Freaks and Geeks

This entry is my promised review of Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow's incredibly cancelled sitcom. It's pretty much impossible to call something one of the best things you've ever watched without building expectations too much, but I'm gonna try. Freaks and Geeks is centers around the Weir children, Lindsey (Linda Cardellini) and Sam (John Francis Daley). Lindsey is a brilliant student who finds herself gravitating towards new friends, the "Freaks" of the school, essentially the "bad" kids who smoke under the bleachers and listen to rock music. Sam's arc revolves mostly around he and his friends dealing with high school, unpopularity, and girls among other things. The "freaks" are ringleader Daniel Desario (James Franco, in a star-making turn), his bad girl girlfriend Kim Kelly (Busy Phillips), uber-wiseass Ken Miller (Seth Rogen), and wannabe drummer/pothead Nick Andopolis (Jason Segal). The "geeks" are Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine), and Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr). The setting is vaguely around 1981, but you can feel the influence of the late 70's on the time period.
What's great about Freaks and Geeks? Everything. The look of the show, the acting, the writing, the music, the production values.......everything here shines. What's not so great? The fact that it got cancelled, and had to end quickly. Stand-out features include:
-Cameos! Including, but not limited to, Ben Stiller, Trace and Joel from MST3K, and Jason Schwartzman!
-Millie (Sarah Hagen), the best Christian ever on TV! (Yes, it seems like she's the butt of jokes at first, but don't make any judgements until you've seen Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers)
-Atari!
-Joe Flaherty from SCTV!
-And so much more!

Seriously, I love this show to bits. The characters are incredibly human, and they also look like real people, which isn't something you see a lot. Even the heppest creators have shows chock full of skinny people (yup, looking at you, Joss Whedon.......). I heartliy recomend this show to anybody, really, and give it 9.5 Van Halen records, or 21 out of 22 on the 22 scale.

(Points subtracted for Lindsey's arc in the final episode. Meh! I didn't like it.)

Standout Episodes for me include:
Beers and Weirs
We've Got Spirit
The Garage Door (aka Tries and Lies)
Noshing and Moshing
The Little Things