- « "Think "velociraptor", only better dressed." »
- — James Lester[src]
Christine Johnson was the officially appointed military liaison to the Anomaly Research Centre, though on the side she led an operation on an Anomaly to the future in her headquarters without consent from the Minister.
Biography
Background
Christine was born around 1974. Her father owned a hardware store and she and her older sister were raised in a flat attached to the store. Her father was a staunch liberal supporter and was very active in local politics. He also served as an alderman for a time. Christine's father and sister would be killed by an IRA bomb blast, which devastated her.
Academically gifted, Christine showed an affinity for science and math. She also excelled on the sports field, being captain of the hockey team. Her extremely competitive nature helped her distinguish herself at Oxford, where she studied Natural Sciences, specialising in Biology. She also excelled in bioengineering and biophysics.
On completion of university, Christine was enlisted by MI6 and showed extraordinary leadership skills throughout her training. She was a favourite of her mentors, but her ambition and competitiveness resulted in her having few and far-between friends. After a string of successful missions in Jamaica, she was then enlisted as the Home Office’s military liaison officer to the Anomaly Research Centre.
Episode 3.1
After arriving back in London she called James Lester to let him know of her new position, and organised for them to have a lunch meeting. When he appeared at White Hall, the two spoke on what they believed should be the ARC's main goal. Their meeting was cut short as she noticed Captain Ross waiting to report, and had Lester escorted away. She learned from Ross that they had failed to procure a mysterious artefact due to an attack from Future Predators. Christine was furious and unsympathetic regarding the death of all soldiers that had accompanied Ross, demanding that the artefact be found and retrieved
Episode 3.4
At her headquarters, she and her bodyguard Captain Wilder were observing a team of her scientists examining an unconscious Future Predator. Wilder informed her that the artefact had ended up in the ARC's hands, having been found and left there by Helen Cutter. She was intrigued by the Predator's abilities, and wanted to harness their power in the hopes of creating better soldiers. When the Predator woke she ordered it to be killed by diverting electricity into the room. Wilder reminded her that the ARC would pick up her anomaly's signal, but Christine said they would deal with them when they arrived. Wilder and his men surrounded the ARC team, and Christine confronted Jenny Lewis, Connor Temple, Abby Maitland and Captain Becker, telling them there was no anomaly and dismissing their insistence on investigating. Before they departed, Christine noted Becker had once worked with Wilder, and implied she could give him an opportunity to again. Lester contacted her later, and Christine assured him that she had nothing that would affect the ARC, but Lester didn't believe her in the slightest and gave his own assurance that Christine wouldn't be getting anywhere near the ARC operation before terminating the call. Christine later observed the anomaly she was, in fact, keeping secret within her facility, deep in thought and contemplating future ambitions.
Episode 3.5
She, Wilder and Mark Baker went to the Anomaly Research Centre unannounced, and Lester reluctantly offered her a tour of the facility. Afterwards, Christine asked for a private word, and asked if he had any knowledge of the artefact, and he claimed to not know and had never seen it. She also asked about the appointment of a new team leader, and offered for Wilder to take charge. When an alarm went off, Christine found that Baker had been attacked by a strange fungus, and blamed Lester for his death, though Lester pointed out that he had been within a security zone (as she had ordered him to look around for the artefact). As they were leaving she ordered Wilder to set up surveillance inside the ARC. Lester later called her to the ARC to say she had been right about needing a man like Wilder, and though he actually meant Wilder before Lester revealed he had chosen Danny Quinn, and had invited her to spite her.
Fire and Water
She is mentioned by Lester. He thought that Tom Samuels, who was in possession of a device capable of opening anomalies, was working for her. When Lester asked him, a puzzled Samuels said that he hadn't thought of her in years and didn't know if she was even still alive.
Episode 3.6
She discovers through her surveillance cameras that the ARC team has the Artefact and that its purpose is to predict anomalies. She then stages a hostile takeover of the ARC; her soldiers capture Lester and most of the ARC staff, but Danny, Abby, Connor, and Sarah manage to escape with the Artefact as they had advance warning due to discovering Christine's secret surveillance. Determined to retrieve it, Christine sends first Captain Ross and then Becker to get them. No sooner than she gets her hands on the Artefact, however, Christine is summarily fired because Becker had secretly recorded her making less-than-flattering remarks about the Minister and Lester had sent it to Whitehall, leading the very upset Minister to summon her for a reprimand.
Episode 3.8
She briefly appears at the end talking to Wilder about Eve, examining her possessions (including a journal and an odd device) before ordering Wilder to alert her the moment she woke up.
Episode 3.9
- Christine Johnson: "Listen, Helen, we're on the same side. We have the same goals; we can share all of this! We have the Artifact, control of the anomalies, think of the power!"
- Helen Cutter: "If you think this is about power, then you're wrong."
- ―Helen and Christine have different goals.
Christine interrogates Eve about what the future is like, and where the Predators came from. Later, when Eve escaped Johnson's HQ with Danny Quinn, Christine came to the ARC, demanding Danny's immediate arrest. She also found Eve there, but at that moment, Eve revealed herself to be Helen Cutter and took Christine hostage.
Christine tried to bargain her freedom, but Helen asserted that she was not doing this for power. Helen returned to Johnson's HQ with her and kicked her through her anomaly into the future. Christine was attacked by a Future Predator and tried to escape back through the anomaly. Despite the team's attempts to save her, the Predator dragged Christine back through the anomaly and presumably killed her.
Personality
Christine Johnson was a highly ambitious, cold, competitive, determined and ruthless civil servant, who was hungry for power and willing to use highly unscrupulous methods to get what she wanted - including kidnapping, illegal experimentation on creatures and Anomalies, spying on her potential enemies, and even trying to take control of the ARC. Johnson generally tried to boost her soldiers' morale with mild favouritism and promises of great reward, particularly when she had high faith in them, but when her men failed to get what she wanted, she could be very cold, ungrateful and callous; she was entirely uncaring when Ross came back the sole survivor of a failed mission into the future to get the Artefact, only caring about the fact that "[she] told [Ross] not to come back here without [the Artefact]," and berating him that his men's deaths were his responsibility and not hers.
Johnson apparently also made enemies much easier than friends, and didn't seem to forget when an opponent like Lester in any way directly or indirectly humiliated her. Though very cold, ambitious and cunning, Johnson's weakness was that she relied on intelligence, bribery, favouritism and political manipulation more than anything else; which was how her bribes and threats failed to save her life when she was taken hostage by someone as ruthless as Helen Cutter.
Relationships
James Lester
Though Lester and Johnson were almost always very civil and professional in their face-to-face interactions, they had a mutually antagonistic relationship between them, which they both liked to show to each other while holding their professional demeanours and by using lawful methods to outsmart, defeat, exasperate and humiliate each other. Johnson and Lester's rivalry was such that when Helen held Johnson hostage, Lester jokingly pretended, to Johnson's ire, to not care if she died. However, Lester still did not truly hate Christine enough to actually allow Helen to kill her, as when he saw how serious Helen was being about threatening Johnson's life, he reluctantly gave Helen what she wanted.
Hilary Becker
When Johnson briefly took over the ARC, as she was highly impressed by Becker's record, she wanted to change Becker's personal loyalties as well as his legal ones over to her, and attempted to tempt him with promises of promotional rewards if he would succeed in capturing the ARC field team for her. By the time the team were recaptured, Johnson was convinced she had Becker on her side, only to then be surprised and humiliated to discover that Becker had been working against her all along, and had recorded her negative comments about the Minister to successfully get her removed from the ARC.
Danny Quinn
Johnson apparently saw and recognized Danny as something of a threat to her secret operations, and disliked and possibly feared him for his resourceful and unpredictable team methods. She was silently but visibly angered when Danny was appointed the ARC's new team leader instead of Captain Wilder, and she also threatened Danny with theft of government property after he and the team had fled her regime over the ARC with the Artefact. When Danny broke into Johnson's HQ to rescue Eve from her custody, Johnson intended to have Danny arrested, but was taken hostage by Eve, actually Helen, before she could do so. While he openly greatly disliked Johnson, Danny still didn't hate her enough to want her to die, as he unsuccessfully tried with the rest of the team to save her from a Future Predator as she was dragged through her own Anomaly to her death.
Helen Cutter
Johnson had Helen Cutter, then disguised as Eve, kidnapped by Wilder from her base in the future and brought back to her HQ in the present, to interrogate her on what had happened to the world in the future, and was highly cold and threatening with Eve when she didn't give Johnson the full answers she wanted. When Helen revealed her real identity and took Johnson hostage, Johnson at first wasn't impressed with Helen's one-man army in kidnapping her, but Johnson quickly learned to fear Helen as she realized how confident, insane and dangerous Helen really was. Johnson unsuccessfully attempted to bribe Helen to spare her or let her go, which failed, before Helen sent Johnson through her own Anomaly to die.
Joseph Wilder
Captain Wilder was the second-in-command of Johnson's military operation, and was often seen to be at Johnson's side when they were overseeing operations involving the ARC and/or the creatures. Johnson appeared to have a level of faith and confidence in Wilder that she didn't have in her other men, and wasn't berating of him as she was Ross. After Nick Cutter's death, Johnson tried to get Wilder hired as the ARC's new team leader so as to have more of a hold on the ARC, but she failed when Lester instead appointed Danny Quinn.
Ross
Johnson was berating and furious at Ross for failing the objectives she assigned her with. She was even cold and insensitive to the loss of his men on the original mission to retrieve the Artefact; when Ross respectfully reminded Johnson that he'd lost men on the failed mission, she angrily and mockingly responded, "'With respect,' Captain, that is your responsibility!"
Appearances
Canonical
- Episode 3.1 (first appearance)
- Episode 3.4
- Episode 3.5
- Fire and Water (mentioned)
- Episode 3.6
- Episode 3.8
- Episode 3.9 (death)
- Episode 3.10 (mentioned)
Gallery
- Also see: Category:Images of Christine Johnson
Nick Cutter • Connor Temple • Abby Maitland • Jenny Lewis • Helen Cutter • James Lester • Hilary Becker • Sarah Page • Danny Quinn • Christine Johnson • Jack Maitland • Joseph Wilder