Red Dwarf (TV Series)

The Inquisitor (1992)

Craig Charles: Lister

Quotes 

• Lister : [to Rimmer]  You're really mean with money. You're a tremendous physical coward. You once spent an afternoon on the Samaritans switchboard and four people committed suicide. Your middle name is Judas but you tell everyone that it's Jonathan. You sign all your official letters "Arnold Rimmer BSc" and the BSc stands for "Bronze Swimming Certificate". You're a cheating, weasley, low-life scumbucket with all the charm and social grace of a pubic louse.

• Lister : Listen, Kryten, I've been thinkin' about this, I've come up with something.

  Kryten : Yes, sir?

  Lister : I'm gonna use my brains for the first time in my life.

  Kryten : Considering the circumstances, sir, do you really believe that's wise?

• Lister : Well, If you've got some secret plan up your sleeve, Kryten, now's the time to mention it.

  Kryten : No plan, sir. No sleeves.

• Lister : Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads!

• Inquisitor : Well, get out of this one, smeghead.

  Lister : What are you talking about?

  Inquisitor : You know what you could've made of your life if you tried; what you could have become.

  Lister : So?

  Inquisitor : You've got brains, man. Brains you've never used before.

  Lister : So?

  Inquisitor : So justify yourself.

  Lister : Spin on it.

• Kryten : [holding the Inquisitor's time-glove]  Look, sir. I've gotta go back in time and sacrifice myself in order that, uh, we can get into this mess we're in now in the first place.

  Lister : Yeah, sure.

  Kryten : ...All in all today's been a bit of a bummer, hasn't it sir?

• Lister : [Lister and Kryten are to be erased]  The Cat has lived a more worthwhile life than either of us?

  Inquisitor : He is a shallow and selfish creature, as is the hologram. By their own low standards they have acquitted themselves. Where as you and the mechanoid could've have been so much more.

• Lister : Hang on a minute, who's to say what's worth anything?

  The Cat : Oh, please, take a look in the mirror! Read your entry in Who's Nobody!

  Lister : No, I mean it, who's to judge, who's to say what's worthwhile?

  Rimmer : Well, let's face it Lister, lying on your bunk reading What Bike? And eating Sugar Puff sandwiches for eight hours a day is unlikely to qualify.

  Lister : So just because I haven't written any symphonies or painted the Sistine Chapel that makes me prunable?

  Holly : No, being a totally worthless, unwashed space-bum, that's what makes you prunable!

• Rimmer : So, Kryten. You've heard of this "Inquisitor?'

  Rimmer : Only as a myth. A dark fable. A Horror tale. Told across the embers of a flickering midnight fire where hardened space dogs gather to drink from fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror!

  Rimmer : A simple "yes" would have sufficed.

  Holly : So who is he?

  Lister : Yeah, what's his beef?

  Kryten : Well, the legend tells of a droid - a self repairing simulant, hwo survives till the end of eternity; to the end of time itself. After millions of years alone, he finally reaches the conclusion that there is no god, no afterlife, and the only purpose of existence is to lead a worthwhile life. And so the 'droid' constructs a time machine, and roams eterninity, visiting every single soul in history, and assessing each other. He erases all those who have wasted their lives and replaces them with those who never had a chance of life - the unfertilized eggs, the sperms that never made it. THAT is the Inquisitor - he prunes away the wastrels, expunges the wretched, and deletes the worthless!

  Rimmer : We're in big trouble.