SPACED: THE DEFINITIVE BOXED SET is out now! It's recommended retail price is a whopping £24.99, but you can get it for around £16 on the web. So what do you get for your money?
To start with, a very attractive box, a homage to the finest Star Wars posters, and very lovely it is too. Opening up the box, we are greeted with a message...
"Dearest Viewers,
Thank you for purchasing this special three disk presentation of the quirky, award winning sitcom Spaced. Particular thanks if you have already purchased the existing versions of the quirky, award winning sitcom Spaced and you're buying it all over again for the new bits. That's exactly the sort of thing a Spaced fan would do. (It was hard to be offended by the introduction, considering that this Spaced fan, and many others had done just that.) So, turn off the lights, spark up a fatty and check your coat pockets for Jaffa Cakes. Tonight is gonna be a large one. Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright."
The first striking thing is that the use of white, rather than the black that marked the previous releases and SpacedOUT. Also standing out is the lovely artwork on the disks - the art that lent such style to the series adorns each of the three disks.
The first disk has some nice extra features, including a Homage-O-Meter, More Out Takes (including an interesting view of Tim and Brian...) and Raw Footage, which includes the arguments between Amber and Marsha as recorded by Jessica Stevenson and Julia Deakin. The menu graphics have also been updated to match those of the third disk.
The third disk has "Spaced Jam" by Osymyso, a delightful trip down memory lane, with an enjoyable mix of music and scenes from the series (the syncronized sobbing scene from 1.1 works particularly well!). The feature length documentary features Simon, Jess and Edgar visting their old haunts: "Meteor Street", The Corrib Rest, Camden and other areas used in the series, as they reminisce about their experiences, but it mainly feels that you're meeting up with friends with a past history that you're not really part of. Also featured are various media types who pontificate on why Spaced worked.
...the documentary also features an interview with Nick Lee, the founder of SpacedOUT, as well as a photo gallery from the various conventions held. It was easy to pick out plethora of luminaries from the SpacedOUT forum. There's also a little added scene at the very end which was quite quite lovely, but I'm not going to reveal it here. Suffice to say, it should put a lump in the throat of any fan! Well, it did me.
One thing I noticed was that although the disks themselves have lovely artwork, the menu graphics on disk 2 have not been changed - maybe because it couldn't be improved on?
So, to buy or not to buy?
Spaced stands head and shoulders above any other sitcom, in style, humour and substance. It doesn't need people from the Sunday Times telling us how good it was, or what made it different. And yet, here am I, aged 31, like a kid at Christmas watching the series that turned my life upside down, and watching the people who made me laugh so, so much returning to the places they filmed, listening to them talking about what it meant for them, seeing Ada: it all brings home just how special Spaced was and is. Whether that's worth £16 - yes, to me, definately. But even if you don't buy the latest release... it might just be time to dust off the DVD, to remind you what it was that got you hooked in the first place.
"We had good times"