Spaced/Mettle

Mettle
Season 2, Episode 3
Airdate	March 9, 2001
Written by	Simon Pegg & Jessica Stevenson
Directed by	Edgar Wright
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Spaced — Season Two

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Mettle is the third episode of the second season of Spaced, and the tenth episode overall.

Starring: Simon Pegg (Tim Bisley), Jessica Stevenson (Daisy Steiner)

Cast: Julia Deakin (Marsha Klein), Nick Frost (Mike Watt), Mark Heap (Brian Topp)

Additional Cast: Daniel Ainsleigh (Billy), Kevin Cecil, Paul Mark Elliott (Marty Berghaus), Gemma Padley (Francesca), Clive Russell (Damien Knox), Jonathan Ryland (Cromwell), Tim Sampson (Chief), Joanna Scanlan (Tina), Reece Shearsmith (Dexter)

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Robot Wars: Tim and Mike's story in this episode involves them creating a fighting robot for Robot Wars. Robot Wars is a competition originated in Britain where contestants pit their homemade robots against one another in a fight to the death. The series was also exported to the United States under the name Battlebots.

• Grease: Daisy's sensible and rebellious sides are represented by Sandy Olsson, the female lead in the musical Grease. Olsson, when she is first introduced, is the stereotypical sweet and innocent teenage girl (albeit one from Australia) who can't stand smoking, drinking or the sight of blood. However, her personality changed dramatically over the course of the story into a rebellious person thanks to her relationship with Danny Zuko. In the film adaptation, from which the costumes in this episode were taken, Olsson is played by Olivia Newton John.

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Daisy's experience in the kitchen of the restaurant parallels One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, which was popularly adapted into a film starring Jack Nicholson. The novel tells the story of a man who pretends to be insane in order to escape jail time and turns the mental ward he's sentenced to around. The other employees take on the roles of characters from the story, including Tina as Nurse Ratched, Billy as the stuttering Billy Bibbit, Daisy as Randle Patrick McMurphy and various unnamed extras as Chief Bromden and Charles Cheswick. Two specific references to the film version come at the end, with Chief picking up the heavy trash can (which he uses to make his escape) and thanking Daisy for gum (his first lines in the film, proving that he's not really deaf).

• Fight Club: Mike's rematch against Dexter takes place in "Robot Club," a parody of Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The novel, and film starring Ed Norton and Brad Pitt, is about two men who start a secret underground fighting ring that slowly evolves into an anarchist organization hellbent on resetting global wealth. The first two rules of Fight Club are "you do not talk about Fight Club."