A summer of Freaks & Geeks
-
- June
- 20
No, that title isn’t a warning about weirdos lurking in the dog days.
It’s my summer plan. 30 Rock news has slowed to a trickle, and even Office updates are hard to come by five days a week, let alone seven. So I’m taking a cue from What’s Alan Watching (stealing his idea outright, actually), and rewinding to 1999.
That’s the year Freaks & Geeks debuted. The short-lived series—it was axed after only 18 episodes—apparently is chock full of early glimpses of the genius of Judd Apatow. My interest in Apatow, sparked two years ago by The 40 Year Old Virgin, was again piqued by seeing Knocked Up earlier this month.
The book on Apatow is that his TV career barely foretold his eventual big-screen success. Besides Freaks & Geeks, he was also behind the renewal-challenged Undeclared (16 episodes, according to imdb.com). Both shows, like Knocked Up, featured Seth Rogen and other mainstays of the Apatow talent pool.
The cast even includes James Franco (Spider-Man) and Linda Cardellini (ER).
Unlike the afore-mentioned blogger, I have no background with Freaks & Geeks. I never saw it when it was on. How do I know I’ll like it? Well, I don’t. Then again, I never saw Arrested Development before it died a slow network death, and now my AD DVDs are treasured possessions.
No, I’m going completely on the recommendations of many others that Freaks is a brilliant depiction of the trials and truisms of high school life. I’m also going on Apatow’s reputation, now firmly established in feature films if not on the tube.
Disc 1 is at the top of my NetFlix queue and thus, on the way. Reviews, reactions and commentary to come.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 12:31 pm by Brian Howard.
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I wouldn’t say it’s a glimpse at the early genius of Judd Apatow, it’s more like Knocked Up and 40 Year old Virgin are echoes of Apatow at his peak. I loved Knocked Up, it’s the best film of the year to date, but it doesn’t come close to hitting what Freaks and Geeks was at its peak. It’s easily one of the best shows to ever air on network TV and I’m eager to see a newbies’ reaction. Luckily, the period setting means that it will never feel particularly dated.
Well if you’re right, then I’m in for some fun TV this summer. Now I just have to get those two chick flicks my wife ordered back to NetFlix so I can get my F&G DVDs on their way to me.
And Amy Vernon might like to know I’ve obtained copies of the Battlestar Gallactica miniseries and the first four episodes of Season 1.
So much TV, so little time to watch and blog about it.
A convert! You’ll love it, I swear.