Holly
the Computer - Droll computer generated character (head
only) on the British sci-fi comedy RED DWARF/BBC/1988+. At the
beginning of each episode Holly the Computer (Norman Lovett)
narrated the following: "Three million years from Earth, the
mining ship Red Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister (Craig Charles),
the last human being alive; Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), a
hologram of his dead bunk mate; and a creature who evolved from
the ship's cat (Danny John-Jules). End Message."
Holly, the not-so-efficient computer intelligence ran the
operations of the spacecraft. Unlike 2001's omnipotent computer
Hal 9000, Holly had actually gotten senile through the
centuries. The series' writers intentionally meant Holly to be
mysterious and keep the viewers guessing. Was he putting them
on, or was he really insane? Holly's IQ is calculated at 6000
(the equivalent of 6000 PE teachers and 12,000 car park
attendants).
Once when a meteor hit the ship, Lister asked Holly for a damage
report. Holly responded "I don't know. The damage report machine
has been damaged." Another time when Lister was holding cables
he asked Holly "Where does the cable go?" "I think that one
plugs into the yellow cable, says Holly. "Or is it the white
one?" No, it's the yellow cable!" Lister then plugs them in and
gets electrocuted to which Holy remarked "No, it's definitely
the white cable."
To get on Lister's his nerves, Holly created a hologram
projection of Arnold Rimmer, Lister's irritating former
bunkmate. Holly could have chosen to make the hologram's image
from any of 168 personnel on file (all of whom Lister liked) but
he specifically chose Arnold Rimmer to annoy Lister and keep him
on his toes in the boredom of space.
At the beginning of each episode, Holly would offer some
commentary such as "Our biggest enemy is going space crazy
through loneliness. The only thing that helps me maintain my
slender grip on reality is the friendship I share with my
collection of singing potatoes."
Holly once said that he chose his face (from his data archives)
to conform to the image of the most prolific lover who ever
lived (but never gave the source name. Casanova, perhaps?).
Later
in the series, Holly's computer screen image was replaced by a
blond female (Hattie Hayridge). The female face in question
belonged to a female counterpart named Hilly that Holly met in
an other dimension. He became so enamored with her image that he
wore her face and spoke with her voice for a period of time
(series 3-6). The Holly character later took a backseat to a
robot named Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) who performed much of the
exposition previously given to Holly. Holly's original male
entity (Lovett) returned later in the series when Kryten's
nanobots stole Red Dwarf and restored Holly to his former self
despite having rotted in space for two hundred years. See
also -
"Loquatia
and "Liberator
Spacecraft & Zen"
