Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Come get some

It was my good friend Stephen Cooke—one of three co-conspirators at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats (the other two being Tom Sutpen and Richard Gibson—by the way, loved the Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller tributes, guys)—who recommended that I find the time to check out Spaced, a Britcom he memorably described as “like Friends, only clever and funny.”  (That alone is worth the price of admission.)  It’s taken me a while (heck, I still haven’t cracked open the Men Behaving Badly box set that Laughing Gravy endorsed) but about a week and a half ago, I did some random web surfing and found both series of Spaced on sale for £4.23 apiece.  (I’m guessing you know what happened after that.)

But I have to be honest—when I watched the first two episodes of Series 1, I begin to wonder why Stephen gave his stamp of approval…only to decide that there was never any doubt by the closing credits of episode three.  I can’t be nearly as eloquent as Mr. Cooke in his description of Spaced, but I will say that for American audiences the best way to describe it is as a British version of Scrubs—with a little Seinfeld thrown in for flavor.

Twenty-somethings Tim Bisley (Simon Pegg) and Daisy Steiner (Jessica Stevenson) strike up a mutual friendship after being dumped by their respective mates.  Tim is an ambitious graphic artist who is toiling away in a comic book store (owned by Bill Bailey of Black Books fame) while waiting for his big break and Daisy is an aspiring journalist looking for a place to live.  She finds what appears to be the perfect flat—but the advertisement states “professional couples only”; so the two of them manage to fool tippling, chain-smoking landlady Marsha Klein (Julia Deakin) into thinking they’re an “item” and move into their new digs.  They befriend Marsha’s other tenant—a mysteriously sinister painter named Brian Topp (Mark Heap), who lives in the basement flat—and with the help of Brian and their best friends—“weapons expert” Mike Watt (Nick Frost) and fashion fascist Twist Morgan (Katy Carmichael)—continue their all-too-transparent charade for fourteen episodes, spaced (pardon the pun) out over two series.

In hearing Spaced’s synopsis, you might be wondering how a show with a bizarre cast of characters can possibly work—but it does, and beautifully as well.  It’s a prime example of how sitcoms don’t necessarily have to be about real families in order to promote a family atmosphere, and this becomes especially apparent in Episode 5 (“Chaos”) of the first season, in which this sextet of oddballs band together to rescue Daisy and Tim’s dog from an evil vivisectionist.  This closeness of the characters comes to a full boil in the following episode (“Epiphanies”), in which a bike messenger pal of Tim’s (Michael Flaherty) invites him and Daisy to go clubbing and the six of them venture out in what you think will end up a total disaster but instead becomes a most enjoyable and liberating experience. 

Spaced utilized many of the hallmarks found in Scrubs (Spaced premiered in 1999, two years before the American medical-themed sitcom, and I have little doubt that it was a major influence on Bill Lawrence’s creation): fantasy sequences, surreal plots, fast zooms and jump cuts, etc.; especially in its constant references to pop culture, from movies like Manhattan and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to TV series like The A-Team and The Dukes of Hazzard.  (My favorite reference is in “Chaos”; a beautiful throwaway gag that riffs on Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.)  The creative minds behind Spaced (co-stars Pegg and Stevenson, who also wrote the series, and director Edgar Wright) also have a George Lucas fixation that is frequently worked into the plots; the director is spoken of in referential terms in the first series but by Series 2 is vilified for the horror that dare not speak its name:

DAISY: So how are you, you big bloody man?

TIM: I’m good…I’m good…just had a few things to sort out…

DAISY: With Sarah?

TIM: No, with George Lucas…

DAISY: Tim…it’s been over a year…

TIM: It’s been eighteen months, Daisy…and it still hurts…

DAISY: Well, I didn’t think The Phantom Menace was that bad…

I’ve always admired those British comedy writers who have the good sense to quit while they’re ahead, but I’ll confess I was devastated by the end of Spaced’s final episode because I really got to like and identify with its unforgettable collection of characters.  American audiences have gotten a small taste of the show’s endearing quirkiness with 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, a funny send-up of zombie movies (with a particular nod to the work of George A. Romero), directed by Wright and starring Pegg and Frost (with Stevenson, Deakin and Spaced semi-regular Peter Serafinowicz in small roles).  If you’ve already seen Shaun, you’ll enjoy Spaced even more; I, on the other hand, watched Spaced first and while I liked Shaun I must admit it can’t hold a candle to the sitcom.  I’ve not been fortunate, however, to see Stevenson’s sitcom According to Bex—though judging by the clip I’ve seen it seems to have captured in a small way the flavor of Spaced.  (I’d provide a link to the clip but it would appear that that page has gone missing from The BBC.co.uk Guide to Comedy website.)

- Posted by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. - 8:53:38 AM - comment []