A New (K)ERA

Red Dwarf X to make USA premiere.

With the obvious exception of "When is Series XI coming?" the most frequently-asked question around these parts, by a considerable margin, is "When is Series X going to be broadcast in my country?" And for a huge number of Red Dwarf fans, that country happens to be the United States. It therefore gives us great pleasure to announce that in July, Series X will finally be available for our friends across the pond to watch.

Well, some of them, anyway.

Red Dwarf X will make its Stateside bow courtesy of Dallas, Texas-based PBS affiliate KERA Channel 13. For those who don't know, the American PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) system is heavily regionalised, with affiliate stations across the country having a strong measure of independence in their scheduling in addition to taking in programmes from the centralised PBS stock - so it's KERA themselves who have chosen to be the first to pick up the series.

The US premiere of RDX will take place on Saturday 6th July at 10pm (local time), with Trojan being shown twice back-to-back in a custom that might seem unusual to UK viewers, but which is a more common practice on PBS. The show will then run weekly through July and early August, with the final two episodes forming a crucial part of the station's promotion for its latest pledge drive.

Fans in Texas who can't wait until next weekend, however, have a chance of getting to an exclusive preview screening of Trojan on Monday 1st July. You can find out more about where and when, and how to get there, at KERA's Telly Spotting blog, but you need to move swiftly - email applications for seats at the screening close on Sunday 30th June!

KERA already has a long tradition of supporting and showing Red Dwarf, having been among the first stations in the US to pick up and broadcast the show in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is due in huge part to its Anglophile Vice President of Television Programming, Bill Young, who has been in charge of selecting the station's output since 1988 - the very year, of course, that Red Dwarf launched - and whom Mr Flibble interviewed for this very site back in 2001!

While KERA is so far the only PBS station to pick up Red Dwarf X, then, the hope is that a successful broadcast season in North Texas will lead to other affiliates picking up the series later in 2014. And they have good form for leading comedy trends - it was KERA who were the first US station to show a little-known comedy series called Monty Python's Flying Circus back in 1974...

Find out where Red Dwarf is showing near you in our TV Listings section!