Arnold Rimmer
| Arnold Judas Rimmer BSC, SSC | |
|---|---|
| Red Dwarf character | |
| First appearance | "The End" (1988) |
| Created by | Rob Grant and Doug Naylor |
| Portrayed by | Chris Barrie |
| In-universe information | |
| Alias | Ace Rimmer, Billy Doyle, Dangerous Dan McGrew, The Mighty Light |
| Nickname | Goal Post Head, Alphabet Head, Smeghead, Trans-Am Wheel-arch Nostrils, Grand Canyon Nostrils, Bonehead, Captain Bollocks, Ace-hole, Rimsy |
| Species | Human (hologram) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Technician, Second Class (series), Technician, First Class (books/The Promised Land) |
| Family | Lecturer Rimmer (stepfather) Mrs. Rimmer (mother) John Rimmer (half-brother) Frank Rimmer (half-brother) Howard Rimmer (half-brother) |
| Relatives | Dungo the Gardener (biological father) Michael McGruder (son; Last Human continuity only) |
Arnold Judas Rimmer is a fictional character and one of the main characters of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, played by Chris Barrie. Rimmer is a second-class technician and the de jure leader of the mining ship Red Dwarf. Portrayed as snobbish, pedantic, and self-centred, Rimmer is unpopular with his crewmates and is often the target of insults and general ridicule.
After he is killed by a radiation leak during an ellipsis in the series' first episode "The End" (1988) Rimmer is present for most of the series as a computer-generated hologram, indicated by the 'H' symbol on his forehead. From series I-V, Rimmer is intangible as a hologram and unable to interact with his environment, referred to in-universe as "soft light". Come the series VI episode "Legion" (1993), Rimmer's Light Bee is upgraded by the titular character to a "hard light" hologram where he is now able to interact with his surroundings as well as being essentially indestructible, yet still able to feel pain. Following the character's departure in the series VII episode "Stoke Me a Clipper" (1997), Rimmer is absent from the show until series VIII, where a human version of Rimmer is shown having been resurrected by nanobots with no memory of the hologrammatic Rimmer's experiences and only those of Rimmer prior to the radiation leak in the first episode (likely from when he had his personality disc last updated before his death). Following a ten-year hiatus after series VIII, the character reappeared as a hologram in the miniseries Back to Earth (2009) onward. Why he became a hologram again, or what happened to the character at the end of the series VIII episode "Only the Good..." (1999) has never been revealed. For a brief time in the feature-length special The Promised Land (2020), Rimmer is temporarily upgraded to Diamond Light, an advanced combination of both soft and hard light.
The creators of the series acknowledge that Rimmer's surname comes from a snobby prefect with whom they attended school. They joke that only the boy's name was used, and not his personality because "that would imply he had one".