Waiting for God

Red Dwarf comes across a pod-like container drifting in space, and Lister researches the ancient religious texts of the Cat race.

This is a good episode with themes around religious culture and the nature of belief coming through in a fairly unsubtle way. However, I personally find the humour has grown on me with rewatches over the years.

There is a sequence of banter I particularly like about halfway through, where Lister and Rimmer discuss various beliefs and the content of Lister's breakfast order at the machine never fails to make me laugh.

As a means of looking more into the characters of Lister, Rimmer and Cat, it is quite good, but for me, there are no interesting sci-fi concepts nor big laughs. It is a generally amusing philosophical episode.

The performances of all are as strong as ever.

This episode is not my favourite of all time, but it is still great. It makes a coupel digs at religion that I'm not particularly fond of myself but to each their own! And is still a hilarious episode none the less. This episodes is quite a improtant one for building on the Cat lore which will be useful when watching "The Promised Land" episode of 2020.

"Waiting for God" is a solid episode that leans more into satire and world-building than outright comedy, making it an interesting but slightly slower installment of Red Dwarf's first season. The episode explores the idea of religion through a hilarious sci-fi lens, as Lister learns that his pet cat has become the central figure of an entire feline civilization's faith. His realization that they fought holy wars over his lost laundry list is both absurd and clever, perfectly encapsulating the show's humor.

Meanwhile, Rimmer misinterprets what he believes to be an alien message, once again showcasing his delusions of grandeur. His subplot is classic Rimmer-self-important, obsessive, and ultimately embarrassing-resulting in one of the best punchlines of the episode.

While the concept is strong and the satire sharp, the pacing is a little uneven, and the episode doesn't quite reach the comedic highs of others in the season. That said, "Waiting for God" is still an enjoyable watch, with great moments of character development and an amusing expansion of Red Dwarf's universe.

The episode explores some really interesting themes such as religion, faith, and death. It is a thoughtful and moving episode that has some of the show's classic humor. The performances by the cast are all very solid, with Craig Charles giving a standout performance as Lister. The episode is not perfect. The pacing is a bit slow at times, and the humor is not always as top notch as it usually is in a better quality episode. However, overall, "Waiting for God" is a well-made and thought-provoking episode that is worth watching at least once. It won't blow your mind but it will give you a good laugh throughout.

I tend to skip this one when I'm rewatching season one, aside from some of the later more modern stuff I consider "Waiting For God" to be probably the weakest of the classic Red Dwarf episodes, and it's really because this episode just isn't that funny or interesting. Yet again The Cat is the thing that keeps the momentum going, we get so many memorable Cat quotes like the "shiny thing" and his "investigating feet". The stuff with Rimmer and the garbage pod isn't too bad either but it's certainly not the main focus of the episode. Mainly Lister's story here is boring, there's no unique spin on theology it's very run-of-the-mill and relies on non-sequiturs to fill in for humor. It's not horrible of course, the horrible Red Dwarf stuff is far away from this episode, it's just of little note and the whole Promised Land stuff was dropped pretty early in the show's run.