Enter the SS Enconium, a 24th Century ship from Earth that has been shifted three million years into the future. Worse yet, the vessel is on a collision course with Rimmer's gas moon. Electing to try and save the crew, the Dwarfers move in to intercept. They soon learn that, on the Enconium, criticism in all its forms has been outlawed.
Onboard, they quickly see the effects of such a ruling. The interior bulkheads have been given a psychedelic paintjob and the corridor walls are lined with crayon drawings, made by the artistically inept adult crewmembers and replete with woeful technique and spelling errors in the titles.
Meeting an oddly-dressed officer named Ziggy (later revealed to be the Captain) only serves to make the urge to criticise harder to bear, with him informing the Dwarfers that nobody is being assigned to the correct work. With nobody able to bemoan the shoddy work being done - or even wanting to - the entire ship has, to an outside observer, descended into chaos.
It isn't long before Rimmer and Lister - and their criticism in the mess hall, which has been turned into an American-style diner - are noticed by the Enconium's crew. They're then stopped by the ship's security for their prior infraction but, just as it seems they're able to convince the officer to let them walk away with a warning, Cat opens his mouth. One "Lieutenant Asshole" comment later and the four of them are thrown into the brig.
After a brief interaction with the brig's sole other occupant, the Boyz manage to escape by using a wad of volatile Helium-7-rich rock wedged in Lister's boot to blast their way out of the brig. As they flee, they run into the same security officer again, but manage to convince him to let them go by reintroducing him to the pleasures of constructive criticism.
Unfortunately for the Boyz, they then run into Ziggy and more officers. Recaptured, the Boyz are taken to a chamber to have their "inner critic" drained out of them.
Unfortunately for everybody, they choose to drain Rimmer first, and he overloads the machine, causing his Inner Critic to manifest and the two Rimmers to start arguing. When the Inner Critic mentions that his job is to "protect" Rimmer, Lister points out that he hasn't done a very good job of it; after all, if the Inner Critic is supposed to keep Rimmer from trying things that're too hard for him, then why didn't he stop Rimmer operating on the Drive Plate, which ended up killing him?
Unable to argue with this logic, the Inner Critic fades away into nothing, which greatly impresses the Captain, who points out that they just defeated something through criticism. With this evidence, they convince him to repeal the law against criticism and to reappoint the trained individuals to their designated roles. This saves the Enconium from crashing into Planet Rimmer, after which the Captain decides to reward the Boyz with one of his own paintings. When they try to politely turn it down, the affronted Captain reinstates the law against criticism, forcing them to flee back to their own ship.
"Timewave" contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: In the DVD special features, actor Jamie Chapman says that his character Ziggy is the ship's captain.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Lister gives Rimmer's Inner Critic an onslaught of those.Rimmer's Inner Critic: (To Rimmer himself) I stopped you from making a fool of yourself.Lister: Yeah he is always making a fool of himself, so hang on. You're not doing a good job are you?Rimmer's Inner Critic: (glares at Lister) You can't criticise me, I'm his inner critic!Lister: Where were you when Rimmer was fixing that drive plate and wiped out the crew?Rimmer's Inner Critic: No one criticises Me!Lister: Why didn't you tell him he wasn't up to it? I mean aren't you supposed to help him?
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: In the opening, Lister, Rimmer, and Cat are planting a flag on a moon they discovered. Rimmer, being a hologram, is the only one of them who isn't wearing a space suit since he doesn't need to breathe.
- Can't Take Criticism: Anybody on board, but mostly Nega-Rimmer. Who breaks down in a whimper.
- Chekhov's Gun: The status of criticizing as being a Fantastic Drug, brought up just before the Boyz enter the SS Enconium. When making their ultimately failed escape from the brig, they run into a "Crit-Cop" and (through lucky accident) cause him to criticize them. He becomes so enamored with the rush that, high as a kite, he lets them go free.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: We have a ship full of humans in the future that never gets mentioned again.
- Disproportunate Retribution: The Dwarfers get stuck in a prison with a cellmate who is treated as if he were Hannibal Lecter, or Garland Greene, by the security. The guy has been given a lifesentence... for tutting.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The officer's "pulling over" of Lister, is nearly 1:1 with how one would treat a drunk driver.
- Dystopian Edict: The SS Enconium has adopted the rather absurd rule that any form of criticism, no matter how valid, is outlawed.
- Egopolis: Rimmer names the planet after himself and calls its star "Sunny Rim".
- Fantastic Drug: Criticism itself, which the Enconium proved caused the production of dopamine in the brain and thus led to critics becoming increasingly caustic in order to preserve their high. As such, they outlawed criticism to make people less mean.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: The Encomium as some unspecified method. Ziggy thought about upgrading the Red Dwarf with FTL but decided to reward the dwarfers with a painting he did instead.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The Enconium believed that repealing criticism would help humanity to advance and grow. Instead, it just resulted in their ship descending into chaos, as everybody does whatever the hell they want and nobody is doing anything they are competent at OR striving to improve themselves.
- Frankly; it's a miracle the ship was still as functional as it was when the Boyz found it, with just the lifts and the communications system broken. People in the ship's hospital failing to get proper medical treatment wouldn't help matters either. As soon as something went wrong with life support, they'd either have to shape up quick or learn how to breathe without oxygen.
- Gone Horribly Right: Rimmer is being drained of his negative thoughts. Fine. All of those becoming its own anthropomorphic self-doubt made flesh? Uh oh.
- Insane Troll Logic: Before the anti-criticism law came into effect nothing was done because everyone kept arguing with each other. The law was made to stop these arguments but it instead got warped into an undisciplined crew doing even less work and higher management handing out jobs to people who are clearly unqualified to have them.
- Minor Insult Meltdown: Justified, as he hasn't been criticised in ages. When Lister gently tells the Captain that his painting "really isn't all that great", he's so affronted he immediately reinstates the anti-criticism laws and demands the guards capture the Dwarfers.
- Missing Steps Plan: Rimmer puts the gang at major risk harvesting the valuable Helium-7 on the off chance they ever get back to the Solar System in the 23rd century even though they have no method of getting to that point in space or time.
- Mondegreen Gag: Rimmer once misheard his brothers telling him about the "clitoris" for "spit on her wrist". He blames this mishearing for his sex life being a shambles.
- Negative Space Wedgie: The titular timewave that can bring things from the past into the future.
- Preemptive "Shut Up": For the first time in three seasons, Rimmer breaks out a recitation from the book of Space Corps Directives. However, he hangs a lampshade on his own tendency to get the numbers of said Directives wrong, he quickly gets in one of these before Kryten can correct him.Rimmer: Leave this to me. As Stand-in Senior Acting Commanding Officer of the JMC mining ship Red Dwarf - and protected as I am under Space Corps Directive 381286, Kryten, shut up! - I demand that you release us all immediately!
- Real Men Wear Pink: The Space Cop's uniform is bright, neon, eyeblindingly pink.
- There Is Another: We get a ship full of humans who aren't dead by the end of the episode, meaning Lister is definitely no longer the last human.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The criticism drainer drains a person of all their negative thoughts about something. The first person to undergo this is Rimmer. Needless to say the machine can't handle it, and promptly blows up.
- Undesirable Prize: At the episode's end, the Enconium's captain notes that the ship's leaders considered both upgrading Kryten and upgrading Red Dwarf's engines to make it FTL capable. Instead, they decide to give the Dwarfers... one of the captain's rubbish paintings.
- Wrong Line of Work: The "no criticism" law has given the crew free reign to take on whatever jobs they want, regardless of ability, with hairdressers becoming navigators, doctors being lift technicians, etc. As a result of the utter lack of competence the crew show in their new vocations, the ship is a total mess, not to mention on the verge of crashing into a moon.
