Confidence and Paranoia
Red Dwarf - Series 1 - Episode 5

Lister tries to watch a soppy flick in the Officer's Block, but Holly keeps interrupting him, so he heads into the sleeping quarters that evening to finish watching it. When Rimmer comes in and ribs him about spending his day eating chocolate and watching TV, Lister tells him about how he went to the Officer's Block while Rimmer was busy accomplishing things. Rimmer gets worried because the Officer's block hasn't been decontaminated yet.

Some time later, at half past three in the morning, Lister wakes up, hot, sweaty and feeling very ill. He decides to plod down to the medical unit, clutching his blanket. On the way there, he collapses in corridor 159, where he is soon found by the Cat, and subsequently, Rimmer.

Up in the medical unit, Lister and Rimmer find out that Lister has caught a mutated strain of pneumonia. For no apparent reason Lister tells Rimmer about his ex-colleague Chen's theory of confidence and paranoia. Everyone has two people inside them. Your Confidence is the person who makes you feel good. Your Paranoia is the person who makes you feel crappy about yourself. And every time he'd summon up the courage to ask Kochanski out, his Confidence would desert him, and leave him with his Paranoia telling him that she'd laugh in his face. Tired of Lister's semi-coherent rambling, Rimmer takes him back up to sleep.

Rimmer is practising necrobics. Lister is having a nightmare, mumbling about needing an umbrella. Suddenly, herring starts raining down from the ceiling. When Rimmer steps outside the room, the mayor of Warsaw walks up to him and spontaneously combusts in a flash and a whoosh. Rimmer unhelpfully quips, "It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?" before walking off to do some work.

Though Lister feels OK now, the pneumonia must still be present in his system, for two men have appeared in the drive room, one claiming to be Confidence, the other Paranoia. Confidence is a well-built, stereotypical American, with gold chains and slick hair, who likes eating steak. Paranoia is a stooped up weakling who'd rather pick at a yoghurt and sneer from a distance. Lister kind of likes the extra company, but Rimmer decides that they are symptoms of Lister's illness and must be destroyed. He's going to find it hard, though, because Lister's Confidence is very good at making Lister feel great, in addition to hating Rimmer too. ("What does that 'H' on your forehead mean? Hidiot?")

As Holly announces that an 18-hour dust storm is approaching, Confidence is listening to Lister butchering his guitar. Lister starts to brood about Kochanski, and Confidence tells him to bring her back. Unfortunately, Lister can't. The ship can only support one hologram at a time and the hologram discs have been hidden by Rimmer. In the drive room, Rimmer tries to kill Paranoia by lethal injection, and fails. Lister walks in, telling Rimmer that he's figured out how Holly can power two holograms simultaneously; just turn off the non-essential power systems. When Rimmer tells him that he can't have the discs anyhow, Lister deduces that they are hidden behind the solar panel outside the sleeping quarters, which they are.

The dust storm subsides. While Lister and Confidence go outside to retrieve the discs, Rimmer notices to his horror that "someone" has smashed the medi-comp. When Rimmer asks Holly where Paranoia is, Holly says that he's no longer aboard the ship. Outside, Confidence makes a revelation - it was he who smashed the medi-comp, and turned Paranoia into mince by running him through the waste grinder. Lister soon becomes worried and claustrophobic. Confidence tells him to take off his helmet. Lister isn't convinced, so Confidence takes off his own helmet, and explodes.

Back inside the ship, and with his two companions in pieces and floating around in space, Lister goes to the hologrammic projection suite. Rimmer gives him a last warning and Lister ignores him. When he fires up Kochanski's disc, he finds that it's actually a copy of Rimmer's disc. Rimmer welcomes his clone aboard.

Waiting for God (episode 4)
Me2 (episode 6)


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