TV on DVD: Spaced -- The Complete Series

I always knew that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright and I were geeky soul mates. I suspected it had to be true after Shaun of the Dead, and our love was cemented with Hot Fuzz. And as Spaced illustrates, they know that geekiness, as Generation X defines it and indeed even invented it, on a large scale, is about movies, full stop: good ones, bad ones, the ones in the middle. It's about how movies shape our lives and become part of our generational conversation. If that sounds silly, then Spaced -- now finally available in the U.S. in a rather glorious three-disc DVD set -- is not for you.

This is the 1999-2001 sitcom Pegg and Wright created -- along with Jessica Stevenson, another new soul mate -- for Britain's Channel 4. I hesitate to use the term sitcom, because this is nothing like what American TV means by the word. It is cinematic, for one: director Wright was honing the stylized eye he has developed to lend deep and often hilariously inappropriate significance to the most insignificant things. Wright's is a kind of visual geekery that has absorbed the lessons of action movies and film noir and other cinematic cheese and redeploys it to create new meaning and entire levels of emotion where you'd never expect to find it.

So there's genuine feeling in the seemingly mundane doings of London flat mates Tim and Daisy (Pegg and Stevenson, who both wrote the show). He's a struggling comic book artist who earns a meager living at a comic book shop; she fancies herself a writer but hardly ever actually writes; mostly, they spend a lot of time watching TV, playing video games, hanging out at the pub, and navigating the dangerously goofy waters presented to them by their strange friends and neighbors. Those include Tim and Daisy's perpetually soused landlady Marsha (Julia Deakin), Tim's lifelong (and well-armed) best mate Mike (Nick Frost, Pegg's partner in Shaun and Hot Fuzz), Daisy's airhead friend Twist (Katy Carmichael), and Brian the broody avant-garde artist downstairs (Mark Heap).

The first two of these three discs hold only 14 episodes, seven in each of the two series (or "seasons" as we call them in the States). But each episode is a brilliant little gem, faceted with witty and wise observations on how Generation X lives. Some won't find it wise, those who don't understand, say, how deeply Star Wars is a part of the cultural sea Xers swim in: when I say that Tim and Daisy and their pals talk to one another in lines of dialogue from Star Wars, I don't mean they sling references at each other: they really communicate.

Spaced, on the whole, doesn't merely throw out lines from movies we Xers love in an attempt to "speak to" us or just to "be cool," it communicates with us in the language of pop culture we have our own unique understanding of. It's not just about jokey references, it's about shaping its stories around how movies shape our approach to the world, if only in our own heads. Cops become The Matrix's agents and social leeches become zombies; a love of London can only be expressed Woody Allen-style; blasphemy is taking the name of Buffy in vain. Pegg and Stevenson and Wright don't just get us -- they are us.

Released just in time for this weekend's Comic-Con (where Pegg, Wright, and Stevenson will be doing panel sessions and a screening event), this Warner/BBC Video DVD set brings over the extra features from the earlier British (Region 2) edition. Among them are the 14 episode-length audio commentaries featuring Pegg, Wright, and Stevenson, occasionally joined by Frost, Deakin, Heap, and producer Nira Park. These tracks are casual and chatty and always funny while dishing up background and reminiscences on how the show was put together episode by episode. Plus now Spaced on DVD adds 14 more all-new commentaries recorded earlier this year with Wright, Pegg, and/or Stevenson joined by "guest" fans Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Diablo Cody, Matt Stone, Patton Oswalt, and Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Hader.

The "Homage-O-Meter" is a clever (and thorough!) subtitle track that annotates the pop-culture references that are the connective tissue throughout the episodes. This is extra helpful for American fans who might need some assist with the occasional uniquely British reference.

The third disc is all bonus material. The big deal here is Skip to the End, an 80-minute documentary on the show's background, development, filming locations, and growing word-of-mouth, after-the-fact success. We get insights and funny stuff from Pegg, Stevenson, and Wright, as well as fans such as director Eli Roth and Ain't It Cool's Harry Knowles. Topping it off is a brief sequel (kind of) to Spaced.

Other good stuff on Disc 3 is a Q&A from the Spaced marathon held last year at the National Film Theater in London. DJ/writer Andrew Collins hosts Pegg, Wright, and the cast (except Stevenson, who couldn't be there, alas, although she delivers a video message).

Also here are 31 deleted scenes (with optional audio commentary by Wright and Pegg), behind-the-scenes raw footage, about a half-hour's worth of really funny outtakes, assorted teasers and trailers, a big photo gallery that includes the commentary recording sessions, the Spaced Jam music video by Osymyso with mashup lines and clips from the show, new bio text screens for the cast and crew, and Jessica Stevenson doing "Teddy Bear" as Elvis.

If you don't love it, you probably like Jar Jar Binks. (See the episode "Change" on Disc 2.)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
film reviews and TV blogging at FlickFilosopher.com

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us