White Hole (Red Dwarf)

David Ross as Talkie Toaster

"White Hole" is the fourth episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf Series IV and the twenty-second episode in the series run. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 7 March 1991. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Ed Bye and Paul Jackson, the episode features the crew's attempt to escape the gravity pull of a white hole.

When Kryten repairs Talkie Toaster, Lister is disgusted as it always coaxes them to have toast, but there's method in the mechanoid's work. It's all part of an experiment in intelligence compression—a way of restoring IQ whilst reducing operational lifespan. The ultimate aim is to cure Holly's computer senility, and it works too, but there's a bit of a miscalculation. Holly's IQ is increased to 12,368 instead of leveling off at 6,000, but her life expectancy is exponentially reduced to three minutes. Holly quickly realises that to preserve her life she must switch herself off.

As the crew make their way back up to the Science Room, their journey is interrupted by a sudden loss of power. Kryten is then employed as a battering-ram to get through the 53 electronically locked doors between the crew and the Science Room. Once the crew get there, they discover why Holly has decided to power down the ship and place everything on emergency back-up power only.

Without the power, the crew are forced back to basics. Lister and the Cat are forced to live off cold baked beans while they try to employ a bicycle powered hairdryer to fry an egg while Rimmer and Kryten spend five days getting to and from the cargo decks due to the lack of lifts. However, just before they make it back the two are subjected to a strange time phenomenon, which Kryten describes as 'relative time dilation in an amazingly compressed space'. In a conversation between the entire crew (in which time repeats itself), it is decided that a white hole is the cause of all this. As Kryten explains, a white hole is a very rare spatial phenomenon—for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and whereas black holes suck matter from the universe, white holes spew time back into it.