FREAKS AND GEEKS; SIX FEET UNDER


Barbara and I just finished watching the last episode of "Freaks and
Geeks", the legendary TV show that NBC cancelled after one season
(1999-2000) because although many people passionately adored it, I guess
it couldn't compete "demographically" (as they say in the Ad Biz) with
shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond".

I'd seen snippets of one or two shows, and so thought we might amuse
ourselves while counting the days till DVDs of the third season of "Six
Feet Under" came out. We fell in love with the "Freaks and Geeks"
characters, and I recommend the show--well, to anyone who went to high
school! More than that, even, the situations depicted on the show,
involving friendships, romance, and family relations, make "McKinley
High School", outside Detroit, seem like a small version of the world
itself.

The "Geek" characters, several freshmen who just can't compete with
jocks, but have all the feelings and thoughts and desires that anyone
else has, share a deep bond, and each is an unique individual.

The "freak" characters are sort of what in my high school we called
"bums", but they, too, grow. Ultimately, a viewer gets to see that all
the main characters are lovable when nurtured.

There will never be another episode of "Freaks and Geeks". The human
actors have all by now outgrown their high school appearances and gone
on to other, "grown-up" things. But in some perfect world of Art, Daniel
is still polishing his car, Bill and Sam and Neal are still discussing
how to get girls to like them, and Lindsay is still dancing to the beat
of her own drum.

Check it out, if you have the time!

****

Barbara and I rarely watch TV. It took MANY recommendations before we
started watching DVDs of "Six Feet Under", which had already been a hit
on HBO for several years. We enjoyed the DVDs of the first two seasons.
I even found myself, during my prayers one night, praying for some of
the characters. We almost quit watching at one, 2nd-season point--maybe
some others of you had a similar experience--when the characters' lives
just seemed to be exploding out of control. We finally decided to keep
going, and weren't sorry. We just saw the last episode of the third
season and are panicing a bit because we don't know how or when we'll be
able to see the fourth. That may be just as well. Nate is (understandably, given what he's been
going through) been veering very close to a terminal insanity. He may have
hit bottom and start moving toward getting his balance back, but with so many sympathetic characters the viewer feels utterly intimate with, it's
usually the case that when one of them steadies, someone else becomes about
to fall off the deep end. But somehow, with all that happens, the rhythm of "Six Feet Under" is not
that of a cheap soap opera, but rather, like "Freaks and Geeks", of life
itself. Heroic, even if flawed (in both cases, like ourselves) characters
go through difficult situations.
That's why we're addicted.

 
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