TV (Not) on DVD: "Spaced"

I don't know about you, but I've been salivating over the sheer possibility of an eventual US DVD release of seminal Britcom series Spaced, starring Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Jessica Stevenson, Mark Heap, Katy Carmichael, and Julia Deakin.

Sadly, it looks like a US release isn't in the cards... at least not any time soon.

I was lucky enough to attend a screening of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's new film Hot Fuzz (if you're a fan of Shaun or of Spaced, run--don't walk--to see this hilarious film as soon as it opens in the US) this weekend.

As a HUGE, slightly obsessive fan of Spaced (which recently finished airing its second and final season on BBC America), I'm always on the lookout for news on a DVD release. (I met Pegg at the BAFTA/LA Emmys tea party last summer and stunned him by even having heard of--and being a fan of--Spaced.)

However, when asked about the possibility of a Spaced DVD release, Wright gave the audience that precious old gem about music clearance issues. Specifically, what's preventing a US release is the clearing of just five or six music tracks.

While Wright could simply remove the offending songs and replace them with music that could more easily be cleared, he and Pegg (who co-wrote the series with co-star Jessica Stevenson) have agreed that they would rather continue pursuing clearance rather than exchanging the tracks, which they feel are instrumental (no pun intended) to the plot.

So until those tracks clear, we're not getting Spaced on DVD anytime soon. Unless one buys a multi-region DVD player, that is.

Tempting.