Brett Riverboat is a player-character from the artificial reality game Streets of Laredo.
History[]
Origin[]
A knifethrower, players could select Brett from a list of three characters, which also included The Riviera Kid and Dangerous Dan McGrew. When the Armageddon Virus attacked Starbug's Navicomp and Kryten's mind, the rest of the crew were able to project themselves into Kryten's western-style dreamscape. They each took on the skills and costume of a different gaming character. After the other characters were chosen, Dave Lister was left with Brett Riverboat.
Brett's costume was that of the classic "man in black" cowboy, with almost every piece of attire in black. He had an unknown quantity of knives secreted about his person. He was also shown to carry a revolver, although he never used it.
When Jimmy started to tease Sheriff Kryten, stealing the Sheriff's whiskey bottle with his whip, Brett stepped forward to help his friend. He used his first knife to cut the whip, a second to pin Jimmy's right sleeve away from his gun, a third to pin back the other sleeve to the wall and used the fourth knife to throw an apple into Jimmy's mouth.
Later, as the Apocalypse Boys arrived to confront Kryten, Brett joined the others on the street. When the virus spread to the AR console, he lost his knifethrowing skills. When he attempted to throw a knife at the Apocalypse boys, it flew off in the wrong direction. He was the first to realise their dilemma and tried to get his AR helmet off, finally having it pulled off by Cat. He was then able to free The Cat and Arnold Rimmer, giving Kryten enough time to complete his antivirus. ("Gunmen of the Apocalypse")
Behind the Scenes[]
Craig Charles was rather annoyed at having the role of "knifeman", since it was the least glamourous role. He played the character of Brett as very cool and with a deeper voice than normal.
Charles, having never rode a horse before, got rather carried away and caused all four horses to stampede round the field for several minutes with the actors on their backs, making himself less than popular.
In a scene scripted, but not filmed, Riverboat was threatened by another of Jimmy's cronies, a long-haired man with a beard. He threw Lola's glass washing water over the gunslinger and then threw several knives at him. The man was suddenly clean shaven and neatly trimmed with a parting. Riverboat was unhappy that he had made the sideburns uneven.