Shark Bytes

This show took place basically where I grew up and live still (unfortunately). It's portrayal of the high school experience in a small South-eastern Michigan high school in the early 80s is as good a recreation as you could find.
What made this show great was its realism. It found the humor in the time that we all hated most. And for those that say this show sucked because it's too realistic, well, they need to learn to laugh at the absurdity of everyday life. Because there's nothing worse in this life than taking it too seriously.

I just finished the series, and I must say I have mixed feelings on the series. I think it was originally a good concept, which was why it was given a green light. And initially I did want the show to be sucesful. But, I think the series painted itself into a corner.

While it was different to see a series that was realistic, it was also painful. I mean if I wanted to revisit highschool pain, I would have looked at my yearbook.

But, again I did have mixed feelings, the episode where the sister eggs the brother, was something you wouldn't have seen on a lot of network T.V. shows. I'd also have to agree that there was a lot worse shows that stayed on the air longer. (Full House and Family Matters made it to 8 and 9 season respectively, as long and longer as Seinfield).

I think the show also messed the Freaks up. I mean I didn't even realize that they were the Freaks until a couple of episodes in. Franco's looked like he had just modeled for Amber Crombie and Bitch.

I also thought it was a little slow at times. I wouldn't have finished it, had it been longer than one season.

Making the geeks winners at the end was also a mistake, and another reason the series couldn't succeed. Franco playing D&D with them, just didn't seem right. The sister going on the dead tour was also stupid.

Freaks and Geeks a good concept on paper, bad application on television.

Great show, however this show completely faded towards the end. Too many 180 degree plot turns in too little time.

Loved this show, but let's face it...there was some diminishing of quality towards the end. The school bully suddenly sees the error of his ways when he nearly kills Bill (peanut allergy) and everybody becomes pals? Lindsay becomes a deadhead? Daniel plays D&D with the geeks?

These plot twists were clearly a result of network interference. They wanted the geeks to "win sometimes" so the show wouldn't be "depressing."

What they didn't seem to realize was that their tinkering not only made the show "undepressing" but also "unrealistic." And kinda goofy.

Doesn't mean F&G didn't rock.

IMHO, F & G's is one heck of a monumental achievement in television history. It's truly unfortunate there are only 18 episodes and I regret that I never caught in when it ran on network TV, but own the DVD set and between this and my copy of Aaron Sorkin's sitcom Sports Night (another short lived series) all of the other movies and TV on DVD I own (and there's a whole lot) are almost irrelevant in comparison.

However, I wish people would stop lumping Paul Feig in with Judd Apatow or Seth Rogan. Feig is the writer/creator of F & G's - the true geek, while Apatow was the producer, and now highly successful producer/writer of a whole bunch of commercially successful "crap" that has been in the theater in recent years. One can debate the merits of each, but to me, it seems apparent which of the two sold-out to the big Hollywood machine and which is the true geek.

For all you out there that loved this show, let me recommend Feig's two auto biographical books - Kick Me, and Superstud, to get a more complete picture of the creator of this great series. From the books you can see how he was able to write the show with such a realistic and accurate portrayal of coming-of-age in the early 80's.

A nearly perfect television show. I've never seen a television show capture, in every detail, what it was like to be in high school in the early 80's. The gym teacher looked just like mine, a little overweight with the matching outfit. It's a shame it didn't last longer, but the quality couldn't have been sustained indefinately.

A great show. That's all I have to say.

For me the show jumped the first episode. The problem was in it's portrayal. For me it was a little too close to what it was like in High school. Why do I want to relive that?

Ed, Ed, Ed...

I'm sorry to read your comments about F&G. It was a truly great show that DID very accurately represent a world that I grew up in. I identify so closely with some of the characters in the show that it feels as though Paul Feig must have been secretly living with me as a kid.

The quality (or lack there-of) of the post-F&G output from Feig and Apatow has absolutely nothing to do with F&G. That show was simply amazing and I treasure my DVD set. If you don't "get" the show or lived in a different world than the characters and can't relate to them, that's fine. We all had different experiences growing up. However, that doesn't mean that the show was "awful." It was extremely well-written with realistic dialogue, social settings and characters. It reflected the real-life experiences of a certain segment of the viewing audience and was spot-on most of the time.

Dis-like it if you will, but it was a wonderful show.

I'm sad it's gone ,I really identified with one of the characters ,and wanted to see if they ended up running a bar.

Don't let them kid you -- this was an awful show. A very poor representation of a world the creators never lived in. Now we are stuck with an endless series of their crap films.

This is the shining star in the increasingly mass produced material that comes out of the Apatow/Rogen laugh factory. Character development was so concise, and character identification was easy for the audience to do with either the freaks or geeks. i wonder what would have happened to Apatow if this show had been a success??
I don't believe it ever jumped.

"Freaks and Geeks" was the only teen drama that got it right. The stories were real to life in that the characters were suffering from the problems that everyone knew about in high school. The cast looked like the folks you went to high school with and not twenty something pretty people like the 90210 and That '70's Show casts. The writers understood what it was like to be part of the outside crowd and from that created one of the few well crafted programs ever to air.
Paul Felig is the king of geekdom.

Never jumped, but I echo the disappointment w/ the final episode. Listening to the commentary on the DVD, it sounded like the producers were trying to work in several themes prior to the end of the series: D&D, Disco, The Dead. One of the most realistic depiction of life in high school, EXCEPT for the Lindsay ending (running off to be a dead head). That's why it's disappointing. Unfortunately the show was destined to join the ranks of shows cancelled before their time. I truly believe that the first 30 seconds of Episode One doomed the show because people were tuning in for an off-beat comedy and its the scene in the bleachers b/w the jock and cheerleader, and 50% of the potential audience just flipped and never tuned back in.

Think about it, Ellen Page is basically playing Lindsay Weir if she got pregant and suddenly has a big mouth and a sassy attitude. I would love to see her win the oscar as much as everyone else I know, because, after all I saw the movie and I thought she was excellent in that movie. The only problem with her performance though is that I have seen this before and IMO was done better by Cardellini herself in the brillant but canceled series.

That and I would like to see both Cardellini and Page in a movie together directed by Judd Apatow, that in itself would be the greatest movie ever.

CARDELLINI + PAGE + APATOW = BOX OFFICE GOLD!