Red Dwarf (TV Series)

Better Than Life (1988)

Chris Barrie: Rimmer

Photos 

Quotes 

• [a letter arrives] 

  Lister : "Rear Admiral Lieutenant General Rimmer"

  Rimmer : That's from my mother.

  Lister : Rear Admiral.

  Rimmer : Every time I take an exam I tell her I've passed, it's getting embarrassing now. I should be Commander in Chief of the whole universe.

• Holly : What's happening, dudes?

  Lister : Hi, Hol.

  Holly : Guess what?

  Rimmer : What?

  Holly : Go on. Have a guess.

  Rimmer : What is it vaguely about?

  Holly : No clues. Just have a guess.

  [Lister and Rimmer look puzzled] 

  Holly : I knew you wouldn't get it. The Post Pod's arrived.

  Rimmer : What? The mail?

  Holly : It's been tracking us since we left Earth. Now we've turned round, it's caught up.

  Lister : Do you mean it's taken three million years?

  Holly : Yeah. Just about average for second class post.

• Lister : [reading Rimmer's letter from his Mum]  'Dear Rimmer... '

  [shocked] 

  Lister : Is this from your Mum?

  Rimmer : That's Mumsie.

• Rimmer : [meeting Napoleon in the game 'Better Than Life']  Excuse me, excuse me, you're probably really busy but could I just say you are my all-time favourite fascist dictator. I've read all your war diaries and your Italian campaign was brilliant!

• [Rimmer is feeling melancholy after discovering a letter telling him of his father's death] 

  Lister : You must have been pretty close.

  Rimmer : [voice cracks slightly]  Close?

  Lister : Sorry, very close.

  Rimmer : Close? I hated him! I detested his fat, stupid guts, the pop-eyed, balding git!

• [Rimmer owes the Outland Revenue G¸8,500] 

  Lister : Relax, it doesn't matter now. Not gonna catch you now, are they?

  Rimmer : What? Just because we're three million years into deep space and the human species is extinct? That means nothing to these people. They'll find us.

• [Rimmer has tried to cook for the crew] 

  Lister : Rimmer, real dumplings, proper dumplings when they are properly cooked to perfection, proper dumplings should not bounce!

  Rimmer : True, but after the way I thought they were going to turn out they were quite... superb!

  Lister : So how's the Cat?

  Rimmer : Oh, he's just sleeping off the stomach pump... he'll be all right. The lamb was a bit of a flop, though.

  Lister : The lamb? Everyone thought the lamb was the cheese! And that lemon meringue Pie, man, what was in that?

  Rimmer : thought you liked that! You bought some back.

  Lister : Yeah, I wanted to try some out on my Athlete's Foot!

• [on why he hated his Dad] 

  Rimmer : He always wanted to join the Space Corps, be an officer, but they wouldn't take him because he was an inch below regulation height. 1 inch. I had 3 brothers. When we were young he bought a traction machine so that he could stretch us. By the time my brother Frank was 11, he was 6ft 5. Every morning, he'd measure us. If we hadn't grown, back on the rack.

• Rimmer : Look, Casablanca. They've remade Casablanca.

  Lister : Philistines! I mean, how can you remake Casablanca? The one starring Myra Binglebat and Peter Beardsley was definitive!

  Holly : Yeah, I saw that one. Knockout. "Of all the space bars in all the worlds, you had to re-materialise in mine."

• Rimmer's Dad : I just wanted to say... You're a total smeghead!

  Rimmer : What? This isn't my fantasy?

  The Cat : [leans into frame, grinning]  No, it's MINE!

• [in the game "Better Than Life", Lister and Cat see Rimmer pulling up in an old Morris Minor estate car with Yvonne McGruder and seven young, unruly children] 

  Lister : Rimmer, what happened to you?

  Rimmer : Lister! Ah, this a great game, Lister. I couldn't be happier.

  The Cat : Who are all those guys?

  Rimmer : It's McGruder. She got pregnant. So this morning, she made me marry her and this afternoon we had seven kids. Bliss.

  Lister : Where's your E-Type?

  Rimmer : It was too impractical, with all the kids and everything.

  Lister : Rimmer, you fantasise that you have seven kids and a mortgage?

  [Rimmer grabs Lister and puts his face right up to his] 

  Rimmer : [weakly]  Help.

  Yvonne McGruder : Arn-old! Where are the nappy sacks?

  Rimmer : [his H has returned to his forehead and he has suddenly become unshaven and dirty]  My brain's rebelled. It just won't accept nice things happening to me. It just keeps fantasising horribleness.

• Rimmer : [about his father]  He had this fixation that we all had to get into the Space Corps. At meal times, he'd ask us questions on astro-navigation. If we got them wrong, no food.

  Lister : God, Rimmer. How did you cope with that?

  Rimmer : I didn't. I nearly died of malnutrition.

• Rimmer : Yawn-o-rama city. We know an Admiral. Come on.