Revisiting FREAKS AND GEEKS - Page 3

Time to send Singer to a home.

OK, halloween episode was cute, and heart-tugging. But seriously, all you guys act as if you went to junior high school with precocious screenwriters or something.

get to "kim kelly is my friend", thats where it grabbed me.

I'm definitely looking forward to more. Very entertaining, if a bit conservative.

I watched "Looks and Books" last night. Haverchuck's "Super stud, Sam. Go for super stud!" was magical.

So, I watched "The Garage Door". Sam's reaction to receiving the Atari, Neil's aimless search for the right garage door, just heartbreaking to watch.

Haverchuck makes the show for me. Everything he does is greatness. When I found out he was the beard guy from Knocked Up, the universe made sense.

Does not compute.

I love F&G (and watched it when it aired - you can't be me for cancellation folks!), but MSCL is greatness. Boo to you!

I watched this television program for the first time a year or two ago. I was very impressed with the overall quality of both the acting and the writing. It felt very "true to life" though i was disapointed to see so much of the story take place from the "freaks" perspective rather than the geeks.

I have to say though, jason segall was not done any favors by this series. i was left totally unable to enjoy the sarah marshall movie due to his presence. you see, the sequence where he tried to force himself on sams sister by PRETENDING TO BE DRUNK off near beer was totally creepy, as were his other antics on the show. as a female viewer, this left a very bad taste in my mouth and spoiled him as an actor for me. Kind of like, if i'd first seen mark whalberg in 'fear' instead of in the film with CYF, i dont think i'd be able to enjoy entourage or I Love Huckabees.

That's interesting, because my wife sees Nick Andopolis as totally endearing (if a bit dense).
I don't see how he's not completely harmless, actually.

And he wasn't pretending to be drunk.............

"And he wasn't pretending to be drunk.............
"

he was drinking non alcoholic beer... he could not have been drunk. anyway... for whatever reason, his character totally creeped me out. then i tune into the first few minutes of forgetting sarah marshall, and he is like, refusing to put clothes on etc... creepy factor was not helped by that.

Jason Segel makes me shudder in general. I think he's funny, and I got really close to totally liking him in FSM. But he did TOO well in both F&G and Undeclared. He will always be creepy to me. Even when he was playing a fairly laid-back and chill dude in I Love You, Man, I still felt like off.

A lot of people at that party were 'drunk.' They weren't pretending. Not consciously anyway. They wanted to be drunk, so they felt drunk. I include Segel's character in this. That's the gag. The only one who didn't go for it was Seth Rogen's character.

Try HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER. He's fantastic in it and totally fearless when trying to make you laugh. He also plays a really decent and nice guy.

I still giggle over the scene in season 2 where they're at a gay bar(Don't ask, you need to see it) and he's giddy over the fact that he can have a fruity pink drink in public. There's a very 80's Tom Hanks/John Cusack vibe to his character.

I have lots of friends who watch HIMYM, and I can't say I've been impressed at all. But it mostly comes from the fact that I can't stand the multi-camera laugh-track sitcom anymore. It simply GRATES on my nerves. Not just the format, but what that format does to the delivery/timing/performance of jokes.

If it were the same show, but done up like a single camera sitcom, I'd probably love it.

I know it's a pretty shallow rationale and totally not fair to a show that's probably alright, but I can't help it.

But yea, Segel isn't quite so creepy in that show.

ok... sure, alot of people were pretending to be drunk (or thought they were or whatever). that seems even worse to me, everyone thought they were drunk, but only one person used the oportunity of "whoa im so out of it i dont know what i'm doing!" to force himself on sams sister. the very fact that he did that when sober, regardless of whether or not he thought he was, says alot more about him than it would had he been ACTUALLY intoxicated. again, speaking only for myself, but he comes off as totally creepy and even in interviews... just... off

i will say out of fairness i've not seen all his work though.

Totally, he doesn't get girls. It would be creepy if he intentionally acted like a jerk. But he doesn't know any better.

Just because I said that nearly every character in MSCL is unlikable doesn't mean I don't think it's pretty great. I though I covered that with: "Both are amazing portrayals of youth".

Does not compute. Boo to you!

I wanted to be Rayanne, hang out with Ricky, fuck Jordan, have Angela's family, and Brian, well he's the guy you get to do your homework while you make out with the hot dude.

I like MSCL, too, but I think the chief difference is in their perspective. MSCL is told from the perspective of a teenager - high school life is romanticized just as you probably saw it when you were that age. F&G is told from the perspective of being a few years removed. It's not as overt as The Wonder Years was with the narration and everything, but it's safe to say that we often find the characters funnier than they find themselves.

The added benefit is that all of this "funny in retrospect" material lets the stuff that's never funny ("The Garage Door," for instance) hit even harder. On MSCL, everything's high drama, whether it's an unrequited crush or homelessness.

Meh. You like annoying people, then. I wanted to slap pretty much everyone you listed.

Regardless, I stand by my assertion that both are quality shows that framed their characters in opposite ways. One isn't necessarily a better way to frame their characters than the other, but at least to me one is certainly more enjoyable to watch.

DaveB's right in that it's a matter of perspective. F&G viewed through the lens of nostalgia, and MSCL is shot though the lens of a overly-dramatic self-absorbed naive teen. It's interesting to me to see how those different perspectives make you feel about the characters. F&G made me want to hang with those people; MSCL made me want to slap them.

Tom Wilson might be my favorite of the adults on the show, in that I came away from the series really, really impressed with him as an actor. He took a role that could have very been "Biff Tannen as a gym coach" and did a lot of really nice things with it, things that were subtle and also funny. You really get the impression (and this goes for some of the other teachers, too, even the angry math teacher) that he might grumble about his job and berate his kids, but he really cares about them and likes being a teacher. The scene with Sam in the sex episode and the arc with Bill is just wonderful.

The commentaries go into a little bit about what would have happened with a second season, and one of the things was that Fredricks and Bill's mom (also great, and another awesome example of how they take a sterotype and invert it...I mean, that scene with Sam's mom in the hospital, goddamn.) were going to get married. There was also the idea that Bill would wind up being pretty good at sports, and would wind up spending a lot of time with the popular kids as a result. I'm kind of sad I didn't get to see how that developed.

I'll second the love for Segel on How I Met Your Mother. That's more of a "watch a bunch on DVD when you're bored and lazy" type show for me, but it works quite well. It may sound like faint praise, but it's a really well done traditional three camera comedy. I think we've been innudated with bad examples of that format for decades, but it's a format that can still work. Although Josh Radnor is kind of boring, what makes the show work is the chemistry the cast has with each other, and Segel and Alyson Hannigan are great together, and Marshall's a sweet, fun character. It's a really nice ensemble show. Also, Neil Patrick Harris.

(And as bad as "Garage Door" is, "Noshing and Moshing" might be the most painful episode of the series to watch for me.)

Damn, now I want to watch the show again.

Re: Louris

I think both shows are greatness, so this isn't a pissing contest. I just I don't get what's unlikeable about MSCL's characters. I can understand not identifying with them, but they're just kids that take every thing way too seriously.

Just went on a 3 day jag watching all 18 episodes. Whoever said it got legendary around the middle of its run was right on the money. While it's hard to choose an absolute favorite, I would have to say the one about the coach dating Haverchuck's mom is hard to beat. What puts it over the top was Haverchuck changing the channel to Dallas and explaining the plot to the coach. Such a great (and not over the top) way of showing Haverchuck giving the coach a chance.

Well, I'm on to the final disc and the last three episodes. It makes me sad.

Oh, and Lindsay getting freaked out by the little boy she's baby-sitting is magical:

Little Boy: "Stop cheating! It's my turn to hide now and you're cheating."
Lindsay (all kinds of distressed): "Nuh, no, no, I'm not cheating. Just give me some space, man, okay?"

Or something like that.

I also loved her double take at the picture on the wall: "I don't like this place. It's freakin' me OUT."

That's funny, because I absolutely loathe multi-camera laugh track shows, and HIMYM is one of my favorite things on TV.

I know, how horrible to try and put the moves on a girl that you're getting along with and when she says "no" to immediately stop and then apologize profusely. It's not like he stuck a fist in her suddenly or anything.

Hey guys,

just wanted to let you know about a show called "skins" from the bbc that might appeal to fans of MSCL and FAG. i posted a thread for it on the television forum, but here is my cut and pasted description of it:

"Imagine Larry Clarke's 'Kids' combined with Freaks and Geeks with a little 'My So Called Life'... with british accents. (instead of things being cool, they're 'posh'. instead of people smoking cigarettes, they smoke 'fags'. instead of people riding in an elevator, they ride in a 'lift'. ETC)
"

It also has dev patel from slumdog millionaire (he played final evolution of jamal in that film).

I watched "Discos and Dragons" last night. I have one question:

SO, THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

i think the girl in the army jacket went to summer camp or something, right? i remember she got on a bus
EDIT: the girl i was talkign about was Lindsay

That's like asking how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop...

i actually did that once, found out how many it took. Now, I only did it ONCE with one pop, so that is probably not a good statistical sample to give an accurate idea of the number of licks it takes on average, but for what its worth...

106

The commentaries go into things that would have happened. I discussed some of them before, but highlights include:

Lindsay would have been in deep shit about skipping out of the panel to follow the Dead, but the trip would have had more of an effect on Kim.

Bill's mom and Coach Fredricks would have gotten married at some point.

One of the geeks would have proven to be really good at a sport (I think basketball), and become popular on their own merits.

Neil's parents would have gone through a really horrible divorce like Judd Apatow's. Neil would be living with his mom and see his dad only on the weekends, and his dad would have moved into a crappy apartment in town.

It's not enough! I demand more.

And now, sad face.

That's fair enough, but people only really play ball with Nick when it also suits them. He didn't put a spell on the Weirs; they threw him a bone. He may well have become more assertive and commanding, but he still seemed some way off that by the end of the show. I've just been reading through this thread for the first time, hence the arbitrary comment focus. It should also be noted that I thoroughly enjoyed the series and would've loved more, too.