Kristine Kochanski - Series 7 and 8

Series 7 and 8

In the seventh series, Kochanski was brought onto the show as a main character, coinciding with the departure of Arnold Rimmer in the latter half of the series. The show's creators recast the role with Chloë Annett. Annett's portrayal of Kochanski was more explicitly posh. She is introduced in the seventh series' third episode, "Ouroboros", crossing over from a parallel universe and being stranded on Starbug. In her world, she discovered the cat Lister smuggled on board and took her, but was unable to kill her and hid her instead. She was discovered and frozen in stasis in Lister's place, emerging from stasis millions of years later to find the crew wiped out and the ship far from home. Holly brought back Lister as a hologram instead of Rimmer. Initially a soft light hologram, this Lister was unable to physically interact with his world, forcing him to mature and become more sensitive and cultured. When Lister became a hardlight hologram, he and Kochanski rekindled their relationship. The unreconstructed Lister from the "main" universe comes as quite a shock.

It appears that Kochanski is also paradoxically Lister's mother, and Lister is his own father, due to an unlikely combination of in vitro fertilisation and time travel. ("Krissie is me ex-girlfriend and me mum!") However, in later episodes, this does not deter Lister from trying to renew his relationship with her.

After being trapped with the "Dwarfers" in their universe, the alternate Kochanski adds something of a new dynamic to the show. Much of the humour in her scenes comes from the difference between her frame of reference and that of the others. Although Annett lacks Grogan's Scottish accent, the series now reveals that she was from the Gorbals (apparently the trendiest part of 23rd century Glasgow), and had spent her childhood in "Cyberschool" with perfect computer-generated settings and perfect computer-generated friends and a pony named "Trumper" before entering Space Cadet School. Her initial reaction to the meagre conditions of life aboard Starbug is one of utter depair, as well as disdain for the "Dwarfers" as inferior versions of the people she knew in her dimension. Over the course of the seventh series she becomes acclimatised to her new situation, and becomes integrated as a member of the crew.

The eighth series features both Kochanski and Rimmer as main characters over the entirely of its run. Although she was originally determined to find a way back to her own universe, in the eighth series seems to accept being part of the crew in this dimension. Indeed, her origin in the parallel universe is only mentioned once in the eighth series.