The best part of Freaks and Geeks

 From 2015-2018 my Netflix recommended queue had a resident nuisance. I would scroll searching for my newest television endeavor, rolling my eyes whenever my finger absentmindedly tapped on the program entitled Freaks and Geeks. From the outside the show looked like something that I would adore. It had gritty looking 20 year olds playing teenagers and plot points that dove into situations that I had no reason to relate to and no ability to truly comprehend. However watching the pilot one afternoon in 2016 I quickly came to the conclusion that the show was "boring as hell"---my diary entry from that day. So from then on I avoided it and vowed to never waste another set of 44 minutes of my time on it again. I kept that vow close to my heart for 5 years until I broke it yesterday by re-watching the pilot and, surprisingly, falling in love with it.

 I've watched 10 episodes the show in the past 24 hours and I'd be watching it right now if it weren't for my crippling inability to write while taking in any form of media other than my Spotify playlist entitled Scribble Scribble Scribble. 'I can't...I can't...I've tried it and I've failed,' she says à la Saoirse Ronan in the Timothée Chalamet proposal rejection scene in Little Women (2019). She being me, obviously. There have been so many things to obsess over in the 10 episodes that I've watched so far though, including but not limited to James Franco's cheekbones, Linda Cardellini's curtain bangs, and tiny little shorts that they stuffed Jason Segel's 6'4'' body into during that drumming episode. The show is a notoriously excellent Judd Apatow x Paul Feig cult classic that was simultaneously ahead of it's time and perfectly placed on the grand ole TV continuum. It was canceled in 2000 by NBC after the network had a difficult time categorizing the show into a singular genre shaped box and consequently didn't know when to schedule it's time slot. Because of this the show's ratings suffered and when placed next to the network's sitcom darlings at the time, Friends and Frasier, it didn't seem like a smart or lucrative program to keep on air. After the show was slashed its young and relatively inexperienced cast found themselves back at square one with a 'I used to have a consistent source of income from my work on network television and now I don't' sized chip on their shoulders. 

Enter the best part of Freaks and Geeks: the fact that the show's cast is (arguably) an all star one, but it showcases them all before they truly shot across Hollywood's sky. Looking at old pictures of  your parents is always fascinating not only because of that hairstyle that they wore, but also because you're getting a glimpse into the composition of a person that you know so personally now before you knew them. The same feeling applies to watching Freaks and Geeks, for me at least. I'm obviously using the word "know" warily here because I'm not actually acquainted with any of these actors, but I have spent enough time watching them on my screens whether it be in other acting projects or just online in general to have created a malleable idea of who they are or at least of how they want to be perceived publically. The most glaring example of this for me is Jason Segel, the man who starred as the lovable best friend in THE BEST SHOW EVER (how i met your mother, sorry for yelling), the powerful balladeer in The Muppets, and the dude whose dick was shown way too many times in Forgetting Sarah Marshal. There's also Linda Cardellini whose voice I unknowingly took in for years as Wendy in Gravity Falls and whose bangs (and bangin' performance) I obsessed over in Dead to Me. Seth Rogan is the cop from Superbad, The Mantis from Kung Fu Panda (1, 2, 3, AND 4), and the pottery man on twitter! Busy Philipps is Michelle William's plus one to every award show ever! Side note: that felt a little mean to write because Busy is also a successful actress and New York Times best selling author but I literally associate her as Michelle's gal pal. James Franco is the brother in law of Alison Brie (star of Mad Men) and the thief of Daniel Kaluuya's 2018 Golden Globe. Getting to watch all of these people performing in this fabulous show as rookie actors that are still rough around the edges is such a funky little gift. I watched Seth Rogan's audition for the show last night and it was cool because all of the elements that I associate with him were there but they were thinly veiled by a guy that looks like he eats too much dairy and hasn't yet figured out that wearing glasses compliments his face better.

As a young person on the tip of adulthood I think it's interesting to look at the 'befores and afters' of older people that I admire or look up to (no I do not think that those two phrases mean the same thing, yes I will be elaborating on that soon) just to see how they were before they were. It takes a lot to grow into somebody that you and other people can be proud of and interested in. I'm still figuring out what exactly a person needs a lot of but it's something, or a special combination of things or, whatever! You get what I'm trying to say if you're still with me at this point---props if you are. The point is that Freaks and Geeks is about trying to gracefully come into your own and for the show to be helmed by a bunch of actors/writers/producers that haven't necessarily done that yet, in a professional sense anyways, is incredibly good great grand swell and fun.