask is knocked off, revealing his face to be a hideous composite of those of the four Dwarfers.
Kryten realizes that Legion is a gestalt created millions of years ago by researchers. He was once a combination of the most brilliant minds in history. Now he ... isn't ... but without the Dwarfers, he will cease to exist. Unfortunately, Legion in his present form is quite capable of being irrational and deranged, and demonstrates that if he harms himself it will rebound on them. Kryten soon hatches a plan, however. He knocks everyone else unconscious, reducing Legion to a copy of himself. And as a mechanoid, Legion is now bound to assist his human masters. Legion-as-Kryten admits to a feeling of relief as he helps Kryten carry the others back to Starbug, given how neurotic they all are.
Legion also provides them with a new stardrive. Kryten insists on optimism and gets everyone to chant that they believe it will work. And when they switch it on, it does work — by blasting out of the hull and zooming off into space.
Tropes:
- Achilles' Heel: Legion is only able to maintain his form while other people are conscious, demonstrated when he sways as the others go to sleep. Kryten exploits this by rendering everyone unconscious except himself.
- Affably Evil: Legion, as he intends to keep the crew imprisoned on the station and is perfectly willing to manhandle them if they step out of line, but insists on their imprisonment being a comfortable one. When reduced to just a single consciousness, he admits he's willing to let them go as he is now, as experiencing their strange psyches is just too much.
- All Your Powers Combined: Legion was designed to emulate the combined personality and intellect of everyone around him, magnified a thousand fold. Back when his inventors were alive, this made him intelligent enough to develop many wondrous inventions like the hard light projector. When using the Dwarfers as his personality base however, the end result is a being that, while containing Kryten's intellect and desire to please others, also embodies Rimmer's neuroses, Cat's narcissism, and Lister's ability for uncouth behaviour.Legion: My name is Legion, for we are many.
- And I Must Scream: With nobody's psyche to form out of, Legion is just a vague piece of awareness inhabiting the space station, waiting "to be" again. Then, after a day and a bit of having a mind made from Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat, he decides going back to a limbo existence is better.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Rimmer's attempt to act like the Boys are okay with staying with Legion is not convincing.
- Bait-and-Switch: Twice, with Rimmer.
- First, he uncharacteristically takes charge in the face of danger, and confidently begins delivering a message to Legion's station... only to immediately switch to cowardly surrendering.
- After that, he begins a small speech about how "in his past lives", he was a bold military tactician... and then notes in this one he's an abject coward, and therefore is going to Freak Out under the table.
- Blessed with Suck: Rimmer finally acquires a hard-light body, and is promptly pelted with food, has his teeth almost yanked out of his mouth, and is repeatedly beaten over the head in a futile attempt to render him unconscious.
- Continuity Nod:
- Among the items Rimmer mentions his room containing is "nocturnal boxing gloves". Back in "Timeslides", this was shown to be one of Rimmer's childhood habits.
- During his speech to Legion, Rimmer notes the team has met thirty-one individuals in their travels, before noting many of them either wanted to eat their brains ("Psirens"), or just erase them from history altogether ("The Inquisitor").
- Continuous Decompression: What happens when the stardrive punches a hole in the side of Starbug.
- Everyone Has Standards: Rimmer is adamant that even Lister couldn't eat space weevil.Rimmer: Even Lister, with his one remaining taste bud, will not knowingly eat insectoid vermin. With him, it's practically cannibalism.
- Exact Words: Legion's stardrive does indeed work — it just fails to take Starbug with it.
- For the Evulz: As a result of having the gang's insanity, only amplified, Legion admits he is capable of "insanely irrational things". He proceeds to demonstrate this by stabbing himself in the arm. Since they feel his pain, they all feel pain too.
- Freudian Threat: Legion threatens to stab himself in the crotch if the boys try to escape again. Since they feel his pain, it is a very effective threat. (Well.. for everybody except Kryten..)
- Gilded Cage: Legion provides everyone with all of their favorite things and every individualized comfort for their stay.
- Hard Light: This is the episode where Rimmer gets his hard light mode.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: On hearing Legion is made of their psyches, the Cat confidently declares this means he can't hurt them. Legion uppercuts him.
- It Tastes Like Feet: Kryten mentions that the water has been recycled so many times that it's starting to taste like Dutch Lager.
- Mask of Sanity: Legion initially is calm and pleasant. After the truth comes out, he also admits he's got the gang's malice and neuroses, "magnified many times". Fittingly, this reveal comes after his mask is knocked off.
- Mistaken for Exhibit: Rimmer, pretending he knows about art to impress Legion, compliments one piece:Rimmer: Now this three-dimensional sculpture in particular is quite exquisite. Its simplicity, its bold, stark lines... pray, what do you call it?
Legion: The light switch.
Rimmer: The light switch?
Legion: Yes.
Rimmer: I couldn't buy it off you then?
Legion: Not really. I need it to turn the lights on and off. - My Friends... and Zoidberg: Rimmer insists Kryten make sure their hailing broadcast be put in all known languages, including Welsh.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: When Kryten has to knock out The Cat: "Do what you gotta, but don't mess up my hair."
- Noodle Implements: Kryten drops references to some literal Noodle Implements, as the crew attempt to use Mamosian anti-matter chopsticks:Kryten: For my cooking duties, I'm programmed to be proficient in all known off-world eating techniques, including Jovian Boogle Hoops, and the often-lethal Mercurian Boomerang Spoon.
- Noodle Incident: Unless Rimmer's counting multiple psychopaths per adventure, thirty-one is more killer space baddies than the series has actually shown. And counting all possible baddies from episodes such as "Meltdown," where there were "dozens" of history's worst villains, that seems rather too low.
- Reduced to Ratburgers: The bad supplies situation has only gotten worse after space weevils have eaten the last of Starbug's corn supplies. All Kryten can cook for supper is space weevil. But hey, it's corn-fed.
- Relieved Failure: Following his defeat at the hands of Kryten, Legion admits that after sharing the uniquely neurotic personalities of Lister, Rimmer and the Cat, returning to a state of nonexistence feels like promotion.
- Renaissance Man: Scientist, engineer, gourmand, artist. Or at least he used to be, in his original incarnation.
- Shout-Out: Kryten claims he'll knock Rimmer out with an "Ionian Nerve Grip". Except there isn't one, so he's reduced to smashing a vase over Rimmer's head.
- Sleeping Dummy: They try to dress up a mannequin as Lister to fool Legion. Unfortunately, Legion knows that this is the plan from "Revenge of the Surfboarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls".
- Talking Is a Free Action: Despite threatening the Dwarfers with a scalpel to his (and therefore their) groin if they try rebelling again, Legion very conspicuously just stands around while Kryten discusses his plan to knock the other three out. Though this can be justified by the fact that any attempt to physically intervene would just knock them out even more quickly.
- Tap on the Head: How Kryten deals with Lister and the Cat. It doesn't work so well on Rimmer, and after about five minutes of whacking him with a two-by-four while Rimmer beats his head against the wall, Rimmer just switches off his lightbee.
- Wham Episode: Rimmer, who has been unable to physically interact with objects and people since the start of the series, finally gets the ability to do so in this episode. This was largely because Rob Grant and Doug Naylor noticed that half of the episodes in Series Vnote somehow gave Rimmer the ability to interact with the world, and figured they might as well let him do so permanently — in addition, Series VI was written on an extremely rushed schedule, causing Grant and Naylor to realize that eventually they'd write Rimmer as doing something he shouldn't have been able to do, and realize it too late.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Legion actually sounds incensed when he asks the crew if they really thought he'd be fooled by a plan from a Fanservice-based B-movie.
- Zero-G Spot: Kryten quotes a Space Corps directive banning people with false teeth from attempting oral sex in zero gravity.
