Red Dwarf: Thanks for the Memory (1988)
Season 2, Episode 3
9/10
One of the strongest episodes from series 2
16 November 2020
After a drinking session to celebrate the anniversary of his death, Rimmer and the crew of Red Dwarf wake up with no memory of the past four days.

This is a very strong episode that combines a decent sci-fi concept, plenty of humorous banter and a solid plot.

The notion of altered memories had been used in some of the best sci-fi and Rob Grant and Doug Naylor use it well here. It's not taken seriously in anyway, so don't expect any technobabble explanation for what's being shown. It's just one character putting an unconvincing headset on, then copying and pasting their memory into a computer program. Silly, but a highly amusing concept nonetheless.

This concept is the basis of a simple plot where the characters have to find out what happened in the time that's passed. Memory loss is always a good way to explore mystery in any story and even in a comedy it can generate intrigue as it does here.

Laced throughout the story is some great banter between the characters. What I particularly enjoyed is that it's written in a way that's quite self-aware of the plot-holes. One character frequently references things from an implanted memory that should indicate something is seriously amiss but then just brushes it off.

All performances are excellent and the visuals used are pretty effective, particularly in the scene where a hungover Rimmer thinks back to the night before about the things he did whilst drunk. I think that's something most people can identify with and visually this works.

Personally I rate it as an 8.5/10, but always round upwards.
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