Eric Bay-Andersen reviews Red Dwarf XI Episode 5 – ‘Krysis’…
Rimmer – I suppose you can’t blame Kryten for feeling like this; he’s nearly three million years old and what has he got to show for it? Mozart was five when he wrote ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
Cat – Yeah, but what did he do after that? He had a bad case of ‘Second Nursery Rhyme Fever’, right?
Rimmer – Mozart, dummy, is one of the greatest musical gods of all music. And after ‘Twinkle’ he went on to write, among other things … ‘The Best Of Mozart’. And ‘The Best Of Mozart Vol. 2’.
Lister – It must be so hard for you being the only one here with a classical education.
Rimmer – It is!
One morning (well, afternoon – see the episode and you’ll understand) Kryten brings Lister his breakfast only to discover he forgot to actually make it. He apologises for his forgetfulness and tells the others that the pointless nature of life and the universe has been weighing on him lately, and when he outfits himself with a bright red new body cover (the mechanoid equivalent of buying a sports car) they realise he’s going through a mid-life crisis and decide to cheer him up.
They head back to one of the old Nova ships (the fleet of ship they originally found Kryten on), in the hope that seeing an earlier mech model will remind Kryten of how much he’s evolved and achieved. Unfortunately, the mech they come across – ‘Butler’ – has spent his time in isolation rather productively, managing to master art, music, medicine cooking and engineering. He even manages to help the Red Dwarf crew evade a Gelf attack, since, having cured many of their tribe of illness, he’s actually good friends with them. This depresses Kryten even further, until he stumbles upon something that even Butler was never able to find – a old space station that was constructed as a way to actually communicate with the universe itself.
Compared to some of the other episodes so far this series, ‘Krysis’ is less about action and more about character, and in my opinion, all the better for it. Kryten has always been one of my personal favourite characters, so I love it when an episode is centred around him – the last one to really do this was ‘Beyond A Joke’, back in series 7. The story itself contains elements of that episode (Kryten meeting another mechanoid), as well as elements of earlier episodes like ‘Legion’ (the crew meeting an incredibly talented and intelligent life-form that lives alone) and ‘The Last Day’ (Kryten contemplating his own mortality and the likelihood of Silicon Heaven). However, ‘Krysis’ maintains its own sense of identity, never feeling like a retread of past glories.
Dominic Coleman, who plays Butler, is easily the best guest star so far this series – the polite-yet-smug way he brags about his many many achievements is consistently funny, as is Kryten’s constant look of upset. The crew’s conversation with the universe itself (Daniel Barker, doing a Morgan Freeman-type voice) at the end of the episode comes a bit close to being sappy when Kryten tells the universe it shouldn’t feel bad about its own mid-life crisis because it created love, but this is avoided through clever writing. The episode also has a more satisfactory conclusion than the last few episodes, which ended quite abruptly – it ends with a joke that’s elegant and surprising (and, most crucially, funny). A great end to a great episode – bring on the series’ conclusion next week!
‘Krysis’ is available to watch now on UKTVPlay.co.uk, and will air on Dave on 20th October 2016 at 9pm.
Eric Bay-Andersen
Originally published October 14, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
