On Tuesday, July the 22nd, the fantastic British sitcom, SPACED, (from the minds of the people who brought you Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) gets its long-awaited US DVD release.

If you haven't already imported a copy from the UK, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you pick up a copy of the US release. Highly.

I've not met a geek who doesn't like this show, so get in on the ground floor while you still have the chance to be the one telling people about it.

Spaced: The Complete Series

Two things:

1) the superb Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) sitcom SPACED is finally getting a US DVD release.  No word yet on whether music has been changed, but either way this is fantastic news.  Quite possibly the greatest nerd sitcom ever will now be available to lesser geeks everywhere. (And by 'lesser' I simply mean unable to acquire/play DVDs from outside of the US easily.  Us uber-geeks already own it on DVD due to thoughtful geek girlfriends.)

2) the ill-conceived McG Amer-remake of SPACED has been given the axe by FOX.  That sound you hear is geeks everywhere rejoicing.

For the uninitiated, here's a brief clip of what one might expect from this show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ZRGO7HPRU.

ARG!

Sure-fire way to ruin my day? Point out to me that FOX is set to Ameri-make™ my most favorite of cult classic Brit television series, "Spaced." Want to make it worse? Tell me that it's being written by "Will & Grace" and "Desperate Housewives" writers, and helmed by "Chuck" and "Supernatural" creator (and "Charlie's Angels" director) McG.

If you haven't seen this fine series, and you like smart/funny things, and/or nerd things (i.e. Star Wars, comic books, science fiction, zombies, videogames, movies, etc) I highly recommend picking up a copy at the usual location. Better yet, if you have a region-free DVD player, you can pick up the excellent 2-season box set from amazon.co.uk. It has loads of extras, including a Reference-O-Meter subtitle track to help you make sense of the few references you missed.

UPDATE: In case you are hesitant to download a show you know nothing about, the first episode is available on YouTube.

If, like me, you found Grindhouse to be a bit lackluster in the "mocking a genre lovingly" department, then perhaps Hot Fuzz will be a bit more to your liking. I know it was to mine.

Hot Fuzz is excellent at both making fun of the Michael-Bay-dual-guns-diving-sideways-in-slow-motion genre of films, and actually being a great Michael-Bay-dual-guns-diving-sideways-in-slow-motion film.

Like with Shaun of the Dead, I went into Hot Fuzz completely sure I was going to like it. Like with Shaun, I didn't just like it, I loved it. Usually for me, expecting to love a movie is the most sure-fire way to ensure that I don't, so the fact that these two films held up to my lofty expectations really says something about their quality.

In short, best film I've seen all year. The only problem? Now I really want to watch Point Break and Bad Boys II.

Attached to the film was a trailer for 28 Weeks Later, which I had been planning to avoid due to its violation of my "no remakes, sequels, remakes of sequels, or sequels to remakes" policy. Unfortunately I'm going to have to consider modifying that policy somewhat, because Weeks looks really awesome.

My adherence to this policy has been on somewhat shaky grounds recently anyway, since Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead is one of my favorite films in a long, long time, remake policy notwithstanding. What I've heard Zack saying about where he wants to take his zombie world next has me pretty amped up, so I had considered changing my policy to "no remakes, sequels, remakes of sequels, sequels to remakes -- unless Zack Snyder is to blame," but with 28 Weeks Later on the horizon, that's not going to work either. I could make it "unless zombies are involved," but then some lunatic might let George Romero make another Land of the Dead and I'll just want to hurt someone.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Spaced is probably the most brilliant show that you've never seen -- unless of course you live in the UK, then you already know how brilliant it is. Sadly, people fighting over money prevent this from being released here in the States, so you can't see it. Until now that is. (This is commercially available from amazon.co.uk if you have a region free dvd player. I highly recommend buying it from there.)

The second this series gets a US release date, these files are coming down, so hopefully your appetite has been whetted. Write your congressman.

Here's episode 5 of Spaced:

UPDATE: Sorry, due to potential problems with my host, I'm taking these down. You should purchase it at amazon.co.uk, and if you have a cpable dvd player you can watch it that way. Here's a cheap good one that is region-free after inputting a special code. This player also handles the PAL->NTSC conversion on the fly as well, so you won't need a special TV.

Also, you can get previous episodes.

Spaced is probably the most brilliant show that you've never seen. Unless of course you live in the UK, then you already know how brilliant it is. Sadly, people fighting over money prevent this from being released here in the States, so you can't see it. Until now that is. (This is commercially available from amazon.co.uk if you have a region free dvd player. I highly recommend buying it from there.)

The second this series gets a US release date, these files are coming down, so hopefully your appetite has been whetted. Write your congressman.

UPDATE: Sorry, due to potential problems with my host, I'm taking these down. You should purchase it at amazon.co.uk, and if you have a cpable dvd player you can watch it that way. Here's a cheap good one that is region-free after inputting a special code. This player also handles the PAL->NTSC conversion on the fly as well, so you won't need a special TV.

Also, you can get previous episodes.

I forgot to post an episode of Spaced before heading to Vegas. Sorry 'bout that.

Here's episode 3 of Spaced:

UPDATE: Sorry, due to potential problems with my host, I'm taking these down. You should purchase it at amazon.co.uk, and if you have a cpable dvd player you can watch it that way. Here's a cheap good one that is region-free after inputting a special code. This player also handles the PAL->NTSC conversion on the fly as well, so you won't need a special TV.

Also, you can get previous episodes.

Here's episode 2 of Spaced:

UPDATE: Sorry, due to potential problems with my host, I'm taking these down. You should purchase it at amazon.co.uk, and if you have a cpable dvd player you can watch it that way. Here's a cheap good one that is region-free after inputting a special code. This player also handles the PAL->NTSC conversion on the fly as well, so you won't need a special TV.

Also, you can get previous episodes.

It took me a while to get off my can and publish the first episode of Spaced, but it is finally time. I was going to go through the rigamarole of torrenting and whatnot, but seeing how Dreamhost just octupled my monthly bandwidth allotment (I currently have 1014 gigs a month, which will increase by 8 gigs every week from here on out), I'm now saying "fuck it" and am posting the actual avi.

UPDATE: Sorry, due to potential problems with my host, I'm taking these down. You should purchase it at amazon.co.uk, and if you have a cpable dvd player you can watch it that way. Here's a cheap good one that is region-free after inputting a special code. This player also handles the PAL->NTSC conversion on the fly as well, so you won't need a special TV.

Spaced is one of my all-time favorite shows, due in large part to the comedic genius of both Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. This show is chock full of pop culture references, many of which are really subtle (the rest are blatantly obvious), but it never stoops to the craptastic levels that Shrek and all the other Dreamworks CG films do with the in-jokes. Due to music licensing problems, this show will probably never appear on DVD in the U.S., so I'm gonna go ahead and make it available for all you that don't have region-free DVD players like me. (If you do have a region-free DVD player, you can purchase it online from various retailers, including amazon.co.uk.)

This show, like many British television programs, consists of 2 series of 7 episodes each. I'm going to post one episode a week for the duration of the first series, and if there is demand, I'll then do series 2 as well. If you could let me know what kind of transfer speeds you get, or simply how long it takes you to get the whole episode, I would appreciate it greatly.

This first episode takes a couple minutes to get moving, but once it does it's all uphill from there, so please give it a fair chance. You'll be glad you did. Oh yeh, I've prepared a clip as well, which you can read on to see.