Mellie was the secretary of Admiral Sir James "Bongo" Tranter.
Biography[]
Mellie bore an uncanny resemblance to the computer known as Holly, although she was seemingly a flesh and blood woman. Her hair was worn in a bouffant style and she wore a red power suit.
Mellie sat in the outer office and dealt with visitors to the admiral. She had a flirtatious relationship with Ace Rimmer, one of the admiral's test pilots. When Ace came to see the admiral after his record-breaking flight, Mellie asked him what he was doing for lunch. He wondered why she asked, so she explained her plans were to be in her quarters at lunchtime, covered in maple syrup. Ace was tempted, but refused to fraternise with the staff. Mellie promptly resigned her position and Ace agreed to be there at 1300 hours.
She later joined the admiral, Spanners and the Padre in seeing Ace off on his first dimension jump in Wildfire. ("Dimension Jump", Series IV)
Novels[]
- Mellie appears briefly in the novel Backwards, where her real name is revealed to be Melissa.
Trivia[]
- On the official Red Dwarf website, in an interview between Talkie Toaster and Admiral Bongo, it was revealed that Mellie was actually an android, though this is never confirmed on-screen.
- The relationship between Mellie and Ace was clearly a parody of the constant flirting between James Bond and Miss Moneypenny from the Bond movies.
Behind the Scenes[]
- Mellie had several lines that were cut from the final version of "Dimension Jump", including her utterance of the line "What a guy". She also reminded Ace to bring the maraschino cherries for their lunch date. The Padre commented in the send-off scene that he could smell maple syrup.
- Hattie Hayridge was rather annoyed at the fact that her character was the only one not to say "What a guy" about Ace on-screen.