Quote Originally Posted by Sutekh View Post
To be honest the continuity baggage started to drag the show down for me, series 8 was the low point. In sutekhland they all died In series six and rimmer finally redeemed himself, the rest is all just optional extras.

But yeah we can deduce this is the fifth rimmer - rimmer prime being the first, then the hologram, which in series 3 (timeslides) became human, then died - presumably was resurrected again (making 3), he then became ace and left. A rimmer was created by the nanites in series 7/8 (4), which then somehow died and became the current and fifth one
And what happened to the rest of the crew that reappeared in season 8? It's like when the show went to Dave, they decided to pretend like 7 and 8 never happened.