The crew jump at the chance to answer a distress call from a ship crewed entirely by women, only to discover that they’ve been dead for years. Not that it’s stopped their butler, a servile android called Kryten, keeping the place tidy and serving breakfast every day. To Lister’s frustration (and Rimmer’s delight), Kryten’s programmed duties continue in earnest on Red Dwarf, an overactive guilt chip rendering him incapable of dissent. In the end, only Marlon Brando can snap him out of it.

A three million year old mail pod drifts into Red Dwarf’s path, bearing the sad news of Rimmer’s father’s death. The grief is cut short, however, by the discovery of “Better Than Life”, a total-immersion videogame that treats players to a hedonistic free-for-all. For the crew, this means fast cars, loose women and limitless wealth, Lister feasting on caviar vindaloos while the Cat dates Marilyn Monroe. How long, though, before Rimmer's neurotic brain stirs up trouble in paradise?

The morning after Rimmer’s “Deathday” party, the crew wakes to discover that four days have passed, a mysterious grave marked “To The Memory Of The Memory Of Lisa Yates” having appeared on a nearby moon. Stranger still, Lister and the Cat have both acquired broken legs while someone’s completed the jigsaw puzzle. A black box recorder fills in the gap, recalling tales of Rimmer’s barren sexual past and a misguided attempt at a Deathday surprise.

A tear in the fabric of space and time appears on one of the ship’s lower decks, opening a doorway to Earth in the distant past. Arriving three weeks before the Red Dwarf disaster, the crew decide to right the wrongs of history, albeit on an entirely selfish basis. While Rimmer tries talking his former self into cryogenic stasis, saving himself from the catastrophe, Lister makes a beeline for Kristine Kochanski, oblivious to the fact that she’s already married.

Holly’s absent-mindedness allows a meteorite to hit Red Dwarf, endangering the crew and damaging Rimmer’s hologram generator. As an emergency measure, the backup computer Queeg 500 takes over the ship, subjecting its inhabitants to a physical and mental fitness regime that drives them to the point of despair. In a last-ditch bid to reclaim control, Holly proposes a winner-takes-all Chess match, despite accusations that his knowledge stems from the Junior Encyclopaedia Of Space.

Believing his new “Holly Hop Drive” can return the crew to Earth in a matter of seconds, Holly instead sends them to a parallel dimension with its own Red Dwarf. In this reality, Lister is a beer-swilling tomboy, Rimmer a stilted female bureaucrat, and the Cat, to the horror of his visiting alter-ego, is a dog. In a night they’ll all regret, the crews mingle, the drink starts flowing and one thing leads to another, the repercussions for Lister being unnaturally severe.