Tim, we're not calling her 'Luke'.
November 18, 2016 9:00 AM Subscribe
An Oral History of Spaced: "Spaced came from our own flat-share experiences, but also in the wake of Friends in the mid-90s there had been a few copycat shows in Britain that were supposedly about young lives, and we just didn't feel represented in those shows at all ā they were all fairly attractive people hanging around in brightly-lit wine bars, talking about shagging. We felt a bit affronted by that..."
" I remember filming the scene when I shot the zombie's head off with a shotgun and thinking, 'This is going to be on after Friends.' "
Spaced: Skip to the End Documentary
Spaced rewatch on FanFare
Previously on Metafilter: Spaced is Ten; The attempt at an American remake
Spaced: Skip to the End Documentary
Spaced rewatch on FanFare
Previously on Metafilter: Spaced is Ten; The attempt at an American remake
I have no idea on the chemical compound question, but I can offer this on Resident Evil: It's a subtle blend of lateral thinking and extreme violence.
posted by nubs at 9:06 AM on November 18, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by nubs at 9:06 AM on November 18, 2016 [13 favorites]
@griphus
Amphetamine sulphate, also known by other names like 'whizz' and 'Billy', which comes from an old comics character called 'Billy Whizz' who was always zooming around and doing everything really quickly.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:09 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Amphetamine sulphate, also known by other names like 'whizz' and 'Billy', which comes from an old comics character called 'Billy Whizz' who was always zooming around and doing everything really quickly.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:09 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Aw, Spaced. It really felt more familiar to my life too than the shiny coffee shop world of Friends. I need to rewatch it.
posted by Kitteh at 9:11 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:11 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Best sitcom? Best sitcom.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:13 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:13 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Girl power! \/
posted by tobascodagama at 9:19 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 9:19 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
GallonOfAlan: As with all British slang, I cannot tell if you are making that up or if those are real things.
posted by maryr at 9:20 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by maryr at 9:20 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
they were all fairly attractive people hanging around in brightly-lit wine bars, talking about shagging
Some sitcoms, which shall remainnameless Coupling.
God, I loved Spaced - was introduced to it in Canada by a pair of British expats I was hanging around with. He spent his days in a lab pithing rats to try and cure epilepsy, she wrote for Adbusters, they drank like fish, and they brought their PAL TV and DVDs and their region-free player with them and showed us all kinds of cool stuff that wouldn't otherwise make it across the Atlantic.
Different life.
posted by Naberius at 9:22 AM on November 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Some sitcoms, which shall remain
God, I loved Spaced - was introduced to it in Canada by a pair of British expats I was hanging around with. He spent his days in a lab pithing rats to try and cure epilepsy, she wrote for Adbusters, they drank like fish, and they brought their PAL TV and DVDs and their region-free player with them and showed us all kinds of cool stuff that wouldn't otherwise make it across the Atlantic.
Different life.
posted by Naberius at 9:22 AM on November 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
mayr: Those are definitely real things. 100%
posted by Mintyblonde at 9:23 AM on November 18, 2016
posted by Mintyblonde at 9:23 AM on November 18, 2016
I can't believe that either! Damn your smooth sarcastic lilt, Britain. Damn it all!
posted by maryr at 9:31 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by maryr at 9:31 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Maryr: We Brits do occasionally make up slang etymologies to confuse Americans, but Billy Whizz is very real.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
This is a slight detour (Love Spaced, have it on my media player all the time, good stuff)
Anyway, I hadn't sat and watched an episode of Friends in over a decade because, well, it's a bit naff. But some nice person has been playing episodes in non-sequential order on a streaming platform and my family and I can see where the appeal was, strange casting and imaginary New York and all. It wasn't all hits, but when it hit.
(There was a bit where Chandler and Rachel? were eating cake from the floor in the hallway and Joey rounds the corner, sees this, squats down and produces a fork from his inside pocket without sarcasm or comment. I was in tears, it was perfect)
That is all.
posted by NiteMayr at 9:54 AM on November 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
Anyway, I hadn't sat and watched an episode of Friends in over a decade because, well, it's a bit naff. But some nice person has been playing episodes in non-sequential order on a streaming platform and my family and I can see where the appeal was, strange casting and imaginary New York and all. It wasn't all hits, but when it hit.
(There was a bit where Chandler and Rachel? were eating cake from the floor in the hallway and Joey rounds the corner, sees this, squats down and produces a fork from his inside pocket without sarcasm or comment. I was in tears, it was perfect)
That is all.
posted by NiteMayr at 9:54 AM on November 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
Maybe I'll dig up my DVD box set and have a post-Thanksgiving day watch-a-thon.
(Incidentally, the episode commentary featuring special guest Kevin Smith is what made go from not liking his work to loathing him as a person.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:58 AM on November 18, 2016
(Incidentally, the episode commentary featuring special guest Kevin Smith is what made go from not liking his work to loathing him as a person.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:58 AM on November 18, 2016
whizz-derail/ obligatory sorted for e's & whizz link.
posted by kariebookish at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by kariebookish at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Incidentally, the episode commentary featuring special guest Kevin Smith is what made go from not liking his work to loathing him as a person.)
There are a thousand paths to truth...
posted by Naberius at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
There are a thousand paths to truth...
posted by Naberius at 9:59 AM on November 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
Simon Pegg: In the episode where we watch the three Star Wars films, we could use the ewok celebration music from the end of Return of the Jedi, but we weren't allowed to use the original, so we had to re-record it ourselves and sing it. So if you watch that episode and listen to that music, that's me, Jess and Edgar doing ewok singing.Best takeaway from the whole interview.
posted by maryr at 10:00 AM on November 18, 2016 [10 favorites]
I can't even remember how I stumbled onto Spaced, but I was very glad I did.
A few years later I was watching another British sitcom, Green Wing (it was sometimes referred to as "the British Scrubs"). One of the actors was Mark Heap, but I didn't recognize the name at first and it took me a few episodes to realize that he was the guy who played the downstairs painter in Spaced. Heap is a very strange person - and I mean that in a good way!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:01 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
A few years later I was watching another British sitcom, Green Wing (it was sometimes referred to as "the British Scrubs"). One of the actors was Mark Heap, but I didn't recognize the name at first and it took me a few episodes to realize that he was the guy who played the downstairs painter in Spaced. Heap is a very strange person - and I mean that in a good way!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:01 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's not for everyone, but for me it just clicked. Wish they had kept the storylines going somehow, but there's something to be said for moving on.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:20 AM on November 18, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:20 AM on November 18, 2016
he was the guy who played the downstairs painter in Spaced
Do you mean, is he gay?
posted by Snowishberlin at 10:54 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Do you mean, is he gay?
posted by Snowishberlin at 10:54 AM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Oh Spaced, how I loved you.
Iām not sure I want to go back though. Will it still hold up to a re-watch? The DVDs lurk under the TV, gently mocking me.
posted by pharm at 11:37 AM on November 18, 2016
Iām not sure I want to go back though. Will it still hold up to a re-watch? The DVDs lurk under the TV, gently mocking me.
posted by pharm at 11:37 AM on November 18, 2016
It really does hold up for rewatch. It gets more awkwardly charming on each viewing.
Rabbits! Rabbits rabbits rabbits! Rabbits rabbits rabbits! Oh, like a little flower!
posted by mochapickle at 11:45 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Rabbits! Rabbits rabbits rabbits! Rabbits rabbits rabbits! Oh, like a little flower!
posted by mochapickle at 11:45 AM on November 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
he was the guy who played the downstairs painter in Spaced
Do you mean, is he gay?
Incidentally, "The Downstairs Painters" is the name of my new band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:05 PM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Do you mean, is he gay?
Incidentally, "The Downstairs Painters" is the name of my new band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:05 PM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have the import dvds and a region-free player, but I also bought the American dvds when they came out. I haven't watched them, though... I assume the music rights issues that prevented an earlier release were solved? After they slagged the Prequels I figured they'd never get the rights for the Star Wars- related music here in the states.
Random fact from the Spaced Out website: Not only did Peter Serafinowicz portray Tim's arch-nemesis, Duane Benzie, in Spaced, but he also was the voice of Star Wars bad guy Darth Maul.
posted by Huck500 at 12:36 PM on November 18, 2016
Random fact from the Spaced Out website: Not only did Peter Serafinowicz portray Tim's arch-nemesis, Duane Benzie, in Spaced, but he also was the voice of Star Wars bad guy Darth Maul.
posted by Huck500 at 12:36 PM on November 18, 2016
It absolutely stands up, but also it's a total time capsule. I'm of the same generation of the protagonists and, in my head, the 90s are about half an hour ago; rewatching, however, it's clear that it's, uh, a been a bit longer than that.
posted by parm at 1:09 PM on November 18, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by parm at 1:09 PM on November 18, 2016 [6 favorites]
That rave episode - I don't think any other show has captured what what it was like to go to a rave in the 90s as well as spaced.
posted by overhauser at 1:24 PM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by overhauser at 1:24 PM on November 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
On rewatch that episode was weirdly anachronistic. The show was on in the late 90s, but Brian gets beat up in an 80s club to the tune of Come on Eileen, and the triumphant final scene is clearly set in about 1993. I mean, it felt right at the time...
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:52 PM on November 18, 2016
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:52 PM on November 18, 2016
The Brian scene was clearly a flashback, though.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:13 PM on November 18, 2016
posted by tobascodagama at 2:13 PM on November 18, 2016
Yes, a flashback to 15 years before for a guy in his 20s.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:43 PM on November 18, 2016
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:43 PM on November 18, 2016
I always assumed Bryan was meant to be older than the two protagonists.
posted by pharm at 2:10 AM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by pharm at 2:10 AM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes, that was my assumption as well. The actor would have been in his 40s at the time, and he's closer in age to Marsha's actor than to Simon Pegg or Jessica Stevenson. I always figured the relative character ages were meant to be similar.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:36 AM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 6:36 AM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
ā Heap is a very strange person
Oh how little you have seen; I give you Mark Heap as Leonard Hatred ā¦
posted by scruss at 6:50 PM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Oh how little you have seen; I give you Mark Heap as Leonard Hatred ā¦
posted by scruss at 6:50 PM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was glad she mentioned this:
Jessica Hynes: When writing Daisy and Tim, part of my subversive motive was to try and create two protagonists who were on an even keel, who were different genders but not in any way lesser or more interesting or more dynamic or more funny than one another."posted by LobsterMitten at 6:59 PM on November 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
No discussion of Mark Heap's genius is complete without reference to Jim, the creepy next-door neighbour in Friday Night Dinner.
I rewatched Space around the tenth anniversary. I was totally the target demographic first time round (20-something living in houseshares in north London; one of my colleagues used to go to the pub quiz in Archway that Pegg et all also went to, in a pub that I think was the basis for The Winchester).
I had the same cognitive dissonance watching it again that I sometimes have looking back on my own life: Those years, those people, these characters, seem just a moment away - and yet - mix tapes! No mobile phones! They call each other on the landline and leave messages!
posted by penguin pie at 6:39 AM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I rewatched Space around the tenth anniversary. I was totally the target demographic first time round (20-something living in houseshares in north London; one of my colleagues used to go to the pub quiz in Archway that Pegg et all also went to, in a pub that I think was the basis for The Winchester).
I had the same cognitive dissonance watching it again that I sometimes have looking back on my own life: Those years, those people, these characters, seem just a moment away - and yet - mix tapes! No mobile phones! They call each other on the landline and leave messages!
posted by penguin pie at 6:39 AM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by griphus at 9:03 AM on November 18, 2016 [1 favorite]