Spaced-the ultimate postmodern sitcom
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
On a semi-sunny friday evening in the summer of '99 a brand new sitcom started on Channel 4, a bizarre, comic booky, pop-cultural referencing comedy breezed onto the screen and lifted the humid dry summer atmosphere.
It was sold as a live action version of The Simpsons mixed with Rising damp. The situation is a dusty, creepy old house, run by a lonely vamp landlady called Marsha, renting it out to twenty somethings Tim (would be cartoonist) and Daisy (wannabe writer), and a mad artist called Brian who lives in the basement.
First off it's the most stylish and funky sitcom ever. The camera jumps around like a freaky dancing gazelle, exploring every angle, POV, and cuts from reality to a fantasy fuelled by everything from Scooby Doo to 2001: a Space Oddysey. Crammed into every episode is umpteen references to almost any cult T.V. show in existence. But it's also a love story.
It starts at crisis point for the two protagonsits; Tim and Daisy. She has to leave her squat after an embarrasing asignation, while he has been dumped by the love of his life for 'a slimy city boy called Dwayne'. Meeting by chance in a greasy spoon cafe and depserate for a place to live, they decide to pretend to be a couple to get the flat at Marsha's house.
They take fake photos of themselves and reference the movie Green Card at the same time. Once moved in they meet Brian and Marsha, and spot the big question mark hanging over their relationship. Tim asks Brian 'What's the deal between you and Marsha?' to which Brian responds 'You know about the deal.'
They have a housewarming and we meet Mike, something of a loveable trigger-happy nutcase, who was kicked out of the T.A. after stealing a tank and trying to invade EuroDisney. He is Tim's childhood friend and is probably in love with him. Also we meet Daisy's friend Twist, who is in fasion (she works at the dry cleaners), and is pure bimbo chic. She holds a candle for Brian after their first meeting, incurring Marsha's jealous wrath in the process.
The pop-culture references are very funny foremost but they depict the world that these characters inhabit. Mike wants to be a gun toting hero in The Matrix, Star Wars, and The A-Team. He sees himself as Neo, Mr.T or Han Solo (except all of them big, hairy versions with a neatly trimmed bushy moustache).
Tim is his playmate, who plays Resident Evil on speed and is chased around a darkly lit flat by zombies (when halucinating). He is grumpy and angry, sketching his revenge fantasies against his ex in his comic book portfolio, while hoping to make a success of his comic book The Beast.
Of course Tim and Mike fight over who'll play Han Solo when they raid an animal testing laboratory to rescue their pet dog Colin. Brian gets to be Chewbacca incidentally.
Daisy and her present boyfriend have pet names out of The Dukes of Hazzard. She's Daisy Duke and he's Boss Hog. More pop culture ensues with her self-image too. Daisy is Angela Lansbury when she hits a rich vien in her brain and can't stop writing. She is James Cann in Misery when she has a writer's block.
Marsha self-image is Cher. Twist's is Cher from Clueless. Brian is also a very real person, as well as being comically mad, and totally pretentious. He over analyses everything. A punch is visual poetry, 'renting downstairs' implies homosexuality, Resident Evil is comparable to It's a Knockout, and smashing a boiled egg with a hammer is an artistic exploration of aggression as a concept.
They are all the children of pop culture. Born in a fiction based reality. Their fictional heroes are their surrogate parents and their role models.
Don't be fooled though, they are not characatures. They are real people, more real than any soap opera character. This is because they want to be people who aren't real. They have grown in front of the telly like everyone we know. Spaced takes classic sitcom characters like the mad artist, the man-eater, the lazy writer and asks one question: If these people exist what are they really like? And shows the weird comic strip reality they inhabit, as well as being hysterically funny.
So far there have been two series and a third is on its way. The love story is the friendship between Tim and daisy and a will they/won't they fall in love. Not a will they/won't they have sex. They got that out of the way as soon s they moved in together.
It was sold as a live action version of The Simpsons mixed with Rising damp. The situation is a dusty, creepy old house, run by a lonely vamp landlady called Marsha, renting it out to twenty somethings Tim (would be cartoonist) and Daisy (wannabe writer), and a mad artist called Brian who lives in the basement.
First off it's the most stylish and funky sitcom ever. The camera jumps around like a freaky dancing gazelle, exploring every angle, POV, and cuts from reality to a fantasy fuelled by everything from Scooby Doo to 2001: a Space Oddysey. Crammed into every episode is umpteen references to almost any cult T.V. show in existence. But it's also a love story.
It starts at crisis point for the two protagonsits; Tim and Daisy. She has to leave her squat after an embarrasing asignation, while he has been dumped by the love of his life for 'a slimy city boy called Dwayne'. Meeting by chance in a greasy spoon cafe and depserate for a place to live, they decide to pretend to be a couple to get the flat at Marsha's house.
They take fake photos of themselves and reference the movie Green Card at the same time. Once moved in they meet Brian and Marsha, and spot the big question mark hanging over their relationship. Tim asks Brian 'What's the deal between you and Marsha?' to which Brian responds 'You know about the deal.'
They have a housewarming and we meet Mike, something of a loveable trigger-happy nutcase, who was kicked out of the T.A. after stealing a tank and trying to invade EuroDisney. He is Tim's childhood friend and is probably in love with him. Also we meet Daisy's friend Twist, who is in fasion (she works at the dry cleaners), and is pure bimbo chic. She holds a candle for Brian after their first meeting, incurring Marsha's jealous wrath in the process.
The pop-culture references are very funny foremost but they depict the world that these characters inhabit. Mike wants to be a gun toting hero in The Matrix, Star Wars, and The A-Team. He sees himself as Neo, Mr.T or Han Solo (except all of them big, hairy versions with a neatly trimmed bushy moustache).
Tim is his playmate, who plays Resident Evil on speed and is chased around a darkly lit flat by zombies (when halucinating). He is grumpy and angry, sketching his revenge fantasies against his ex in his comic book portfolio, while hoping to make a success of his comic book The Beast.
Of course Tim and Mike fight over who'll play Han Solo when they raid an animal testing laboratory to rescue their pet dog Colin. Brian gets to be Chewbacca incidentally.
Daisy and her present boyfriend have pet names out of The Dukes of Hazzard. She's Daisy Duke and he's Boss Hog. More pop culture ensues with her self-image too. Daisy is Angela Lansbury when she hits a rich vien in her brain and can't stop writing. She is James Cann in Misery when she has a writer's block.
Marsha self-image is Cher. Twist's is Cher from Clueless. Brian is also a very real person, as well as being comically mad, and totally pretentious. He over analyses everything. A punch is visual poetry, 'renting downstairs' implies homosexuality, Resident Evil is comparable to It's a Knockout, and smashing a boiled egg with a hammer is an artistic exploration of aggression as a concept.
They are all the children of pop culture. Born in a fiction based reality. Their fictional heroes are their surrogate parents and their role models.
Don't be fooled though, they are not characatures. They are real people, more real than any soap opera character. This is because they want to be people who aren't real. They have grown in front of the telly like everyone we know. Spaced takes classic sitcom characters like the mad artist, the man-eater, the lazy writer and asks one question: If these people exist what are they really like? And shows the weird comic strip reality they inhabit, as well as being hysterically funny.
So far there have been two series and a third is on its way. The love story is the friendship between Tim and daisy and a will they/won't they fall in love. Not a will they/won't they have sex. They got that out of the way as soon s they moved in together.
