Probably the best TV show I’ve seen in a long time despite it being about six years old is Spaced. If your a fan of Shawn of the Dead then you’ll love Spaced. It comes from the same director (Edgar Wright) and Written by Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg. The story revolves around two people who need to find a new place to live. Tim, played by Simon Pegg, was thrown out of his girlfriends flat after the end of their 5 year relationship and Daisy, Played by Jessica, needs to move out of a house she was squatting at after sleeping with one of the guys there while her boyfriend was at university. The two meet and decide to pretend to be a couple after finding a flat in their price range that stated “Professional Couples Only”. So they pull an homage to the movie GreenCard and fake a relationship to get the flat.

The series tips its hat to a number of film classics and makes a number of pop culture references. Such wonderful execution of nerdery takes place in the series. Quite often Star Wars and other sci-fi movies are mentioned.

What is particularly interesting about this series is that it is shot like a film. Single camera setups and some odd conventions like dutch angles and camera whips are employed to give the series a bit more of a comical feel but manages to pull it off without being too campy. If you find the visual style appealing in Shawn of the Dead then you can see how it evolved from Spaced.

The unfortunate thing about this series is there are only two seasons. Both of which only consist of 7 episodes. It really leaves you wanting more. There is speculative rumor of a third season coming out but I wouldn’t hold my breathe. The other thing that is particularly problematic is that the DVD is only available in region 2 encoding so your standard U.S. DVD player will choke on it. So what is one to do? I found the first two episodes on Google Video for you to enjoy. It’s up to you to get the rest.

Season 1 Episode 1 – “Beginnings”

Season 1 Episode 2 – “Gatherings”