Cured (Red Dwarf)

The crew attempt to play a game of poker, with Lister attempting to teach Cat how to have a proper poker face, but Cat failing to understand. Kryten interrupts to report on a resource-rich station to scavenge, which the crew head-off towards onboard Starbug, severely on the fritz to the point it requires an elaborate start-up sequence to work. Due to a powerful sandstorm, they are left temporarily stranded there.

The crew venture through the base, encountering "cyrobooths" bearing the names of Messalina, Vlad the Impaler, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. They are then greeted by Professor Shaul Telford, who reveals they were in stasis and their arrival having triggered their release, but that they've also been rehabilitated of their formerly psychopathic ways. They are introduced to these infamous figures, or "evils" as they're referred to by the crew, over dinner. Surprisingly, they prove to be kind and pleasant, and claim to be completely reformed. After getting to know him, Lister joins Hitler and performs "The Happy Wanderer" on guitar with him. The rest of the crew pull Lister aside to chastise him for socializing with Hitler, but are all knocked unconscious and put into separate torturous scenarios.

After escaping from their traps, the crew meetup and accuse the "evils" of trying to kill them, however they fervently deny these accusations. They decide to test everybody using a device that scans who among them is a psychopath, which returns the results that of them two are psychopaths, one being the Cat, due to his inherently selfish and vain personality, and the other being Professor Telford. Telford reveals himself as the base's real patient, with the "evils" having been his android caretakers, who he reprogrammed. Telford holds the crew at gunpoint, but due to not knowing how to start Starbug, offers to take the Cat with him. Cat, seemingly, agrees and requests a gun to kill the other three with, only to immediately kill Telford with it, successfully tricking him. Something which Cat credits to his newly-learned "pokey" face.

Originally, "Africa" by Toto was going to be used in place of "The Happy Wanderer" during their guitar performance, however the rights were denied when they learned Lister would be playing it alongside Hitler. Early drafts of the script originally had Professor Telford be revealed as the real Hitler, though that was scrapped in subsequent rewrites.[1]

"Cured" was met with positive reviews from critics[2] and fans.[3]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cured

• "Cured" at IMDb
• Series XII episode guide at www.reddwarf.co.uk