Kristine Kochanski
|
|
Kristine Kochanski is the navigation officer of the title ship of the television show Red Dwarf. She is the ex-girlfriend of Dave Lister before she was killed by a radiation leak. In the first episode (before the accident) she was played by Clare Grogan. who reprised the role in the episode Balance of Power, both in flashback and as a hologram. She also featured in the Series 2 time travel episode Stasis Leak, and made a brief appearance as a hallucination in the Series 6 episode Psirens.
In the seventh season an alternate universe version played by Chloë Annett became a permanent member of the crew after Arnold Rimmer left. The writers insist she was not intended to replace Rimmer, but that Chris Barrie had asked to take a leave of absence at the same time as a female lead was required for the cast to be retained in the proposed Hollywood movie. Series 8 features both Kochanski and Rimmer.
In her universe, this Kochanski discovered Lister's pet cat, and confiscated her, but couldn't bring herself to destroy her. As a result it was she, not Lister, who was sentenced to six months in stasis for bringing an unquarantined animal on board, and therefore survived the accident. Holly brought Lister back as a hologram, and his intangiablity apparently led to him becoming a near-stereotyped "New Man". The unreconstructed Lister from the "main" universe came as quite a shock. It is not clear what the Cat and Kryten are like in her universe, but she seems unimpressed with their alternates as well.
Kochanski adds something of a new dynamic to the show. She is an upper-middle class, female officer, in what was a decidedly "laddish" environment. Much of the humour in her scenes comes from the difference between her frame of reference and that of the others. Although Annette, unlike Grogan, does not have a Scottish accent, it was at this time we were told she was from the Gorbals (apparently the trendiest part of 23rd century Glasgow), and had spent her childhood in "Cyberschool" with perfect computer-generated friends, before entering Cadet School.
In many circumstances she has replaced Kryten as the person who knows what is going on.
Originally, it was suggested that Lister had loved Kochanski from afar, but never found the courage to ask her out. This was changed to them having had a relationship that ended before the accident in the novel Red Dwarf:Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (she went back to her previous boyfriend Tim), and later episodes have followed that version.
Kochanski is also, apparently, Lister's mother, due to an unlikely combination of In vitro fertilisation and time travel.