watch it: American ‘Spaced’ pilot clips
No. No no no. No.
(more below the ad... scroll down...)
Oh, this is painful. Spaced so does not need to be remade. Certainly not this badly. Why? Why would they do this?
This is so wrong. Simon Pegg thinks so too. Fortunately, it appears to have been trashed. Score one for common sense and basic human decency.
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comments
posted by PaulW (Mon Mar 08 10, 5:17PM)
Did George Lucas have anything to do with this?
posted by Ken Patterson (Mon Mar 08 10, 5:45PM)
I think the only thing they almost got right was the location. I would have gone a few miles east to Berkeley...
posted by Emrys (Mon Mar 08 10, 8:14PM)
How did they copy Daisy way too perfectly and miss the mark so wildly on Tim?
posted by Martin (Tue Mar 09 10, 1:57AM)
Yeah, Daisy was better than I was expecting (which isn't saying much). She looks pretty 'normal' (in Hollywood terms) but nowhere near as funny as Jessica Hynes.
At least it's not as bad as the American version of Red Dwarf, their Lister made Ace Rimmer look like a dork.
Still overjoyed with the news that this, thing, got cancelled.
posted by Isobel (Tue Mar 09 10, 3:49AM)
No no no no indeed! That was frightening. Spaced is one of my all time favourite TV shows. My especial favourite episode is where they have the 'shoot out' with the drug dealers in the alley behind the pub.
posted by Muzz (Tue Mar 09 10, 9:19AM)
I didn't think it was so bad. Well, ok, that's not the right way to look at it. It was hopeless, but got the impression the performers are quite good and could work well together on... something with script written for them, not this.
It's so glaring just how wrong they got the Mike character, for instance. Making him this big rambunctious guy you see so often in US sitcoms. They're already macho sports/gun nuts half the time anyway. That Nick Frost is so completely harmelss is a big part of the joke.
In one sense the show has dated a lot and just redoing it straight wouldn't work any more. Sitting around playing video games is much more a mainstream male passtime now. When the show was made it fit better with all the other geeky themes.
In short, whoever tried to move this over holus bolus has a completely tin ear to both the culture the show came from and contemporary culture they're trying to put it into (for starters).
posted by RogerBW (Tue Mar 09 10, 12:57PM)
DO NOT WANT.
I agree with Emrys that the only character who comes close to working is Daisy'. And even she is rather too... bouncy.
posted by MC (Wed Mar 10 10, 11:31PM)
While I want Sara Rue to get another long term part in television, Spaced was not it.
I think this Youtube figure is more Daisy-like anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xX5r2YTYZU
Wow, that was bad. Whoever directed that doesn't have the visual flair that Edgar Wright brought to the original.
posted by Tonio Kruger (Thu Mar 11 10, 4:50PM)
Normally I'd be happy to see what looks like a Hispanic ethnic type cast in the type of role normally reserved for skinny Anglo-American dudes.
But nothing save the girl playing Daisy really works in that clip. And while I understand the temptation to employ the same "Americanization of a British show" method that worked so well for The Office, it should be noted that the American Office didn't really take off until after it stopped slavishly imitating its British counterpart and started developing its own personality.
Here's an idea. Stop writing the American equivalent of British characters and focus on American characters to begin with. Preferably the kind of characters that haven't been seen on TV before.
Granted, this advice comes from someone who is somewhat burnt out on sitcoms that aren't The Office and Ugly Betty right now but still...
posted by bronxbee (Thu Mar 11 10, 11:29PM)
so, the couple is *married* which right of the bat screws up the whole dynamic. and i'm sorry but without the nudity, the artist character loses a lot of his weirdness. so glad this didn't get greenlighted.
posted by MaryAnn (Fri Mar 12 10, 1:42PM)
No, I think they're just pretending to be married, like Pegg and Hynes pretended to be a couple (though not married, of course).
Not that that saves this in any way...
posted by bronxbee (Fri Mar 12 10, 1:55PM)
oh. when they recite in unison exactly how long they've been married (except for the 11 days bit)... i thought it was just the american way of making it "wholesome" enough for our pure and clean television viewers. it's too bad. i agree with MC that sara rue deserves more and better parts -- she was the only other thing in Eastwick worth watching. though i am a little disappointed in her jumping on the Jenny Craig bandwagon thing... money is money, i suppose.