Freaks and Geeks (From Western Telegraph)

Freaks and Geeks

4:25pm Wednesday 30th September 2009

• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I posted a blog entry, for which I am sorry. First I broke my laptop and we're also having quite a lot of building work done on our house, which has completely fried my brain.

For reasons I will not go into publicly (I like to present an image of myself as being discreet and whatnot) I've been living back with my mum and stepdad for a few weeks now. There are a lot of good things about this, but I timed my move home impeccably to coincide with the renovation of our roof, and I currently have no kitchen.

I have found an excellent way of cheering myself up though. I'm guessing that most people would have heard of Judd Apatow, he's the director of films like Knocked Up and 40-Year Old Virgin. Before he did those though, in around 2000, he produced this amazing TV programme called Freaks and Geeks. It is seriously possibly the best series I've ever seen.

Unfortunately it's not available on DVD in region 2, so I've been watching it on YouTube after I finish work, but I recommend everyone to get hold of it in whatever way they can. It's one of the most realistic portrayal of teenagers in film or television and I think that it will speak to anyone who wasn't particularly popular at school. The media is too often focused on the cheerleader-types and Freaks and Geeks turns that trope completely on its head.

Rather than demonising or ridiculing the outsiders, Freaks and Geeks centres around them, normalising their experience, which realistically a lot of people can empathise with. The main character, Lindsay, struggles to reconcile who she wants to be with her parents' expectations and the way that her peers want to compartmentalise everyone. It is amazing to me that a grown man managed to evoke the ambivalence of a 16-year old girl's school experience so perfectly, without patronising or belittling her issues.

Freaks and Geeks is also hilarious. Both obviously and subtly. Bill Haverchuck is a work of genius as a character. Look out for the Halloween episode particularly: he dresses up as the Bionic Woman.

My problem now is that the show was cancelled, so only 18 episodes of Freaks and Geeks exist and it was so good that I got (as I quite often do) too attached to the characters. So I feel like I've experienced a loss. And although the finale was excellent, I don't think that anything could have really matched my expectations, so I'm mildly disappointed with the ending. Judd Apatow and Paul Feig (the creator) have said in interviews that it's unlikely that they'll ever return to the characters, so I am lost.

I think I need a new obsession. Preferably something that will carry on indefinitely. I might get my House DVDs out again. Either that or I'll work out how I can play region 1 DVDs, buy the Freaks and Geeks boxset from America for too much money and play the discs until they disintegrate. Knowing me it'll probably be the latter. I need to improve my social life.