Tuesday, 6 March 2012

TV review: Spaced


The adventures of Tim and Daisy who have to pretend to be a couple to get a flat.

Among the fandom Spaced is incredibly famous, Tarantino is a big fan for example, but like a lot of similar things it doesn’t have to same mind space among the general public and that is really a shame.
From the same team that would go on to make “Shaun of the dead” and “Hot fuzz” we get a quirky and surreal sit-com where is easy to see the seeds of those great movie. We have the same style of humor and, broadly speaking, the same concepts. Staples of American cinema are translated and transformed in to a low key British setting. The protagonists are also genre savvy, they often realize that they are living something straight out of Hollywood and react accordingly.
If there is one problem it’s that maybe it’s not the easiest thing to get it. On one side it’s all very British and so it doesn’t translate smoothly to other cultures. On the other side you get the most out of it if you are a geek, if your level of fandom is not really that advanced you are bound to lose many of the references. It’s obvious for us that Tim get really angry when somebody speaks about Jar Jar Binks but outside our little world it can certainly be puzzling.
Having said that it remains a very funny sitcom with the first outings together of Pegg and Frost, directed by Edgar Wright, so in my book it’s still a must see, even if you are not a geek. Eventually you need to start with something so why not start with something really funny and interesting?

No comments:

Post a Comment