Preparing to send his usual Father's Day video-message to himself, Lister is interrupted by Rimmer pointing out that he's been a pretty awful dad. This leads to the incredibly drunk Lister deciding to give himself some particularly tough love. Meanwhile, Rimmer and Kryten are stuck dealing with their attempt to engage a replacement ship computer, who turns out to be even less competent than Holly was.
This episode contains examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Pree, thanks to her "Predictive Behavior Technology", is a Literal Genie who basically fouls up everything she does because she attempts to do things exactly like an incompetent such as Arnold Rimmer would order them to be done. Lister turns this on her and gets her to delete herself in the end.
- Alliterative Name: Taiwan Tony, the Chinese Vending Machine seen in this episode.
- All There in the Manual: According to the official website, Pree was obtained from the Space Corps Derelict Trojan (seen in the previous episode).
- Chekhov's Gun: The medical file Lister makes for his son(self) manages to prove useful in Pree's deactivation.
- Continuity Nod: Reference is made to Lister being his own father via time-paradox, something revealed back in series 7's Ouroboros.
- A Canary Suit from Series VIII can be briefly seen when Pree is forcing Lister into a space-suit.
- Laughing Gas: The Dwarfers are trying to uninstall Pree from the mainframe when she intends to throw Red Dwarf into the nearest sun. In an attempt to stop this, Pree releases laughing gas, causing the group to start laughing uncontrollably and slowing down their progress. On the upside, Kryten is able to use the opportunity to resolve the tooth problem that Lister had been having all episode.
- Magic Countdown: Pree is kind enough to give Lister a countdown of how long he has left until he is expelled from the ship. What she isn't kind about is how long the countdown will be. Most egregious is the "ten-second" countdown while he's in the airlock, putting on his helmet.Pree: Ten, nine, five, four, three, two, one.
Lister: THAT WASN'T TEN SECONDS! - Meaningful Name: In Jamaican slang, (and to a lesser extent English slang), "Pree" means to look. For the former, "Pree" means to pay close attention to something, whilst for the latter, it generally means unwanted attention, spying, or even cyber-stalking. This is quite fitting for Pree, given that she watches everything her crew does and rapidly builds a profile of their character, to the point of knowing what they're about to do at any given moment. It's also the first syllable of "precognition".
- Memory Wipe Exploitation: We find out Lister's Father's Day tradition: as he's his own dad, after opening his Father's Day card, he makes another card to be delivered to himself next year, first getting blackout drunk so he won't remember what he's got. Later, he decides to be a better father to himself and, with the help of the ship's computer and her behavior-predicting software, he repeats the blackout routine, this time creating a video giving himself instructions, with added punishment for not obeying said instructions. Unfortunately, the computer manipulates the situation to get Lister off the ship so she can destroy Red Dwarf.
- Never My Fault: We get two versions of this: Pree and Rimmer. Pree has the excuse of being programmed to aligning herself with the ship's ranking officer and therefore is set to carry out instructions as the ranking officer would see fit. Rimmer happens to be that ranking officer, so on account that he would cock up ship repairs, she went on to cock it up for him. Rimmer, on the other hand, would most likely blame Kryten for everything that's happened and march off indignantly to the nearest exit, as Pree points out for him. Rimmer proceeds to do so without question.
- Paying for Air: Lister quits his position at the Jupiter Mining Corporation. The ship's new computer, Pree, decides that he has now forfeited his "oxygen allowance" and removes all the air from his quarters to force him out of the ship.
- Significant Name Overlap: How Lister manages to trick Pree into thinking he is his own person who didn't resign. That was his dad, they just share the same name.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Prerecorded message made by Lister assisted by Pree in which he takes a role of the father and chews himself (his son) for ending up in such smeg. He even can tell when his "son" tries to tell him off.
- Tough Love: Lister asks for advice regarding his son (himself) from the medi-comp, and it gives him the advice of giving his son goals and if he doesn't achieve his goals, Lister should kick his butt hard. Lister proceeds to record himself the night before posing as Dad to himself as Son, and gives him instructions to do. Son refuses to do so and just plays the next messages a few times. Thanks to Pree's PHT, Dad knew that would happen, and shouts at him for ignoring the instructions and eventually flushes Son's guitar out the airlock.
