Red Dwarf: 11 Episodes That Never Made It To Air
5. Time Hacking Episode - Series 8
Another Series 8 idea from Alexander that never made it out of the starting gate was a script involving time hackers downloading time from the future to sell on so that buyers could, for example, live longer than they would have. The Dwarfers would become involved when Lister would wake up to find himself aged seventy, causing the crew to find out just what was going on.
The script also included a device called a Time Gun that could weaponise digitally stored time to do things like turn an acorn into an oak to tree to stop people pursuing the user. And it was this idea that saved the episode in a way since, as the sleeve notes for the Series 8 DVD put it, “this cyberpunky notion was just a little too whacked out, even for Red Dwarf”.
At the time Alexander pitched the Time Hacking idea, Doug Naylor was writing Captain's Office (which would later become the episodes Pete Part 1 & 2) and needed a big climax. Alexander suggested that the Time Gun could be used to turn a sparrow into a dinosaur. The Time Gun became the Time Wand, and the rest is budget-blowing history.