If you don’t know what smeg is all about, the Urban Dictionary defines it as such: “A futuristic British all-purpose swear word. From Red Dwarf.” Battlestar Galactica has frak, Farscape has frell…and Red Dwarf has smeg. If it sounds funnier than frak or frell, that’s because Red Dwarf is really a comedy that just so happens to be set in the far future, on a spaceship called the Red Dwarf. It first started on BBC Two in 1988, racking up a total of eight seasons before finally ending in 1999, and it built up a pretty serious following in the process; although I suppose describing anything to do with Red Dwarf as serious makes me a complete and total smeghead.
Truth be told, despite being a disciple of British sci-fi and comedy, I never really got into Red Dwarf which to this day mystifies me (perhaps even more so after watching this reunion special), as it should’ve fit like a very comfortable glove. The number of episodes of Red Dwarf I’ve seen over the years could probably be counted on one hand. I’m hardly an authority on it, but given the chance to check out Back to Earth – the only new Dwarf in over a decade – I jumped at it, if for no other reason than to see how I’d react all these years later.
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