11 How did Holly become female? Why did Kryten change? (Red Dwarf)
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This article is from the Red Dwarf FAQ, by Patrick M. Berry pat@interpath.com with numerous contributions by others.
11 How did Holly become female? Why did Kryten change? (Red Dwarf)
The original actor to play Holly, Norman Lovett, left the series after a
dispute over his salary. In an interview with Red Dwarf Smegazine (issue 9,
November 1992), Lovett said that he asked to be paid the same as the other
actors on the series, but his request was turned down. Hattie Hayridge had
appeared in "Parallel Universe" as Hilly, Holly's female counterpart. "When
Norman said he wasn't doing another series, I auditioned," she recalls. The
character of Holly kept the same name and personality despite the
recasting.
Kryten's original actor, David Ross, wasn't available to commit to a series
when Grant Naylor decided to make Kryten a continuing character, so he was
replaced by Robert Llewellyn. (Ross later returned in "White Hole" as the
new voice of Talkie Toaster.) There were also several changes in the show's
look between Series Two and Three, including changes in costumes, sets, and
miniatures, particularly the addition of the Starbug and its hangar bay.
Most of these changes are more or less explained by the following words
that scroll rapidly up the screen at the beginning of "Backwards":
Three million years in the future, Dave Lister, the last human
being alive, discovers he is pregnant after a liaison with his
female self in a parallel universe. His pregnancy concludes with
the successful delivery of twin boys, Jim and Bexley. However,
because the boys were conceived in another universe, with
different physical laws, they suffer from highly accelerated
growth rates and are both eighteen years old within three days of
being born. In order to save their lives, Lister returns them to
the universe of their origin, where they are reunited with their
father (a woman), and are able to lead comparatively normal
lives. Well, as normal as you can be if you've been born in a
parallel universe and your father's a woman and your mother's a
man and you're eighteen years old three days after your birth.
Shortly afterward, Kryten, the service mechanoid, who had left
the ship after being rescued from his own crashed vessel, the
Nova 5, is found in pieces after his space bike crashed into an
asteroid. Lister rebuilds the 'noid, but is unable to recapture
his former personality. Meanwhile, Holly, the increasingly
erratic computer, performs a head sex change operation on
himself. He bases his new face on Hilly, a female computer with
whom he'd once fallen madly in love.
It is possible to read all this, if you have a VCR with good freeze-frame
capabilities. Try it.
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