Tikka to Ride

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Red Dwarf episode
"Tikka to Ride"
Episode № 1
Airdate January 17, 1997
Writer(s) Doug Naylor
Director Ed Bye
Guest star(s) Michael J. Shannon
Toby Aspin
Peter Gaitens
Robert Ashe
Series VII
January 17 – March 7, 1997
  1. Tikka to Ride
  2. Stoke Me a Clipper
  3. Ouroboros
  4. Duct Soup
  5. Blue
  6. Beyond a Joke
  7. Epideme
  8. Nanarchy
List of all Red Dwarf episodes...

"Tikka To Ride" is the first episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series VII and the 37th in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 17 January 1997.[1] Written by Doug Naylor and directed by Ed Bye. It was the first episode not to involve co-creator and writer Rob Grant.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The crew have survived their battle with their future selfs, by destroying their past selfs the future crew would not exist to go back in time and destroy their past selfs, but unfortunately disaster has struck - Starbug is completely devoid of Indian food supplies, no curries, not even a poppadom. Lister (Craig Charles) proposes that they go back in time to an Indian take-away and order 500 curries. Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) are against the idea and will not go back in time because of the way their future selfs became. However, Lister removes a guilt chip from one of Kryten's spare heads and swaps them over, telling the new guilt-less Kryten to reassure the crew that it will be okay.

Their time-travel calculations are a little off and they find themselves in Dallas, Texas on November 1963. They appear at the Texas School Book Depository just as Lee Harvey Oswald is taking aim at U.S. President John F. Kennedy. They knock him out the window where he dies hitting the ground, preventing Kennedy's assassination. Now being charged with the murder of Oswald as well as the attempted murder of the president, the gang decide to use to time drive device to escape and travel a further three years to 1966.

Kennedy's survival causes an alternate reality where he has been impeached out of office and the new president, J. Edgar Hoover, is controlled by the Mafia. The USSR are allowed to install a nuclear base in Cuba in return for Mafia cocaine trafficking between Cuba and the States. With a Soviet nuclear base 30 miles from the US mainland, people flee from all the major cities. The crew attempt to correct the situation by returning to the day of the shooting and driving Oswald to a higher floor in the building, but this plan still fails to lead to Kennedy's death. Lister travels to Idlewild Airport in 1965 and persuades a post-impeachment Kennedy to travel back to 1963 and become a "second gunman" on the grassy knoll, and shoot himself. The plan works: Kennedy shoots his past-self and the time-lines are restored to normal. Kennedy thanks the gang for the chance to save history, and fades away as a result of the resetting timelines. Lister, too late, realizes he forgot to ask Kennedy for the name of a good Indian take-away, and suggests that they use the time drive to start the search for Indian food all over again. The other members of the crew begin beating and kicking Lister to prevent him from using the time travel device.

[edit] Production

Even though the previous series had ended on a cliffhanger, fans had been forced to wait three years for the resolution. This was due to a number of factors, which included Craig Charles being wrongly imprisoned on charges of rape,[2] Chris Barrie had made no secret of his desire to leave the show[3]and most notably Rob Grant decided to leave the series, ending his and Doug Naylor's long-standing writing partnership.[3] Naylor was left with the choice of either ending or continuing the series. Although tempted to end it, he later agreed to write two more eight-episode series of the show, as this would allow the episode count to reach 52 and therefore be eligible for syndication.[3]

"Tikka To Ride" ushered in new production values. The cinematic quality and filming of the new episodes meant that the studio audience was no longer viable (however the show maintained a laugh track). Also the special effects were increasing every series and the majority of the episodes were previously pre-recorded.[4] One of Naylor's desires for a seventh series was the prospect of international syndication and a movie.[4] This vision was helped with the return of Ed Bye to the director's chair, having previously left due to a scheduling clash with directing his wife's new TV show at the time.[5] He agreed to return to helm the seventh series, his first Red Dwarf episode since Series IV's "Meltdown".

The arrival of the long overdue seventh series was also promoted by the show making its first appearance of the front cover of the Radio Times.

Guest stars included Michael Shannon who played John F. Kennedy, Toby Aspin as Lee Harvey Oswald, Peter Gaitens as FBI Agent and Robert Ashe as Cop.

[edit] Cultural and historical references

The title of this episode is a piece of word-play based on the name of the song "Ticket to Ride" by the Beatles, in accordance with the theme of curry on which the storyline focuses.

When the second shooter fires from the Grassy Knoll, Lister, Rimmer and Cat are dressed up as tramps. Three tramps are reported to have been found on the Grassy Knoll when the police searched it after the shooting, but nobody knows who they were or what happened to them afterwards.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] References

  1. ^ BBC - Programme Catalogue - RED DWARF VI - TIKKA TO RIDE. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.
  2. ^ "The trauma of being falsely accused", BBC News, 2003-07-31. Retrieved on 2006-12-27. 
  3. ^ a b c Red Dwarf Series VII Writing. Red Dwarf.co.uk. Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
  4. ^ a b Red Dwarf Series VII Production. Red Dwarf.co.uk. Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
  5. ^ Interview: Ed Bye, Red Dwarf smegazine, issue 12, January 1993, Fleetway Editions Ltd, issn 0965-5603