User Reviews

Kind of shocked there aren't any user reviews of what ultimately turned out to be the last episode of the greatest "one-season" show in TV history. I guess I'll just have to crank one out.

I caught it again last night on The Sundance Channel, and it pretty much encapsulates all of which was great about this show (i.e. excellent period re-creation, and cringe-worthy laugh out-loud dialog set to a great soundtrack).

The geeks hold their famous Dungeons & Dragons game, and somehow rope James Franco (as the coolest freak Daniel) who they met in the A/V club where Dan was serving detention, to show up. Amazingly, Daniel seems to have fun bonding with the geeks and tells them so, even though they're nursing Faygo soda as the night's drink of choice. The geeks take this as a plus, and they just might be getting a teeny bit cooler (in their minds, anyway).

Meanwhile, Jason Segel as Nick has quit smokin' weed, and has hooked up with a new babe (Lizzy Caplan's Sara) but still pines for Lindsay. Sara has got him entering a dance contest at the local bowling alley/disco club, which fortunately was a short-lived phenomenon of early-80's suburbia. Even though Nick can't come close to competing with a disco dancing magician, he gives it his best shot in a dance which gets more painful each time I view it. Of course, Seth Rogen as Ken (sporting some bitchin' sideburns he seemed to have copped from Springsteen's "The River" album cover) shows up to heckle all that was disco, including Joel Hodgson reprising his role as the smarmy mall store manager, now moonlighting and spinning Gloria Gaynor records.

Finally, Linda Cardellini as Lindsay has duped her parents into thinking she's heading to an academic summit in Ann Arbor when summer starts, when in fact she gets off the bus at the Univ. of Mich. terminal and quickly hops into a late 60's VW van, heading out on The Golden Road to follow The Grateful Dead on tour with Kim and another couple, all to the calming tones of Jerry G. crooning Ripple off "American Beauty". It was enough to get a cynical, middle-aged guy a small lump in his throat.

Nick turns to disco which upsets Ken. Daniel is put into AV as punishment but ends up enjoying his time with geeks playing dungeons and dragons. Lindsay gets into 1% and needs to go to academic summit for the summer but instead she lies to her parents and goes away with Kelly.

So this is the end of the season and an unplanned ending of the show. Somehow it makes me sad. It is not one of the most spectacular episodes of the show. There are no moments that are as memorable as the ones from other episodes. There are no amazing Bill moments and we don't even get to see Millie. It doesn't just make me sad because this is the end but because freaks seem to be falling apart. Daniel joined geeks, Nick separated for disco just Kelly and Lindsay went away together which in a way leaves Ken alone.

As a fan of quality television series, I kept hearing about how good this little slice of silver screen high school life was, so I finally decided to give it a try. Sadly, only 4-5 episodes in, I gave up due to the fact that it just didn't do a thing to suck me in.

For a basic plot summary of "Freaks & Geeks", the show centers on two siblings: Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini), who rebels against her math-lete past to start hanging out with the "burn-outs", and Sam Weir (John Francis Daley), a dorky, underdeveloped nerd who is trying to grow into his new high school role.

While I had heard this show described as sort of a "Wonder Years for the 1980s", I was ultimately disappointed for a number of reasons...

-Despite featuring some decent actors, the acting itself seems mediocre. Only the two leads really impressed me and made me feel as if I should care about them whatsoever.

-I don't feel that the show ever really found its niche in terms of what it wanted to accomplish. It seemed like it wanted to break down stereotypes, first and foremost, but then at the same time was quite predictable in terms of character development. Never once did I feel as if my conception of 1980s high school was being challenged or even satiated in any meaningful way.

-The auxiliary characters are cardboard at best. For example, the Weir parents are little more than goofy caricatures and do absolutely nothing to advance the storyline or inject any emotion into the proceedings.

While perhaps I needed to grow up during that time period to truly understand its nuances, I can't let this show "off the hook" on that theory, as I didn't grow up in the 1960s, either, yet I still thoroughly enjoyed "The Wonder Years".

I realize that this show is considered a television classic, but I personally just do not quite understand why. I usually finish what I start in terms of TV watching, but on this occasion I felt like I was wasting my time investing in this series (short even as it was). Am I missing something crucial to the show's development that happened in the mid-to-late episodes? If so, please let me know, otherwise this one will not be revisited.