1)How is the Polymorph supposed to 'absorb' Rimmer?

2)Did anyone else feel like humming the music from "Alien" to this episode?

My guess is that it can change into absolutely anything so it can form some sort of computer interface with its sucker and absorb all anger from the personality disc generating the hologram.

Canadian Dwarfer- Part of the idea of this episode was to rip off Alien!

No kidding, Sherlock!

I assumed that your above comment was just your personal comment. What I was referring to is that Grant Naylor has actually said the episode was intended to be a partial rip-off of Alien in an interview (I forget where). It would actually take some detective work to track this down- anyone know the good detective.

No, but I'll take your word for it. I mean, it sure looked like an intentional spoof of "Alien," so why bother investigating?

Im a little confused, at the beginning, they treat us to a rotating view of the pod, including the space that has the "contents: 2" sign. Unfortunatly, its not there. Maybe there are actually 3 in there and one is pretending to be the sign?

Now that makes things even more interesting.

Polymorph and Backwards are my favorite episode. (It's a tie.)

At the beginning the voice says "the creature inside" implying that there is just one, but at the end we find out there are two.

The remastered version shows the alien going through some ductwork to get into Red Dwarf. However, we see no evidence of access hatches, so what keeps the air inside Red Dwarf?

When Lister dumps all that stuff inside the microwave, it looks like it is still there when he grabs the trays of food.

So why does Lister put on the red underwear? When he's kneeling on the floor looking for the 'sausage' you can see a fringe of fabric sticking out from under his robe on his right leg. After he pulls on the underwear, you can see some bunched up fabric at the top of the red underwear and later when he's being examined, he's wearing underwear.

A couple of times it looks like the heat seekers are moving fast enough to catch the Cat.

Why did the heat seekers burn through the box instead of exploding like they did with the Polymorph?

Despite what the above summary says it is Kryten's guilt and Rimmer's anger that the Polymorph steals.

So why is Rimmer upset that his mom had sex with Lister? In a previous episode he mentioned that he knew his mom was having an affair with his best friend's dad, and another episode indicates that his Uncle Frank was too. So why would Lister be any different?

If the Polymorph can absorb emotion from an android and (presumably) a holographic light bee, then why can't the Polymorph steal emotion from Holly?

Those are some very patient heat seakers.

For some reason the remastered version dumped the gag with them all walking along and we see two Listers. The replacement footage shows the ball bouncing down the hallway and words come up explaining that the second Polymorph being less intelligent hid in Lister's clean underwear drawer... where it died of old age waiting to attack. A cute gag, but just not as good as the original ending.

(Re: The alternate ending)

Agreed.

Rimmer loathes Lister more than those other people, that's why he got so furious when he found out Lister had sex with his mum.

Presumably they assumed that people in other countries were so $tupid that they couldn't cope with an open ending.

And where praytell did you hear that from?

The artificial imseminator for cattle that Lister puts his lemon juice in - why would that be on a mining ship?

If the second polymorph died of old age, presumably it was there when Red Dwarf was lost and then later rebuilt by the nanobots at the end of the series seven.

Could someone tell me the original ending again? I don't quite get what it was yet.

At the end, after they destroyed the polymorph, it was revealed that there were two polymorphs. Then we see the Dwarfers walking and at the end of the line 2 Listers. The second Lister turns to the camera and we see the polymorph's face.

When Kryten loses his guilt in this episode, he turns into a psychopath, like the simulants the Dwarfers later encounter. Lister turns off Spare Head Two's behavior protocols when the pair of them nick Kryten's body in Tikka to Ride and that results in "Kryten" having no problem with dismembering and cooking a dead man as if he was mere poultry.

You can well understand why humans in the RD universe feared artificial life turning against them so much and why they programmed Silicone Heaven.

Silicon, not silicone.

I clap like I’m trying to bring a fairy back to life everytime I think of the C.L.I.T.O.R.I.S. joke.

I wonder what happened to the second polymorph we saw at the end.

The Dwarfers only beat the first one with a lot of luck, too.

Guess their luck must have held, because they clearly defeated this second one somehow.

Perhaps we should find out what happened to the 2nd Polymorph. Oh wait that was explained in the remastered version put out on VHS in the nineties.

Yeah, it ended up dying of old age in Lister's sock drawer

Lister's *clean* sock drawer the text said

Well, at least now we know what happened to the other "morph".

I’d forgive the snake prop looking so fake if it wasn’t clearly much longer than the real snake. I guess the Polymorph turned into a draught excluder for some reason.

Here is the original and new ending:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2-0ib5krUQ