Kryten

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This article is about the Red Dwarf character. For the Red Dwarf episode, see Kryten (Red Dwarf episode).

Kryten (full name, 'Kryten 2X4B-523P') is a fictional character in the British television series Red Dwarf. In the character's first appearance, originally only intended as a one-off, Kryten was played by actor David Ross. However, the popularity of the character meant that Kryten was introduced as a regular in Series III; the intention was to bring Ross back to play the role, but as he was not available at the time, the position was filled by Northampton-born actor Robert Llewellyn, whose performances as Kryten in series III-VIII resulted in even greater popularity of the character.

[edit] Life

Kryten is a Series 4000 mechanoid or 'slave 'noid' — a robotic servant — and is quite neurotic. He is very humanoid, with the exception of the flat cubic planes visible on his face and head. Once the personal servant of three female crew members of the Nova 5, he is now reduced to serving the slobbish Dave Lister, the only surviving human crew member on Red Dwarf. He was also on the SS Augustus before the Nova 5, but the crew died of old age. Kryten also believes in Silicon Heaven, the electronic afterlife. He is often referred to, by the crew, as 'novelty condom head'.

Kryten was built by DivaDroid International, one of a number of Series 4000 models based on a design by Professor Mamet, a roboticist (played by Jenny Agutter). This design was actually intended as a joke on Mamet's ex-fiancé, the mechanoids being a caricature of his fussiness and pomposity. Kryten is hard-wired to obey all of Mamet's orders without question, so when a Psiren impersonated Mamet and ordered Kryten to crush himself in a garbage compactor, he had no choice but to comply. (His reply upon emerging, having been compacted into a cube: 'I'm almost annoyed!')

Kryten (as played by Ross) was introduced in Series II as the cleaning mechanoid on the Nova 5 which had crashed, killing almost all the crew (it is possible he was inadvertently responsible for this; in the first Red Dwarf novel, the Nova 5 crashed because Kryten washed the navigation computer; however, this may not be regarded as part of the 'official', canon story, though this situation is referred to by Dave Lister in the Series VII episode "Ouroboros"). He looked after the three survivors for three million years, refusing to admit they had died of old age, until he was rescued by the Red Dwarf. Initially, Arnold Rimmer took advantage of his servility, but Lister persuaded him to rebel against his programming. He took Lister's space-bike and went out to find a planet he could grow a garden on.

At the beginning of Series III, we learn that Kryten smashed the bike into an asteroid. Lister rebuilt him, but was unable to recreate him exactly. (This was intended to explain the differences between Ross' portrayal of the character and Llewellyn's, as well as Lister needing to help Kryten break his programming all over again). Most noticeably, whereas he previously had an "English butler" voice, similar to C-3PO, he now spoke with what Llewellyn admits to be a bad Canadian accent.

In Series VII, he discovered that he has a "brother" named Able (also played by Robert Llewellyn, who co-wrote the episode). Kryten originally rejected the wastrel, drug-addicted mechanoid before an act of supreme self-sacrifice convinced him of his brother's worth.

[edit] Personality

Having lost his obedience programmes, Kryten has been able to better himself. While he continues to be a sanitation droid, and to enjoy cleaning and serving others, he has also become the science expert amongst the Dwarfers, often leading missions such as their search for Rimmer on the psi-moon in "Terrorform". The dichotomy between these two aspects of his personality has led to Rimmer nicknaming him "Captain Bog-bot".

Kryten has also extended his emotional range, which has led to him deactivating his shutdown disk (DivaDroid believes in planned obsolescence), although the crew were then forced into a showdown with his would-be replacement. His greatest ambition is to be human, and to this end he has attempted to learn to lie and insult people (mostly Rimmer), although he has trouble with the words "smeg head" (the best he can manage is "smeeeeeeee heeeeeeeee"). He did however become human for a few days after a machine changed his genetic structure, but he didn't enjoy the experience as much as he thought he would. He was briefly returned to factory settings (including the English accent) in Series VIII, but his hard-won independence broke through after the crew jogged his memory. When Red Dwarf was re-built with the crew, Kryten was reclassed as a woman due to his lack of male genitalia (that is, his lack of any genitalia: the only mechanoids given genitals were the ones created to work on Italian starships, as it was felt it would be psychologically comforting if the androids could stand around cupping themselves all day like their crewmates). Due to this deficiency, Kryten decided to make a penis called Archie, who runs around like a mouse. Kochanski commented that Kryten was a real man because "like all men, you have absolutely no control over your penis," thereby making Kryten very proud.

Perhaps the most significant element of his personality is guilt. When his ability to feel guilty for his actions is compromised in some way, he can become careless, rude and even aggressive. This guilt is not necessarily balanced out by a sense of pride in the good work he does - in the episode 'The Inquisitor', he believed his selflessness was purely a matter of programming and therefore he had not led a worthwhile life.

Kryten had at least three spare heads, one of which has droid-rot (a condition similar to computer senility) that gives it a Lancastrian accent. The spare heads can engage in conversation with Kryten. Once, the other heads held a poll and voted Kryten as the ugly, big-eared one, upsetting Kryten. The others took turns being head head. All of these were destroyed due to the final step of Mamet's joke; eventually a 2X4B mechanoid will "blow its top" (due to Lister wanting ketchup to put on lobster). The "negadrive" which caused this has been removed, and, luckily, Kryten's personality chips survived and were placed in a new head.

Kryten thinks that his middle name "2X4B" is jerky ("The Last Day", Series III), but says he once knew a "poor sucker" of a mechanoid whose middle name was "2Q4B".

Kryten formed an irrational dislike of the new Kristine Kochanski when he first met her, mostly out of a fear that she and Lister would fall in love and abandon him. However he grew to respect her (although not necessarily like her) after she saved Lister's life from the Epideme virus.

The name Kryten is a reference to the head butler in the J.M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton.

One of the best instances of how Kryten's personality was developed was how he commented on many of The Cat's fanciful escape plans:

CAT: What? Am I the only sane one here? Why don't we drop the defensive shields?

KRYTEN: A superlative suggestion, sir, with just two minor flaws. One, we don't have any defensive shields, and two, we don't have any defensive shields. Now I realise that, technically speaking, that's only one flaw but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice.

CAT: (Patting KRYTEN's shoulder) Good point; well made.

[edit] Trivia

• This character has a niche in science-fiction history: It is believed that this was the first robot/android ever to give a human the finger.
• Kryten's registration code on Red Dwarf is Additional 001.
• Robert Llewellyn writes in his book The Man in the Rubber Mask that before settling on a Canadian accent, he, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor considered Swedish and American.
• Llewellyn was brought to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's attention through his role in a satirical feminist play called Mammon: Robot Born of Woman.
• The Kryten make-up was a constant source of discomfort for Llewellyn, as the prosthetic rubber mask required him to be in make-up for up to six hours. By Series VII, this had been reduced to two hours.
• In their original plan for the series, Grant and Naylor had specified that there would be no aliens and no robots. However, following the success of the first appearance by the Kryten character, Naylor convinced Grant to bring him back.
• Robert Llewellyn was the only British cast member originaly invited to participate in the American version of Red Dwarf, though Chris Barrie was, later, also approached to reprise his role of Rimmer as "no american actor could hate themselves" quite so well as the character needed. Barrie declined. In this series, he was owned by the ship's Captain prior to the disaster that wiped out the crew, and passed the three million years by reading an EXIT sign.