Red Dwarf s8 e1 Back I n The Red Part 1

In a cell, Lister and Rimmer are having another furious argument. We are then shown the circumstances that led to their incarceration...

Three days earlier, Kryten's nanobots had rebuilt Red Dwarf, but done so far too large. Lister enters the cockpit, showing off his now non-muscular body, and it emerges that the enlargement is a temporary symptom of the nanobots' restoration process, as it soon turns out that Red Dwarf is shrinking around Starbug. Suddenly, the ship is sucked into an air vent. With Red Dwarf almost completely shrunk, the corridors rip off the rear and middle section of Starbug before the cockpit is sent flying into a cargo bay where it crash-lands, and the crew manage to escape mere seconds before it explodes.

The crew are approached by two figures recognised by Lister... Selby and Chen. The nanobots have not only restored Red Dwarf but also its crew. Captain Hollister then arrives with a Security Officer who places Lister under arrest for stealing and crashing a Starbug, flying without a pilot's licence and bringing two stowaways (The Cat and Kryten) aboard. Everyone is placed in custody and Lister is confined to quarters. He then asks Holly (who is still loaded into Lister's watch and therefore hidden from the crew of Red Dwarf) what will happen if they are found guilty. Holly explains that they will get two years in the brig. Lister is confused, as Red Dwarf does not have a brig, but Holly explains that there is a top-secret prison facility contained aboard the ship, holding hundreds of inmates who were being transported to a containment facility. Unfortunately, they have all been resurrected too.

Just as he thinks things cannot get any worse, Rimmer enters the bunkroom. However, this is not the Rimmer that left Starbug to take on his alter-egopersona of Ace, but rather the Rimmer that was aboard Red Dwarf before the accident that wiped out the crew. Lister tells Rimmer the whole story and asks for help in escaping. In exchange, he offers Rimmer a copy of the crew's personal and confidential files that exist on Starbug. Rimmer initially refuses, until Lister tells him that with the information, he can get the promotion to officer status like he has always wanted. Rimmer agrees and Lister gives him his watch which Holly has been loaded into.

The Cat and Kryten are taken for medical and psychiatric evaluation. Unfortunately, Kryten's erratic personality does not go over well, and he is recommended to be restored to his factory settings.

Aboard the burnt out wreckage of the cockpit of Starbug, Rimmer finds the disc with the crew's files. He also finds two strange tubes that are the positive viruses that Lister picked up from a Dr. Hildegarde Lanstrom, years earlier. Rimmer quickly tries out sexual magnetism, and walks down the corridor where all the women admire him. Rimmer notes to himself that 'the world loves a bastard'.