10 Red Dwarf Fates Worse Than Death

Dave Lister's whirlwind affair with Navigation Officer Kristine Kochanski is hardly the stuff of legends, but it is truly remarkable how Lister copes with losing his beloved on two separate occasions. Anyone who has loved and lost will know the turmoil it can cause, but to lose the person twice!? That's just too much.

Red Dwarf has handled a number of complex and often taboo issues throughout it's 30-odd-year run, but none more consistently than break-up-induced depression and the consequences of failing to go through the stages of grief.

Although Lister is regularly described by Rimmer as having "chirpy optimism", his failure to ever reach the acceptance stage of grief alludes to how much he must be broken inside. In the earlier series, a huge part of his motivation to carry on is his never-ending hope that he will somehow see Kochanski again.

Perhaps best demonstrated in the episode "Psirens", he even believes a naff ruse from the min-bending aliens that she miraculously escaped the accident on Red Dwarf... which is just insane.

Even when Kochanski does return, albeit from another dimension, Lister loses her once again when she departs Red Dwarf in search of her real home. The abandonment issues Dave Lister must have no doubt make every day a living nightmare.