Spaced – Summer DVD Review – Beginnings

photo: bbc

Spaced
Beginnings

Season 1, Episode 1

JD – Associate Staff Writer
jd@thetwocentscorp.com

You put Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright together, and what do you get? Genius films like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Of course, those are all the big screen efforts, but what about the small screen? Well, look back a decade in the past to 1999 and you’ll find Spaced, a quirky comedy about a group of people trying to find their place in the world as they tread that murky place somewhere between youth and adulthood. Well, that’s the serious way to put it, anyway. The more realistic way to put it is “a group of utter nutjobs who wind up thrust together by a twist of fate and have to learn to endure each others issues… all while trying to find their place in the world at a rather confusing stage of life”.

Meet Tim Bisley (Pegg), a graphic artist who can’t sell his art, and Daisy Steiner (Jessica Hynes, who was credited as Jessica Stevenson then and co-wrote the series with Pegg), an aspiring writer who doesn’t write. Tim just got the boot from his girlfriend and doesn’t have a place to stay; Daisy is living in squat and wants to get out.

A random meeting in a coffee shop, and boom! History, as they say, is made. Tim and Daisy pull their own version of Green Card and pose as a couple to get a flat, where they meet Marsha (Julia Deakin, Hot Fuzz, Doctors), the alcoholic upstairs landlady, with a heart of gold and a lusty side. She has a daughter named Amber, who we hear but never see, and an ex-husband who left her for his dog.

Brian (Mark Heap, Big Train, Green Wing) is the downstairs neighbor, who Marsha’s lust is directed at. He’s an artist who paints Anger, Pain, Fear, and Aggression, and whose apartment is something akin to a bat cave. He makes his first appearance in nothing but a cowboy hat and boots, and he never gets any more normal throughout the series.

Twist (Katy Carmichael, Waterloo Road) is Daisy’s best friend, who “works in fashion”, which actually means “works at a laundromat”. Mike (Frost) is Tim’s best friend. He’s a “weapons expert”, which actually means “lunatic who likes to shoot things”.

This episode is mostly set up and is low on the parody aspect, making quick references to things like The Shining and Scooby Doo, unlike future episodes that revolve around themes, like the Zombie genre episode, and the they’re-going-to-look-back-at-this-and-cringe Matrix episode.

Here’s where I’m going to wax philosophical at you for a moment. I bet you didn’t expect that after all that ‘treading the murky place between youth and adulthood’ malarkey, huh? Well, deal with it. I don’t do this often.

The thing about Spaced that makes it so remarkable to me is that it somehow manages to be two things at once. It’s both an utterly ridiculous comedy, and something that resonates completely with me. Granted, I am a writer that hopes one day to be paid for my writing (we do this out of love here, folks) who lives with (read: is married to) an artist who’s still trying to find his niche. But I really don’t think that’s what does it for me. That’s just what made me nudge my husband and go, “Dude, we are Tim and Daisy! You have to watch this!” (He now loves the show too, by the way.)

I think even without the twilight zone aspect of it for me, though, it would still hit close to home. Tim and Daisy are, essentially, lost. So is everyone else on the show. I think anyone on my general age range knows that feeling: how do I move on and “become an adult” without compromising all those dreams I had in my youth? Essentially, where is my place in this world now that I’m here “on my own”?

Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into it because I’m obsessed and have no life. Maybe it is just a show about neurotic twenty/thirty-somethings and their equally insane friends. You can judge for yourself.

Next week, I’ll be reviewing episode two, Gatherings, and we can all watch as Daisy fails spectacularly at throwing a housewarming party.