Confidence and Paranoia
Encyclopedia
"Confidence and Paranoia" is the fifth episode from series one of the science fiction
sitcom Red Dwarf
. It was first broadcast on the British
television channel BBC2
on 14 March 1988. The plot involves Lister's mutated pneumonia
which manifests solid hallucinations.
Written by Rob Grant
and Doug Naylor
, and directed by Ed Bye
, the episode was originally going to be broadcast as the series cliffhanger but was moved down in the broadcast schedule with a new series finale taking its place. Considered to be one of the weaker efforts from the first series, the episode was re-mastered, along with the rest of the first three series, in 1998, to bring the episode up to a standard suitable for international broadcast.
(Craig Charles
) falls ill after snooping through Kristine Kochanski
's quarters, which have not been decontaminated yet. The pneumonia he contracts is a mutated strain and, while delirious, he has hallucinations which become solid -- fish rain in his sleeping quarters, the Mayor of Warsaw from 1546 spontaneously combusts
, and two guests materialise in the drive room. These guests are Lister's Confidence (Craig Ferguson
), a tall, tanned, flashily-dressed game show host type who calls Lister "the King", and Lister's Paranoia, (Lee Cornes
) a stooped, pallid, black suit-clad little man.
Despite Rimmer
's (Chris Barrie
) warnings that the two guests are symptoms of Lister's disease and therefore dangerous, Lister begins spending a lot of time with his Confidence, who helps him figure out where Rimmer has hidden Kochanski's hologram disc. Apparently it's in the solar panels outside their sleeping quarters. Rimmer is proven correct, however, when Confidence murders Paranoia and pressures Lister to perform suicidal acts of over-confidence, namely removing his helmet during a spacewalk
. To prove that "Oxygen is for losers!" Confidence removes his own helmet, then explodes
. Lister, having successfully retrieved the disc, nervously rehearses his first words to Kochanski. When he switches on the program, however, a second hologram
of Rimmer appears.
This episode was originally going to be the last of the series, and would have concluded with Kochanski being successfully resurrected as a "sort-of cliffhanger". The BBC electrician
strike
had disrupted the series production, but this gave Grant and Naylor time to re-think about an earlier script titled "Bodysnatcher", which was intended to be the second episode: the pair felt that "Bodysnatcher" was the weakest script of the six, and also suffered because they had not actually written an ending for it. Rob and Doug took the idea from "Bodysnatcher" of two Listers (i.e. him and his hologram) not getting along, and adapted it into the idea of having two Rimmers together. So the ending of "Confidence and Paranoia" was changed to have a duplicate of Rimmer resurrected instead, and this cliffhanger continued into the new series finale "Me²
".
The two main guest stars were Lee Cornes
as Paranoia and Craig Ferguson
as Confidence.
special effects of Red Dwarf and many more visual and audio enhancements. Changes specific to "Confidence and Paranoia" include a new recorded Holly joke to replace the opening 'post office worker' gag, dramatic music cue added to Lister's collapse due to the mutated illness and a CGI scene of Red Dwarf travelling through the dust storm.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
sitcom Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
. It was first broadcast on the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television channel BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 14 March 1988. The plot involves Lister's mutated pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
which manifests solid hallucinations.
Written by Rob Grant
Rob Grant
Robert Grant is a British comedy writer and television producer, who was born in Salford and studied Psychology at Liverpool University for two years....
and Doug Naylor
Doug Naylor
Douglas R. Naylor is a British comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.Naylor was born in Manchester, England and studied at the University of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s, Naylor wrote two regular comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 entitled Cliché and Son of Cliché...
, and directed by Ed Bye
Ed Bye
Edward Richard Morrison Bye is a British film and TV producer and director. He is best known for his work with Grant Naylor, Harry Enfield and Jasper Carrott, and has worked with many of British TV's best known comedians and comedy actors...
, the episode was originally going to be broadcast as the series cliffhanger but was moved down in the broadcast schedule with a new series finale taking its place. Considered to be one of the weaker efforts from the first series, the episode was re-mastered, along with the rest of the first three series, in 1998, to bring the episode up to a standard suitable for international broadcast.
Plot
ListerDave Lister
David "Dave" Lister, commonly referred to simply as Lister, is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, portrayed by Craig Charles...
(Craig Charles
Craig Charles
Craig Joseph Charles is an English actor, stand-up comedian, author, poet, radio and television presenter, best known for playing Dave Lister in the British cult-favourite science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf...
) falls ill after snooping through Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Kochanski
Kristine Z. Kochanski is a fictional character from the British science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf. Kochanski was the first console officer in the navigation chamber on board the spaceship Red Dwarf...
's quarters, which have not been decontaminated yet. The pneumonia he contracts is a mutated strain and, while delirious, he has hallucinations which become solid -- fish rain in his sleeping quarters, the Mayor of Warsaw from 1546 spontaneously combusts
Spontaneous human combustion
Spontaneous human combustion describes reported cases of the burning of a living human body without an apparent external source of ignition...
, and two guests materialise in the drive room. These guests are Lister's Confidence (Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, and producer. He is the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, an Emmy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning late-night talk show that airs on CBS...
), a tall, tanned, flashily-dressed game show host type who calls Lister "the King", and Lister's Paranoia, (Lee Cornes
Lee Cornes
Lee Cornes is a British actor.He appeared in three series of Blackadder, as a talking extra, in two episodes of The Young Ones and in the TV show Bottom, as barman, 'Dick Head'. He made an appearance in the first episode of Filthy, Rich & Catflap as a binman. He also starred in children's drama...
) a stooped, pallid, black suit-clad little man.
Despite Rimmer
Arnold Rimmer
Arnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character in the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. He is unpopular with his crew mates, and is often the target of insults or pranks...
's (Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
) warnings that the two guests are symptoms of Lister's disease and therefore dangerous, Lister begins spending a lot of time with his Confidence, who helps him figure out where Rimmer has hidden Kochanski's hologram disc. Apparently it's in the solar panels outside their sleeping quarters. Rimmer is proven correct, however, when Confidence murders Paranoia and pressures Lister to perform suicidal acts of over-confidence, namely removing his helmet during a spacewalk
Extra-vehicular activity
Extra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon...
. To prove that "Oxygen is for losers!" Confidence removes his own helmet, then explodes
Explosive decompression
Uncontrolled decompression refers to an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure or impact causing a pressure vessel to vent into its lower-pressure surroundings or fail to pressurize...
. Lister, having successfully retrieved the disc, nervously rehearses his first words to Kochanski. When he switches on the program, however, a second hologram
Me²
"Me²" is the sixth and final episode from series one of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, which was first broadcast on BBC2 on 21 March 1988. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Ed Bye. The script was written, as a late addition to the series, following an electrician's strike...
of Rimmer appears.
Production
The production team were very worried that they might get complaints about cruelty to fish regarding the raining fish hallucination scene. In fact no fish were actually harmed and none were dropped from any height, but placed on the floor. The episode used split-screen techniques to show The Mayor of Warsaw approaching Rimmer and spontaneously combusting. The technique was used to minimise any potential threat to the actors. The mayor, Rimmer's reaction and the explosion were all carried out as separate shots and cut together.This episode was originally going to be the last of the series, and would have concluded with Kochanski being successfully resurrected as a "sort-of cliffhanger". The BBC electrician
Electrician
An electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance and repair of existing electrical infrastructure. Electricians may also...
strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
had disrupted the series production, but this gave Grant and Naylor time to re-think about an earlier script titled "Bodysnatcher", which was intended to be the second episode: the pair felt that "Bodysnatcher" was the weakest script of the six, and also suffered because they had not actually written an ending for it. Rob and Doug took the idea from "Bodysnatcher" of two Listers (i.e. him and his hologram) not getting along, and adapted it into the idea of having two Rimmers together. So the ending of "Confidence and Paranoia" was changed to have a duplicate of Rimmer resurrected instead, and this cliffhanger continued into the new series finale "Me²
Me²
"Me²" is the sixth and final episode from series one of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, which was first broadcast on BBC2 on 21 March 1988. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Ed Bye. The script was written, as a late addition to the series, following an electrician's strike...
".
The two main guest stars were Lee Cornes
Lee Cornes
Lee Cornes is a British actor.He appeared in three series of Blackadder, as a talking extra, in two episodes of The Young Ones and in the TV show Bottom, as barman, 'Dick Head'. He made an appearance in the first episode of Filthy, Rich & Catflap as a binman. He also starred in children's drama...
as Paranoia and Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, and producer. He is the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, an Emmy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning late-night talk show that airs on CBS...
as Confidence.
Cultural references
- Film references include The Wizard of OzThe Wizard of Oz (1939 film)The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
whose Munchkins are mentioned. - The AlienAlien (film)Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
tagline is also parodied "In space, no one can hear you cha-cha-cha". - To relieve his boredom, Holly deletes his memory banks of all Agatha ChristieAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's novels and then gets intensely involved with reading Hercule PoirotHercule PoirotHercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...
novels; he mentions a mystery that he is reading which features him speculating that "they all did it", but since this features Poirot stepping off a train after Holly makes this deduction, this cannot be correct as the only case where everyone did it was Murder on the Orient ExpressMurder on the Orient ExpressMurder on the Orient Express is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on January 1, 1934 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of...
, which did not feature Poirot getting off a train at any point after the murder was committed.
Reception
The episode was originally broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 14 March 1988 in the 9:00pm evening time slot. Although the pilot episode "The End" drew in over five million viewers, this figure was now tailing off as the series progressed. The episode was considered to be one of the weakest from the first series by Red Dwarf Smegazine readers — it came in 28th place with 0.2% of the votes.Re-mastered
The remastering of Series I to III was carried out during the late 1990s. Changes throughout the series included replacement of the opening credits, giving the picture a colour grade and filmising, computer generatedComputer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
special effects of Red Dwarf and many more visual and audio enhancements. Changes specific to "Confidence and Paranoia" include a new recorded Holly joke to replace the opening 'post office worker' gag, dramatic music cue added to Lister's collapse due to the mutated illness and a CGI scene of Red Dwarf travelling through the dust storm.