Spaced/Characters

The residents of 23 Meteor Street are an... interesting lot. Here's all about them.

Tim Bisley (Simon Pegg)

Grouchy, jilted and heartbroken comic book artist with a serious interest Star Wars and something of a fixation on Gillian Anderson. Pretends to be Daisy's partner to get a flat.

• Berserk Button: He is not a fan of The Phantom Menace.
  • Twiglets also make Him violent.
• Character Tic: Reaches for his ears if someone mentions how small they are. He even knows if someone is talking about them from several miles away.
  • He also flings the cushion away every time he sits on the sofa
• Creator Breakdown: Check out his sketching pad after being dumped by his girlfriend. Not happy. Then see it after he moves in with Daisy and finds some measure of happiness. Happy!
• Ho Yay: With Mike. And how. Although Tim seems to have it with a slightly lesser degree towards Mike than vice versa.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's very grumpy, which tends to make him rather thoughtless and mean, but has a heart underneath it all.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: His reaction to the cage full of kittens when rescuing Colin indicates this. He rescues them as well.
• Man Child: Has very childish interests. Sees nothing at all wrong with this. Also has a tendency to strenuously refuse to accept the fact that he's getting older.

Tim: We've potentially destroyed her faith in today's youth! [Everyone looks at him skeptically] Tim: [Sheepish] Young adults.

• Neat Freak: Tim puts far more effort to keeping his and the communal rooms in good order than Daisy does
• Platonic Life Partners: With Daisy.
• Psychic Powers: As a gag. After losing his job, he has a conversation with Daisy and nervously rubs a fork the whole while, stating he wishes he "had a power to fall back on". Not that he notices, but the fork has been bent and twisted beyond repair.
• Serious Business: The Star Wars trilogy... and it's eventual decline.
• Wangst: Series one, after being jilted.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Lampshaded & averted. Tim actually has really bad hair from bleaching it and Bilbo and Sarah both call him out on it.

Daisy Steiner (Jessica Stevenson)

Would-be writer with zero inspiration or work ethic. Cheerful and bubbly to a fault. Pretends to be Tim's partner to share the flat with him.

• Genki Girl: Attempts to be one, but she's often morose and moody, and her genki antics are more often or not really an excuse to avoid doing any writing.

Tim Oh, let's have a party! Let's get a dog! Let's do some theatre! Let's stand in front of the bedroom mirror BOGELING TO ASWAD!

• Hollywood Pudgy: Mostly in the first season.
• Motor Mouth
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: She's an aspiring writer who actually does very little writing. Lampshaded by Tyres in this exchange:

Tyres: And what do you do? Daisy: I write, actually. Tyres: In other words, you're on the dole.

• Platonic Life Partners: With Tim.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Daisy tries this at her birthday party. Unfortunately, all the guys are more interested in the cake.
• The Slacker: Regularly avoids working. She also avoids exercise, but this is due to an endorphin allergy that makes her violently competitive.

Mike Watt (Nick Frost)

Tim's Heterosexual Life Partner. Territorial Army fanatic. Once stole a tank and tried to invade Paris, but got sidetracked by Disneyland.

• Ambiguously Gay: Mike seems to have it really bad for Tim, and is never suggested to have any kind of interest in the opposite sex...
  • Was also once seen holding a copy of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
• Blood Knight: A non-crazy or villainous example.
• Cool Guns
• Dumbass Has a Point: Mike often comes across as a bit of a blundering ditz, but is capable of laser-sharp insight from time to time.
• Ho Yay: With Tim. Oh, with Tim.
• Man Child: Logically, since he's friends with Tim. Tends to come across as a kid who desperately wants to play at war and soldiers.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Mike's life is consumed with the Territorial Army and his guns and war fixation... when he's not wearing pink aerobics gear to work out or a frilly apron to bake scones, that is.

Brian Topp (Mark Heap)

Conceptual artist, and lodger underneath Tim and Daisy's flat. Motivated by anger, pain, fear and aggression. Weird. Very, very weird.

• Ambiguously Gay: When pressed, Brian has asserted that he isn't gay... in a fashion that suggests he really thinks he ought to be.
• Chick Magnet
• Creator Breakdown: The motivation for much of Brian's artwork.
• Mad Artist: Subverted; Brian comes off as one of these, but he's just very very shy and socially awkward; he's actually quite sweet once you get to know him.
• True Art Is Angsty: One of Brian's main muses.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: The other of Brian's main muses. He's quite pretentious.
• Wangst: Brian's main purpose in life is to act incredibly tormented with little immediately apparent motivation for it.

Twist Morgan (Katy Carmichael)

Superficial fashion snob, shallow as a saucer and Daisy's best friend, although it's not immediately clear why. In the words of Tim, "either sweet-but-stupid or an evil genius". Briefly dated Brian - again, it's not entirely clear why (although sex seemed to be a major component).

• Alpha Bitch: A rare post-high school version, with a particular tendency to pick on Daisy.
• Backhanded Compliment: They're usually well-intentioned (see Compliment Backfire below), but she's deliberately insulting some of the time as well.
• Compliment Backfire: Most of Twist's communication with Daisy is in the form of possibly unintentional but definitely snide backhanded compliments.
• Fag Hag: What would seem to be Twist's eventual end-of-series fate, at first enthusiastically, but it palls. Until Brian arrives to make up with her.

Marsha Klein (Julia Deakin)

Ex-groupie, single mother and Tim, Daisy and Brian's perpetually sozzled landlady, with a serious crush on Brian. Is utterly thrilled with her new young friends, making their ongoing lie to her really rather awkward.

• Lady Drunk
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Its heavily implied that she's aware that Tim and Daisy aren't really a couple, she just pretends to be oblivious because she loves having them downstairs.
  • The penultimate episode would seem to subvert this (at least with regards to knowing about Tim and Daisy), since when she does eventually learn the truth in this episode she's absolutely devastated to discover that Tim and Daisy have been lying to her.

Colin (Ada)

Daisy's pet dog. Has a habit of adorably drooping his head to one side. Appears to be more intelligent than a dog really should be.

• Hell Hound: A running gag for a while is that Tim believes Colin to be evil.
• Team Pet

Duane Benzie (Peter Serafinowicz)

The slimy, gravelly-voiced bastard who stole Tim's girlfriend and reduced him to an embittered husk of a man.

• Asshole Victim
• Evil Is Hammy
• Evil Sounds Deep
• Evilly Affable
• Jerkass
• Pragmatic Villainy: Why he didn't sue Tim after getting shot in the bollocks. He knew Tim had nothing of value.
• Romantic False Lead: For Tim, regarding his old girlfriend. The bad kind.
• Self-Serving Memory: Appears to have this going on regarding the circumstances of how Tim's girlfriend came to be his girlfriend.

Daisy: You're Duane. Duane Duane. The Duane who... Tim: Stole my girlfriend. Duane: Well, that depends on how you look at it. Daisy: I think that's how Tim looks at it. Tim: Yes, I do.

Sophie (Lucy Akhurt)

Tim's girlfriend in series two. Likeable, friendly, good-natured and a really good match for Tim. Daisy and Mike hate her intensely as a result.

• Nerds Are Sexy
• Romantic False Lead: For Daisy and Mike, regarding Tim. The nice kind.

Tyres O'Flaherty (Michael Smiley)

Tim's messenger and clubbing friend. He has constant mood swings that only allows him to have an emotion one at a time, and he's constantly dancing to music generated by mundane objects and stuff around him. Despite his emotional outbursts and strangeness, he's quite a mate.

• Mood Swinger: Oh, so, so much a swinger. He can't, literally, hold a single emotion for a long time. Also provides the quote on the trope page.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Played with. Tim starts to explain to Daisy about how easily distracted Tyres has been an certain occasions, but both of them are immediately distracted by the TV.

Tim: "Tyres has got a really short attention span; I remember once we were — oh look, wrestling!"

• Leitmotif: Everytime he changes into an outburst of anger, a rave music starts to sound, and it stops when he calms down. Abruptly.
• Drugs Are Bad: The constant ectasy and clubbing got him a real bad case of FUCKING MOOD SWINGS. On the other hand, he's not at all a bad guy, and he's always lending money to Tim — albeit because he also has poor memory from over-use of drugs and can never remember that he's lent it or whether Tim's paid him back, which Tim exploits.