Freaks and Geeks: The Best Cancelled Television Show in History

Freaks and Geeks is probably one of the best, well scripted television shows that our generation has had the pleasure to see. It was THE show that launched a lot of their cast into fame: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, John Daley, Linda Cardellini, and Martin Starr, just to name a few. And if the cast wasn't enough to prove why this show was great, here's just some other reasons.

1. You can relate to it and it's realistic. 

One of the reasons why the show got cancelled was because Garth Ancier (former NBC executive who cancelled the show) thought that the problem with the show was that neither the freaks or geeks win. But that's what made the show amazing. The freaks are the outcast in the schools, the nobodies, the kids who probably won't go to college. The geeks were the kids that got bullied, all the girls were at least a foot taller than them, and they sometimes tried to hard to fit in. The issues that the show dealt with were issues that everyone could relate to, or know someone that went through that experience: being picked last for a team in gym, crushes, puberty questions, cheating on a test, and even being too old to go trick or treating on Halloween.

The dialogue in the show is another reason why it's so good. Everyone that was in the show were teenagers to begin with, and they spoke like actual teenagers. None of the lines ever felt forced. And all the characters have flaws, like REAL flaws. And they deal with those flaws realistically, which means sometimes you can't have what you want. There weren't any miracles in the show to save them, and that's why I think as an audience, we were okay that the freaks and geeks didn't win.

2. The cast & cameo appearances are great.

You can't really have a better cast than the ones that are already in the show. And it's no surprise, almost everyone in the show has gone off to do big things in the film industry. The actors all fit their characters spot on, and they're all unique in their own way. Linda Cardellini plays the sweetheart, stuck between the freaks and geeks Lindsay Weir. She struggles in high school with not knowing what she wants to do, balancing life between being smarter than everyone else but choosing to be friends with the kids who struggle themselves with grades. Her dorky brother Sam Weir played by John Francis Daley is the subject of bullying in high school and gets asked a lot, "Are you a middle schooler?" James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, and Busy Philipps are considered the 'freaks' in the high school, and even though they may look like they don't care about their grades, they still have real feelings and emotions we can relate to. There's even some pretty cool cameo appearances like Ben Stiller who plays Agent Meara, Shia LaBeouf who plays Herbert or the high school's mascot, and Jason Shwartzman. 

3. It's hilarious.

With witty lines and character flaws, the show is guaranteed laughs. If you don't believe me, just take a look at this clip:

 

Comedy vs. Drama in Television

Originally, I wanted to make this post about Nurse Jackie and how it is a very different kind of comedy. A darker kind of comedy. But I've trashed that blog post and I'm starting over. Instead, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on what television classifies comedy and drama, and the fine line between them.

In the 2010 Emmys award show, Edie Falco, who plays Jackie Peyton in Showtime's Nurse Jackie, said in her acceptance speech for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, "Oh, this is just the most ridiculous thing that has ever, ever happened in the history of this lovely awards show. Thank you so much. I'm not funny." And quite frankly, she is correct. Her character is dead serious at all times. So why is the show considered a comedy? Let's take a moment to reflect some other shows.

Weeds and Breaking Bad are, on paper, extremely similar shows. Beg to differ? Pop quiz. Which show featured a child committing murder with the weapon of a baseball bat? Answer: Weeds. The show certainly does not lack the dramatic situations found in Breaking Bad. So what makes one a comedy and the other a drama? In reality, the only thing differentiating the two is a lighter tone obtained almost single-handedly through dialogue.

However, it goes both ways. Dramas can often be comedic. With every drama, you need the supporting characters that provide comedic relief. That's what makes Nurse Jackie on such a fine line. Jackie is dead serious at all times. She has no funny side. Meanwhile, plenty supporting characters like Zoey and Cooper deliver the comedic side. Even in shows with an extremely dark main character, like Dexter, the audience is still drawn to him. We are able to see past his behavior as a result of his moral ambiguity, and humor plays an important role in that conflict. His inner dialogue is often a satirical statement on human emotion. Even so, nobody would call Dexter a comedy.

I don't want to be misunderstood. Comedies with a serious touch, like Nurse Jackie and Weeds, aren't trivializing the main characters and their situations. In fact, these television shows are written with far more depth and complexity than the average comedy. Still, there seems to be a lot of gray area when it comes to categorizing the genre of shows. Maybe, just possibly, there really is no difference between comedy and drama. Or, maybe, I'm wrong.