Lister: Man, it totally sucks that the portable time drives don’t work anymore.
Rimmer: Yes, it’s a shame that the time trap that supposedly killed the Inquisitor also overloaded our quantum rods, and now we’re forced to build a new time machine just to return to our own time. I just hope it doesn’t malfunction.
Doug Naylor: (offscreen) Right, is everyone getting that? Good.
Lister: Rimmer, do you ever wonder what happened to the Inquisitor? I mean, did he really die in the time trap? What if the time trap didn’t kill him, but sent him hurtling through the time stream instead? As we speak, he could be in the past, actively corrupting the entire space-time continuum!
Rimmer: Normally I’d say that’s too contrived, but with this series, that’s exactly what must’ve happened. … Wait, hold on. If the Inquisitor did survive, then we never technically never took his gauntlet away, right? Which means our future selves would be forced to show up to get us to finish the mission they gave us, right?
(The two look around to make sure their future selves haven’t shown up.)
Rimmer: See? We’re fine. Now help me finish this before they show up.
Lister: Wait a minute. Couldn’t our future selves be waiting for us in our own time?
Rimmer: Good point. The first thing I’ll do when we get back is get Kryten to build an anti-time field so that no time travellers can visit.
Lister: But if you’re going to do that, won’t your future self already know about it and be able to stop you?
Rimmer: But if he did, then I couldn’t do it, and he wouldn’t know…
Lister: Ow. I think my brain is bleeding.
Rimmer: Look, no matter what we do, our future selves will already know what we’re going to do, right?
Rimmer: So the way I see it, there’s no point in worrying about what we may or may not make ourselves do, right? Besides, if you ask me, our future selves can take their predestination smeg and shove it up their-
Future Rimmer: This is so much funnier now than it was then.
(Future Lister and Future Rimmer come into view. It’s not clear how long they’ve been there.)
Lister: Oh, smeg. It’s our future selves again!
Rimmer: What do you want now?
Future Rimmer: The Inquisitor didn’t die in the time trap like you were hoping. We’re here to help you stop him.
Rimmer: What? You’re going to help us? Why?!
Future Rimmer: Because we remember us helping you back when we were you.
Rimmer: Wait a second. Why are you helping us now instead of last time you showed up?
Future Rimmer: How many times do we have to explain this to you? We can’t do anything our future selves didn’t do when we were you.
Rimmer: So, you’re just doing whatever it was you remember doing before? Don’t you have free will? Are you both just a couple of mindless robots?!
Future Rimmer: Was I really this dumb back then?
Rimmer: Look, maybe we don’t want your help.
Future Rimmer: You don’t really have any choice in the matter.
(Suddenly out of nowhere, Doug Naylor appears.)
Doug Naylor: Wait! Before this gets any more confusing - and it will - I’ve got something to do.
(Doug slaps nametags on their lapels noting where in the timeline they come from.)
Doug Naylor: There. Now we can all tell you guys apart.
(Just then, another Rimmer from the double-double future shows up. Doug looks like he’s about to explode. Lister simply facepalms.)
