"I say we draw a moustache on him!"
Rimmer's stress levels reach a dangerous high when it seems he has come face to face with his presumed eons-dead brother, Howard.This episode contains examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Of Star Trek, having the Dwafers discover a ship similar to the Enterprise and Rimmer making them pretend to be members of the Space Corps.
- Can't Catch Up: Rimmer has always felt this way towards his brothers as they served in the Space Corps aboard top-of-the-line ships while he was on the Red Dwarf. As such, he was very resentful against them by comparing his unsuccessful life to their quite successful lives.
- Continuity Nod: Rimmer and Howard's shared problem with stress is a call back to the opening of Rimmerworld, where it was established that Rimmer comes a family with a wide history of stress-related disorders and was on the verge of a potentially lethal "hologrammatic stroke" due to accumulated stress.
- Dark Reprise: A somber instrumental of the Rimmer Munchkin Song (from "Blue") can be heard as Howard is dying.
- Enemy Civil War: Sim Crawford's plan to steal the quantum rod and unite all simulants implies they aren't that effective due to being scattered all over space.
- Expy: While pretending to be the crew of the Trojan, Rimmer comes up with fake backstories for the Dwarfers which resemble classic Star Trek characters. Rimmer pretends to be a charming Kirk like captain; Lister becomes David Listerson-Smythe, a psychic "Touch-T" similar to Deanna Troi; the Cat is pilot Gerald Hampton, a pilot as part of a interspecies program which makes him similar to Spock, Pavel Chekov and Hikaru Sulu; and Kryten becomes Kryten Krytenski, the co-coordinator who is an obvious parallel to Data.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: The SS Trojan has a method explained by Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything. The Quantum Rod worked like a magnet, drawing back together matter that had once been connected. Since all matter had been connected together before the Big Bang, the rod could detect seemingly distant matter and jump from place to place by contracting space-time.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Howard sacrifices himself by jumping in front of a shot meant for Rimmer.
- Humans Are Psychic in the Future: The uniform Lister borrow signifies that he's a "Touch-T" who can apparently read minds through Touch Telepathy.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Rimmer lied one last time to Howard as he lay dying and was smug over the fact that Howard was now permanently dead, even as a hologram. Cue the announcement from the JMC's internal computer (which serves as the High Command for the crew)Lister: (reading from the announcement) "In light of Howard Rimmer's heroic action in sacrificing himself to save both ship and crew, we feel it is appropriate to award him the Platinum Star of Fortitude [The highest award available in the Space Corps] [...] And we feel it is entirely appropriate to rename the Red Dwarf, the SS Howard Rimmer.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Howard refuses at first to believe that his little brother Arnold, who he bullied without mercy, is in the Space Corps.Howard: This is your ship? You're in the Space Corps? Yyyyyyyyyou?
- Maintain the Lie: "Better Than Life" established that Rimmer had always lied to his family about his career trajectory, claiming he'd passed every promotion exam. When Howard shows up the Dwarfers pretend that they're the crew of the SS Trojan to preseve Rimmer's lie about his current rank.
- Miles Gloriosus: Lister doesn't have a high opinion of the Space Corps jockeys, calling them a "bunch of over-priced party boys." Rimmer disagrees because he's always wanted to join them and become an officer there.
- Mirror Character: Turns out that Howard isn't what Rimmer heard he was. Howard is in the Space Corps, but he's more a vending machine repairman. In short, the two brothers have had the same job all this time, just in separate space ventures.
- Mundane Utility: After losing his chance to buy a Stirmaster, Lister turns Crawford into one.
- Mythology Gag: Crawford's eventual fate of being turned into a household utensil is quite similar to that of a simulant in a hypothetical situation that Kryten answers in The Space Corps Survival Manual, a book released around the time Series VII aired.
- Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: The Trojan is a "Quantum Twister" class ship, powered by a Quantum Rod making it capable of Faster-Than-Light Travel.
- Ridiculously Long Phone Hold: Lister spends hours waiting on the All-Droid phone line trying to order the Stir Master. He spends most of the episode carrying around the handset and when he finally gets through it's on the opposite side of Trojan's deck. Refusing to spend any more time waiting he lunges for the receiver, triggering a firefight with Crawford. By the time he finally reaches the handset the droid on the other end has hung up on him.
- Shout-Out: The Space Corps uniforms are very similar to those used Star Trek films VIII to X and the later seasons of Deep Space Nine.
- Touch Telepathy: Lister borrows a uniform of somebody who could do this and has to bluff that he can read Howard's mind by touching him.
- Tractor Beam: The Red Dwarf tows the Trojan with a never before seen tractor beam. Word of God said it was originally meant to be docked inside a landing bay but they decided that Rimmer would be embarrassed by the Red Dwarf and wouldn't want his brother to see it.
