Spaced: The Next Frontier, on DVD

For Hynes, there was a gender imperative: giving viewers a sitcom female lead equal in quirky independence to the man. “I get so sick of seeing the age-old dynamic of a central male character, and the female being the foil or his object of lust, or his sad friend, at best.” Which is why she fashioned Daisy after herself. “My intention was to just keep inventing and reinventing Daisy, and never have to justify her motives, and not have her [be] seen through the prism of the man’s imagination.”

Hynes jokes that nobody noticed this feminist mission of hers: “I think if I had told Simon, I never would have got away with it,” she says gleefully. But in the cultural-shout-out department, she couldn’t convince Pegg and Wright to include a Spaced-ification of a defining movie moment from her childhood: fat kid Chunk’s blubbery confessional under threat of his hand in a blender, from the Spielberg-produced ’80s adventure romp The Goonies. “I see myself as Chunk,” Hynes admits. “We all see ourselves as Chunk, don’t we?” A beat. “Not all of us, maybe. Simon and Edgar said I should get over it.”

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More About

• Edgar Wright
• Jessica Hynes
• Simon Pegg
• Kevin Smith
• Star Trek

One thing Spaced fans should get over is a third season. Not that the trio don’t treasure and miss the show; they all look to their DVD tour in America with relish. (They’ll be at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash on Wednesday for a signing, then at the ArcLight that night for a screening of episodes and a Q&A with Kevin Smith.) Wright, who admits it was a creatively and physically exhausting show to make, likes that they quit while they were ahead. “They call it the curse of Fawlty Towers,” he says. “It set that bar where you do two seasons and stop.”

A movie version doesn’t sit well with the gang either. “The idea of it as a film would be strange,” says Pegg, who notes that its little-people-with-big-ideas concept works best on TV. “Part of the dynamic of the show was that you were seeing grand gestures in a small space. The minute you put that on the big screen, it would lose that effect.”

Besides, all three are quite busy. Hynes is currently working on a new U.K.-based series with acclaimed comic performer Julia Davis (Nighty Night). Wright is setting up a handful of films, from comic book adaptations to a third-genre shakedown comedy with Pegg. And Pegg has made the transition to movie actor, thanks to Shaun,and his and Wright’s action comedy, Hot Fuzz.

Although in a Spaced-like twist of life-imitates-imitative-art fate, he’s tackling the sci-fi-iconic role of Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ highly anticipated Star Trek reimagining, due out next year.

Needless to say, a Trekkie joke from Pegg’s own series could potentially haunt him. “There’s a line in Spaced when I say, ‘As sure as eggs is eggs, sure as day follows night, as sure as every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is shit,” this eternal geek says, laughing ruefully. “And I’m in Star Trek XI. But it’s great!”

SPACED: THE COMPLETE SERIES | BBC Warner | $59.98 | Release date: July 22

Jessica Hynes, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and “token American” Kevin Smith appear Wed., July 23, at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, 10587 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. (310) 475-4788, 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. At 7 p.m. that same night, the four appear at a three-episode screening of Spaced immediately followed by a Q&A moderated by Smith at the ArcLight, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd., Hlywd., (323) 464-4226.