Red Dwarf: Siliconia

If the first episode was mediocre, this one is just bad. And if your assessment of the first episode was less generous than mine, this one's probably enough to put you off watching any more ever again. But here we are, season 12, episode 2, Siliconia. It's not funny, but Chris Barrie gets to show off how good he is at imitating voices, so it's got that going for it.

Remember how Kryten used to love ironing? Now he hates it.

The episode starts off with the crew all demanding Kryten do things for them, which we're supposed to understand in this episode he doesn't like, even though he's usually characterised as loving housework. But why bother with consistent characterisation when you have a lazy and unoriginal idea for an episode?

We then find out that Kryten has located Lister's guitar, which had previously been thrown into space. I don't remember if that actually happened in the show or if it's being established here for the first time, but it has basically nothing to do with the actual plot of the episode and serves only to remind us that everyone hates Lister's music. Like, not making a joke, just sort of reminding us of a thing from back when the show was still funny.

Look, it's a guitar in space! Is that funny?

So they go out to get the guitar and are captured by a ship full of mechanoids, who turn Lister, Rimmer and the Cat into mechanoids as punishment for their supposed enslavement off Kryten. It's never addressed that Rimmer was already kind of a robot - he's a hard-light hologram in this series, and trying to figure out which version of Rimmer this is and how he came to exist in his present form is just going to lead to more questions than answers - but that's just the beginning of this episode's problems.

Chris Barrie really is very good at voices.

The crew are forced to do the chores they made Kryetn do and find that, as mechanoids, they actually like doing them, which really undermines the whole point. But then there's a weird support group meeting that Kryten attends with the other free mechanoids where I think we're supposed to be laughing at the concept of support groups and also at slaves not wanting to be slaves. It's really weird and uncomfortable. Like how in the previous episode I couldn't tell if we were supposed to be laughing at the idea of Hitler being gay, but somehow worse? Oh, and I also can't tell if the free mechanoids in this episode are supposed to be coded as gay, but I think they are for some reason?

It's funny because they're traumatised?

Anyway, the crew escapes (despite a nonsensical betrayal by Rimmer) and Kryten learns, yet again, that they think of him as a friend and not a slave - but they still make him do all the work, which he maybe likes or maybe doesn't? Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a whole thing about how the free mechanoids had their own mechanoid slaves who they considered lesser because they were a previous version, and I think that was supposed to mean "look, both sides are actually bad, so you can't criticise anything". Just terrible.

It's OK though because they want to be slaves?

<< Cured

Timewave >>