Red Dwarf--"Duct Soup"

“Duct Soup,” a play on the title of the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, is a very disappointing episode. It is disappointing for three reasons. It was the last script written for the seventh series. Several episodes had gone way over budget, so it had to be written as a barebones bottle show. Two, the writing had to be rushed because the planned script would have been too expensive to film. Finally, and probably most importantly, the script that was canned as too expensive would have been a great episode. It was entitled “Identity Within,” and would have been the only episode of the show’s run to center on Cat. As a bonus on the seventh series DVD, Chris Barrie narrates the script, skillfully imitating the voices of his co-stars in character, over the storyboards. It is a nifty easter egg, but probably adds to fan angst the episode was never filmed.

More to the point with what is wrong with “Duct Soup” is how it centers around a generic sitcom plot--the characters are trapped in a confined space--without many laughs. Much of the dialgue intensive script is introspection of the characters, but it comes across as not all that interesting. It should have dealt way more with Kochansky. She is the new character we know nothing about other than Lister longs for her. Yet, the episode is mostly Lister-centric.

Kochansky is absolutely miserable on Starbug. she has no change of clothes, there is no bath tub, the food does not suit her, and a squeaking pipe keeps her up all night. Lister offers her his room for the night, complete with a bath. He is going to leave to give her privacy, but Kryten, who is still feeling jealous of lister’s fondness for her, does not know that. He believes hanky panky is about to ensue. Suddenly, there is a power outage. Starbug goes on lockdown.. When the backup generators do not come on, kryten says they are going to have to crawl through two miles of repair ducts in order to restart the power manually.

Most of the remainder of “Duct Soup” is the crew, paired off into various groups of two, talking to each other. Kochansky discusses Lister’s shallow relationships and quiet homophobia to distract him from his claustrophobia.. Lister explains the origins of his claustrophobia. Kryten talks about how much Lister is infatuated with her. She talks about her early life. So on and so on. Literally, it all falls flat for me. We have seen much better character insight in past episodes without sacrificing any laughs, but here, there is hardly anything humorous. Some of the conversations are downright uncomfortable. The dialogues are interrupted by a flood of water cleaning the ducts and a gust of hurricane force winds to dry them out. So there is some slapstick for you if examining Lister’s homophobia and childhood trauma did not tickle your tuckus.

Kryten finally reveals he set all this up to keep Kochansky from taking a bath. He did not want her seducing lister. They were never in any real trouble, as the door to Lister’s room, where the four were originally trapped, was never actually sealed. The episode ends with Kochansky beating Kryten over the head with a wrench as he makes the same noises as the squeaking pipe in her room. So there is even more slapstick for you.

Needless to say, I did not go for any of it. There are no funny bits at all. Not even what I am reasonably sure is an homage to Kryten attempting to remove the Polymorph as Lister’s shorts back in the third series with Kryten attempting to comfort the crying Kochansky by applying the Heimlich maneuver. Use your imagination, but it looks like Kryten is enaged in sexual acts both times. Hilarity does not always ensue. I do not feel like I know these characters any better, either, in spite of reams of dialogue. “Duct Soup” is a wash all around.

Rating: * (out of 5)