Thursday, May 07, 2009

"If I were Bionic Woman, what would I wear?"

Been watching Freaks and Geeks, a show that only aired while I was overseas (for once, I actually have a legitimate excuse for missing a great show). I'm maybe halfway through the series, and it's gotten really good. I'm not at all surprised it got canceled, though; it's way too realistic for network TV. It's an early example of dramedy, which from what I can tell has not typically performed well outside of cable (in fact, Sports Night was canceled from FOX 2 months later). The gags are just way too plausible for viewers used to the wildly contorted setups of '90's era sitcoms. And the casting! Dude, there aren't any chicks on the show as hot as Courtney Cox, and most of the cast look like they're in friggin' high school!

If I had to guess, I'd also wager that airing a show about high school kids on weekend nights was probably not the best idea.

I've been wondering since I started watching it, though: does everybody who watched the show identify primarily with Lindsay? I myself was an overachiever who pulled back in junior high/high school, stopped getting straight A's, and started hanging out with the burnouts, but is Lindsay also tapping into some more generalized feelings of disillusionment and rebellion, disappointing the grownups, and sudden sense of rudderlessness that everyone went through in high school? I know people who seem to me to have been spot-on matches for Nick and Bill and Ken and Harris, but I can also see how they might have identified with Lindsay. Is she a universal cipher for "being in high school?"

2 comments:

Mr. Dickerson said...

I'm not sure if she's the high school everywoman, but wanting to be perceived as cooler/edgier/more repressed than one actually is - especially when people tend to conflate others' "cool" with the desperation of their circumstances (e.g. Kim's crazy parents, Daniel's hardscrabble extracurricular life) - is about as universal as it gets. And I like how nobody is "above" that sense. Hopefully I'm not revealing episodes you haven't gotten to yet, but the mom's desire to mix things up, Daniel's interest in the punk lifestyle - everybody's trying to figure themselves out in every stage of their life. I think my favorite characters are Neal and Bill, esp. Bill. Have you seen any "Undeclared"? It's not nearly as rich or as realistic as "F&G," but there are some great moments, especially with the utter dorkdom of Jay Baruchel.

TioChuy said...

I think I have Nick, Bill and Harris (for sure) nailed.