Duct Soup

"Duct Soup" is the fourth episode of science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf Series VII and the 40th in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 7 February 1997. Written by Doug Naylor and directed by Ed Bye.

Kochanski (Chloë Annett) is having a hard time on Starbug with the boys. No baths (she doesn't like showers), no decent food and the pipes in her sleeping quarters squeak all night. Lister (Craig Charles) arranges for her to have a bath in his quarters, and finds some extra clothing for her - gestures that worry Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) considerably. But before she gets the chance to dip into the bath, an engine failure leaves the crew trapped in Lister's quarters, and the ship is on a collision course with a meteor shower. The only way to re-fire the backup generator is by going through the service ducts.

As they navigate through the narrow ducts, Kochanski helps Lister with his claustrophobia, while Kryten and Cat (Danny John-Jules) look for any hatches that they can use to get back into Starbug. After dealing with Re-cyc water flushing through the vents, and hurricane-force winds to dry the ductways, Kryten admits that he perpetrated the whole thing. He adjusted the thermosettings so it would overload and locked them in Lister's quarters. They eventually exit the ducts but end up back in Lister's quarters. Kryten makes another admission - the doors to Lister's quarters aren't locked after all; he excluded them from the shutdown override in case anything happened. Lister goes off to steer the ship away from disaster, while Kochanski asks Kryten to repeat the squeak noises that the pipes make (though he adds "r" to some of them) while repeatedly hitting his head with a spanner (which she had been doing earlier to the squeaking pipes).