I, for one, seemed like it was too easy to go back and say, "Oh, it was all a joke, Rimmer still outranks Lister".

Yeah,I thought that. Maybe the creators thought after writing that episode that in fact having Lister of a higher rank would dumb down the series, since Lister could do whatever he wanted to. But they could've thought of a better reason for him not to be of a higher rank than Rimmer, surely!

I don't think the writers ever planned for Lister to be of higher rank than Rimmer. Lister never actaully said "I passed the test" he just said "Call me Mister Lister, SIR!" and let Rimmer think he had passed it. Don't you think ot would be just like Lister to fool Rimmer in this way?

Summary nits: Cloister did not sacrifice his life, he was frozen in time. Lister never convinced Cat that he was God (Cloister). The holy war was about the color of hats they would wear in Fuschal, not belief in God. Lister was not taken to see the last surviving member, he discovered him while trying to find the Cat. The Cat Priest did not see God, because he was blind.

This is my 2nd favorite episode.

Maybe some of these nits belong in The End, but since I'm here...
The cats' history changed Lister to Cloister and Fiji to Fuschal, so why did Frankenstein remain Frankenstein?
How did Frankenstein tell her descendents her spoken English name? How do the cats speak English? (I suspect Holly's involvement here.)
Since cats write in smells, do you think the cat word for Cloister is a combination of curry, lager and sweat?
If there were holy wars, shouldn't there be more signs of damage to Red Dwarf? (Or were the wars held on Deck 13?) Also wouldn't the cats have to cannibalize parts of Red Dwarf to make their 2 arks?
So why didn't the cats eat up all the stored food on Red Dwarf before Lister was let out of stasis?

They might not have had to cannibalise Red Dwarf, maybe they found other derelict ships which they took parts from.

About Lister not passing the Chef's exam. Rimmer did interrupt Lister's test & that might have caused him to fail, but he told Rimmer, "Call me Mister Lister, SIR!" anyway as revenge.

How old exactly is this ancient holy book? Not too old, it seems, because given its content it appears to have been written by the people who were "left behind", like the Priest, and the Cat's parents.

I dont think you can access Holly down in the cargo decks (Lister trys to call him at one point). So he couldnt of taught the cat people stuff...

The Holy book could have been written over time & finished by those who were left behind. All we hear about the contents is the summary by Holly & a few quotes.

Communications to the cargo decks could have been lost during one of the Holy Wars or when the Cat people were building their arks.

And who says the Cat people stayed in the cargo decks all the time?

Holly because the rest of the ship had been irradiated haggis for several million years.

But was the whole ship equally irradiated? While the ship recieved a fatal dose of radioactivity, some parts of the ship may have had higher levels than other parts. The parts where the cats may have moved out into might have dropped to a safe level while the section where Lister was was still too high for humans. Also maybe the cat race has a higher tolerance for radiation?

And darn proud of it.

Too bad they never followed up on what happened to the other ark.

I had an idea that the Cat people found and colonized the Earth.

The stuff with the Quagaars and Rimmer losing his temper with Lister calling him a Bastard are still hilarious.

Me, a few months ago:

Too bad they never followed up on what happened to the other ark.

Of course, at that time, I didn't know the plot of The Promised Land.

I got my wish.