After Dan mentioned Spaced in yesterday's post about The Big Bang Theory I spent most of today thinking about just how many excellent scenes the series has, for something which ran a meager fourteen episodes

Now I'm afraid this post has been a little neutered by Channel 4's refusal to allow embedding of their YouTube videos, it's understandable but it's still a crotch move. So I'm going to have to link direct to the videos of the various scenes rather than being able to have them here. But one makes do with what one has and C4 are absolutely right to protect their property as they feel is appropriate - I guess we should be grateful they have videos of it online at all.

So without further adieu here are my favourite Spaced scenes in no particular order at all.

1. Unspoken Telepathy/Slow Motion Commotion - From "Gone"

Tapping into the playground days of 'war' where children would run about with boundless joy 'shooting' each other with pretend guns, these twined scenes are nothing short of hilarious. Unfortunately, things like this don't happen in real life, but you can't help but think the world would be a better place if they did.

2. Dawn of the Dead - From "Art"

The scene which directly inspired Shaun of the Dead is another absolute classic, mixing the experience of playing Resident Evil along with general tiredness to create a semi-day dream, semi-hallucination filled with zombies.

3. Paint Balls - From "Battles"

When Tim and Mike head out paintballing they run into Duane, the man who stole Tim's ex-girlfriend from him a confrontation occurs. The war movie spoof at the end followed by the immediate cut to Mike and Tim leaving caps the scenes wonderfully. Unfortunately that moment is missing from the C4 video, so you'll have to catch it on DVD (or 4oD).

4. Pop Fiction - From "Back"

I just love Pulp Fiction, and the scene which this one parodies is a piece of magical cinematography. There's not much more to say really, except I do wonder what would happen if Daisy had pulled the trigger when the tarts popped. It's hard to say when you're talking about Mike's guns.

5. What's the Plan - From "Gone"

Two very different plans about a night out, both hysterical - but Tim's is the real gem. Absolutely munted!

6. Ringing in the Ears - From "Epiphanies"

I was almost afraid this one wasn't available in the C4 selection, it's actually my first experience with Spaced. This is the scene I saw when I first switched the channel over to 4 and I just loved it. It's made even more amusing by the second season call back which occurs in "Help"

7. An Office and a Violent Man - From "Ends"

Iconic Mike - a great spoof of the Rorschach test and I love the ending to this one as well.

8. Team Briefing - From "Chaos"

The team line up to discuss the plan with regards to saving Colin the dog from a vivisectionist. From the names all the way to Mike's inability to understand anything other than the 24 hours clock, this one just doesn't stop being funny.

Of course, Spaced being the amazing show it is there are so many more iconic and brilliant moments apart from these ones. I'm especially fond of Mike in the club dancing (also from Epiphanies).

Spaced is available to watch on 4oD or in all good DVD stores everywhere.
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Today it's the turn of a British Cult Classic Comedy.


(I've decided to move the Show section to the front, as that makes more sense.)

Spaced is one of those shows that just screams cult classic. It's witty, innovative, has masses of affection for pop culture and it launched Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost into the movie Block buster stars that they've become. You can see much of the work that later influenced their movies, in particular there is a scene which directly spawned 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Spaced is essentially a plotless examination of modern life, it's somewhat meaningless and it goes nowhere. But that simply doesn't matter, it's brilliantly written comedy that turns the mundane into something special. Without Spaced we wouldn't have gotten The Green Wing.



The Complete series comes in a simple 3 page fold out book. Each series is placed on one of the DVDs and the third DVD contains some extra material, including a documentry about the show that kind of provides closure for the devoted viewer. It has some excellent art, the box cover can be seen above (an excellent spoof of Star Wars)

It does everything you'd want it too, looks nice and doesn't take up much space on the shelf. The only way it could be better is if it was the same height as a CD case. But that's just the weird convention that DVD makers have decided to use.


Spaced has a lot of extras, there are extras on each DVD. Including Out-takes, commentaries, deleted scenes, raw footage, photo galleries, 'Spaced Jam' (just watch it and cast & crew biographies.

But the real star is the 'Homage-O-meter' setting, which puts a series of captions at the bottom of the show everytime something pop culture is referenced. Including what it is referencing and where it is from. This brought about the a particually amusing drinking game here - where you drink everytime the Homage-O-Meter references something. Due to the quantity of references in some scence this can be a complete killer.




Spaced - The 3 Disc Collectors' Edition will set you back, well... not a lot. You can get it for between £10 and £20. Play.com right now have it up for only £9.99! You get 343 minutes - which about 5h and 45 mins. Short I know, but that's what happens when you have a British show that's only about 20min per episode. Of course because it's so cheap this really works out well for the show. It works out at just under 3p per minute. Not bad at all.



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