Okay, it's not quite television-focused but given that it does deal with one of my favorite all-time television series (Spaced), I figured that I had to plug it here.
Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Scott Pilgrim Gets a Life," where I talk to Michael Cera, Edgar Wright, and Bryan Lee O'Malley about their feature film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which hits theatres on Friday. Based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, the film stars Cera as the titular hero and features a huge cast that includes Brandon Routh, Chris Evans, Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, Mae Whitman, Alison Pill, Kieran Culkin, and more.
Plus, Edgar Wright and I talked about Spaced and the similarities between the British comedy series Spaced (which Wright co-created with Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes) and Scott Pilgrim itself, part of an amazing half-hour interview at San Diego Comic-Con (which was itself interrupted by the appearance of a Ramona Flowers t-shirt-clad Michael Cera), the morning after the top-secret Scott Pilgrim screening.
What you won't read in The Daily Beast piece, however, is the brief aside between me and Wright about the woeful US adaptation of Spaced, which never made it out of the pilot stage. (You can read my brutal review of it from 2008 here, which Wright thanked me profusely for writing.)
"When I talk about that pilot, I'm always very quick to completely absolve the cast, even though we're f---ing furious about it and I'm not really happy about it at any point" said Wright. "You realize the people who are in the show... it's a job. It was the way that it was handled in terms of the respect--aside from me and Simon [Pegg], just Jessica [Hynes], who a trade didn't even mention--that was bulls--t. But one of the funniest things was watching it for the first time with Simon, Jessica, and Nira [Park]. We all sat and watched it and soon as it started we went, 'ARGH!!!' and just held each other. It was a very surreal experience."
Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World will be released nationwide on Friday.
If you're a fan of the geektastic UK series Spaced, then this was a holy week for you, between the release of the Region 1 DVD (finally!), events around the country, and the trinity itself--creators Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson), and Edgar Wright--appearing at Comic-Con.
After a kick-ass clip package that tied into today's Star Wars-themed day at the convention (which featured many of the series' trademark sci-fi/action/pop culture homages and allusions), the trio appeared to rapturous applause and dove right into a discussion about the US release of Spaced on DVD.
While there wasn't a lot of new information given away at this Spaced panel, part of BBC America's big push at the convention, it was bloody fantastic to see Pegg, Hynes, and Wright on stage together. This being a Spaced event, it was only a matter of time before the dreaded question--about a third season--reared its head. Pegg, speaking frankly about the future of Spaced, said simply, "We don't know... We definitely had another series in us." He and Hynes envisioned a three-part story for Spaced's Tim and Daisy and a third season would have worked towards that end. (Those of us lucky enough to have the DVD boxset--and its feature-length documentary--can watch a sort of imagined valentine to the not-quite-a-couple and a possible ending for Tim and Daisy.)
Still, Pegg doesn't exactly have high expectations about another season. "There's a sort of fear, going back ten years later," said Pegg, "that it would be our own Phantom Menace, with CGI backgrounds, flat dialogue, and unfunny comedy characters." (Fans will of course remember Tim's depression and anger after the release of The Phantom Menace. Obviously, Pegg's hasn't subsided all these years later.)
Meanwhile, however, Pegg is working on a number of projects. He'd like to write something with Hynes again and, following a project that Pegg is currently writing, he'll reteam with Wright on The World's End, the third film in their colliquially known "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy" of films, which includes Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Wright meanwhile wouldn't talk about his upcoming Ant-Man feature--based on the Marvel superhero--but would only say that the script is being written.
But one fan asked the ultimate geek question: would Pegg--who appeared in Doctor Who as The Editor during Season One's "The Long Game"--take over for David Tennant as the Doctor, should the opportunity arise? Pegg was extremely diplomatic, calling David Tennant's performance "brilliant and enigmatic" and going on to say that Tennant was "the best Doctor since Tom Baker" and it would extremely hard to fill his shoes.
Still, the unofficial crossovers between Spaced and Doctor Who seem to be continuing. Wright revealed that executive producer Russell T. Davies offered him the opportunity to direct the first episode of the Christopher Eccleston-starring first season, as he knew that Wright was a fan. And longtime Doctor Who fans will remember Hynes' recent turn during Season Three's two-parter "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood," where she played Mr. Smith's widowed schoolteacher paramour Joan Redfern and got to kiss Tennant.
Wright said that Hynes "made [the Doctor] regenerate in his pants." Pegg wondered if every time the Doctor regenerated, he looked in his pants to see if anything had, er, changed in his latest incarnation.
Ten years may have passed since the launch of Spaced, but not much has changed, has it? And, surprisingly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Today's the day. What's that, you're asking? The day for what exactly?
After waiting and moaning and waiting some more, today is the day that loyal US viewers of the supremely hysterical and witty UK series Spaced--written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson) and directed by Edgar Wright--finally is released on DVD in the States.
For those of us who know and love Spaced with a zeal that knows no bounds, the DVD of Spaced: The Complete Series--which is released today with a suggested retail price of $59.99-- has been a long time coming. We've hoped, prayed, and made Faustian bargains to get those music rights cleared for use so that we can hold that box set in our hands. (Thanks to the good folks at BBC Video, I got mine early and have spent the last few days in Spaced heaven.)
If you aren't familiar with Spaced, I feel for you, I really do. Spaced is the ultimate geek pleasure, a series so laden with pop culture riffs, comic book allusions, quirky characters, in jokes, and filmic homages that, unless you are a veteran member of the geek kingdom (all rise who are), it might be hard to follow the gags without a guidebook.
Ostensibly, Spaced tells the sitcom-ready story of twenty-something slackers Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes) who both find themselves between housing situations. Meeting in a coffee shop one day and hitting it off, they spy an ad in the newspaper for what seems like an ideal living arrangement. The only catch: the ad specifically says professional couples only. What are two house-hungry, cash-poor kids to do but pretend to be a couple in order to land the place? Of course, they have to fool alternately sullen/optimistic alcoholic landlady Marsha (Julia Deakin) into believing they're a couple... achieved through a brilliant montage in which they reveal details about their pasts, pose for holiday snaps, and construct an elaborate lie that wouldn't really hold up weight if they're questioned.
Tim and Daisy drag their respective best friends into their hastily constructed lie: Tim's best mate is Mike (Nick Frost), a gun-crazy member of the Territorial Army who was suspended after stealing a tank and attempting to invade Paris; Daisy's BFF is the bitchy Twist (Katy Carmichael), who claims to work in "fashion" but really works in a dry cleaner. Quickly, their eccentric artist neighbor Brian (Mark Heap) catches on to Tim and Daisy's true relationship but he nobly decides to cover for them, joining their gang of borderline psychotic personalities.
While Spaced's set up could have quickly descended into Z-grade sitcom buffoonery, Pegg and Hynes--aided by the stunning visual style of Wright--elevate the material considerably, constructing a comedy that is as much about the aforementioned wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes and sight gags (if you like Scooby Doo visual jokes or worship at the shrine of Buffy, this is the series for you) as it is about the minutiae of life for a twenty-something Londoner at the turn of the millennium. The result is a series which never manages to become cartoonish, characters that never turn cloying, and a concept which could have yielded at least another season.
The DVD set contains all fourteen episodes of Spaced, spread out over two seasons, along with a host of extras, including: episode commentaries with cast members Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes, Julia Deakin, Mark Heap, Nick Frost, Katy Carmichael, producer Nira Park, and director Edgar Wright; brand-new bonus commentary tracks featuring the likes of Kevin Smith, Diablo Cody, Matt Stone, Bill Hader, Quentin Tarantino, and Patton Oswalt; outtakes; the "Spaced Jam" music video; raw footage; cast and crew bios; footage of the 2007 Spaced stage reunion; and "Skip to the End," a feature-length documentary about Spaced which aired on Channel 4 in the UK and which features at its very conclusion, the absolute perfect ending for Spaced: The Series, featuring a reveal so pitch-perfect that any fan will turn into an absolute puddle of goo. Whew.
I'm happy to say that these episodes have not only held up, but held up magnificently since their original airing, Matrix jokes notwithstanding. (For an example on how not to do brilliant parody, sublime homage, or quirky comedy, check out my review of the pilot for the US version of Spaced, which was outright terrifying in its lack of humor and grace.) The guest stars--from Little Britain creator David Walliams (stunning as Brian's lost love, a transgender performance artist named Vulva) to Black Books' Bill Bailey and a certain Office creator--astound as much today as they did years before; it's as though Spaced caught these luminaries right on the cusp of stardom.
But it's Spaced's regulars who keep us coming back for more. In the hands of gifted writer/actors Hynes and Pegg, Daisy and Tim remain wholly real, picture-perfect snapshots of the late 1990s/early 2000s slacker dissatisfaction, underachievers who--despite our collective will--can barely manage to get up off the sofa, much less change the world. And that's perhaps why we love them so much: that they teeter on a knife's edge between sanity and (relative) madness at any given time.
Together, they face the trials and travails of semi-adult life: looking for jobs, losing jobs (and, in a glorious One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest homage episode, landing the job from hell), getting a dog, falling in love, falling out of love, and figuring out what the bloody hell you're going to do with the rest of your life... while, all along, not realizing that their best, most perfect, partner is right there on the couch with them. Along the way, the duo attend raves, argue, fend off teenage hoodlums and Matrix-like government agents with a combination of pantomimed gunplay and actual high-flying action, battle (imaginary) zombies, attend experimental theatre productions, play video games, and have drunken conversations about the meaning of life. If that doesn't sound like your twenties in a nutshell, I don't know what does.
Ultimately, Spaced: The Complete Series is a three-disc set that any Spaced fan--present or future--should have in their collection and will treasure for years to come. As Marsha might do, why not open a bottle of red wine (or three or four), settle back on the couch, and enjoy? You'll thank me afterward.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: NCIS(CBS); Celebrity Family Feud (NBC); Beauty & the Geek(CW); Wipeout(ABC); Kitchen Nightmares (FOX)
9 pm: Big Brother 10(CBS); America's Got Talent (NBC); Reaper (CW); I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC); House (FOX)
10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Primetime: Family Secrets(ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
8-10 pm: Britcoms on BBC America.
I don't know about you but by Tuesday night, I'm usually in need of some comedy in my life. Why not stick around on Tuesday nights for BBC America's new comedy lineup, consisting of classic episodes of Coupling, new comedy Not Going Out, and Absolutely Fabulous?
8 pm: Kitchen Nightmares.
'Cause I miss the softer side of Gordon Ramsay.
10 pm: Flipping Out on Bravo.
Season Two continues tonight with a brand-new episode ("Looks Like New"), Jeff makes Chris take the bus, leading to a teary breakdown; Jeff and Ryan return to work for Courtney but discover that she may only want to employ Jeff and not Ryan.
Ah, schadenfreude. There is something innately satisfying about watching a terrible pilot project go down the tubes when it was doomed from the very start. And there were few more misguided and foolhardy attempts this past pilot season than that of the US adaptation of UK cult series Spaced.
Created by Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson), and Edgar Wright, the original Spaced was a brilliant and hyperkinetic pastiche: at once a tongue-in-cheek satire of sitcoms, an inversion of social stereotypes, and a collection of astounding sight gags, blink-and-you'll-miss-'em pop culture references, and endearingly quirky characters. It was most definitely a product of its time as well, fused into the fabric of 1990s Gen-X slackers and offering a commentary on both American and British cultural sensibilities of the time.
In a word, it was brilliant.
Cut to 2008, following a rough development year, in which the stars/creators of Spacedspoke out against the US version of the series after they weren't consulted about the remake and in some cases (Hynes) weren't even mentioned in any press releases about the series. I managed to get my hands on the completed pilot for the American update of Spaced and I was curious to see if it warranted the ire of Pegg and Co.
And that's where schadenfreude comes in. To call Spaced a pale imitation of the original is actually quite insulting to pale imitations everywhere. No, this US remake--written by Adam Barr (Will & Grace) and directed by Charles Stone (Lincoln Heights)--is quite possibly one of the worst things I've ever seen and that's saying quite a lot.
Quick recap on the action: two strangers, both post-breakup with significant others, meet at a coffee shop as they look for a new place to live when they stumble onto a dream apartment. The only catch is that it's only being offered to a married couple, so they pose as newlyweds in order to land the place. It's a deceptive simple premise that, in the original anyway, never falls into Three's Company-type sitcom gags and instead uses it as a springboard to explore the relatonship between Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes) and their friendships, hopes, dreams, and bizarro fantasies.
It was with a great deal of trepidation that I sat down to watch Spaced's busted pilot over the weekend... and was amazed by how wrong the production team had gotten every element of the series, even from the script stage. While the original Spaced had an effortlessly cool vibe, every line of dialogue in this awful pilot reeks of overwriting and reaching to try to approximate something trendy and cool... only fall completely flat. Adding in cutaway scenes in which San Francisco's Transamerica rotates for no real reason or an invisible force appears next to a trolley car do not a smart quirky comedy make. Instead, these remain head-scratching examples of just how wrong the producers (which include Wonderland Sound & Vision's McG) got it and perhaps how little they understood the underlying material in the first place.
Onto the actors then. Never have two actors been more miscast as Josh Lawson (Chandon Pictures) and Sara Rue (Less Than Perfect) than they have been here. As Ben, Lawson is completely unbelievable as a sad sack wannabe comic book artist/slacker... who clearly has spent more time at the gym than at a drafting board. And unfortunately, he doesn't become more believable when he dons trendily nerdy glasses that only make him look slightly more like Matthew Perry in The Ron Clark Story. As for Rue, her Apryl isn't at all sympathetic and merely irritates every time she's on screen; the same goes for Ben's sidekick Bill (Will Sasso) who lacks all of the nuance of the original's Nick Frost. His sole characteristic seems to be that he enjoys (A) playing video games, (B) re-enacting the bullet scene from (ahem) The Matrix, and (C) pretending to shoot people with a gun made out of his hand. Yes, this is real character development time, people.
Supporting characters get just as much short shrift and aren't nearly as imaginative or credible as their counterparts across the pond. Apryl's best friend, a sticky-fingered wannabe thief named Vivienne (Yara Martinez) lacks any defining characteristics whatsoever and remains, at the end of the pilot, still a complete and utter cipher. Tortured artist/downstairs neighbor Christian (Frederico Dordei) is completely predictable in his overwrought "quirkiness." Hell, even landlady Marsha is a wet blanket in this without any of the humor or flair of Julia Deakin's brilliant original.
I feel incredibly happy that this project will never make it to air and never sully the good name of Spaced. Fans of the original UK series have waited for years for a Region 1 DVD release of the series (which will finally be released on July 23rd) and would have been aghast at what American producers did to their beloved series.
Can some international formats transition nicely onto American screens? Sure, just look at NBC's The Office but for every one that does work there are likely ten or so that are mindblowingly awful adaptations of successful series. Spaced distinctly falls into the latter camp and I'm happy to see it buried in some fallout bunker six miles beneath the Earth where it can't infect anyone with its shoddy and unfunny perspective on urban living arrangements. It's as saccharine and artificial as the cream puffs in the painfully dumb "gunfight" that comprises the pilot's conclusion.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (CBS); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW); Wife Swap(ABC); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm)
10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Dateline (NBC); Men in Trees (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
9 pm: MI-5 on BBC America.
If you missed MI-5 (aka Spooks) when it aired on A&E a few years back, you can catch it tonight on BBC America. On tonight's installment ("The Special, Part Two"), Adam rescues Tash (Martine McCutcheon) from the terrorists and realizes he must unmask the mole within MI-5.
10 pm: Top Chef on Bravo.
On tonight's episode ("High Steaks"), the chefs have to clean and butcher a slab of meat during a Quickfire Challenge and then work on the line in a restaurant, creating a series of dishes that exceed chef Tom Colicchio's expectations, and Rick Tramonto of Osteria Di Tramonto, Gale's Coffee Bar, Tramonto's Steak & Seafood, and RT Lounge turns up as a guest judge.
FOX has given Lawson a talent deal; this marks his first US role as he steps into the shoes formerly filled by Pegg, who went on to co-write and star in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz with Spaced director Edgar Wright. Lawson is best known for his work on Australian series Sea Patrol, The Librarians, and the original Oz improv comedy format Thank God You're Here.
Credit FOX casting head Marcia Shulman with discovering Lawson. "He was really genuinely funny and understood comedy in a very classic way," Shulman told The Hollywood Reporter. "He is adorable but brilliantly and surprisingly funny. We all have been describing him as Matthew Perry meets Robin Williams."
Really, Robin Williams? While I don't want to fault Lawson, I can't help but get irritated every time I hear more about this US adaptation of Spaced, from studio Warner Bros. and McG's Wonderland Sound and Vision. And I can't help but think: What would Marsha say?
Pegg has himself lashed out at FOX, Warner Bros., Granada, and Wonderland about the US format of Spaced, saying that he, Wright, and Stevenson want nothing to do with the new version (though they will receive compensation as the creators of the original). In an official statement on website Peggster.com, Pegg wrote, "The whole affair seems to have inspired some spirited debate and some heartening displays of loyalty and love. All this for a show which is almost 10 years old, is all rather wonderful and a vindication of all the blood, sweat and tears (both of joy and pain) we shed in the show's creation. It was always our aim to create a comedy which spoke to its audience on such a personal level, it almost felt one on one. It would seem the fan reaction to the news that Fox has appropriated the format, confirms at least, that we succeeded."
At least one piece of good news for Spaced fans: the original UK series of Spaced will FINALLY be released in the US on DVD on July 23rd, 2008. Mark your calendars!
Yet another entry from the annals of what in the hell are they thinking: FOX has given a put pilot commitment to an American version of.... wait for it... Spaced.
While, yes, The Office proved that you can successfully adapt a British television format for US television, it seems that no one was paying much attention to the recent crop of botched attempts like Viva Laughlin, The Thick of It, and The IT Crowd. Hell, does no one remember Coupling?
What you're seeing right now is my jaw spinning out of control on the floor. If there's one series that really shouldn't ever be messed with and transformed into a US comedy, it's Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's brilliantly mordant series Spaced, which ran for two seasons beginning in 1999 on the UK's Channel 4.
The series was an early pairing between actor/co-writer Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, who would go on together to bring us such feature films as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Spaced, which aired Stateside on cabler BBC America, has a deceptively simple premise: a pair of young sad sack slackers, Tim and Daisy, move into together in what appears like the perfect apartment, but with one hitch: their doddering landlady Marsha will only rent them the flat if they pose as an actual romantic couple. Hilarity ensues.
The setup is in fact a convenient excuse to bring two of the most woefully underemployed and charming slackers together under one roof, along with the cast of quirky characters, and a plethora of Generation X pop culture references, circa 1999. As I've previously discussed, the sight gag alone of Tim and Daisy transforming themselves unwittingly into Scooby Doo's Shaggy and Velma is alone worth the price of admission.
Which is what makes me so sad. Spaced on its own, as it exists, is as close to television perfection as you can get over the course of 14 hilarious, absurd, and touchingly funny episodes. The fact that it's survived nearly ten years without an attempted American version has made me hopeful that it would never be tampered with by US networks.
Alas.
FOX has hired former Will & Grace writer Adam Barr to adapt the series. He'll executive produce the pilot, along with McG and Robert Green. Warner Bros. Television, Wonderland Sound & Vision, and Granada are all behind this pilot adaptation.
Personally, I love Spaced and think that Pegg, Stevenson, and Wright's series is absolutely sublime but as for any Americans looking to catch a glimpse of this witty and hilarious series, you'd do much better to try and catch the original.
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.
Okay, so it's not totally a television-related post, but I've been dearly missing Spaced, one of my favorite Britcoms lately and needed a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost fix.
I ran into Simon back in August at a BAFTA/LA event and he was thrilled that someone over here in the States had even heard of his upcoming feature Hot Fuzz, let alone was excited to see it.
Personally, I can't wait and might even have to fly over to England to see it when it's released over there on February 16th. As for those of us Stateside looking for a companion piece to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's follow-up to the gleefully gory Shaun of the Dead, the current release date is scheduled for March 9th.
In the meantime, you can check out the teaser trailer for Hot Fuzz on You Tube here and here and the Working Title official site features video blogs from Pegg and Wright et al.
While it's not Spaced (and BBC America STILL hasn't told us when we're getting Season Two), it's enough to tide me over for now.
Here in the States, we've only recently embraced (to a certain extent anyway) the zany madcap nature that's found in a plentiful number of British television comedies. Shows like Arrested Development, Scrubs, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and My Name is Earl come close to approximating that surreal humor of Britcoms like Brittas Empire, Black Books, or my latest favorite find: Spaced, a 1999 comedy that recently started its run on BBC America.
The above three shows take simple concepts that could have easily lent themselves to traditional, mundane situation comedy--man runs a leisure center (Brittas Empire), man runs a failing bookstore (Black Books), couple moves in together (Spaced)--but instead turns them on their heads, creating a topsy-turvy world for their obliviously, confused, or misanthropic characters to inhabit. The result is often pure comedy gold, the sort of thing that we Stateside are only just now beginning to experiment with, but which has been a hallmark of British comedy for some time now (check out the classic Blackadder series or Red Dwarf for more examples). And while it's taken us seven long years to be able to catch a glimpse of Spaced, it's been well worth the wait.
Created by and written by stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson (and directed by Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright), Spaced operates off a very simple premise that in other, less confident hands, could have turned into a formulaic sitcom. Dumped by his girlfriend Sarah (Monarch of the Glen and Hex's Anna Wilson-Jones), sad sack would-be comic artist Tim Bisley (Shaun of the Dead's Pegg) has nowhere to go, until he meets Daisy Steiner (Shaun of the Dead's Stevenson), a sad sack would-be journalist who's also temporarily homeless. After bonding over two weeks' worth of coffee, the two stumble onto a listing for a furnished flat; the only problem is that the owner will only rent it to a professional couple. So Tim and Daisy do the only thing that anyone in their situation would do: they lie.
In a brilliant extended sequence, the newly minted "couple" rundown every obscure bit of trivia they've learned about one another... all before exchanging names. Managing to woo kooky landlady Marsha Klein (Julia Deakin), they land the flat and move in together. As they settle into (fake) domesticated bliss, they're forced to keep up the pretense that they're a couple, a burden weighed even further by the biting sexual tension that exists between them. In fact, it's perfectly obvious that these two bizarro individuals are meant for one another.
Tim and Daisy's world is further complicated by a series of odd friends and acquaintances. Tim's best friend Mike(Shaun of the Dead's Nick Frost) is an obsessive gun nut who brings a pistol to their housewarming party "for security"; Daisy's catty best friend Twist (Katy Carmichael) claims to work in fashion but the closest she comes is her job in a dry cleaners. Meanwhile, landlady Marsha (Deakin) is a single mum who can talk for hours about her deadbeat ex-husband who chose his dog over her, while neighbor Brian (Mark Heap) is a freakish and paranoid artist/potential serial killer with a penchant for walking around in the nude and a history with/intense fear of Marsha.
The first two episodes (which aired last week) were a perfect introduction to that off-kilter world of Tim and Daisy's, a world in which visual gags are not only extended but also fiendishly intricate, like the hilarious Scooby Doo gag in which Tim and Daisy claim to have always pretended to be Fred and Daphne but are instead the spitting image of Shaggy and Velma (seriously). It's a world in which Daisy can plod away at her typewriter, seemingly writing a novel, when only two and a half minutes have gone by. One in which Daisy thinks that everyone, from Tim to her paperboy, is offering her drugs... or where a pair of terrifying twin girls cleans the flat's cupboards and speaks in a haunting and monotone unison. (Trust me, they're creepy, a fact that director Edgar Wright plays up in true horror movie style.)
Quick cutaways, fantasy sequences, flashbacks, and elaborate title cards are the buzzwords of this show, yet it never feels as though Spaced has sacrificed story for too many bells and whistles. Instead, the elaborate shots, Gen X homages, and quirky encounters speed by at a hilarious and fast-paced click. The series is deftly anchored by writer-stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, whose easy rapport and quick wit is instantly evidenced. Tim and Daisy may be wacky, but they're instantly likeable and relatable. While you might not want to move in with them, everyone can either associate with them or has a Tim or Daisy in their life. And given the state of the world right now, it's rather comforting to see other twentysomethings struggle for their dreams. Tim dreams of being a comic book artist but the cloest he's come is a homemade comic called "The Bear" about a mutated teenager and a job at a local comics shop, run by BlackBooks' Bill Bailey. Daisy dreams of being a journalist and being surrounded by "media types," but instead she's.... actually, I'm still not entirely sure what Daisy does.
Each episode instantly leaves you wanting more and, unfortunately, after sucking me in with two back-to-back episodes last week, BBC America is now only airing one episode of Spaced a week. But I figure that if I waited seven years to see this hilarious and surreal comedy, I can wait another week to get my next fix.
"Spaced" airs Friday evenings at 11 pm ET/8 pm PT on BBC America.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); Dateline (NBC); What I Like About You/Twins (WB); America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC); 24 (FOX); WWE Friday Night Smackdown (UPN)
9 pm: Close to Home (CBS); Las Vegas (NBC); Reba/Living with Fran (WB); Kyle XY (ABC) , 24 (FOX)
10 pm: NUMB3RS (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); 20/20 (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
8 pm: Spaced on BBC America. (11 pm ET)
See above. It's another episode of the wacky 1999 Britcom starring Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson. On tonight's episode ("Art"), Daisy's world is turned upside down when she goes on a job interview.
8:30 pm: Peep Show on BBC America. (11:30 pm ET)
One of my favorite single-camera British comedies returns Stateside for a second season of twisted and bizarre episodes. Peep Show charts the daily lives of dysfunctional losers Mark and Jeremy from both of their POVs, including every drunken rambling and sick, sick occurrence. On tonight's episode, Mark believes that true love means hacking into would-be lover Sophie's email account, while Jeremy deals with an American girlfriend (guest star Rachel Blanchard). It's funny and it's so sick at times that you may just need to take a shower afterwards.
9 pm: Black Books on BBC America. (Midnight ET)
BBC America continues its reairing of the second season of the brilliant Britcom Black Books, which stars Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey. In tonight's episode ("Fever"), Bernard needs a girlfriend, while Fran experiences insomnia from the heat wave. Just trust me and watch it, you'll thank me in the morning.
11:20 pm: The Catherine Tate Show on BBC America. (10:20 pm ET)
Later on BBC America, it's another episode of the new season of The Catherine Tate Show. Who's Catherine Tate? Why, she might just be the heir to Tracy Ullman's sketch comedy throne.
Okay, it's not quite television-focused but given that it does deal with one of my favorite all-time television series (Spaced), I figured that I had to plug it here.
