| Holly | |
|---|---|
| Red Dwarf character | |
| First appearance | "The End" |
| Last appearance | "Only the Good..." |
| Portrayed by | Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge |
Holly is the ship's computer on the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf.
The character is played by Norman Lovett in Series I and II and, following a "head sex change" to look like his parallel universe alter ego "Hilly", played by Hattie Hayridge in the series 3 episode Backwards,[1] is female in Series III–V although his personality remained the same. Holly does not appear in Series VI, but reappears in the final episode of Series VII as the original male version, again played by Lovett. The male version of Holly then appears in Series VIII, but does not feature in Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. It has not yet been established whether or not Holly will return in the forthcoming Series X.
In the unaired pilot for the American version of Red Dwarf, Holly was played by Jane Leeves.[2][3]
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Holly is an "intelligent" computer. Holly's user interface appears on ship screens as a disembodied human head on a black background, and can also be downloaded into a watch worn by Lister. In Series I his face appears pixelated, but this idea was dropped in Series II. As a male, Holly appears to be approximately 50 years old and has receding brown hair.
After meeting his female counterpart, Hilly, he fell so madly in love with her that he had a "computer sex change" and based his new face on hers. As a female, Holly appears to be approximately 30 years old and has shoulder-length blonde hair and red lip stick.
The upgraded male version of Holly appears to be around 60 years old with receding grey hair and a bald patch.
Holly is the ship's Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer. After releasing Dave Lister from stasis in The End, Holly told him that the crew have been wiped out by a radiation leak and that he had spent three million years in stasis.
Holly prides himself on the fact he had an IQ of 6,000 [4] (apparently the same IQ as 6,000 PE teachers or 12,000 car park attendants), but after three million years by himself, he had become computer senile, or as Holly put it, "a bit peculiar". The crew often ridicule Holly on his senility, but Holly often comes out on top. He often plays practical jokes on the crew, such as fooling Lister into thinking that NORWEB Federation space fighters were after him and wanted £180 billion in arrears for leaving his bathroom light on three million years ago, as well as wanting to arrest him for "Crimes against Humanity" as he had left some German sausages alone in his apartment for three million years and they now covered 7/8 of the Earth's surface.
Holly always speaks in a droll, slightly monotonous, and quiet voice, even when sounding alarms, which consist of himself speaking simply "Ding-dong. There's an emergency happening. (pauses) It's still happening." and repeating as much.
This love of practical jokes culminated in his generating an alternate personality, Queeg, and passing him off as the ship's backup computer which was seizing control of the ship.
Holly was friends with another computer called Gordon, who had an IQ of 8,000 and was an Eleventh Generation AI hologrammatic computer. Gordon resembled Holly and also showed evidence of computer senility.[4]
Holly runs most of Red Dwarf's systems, although in several episodes such as Quarantine, Holly is shown to not have complete control of Red Dwarf, and in Holly's absence in Series VI and VII, a computer is mentioned by the crew, and is seen to control autopilot. Among Holly's systems are the service droids known as skutters, which clean, perform engineering tasks, and function as Rimmer's hands since he couldn't touch anything non-holographic until he was converted to "hard light" in Series VI Episode 2, Legion.
Holly invented Hol Rock,[4] where he decimalised music (having ten notes instead of eight — although he admits that this would result in "piano keyboards being the width of a zebra crossing, and women being banned from playing the cello"), and wrote an A-Z guide of the Universe. He proclaims that Kevin Keegan wrote the worst book ever (Football, It's a Funny Old Game). (Notable: A book by this title actually does exist, however, it was written by Andrew John and Stephen Blake, not Kevin Keegan.) He is proud of the fact that he can do moon impressions just by lowering his face on the screen. He often greets the crew with "All right dudes?"
He hates being on a watch, especially on Lister's wrist, and particularly when Lister's hand goes in his pocket. One of the more worrying aspects of Holly's senility is that he has developed a blind spot for the number 7. When he invents the Holly Hop Drive, he claims that one mistake in his 13 billion calculations and they would be blown up. He then misses the seven in his countdown, possibly the cause of the error that sent them to the parallel universe.
Holly was lost for some time, along with the ship, which had been stolen by Kryten's nanobots. He was found on a planet made of junk from Red Dwarf, having reverted to his original male form, and was downloaded into Lister's Holly-watch. When the nanos rebuilt the ship, there were two versions of Holly: the original, who usually remains in the watch, and a rebuilt version who had not suffered the effects of three million years alone. The non-senile version only appeared in one episode, Back In the Red, Part III, and was distinguished by having an enormous forehead shaped like an egg.
In Red Dwarf: Back to Earth it is revealed that sometime after the events of Only The Good... Holly is offline due to water damage,[5] later elaborated as being the result of Lister leaving a bath running in the officers' quarters for nine years and the water subsequently flooding the ship.
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