[Script Analysis] Red Dwarf - Camille

I recently discoverd this space based British comedy, Red Dwarf, and instantly fell in love with it. Its a really bold premise, one human, male, one hologram, male, one african american male who evolved from a cat, and an artificial intelligent computer, in a space ship, and there are 9 seasons of that!

It would have been extremely difficult to pull it off, despite being based in space, the story writers never invoke space "stuff" to further any story, though a handful of episodes has something to do with time travel, and one episode with alien life form, yet the scinency stuff quickly fades back. They do not even have any females to create that aspect off drama. And yet they manage to remain entertaining episode after episode.

Anyways, so I am basically a big fan of the writers of the show, and here I would like to discuss one example of their writing genius.

In this episode, season 4, episode one, they encounter mysetious life form, who takes shape of the one you desire.

Let me first describe the characters, the human male is a slob, messy person, who has almost no ambitions, but loves to party. The hologram has a personality of a dead crew mate, who is too much into military stuff, descipline, fitness, aims to become commander etc. The android, is well an android, who just wants to serve humans. And the "Cat", cat is extrmely narcissit, he is a graceful dancer, has a wardrobe full of suits, and can not get away from a mirror.

So the android rescues Camille, and she appears to him as an andriod, almost the same make as him, but "fully loaded" version. This happened in the beginning of the episode, and we had no idea about Camille\'s special abilities. Then she meets the hologram, and he sees her in proper military-ish uniform, and we discover her special ability.

This part was intriguing, and given that its a scify, its a perfectly normal kind of thing. At this point I started thinking. We can already imagine what is going to happen next. She will meet the slob and would have a slob like personality. But then she would meet the Cat, and I assumed she would be swanky, probably african american, dancing, well dressed personality.

But the moment that thought occured to me, I also got kind of disappointed, I mean that sounds boring. Showing her in new forms again and again, four times in one episode is tedious, and it can not work.

Anyways, my first curiosity was what would they do with the human, they have already revealed her "speciality", and to andriod she appeared andriod and to hologram she appeared hologram, but the thing is holograms don't look different than humans in the show, they just have a H written on their forehead, gotta love the british humour there. So I the third form of hers was curious and it worked, it emphasised the stupidity of having H written on the forehead vs not to distinguish humans and holograms, and it worked in a self depreciating sort of humorous way. Further they also showed a three way dialog in which she is saying one thing, but human and hologram are both hearing two different versions at the same time. That worked too.

And the scene was set to introduce her to the cat. And this is where I felt the most curious. The cat is the most obnoxious, most narcissitic, weirdest character one can find, and cat knew she would look exactly like his dream, so this was the first time her speciality was discussed before the meeting, which had to be because by this time in the audiance head its well established, so they can not show cat getting surprised about it, as it would be repetitous.

I also started wondering who will they cast for this role. The female andriod, the military looking, the slobbish, all these are rather simple characters to portray, showing somebody who thinks they are the best looking person in the world, and doing so with grace and straight face, is difficult. So casting for that role presented special challenge, and there was a build up in my head to see who she would be. And because of this I wondered if the Camille character is going to be a one episode entertainment, or a recurring character.

Now the show has explicitly tried to avoid female characters, and if they introduce her as a regular character, the whole chemistry of the show will change, imagine everyone lusting after her. So in my head, they can not put her as a regular, while I have not finished watching the episode yet, so I do not know how accurate my prediction turns out to be.

Anyways, one way or another, who they show against the cat became quite a question in my head, and it must have been in the head of the writers of the episode too. How would they "resolve" this "situation"?

And the writers really delighted me with what they did. Camille appeared to cat as cat. Its so not what I was expecting, and it was so hilarious! God I love good writing. This was the perfect resolution. No need to cast a new flashy cast. Is funny. Reinforce the character of one of the characters. I couldn't have done better.